Pursuit (New Orleans Rogues: Boudreaux #1)

Chapter 1

Brooks

This isn’t how anything was supposed to go.

To start with, I’m not supposed to be in this apartment.

In this crumbling row house.

In fucking Brooklyn.

Christ.

I shove my way through the kitchen, kicking at the stain on the floor as I go, and pull up next to the coffee maker. That’s not up to snuff, either. If I’m guessing, I’d say it’s at least ten years old, and looks like someone was using it in some sort of scientific experiment.

One that included acid.

I snort at the thought and put it in my back pocket, because I’ve never worked with acid before. It sounds... interesting. That brings an even bigger smile to my face, and for a moment I actually feel better.

Then I look outside at the cold, dreary sky and fall serious again.

I reach for the cupboard and grab a mug–dirty, just like the rest of this place–and pour a cup of coffee. I don’t like the fact that there’s no cream or chocolate for it, but it is what it is.

Beggars can’t exactly be choosers, right?

I step through the door and out onto what passes for a porch, and slide into the one chair out here.

The weather is cold and rainy, and any sane person would stay inside, but I’ve been here for three days and I’m sick of the tiny apartment.

The beige walls. The dirty carpet. I miss my big bed and fluffy towels and the enormous sound system I had installed when I moved into my place.

I miss the security of knowing I’m in one of the safest buildings in all of New York.

I want to go home.

I take a sip of coffee and pull the butterfly knife out of my back pocket, where I’ve been storing it. A quick flip of my wrist and the thing opens, the blade whirring to life like it’s greeting me.

“Hello, old friend,” I murmur.

Another flip and it’s closed, but the moment the shine of the steel disappears I realize I’m not ready to say goodbye to it yet. So I keep flipping. Open, closed. Open, closed. Sharp, dull. Exposed, hidden.

Protected, and not protected.

Feels a lot like my life lately.

I put the knife away and shake myself, then take another deep sip of the coffee. I need the caffeine to start working its magic, because I’m not here to mope around and cry to myself. The fact that I’m sitting here making up metaphors about a freaking knife is stupid and pointless.

A metaphor for what’s going on in my head, if you will.

“Right,” I breathe.

Well, that’s enough of that.

I step to the railing that surrounds the small balcony and look to the sky, marshaling my thoughts and every sneaky instinct in my body. I didn’t come here for the view, and I sure as hell didn’t do it for my health.

Hell, I’m probably destroying my lungs by exposing them to whatever mold is growing in this building.

But I didn’t have a choice, because my apartment might be in one of the most expensive buildings in New York, but it’s also not safe.

Too many people know my address. They came for us already, once, and arrived again directly after the battle, barging into my apartment like they had a fucking right to be there and trying to take me with them.

Worst of all, I’m not even positive who ‘they’ are.

Because we defeated one set of them, in the war on the streets of New York last week–the war where we finished Sylvester Poffo and his enormous crew of Italian mafia.

We also took out some of the Massimos, and all of the Carusos.

And that should have been all there was to it.

The Rossis and Brennans should have been safe, and I should have been able to go back to my normal life.

Unfortunately, that’s not how it’s turned out. Someone is still after me, which means we have enemies I don’t know about.

Which is a problem.

I turn my eyes away from the grayed-out sky and look to the road below me, eyes narrowed at the thought, and jerk to a stop at what I see down there.

A row of dark vans file along so slowly they’re holding up the traffic behind them. Blacked-out windows. No doors. Totally anonymous, except for the fact that they look like they’re in some sort of funeral procession.

Trying so hard to blend into the background that they stand out like a man with a gun pointed at your head.

And just like that I’m flying back through time, my world spinning around me like I’m caught in Dorothy’s tornado and events making almost as much sense.

A blink and I’m back in New Orleans again, the gray sky of New York changing out for a pitch-black night sky full of stars and moisture, the air thick with the scent of mildew and magnolias around me.

Summertime in Louisiana.

And a house so big I used to get lost in the corridors before I figured out how to run them without losing my way.

I’m only thirteen, and I’m staring out the window of my bedroom with my lip caught between my teeth and the air stuck in my lungs, unable to breathe. Barely able to think. Definitely not able to scream.

Outside, in the driveway of my father’s house, a row of vans is pulling up the drive, their black edges melting into the midnight air around them as they make their way up the cobblestones. They’re as quiet as death, and nearly as creepy.

And I would think that they’re a figment of my imagination.

Vans that don’t actually exist, floating up the driveway beneath the moss-hung trees of the yard, their tires making almost no noise and their engines already cut.

It would be easy to think I’m just dreaming, or that I’m seeing things.

Visions left over from one of the books I’ve been reading, or from a show I watched on TV.

Except I’ve seen these sorts of vans before, and I know what’s in them.

I watch until they park in front of the house, then cringe when men start getting out of them. They’re all in black, and though they’re not the men I see in the house during the day, I recognize them.

Because I’ve seen them before, too.

When one of them suddenly looks up at the house, I duck back behind the curtain, a scream trapped in my throat and a prayer on my lips.

I’m not supposed to be up at this time of night, and I’m sure as hell not supposed to be looking out my window at what’s going on downstairs.

I don’t have to ask anyone to know that much.

Nothing good happens in this house during the day.

Worse things happen at night.

I peek around the curtain with one eye, looking for the man who was staring at the house, but he’s already moved on.

He’s pulling the back doors of one of the vans open, now, and gesturing violently to whoever is back there.

Other men are doing the same behind the other vans, their gestures just as violent, though none of them is saying anything.

The air outside is still heavy with silence and the deep secrets of the night.

Within moments, the girls start getting out of the vans.

They’re just as quiet, though I can see from the shaking of their shoulders that they’re sobbing.

Their hands are shaking, their faces turned to the ground as if they don’t want to see what’s going to happen to them.

I don’t have to see their expressions to know that they’ve been beaten into submission and told that terrible things will happen if they dare to make a sound.

I recognize the turn of their shoulders. The tension that tells me they’ve already had the questions beat out of them.

I hiss with horror at that, and when the men lead the row of girls toward the door that goes into the basement, I make for my own door on silent feet.

I run down the hallway, staying near the edge to avoid the creaky boards and dodging around the old pictures on the walls.

Within moments I’ve reached the chute my father likes to use for laundry and jerked the door up, using the latch to secure it.

I stare down into the darkness, my breathing heavy and my heart hammering.

This chute leads to the laundry room in the basement, and is the quickest way from my room on the third floor to an exit.

I know, because I’ve used it before.

I also know that my body will fit into the chute, while larger men–like the ones my father employs–can’t fit.

What I don’t know is what the hell I’m doing. I’ve seen the vans before, even seen the rows of girls filing into the basement’s exterior door. But that’s the extent of my knowledge. I’ve never asked, never even considered asking, where they might be going or what those girls are here for.

But I’m tired of not knowing. I’m tired of the whispers in this house, and the aura of evil around my father.

Those girls aren’t much older than me. And they’re not here of their own volition.

I want to know what the hell is going on.

I slip into the chute without putting any more thought into it, and reach back for the door.

One jerk, another scuffle, and I’m shooting downward, my hands and feet held against the side of the chute to stabilize me.

Three floors down, I emerge into one of the large baskets the maids put here for laundry, and freeze, listening closely.

In the distance, the murmur of voices. A door opening. A man threatening someone.

A girl sobbing, and the sound of a fist hitting bone. Sudden silence.

It’s far away, though, and I don’t think there’s anyone in this room. They’re putting them in one of the other rooms, further along the passageway that runs against the wall of the house here in the foundation.

Perfect.

I jump out of the laundry and rush for the door, opening it just far enough to see through.

And then I nearly recoil in horror. The girls are filing right past me, and now that I can see their faces, I know I’ve done the right thing.

They’re bruised and broken, their expressions dead.

Every so often, I see one crying quietly, but they’re rare.

These girls aren’t just beaten into submission. They’ve disappeared inside themselves, trying to escape reality.