Chapter Eight
Jace
? “Blind” – Korn ?
I start my car while waiting for Rowan to get into his after dropping Celeste off.
When he called me this morning, he was less than an hour away from the airport to land in New York.
He explained to me what his aunt, Alessia, told him in Italy.
Now it’s time to hunt down everyone if it means finding Joan.
I repeatedly bang my hands on the steering wheel. “Fuck!”
Rowan knocks on my car window, and when I turn to look at him, he gives me a nod and starts heading to his car.
We race through New York traffic, heading to his house. I have my duffle bag with me, but Rowan needs his own.
We slam through his front gate. Rowan’s back tires screech to a halt in his driveway. I pull my emergency brake, jumping out of the car and following him up his porch steps.
“Did Alessia tell you where Joan could be?” I ask.
Rowan smacks his front door open, heading straight to his basement. He rushes to unlock all the deadbolts, turning on the lights and going to the wall of weapons.
“Go get me a bag,” he demands as he starts removing whatever he deems necessary off the wall.
Joan wasn’t just Rowan’s mother, but mine as well. We may not be blood but we sure as hell are brothers, whether he sees it like that or not. I grew up not having a mother, forced to live with my shithead father. We lived in the slums because he chose drugs over his own son.
When I met Rowan and went to his house for the first time, his mother saw me, looked me dead in the eyes, and held me.
She held me until my lungs felt like they were going to give out.
Then she kissed me on top of my head and said, “Welcome to the family.” I took that to heart.
I was in a family—a family that could possibly love me, cherish me, and choose me.
Which she did. I was at their house every day, every night.
No questions from Joan. She took me in with open arms.
“Fucking shit, Rowan, can you please tell me what we are doing first?!” I yell as I watch him bring out our biggest weapons.
He continues to ignore me while he grabs mags and starts loading the weapons.
“I considered her my mother too, ye know,” I whisper and turn around to head upstairs for another bag.
When I walk back into the basement, Rowan’s hands are grabbing onto the table, his head between his shoulders, looking down at the floor. I stop walking and just watch him, afraid he might crack into pieces.
Three years. We have been searching for Joan for three years and all it took was for her sister to find Rowan and tell him that we fucked up.
I finish walking to him, placing the bag at our feet, and set my hand on his shoulder. “I’m at your side. Whatever we gotta do."
“Then what is holding you back? Pull the fucking trigger if you’re such a man,” Lance spits.
I stand beside Rowan, watching him point a gun at his father’s head as Lance continues to play mind games with him.
“Ye don’t even want to explain what happened?” I ask.
I have a loaded gun in my waist band, another in my hand, my fingers itching to pull the trigger myself. My vision keeps going dark as my body temperature continues to rise. I don’t know if Lance answered my question. I don't know if Rowan asked a question. Every voice seems to mumble past my ears.
My vision clears when I feel something wet splatter on my arm, breaking me out of my trance. I see Rowan on top of Lance, smashing his face into a crimson mess.
“Rowan!” I yell. Now is not the time to kill his father. I won’t allow it. I don’t have the land, we don’t have the right vehicles for transportation, and our clean-up connections aren’t in town this week. I wrap my arms around Rowan, pulling him back until we both land on the floor.
Rowan’s body shakes as he stares at his father, lying still beside us, possibly lifeless. I get on my feet, walking to Lance. I press two fingers on his neck, feeling a pulse. “We will never get any information from your father if he is dead.”
“He’s not my father.” Rowan stands and walks out of the house.
Six hours, two hundred and forty gallons of gasoline, and a pack of cigarettes later, Rowan and I stand outside of Harper International, watching the flames ignite. Window shards come crashing twelve stories down. It sounds like fireworks as the building starts to collapse.
I jump back into my car, Rowan following. By now, Lance has probably cleaned himself up and we need to go back to his house to gather more information before he tries to flee. If he doesn’t want to talk, then I will just let Rowan finish what he started.
“Head for Cold Springs.”
“What?” I ask.
“I found John, head for Cold Springs.”
I grip the steering wheel as I race us through traffic. Now it’s my time to get some built-up anger out. I’ve been waiting for this day.
I run my hands through my hair. My head is pounding, and I can’t stop my body from shaking.
This whole feckin’ time, the mafia was right under our noses.
I sit down on the dusty twin bed in the motel.
Rowan asks John questions, but I can’t make out anything they are saying.
I stopped hearing anything once Rowan said what happened to Joan.
“Why haven’t ye killed us?” The words slip from my mouth.
Since the first day John started working with us, I’ve wanted to kill him. If he is who he says he is, then he wanted to kill us, too. So, what is stopping him? We are here, right in front of him in a shitty motel, in the middle of nowhere.
I turn to Rowan. His face is plastered in bloodstains from Lance. His fingers are twitching, which means there is a good chance he is waiting for the right time to shoot John.
When I receive no response to my question, I turn to look at John, seeing him packing clothes into a bag.
I look back at Rowan, widening my eyes to give him the go. We are going to do this. End him here and now before he ends us.
“Don’t worry, boys. This ain’t over.” I notice John reach for a gold ring lying on the dresser. He stuffs it in his pocket and walks out the door.
The worst part about this whole situation is that the mafia used the false identity tactic right under my nose.
The same tactic I use.