Chapter 29 Zeth #2
“I know why,” I say. “Cops found the knife in my car. Blood on my shirt. One of my hairs on Murphy’s clothes.”
Rick nods through this impatiently, as if the information he wants to impart is gravely important. “Yeah, but how did they know to look for the knife in your car in the first place, Zee? How did they know to come knocking on your door?”
I’ve thought about this. Endlessly, in prison, where there’s little else to do but jerk off, exercise, and stew. “I picked Murphy up from his place before we went to the mansion. His father saw us together. Last time Murphy was seen alive by anyone.”
“Bullshit.” Rick leans forward, face emerging from the shadows. “Charlie fucking threw you under the bus, man. How the hell have you not worked that out by now?”
A spiteful burst of laughter erupts inside my head. Of course, the voice says. Father O’Shannessy wouldn’t point the finger at you for killing his son. Never. You were best friends for years.
And then another voice.
Get rid of that mess, Zeth. I’m fucking sick’a looking at it.
An image rises to the forefront of my mind—Charlie grinning madly, unfazed that he’d just brutally murdered a man I called brother right in front of me. Never once had he apologized for doing it, or for the resulting time I spent rotting in a cell for the ruthless crime he had committed.
“He wouldn’t,” I growl. But even as I say it, I feel stupid. Sick to my stomach. Charlie pinned that shit on me. I test the thought out in my head and wither when it rings true.
“He would. He did,” Rick insists. “We all know it. He barely fucking hid the fact. When you got out, he threatened to kill anyone who breathed a word about it. Him killing Murph. You going away. Him putting you away.”
Fucking hell. I can’t wrap my head around any of this. I keep my face blank—no sense in showing Rick he’s riled me. “Doesn’t explain why you’re selling intel to the bikers.”
“I’m as fucked as you are, man.” He spits onto the ground. “Cops rolled up on me last month, found drugs I was running for Charlie. Said I could either help them put the old man away or I was gonna land myself inside for twenty. They told me to feed this stuff to the Wreckers.”
“And you agreed?” I may hate Charlie right now—the taste of his betrayal is battery acid on my tongue—but I hate the cops even more. Power-hungry bastards, every last one of them. I should know. I spent a lot of time with the fuckers after Murphy’s body turned up.
Unburied.
And after I had buried him in the one place only Charlie knew about.
Fuck!
“Would you do twenty for Charlie, knowing what you know now?” Rick asks the question like the answer is fucking obvious. And it is. I crook an eyebrow at him in answer: Fair comment.
“You’re gonna do something for me, Rick,” I tell him.
He rocks back in his seat, surprise flitting across his face.
He really had resigned himself to the idea that I was going to kill him.
He thought his revelations about Charlie would fall on deaf ears.
Maybe they would have if we’d had this conversation six weeks ago, but not after the confirmation that Charlie probably had something to do with Sloane’s sister.
Not after the cell phone tap. “Sure. I mean… yes. Whatever.” Rick looks like he’s trying to decide if he should be relieved or suspicious. “What d’you need?”
“Get in your car. Close the door. Drive to Anaheim and wait there for me.”
His dark brows pinch into a frown. “Anaheim? What the fuck you want me to go to L.A. for?”
“Because I said so. And give me the name of the officer you’re reporting to as well.” It’s safer to know the name of the bastard who’ll be sticking their nose into Charlie’s and therefore my business over the coming weeks once Rick disappears.
“Ain’t just no cop,” Rick warns. “Detective Lowell. Denise Lowell. DEA.”
That acronym is the worst possible fucking news ever.
The DEA looking into Charlie’s shit? Catching a crime lord the size of Charlie Holsan would be a career maker.
At the very least, a decent promotion. No agent in their right mind would walk away from a fat prize like that.
Not if they thought they had a chance of landing him.
I need to know everything there is to know about this Denise Lowell. And yesterday.
“Give me your cell phone,” I snarl. The man scowls but hands the device over.
I toss it on the floor and stomp down on it hard.
Rick just nods, staring remorsefully at the shattered debris on the blacktop.
“When you arrive in Anaheim, Michael will come find you. Stay out of the way. Keep your fucking head down; otherwise you’ll lose it for real, you hear me?
” I turn and walk away. Rick and I have never seen eye to eye, but he will obey me now.
Even if he has no idea what I have in mind.
The constant wrestling for alpha position—a competition only he ever perceived between us—is over. He never stood a chance.
I held his life in my hands, and I let it go.
With Rick about to hit the freeway, it’s time for me to get out of town, too.
Time for a lot of things. It’s beyond time to free Alexis Romera from the cartel.
Time for her to be reunited with Sloane and the rest of her family.
And I may have somehow made Charlie Holsan’s shit list, but the old man’s made a big fucking mistake, too.
I’m going to show him just how big a mistake he has made.
Very soon, he’s gonna wish he’d left me to rot in the back room of my uncle’s shit-infested house all those years ago.