39
EMERSYN
I was slowly disappearing. Not in a physical sense—I was still executing jobs and operating at a level I’d never reached before—but, mentally, I was in a very bad place.
I stayed in the darkness and pulled more and more of it around me, until I couldn’t remember what it was like without it.
I had this rage inside me that overshadowed everything else, with a fuse so short it was almost embarrassing.
Riggs and I constantly bickered with snide passing comments or cruel sarcasm but anytime he escalated, I backed off.
It just wasn’t worth it. I pushed it all down and released it on jobs instead.
Unfortunately, it had started to impact the team.
I pushed everyone away—I didn’t have the capacity to get close to anyone and I didn’t trust Riggs not to hurt them if I did.
We didn’t eat together and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d heard laughter in the house.
Hangman started spending more and more time out of the safe houses, and it wasn’t uncommon to hear video games behind closed doors and to see most of the cars gone from the drive on a day off.
We’d managed to keep it out of the field, until recently. The last few months were the worst. The general atmosphere of the house had reached such a toxic point, it impacted the way we operated on jobs. I knew something was coming—something bad, so when Mouse got shot, I wasn’t surprised.
“Fuck! Get him in the car!” Riggs barked. “Let’s go!”
We dragged a nearly lifeless Mouse into the backseat and laid him out before we all piled in and Riggs took off in a screech of tires.
“Hang in there, buddy,” Hangman said, his voice tight. “We’re almost there.”
The SUV flew down the road as Riggs pushed the speed limit.
Jamal frantically tried to stem the bleeding on Mouse’s thigh while Hangman’s hands pressed against his chest. Blood oozed through his fingers.
Mouse’s other hand gripped mine tightly where I was half-draped over the center console of the passenger seat.
“No, no, no—” Jamal patted his face. “Just breathe, Mouse—”
Mouse took his last breath just as we flew into the drive of the safe house in a shower of gravel.
Hangman started CPR, but it was obvious he was gone.
The silence in the car was heavy. Riggs got out and paced alongside, his hands in his hair.
Hangman hung his head, and Jamal gently closed Mouse’s eyes.
I carefully extracted my hand from Mouse’s, not feeling much of anything.
The fact that I was numb to losing one of our own should have been concerning, but all I felt was envy that he didn’t have to put up with this environment anymore.
He’d escaped hell, and I was still here.
That night we burned him. We passed around a bottle of alcohol.
As the flames licked the stars, I felt a crack in my armor at his loss, but what leaked out wasn’t grief—it was rage.
Years of it consumed me—raw and undefined.
My hand trembled as I took another sip of alcohol.
I turned and passed Lev on my way back into the house.
“Find Octavius,” I growled.
“No, Syn, we talked about this,” Riggs interjected from right behind me, because of course he’d followed me. “We have to work our way up—”
I rounded on him. “We have worked our way up. We literally just went after one of Octavius’ labs ,and last week we took out one of his key suppliers.”
“And look how that turned out,” Riggs said angrily. “Mouse is dead! Because you wanted to go after someone more high-profile than we were ready for.”
“Don’t put that on me!” I shouted. “I didn’t hear you object during sitrep.”
“We need to keep a low profile—it’s too hot—”
“I don’t fucking care how hot it is. You really don’t think Octavius knows who we are?” I snarled. “If he doesn’t know who we are at this point, I’m ready to make him aware. It’s time to draw him out.”
There must have been something desperate in my eyes, because a glimmer of something I’d never seen before flashed across his face—apprehension.
I stared Riggs down, then turned to Lev again. “Find him, Lev. I mean it.”
“We need to do this systematically,” Riggs protested. “He’ll come out when we’ve hit the right pressure points.”
There was something in his tone that made my instincts come alive and an absolutely insidious thought came to mind.
What if Riggs was sabotaging the overall goal?
Every time I’d brought up finding Octavius or Basilion or even Albatron, he’d refused, and stated we needed to take out the infrastructure first. And, in the beginning, I agreed with him—it made sense—small stones to move a mountain and all that, but at what point had we moved the mountain?
I believed we were at that point now. Would Riggs ever believe we were at that point? Or would he continue to prolong this endeavor because it meant he had me under his control. What had started out as fulfilling his obligation to Sacha had obviously evolved into something else.
I headed toward the house. “We will continue to do things systematically. But, I want one of the brothers.”
The statement evoked clarity the likes of which I hadn’t felt since the forest. We had enough intel to hit Octavius where it hurt and I was tired of playing small. It was time to make a move—a big one.
Riggs tried to follow me into the shower, but his comments about what we should be focused on drove me to within inches of what felt like might be my breaking point.
I abandoned the shower and went straight to Lev’s room, where I completely ignored Riggs until Lev got so irritated with him hovering that he kicked him out.
“You’re going to have to deal with that at some point,” Lev commented casually.
I was sifting through video footage. “I know.”
“I’m worried about you, Syn,” Lev said quietly.
I tore my eyes from the tablet I held and glared at him. How dare he say that when he’d never once tried to stand up for me.
“I have it under control.”
“Alright,” Lev shrugged. “If you say so.”
I scratched Fang behind the ears and watched Lev sift through surveillance footage.
I didn’t want to tell Lev what I’d decided, or that I felt in my soul that after I found Octavius, I was done.
He was too close to Riggs and I didn’t fully trust he wouldn’t rat me out.
But, I knew I’d reached a point of no return.
Mouse escaped through death and I’d be fucking damned if that happened to me.
I was going to find Octavius, use the team to kill him, and then I’d figure the rest out on my own.
Maybe I’d reach out to my father and together we’d take down the rest of the brothers. Either way, after Octavius, I was finished with Riggs and the team. I just had to make sure I had everything in place before I did that.
I looked up at him. “I know what I’m doing.” Maybe. “Help me find Octavius.”