Chapter 15 #2
For a brief second, I saw in his eyes what I had felt in my soul for years. Anger. Regret. Grief. But instead of feeling sorry for him, it made me want to hurt him even more.
“Why are you two talking about my sister when you’re about to kill each other?”
Onyx and I looked at Dutch standing by the door. Immediately, Onyx and I let go of each other, but I kept my eyes on him. “Stay away from her, Onyx. Consider this your first and last warning.”
Onyx straightened his jacket. “Sure thing, brother. Just know that having her won’t make you feel any less guilty about Kate.”
I couldn’t stop it. Those words triggered an automatic reaction, and when I blinked, it was too late.
My fist connected with Onyx’s jaw, blood splattering from his mouth and onto the white kitchen tiles.
But Onyx was a big motherfucker, just like me, and my punch didn’t make him go down.
Instead, he launched at me, slamming his shoulder into my midsection.
The air exploded from my lungs, pain shooting up my chest. My back hit the wall, and I wrapped my arm around his neck, trying to force him up so I could beat his face to a fucking pulp.
But Dutch grabbed Onyx by his cut, pulling him off me and shoving him to the other side of the kitchen.
“Stop this shit, both of you!” Dutch glared from Onyx to me, and back to Onyx. “This is not the time or the right fucking topic to lose your shit over. What the fuck is wrong with you two?”
Onyx spat out some blood then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, glowering at me. “Stop pretending that this is all about avenging Dad’s death. Because it’s not, and we both know it.” Then he left, storming out of the kitchen.
Dutch turned to me. “What the fuck, Granite?”
I straightened. “Little shit doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about.”
“I think he does.”
I paused and frowned at Dutch. “What?”
“Your brother is right. I’ve known this all along, I just didn’t say anything.”
“Dutch—”
“It’s about what we saw that night, isn’t it?” He placed his hands on his sides. “Don’t deny it, Granite. I knew it would fuck with your head. God knows, it fucked with mine. But I knew it was different for you. I saw it on your goddamn face while you watched it all go down.”
I lifted my hand, pointing at him while I clenched my jaw. “You don’t know shit.”
Dutch moved closer, the hard expression on his face meant to tell me he wasn’t afraid to take me on. “Look me in the motherfucking eye and tell me that your decision to take Alyx wasn’t made that very same night we witnessed what her mother did to her.”
My nostrils flared, air rushing out of my lungs in angry waves. But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t say it. Dutch was my best friend, and no one knew me better than he did.
“Can you tell me she doesn’t remind you of Kate? Of my sister?”
I looked everywhere except at him. I couldn’t.
“Thought so.” He took a step closer, eyes focused and serious. “I said this a thousand times before, and I’ll say it again. It’s not your fault. My sister made her own choices. Not you, not me, not Onyx…no one could have changed what happened.”
“I could,” I bit out. “I could have changed it.”
“No. No, you couldn’t. Even if you told someone, it still would have ended the same way.”
My regret turned to anger, and I grabbed Onyx’s beer bottle from the table, flinging it across the room, glass shattering as it hit the wall.
Dutch didn’t move. He didn’t even flinch. It wasn’t the first time he witnessed me lose my shit because of old fucked-up memories that just never let go of me.
“It’s been going on for years, you and Alyx.” Dutch lit a smoke. “I’ve seen you two look at each other whenever we paid the police commissioner a visit.”
I didn’t even try to deny it.
Dutch blew out some smoke. “But after we saw what her psychopath mother did, I knew it was only a matter of time.”
“Matter of time before what?”
A half-grin crawled up at the corners of his mouth. “Before you took her.”
“You make me sound like a fucking psychopath.”
He snorted. “Not a psychopath, no.” He shrugged. “Obsessed, maybe. But not a psychopath.”
Silence moved in around us, and I stared at the broken pieces of glass on the floor. “It’s not just because of her.” I turned to Dutch. “All this is not just because of Alyx…or your sister.”
“I know. And that’s why you got my vote at church. We can fuck up the Pythons with this, even if it’s not your only motivation. But you need to keep your head in the game.”
I took a seat across from him, pulling out a cigarette before tapping the filter side on the table.
Talking about Kate had always been an uncomfortable topic between us.
Mostly because I couldn’t talk about her without losing my shit.
I still couldn’t understand how it was possible for Dutch to forgive me when I couldn’t even forgive myself.
Clearly, Onyx hadn’t forgiven me either.
“He loved her too.”
I glanced at Dutch.
“Your brother. He loved Kate too.”
This time, I snorted. “My brother seems to always want what I have.”
“Is that why you lost your shit with him? You think he wants Alyx too?”
I tossed the unlit cigarette to the side, no longer craving it. “Who the fuck knows what’s going on in Onyx’s head? All I know is I don’t want him near her.”
Dutch leaned with his arms on the table. “I’ll keep an eye on him. You might be the bigger asshole between the two of you, but Onyx is the loose cannon. We can’t afford for him to lose his shit.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “Especially if you’re as obsessed with Alyx as I think you are.”
Usually, I denied and played down everything Dutch said that related to me and what I may or may not have been feeling.
Getting psychoanalyzed was not my thing, and I hated when others pretended to understand me.
I didn’t even understand myself half the fucking time.
But Dutch was my best friend. He was like my goddamn twin, and about the only one who remotely knew who and what I really was.
Dutch opened his mouth, about to say something, when Manic came rushing in. “We got trouble.”
I shot up from the chair. “What?”
“Pythons.”
“Where?”
“Across the road.”
“Jesus. Here?”
Manic nodded. “And they brought leverage.”
Dutch got up, and all three of us made our way out of the kitchen and down the stairs. Onyx joined in the second my boot hit the bottom floor. “They’ve never come so close to our turf before.”
I passed Ink, and he handed me my gun, which I placed at my back underneath my cut. By the sound of it, everyone else got their guns as well.
“They know we won’t make a scene on the street. Especially so close to the gym.”
“I have a bad feeling about this, brother.” From the corner of my eye, I noticed Onyx glance my way without saying a word. Even though we wanted to kill each other ten minutes ago, right now we were a team. A family ready to eliminate a threat if we needed to.
All five of us stormed through the gym. It was late afternoon, which meant there weren’t a lot of people. Thank fuck.
We got to the front door, Ink and Dutch moving in front of me and Onyx, taking the lead. They opened the door slowly, Ink holding his hand on his gun at his back, ready to use it if he had to.
Onyx wanted to walk ahead of me, but I reached out and held him back with my arm against his chest. “Keep your shit together.”
The glare my way was his only response. But he knew as well as I did that if it was Slither on the other side of that goddamn road, Onyx would have to work extra hard at keeping his temper contained.
Ever since the Pythons’ president murdered our dad, revenge was what we craved, and we knew the day would come when we would finally have it. It consumed us both, but it ruled Onyx.
I nodded at Ink, and all of us stepped outside. And true as fuck, across the road was the president himself. Slither.
The sight of his ugly motherfucking face aggravated my rage, and I had to take a deep breath to try to stay in control. Dutch stepped in next to me, close enough to act in case I lost my shit.
Slither smiled, his freaky-as-fuck split tongue darting out of his mouth like the snake he was.
The sly fuck basically invited me to kick his face with my goddamn boot.
The fuckers who stood around him were proof he wasn’t such a dumb fuck after all, since he knew between Onyx and myself one of us was bound to kill him when we got the chance.
Slither held up a hand. “Gentlemen, please. Come closer.”
I moved, but Dutch grabbed my elbow. “Don’t. Ink and I will go.”
“Not a chance.”
Dutch moved closer, leaning into me. “It can be a trap.”
“Is there a problem?” Slither called out.
“Fuck you!” Onyx wanted to sprint across the road, but Ink grabbed him before he did.
“Come on, Granite. I just want to talk.” The fucker was calling me out. Only I wasn’t stupid. There was no way I trusted him. Something was up; I could feel the warning tingle at the crook of my neck.
Slither let out a maniacal laugh, reached behind him, and revealed a young boy. This time I had to grab Dutch to keep him from rushing across the road.
Motherfucker.
“Let the boy go, Slither,” I called out while trying to assess if Trent had been hurt.
“Not until you join me over here for a little one-on-one chat.”
Cars drove by, and people walked on the sidewalk. There was no way Slither would cause a scene—or a bloodbath—by hurting the boy now. But I couldn’t chance it. Pythons were unpredictable fuckers, and I wasn’t willing to put an innocent boy’s life at risk. So I walked.
I heard Ink curse, but he fell into step alongside me. There was no need to look around for me to know the others were all behind us. Like I said, we were a team.
“Keep a handle on Onyx,” I ordered Ink softly without anyone else hearing. The last thing we needed was my loose-cannon brother to cause shit.
The second my boot hit the pavement in front of Slither, I looked the son of a bitch straight in the eye. “Let the boy go.”
“Let the girl go.”