Chapter 21
chapter Twenty-one
Vacation
Nico
Ipace in front of my desk. I have yet to tame the burning rage inside me.
My hands have not unclenched since that phone call.
I can still hear his voice in my head. The deep, taunting voice filled with laughter and pride.
I shut my eyes as I envision the day I take the lights out of that son of a bitch’s eyes.
Ghost knocks on the office door before he, Jake and Roc walk in. I had a lot of guards. But only those three are allowed in and out of my house.
“Maseo has checked the cameras at the restaurant. He says the only shot he got is of a white male in a red baseball hat.”
“Sound familiar?” Jake asks.
“Same hat description of the guy following you that day.”
He nods. “We stood outside beside the car for thirty minutes talking. Roc went to take a leak, and Ghost and I separated to do our rounds. When we came back, the car was there. None of us thought it peculiar.”
So, the perpetrator was watching them. They waited for my guys to walk away in order to place that car.
“That means whoever it was knew who you were. They waited for you to move.”
They both nod.
A soft knock comes on my door before it opens.
“Mr. Salvito Delgado and Mr. Kazimir have arrived,” Jim introduces.
“Jimmy Jim, how many times do I have to tell you, call me Salv.” Salv comes waltzing through the door. It was after midnight, but whenever I called my brothers, I knew they would show up.
“Yo, what the fuck is going on?” Salv plops down in my leather office chair, kicking one leg over the arm. Kaz walks over to me and gives me a quick one-arm hug before taking a seat on the edge of my desk.
Before I could answer that question, the door opens again, and this time Mason and Grant walk in. Mason looks as if he might have climbed out of bed. For the first time, he’s not dressed like he’s just walked out of a board meeting. Tonight, he was in sweats, a t-shirt and tennis shoes.
“What the fuck is going on?” Mason asks, taking a seat in the other leather chair.
I run a hand down my face. “Tonight, the Horseman tried to kill Tiffany.”
“The fuck?” Salv sits up in the chair, placing both his feet on the ground.
Kaz’s jaw tenses as he stares at me.
“Explain.” Mason leans forward in his seat.
I quickly ran down the phone call and the explosion.
By the time I’m finished, Salv is up pacing the floor. Kaz is damn near grinding his teeth into dust. And Mason’s face is bright red. I loved that my brothers were just as angry and torn up about this as I am.
“How is baby sis? Is that her blood?” Salv asks, his face going blank.
I nod. “She’s shaken up. I have Doc in there with her.”
We borrowed Doc from the Church whenever we had injuries we wanted to keep away from the police and hospitals. Nathaniel put us onto Doc. We paid him well for his services, and he was worth every damn dime.
“She’s fucking scared,” I say, my voice dropping low. “If I hadn’t gotten there.” I run a hand through my hair. “Fuck!” I grab the paperweight off my desk and toss it at the wall, causing it to shatter. Tiny shards of glass rain down onto the floor.
“Don’t do that.” Kaz grips my shoulder, turning me to face him. “Don’t think about what could’ve happened. You were there. You protected her.”
Dragging a hand down my face, I let out a deep breath. I felt so fucking worthless. Like I couldn’t keep her safe, and I didn’t deserve her.
No, you were too weak for that, weren’t you, Nicholas?
Those fucking words circle in my head again.
“What did the Horseman say when he called?” Mason asks, too calm for the situation.
I shake my head. “Nothing just told me to get to her.”
“I need you to think, Nic.” His tone is sharper now. I turn and glare at him.
“What the fuck do you want me to think about, Mase? The son of a bitch tried to kill my wife.” I take a step toward him. Kaz holds up a hand and cuts me off.
“I need you to get out of your fucking head and listen.” Mason’s words are growled through clenched teeth. “He called to tell you she was in danger, which means he wasn’t trying to kill her.”
His words finally break the cloudiness in my head. Shutting my eyes, I try to channel my memory. My adrenaline was still up from the situation, so it was hard to focus. Taking a few deep breaths, I replay the phone call in my head.
“I wish I had more time to talk, but you should have answered the phone sooner. They’re going to kill your wife…. I’m not going to touch her. I’m not ready for her to die. Which is why I’m calling you.”
Everything about the conversation comes back to me. The way he spoke, the inflection on certain words. When I open my eyes, I have a new revelation.
“He isn’t working alone.”
Mason’s gaze narrows.
“What do you mean?” Salv asks.
I shake my head as I think all this over.
The Horseman said he was going to take everything from me in that first letter.
Let’s be honest, it would require a got damn army to come up against me.
He also said in the second letter that he wasn’t coming after all of us at the same time because he didn’t want to spread himself too thin and use all his resources at once.
Tonight, he said they were going to kill my wife.
Not him. He said he wasn’t going to touch her.
“He’s the puppet master,” I say as the realization comes.
“Which means he has puppets.” Mason crosses his arms over his chest and tugs at his beard. “The question now, is how many?”
Let’s be honest, I have a shit ton of enemies; it could be any fucking body helping him.
“This is all a game to the Horseman,” I say, as I think further into our interactions. “He’s here for the long haul. He wants to see me suffer over time. It’s why he’s sending me the letters and emails, playing fucking mind games.”
Mason leans forward. “He sent you an email?”
I forgot I hadn’t mentioned the email to my brothers yet.
“Yeah,” I say.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Kaz asks.
I shake my head. “I just got it today after the meeting this morning, and I had a lot on my mind.”
They look at each other.
“What was in the email?” Salv’s question makes my stomach sink.
Scrubbing my face, I go to pull my phone out of my pocket. “More of the same shit.”
I pull up the email and hand it to Kaz first since he’s closest. Salv comes and reads it over Kaz’s shoulder.
While they read the email, my gaze connects with Mason. He doesn’t speak a word, but I can read the question in his eyes. He wants to know if he mentioned that shit with Howard again.
I subtly shake my head.
Kaz takes the phone to Mason.
“He knows too much.” Kaz crosses his arms over his chest.
“Not the most important thing,” Mason says, handing me my phone back.
As of right now, it seems the Horseman knows we broke out of Bone’s. Which isn’t too hard to understand if you went to the fucking school with us.
“Have we tracked down some of the other kids who were there when we were there?” I think the most logical explanation as to who this Horseman is, is a former resident of William Bone’s. We’ve been racking up enemies as early as back then.
“My guys are doing the rounds. So far, everyone has been cleared. Most are either behind bars, dead, or trying to forget that shit like we are,” Mason explains.
“It has to be one of them,” Salv says. “Someone that remembers us there.”
“What if it’s staff?” Kaz asks.
The moment he mentioned the staff, I flinched.
Just hearing that godforsaken term had a visceral reaction from me.
There wasn’t a single staff member at Bone’s, that was good.
You couldn’t be. You can’t stand around and watch the horrors of what they were doing to young boys and not be a sick bastard yourself.
“There is no staff left,” Mason says. “Nathaniel handled most of them. And the ones he left.” His voice trails off, but he didn’t have to finish his sentence.
There are a lot of things Mason did that he won’t tell us.
He carries a lot more on his shoulders than we do.
He was fourteen when we left Bone’s and immediately responsible for two eleven-year-olds and a fucking seven– year-old.
That shit wasn’t easy. But he did it as if it were nothing.
For the first year and a half, he did it with no help.
When Nathaniel finally found us, things changed, but it still wasn’t perfect.
“We will find this Horseman,” Mason says. “Until then, we stay vigilant. If he’s working with others, that means it’s more than likely one of your enemies. I think it’s time we flushed them out. Let’s put a little pressure on them. See who slips up first.”
I nod. I was already thinking of ways to piss a few people off.
The knock on my door had us turning to the person walking in. Doc was a short, balding man. He was maybe in his mid-fifties and a damn good doctor.
“How is she?” I ask as soon as he walks in.
“She’s fine. A few cuts and bruises, but she will survive. I gave her a pill to calm her nerves.”
I let out a deep sigh. It’s not that I thought she was dying or anything. I checked her over thoroughly before we even left the restaurant.
“And her wrist?”
“Mild sprain. It should be back in full use in about a week or two.”
“Thanks, Doc.” Mason climbs to his feet to shake the man’s hand. “I’ll tip you extra for the late-night call.”
Doc waves his hand through the air. “No need. You boys are family. Saint, the missuses is asking for you.”
I nod my head at him. I’d already sent him the money for the call before he showed up here. And despite what he said, Mason and I will both send him a tip.
“I’ll be on my way,” Doc says.
“Jake, see him out.” Jake quickly sees to my bidding.
He quickly escorts the Doc out of the office.
Mason turns back to us. “We’re no longer waiting for this muthafucker to strike again. He wants our attention, we will give it to him. Start narrowing down Saint’s list of enemies. Someone out there is helping the Horseman. I think our best bet is to start with the missing guns.”