Chapter 46
“Why the fuck would you do that?” I ask her, then groan when my right boot presses against the blown-out brain of one of the guys she’s shot.
His head is cracked open, and he’s bleeding a goddamn river.
It’s flowing down the cracks in the ground in an almost mesmerizing stream, and it takes great effort for me to look away from his vacant eyes, but I manage to do it anyway.
“What, making quick work of these assholes before the cops come on their usual nighttime rounds and end up finding us here?” Varsha retorts.
She’s right. If the deputies or the sheriff witness us in this situation, Chase and Solo will have a hard time getting us out of this mess. And, if they do decide to persuade the law in our favor, it’ll put them both in dangerous and compromising positions – something neither of them can afford.
“Well, when you put it like that…” I glance sideways, and find Jayce all but breaking a guy’s neck with how hard he’s choking him with his curb chain. And, let me add by saying how much he seems to be enjoying himself whilst watching the life dim from said guy’s eyes.
Someone screams, and I whip my head to where Cignette is. She’s holding onto a pole for dear life, trying to avoid getting blood on her heels, all the while watching Alex smash a thug’s skull with his hammer with stark fascination on her face.
“Why are you screaming?” he asks her, then brings his hammer down on his victim again. The poor fool’s face splits open in two while his body continues to jerk, and I can see the very muscles of his cheek from how beautifully Alex has broken him.
“You almost got chunks of brain on my dress,” Cignette argues. “And this is a pretty special one, too. It’s one of Julian’s originals!”
Alex huffs and steps away from the battered dead body. “Wait, who’s Julian?”
She rolls her eyes. “Forget I said anything.”
“Ledge, behind you!” Jayce calls out.
I pivot on my feet and grab the wrist of the guy who was about to – or had planned to, at least – stab me in the back. He’s the one who’d warned me to stay away from Cignette, and to leave her here for his client.
Perfect.
His knife falls to the ground as I twist his arm behind his back.
“Seriously?” I spit the question at him, then kick him in the shin to get him to fall on his knees, but he ends up elbowing me in the ribs, taking me off my game.
I let go of his wrist as the wind is knocked out of me, and when my crew starts making their way to me, I raise a hand to stop them.
The guy turns to face me and goes in for a punch, but I duck in time, then clock him in the groin.
He howls and bends over in pain. “Fuck you,” he grunts.
I grin, then fist the collar of his hoodie, because there’s nothing else on him for me to hold onto; the fucker’s bald as an ass.
“Unfortunately for you, I’m not into street filth.” I knee him in the face, making him stumble away from me.
He recovers quickly, though – his nose now bloody – then brings a left fist forward, and as soon as I move to block it, he uses his other fist to punch me in the jaw.
Razor-sharp pain shoots through the lower half of my face, and my ear, and I shake my head to get rid of the wave of dizziness that clouds my vision.
“Nice,” I say, and when Baldie tries to come at me again, I slip to the side, then jab him in the ribs.
He doubles over at the impact, and I use that as an opening to punch him in the face, then deliver an uppercut to his throat.
He gasps and clutches his chest, then coughs and falls to his knees. I’m about to retrieve my switchblade so that I can put an end to him, but Jayce’s words stop me from doing that.
“Ledge, wait. He’s the only one left.”
I give him a quick look, then sniff and settle down on a clean spot next to one of the dead bodies so that I can catch my breath. Straightening my legs out, I press my palms behind me on the ground, then lean my weight against them.
Jayce comes to stand behind Baldie, and I cock my head to the side as I study the latter. He looks young – maybe in his late twenties – and has aged scars peppering his face and neck. The circles around his eyes are prominent, and his drooped lids indicate that he probably uses, or drinks often.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
He glances around frantically, but when I lift a brow at him, he exhales in defeat, and his shoulders slump in on themselves.
“Graham,” he answers forcefully.
“Graham…” I stretch my neck to relieve some of the tension there. “For all that verbal foreplay we had, you and your buddies turned out to be complete disappointments.”
“The men you killed tonight were a thousand times better than you and your friends,” he rasps.
I grit my teeth. “Is that why they decided to take money from someone to come fight me, then – to prove their fucking superiority?”
He snorts. “We needed that money, however small the amount. It was better than what we made at the boxing arena.”
Made. He’s already talking about himself in the past tense.
“You wanna tell me who hired you to do this?” I ask.
He swallows and meets my eyes. “Will it make a difference if I do?”
I work my jaw and shake my head. Letting him live will be too big of a liability, and it’ll be foolish of me to even consider it.
He laughs humorlessly. “Well, fuck it. If I’m gonna die for something that wasn’t even my business to begin with, then so should he.”
“Who?” I push.
Graham sniffs and lets go of a cough. “Gavin,” he says.
Surprised, I look at Cignette and my crew, only to find them wearing a similar expression on their faces.
“Gavin, as in the tattoo shop owner?” I question.
Graham nods. “Yeah. My friends and I always got our inks done from him. He priced us reasonably, and was fun to be around. We weren’t exactly friends, but we did hang out a few times in the last couple of years.
” He shifts on his knees. “When we met last month, he told us about Cignette, and how she broke up with him to be with you. That’s when he suggested we threaten you to stay away from her, and that he’d pay us if we said yes.
A couple of the guys weren’t onboard with the idea, but I forced them into it, and they…
” He looks around at the decimated bodies of his friends with pain and regret on his face.
“In a way, I killed them too, didn’t I? I should have just said no to Gavin, should have… ”
I zone him out, because what he’s saying doesn’t matter now, and it most definitely doesn’t mean shit to me.
I glance at Varsha and give her a subtle nod. She returns it, then points her gun at Graham. The sound of a muted gunshot cuts through his rambling, followed by a bullet piercing one side of his head, and exiting through the other.
Cignette gasps and places a hand over her mouth at the suddenness of it, and her eyes widen a little as she stares at the exit wound on his temple.
His body falls over with a loud thump, and Jayce steps back before raising his arms and looking down at his white t-shirt, which is now splattered with blood.
“Jesus fucking Christ.” He glares at Varsha. “A warning next time, maybe?”
She shrugs and puts her gun away. “You knew it was coming; you shouldn’t have stood so close to him.”
He rolls his eyes at her, but says nothing.
“Relax, babe,” Alex chimes, then circles a hand over the stains. “That’s…a good look on you. Totally complements your complexion.”
Jayce scowls at him, then turns around and heads for his Jeep.
Alex clicks his tongue and stomps after him, and with a shake of her head, Varsha follows behind them, leaving Cignette and I alone.
I get to my feet and dust my hands off as I examine the dead bodies around me.
“Fuckers didn’t even care to call cleanup,” I mumble, then shoot a quick text to Eddie, asking him for immediate assistance.
Once I’ve done that, I look up as I’m pocketing my phone, and find Cignette – with a hand covering her nose – sidestepping brain matter and gore.
She manages to make her way over to me without vomiting, or worse, tripping over the sticky trails of blood.
“Oh God,” she whispers, but the words come out muffled. “I can’t breathe; this place stinks. It’s like a goddamn meat market in here.”
I chuckle, then grab her by the waist when she stumbles.
I jerk my head at the chaos beneath us. “They make a pretty portrait, though, don’t you think?” I tell her, just to get a reaction out of her.
She moves her hand away from her face to glower at me. “Take me home before I paint you right next to them.”
I choke on a laugh as I look her over. “Who are you, and what have you done to my Cignette?”
“She tripped and fell face-first into a boulder of depravity.” She pats my cheek. “Now, get me out of here before I scratch your face off your chiseled body.”
My God, why the fuck did that comment turn me on so much?
Maybe because I’m a degenerate, but eh, that’s already an established fact, isn’t it?
I bend and lift Cignette in my arms, earning a surprised intake of breath from her, then start walking us to my Harley.
“Sooooo, are we keeping this to ourselves, or are we telling Mave and Solo about the turn of events?” she asks, then wraps an arm around my neck.
“Maybe once I’ve gotten some sleep. I don’t think I have to energy to deal with either of those idiots right now,” I say.
She nods, because she looks just as tired as I feel.
“Who knew Gavin had it in him, huh?” I wonder out loud.
Cignette sighs. “I told him I didn’t want anything to do with him. I guess he didn’t like that.”
I grunt. “He for sure didn’t like that. Asshole fucked up a perfectly good kill-night for me and the crew.”
Her lips twitch as she studies me.
“What?” I ask.
She lifts a shoulder. “There’s this ease with which you talk about murder and death. It’s hot. I never thought I’d like that, let alone think about liking something of that nature, but here I am; I’m addicted to it, and you.”
I smirk. “Although I appreciate the fuck out of what you just said, I have to ask: aren’t you even remotely concerned about Gavin?”
Her eyes shine as she grins at me, then leans in and kisses me, making me groan.
“Why would I be, when I know you’re going to take care of it the way you always take care of things,” she says against my lips, then fists the hair at the nape of my neck and kisses me again.
I stop when we reach my Harley, then open my mouth and slide my tongue against Cignette’s. My boner brushes against her ass, making her moan against me.
She has indirectly asked me to do something that I’d already planned on doing even before Graham revealed his client’s name.
Gavin signed his sentence the moment he decided to get in my way, and because I’m the type of guy who doesn’t appreciate annoying child-play, I won’t make things easy for him.
A loud honk makes Cignette and I break the kiss. I glance at Jayce in the driver’s side of his Jeep, then shoot a quick scowl at him.
“We’ve gotta go,” he says coolly.
“I know, asshat,” I tell him, then place Cignette down on her feet before straddling my Harley. Once she’s done the same, I speed us out of the alleyway and into the vibrant streets, with the lamp posts illuminating us in half-cast shadows as we breeze past the unaware citizens of Riverside.