Chapter Twenty-Three
Perish
“Fallon just called,” Brooks said as I paced through the common area for a change of scenery after pacing the basement and then my room for a while.
“Yeah? They finally got something?”
Brooks was diplomatic enough not to comment on the borderline disrespect.
“They rounded up one guy they believe was with you and still with Cameron. They’re two minutes out.”
“Who? What’s his—”
He was cut off by the thunderclap of steps on the stairs coming up from the basement.
The basement.
Where Virgin had been up in the glass room.
Men like him, they didn’t run unless shit got bad. Really fucking bad.
My heart flew into my throat.
Because we didn’t panic like that unless… unless one of our women or kids was in danger.
“What is it?” Brooks asked, stiffening.
“Gracie’s gone,” Virgin said, eyes wide.
“What?” I snarled past the lump in my throat.
“She was somewhere inside the party. But she’s gone. They found her clipboard. But Sully was knocked out. And she’s gone. Likely into the woods around the venue.”
My first instinct was to run, to get on my bike, to fly there, to hunt through the woods myself and find her, bring her home.
The more rational side of me knew that the others had the woods covered. If she was there, they’d find her.
But she was probably not there.
Cameron had her.
And he wasn’t going to let her go.
I heard the car fly into the lot, Fallon likely having gotten the call as well.
I didn’t think.
Didn’t try to weigh through my options.
I flew out the door, beelining for the SUV.
“Perish!” Fallon’s voice called, a warning.
I didn’t give a fuck.
I ripped open the trunk, reached inside, and pulled out a man I’d once known as a skinny little kid named Davy.
I saw the recognition in his face before the fear overtook him as I grabbed him by the shirt and dragged his ass toward the clubhouse.
He fought.
But even putting on thirty pounds of muscle didn’t make him any kind of threat to me. Not when I was pissed. Not when I was fucking terrified.
As soon as we got to the wall of the clubhouse, I dropped his shirt, grabbed his throat, and hauled him to his feet. His skull cracked against the brick, and there was a second where the light flickered in his eyes, making me worry I’d slammed him too hard.
“Perish, I—”
“Where is he?” I roared, cutting him off.
“Perish, rein it the fuck in,” Fallon shouted.
There was nothing that could reason with my rage right then.
“Where the fuck is he?” I snarled, cocking back and swinging.
Davy’s head whipped to the side as a pained grunt escaped him.
“I’ll break every mother fucking bone in your body. Where the fuck is he?”
Davy’s head lolled forward, refusing to make eye contact.
My hand shifted, grabbing him higher on his neck, forcing his face up to look at me.
“Don’t gotta worry about him being pissed at you,” I warned. “Because I’m going to bathe in his fucking blood for this. Where. Is. He?”
“You’re gonna choke him out,” Fallon said, reaching to grab my arm.
I did something then that I would probably pay for later. But I didn’t give a damn. Not if it meant saving Gracie.
I shoved Fallon with my free arm.
I was vaguely aware of him crashing back on the ground with a little curse. Of men stepping closer to me.
“No. No,” Fallon said, making them fall back. “He’s too pissed. He’ll tear through all of us if we get in his way.”
And that was why Fallon was president and not me. He could be logical when emotions were running high.
“Where would he take her?” I snapped, pulling Davy forward, then smacking his head back into the wall again.
“Take who?”
All that came out of me to that was a growl.
Then my hand tightened, lifted.
Up, up, up.
Not low enough to press on his carotid artery, to stop blood flow to the brain, to let him pass out.
Oh, no.
This was a slow, deliberate, painful way to choke someone out.
The movies, they got this shit wrong.
It wasn’t fast.
It was slow.
Agonizing.
Terrifying.
Davy grabbed at my hands.
His mouth opened and closed like a fish.
His eyes went bloodshot.
And I released.
Just long enough for him to suck in a sharp, greedy breath.
Then I lifted again, holding, squeezing, choking, letting him really think through his life choices, come to terms with his death.
Then I released.
“Where is he?” I growled.
“The… he’s… the…”
“Wait,” Fallon demanded when my hand started to tighten again, a voice of reason when I had none left. “Gotta let him catch his breath.”
“Where the fuck is he?”
“The old… spot…”
Fuck.
Of course.
Of fucking course.
Cameron had never been any sort of leader. Not a unique thought in his puny, follower brain.
Of course he was still using my old hangout as his own.
I shoved Davy toward the others, turned, and fucking booked it toward my bike, ripping the gun out of Voss’s waistband as I went.
I didn’t stop to tell them where I was going.
I didn’t need fucking backup for this.
I was going to get Gracie safe.
Then I was going to make Cameron pay for every goddamn second of fear he made her feel because he wanted to punish me.
I didn’t grow up far from Navesink Bank, in one of the few parts of the area that hadn’t started to get bulldozed and gentrified.
As far as I could tell, since I never visited anymore, it was just as economically depressed as it had been back then, with crime climbing and local crews running the joint.
Including, it seemed, weak-ass Cameron. So fucking threatened by my existence that he still wanted to snuff me out. Even though I’d made no move to take the crew back from him. Even though I was clearly linked up with a new organization. The lifelong kind.
Pussy-ass man with a weak fucking ego.
I flew down the highway, flipping off the speed limits and the cops I knew loved to lay in wait on the sides of the road, lazily speed-trapping people.
They could chase me for all I cared. Draw their guns and shoot me while I bashed Cameron’s head into the fucking ground.
So long as Gracie was okay.
I didn’t ride my bike straight into town. Cameron might be a dumbass, but I figured he was smart enough to panic when he heard a bike rumbling close. And weak men did stupid shit when they panicked.
So I parked several blocks off and hoofed it.
I wound through streets I used to know, streets that shouldn’t look familiar anymore if the area had seen an inch of progress.
But everything was the same. The same rundown storefronts.
The same busted windows, some of which I’d been the one to toss rocks through.
The same collapsing houses and abandoned storefronts.
It wouldn’t be long.
The area was building out too fast. Developers would make their way over here eventually. Tear down the old shit. Build new. Price the current residents out of the area.
But for now, it worked in my favor that the area was much like I’d left it.
There was an old bagel shop that had been closed down as long as I’d been alive that was set out on the outskirts of town.
We’d liked it because there was no reason for anyone to pester us so far out of town. And so long as we didn’t get too rowdy, the cops didn’t know we were there.
It seemed like those rules still applied.
The place was ghostly quiet as I paused for just a few seconds to catch my breath and figure out my best way in.
The night was my friend, casting long shadows it was easy to hide in. Because he had to be expecting a confrontation eventually.
Placing my best bet on the side door, I tightened my hold on the gun and ran.
I wanted to barge right in, to kick down the door, run in, and put an end to this once and for all.
But I forced myself to pause outside the door, to reach for the knob and see if it would turn, to listen.
And that’s when I heard it.
Him.
The sniveling little fuck making some grandiose speech like some cheesy-ass movie villain.
“But, no. He couldn’t just stay away. After all these years, he had to come back. Had to fuck around on my turf.”
He was ranting and raving.
I could hear his footsteps as he paced.
“I’m pretty sure there are about a dozen organizations that would object to you thinking this is your turf. And now about half of them are going to want you dead.”
If I hadn’t heard the vitriol in her voice myself, I never would have thought Gracie was capable of it.
That said, I mostly got to see her soft and sweet. But I knew from stories I’d heard that Gracie had a well of anger inside her that only seemed to come out when she was up at Hailstorm or the self-defense gym training.
Suddenly, now I could see it.
And I bet if he didn’t have her tied up in some way, she’d have been beating his measly ass right about now.
“Shut the fuck up,” Cameron snarled, footsteps moving away from me.
Then I heard it.
The strike.
The cry.
There had already been gasoline in my veins.
That sound lit the match.
I kicked down the fucking door.