Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
JAX
I manipulate the knife between my fingers. Over. Under. Over. Under. It feels foreign, not quite right. Not like my red one that I gave to Andie. It was the knife I killed my father with. It holds the first part of my soul—the pure and innocent part—I lost that day. A part of me that now belongs to Alexandria Rossi.
I tune out Keane’s angry yelling. He’s been on the phone all fucking morning trying to allay the fears of the other families. Running the business is more politics than anything else. I have no patience for it. I have no tolerance for it. I’d rather bathe in the blood of my enemy than coddle a bunch of rich, privileged, spoiled old men because they’re scared. They should be. Declan Levine has finally made his move in a big fucking way. But he made one huge, fatal mistake. He took my girl. Andie may bitch, and moan, and protest, and say she belongs to no one, but she couldn’t be more fucking wrong.
“God, I hate that pompous jackass,” Keane grumbles after he hangs up and tosses his phone to Enzo in the front seat.
“You know we’re more than likely walking into a trap, right?” I reiterate.
Someone was able to send me a message on the dark web alluding to the location of where Andie is being held. The place is out in the middle of nowhere. Perfect for an ambush or to bury bodies you never want found. I traced back the deed of sale for the property. And sure enough, after peeling back a thousand layers that took more time than I’d like to admit, I discovered that the cottage is owned by another of Declan’s ghost subsidiaries, just like the warehouse Andie was being held in.
Keane stares out the window. My friend is not doing well. The stress of the past two days is creeping its way into his psyche, slowly unraveling him. Everybody always assumes that I’m the ticking time bomb of the group.
“I don’t fucking care,” he eventually replies. “It’s the first solid lead we have to find her.”
Keane already sent three men ahead to scope out the property and the surrounding woods. Enzo and Dante are riding with us in the SUV, and Marco, Johnny, and two others are in the car behind us. We have enough weapons to equip a small army, which in a sense, I guess we are. I understand Keane’s caution and why he brought so many of our men—what’s left of them—with us, but I honestly would’ve preferred it to have been just me. I do my best work alone.
“ETA?” Keane asks Dante.
“Almost there. Five more minutes.”
We’ve been driving for over an hour. Once you get out of the city, it’s nothing but fields and forests as far as the eye can see. It’s monotonous as hell.
“If he’s there, I want him captured and contained.”
I look over at Keane. The he Keane is referring to is Rafe. Since the whole relationship fiasco with Andie five years ago, her leaving, Kellan’s death, the shit with his dad, and his engagement to Rita, our friend had been slowly slipping away from us. As each day passed, he would retreat a little further. Rafe made it perfectly clear to me and Keane that he wanted out. We just never knew he would go to the extremes that he did, nor could we have ever contemplated he would use Andie to do it.
Dante slows and turns onto a hidden dirt road. You’d pass right by it if you weren’t looking. It’s rutted and uneven, making traversing it in the SUV feel like sitting in a bouncy castle. I’m putting that on my places-to-fuck-Andie bucket list. I could pound the shit out of her delectable pussy in one of those.
“What the fuck are you grinning about?” Keane snaps.
I just smile at him and get out of the vehicle when Dante pulls over along the tree line.
We’re about a half-mile from the cottage. Don’t want to alert anyone of our presence by driving right up to the front door.
Enzo goes around to the back and opens it, tossing us our bulletproof vests. Marco and the other men park behind us and follow suit. I slide my knife in its holster under my pants leg and check the ammo clips for my guns.
Keane is talking into an earpiece, getting a status report from the guys already in place. I salute my friend with the muzzle of my gun and take off through the understory. The thick carpet of pine needles littering the forest floor help dampen the noise of my footfalls. I constantly scan my surroundings as I move swiftly from tree to tree. The damp forest air smells of rotting detritus and pine sap.
Within four minutes, I have eyes on the cabin. No movement or sound, other than the fucking squirrel that is shrieking its alarm call, telling his forest buddies there’s a predator in the woods.
I spot one of our soldiers, Garrett, to my right. He gives me a go signal, and I sprint to the side of the small house. Its basic wood construction and rectangular shape make it easy to surround and cover all exit and entry points. Keane and the rest of the men should have caught up to me by now, which means the place is surrounded. Anyone who steps one foot outside the door will be gunned down, which is a pity because I’m hoping to get a little playtime with my knife. Bloodlust is a real thing, and I’m swimming in that shit right now. The mass of bodies I’ve racked up the past two days has only amplified my addiction.
I get as close to a window as I can and cock my head, listening for any sounds coming from inside. I don’t react when Keane brushes up behind me. The guy moves like a wraith, no sound. I turn my head and give him a nod when I don’t detect anything. No noises. No movement.
Keane holds up a hand signal. Dante and Enzo come out from the woods and flank the west and south sides of the cabin.
Keane grips his guns, touching the muzzles to his forehead as if in prayer. With a deep inhalation, he marches up to the front door, busting it in with a swift heel kick. He disappears inside with Garrett and Marco right behind him. This is Keane’s show now. As much as I want to protect my friend, he’s more likely to put a bullet in my head if I try to stop him.
I make my way to the back of the house. As I approached from the woods, I noticed the cabin had a back door. As I slip around the corner, I stop when I see the large doors exposing an open cellar.
Fuck. No. We’re too late .
Several voices call out “clear” from inside as Keane comes out the back door, looking more pissed off than I’ve ever seen him.
I’m standing at the open cellar. A silent message passes between us when we lock eyes. I descend the old wooden steps, praying that her body isn’t down here. There are no lights to guide me. It could be another trap, but my gut tells me it isn’t. I switch on the flashlight on my phone. Before I reach the bottom, I’m immediately hit with the stench of death. It’s a scent I know all too well.
“Jesus Christ,” Enzo heaves out as he and Dante follow Keane down the stairs. Enzo and Dante are carrying utility LED pocket flashlights that illuminate what’s in front of us like spotlights.
The staged scene is gruesome, yet nightmarishly beautiful. I study it like I’m witnessing an original Banksy for the first time.
I admire the artistry of how Max is positioned on the chair, the bodies of the capos and Dom draped around Max’s dead, slumped form at his feet. Someone placed Max’s hands on the heads of Dom and Lorenzo, like they’re his pets and Max is petting them.
“Fucking hell,” Dante whispers.
A smile stretches across my face when I see ALEXANDRIA carved into the flesh of Max’s chest.
“What the fuck is that in his mouth?” Dante is barely able to speak because he’s gagging on vomit that is trying to force its way up his esophagus.
Not everyone in our organization has the stomach for this life.
“It’s what you think it is,” Keane coldly tells him, stepping forward, rage roiling off him in waves. “Jax, help me check the bodies and make sure she’s?—”
“She isn’t,” I assure him.
“How in the hell can you be sure?” he shouts, the loud crack of his anger echoing off the cellar walls.
Because our girl left a message. I step over a few dead bodies and pick up my red knife which is resting in the “V” of Max’s open thighs on top of his missing groin. It’s been cleaned and polished. I bring it to my nose, sliding its hilt under my nostrils, breathing it in. Breathing her in. My eyes almost roll into the back of my head.
Keane smashes the hilt of his gun into the earthen wall, another piece of himself breaking off. Unraveling at the seams. He’s so used to being in control, being one step ahead of everyone else. He’s the cat that likes to play with the mouse before killing it. Right now, nothing is in his control, and he doesn’t know how to process the feeling of weakness.
“Where is she, Jax? Did she escape on her own? Goddammit! ”
I don’t have an answer for him. Things have just gotten exponentially more complicated, and it has Andie’s name figuratively and literally written on it in blood.
I focus on the facts. Facts are concrete and indisputable. Rafe took Andie. He’s been working for Declan Levine. And Andie? I look down at Max’s naked and mutilated body. My sweet, savage girl, what are you up to?
“Burn this entire place to the ground,” Keane shouts at Dante and Enzo. We have to protect our woman and make sure there is nothing left that can lead back to her.
Snapping a few pictures with my phone, I save them to a secure, encrypted folder on my personal cloud server. The families will want proof of Max’s demise. Keane is now the official acting don of the Rossi syndicate. We’re at war with Declan Levine and about to go to war with Julio Ortiz.
My phone vibrates and I read the message that pops up.
“We need to go,” I tell Keane.