I don’t expect this conversation to be a particularly smooth one, but there’s no other way to tell my brothers about Ace and his crew being tied up.
Right after Dutch left the garage, Ren and Hayato called asking me what to do with the men they’d dragged out of the hospital.
“We can dispose of them for you,” Hayato said, as if he was referring to taking out the recyclables.
I told them not to do anything until I came.
“We will wait,” Ren told me, “but if you cannot find a solution, we will have to inform your father.”
It’s not like Kurosaki will give me a D on my mafia boss report card for not cutting the Grave City Crew into pieces when I had the chance.
But while he won’t do anything to me, Ace and his friends are another matter. Kurosaki won’t think twice about ending them. And while, normally, I don’t take any responsibility for his actions,thistime, I’m the one who delivered Ace right into the yakuza’s hands.
His blood would be red lettering in my books, not Kurosaki’s.
“What happens if you let them go?” Dutch asks quietly.
“They know our faces. It won’t take them long to find out where we live.”
“And then?” Zane asks me.
“Then they come after us with everything they have.”
Sol rubs a finger over the smooth side of his lighter. “The Grave City Crew. I’ve heard of them. They were recruiting hard in my old neighborhood.”
“Were they getting any interest?” Zane asks.
“Dude, it’s the hood. Of course they were. Their leader is supposed to be this young, Robin Hood type guy who robs the rich and gives to the poor.”
“How do you know so much? I’ve never heard of the Grave City Crew in my life,” Zane says.
Sol snorts. “Yeah, I’m sure the latest street gang news travels all the way to this gated community, Zane.”
Zane flips Sol off.
Sol just laughs.
“We don’t need one more reason Cadence and Grey would be unsafe to come home,” Dutch says firmly.
J springs to attention. Her little Jinx brain must be whirring to know what the other reasons are.
Dutch must have noticed how excited she got too because he scowls at her. “You got something to say,J?”
J opens her mouth, closes it, and then shrinks back into the over-sized chair.
“That’s what I thought,” Dutch snarls.
“Dutch,” I snap.
My voice isn’t that loud, but everyone reacts like thunder cracked around the room.
Zane and Sol stop joking around.
Dutch’s eyes zip to me like a pointed sword about to impale.
“Like it or not”—I try to speak more calmly since they all seem so spooked—“J found the girls with her computer skills alone. When I thought I was being followed, she broke into the hospital’s surveillance system and helped me get the advantage in a fight.”
“Cool,” Sol says, giving J a nod of respect.
