There was a long pause on the other end. That same heavy breathing from months earlier came across, and I gripped my phone are if it were this bastard’s neck.
“Who is this?” I looked around, searching up and down the street around our stationhouse. People from the surrounding buildings and stores came and went. A few of them were on cell phones but didn’t appear suspicious.
It was unlikely that this bastard was close by.
“You know who it is,” that mechanical voice responded. “I heard you’ve been looking for me.”
“Yeah, why don’t you give me the address to where you are so we can settle this shit?”
There was a grunt on the other end.
“You talk like you’re strong, but you’re weak. All of you assholes at Rescue Four are nothing but a bunch of pussies. You don’t do shit for this city. You didn’t do shit for Corey when he needed it, did you?”
“Fuck you,” I growled.
“That’s not nice,” he taunted.
“What won’t be nice is the hell that I’m going to bring down on you once I catch your ass.”
There was silence on the other end.
I chuckled into the line. “What’s the matter? You started this shit, and now you’re afraid to finish it?”
I laughed some more.
“Stop laughing at me,” he bellowed. “That’s the problem with you pieces of shit over at Four. You think everything’s a damn game. It’s not.”
He was losing his shit. The sound of my laughter bothered him. I considered this and concluded that chances were it would make him sloppy, which would make him reveal more of himself.
“You motherfucker. You want to burn people in their homes, threaten the lives of my brothers, but you want me to keep from laughing?” I chuckled as if this were a damn comedy club.
In all honesty, not a thing about this was funny, but if it fucked with his psyche, so be it.
“Keep laughing. Maybe your girlfriend won’t find it half as amusing as you do when she’s tied up surrounded by flames.”
That got me to cut the laughing out.
I saw fucking red. “Repeat that shit.”
“I doubt Corey will appreciate it when his sister ends up dead in a fire because of you. Just like your mother.”
My anger boiled over at the mention of my mother and Jocelyn. “Just know that mine will be the last face you see before you take your last breath. I’m about to make your bitch ass wish you were never born.”
I was so pissed, I couldn’t even see straight.
“Fuck you,” he yelled. “You deserve to die just like those bitches. They didn’t deserve those kids. You all are going to know what it’s like to suffer.”
He hung up the phone.
I had to take my time to regulate my breathing again. I was going to do some severe damage to that fucker’s face before I sent him to his grave.
Slamming my door as I got into my truck, all I saw in front of me was a horrific image of Jocelyn tied to a chair in a sea of flames.
“Why didn’t you save me, Donnie?”
I squeezed my eyes shut and clenched my fists as the image of Jocelyn mixed with my mother. I had to use all my training to calm my breathing down and not freak the hell out right there in that parking lot.
All I wanted to do was drive over to Jocelyn’s and make sure she was safe. I never wanted to leave her side. But that was the last thing I could do. I needed to keep my distance. It was my fault she was this involved in the first place.
