War carries his coat in his right hand, and I get a first look at the tear in the thigh of his jeans and a white gauze bandage underneath. For fuck’s sake. It doesn’t seem that his shirt was torn from another guy grabbing it during a fight, as mine was. The gauze means something more sinister went down.
“Did someone knife you?”
“No, caught a stray bullet.” His tone is relaxed, but I swallow the news like it’s arsenic. While I was nursing old wounds, War was caught without backup and ended up shot.
“I should’ve been there.”
He shrugs. “Wasn’t an op.”
We work for a crime syndicate called C Crue. My cousin Trick is one of the founders, along with War’s uncle Connor who’s known as C. They sent three of us to Granthorpe University for an unspecified operation that’s still being worked out. Until then, the three of us, War, Killian Callahan, and I are sent on intermittent operations that don’t always directly involve the university town. For each operation we’ve been given, no man works alone. Two or three of us go. Always.
We enter the house through the downstairs door, which means War must be hungry.
“What happened?” I ask.
Just inside the door, War drops his wool coat on the floor. His t-shirt, which is saturated with blood, is crumpled inside. “I need to destroy those in the burn barrel tonight.” From his pocket, he pulls a slug, also blood-covered. “Was on my way to a club and stopped in an alley to take a piss. A commotion started at the far end. Couple guys—not college ones, they looked street—were dragging a woman toward a car. Big blonde. Outfitted like a model. She broke away and ran down the alley past me. I didn’t get a good look at her because I was focused on other things. Like the guns they had drawn. Russian pistols.”
“Jesus. Did you have time to put your dick away?”
“Yeah, and got my gun out. Didn’t need to use it, though. Someone on the roof fired at them. A slug ricocheted off the ground. Sliced a groove in my thigh. That’s why no shirt. I didn’t want blood all over, so I tied my shirt around my thigh.”
“You haven’t been home but you’re patched up. Did you go to a hospital?”
“No. Killian’s.”
Killian moved a few weeks ago, but I see him often. Either at rowing practice or when he comes here to our Crue headquarters on campus. As far as I know, War has only been to Killian's place once, when we helped him and his girlfriend move in.
The implication is clear. I wasn’t home or reachable, so War was forced to go to Killian’s where his girlfriend, a civilian, lives.
“You could’ve given me a heads-up things were urgent. Your text just asked where I was.”
War gives me a bland look before he goes to the fridge. Yeah, that was a stupid thing to say. For War to label something urgent, he’d have to be incapacitated. The likelihood of that happening to him during a bar crawl on campus is nearly impossible.
“At the card game the bosses sent me to, phones were off-limits during play. Next time, fuck that. From here on, if you text, I’ll answer immediately.”
A nonspecific grunt of acknowledgment rises from behind the fridge door.
Good enough.
I head upstairs. After a stop in the bathroom to brush my teeth and smear some medicated ointment on my lip, I crawl into bed.
Sleep can’t come fast enough. But it doesn’t. The anniversary of Jude’s death is still on my mind.
I close my eyes and try to let go of the thoughts that churn like whitewater. I’ve been in America over two years and all I’ve managed to do is eliminate hundreds of possible paths to my target. I’ve got no idea whether I’m even getting close. I might be weeks away from identifying the bastard. Or I might be decades.
Rubbing the space between my eyes, I concentrate on the inevitable truth, trying again to manage my frustration. This isn’t rowing in a 2000-meter heat that’s over in seconds. This is an ocean race covering thousands of kilometers. The mindset is different. As it must be.
5
SAWYER
“Who’s a fucking bitch?” Ash curses with such innocent nonchalance it takes my brain a minute to catch up.
Ash doesn’t wait for my answer. Instead, she walks down the hall, apparently sure I’ll follow as I respond. I do the first, but remain quiet on the second. I’m hesitant to go on record trash-talking someone with power in my life. You never know who’s friends with whom. Calling out someone’s bad behavior can backfire.
To Ash’s credit, she doesn’t press as I remain silent. Running my hand along the ivory wainscoting trim as we walk, a part of me wishes she would, though. I’m upset and that makes me want to talk.
Our residence hall is the newest on campus and parts of it look more like a boutique hotel than a college dorm. In the elegant elevator, there’s a large framed mirror. Considering how ragged we look most of the time as we head downstairs for breakfast, I’m not sure the mirror was the best idea.
