I pulled her in. “I need you to help me cover up a murder.”
“Whose?” she said.
“Milli’s.”
Her eyes widened. “What? You’re going to kill him? Why?”
“Because he’s a traitor,” I said. “He’s on his way up now and I’m not wasting any time.”
“Uh, I just passed Milli in the hallway. He seemed like he was headed up here, then all of a sudden he stopped and turned around and went the other way,” she said. “Seemed like something got his attention.”
I furrowed my brow out of confusion, but then my jaw dropped and I looked up at the light fixture. “Fuck,” I barked.
I should have waited to take it out.
“Find him,” I ordered, “and if you find him, kill him.”
57
AVION
Trying to keep my baby’s well-being focused in my mind, I got off the elevator on the level with Merrick and Tamryn’s bedrooms on it. Kelly responded to my text almost immediately saying that she was heading to Gio, which meant he’d have the backup he needed, so all I had to do was get to Gio’s parents for my own.
With his gun squeezed tightly in my hand just in case, I started off down the hallway, moving quietly and with intention. Even though I could have gone for something more normal-looking, I had a funny feeling that, if Milli saw me, he’d attack me on sight, so instead I figured it was better to be safe rather than sorry. He taught me how to sneak and how to listen for others sneaking, so I had my ears hyper-active and listening for even the smallest sound.
Unfortunately for me, my teacher had not taken that same stance.
The door to the stairs burst open behind me and Milli came bolting off. For a brief second, we just stared at each other, almost as if we were both trying to decide if we could explain away our behavior, but Milli ultimately decided he could not. Instead, he lifted his gun and pointed it directly at me. I whipped around and tried to get my gun pointed back at him to retaliate, but he was faster and fired.
It was only because a pair of hands reached out and snatched me into a side room that I didn’t have a bullet in me right now. I whipped around, fighting to catch my breath and came face-to-face with Merrick.
“You just saved my life,” I said.
He was looking at me with significantly less hate than he had ever looked at me before. “When Punk came to our bedroom saying you and Gio sent him there, I was able to put two and two together.”
There was a slam on the door that Merrick had shut behind us and Milli’s voice roared, “Let me in!”
Merrick pulled me to the side of the door and both of us looked around and realized the same thing at the same time.
That door was the only way in or out of the room we were in.
“I’m gonna let him in,” I said. “You shoot.”
Merrick nodded, and I tiptoed towards the door, but before I could get it open, Milli’s pounding stopped. It was almost eerily silent all of a sudden before I heard more gunshots that sounded like they were coming from the floor below.
“Oh Avion!” a familiar voice called out, sending a chill down my spine. “Time for a little family reunion!”
“My brothers,” I huffed.
“We can’t be worried about them right now. We gotta worry about him.” He nodded towards the door and I looked down at the small space between the bottom of the door and the floor, but I couldn’t see the shadows of any feet under it.
“I don’t think he’s there anymore,” I whispered.
“Trust me on this,” Merrick said. “He’s there.” I flicked me backwards so that I wasn’t standing directly in front of the door, then called out. “Zariq, you know I know your tricks inside and out. We’re not leaving this room, so you can let that go.”
It immediately inspired banging against the door as Milli returned to trying to slam it open. “How are you so incompetent at everything except getting in my fucking way?”
I could see the look of hurt register on Merrick’s face. It was just like Gio who didn’t want to accept that Milli was a turncoat either. “You know I’ve always been a man of chaos,” Merrick called back. “We used to tear shit up together, remember that?”
