It’s a sound tactic. No one ever anticipates the culprits to be among the masses. Rena, Liam, and the girls will be at more risk since I’m assuming he’s taking them out from the roof.
In the still ache of our escape route, Gage is undoubtedly stuck on the same things I am—that was a lot of security for one fucking club, even considering their wealthy clientele and heinous amenities. My mind flits back to the connection between these three jobs that I considered earlier.
All these tasks could be linked to Balzano. This isn’t one of his registered businesses, but his foot soldiers were comfortable here. Comfortable enough to talk openly, to know the back alleyways, to accost women. That warehouse we blew up was plainly producing drugs, which we unveiled as another area of his below-board trades. That would also explain the countless cops that pursued us—he probably has half the force on his payroll. And it’s feasible that the hard drives we stole could have something to do with credit card fraud, yet one more area we connected to Enzo’s crew—Balzano’s foot soldiers.
Maybe that’s a stretch, my hate for Balzano coloring this twisted trial in shades that are more appealing. I can’t quite make sense of it. Nothing KORT does is haphazard. There’s a missing piece here. We’re pawns in a much larger scheme. But other than them having us disassemble Balzano’s nefarious holdings as his punishment and linking it to Rena’s trial for salt in the wound, I’ve got nothing. And that’s all dependent on KORT having knowledge that I’m not certain they have. The only other fleeting explanation I can gather is that Balzano knows we killed his men, and he’s fucking with us. I’m still not sure how that would align with KORT though.
I pluck an abandoned overcoat off a chair in the reception room and throw it on to conceal my injuries. So many people are cowering and hiding that we manage to skulk through the blacked-out sex club smoothly, tromping down the winding staircase into utterbedlam in the nightclub. A small sense of relief washes over me because once I’m outside, I can get to my wife.
As we slip out the main exit, mixing in with the gathering crowd, swirling red-and-blue lights rush the parking lot, sirens blaring. The squad cars slam to a stop, the literal dumpster fire garnering the attention of the officers. But mine? That’s pinned across the parking lot, to the last fucking person I would expect to catch here.
“Axel,” I rasp.
That effectively halts Gage’s pace as he snaps his head in the direction I’m gaping. “The fuck?”
There’s a brief moment when some sixth sense has Axel flinging his focus to us. What appears to be guilt paints his features before he offers a slight dip of his chin and struts away from Fender—the manager I met the night I showed up here for Rena. No idea what the hell that nod means, let alone why the fuck he’s here.
It provokes so many questions that if the blood loss wasn’t making me dizzy, that sure as hell would. But I stuff it all down, anchoring my sanity to the only thing that matters.
“I need my wife. What’s your twenty?” I ask Liam as Gage and I nonchalantly stroll toward the back lot.
“Headed down the side fire escape,” he returns. “Moonshine is one hell of a force. She got all the girls out.”
“That she is,” I agree, my heart swelling with relief and pride despite my frenzied theories and hunches regarding our impending calamity. “You’re amazing, baby girl. Thank you.”
“God, it’s good to freaking hear your voice, hubby.” Rena’s throat is obviously like sandpaper, her words husky and strained, the screams I blocked out insisting that I take notice. “Are you okay?”
“He’s good,” Gage clips, urging me to pick up my pace. “We’ll meet you at the truck.”
Within two minutes, the four of us pile into the cab, and the six frightened girls lie flat in the bed. Gage seamlessly guides us out of the back alleyway—the same area that began all this shit, where I killed Enzo and his fellow rapist buddy. Liam tosses our first aidsupplies into the back seat, and Rena keeps it together long enough to apply the clotting agent and tape up my wounds, but once I’m temporarily mended, she loses it, crumbling in my arms.
None of us say much. Liam snaps a picture of the master list that Rena snagged and sends it off to KORT well before our deadline. I stroke Rena’s hair and utter soft reassurances as my thoughts race, and my ire rises with each passing mile. The nausea from my injuries becomes fierce, bile coating my tongue, but I swallow it, far more consumed by the lies present among us. After we drop the girls off at a women’s shelter for trafficking victims, I use every last morsel of self-control I possessnotto hammer Rena with all the queries swarming me. The truck was unattended, so I won’t risk it.
Once we make it home, we all crowd into one of the bathrooms. The guys perform another sweep for bugs, set a phone with music blaring on the counter, and run the shower to muffle our conversation as they strip me down and prepare to sew me up. It’s safe to say we’re all wrestling with paranoia at this point.
Gage pours me a hefty glass of Kraken Rum, forgoing the Coke, and hands me a couple of painkillers, so I toss it all back as I take a seat in the chair they placed in the center of the room, across from another that Rena occupies.
“It’s clean, straight through,” Liam observes as he rips off the tape and disinfects the wound. “You were lucky.”
My voice is hoarse and gravelly from the sting of the soap and water. “Nothing about this feels lucky.”
Gage’s booming but humorless laugh harmonizes with the rumbling bass of the song and the hum of the water. “That’s the fucking truth.”
That’s when I notice how pale Rena is, her eyes trailing over me. I forgot that I was covered in flesh and blood and brains from the close-range kills. I’m sure it’s jarring, but sadly, this is part of our life. She might as well get used to it. I’d like nothing more than to bury myself inside her, to stow away together in a cozy bubble, but there’s no end in sight for this hell we’re enduring. And she has intel.
“You lied to me,” I grit out as Liam punctures my skin with the needle and Gage tends to the stab wound. “I knew you were hiding something. But this … I know what you fucking saw on that roof. Who you saw.”
Her gorgeous hazels flash with both surprise and indignation, the blue flecks drawing strength, almost as if they’re proclaiming her allegiance to the Noires. “I never lied.”
I guess she didn’t. She claimed she was afraid to shoot the person, which tracks now that I know it was Axel. And she alluded to the fact that she had her reasons, refusing to give me anything. I didn’t ram through that wall because I feared it could have been something mandated by KORT, and if I pushed and she caved, she’d be violating an order. Failure. Neutralized.
Analysis paralysis. Like my whole goddamn life.
Crunch. Squeak. Blood. Never the right choice.
“You evaded,” I correct with a wince as the stitches yank at my tender flesh. “But that doesn’t make this better. It doesn’t remedy this fucking mess.”
Her eyebrows jump to the ceiling, her arms flying through the air. “You’re one to talk. You knew about the details of my house burning down. Knew who had set the fire, who had put my mom in there, and you kept it from me.”
