“Nytro is unpredictable as fuck, War!” King shouted. “Mad Hog grew up with him, they’re closer than brothers. Now we have no choice but to take him out too.”
“And? Isn’t that what everyone wants. The Kingsmen have done nothing but fuck with us. We’re not the only club who think they’re messed up and it would be better for everyone if they were gone.”
I ran a hand over my face, drawing his attention and he frowned at me, confused about why I seemed frustrated. I could see both sides of this. I wanted to move quickly and this had seemed like the right move, but given how close Nytro was to that guy, this move had stirred shit up too far. It could put Waverley in even more danger once Nytro realized what happened.
“There is no way to be discrete in Dover, it’s a small town. I’ve sent Ballistic and a few other guys to the address to check it out, quietly.”
“But-”
“No,” King said. “We wouldn’t have this without you but there will be no gun fights, no bombs, no innocent people getting hurt. That address is on a residential street, with families. Ballistic knows how to run an operation on a place like that. Hustle, you could have been with him if you hadn’t gone rogue.”
I had a whole hell of a lot I wanted to say to that but held my tongue.
“Get yourselves closer to the area but stay the fuck out of town until we tell you it’s okay to go in.” Then he hung up before we could say anything else.
War spun away from me and kicked at the dirt at his feet. “Fuck!”
“He’s right,” I said. “I fucking hate it, but he is. Ballistic knows what he’s doing. We can’t hang around here, let’s just do what he says and get closer to Dover.” I pointed to the red and blue lights approaching the burning building. We were far enough away they wouldn’t see us, but our bikes were noisy and would be recognizable, we needed to leave. “Let’s go.”
He reluctantly agreed and we headed in the opposite direction of the emergency vehicles, even though it would take us the long way around. We headed straight for Dover.
We got word that the house was empty after we’d waited inside the Orchard Street Cemetery for fifteen minutes. It was full on night-timenow and given it was just the two of us, no one cared we were sitting there on our bikes.
It was a fairly exposed place to wait, and I felt uncomfortable hanging around. Ballistic found us a little later, he was driving his truck and we walked over and got into the back. He filled us in on what they’d found, including a chair with ropes around it in the basement.
I’d punched the door of the truck when I heard that. They’d spoken to the neighbors and learnt the house was empty but there’d been some activity three nights ago, no one remembered much about them but there had been a black Econoline van.
We were getting closer, but still not close enough. While we were in the truck, all lost in our own thoughts, War’s phone rang.
“It’s Rosa,” he said, his voice panicked.
She was still in Paterson at the hospital with Connor. Ballistic exchanged a look with me through the rearview mirror. Clearly Connor meant a lot to all of us, but the reaction War was having seemed like more than what everyone thought it should be.
Ballistic didn’t say anything but held my eyes for a long time before looking out of the window. I was sitting in the back behind him, War in the front. I got a strange sense of déjá vu from the night they took Waverley.
“Hey Rosa,” War answered. “What? He has? Is he okay?” he turned to us. “Con woke up.”
“Thank fuck,” I muttered, leaning back in my seat. This, at least, was some good news.
“Yeah. Okay. No nothing yet but we’re getting closer, I promise. Has he said anything, does he remember what happened?” He nodded a few times. “Understandable… What? Was he alert when he said that,” War turned to look at me his face grave. “Okay, yeah, no that’s great. When he wakes again can you tell him…” he paused, and his throat worked. “I’ll be there as soon as I can, aswecan,” he adjusted. “Thanks Rosa, I mean it. I’m glad you’re there for him.” He listened a while longer, then hung up.
“Everything good?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he ran a hand through his dark hair, holding it back off his forehead for a moment. “He woke up. He talked for a little while,” hehuffed out a strangled laugh. “But he’s still in and out, doc said they’re optimistic.”
“That’s great,” I said, relief hitting me hard. Knowing at least he was safe helped, a lot.
“He did say something about Omen and Lily though,” he shook his head, in disbelief. “Omen was right, it was her who stabbed him. It was actually fucking Lily.”
“You want to go see him?” I asked quietly. “We can keep on this.”
“No, I can’t stop now. He’s good, Rosa is looking after him. I’ll call back later and speak to him. I gotta find Waverley, he’d hate me if I went to him and didn’t keep looking for her.”
“Back to the compound,” Ballistic said.
“What? Really, we can’t go back now,” War protested.
“Put the right head on,” Ballistic told him. “We regroup, we go back at them.”
