I feel them at my back, solid and steady, and something in my chest loosens.
I'm not alone in this.
Whatever I become in the next hour, my brothers will be here to see it.
To understand it. To help me carry it afterward.
"Take your time," Ruger says quietly. "We're not in a hurry."
I look around the room, really look at it, and my stomach turns.
A filthy mattress on the floor, stained with things I don't want to identify.
Scattered syringes, some with traces of brown liquid still in them.
The smell of sex and blood and fear, ground into the walls like decades of bad decisions.
This is where he brought her. This is where he...
I can't finish the thought.
If I finish it, I'll lose what little control I have left, and I need that control.
I need to be precise. Methodical.
I need Virgil to understandexactlywhy he's dying, and that requires clarity.
My eyes land on a duffle bag in the corner, half-open, contents spilling onto the floor.
Something catches the light.
I walk to the bag, keeping one eye on Virgil.
He doesn't try to move.
The fight's gone out of him—he knows there's no escape.
He's just waiting now, the way a rabbit waits when the hawk's talons are already closing around its throat.
I crouch beside the bag and pull it open.
Cash. Bricks of it, rubber-banded together. Enough to buy a house, maybe two.
Drugs. Heroin, pills, white powder in little baggies.
A gun. Chrome-plated, probably worth more than it's accurate.
And a jewelry box.
My hand freezes over it.
I know that box.
I know it because I watched my mother keep it beside her bed.
I know it because I used to sneak into my parents' room as a kid just to look at it, to trace the delicate inlay with my fingers while Mom laughed and told me about it.
I know it because it was one of the only things that survived the fire.
