I nod at a quiet one who sips coffee. He nods back, and I stand with them.
“No dogs?” I ask.
“The chief called them off,” a short, older cop says.
“Called them off?”
“Yeah,” the same officer says. “He thinks one of the Crossbow twins was with the woman who got taken in. Wants to keep him under the rubble.”
Bile travels up my throat again. I hope the bile staves off this homicidal rage rising inside me. Usually, I can stave off my rage, but I’ve never feared for my brother’s life like this. If they left him under there and he’s still alive, he’ll suffocate. Which means I need to get him out.
How the fuck am I going to do that? If I lift a single brick, I’m dead. If I’m dead, Connor will die, and they’ll kill Dina for sure, unless she’s already dead.
“Do we know if the woman is alive?” I keep my gaze on the rubble, not looking at any of them, pretending I’m surveying the scene.
“She’s at the hospital with her husband. All good on that front.”
With her husband. Jealousy burns a hole in my belly, adding more bile. If I don’t throw up, I’m afraid I’ll unleash hell on this fucking city! I grind my teeth.Walk away. Walk away, Declan.
I put one foot in front of the other, leaving before I start shooting cops and Ivan’s people in cop uniforms who patrol the street. If they didn’t carry different pistols from the cops, I wouldn’t be able to tell them apart from the real ones.
I’m about to get into one of their cars when a construction worker steps in front of me. I make sure I lower my gaze.
“Hey, man, you got a minute?” he asks.
“Not really, no.”
“Listen, I saw you take my truck, and I respect the police, so I just want my truck back. Hopefully in one piece, or my wife will kill me.” He laughs. “Shit, no, I’m kidding. My wife isn’t a murderer… I think.”
I give him the keys. “Thanks for the ride.”
“No problem,” he says and taps my shoulder.
Warmth spreads through my arm from the place he touched, and for a second, just a second, I think about angels. The thought is gone before it has time to turn me back onto the righteous path, because surely I’ll have to make a deal with the devil now. I take the black card with the white hourglass and dial the number.
Agent Glass answers on the second ring.
“My brother is under the rubble,” I say.
A pause, then: “Word on the street is that you’re under the rubble.”
They think they have me.
“Even better. I’m a dead man walking. You know what that means, right?” Dead men can’t commit crimes.
“Don’t do anything stupid, Declan. I can fix this.”
“I’m hoping you can, and I’ll give you an incentive to do so. Tell the chief all those displaced Tavalans are coming backat my invitation. All seventeen thousand of them. They’ll raise hell in the city. It will spread to the outskirts, this country, the neighboring fucking country, and, as far as I’m concerned, this side of the globe. As for you and your agency, I will leak all your secrets. I know where you’ve operated, I know some of your operatives, I know you take private bribes, and most importantly, I can tell you where your brother is and even how to get him out.” I don’t know where his brother is, but given the kind of work his brother pursued when we last parted ways, I have an idea.
“What do you want?”
“I want my brother dug out from under there. Alive.”
“He will be injured.”
“I’ll handle his care.”
“How?” the agent asks. “How will you handle it if he needs emergency care?”
