I charge him. We slam into the wall, hard. His elbow clips my cheek, and I feel the skin split. Hot blood slides down my face. He punches, lashing out wild and desperate. I drive my knee into his ribs. He grunts but doesn’t drop the weapon. My knife finds his arm. Slicing deep, it carves into his skin, and he finally loses his grip on the gun. It hits the ground with athunk. He snarls in pain and headbutts me. I shake off a wave of dizziness. Another punch from him that I dodge, barely. I grin, a broken part of me thrilling as adrenaline pumps through my veins. I was born for this. Raised for this. Blood and pain. That’s when I feel the most alive.
Behind me there’s a commotion. The other Jackal was apparently inspired and decided to make a run of it. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Jackson take him down with three sharp jabs of his knife to the man’s gut.
The Jackal I’m fighting uses the distraction to flail at me, driving his shoulder into my side. With effort, I keep my balance and dance away from him. Then I see my opening. I twist behind him, wrap one arm around his chest, and drag the blade across his throat in a clean, brutal arc. He gurgles as blood sprays in a jet of red. Slowly, I let him slide to the floor as he collapses, his lifeblood pooling at my feet. I stand over him with my chest heaving, cheek burning.
“Get this cleaned up,” I bark.
Jackson moves in without hesitation, dragging the body out of the way. He throws it in the corner with the other dead man. He grins when he sees my face.
“That’s going to make a nice scar. You can look like me.”
“Fuck off.”
I press a hand to my cheek, sticky with blood.
“Is she okay?” I ask, nodding toward the back room.
“She’s awake now,” Michaelson replies, his voice subdued. “Crying but talking. They were pimping her. Forcing her.”
I nod once. It’s what I suspected. I glance down at the corpses.
“You want to sell drugs in my town?” I murmur. “Fine. You pay. But you prostitute girls?” My voice drops to a whisper. “You die.”
I’m furious because what if that girl was Rose? What if it was Laurel?
My father may run brothels, but I never will.
It only takes a minute to find what we came for. The cocaine is stacked neatly in the second bedroom. Bricks of it wrapped in gray plastic. At least fifty of them.
“Take it,” I order my brothers. “Leave the meth and the girl.”
We brought duffle bags with us. The coke goes into them until the sides bulge.
Unable to stand the stench any longer, I step out the back door and make a phone call, using a number I have on speed dial.
Chief of Police Dobbs answers on the first ring. “Carrson, what’s up?”
“Got a present for you.” I tell him about the drugs. The girl.The guy I killed. The one Jackson killed.
“I’m leaving it all for you. Except the coke. That’s coming with me so I can make sure it gets properly disposed of.”
Dobbs grunts but doesn’t argue. He’s been expecting this call. He’s the one who gave me the heads up about the bad coke in the first place.
What no one in this town knows, because we’ve made damn sure they don’t, is that his real name was once Dobbson. He’s one of us. The Order put him in that uniform and pinned that badge on his chest, just like they’ll put the next guy in the post when Dobbs retires in five years and moves somewhere quiet to become a Father.
Every chief before him was one of ours. Every chief after will be too.
We don’t just run this town.
Weownit.
Always have.
Always will.
Chapter twenty-one
Laurel
