“I wish I had more time to talk, but you should have answered the phone sooner. They’re going to kill your wife….I’m not going to touch her. I’m not ready for her to die. Which is why I’m calling you.”
Everything about the conversation comes back to me. The way he spoke, the inflection on certain words. When I open my eyes, I have a new revelation.
“He isn’t working alone.”
Mason’s gaze narrows.
“What do you mean?” Salv asks.
I shake my head as I think all this over. The Horseman said he was going to take everything from me in that first letter. Let’s be honest, it would require a got damn army to come up against me. He also said in the second letter that he wasn’t coming after all of us at the same time because he didn’t want to spread himself too thin and use all his resources at once. Tonight, he saidtheywere going to kill my wife. Not him. He said he wasn’t going to touch her.
“He’s the puppet master,” I say as the realization comes.
“Which means he has puppets.” Mason crosses his arms over his chest and tugs at his beard. “The question now, is how many?”
Let’s be honest, I have a shit ton of enemies; it could be any fucking body helping him.
“This is all a game to the Horseman,” I say, as I think further into our interactions. “He’s here for the long haul. He wants to see me suffer over time. It’s why he’s sending me the letters and emails, playing fucking mind games.”
Mason leans forward. “He sent you an email?”
I forgot I hadn’t mentioned the email to my brothers yet.
“Yeah,” I say.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Kaz asks.
I shake my head. “I just got it today after the meeting this morning, and I had a lot on my mind.”
They look at each other.
“What was in the email?” Salv’s question makes my stomach sink.
Scrubbing my face, I go to pull my phone out of my pocket. “More of the same shit.”
I pull up the email and hand it to Kaz first since he’s closest. Salv comes and reads it over Kaz’s shoulder.
While they read the email, my gaze connects with Mason. He doesn’t speak a word, but I can read the question in his eyes. He wants to know if he mentioned that shit with Howard again.
I subtly shake my head.
Kaz takes the phone to Mason.
“He knows too much.” Kaz crosses his arms over his chest.
“Not the most important thing,” Mason says, handing me my phone back.
As of right now, it seems the Horseman knows we broke out of Bone’s. Which isn’t too hard to understand if you went to the fucking school with us.
“Have we tracked down some of the other kids who were there when we were there?” I think the most logical explanation as to who this Horseman is, is a former resident of William Bone’s. We’ve been racking up enemies as early as back then.
“My guys are doing the rounds. So far, everyone has been cleared. Most are either behind bars, dead, or trying to forget that shit like we are,” Mason explains.
“It has to be one of them,” Salv says. “Someone that remembers us there.”
“What if it’s staff?” Kaz asks.
The moment he mentioned the staff, I flinched. Just hearing that godforsaken term had a visceral reaction from me. There wasn’t a single staff member at Bone’s, that was good. You couldn’t be. You can’t stand around and watch the horrors of what they were doing to young boys and not be a sick bastard yourself.
