“I don’t like it, Cal.”
He knocks again, and when no one answers, I look at him. “Maybe the intel’s wrong?”
“Maybe Roark was right about this being a bad idea, but we’ll never know unless we fucking go in. Shit, I need a smoke.”
“You…” I trail. Danger presses down on me, making it hard to breathe as I see suddenly what I’ve dragged my brother into. “Go back to the car. You’re a da now, and?—”
“I’m not listening to agobshitelike you, Dec,” he says. “We both go in.”
Both.
This is my problem, but we’re family, and like all our problems, we handle them together. “Are you really against the bodyguard thing?”
“You’re bringing that up now?”
He’s got a point. I reach past him and try the door, and it opens.
I draw my gun, and we both go in.
We don’t have far to go before we find why this Gregor didn’t answer the door. He’s high as a kite, used needles scattered around the place, and a brick of heroin cracked open on a chipped wooden table. I spot the lighter and the spoon, then walk over and smack the asshole.
“What?”
His eyes…they belong to a man on a trip, but they hold fear. And it’s not for us.
“Gregor?”
“If you want information, it costs. Drugs, money. Hot chicks.” He chuckles.
It turns my stomach. Guy’s got to be around fifty. That fucking high-pitched laugh doesn’t sound normal.
“His real name’s Dennis Browne.” Cal throws the wallet down, pulls his gun, and aims it at him. “Heston Briggs. What do you know?”
“Payment first.”
I start nosing around, but his place is a mess. Like someone already tore through it. Or maybe he did it himself. “How about your life as payment? You tell us,” I say, “you live. You don’t, you die.”
“Like I told the cartel, he’s too rich to be found.”
It sparks something in me. Too rich to be found? It fits with my idea of him being in hiding.
Callahan’s gun is steady at his temple. “You know then. Where is he?”
Something comes to me. If he helped Heston, maybe he knows about Mario. Because if that isn’t some of our cocaine in the corner—I recognize the smiley face stickers on the bricks—I might be the fucking Tooth Fairy. “And where’s Mario Marcello?”
“Something I’d like to know.”
I whirl around and Cal switches his focus and gun from Gregor to Milo Marcello.
“Got no beef with you, Marcello,” Callahan says quietly. “But we need to talk territory, and my mother’s mafia ties.”
I’m about to say what in the actual fuck when I hear something.
Footsteps. Heavy, booted. They approachfast, and the glass of one of the windows shatters as the front door splinters. I throw myself forward, knocking both my brother and Milo to the ground as bullets fly through the air, hitting Gregor multiple times, killing him. I’m spattered in his blood as I pull him in front of us as a shield and start shooting. Milo and my brother join. I take out three who come at us, Callahan pops two and Milo one, but more men pour in.
Bullets fly and I push Marcello and Callahan out of the way, narrowly missing being shot as I take out another attacker.
Then more fucking guys arrive, shooting those attacking us, and soon the situation is under control.
