“No,” he said, inflecting his voice with a strain of offended irritation, but he couldn’t stop the sweat from dripping out of his hairline, right over a week-old scab and down his cheek.
“Where’d you do your training?” Ape broke in. God, the man had always had a hard-on for him.
“My training?”
“Your fucking law enforcement training? Where’d you do it?”
“What are you talking about, man?”
“You know what I’m fucking saying, you fucking pig. I’ve seen the way you watch us.”
Clay’s body had gone numb then, tingly at the extremities, his limbs cold and his face hot, constricted, no air. He’d fought for air.
No sound except breathing. It went on forever, that quiet, Handles and Ape and everybody else just waiting for him to give himself away. It was one of those moments where his skin felt tight, but the persona felt floppy. Surely they could see the real him peeking through the eye holes?
Another few seconds, and Handles leaned in, a half smile on his face. “We’ve got a deal goin’ on next week. Might have to take care of a couple of people—woman and a kid.” Clay held it together. They wouldn’t kill a kid. He wouldn’t kill a kid. Hold your shit together, Navarro. He breathed deeply and waited for the question. Interviewing 101. Say nothing until you have to. “Would you do that for your club? For your brothers?”
“Yes,” he said, calm, calm, calm. And on it went, Ape breathing down his neck, Boom-Boom watching, eyes devoid of emotion, and Handles staring him down, cold but fatherly in the weirdest fucking way.
“Would you die for the Sultans?” Handles asked, and the door opened, and Carly walked in—and like always, the dream exploded everywhere. Blood, gore, loud, loud, the report of a weapon, Boom-Boom’s hands on his sister’s corpse, her dead eyes turned to Clay, accusatory white globes of hate, Ape’s ax through Clay’s head, hurting like hell. He dove to the ground, into the stink and shit of the dungeon floor, where the blood of millions soaked into his clothes, up his nose, and he gagged, fought, kicked, screamed himself awake.
Awake. Alive. I’m alive.
But not Carly. Carly was dead. Every time he woke up, his little sister was still dead.
* * *
“He’s gone.” Ape ended the call. He was about to lose his shit, which was precisely the reason for his fucking nickname to begin with. When things went wrong, he went apeshit. Sometimes even when things went right.
“What? He didn’t go into witness protection like Candy Lan—”
“Don’t call him that,” Ape cut in, needing something to pummel. Somebody’s face would do just fine. Jam’s if he had to. “His name’s Breadthwaite. Special fuckin’ Agent Nikolai fuckin’ Breadthwaite.”
“Fuck kinda name is that? Fucker ain’t even American.” Jam hated anyone who wasn’t American.
“Neither’s Navarro.”
“Shoulda killed him when I had the chance.”
Ape almost laughed. Jam especially hated spics. And it turned out that was precisely what Special Agent Clay Navarro was. A spic from South America. Christ, how the hell had he ever made it into the club? Into the goddamned ATF for that matter? They just hire any old asshole off the street now?
“We’ll get him.” Ape was absolutely certain of that. He had yet to miss a mark. It could take him months. Years, even. That ATF bastard had taken down the leadership of the Sultans. But he still had to testify.
Ape knew he’d stop the cocksucker from taking the stand if it was the last thing he did.
OceanofPDF.com
6
Monday morning, George met the heating and cooling guys at the office at six thirty—thankful they’d come out so early—and sighed with relief as her first patient arrived to a decent temperature.
Along with the cool air, her nurse’s return from vacation gave George the sensation of coming back down to earth after a few days spent someplace very, very strange.
Ah, boring normality—her wheelhouse.
Some people craved excitement and change, but George needed things to be the same, predictable. She preferred fine to good, nice to wonderful. Nothing to upset her status quo.
Let her patients be turbulent. George was the calm one. The island in the stream.
