“Why not?”
“Because they were gonna kill you, and maybe me, and I was not about to let that happen,” I half-yell.
“Excellent. I wasn’t about to let it happen either. My uncle, your birth father, is about to do something really dumb that might get him killed. Can we go save his life now?”
Holmes turns to me, his eyes like saucers. “Hopper is your birth father?”
“What? That wasn’t in your briefing?” Maverick asks, a nasty edge to his voice. “Sucks to be left out of things, doesn’t it?”
Holmes looks like he’s been struck in the face.
Maverick lets out an annoyed huff. “Yes. Hopper is Boone’s birth father. One of Luca’s girls got pregnant, went back home, and raised him with a very good man,” he rattles off. “As for me, I have a purple belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu and am very good at hurting people who try to hurt my man. And yes, he is my man. Are we all caught up? Do you need anything else from me?”
As unreal as this entire situation is, not gonna lie… It’s kinda fun to watch Maverick stand up for himself.
Honoré looks at his phone. “Guys, they’ve already hit Mopac and Hopper’s driving like a bat out of hell.”
Maverick stares at me, expectant.
“Okay, well…I guess we’re getting in the car and following those two into whatever nightmare scenario they’re racing into,” I say, wondering what my father would do in this situation.
I probably don’t wanna know.
“Thank you,” Maverick says. “Let’s take Uncle Anders’ car. I’m driving.”
30
MAVERICK
“Look,”Boone says, grabbing my hand as we turn into Whitaker’s neighborhood, “you’re a great driver, but you are lawless as hell.”
He kisses my knuckles and sends me a smile.
“Thanks, lover.”
We’re not that far behind Hopper and Silas, and H and H have been doing a good job of bringing us up to speed on the Whitaker family. Boone asks some really fucking smart questions.
“Why does it seem we’re going rogue?” for example.
Honoré grimaces. “Because Whitaker is supposed to be untouchable.”
Holmes shakes his head. “Something clearly changed because this is going down right now.”
After the info dump from those two, I’m with Hopper and Sy on this one.
That motherfucker needs to die.
By the time we make our way past the guard shack—fun fact: one of those lunatics used a tranquilizer gun on the poor guy—there are already piles of ash on the street.
We barely get a block in when Silas steps into the middle of the street, rifle pointed right at us. I have to stomp on the brakes to avoid hitting him. Hopper jogs up to our window, grinning, his face striped with blood splatter.
“Oh great, so glad you decided to join us. We got in and realized that going after Whitaker himself…not enough. Not nearly enough. So, we’re taking out the entire neighborhood. Thankfully, only one toddler with a dead mom…” He looks around, checking his pockets as if trying to remember where he put the kid, and Silas steps over to whisper something into his ear. “Right. She’s in the last house down that way,” he says, pointing in one direction.
Silas clears his throat, and Hopper points in the opposite direction. “Oh right. That direction.”
My stomach turns. Hopper must see something in my face because he shakes his head. “Sorry, let me be very clear. We didn’t kill her mom. She died last month. Silas pulled up the records when we went in on the house. CPS has been alerted.”
As he’s explaining things, a man jumps over the fence near the guard shack and is making a break for it. Silas’s lip curls, and he pulls up his rifle with a sweeping motion. Low light, low pulse. Ash flies horizontally for a few feet, then falls, like rain falling on wet grass.
