I watch the life leave his eyes and I feel nothing.
That scares me. The nothing. It should scare me.
But, it doesn’t.
They attacked my family, and this is what happens to anyone who comes for my loved ones.
I stand up, wipe the blade on his shirt and slide the knife back into my belt.
I make my way upstairs.
Ruger has the rest of them in the living room.
Five men—four alive, one dead on the couch where Ounce dropped him.
The survivors are zip-tied, face-down on the floor.
Maddox is standing over them like a monument to bad decisions, his arms crossed, blood on his knuckles that isn't his.
The man Bracken shot in the shoulder is conscious. Bleeding, but conscious. He's the one who's going to deliver the message.
Not all of them. Just one. One lone survivor to carry the story back to Vegas. The rest don't leave this house.
Ruger looks at me, sees the blood on my hands, sees the knife in my belt and sees what's in my eyes—or what isn't.
He nods.
"Which one talks?" he asks.
I point at the shoulder wound. "Him. He goes back to Solis with a message."
Ruger crouches down next to the man, tips his chin up with one finger so they're face to face.
"You're going back to Las Vegas," Ruger says. His voice is conversational. Calm. The voice of a man ordering coffee, not deciding who lives and dies. "You're going to find Victor Solis, and you're going to tell him exactly what you saw tonight. Every detail. Don't leave anything out."
The man's eyes are wild. He's looking at his dead partner on the couch, at the blood on my hands, at Maddox towering over him like the angel of death decided to get tattoos.
"You're going to tell him that the debt is paid," Ruger continues. "Not in money. In blood. His men came to our town, they hurt a brother's family, and they paid for it. The balance is zero. And if Solis has a problem with that—if he sends anyone else, if he makes a phone call, if he so much as thinks about Morgantown, West Virginia—we will come to Las Vegas. And we will have this conversation with himpersonally."
He lets go of the man's chin and stands up.
"Ounce. Cut him loose. Put him in the Escalade out front. Let him drive."
Ounce cuts the zip ties.
The man scrambles to his feet, clutching his shoulder, blood running between his fingers.
He looks around the room, at the dead man on the couch, at the brothers standing in a circle with weapons and blood and absolute certainty in their eyes, and he runs.
Out the door, across the gravel, into the Escalade.
The engine starts. Tires spray gravel. Taillights disappear down the dead-end road and onto the highway, heading west.
Heading home. To Vegas. To Solis. With a story that will end this.
The four remaining men are on the floor. They know. You can see it in their eyes. The glazed, animal understanding of what's coming.
One of them is praying. Another one is crying. The third is still. The fourth is trying to talk, trying to negotiate, trying to find the combination of words that opens the door to survival.
