“There, much better,” Viper said with a grin.
“Help!” Wes yelped. “This man’s got a gun!”
“We’ve all got guns,” Pride said from the outside of the door, “and you scream like a little bitch.”
Wes snarled up at us. “All of you are dead once I get out of here. Do you hear me? All of you!”
I crouched down and crooked my gun beneath the man’s chin. “Ready when you are, Viper.”
And that was when the behemoth man brought his fist right down against that motherfucker’s temple.
“Now,” Viper growled as he crouched down, causing me to rise back up, “why don’t you tell me exactly why you started all of this shit. Starting with faking your death at Heist.”
Wes spat blood and spit onto the floor. “You think this is about Em, huh?”
Viper clocked the man right in his jaw before clearing his throat. “Was all of this to get to Lila? Hmmm? You get in good with a crew around here and that gives you leverage to take what you feel is yours?”
Wes’s head fell off to the side. “Fucking idiots, I didn’t even know that stupid bitch was working for you guys. It just happened to be a perk of the choices I had made.”
“Son of a bitch,” Viper glowered.
“Here, let me have a shot at the action,” I said.
I uncocked my gun and tossed it into the air, grabbing it by the barrel. And as I swung the butt of the weapon down, I raked it against Wes’s forehead. He cried out as blood spilled down his face, dripping into his mouth as he tried to shake it out of his eyes.
I gave him another good crack against his temple before I tossed the gun back into the air and leveled the barrel with his bleeding forehead.
“Now,” I said as I cocked the gun once more, “let’s try this again.”
“I’m bleeding! I need a hospital!” Wes shouted.
“You’ll be fine,” Viper said as he sat on the floor next to the man. “Forehead’s got a lot of bleeders. You’ll be good.”
“He’s only going to ask one more time, so you better make your answer a good one,” I said.
Wes looked up at me with death in his eyes before Viper fisted the man’s button-front shirt and tugged him until they stared each other down.
“Why in the absolute fuck did you fake your death at Heist?” he growled.
Wes spat more blood onto the floor. “You and your crew have been running this town for a bit too long for my liking. Your influence is everywhere, and it’s disgusting. You call Bullet and those men the real criminals when you’re paying off police influences and governmental personnel every chance you get. You want to know why you hate the Devil’s Rage?”
“Enlighten us,” I said flatly.
Wes snarled. “You hate them because they call you out on your bullshit. You hate them because they pull more money than you doing what they do, and that they have to do less work for that money. You hate that they won’t play by your rules, and you hate it even more when they take out your police officers that you then have to replace. At least they don’t pretend to be something they’re not.”
I tilted my head. “And why would you care about any of that? You haven’t even been in Twin Bays a solid year. This isn’t your home, or your stomping ground.”
He looked up at me and smiled a bloody smile that I knew would stick with me for a while.
“I have contacts everywhere, boys. Just because I wasn’t here physically in Twin Bays all this time doesn’t mean I’m not trying to get my businesses to run all of California.”
I nodded. “And what exactly is your business, really?”
Wes chuckled. “Shouldn’t you know by now if you’re as good as you say you are? You’ve got access to everything in this town, right? Access to my bank accounts? All my money? Figure it the fuck out for yourself.”
He spit a mouth full of blood right onto my white t-shirt and Viper picked that motherfucker up by his neck. He slammed Wes into the wall and gave him a couple of punches that God knows were deserved. But I hated the fact that Wes was right. I hadn’t had a chance to go through all of his bank accounts or even backtrack where he got his fucking money.
I made a mental note to spend my time answering those questions before I went back to Rose’s place.
