A woman—short and curvy in a red crop top, with a South Side crown tattooed on her left breast—slid her phone from her skirt pocket. Her thumbs flew over the screen, eyes flicking up, then back down.
Meridian raised his gun and aimed it at the phone.
“Bitch,” he gritted, “my rule is to never harm a female. But if you’re stupid enough to hit send on that text, I’m willing to make an exception.”
She froze as the rest of the room held its breath.
Slowly, she let the phone slip from her fingers onto the floor and raised both hands.
“Good girl,” he murmured.
He turned back to the bartender. “We’re looking for a man who calls himself Scar.”
Eyes darted around, but no one spoke up.
Grace walked slowly, silently, through the cluster of gangsters, his gaze sliding over each face. Men shrank away from the intimidating weight of his attention.
Three-quarters down the line, he stopped.
The guy he’d settled on was barely past puberty. He hadn’t moved or said a word, but his welling tears gave away that he knew something, but too afraid to speak up.
Grace just stared, not saying a word, which felt more threatening than his marksman skills.
Meridian went to the kid. “Thank you for being so forthcoming. And you are…?”
“They call me Lil’ Havoc.” He snarled, looking like a puppy baring his teeth at a wolf. “ ’Cause I be wrecking shit.”
Meridian shot his hand out and clamped it under the boy’s chin. His grip was iron, as he dug his fingers into the hinges of his jaw until he felt bone.
“That’s the stupidest shit I’ve ever heard,” he said, squeezing tighter. “Little boy, I’m a killer that doesn’t like to repeat himself. And now that you know that, I’ll ask one last time… What is your fuckin’ name?”
“Frank—Franklin Johnson.”
The kid’s groan was strangled and sad.
“Okay, Frank-Franklin Johnson. Where can I find the man who calls himself Scar?”
Sweat broke out on the boy’s forehead despite the cold.
Meridian loosened his fingers around the punk’s mouth enough for him to speak. But, before Frank could answer, another voice cut in from near the pool tables.
“There’s no fuckin’ Scar anymore,” a taller man said, then spat on the floor.
He stepped forward, chest puffed out, blood spattered across his white tee from one of his fallen homies.
“You muthafuckas are three life sentences too late. So you can get the fuck out now. Do you have any idea who you’re messin’ with? We’re the—”
Something long and silver flashed by Meridian’s peripheral vision.
Mirage’s hand was still out, as the room stared in horror at the blade buried deep inside the man’s gaping mouth. He made a stomach-churning, gargling sound as he toppled sideways, clawing at the leather handle protruding between his broken teeth.
A chorus of “holy shit” and “Jesus Christ” rippled through the room.
Meridian gestured lazily at the man’s convulsing body.
“You see that. That was completely avoidable, but that’s what happens when you say stupid shit. Understand?”
Frank nodded as much as his clutched jaw and panic would allow.
