Relay shook his head. “Besides decimate these bastards?”
“Yeah. As great as that sounds it’s lacking in the details.”
“There’s a reason for that. You’re here.”
“I know. Doesn’t mean I don’t want to know what the fuck is happening,” I muttered. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m here with Devyn and Collin until…shit…who knows? As long as I need to be.”
“Good. Then let us worry about The Collective.”
I glowered at my brother. “I’m going to lose my fucking mind if you don’t tell me anything.”
“Fine,” he sighed. “Two more of the factions have joined up with the first couple.”
“Shit,” I muttered. “So there’s four now?”
“Well, we put a real dent in the numbers of the first two.” He gave me a smug smile. “They had to bring in back up just to keep up with us. Won’t be the last either. But the more they bring in, the less we have to track down.”
“Good point. What are these two factions in charge of?”
“Guns and drugs. What else?” He gave me an unimpressed look.
“So fucking predictable,” I added and we both grinned at each other.
“Dev’s likely going to be released today,” I told him. “As much as we appreciate your offer to be here to give us time, if you need to go with the others, we get it.”
“Nope. I’ll hop in and out as I can, but Ruck and I are on the same page. This is my first priority.”
“I can’t fucking tell you what that means to me, Relay.”
He snorted. “Don’t. I don’t do mushy.”
“And I do?” I asked, offended.
“Sure as hell sounded like we were about to get there.”
I laughed, shaking my head at him. “But seriously, all the parents would be thrilled to sit here with Collin, too.”
“I know. But I want to. He’s my nephew.”
Grinning, I didn’t say anything to that. I had this feeling that Collin and Relay were going to end up being close. I could be full of it. It wasn’t like I could predict the future. But just the way Relay was acting about all this was so…out of character for him.
“Is everything alright?”
He looked over at me, confusion and disgust written all over his face. “You know what I hate more than mushy?”
“What’s that?”
“Talking about feelings. Knock it the fuck off.” He stood, slapped a hand on my shoulder so hard I lurched forward, then walked out.
Shaking my head again, I moved the chair used for guests back into the corner then sat in my recliner. I pulled out my phone and shot Ruck a text. I offered myself up as sacrifice for some of the bullshit hacking tasks that we were taking over from Glitch. I was stuck in this room for most of the day anyway, I may as well be useful to them.
It was a way for me to help, and stay connected with, my brothers while I couldn’t be there in person. The Collective wasn’t going to hold back for very long. This was going to end up being an all-out war soon enough. There was no way it was goingto go on long enough for me to join in, so I’d at least take some of the burden off.
I wondered just how fucking bad the days ahead were going to get. The Collective wasn’t some small organization that we needed to get out of the way. They had serious connections. I knew part of the reason Relay was sticking so close was because my son was here and vulnerable. Which meant I was, too.
I’d kill any motherfucker who got it in his head to come after my family. Whoever was important in their lives would end up wearing their fucking intestines as necklaces if they even tried. But there was only so much I could do here by myself. Knowing that my brother, Hype, Isaac, and my father were just minutes away—and often hanging around the hospital—made me feel a lot better.
No one was getting to us with them around. If The Collective tried we’d fuck them up so hard they wouldn’t have time to realize what’d happened.
