“This is sounding an awful lot like what happened to Senator Cartwright,” Haze interrupts. “He was killed a few years ago when it came to light that he had money tied up in drug trafficking and worked for Mancini’s mob. So now they’re back at it again? What the fuck is wrong with that family?”
“A lot,” Hustler replies. “Obviously it runs in the family genes.”
“Who took Cartwright out?” Bane asks. “Not that it really matters now.”
“Shade, the assassin who killed everyone as a revenge tactic. Her vendetta was lethal,” I say, glancing at Hustler who suffered because of her almost-fatal shot at him at the cafe. He dived over Audrina, and some say that’s when their real love story began.
“Can say that again,” Hustler mutters.
“Can’t keep up with this,” Shadow says, sounding exasperated. “But what we do have is the fuckin’ Skeletons on our backs.”
“Good news is they didn’t get to Payden,” I say. “They wanted her, Molly, and Ryan dead. We managed to encrypt the files andmake a copy before Cristoph was able to erase everything. It’s in the cops’ hands now.” I turn to Haze and Sawyer. “Did you keep Ryan alive?”
Haze nods. “When we realized they’d threatened his family and he was really only deleting an email, we kept him alive, plus it would’ve been harder to explain to Willow where he ended up. Molly is under police guard. We believe they have enough to go on to arrest Donnie.”
“Was he stupid enough to show his fucking face?” Bane scoffs.
“Not exactly,” Sawyer goes on . “But he did have a meeting with Senator Douglas a month prior to his death in secret. They had an ad campaign lined up for the election. I’m guessing it didn’t all go to plan, hence he was dead a month later. Then the incriminating evidence of Cristoph being on the payroll and this Rex dude bein’ sloppy, I’d say they have enough to go on.”
A few scoffs and chuckles chorus around the room.
“Holy fuck, this is a goddamn mess,” I say, running both hands through my hair.
So the Cini group is being dealt with by the cops, but that leaves the Skeletons.
As if reading my mind, Bane pipes up and says, “Leave the Skeletons to us. I’m gonna use every fuckin’ piece of manpower I have to seek my revenge. If the Cini group is now under the cops’ radar, then the Skeletons are on mine.”
“They’ll be after Donnie Mancini for payment,” Sawyer adds. “Half when they took the job, half when it was completed.”
“Won’t that mean they’ll just take half the cash because they took the job, they just didn’t complete it?” Hustler asks.
“Nah, it means they took the money for a half-assed job and got to ram your gate for the fun of it. They have nothin’ to gain goin’ after Payden now when Donnie will likely be arrested,” Sawyer says. “They won’t be gettin’ any more dough.”
All they’ve done is wage a turf war on the Hellions, and I have no doubt Bane will be calling on the favors when it’s time to seek out their revenge.
“I’ll be back tonight,” Bane barks down the phone. “Becca and her kid are with us.”
Kid?
“What kid?” Viking asks, speaking for the first time.
Bane sighs. “She has a little boy nobody informed us about—Connor, he’s five.”
“What the fuck?” Hornet puts in. “Now we’re babysittin’ this chick and her kid?”
“More to the point, how did you pull off kidnappin’ her?” I ask, intrigued but not surprised.
“Asshole cops never saw us comin’,” Bane says. “Plus I have a secret weapon.”
“You had time to slip her some dick?” Panic scoffs.
“Jesus,” Haze mutters, shaking his head.
“And the point of her bein’ here now?” Hustler asks, ignoring them. “Once Donnie and the Cini group are arrested, she’ll be in the clear.”
Bane clears his throat. “There’s more to it than that,” he says. “Too much to go into over the phone. For now, she’s enroute with us back to Mississippi, but she’s gonna be listed as missing, so there’s that to deal with. And Haze? No shootin’ your mouth off to your ol’ lady.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” He smirks.
