Page 49 of Two Tricks

“Who gave you these orders?” I demanded through clenched teeth.

“I don’t know, honestly. I was given a burner phone and told to wait for instructions. I didn’t have a choice. I was short on my sales, and when I couldn’t pay my part, they were going to kill me, so when they offered me the chance to do a job with no questions asked, I took it,” the man babbled.

I growled at the man, letting my knife dig into his fleshy neck. “Tell me who your drug boss is, then. I also want the location that you were going to take Harper to once you grabbed her.”

“Little Fingers is who I deal for,” the man squeaked out. “If you pull the phone out of my pocket, you’ll find the address they texted me. Please, I just needed to clear my debt, I didn’t mean to get mixed up with Two Tricks.”

“How do you know that I work for Two Tricks?” I barked, grabbing his throat with my hand and squeezing. I was too mad to use my knife and end up killing him accidentally.

Gargling, the man tried to answer, but my grip was too tight. Letting up slightly, he wheezed out the answer that would change everything.

“Mastiff knows you’re working with the Phantom Saints, so he sided with the De León cartel and they’re coming for you, then Two Tricks…”

The man might have had more to tell me, but in my rage, I screamed out, letting my knife slice easily across his neck. Needing to do something with my anger, I stabbed him in the chest until I was out of breath. Gasping for air, I shook back my blood-soaked hair when I heard a sound. Looking over to my left, I saw Picasso standing at the bottom of the stairs, horror written all over his face.

“Dax—what have you done?”

“Putting the stamp of approval on the deal between you and Tricks. You’ve gotten what you wanted, Picasso. Now it’s time to see just how far you’ll go to keep everyone safe,” I said, tossing the dagger and watching it bury itself into the wall as I walked over to the shower I had installed for easy cleanup.

Stripping out of my bloody clothes, I turned the water as hot as it could go and stepped under the stream. The water ran red as I scrubbed my body, removing all traces of what had just happened in this room.

“I don’t understand, Dax. Who the fuck is—was—that guy? How did he even get down here? Was he trapped here the whole time you were gone?” Picasso demanded, his tone full of self-righteous indignation.

Rinsing the soap from my hair, I charged at him, finger pointed right in his bitch-ass face. “That man was here to kidnap Harper and use her against ME! It seems we have a rat in both our groups, because your pal Mastiff knows that we are hanging around each other and assumed that meant we teamed up. Now the De León cartel and the Mad Dogs have started their own partnership, and that means we are completely and utterly FUCKED!”

Picasso stepped back at the venom in my words, looking back at the man I killed, slumped and covered in blood. “You didn’t have to kill him—he didn’t do the job. He could have just run or gone into hiding.”

“God! WAKE THE FUCK UP, Picasso!” I screamed. “We’re at war, and that is only the first of the deaths that will be on both our hands. This is what it means to do what is necessary to keep our people safe. Do what you want with the situation, but I need to go find out if they sent another person after my friend. If they did, I’ll kill that motherfucker too.”

Walking into my closet with a towel wrapped around my hair, I pulled all the clothes in the very back to the side, revealing large gun safe. Swiftly, I unlocked it and took stock of what I had available to me even though I knew every single item in here like the back of my hand. Pulling out my favorite pair of Smith & Wesson handguns, I pulled the slide back, double-checking there was one in the chamber as I slid home the clip.

Setting them aside, I pulled on my black jeans and a simple black t-shirt before slipping on the shoulder holster, making sure it was adjusted so it wouldn’t flop around under my jacket. Then I put on my thigh holster that would hold my second gun and two knives. Grabbing two extra clips for each gun, I packed those into the pouch on the small of my back. Finishing off, I slipped on fingerless gloves that had metal reinforcements on the knuckles.

Snatching up my steel-toed combat boots, I glared down at the monitor on my ankle, cursing its existence. Reaching into my nightstand, I pulled out my inner earpiece that Weston would be able to connect to with his phone. I hit his speed dial, and it took three rings for him to answer.

“Dax, what’s wrong,” Wes asked, sounding like he’d been awake.

“I need you to pull up the tracker on Harper and tell me where she is. Then I need you to look up everything you know about the drug dealer Little Fingers and if he has ties to the De León cartel or the Mad Dogs,” I instructed as I shrugged on my leather jacket.

“Care to give me a hint on what’s got you in Terminator mode?” Wes asked. I could already hear him typing.

“Seems that we have a leak in the boat, and someone came up with the bright idea to go after Harper to get to me. Oh, and tell Eagle that the deal is on. Now that the De León cartel and Mastiff have joined forces against Tricks, we are gonna need all the help we can get,” I answered, hurrying down the stairs. “Got a location for me yet?”

“Yeah, looks like she’s at home. I’m checking her security real quick to make sure she doesn’t have any unwanted company.”

I knew this day would come, and in preparation I made sure that I had eyes and ears on Harper at all times. Under the guise of needing a person to practice piercing on, I put a tracker in the jewelry I used. Thankfully, your conch wasn’t something you changed the stud on often. Wes also talked her into letting him set up her home security so we could set it up with two systems—one for us and the other that she could use like normal. Harper was far too pure and trusting to land in this darkness, and I would be damned if anyone fucked that up for her.

“I got six guys at the house; it looks like Harper is tied to a chair in her kitchen. With the state of the house, she didn’t go down without a fight. Those self-defense classes you gave her might be the only reason they didn’t get a chance to take her somewhere else yet,” Wes relayed. “Two are talking to her in the kitchen while the others are guarding the front and back doors. When you hit the house, be ready for a real fight on your hands, because these guys look professional.”

“Got it. I’m sending you the address for the location they were supposed to bring her once caught. I’ll check back in once I’ve got Harper,” I said, hanging up and hitting the button for the garage door.

Seeing Picasso already there leaning against his bike, I raised an eyebrow.

“You didn’t really think I was going to let you go on your own to deal with this, did you?” he challenged.

Grabbing my helmet off the shelf, I tucked it under my arm as I walked over to him. “After the display down in the basement, I wasn’t sure you would even still be here, to be honest. Thought I might have pushed you too far out of your rose-colored world.”

“Dax, I’m not blind, I just choose not to let the evil in this world get its claws deeper into my life than I have to. Respecting life shouldn’t be seen as a weakness,” Picasso said with a shrug.