Page 33 of Bram

“When Rusty finds out what’s happened to you,” I say, “he’ll fuck this whole place up. Bram won’t be able to stop him.” Everyone wanted to kill my father, including me.

“I heard two of the Desert Scorpions talking while you were sleeping,” she said. “They’re supposed to take me to your father when he gets here.”

“What?”

She nodded. “That’s what they said.”

I stared at her, at the shape of her face, searching for something I should have seen. She looked like Mom, but the set of her jaw was pure Rusty — the same stubborn line, the same refusal to yield.

“I won’t let him hurt you, Emma.” I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her in tight. “Almost safe,” I whispered, the words coming out in a hiss through my busted nose. “We just have to hold on a little longer.”

She nodded against my chest. “I can do that.”

We let the room get quiet again. We listened to the guards, to the echo of the world outside. It didn’t matter if rescue came now or in a week. I’d already started the clock.

fourteen

Bram

We killed engines a block from the house on Mallow, letting the last hundred yards roll out quiet. We stacked the bikes in a line, angled for fast exit, and dismounted without a word.

The house was a shitbox: stucco flaked down to chicken wire, two windows up front with bars welded straight through, a dead palm tree flattened against the fence. There were no cars. No neighbors looking. The front gate hung off one post and squealed when Kodiak nudged it wide enough for us to slip through. I counted three steps from the sidewalk to the front door. Then my side started to throb with every motion, the stitches above my hip gone rigid after the ride, but it didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was what waited behind the door.

Kodiak veered right, back against the cinder block wall, scanning the window for movement. He held a Glock in his right hand, silencer attached. Rusty faded left, stepped through the weeds and kept his profile low. I took center, my sight lines open, and flexed my left hand to make sure it could still close.

We were in position before the sun finished clearing the ridge. No signal. Just the collective pause of three men thinking the same thing at once. Then I drove my boot into the door. The wood crumbled, and the whole slab flew inward, clipped the toe of the doorstop, and rebounded off the wall. We went in stacked: me, then Kodiak, then Rusty last, sweeping the dead angle with one hand while the other fished the sawed-off from his belt.

First room was what passed for a living room: threadbare sofa, TV with a chunk of screen gone, folding table near the window. Scorpion on the couch, beer in hand, gun on the table. He was still laughing at the noise of the door when I hit him. I didn’t use my hands. I used the weight of my arm, a straight shot to his windpipe, and felt the cartilage give. He wheezed, mouth already purple, so I picked him up by the shirt and drove the back of his skull into the drywall. The beer can went down last, spraying over the carpet and my boot.

The second one was smarter. He was already in the hallway, shotgun leveled at his hip. He fired once, missed so wide it took out a light fixture, and then started to backpedal. Kodiak put a round through his bicep, and the gun hit the tile. I covered the ground in four steps, scooped the weapon, flipped it, and brought the butt-end across his cheekbone. He didn’t scream, just dropped where he stood, eyes rolling up before he hit the floor.

Rusty moved past us, clearing rooms left and right. Nothing. No movement, no voices. Two guards, both done inside a minute. The house stank of cigarettes and grease.

I pulled the hallway man by the collar and dumped him in the front room next to his friend. Kodiak already had a phone out, fingers moving, but he was watching the kitchen door with the corner of his eye. I took the shotgun and ran my fingers along the stock.

“Basement?” I said. I doubted it. The floor was slab, and the house had no crawlspace.

“Back hallway,” Rusty said. “Last door.”

We moved in single file down the narrow passage. The carpet went to bare tile, then to concrete—no baseboard, just unfinished slab. There was a single door at the end, padlocked, paint peeled around the knob. Someone had reinforced the hinges with exterior screws.

Kodiak took a step back and looked at me. I shook my head. No subtlety left.

I drew my sidearm, checked the load, and put two rounds into the hasp. The lock clanged to the floor and the door rattled open half an inch, like it was relieved to let us in.

Behind me, Rusty said nothing. He just stood with his hand on the shotgun, the other ready to kick the door if it stuck.

I put my shoulder to the wood and eased it open.

The door opened onto concrete. Four walls, poured slab, no insulation. A window up near the ceiling let in a beam of late light. It was orange, the color of a road flare right before it fizzled out. The air inside had gone still and flat, like a freezer that quit.

Julie sat on the floor against the far wall. Her legs were drawn up, arms looped around her knees, and she held her back so straight I thought she might snap from the effort. Next to her, Emma was a knot of limbs, smaller than I’d pictured, face turned hard into Julie’s shoulder. They could have been two animals in the bottom of a cage, unsure which hand came through the bars next.

When the door swung wide, they both flinched—Julie’s arm shot out across Emma’s chest before she even looked to see who was coming. Emma’s eyes snapped open, but she didn’t uncurl, just burrowed tighter, ready to eat the next punch in her sleep if that was the price.

I scanned the room for threats. Nothing but the smell of piss, and the echo of our own boots on the concrete. My pulse crashed down to baseline, and only then did I allow myself to take in the details.

Julie’s nose had been broken. The bridge was canted at a new angle, both eyes gone thick underneath—one a solid purple, the other ringed with yellow where old blood met new. A split ran the length of her bottom lip, scabbed over at the corners. Her forearms, the skin below both wrists, were raw from the rope, weeping in two places. That wasn’t counting the bruises—layered, some green, some black, most in places meant not to show. Her shirt was torn along the neck, but she’d twisted it up so it covered her chest.