Page 18 of Ruin

“You get Gem and bring him here, to Brock’s,” Knight said. “Send the rest of the men to the clubhouse to make sure it’s clear.”

“Tell them to watch the bikes while they’re there,” I added quickly. “We don’t know how long Devil’s men were on the property. Gem thought they might have rigged the bikes to blow if anyone started them.”

“Right,” Remy growled. “I wouldn’t put it past them. They’d have orders to do whatever it took to kill Gem and bring you in, little girl. Anything else?”

“Nothing for right now,” Knight said. “I’ll see you soon.”

He hung up without waiting for an answer, and then turned to me, his eyes flashing in the darkness and his arms coming around me.

I buried myself in him, the conversation suddenly becoming real, and started to sob. The trap hadn’t worked. Mandy had been arrested. Half of the gang had also been arrested, and Remy himself was on the run. Gemini was hurt, maybe dead, and Brock was missing. And Tinker...

Tinker was dead.

I didn’t know how it had happened, but I didn’t need to know the details. The only thing that mattered was that the sweet, soft-spoken man who’d been so willing to talk to me when no one else would was dead.

Gone because Devil had kidnapped him and held him hostage. Dead because I hadn’t wanted to go back to Devil and we’d tried to trick him. I had no doubt that if I’d been the one there, if I’d actually turned myself over to him, Tinker would still be alive.

Damn, I should have just gone to him. My life wasn’t worth Tinker’s life, and I’d never be able to forgive myself for what had happened.

And now Brock was missing, too.

“I’m so sorry,” I wheezed. “This is all my fault. Mandy and Gemini and now Tinker and—”

Knight held me at arm’s length and shook me a little, trying to get my attention. “Stop that right now. Stop it, I say. This isn’t your fault.”

“But he’s dead because of me, and they’ve been arrested because of me, and he’s lying there on the side of the street by himself—”

Another slight shake. “Tinker’s dead because of Devil and his tricks, Saraya, and I never want to hear you say otherwise. He’s the one who kidnapped Tink and decided to use him as blackmail. He’s the one who thought he had the right to demand you back, after what he did to you. He’s the one who caused all of this, understand me? These things are his doing. Not yours.”

I took a deep, shaky breath, trying to calm myself down, and tried to focus on what he was saying. Devil had done this. Devil was the one who’d put Tink in whatever position he’d been in, and if what I was hearing was true, he’d also called the cops on our guys. He’d gotten Mandy arrested, along with half the gang.

He’d killed Tink.

It was still so hard to accept, but it also fell in line with what I knew of Devil. He’d never been above manipulating others to get his own way, and he certainly believed in killing other people when it suited his needs.

Hell, I’d seen him put four bullets in Dutch just because he thought Dutch was being too nice to me and therefore undermining him.

The thought brought a raging anger into my heart, and I straightened up. Devil had killed my one friend in the Steed, and now he’d killed my friend here in the Banshees.

I was going to make him pay. I didn’t give a fuck what it took to do it.

“Do you think he has Brock?” I asked. “Where do you think he is?”

“That’s a damned good question,” Knight answered. “I was hoping he was here, but...” He turned and glanced back at the house, and I knew exactly what he was thinking.

It didn’t look like a house where someone was in residence. Hell, it didn’t even look like a house where someone was hiding out. Yes, someone who was hiding would probably have the lights off, but something about the house seemed deserted. Lifeless.

There was no living, breathing Brock in there.

And if there was a non-living, breathing Brock, I wasn’t sure either of us would be able to stand it. But I also knew we couldn’t leave until we’d seen for ourselves.

“Are we going to split up or stay together to search?”

I heard Knight’s soft exhalation. “Stay together. I don’t want you out of my sight.”

I didn’t want to leave his sight, either. This was the first time since Devil’s men broke in that I’d felt even remotely safe from the outside world. I wanted to keep that safety with me as long as I could.

I also didn’t want to happen upon Brock’s dead body on my own, if it was in there.