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“You son of a—”
Aiden doesn’t get to finish his sentence. The driver suddenly gurgles in shocked alarm, and I turn around to watch a massive guy, easily the largest bastard I’ve ever seen, tear a long, jagged knife across his throat. Blood spurts everywhere, so much blood, and our driver drops to the ground as the monster steps forward, breathing heavily, drenched in gore.
Nobody moves. The table is utterly still as a scream remains trapped in my chest.
Aiden leaps to the left. He knocks me sideways, away from the table and the Turkish men, down to the floor, and grabs for a gun in his waistband, but he’s too slow. The big Turkish man lunges forward and wrestles with Aiden, catching his wrist and twisting it so hard I hear the snap. Aiden screams in agony as the big Turkish guy gets him in a hold from behind, shoving him down onto the table as his broken wrist is wrenched up his back.
I crawl away, breathing hard, trying not to whimper. I’m so scared I can barely think. There’s blood on the tile, blood all over the place.
Maceo stands and comes toward me, but I can’t stop looking at Aiden. His face smashed into the table. His twisted, ruined wrist.
Emin shakes his head and clucks his tongue. “You should’ve given me the drugs.”
Aiden’s pale and breathing hard. “Would that have changed anything?”
Emin grins. “No, not at all.”
The monster yanks Aiden’s head back by the hair, presses the knife against Aiden’s throat, and drags it across his neck, tearing open his veins.
Blood pours from my brother, pumping in thick spurts onto the table. The Turkish men stand, backing away from the mess.
I blink rapidly and work my mouth, trying to find something to say as Aiden dies but my brain won’t make sense of it. I feel like my skull’s fractured in half. What’s happening? It’s too unreal, it doesn’t make sense—
I stare and stare and finally the scream breaks from my lips.
I scream and scream and scream until Maceo kicks me in the face and everything goes black.
Chapter 25
Rian
It’s raining when I step into the Soundless Fury. It’s a decent bar in a standalone building on the edge of downtown Media. It’s trying to be an authentic Irish pub, but it’s more like an American’s idea of what a pub’s supposed to be. There’s lots of wood, most of it rustic, and old-timey looking objects hang on the walls, like rustic brooms and rusty saws and the like. The place is packed with young guys watching basketball on the multiple flat-screen TVs, and nobody notices me walk in and take a seat at the far end of the bar.
Megan’s dad is bartending. He moves slow. He has to lean forward to hear over the noise of the music, the crowd, and the game, and he nods when people speak to him. I watch for a while, not trying to draw his attention, but not hiding, either. He pours drinks with a simple efficiency, and while he’s not going to win any awards for fancy bartending, he gets the job done.
It takes fifteen minutes before our eyes meet.
I expect violence. The last time we saw each other, the guy tried to blow my head off. His face doesn’t react, like he expected me to show up. It’s a surprise when he ambles over and says, “What do you want?”
“Whisky, neat.”
He shrugs and goes to get my drink. When he returns, he asks again, “What do you want, Rian?”
“I want to talk to you. Just a few minutes of your time.”
He chews on that. Half a dozen people are waiting for his attention, but he just stares at me for a full ten seconds. “I need a smoke break. Meet me out back.”
“You going to try and kill me?”
“No promises.” He turns away and disappears, waving off a guy that shouts for his attention. He’s gone for a minute before he’s replaced by two younger girls, both wearing black, that instantly dive into the mayhem and start filling orders.
I get up and head down the hall toward the bathrooms. There’s an exit at the end and I push it open. The rain’s still going, but slower now, barely a drizzle. An overhang keeps me dry, and to my right a lighter sparks.
Patrick Byrne takes a long drag of his cigarette and looks tired. He offers me one, which I accept. I’m not much of a smoker, but right now, it feels rude to decline. I light off his flame and take a slow drag. It’s tarry and bitter, and I blow the smoke up into the wind, thinking about how many smokes this man’s had in his life and how many more he’s got left.
“I still think about my girl every day,” Patrick says. His voice is quiet, like something from the dreg end of a bottle. He’s a worn-down-looking man. His edges are softened with years and loss. He was big once, full of life, vital and terrifying. But he’s a shadow now, wasting away behind that bar.
