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He eyed me as if he wanted to say no, when he was heated looking for Aurora, but he asked, “What?”
“Can you persuade the locals not to sell drugs to those two scumbags in there anymore?”
He sighed and raked his hand through his hair. “You know someone’s always going to be willing, Pax, and then we’ll have to hurt someone… why not just turn the kids into CPS?”
“We have to do that too.”
Cain grumbled under his breath. “Fine. I’ll go terrorize them.”
Cain walked back in to have a conversation with the meth heads in the next room. I hated knowing there was nothing I could do to truly fix things for these kids. Some kids just get dealt a bad hand when it comes to their parents. Only their parents could fix that.
But I could try to persuade them they should.
The mom barrelled past me on her way upstairs, and I found her on her knees, hugging her kiddos. She was freaking out, rambling about how she didn’t want to lose them.
“Well, I guess that’s up to you,” I said. “As soon as we leave, the police are going to show up, and you might want to start cleaning up. For your kids.”
She was crying when we walked downstairs and out the front door. Remington stood in the driveway, which was made of just as many dandelions as gravel, carefully searching along the well under the windshield wipers.
He cursed as he straightened. He held up a GPS chip. I held my hand out for it, and he dropped it into my palm, where I confirmed what I’d thought: it was covered in dried blood. Fuck. Aurora’s blood.
She was tough and she certainly never shied away from causing bloodshed, but the thought of Stellan making her bleed….
“Somehow, Stellan got the tracker out of her,” I said grimly. “He sent us in the wrong direction.”
“I’m going to murder him,” Cain growled, and this time, even Remington wouldn’t try to stop him.
“I guess I’m stuck with the two of you. You need someone to be the cooler head. See what Stellan has to say for himself first.”
“Yeah, you’re real cool,” Cain retorted. “That’s why you beat people half to death for sport. No deep rage there.”
“I do it for the money,” I corrected. I locked eyes with him. “And I do it for you.”
If I had a rage problem, I probably would’ve loosed it on the meth head that reminded me of more than one home I’d stayed in after my mother was murdered. Cain was only controlled because he didn’t give a damn about anything, which made him analytical. I was controlled because I gave a damn abouteverything.
“I’ll find them,” Remy promised. Unspoken was that there was nowhere else for us to go until he did. We’d hit a dead end.
“I know you will,” Cain said. He radiated quiet rage but he seemed confident in Remy anyway, as always.
I never would’ve admitted it, but as we drove back to the house, the shit we’d just seen reminded me of the hole in my soul that I’d felt since I was a kid. No family left alive that loved me. No one that mattered.
And then I’d met Cain, his father had taken me in, and I’d been immersed in a world of privilege and bloodshed and darkness ever since. My truck, MMA fighting, the adoration of the public, and the worship from girls in private, all of that had seemed to fill the void. At least if I didn’t look too hard.
But somehow Aurora had revealed how empty my soul still was.
And now I couldn’t get myself to forget it again like I had for years.
Chapter5
Aurora
Ghosts. These streets were full of them. Every corner we passed was a memory, a moment in time where I’d been happy. This place had been the first time in my life where I’d felt a little bit free.
And then it had become a nightmare.
The sun was shining. The front lawns in the houses were still perfectly manicured and green. There were children playing in the parks we passed, their loud shrieks flooding my open window.
It all looked perfect.
