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Cyd rounded on him, pulling his gun at the same time and angled it at the man’s bald head. He got right up in his face so that they were nose to ugly nose. Even from my craned angle, I could see the spittle flying as Cyd said, “It was your goddamn job to do the setting up, not the falling for some asshole’s trap.”
And as quickly as Cyd turned on the man, he backed down. His face went blank, peaceful, and he smoothed his hands over the cut the man was wearing. “But that’s all behind us now. You’ve learned your lesson, or my little Paola wouldn’t have sent you after him.”
Cyd pointed at me with the gun. A growl ripped from my throat.
“Get me the fuck up from here!” I tossed and writhed enough that I’d managed to get onto my side. “Cook, man. What the fuck are you doing?”
“Here on Paola’s mission. We’re turnin’ you over to the LAPD like the original plan.”
Cook really had been a plant all along. And he’d probably gotten that bitch to the bonfire and stirred shit up enough to get AX3 back on my tail. “If it’s the last goddamn thing I do, I’m going to slaughter you. And if I don’t get that chance, I’m going to haunt your ass until you go crazy as fuck and they find you hanging from a rafter somewhere. You don’t do that shit to people, asshole.”
No goddamn response. He just raised a brow to Cyd. “Can we take him now?”
Cyd paced the room, spinning a switchblade. Flip. Flip. “I dunno. What do I get out of the deal?”
AX3 spoke up again. “You go back to LA, free and clear.”
“It’s true.” Cook said as if he were bored with the entire fucking situation.
Everything I watched in this scene was in a haze of red interspersed with flashes of that man standing in Bou’s kitchen in his frilly fucking apron. My vision flickered, and my pulse pounded in my temple.
Flip. Flip.
“I’m not sure. Maybe I should keep him and groom him up the right way. I should’ve fucking kept him when I took his ma out. I’m thinking I need a goddamn protégé, boys.” He held his arms out wide.
I stopped breathing. The asshole was insane if he thought he could welcome me back into his arms like a long-lost son. Hell, I’d rather he took me out of this world. Nothing in this world could convince me to follow that sick fuck!
Cook’s eyes flashed over to me, but then he said to Cyd, “Not a good idea. He’s already shown us that his loyalty is to no one and nothing but himself and his small-time dealers. We could dispose of him.” The burly man shrugged. “Rather than turning him in.”
All right, I was a shit. One stupid and cock-sure motherfucker. I should have brought Angel along on this journey. I never would have landed at Bou’s place. I wouldn’t have gotten all soft over her and Celt. I wouldn’t have felt like I belonged somewhere and with someone. Lots of fucking ifs, but I sure as shit wouldn’t be hogtied here and now with three crazy mothers wanting to do fuck only knew what with me.
Cyd paced, stroking his goatee. “Maybe,” he said after a minute. “But I think I need to mark him first. You interrupted me before I completed the job.”
He ran a hand over the scar on his eye. The son of a bitch was planning to cut me, to leave me with the same mark he wore, to make me look even more like him. I wrenched my hands against the ropes again.
Nothing.
A sick fucking grin spread across Cyd’s face.
“I know just what you’re thinkin’, boss.” Cook smiled back, the kind of smile he shot someone looking him up and down when he wore one of his girly aprons. That devious smile said he was up to something bad and that he was going to fucking love it.
“Lemme hold him for you.” Cook walked around to the far side of the bed behind me. When he grabbed my arms and jerked upward in an overly exaggerated motion, I began to suspect something more was going on with Cook.
“Gus, get a chair,” Cook called as he lugged me to my feet, making way more of a show than necessary.
I didn’t say anything—confused—but if I read him right, he was playing his own game. Just as he started pushing me toward the chair, I felt something cold land in my palm. My hand instinctively wrapped around the familiar handle. My finger slipped onto the trigger, and thumb landed on the safety. A fucking gun.
Thank fuck! I’d been right. Cook wasn’t a fucking bastard traitor. A weight lifted in my mind. Maybe Bou and Celt were okay after all.
Ropes holding my wrists behind my back loosened.
Cook acted it up some more, moving as if he was really struggling against me. “Come on, motherfucker, you got a treat comin’,” Cook growled in my ear, loud enough for everyone in the room to hear.
He put pressure on my shoulder to show Cyd he was forcing me into the chair, then his other arm came around in a single fucking motion and fired his own gun. The blond cokehead fell backward and slid down the wall, leaving a trail of red on the murky white. Instinct took over, and I followed suit, putting a bullet right between Gus’s eyes. As he crumpled, I saw Cook swing his gun toward Cyd.
“No,” I barked. “He lives and is going to fucking lockup. Tie him up.” The man didn’t deserve a quick death.
Cyd lunged for his gun on the other bed, but he wasn’t quick enough. Cook seized his ankles, dragged him to the floor, and had him tied up quicker than I could blink.
