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Despite us knowing that we’ll more than likely be met with force inside, Fox doesn’t hesitate to kick the front door in.
You’d think it would be more secure than just a basic lock and deadbolt. With the way the doorframe splinters, it’s clear they didn’t even replace the regular screws with the longer ones like everyone should do.
Gunfire echoes around me, but it’s Fox pulling the trigger on two men who come around the corner. We wait for the briefest of moments, but no one else moves toward us.
I follow Fox down the narrow hallway, simply because he’s moving faster, not that we had any sort of fucking plan. I fucking hate working with other people, but if he wants to get shot first, fucking let him.
I nearly run into his back when he stops cold in the doorway.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” a female voice asks.
Fox pulls a pair of handcuffs from his back pocket as I step around him into the room.
The woman Fox identified in the SUV earlier is standing in the middle of the room. Cortez is there looking smug as if he thinks he’s going to get out of this.
“Handcuff him,” Fox demands, throwing the cuffs at her feet so hard she has to step back in order not to get hit with them. “So much as fucking twitch and I’ll blow your head off.”
She scoffs. “I know better than that.”
I flinch as the echo of a shot rings out. The woman narrows her eyes but doesn’t try to dodge the bullet as the shot goes wide mere inches from her head.
She has seen some shit. She has been through some shit for her to have such a blasé reaction.
“Behind the back,” Fox says when Cortez holds his hands out in front of him.
“Who the fuck are you?” Cortez spits as his daughter clips the cuffs on.
He winces, telling me she either put them on as tight as possible or he’s trying to make us think she did.
Fox waves his gun, indicating she needs to step to the side. I go back behind the man, making sure the cuffs are in place before patting him down to make sure he has no weapons.
I pull a chair from near the blacked-out window and force him to sit.
“What are you going to do?”
“Nothing more than what was done to me,” Fox snarls.
“You?” Cortez spits. “I’ve never seen you before in my fucking life.”
Fox doesn’t look away when he pulls a tattered picture from his back pocket, holding it up so he can see.
“My wife and daughter,” he says before sliding it back into his pocket.
“Papa?” the woman asks, a waver in her voice that I know can’t be trusted.
Evil people will turn on anyone to save their own hides.
It seems Fox has more skin in the game than any of the others who managed to escape one of Cortez’s houses of depravity.
“You can go,” Fox says to me.
I shake my head. “I won’t leave you alone.”
“I’m not alone,” he says, waving his gun to indicate the two others in the room. “Let Angel know it’s over and I’ll send proof in the next couple of days.”
“Fox,” I say, a pleading in my voice. “At least let me help you get them to a safe location. I don’t want you to end up dead.”
“I died the day my family did,” he says, no emotion in his voice. “What happens here tonight doesn’t even matter.”
I know I don’t have a valid argument as he holds out the keys to the vehicle outside. I take them, not bothering to ask him a second time.
I walk out the front door without looking back, unsure if I’ll ever see that man again. He deserves his vengeance. There are so many of us that won’t get it. Alessio’s twin sister took that chance from me. It left me feeling like I never got vindication. I didn’t avenge Maya’s death. I didn’t get the chance to torture her murderer or peel his skin from his body.
Maybe even if Fox dies tonight when some of Cortez’s people come looking for him, he’ll do so with more peace than he woke up with this morning.
Chapter 35
Alani
“You’re going out?”
I look over my shoulder at Jennifer, trying my best to smile rather than sneer in her direction.
How I keep getting paired up with the worst roommates is beyond me. It makes me wish Blakely was in the room with me. Jennifer is another freshman, and I recognize the fire in her eyes, that anticipation to come to college and learn all the things. I saw it in the mirror my first week on campus too. She doesn’t know it yet, but it fades very quickly.
“There’s a gathering just off campus,” I say. “Want to go with me?”
