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“What the fuck,what the fuck, what thefuck?”
My hands tighten on the steering wheel and a muscle tightens in my jaw as the chant pours out of Logan like frozen smoke off dry ice, his rage as cold as his ice-blue eyes.
He’s poised in the passenger seat of the Escalade like a coiled snake, still and deadly. When I take a corner without bothering to slow the fuck down, no part of him moves, not even his golden blond hair. Nothing except his mouth.
And I want to know the same goddamn thing. What thefuckjust happened?
But the fastest way to find out is to get to the scene of the crime, so I don’t bother letting any of my own frustration out. I just drive.
“Where?” I bite out as soon as I know I’m in the right neighborhood, my own rage contained by sheer force of will. Not contained in the chilling way Logan’s is, but if I’ve learned one thing over the years that it took to carve out the territory I’ve claimed for the Reapers in Halston, it’s how to stay calm no matter what.
And I’ll be damned if I let myself boil over now.
If my father’s death taught me anything, it was that if you lose control, it’s not the only thing you’ll lose.
So I don’t.
Ever.
Dante glances down at his phone, then points up ahead. “There, Madd,” he answers me. “The fight went down behind the bodega.”
He’s sprawled out in the seat behind Logan, messy, chocolate-colored hair in a state of perpetual bedhead and dark green eyes lazily scanning the neighborhood around us as I barrel through it.
Where Logan is always ready to strike, Dante is the one who reels in his prey with sparkling eyes and a warm smile that never drops, not even when he snaps the prey’s neck.
I’d be happy to unleash him on some prey right now, but I doubt there will be anyone for him to take out when we reach our destination. According to the kid who called in the shooting, the attackers were in and out. A surgical strike. Not an accident or a misunderstanding or a minor dispute, but a focused assault in the heart of our territory.
They were sending a message, and I’m pretty fucking sure I know who “they” are. But another thing I learned from my father’s mistakes is thatpretty fucking sureisn’t good enough.
I haven’t succeeded where he failed by going into anything half-assed or under-informed.
I pull up in front of the alley Dante pointed out and slam the Escalade into park. Logan instantly goes from total stillness to a cyclone of movement. He explodes out of the passenger door, making a complete circuit of the alley before stalking over to where one of our gang members crouches next to a body on the ground.
Dante and I follow, and Dante nods his chin at a bright red spray of blood across the front of the dumpster we pass. “Pretty.”
My jaw clenches even harder, but it’s not Dante I’m pissed at. He and Logan are my seconds-in-command, my brothers in every way that counts, and they’re the only two people alive that I trust completely. And right now, I appreciate the way that Dante’s mask of laid-back chill helps me keep the calm I need to deal with this shit, just like I appreciate the way Logan will always slash right to the heart of a fucked-up situation, carving out the information we need with one brutal, deadly slice after another.
“Dead?” Dante asks as we flank Logan and stare down at the Reaper on the ground.
I recognize the slumped man immediately. I know every fucking person who’s sworn allegiance to me, and this man’s name is Jay Lawrence. He’s not muscle. He runs numbers for us.
“No, not dead,” Logan replies evenly.
Jay’s eyes flutter open, just a crack. “Not… yet,” he wheezes, his hand twitching a little where it’s pressed against his stomach.
Dammit. The fuckers gut-shot him.
“What the fuck happened?” I grit out, forcing my hands to unclench. I know Logan’s probably already asked him the same thing, no doubt building a matrix of facts in that deadly brain of his in the time it took me and Dante to walk over here from the Escalade. But I need to hear the answer myself.
“West Point,” the kid who called in the attack spits out, his chest heaving as he confirms my suspicion.
The kid is roughed up a little, and even if it takes me a minute to place him—Levi Blau, his uncle was loyal to my father but got taken out a year before he did—I’ll make sure West Point pays for that too.
Reapers take care of their own.
Itake care of my own.
“West Point, huh? You sure about that?” Dante asks Levi, scratching his chin. He gazes around the alley, rocking back on his heels, then lets out a low whistle. “Pretty far from home to find a few weasels running loose.”
