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Jay is dead weight. Dante’s arms bulge, and Jay curses up a storm, all the color draining from his face, but between Dante and Levi, they manage to get him into the back of the Jeep Levi has parked at the other end of the alley.
“You know where to find Payton?” Dante asks Levi. The kid nods, and Dante pats the hood twice. “Take Jay in. She’ll fix him up.”
“Get Logan,” I tell him as soon as they drive off, scowling at the blood stains on the ground. “Let’s see if we can track these fuckers.”
“Got it. Be right back.”
Dante is in and out of the bodega in a flash, Logan on his heels, and the three of us head back toward the Escalade, then peel out in the direction Levi told us the West Point members ran after they took Jay down.
“They’re getting too fucking bold,” I grit out, my eyes scanning the empty sidewalk. There’s nothing to track, but I’ll leave behind my seconds and let them do some deeper digging, poking around to find out if anyone heard or saw anything useful.
“Sounds like it’s time to remind West Point who owns this territory, Madd,” Dante says, his lips curving into the type of smile that would only seem friendly to someone without any self-preservation instincts. His eyes glint, and he rubs his hands together. “We gonna do something about that? Go hunt some weasels?”
“Have to,” Logan says, his whole body as tense as a tightly coiled spring. “Can’t have them encroaching.”
I take a breath then let it out through my nose, forcing my jaw to relax. I’m still fucking furious, but that’s just fuel to bank for later use.
Right now, it’s time to weaponize some of that information I’ve been gathering.
We’re not the only ones Austin has been fucking with lately, so maybe this blatant attack on our turf will inspire some of his other enemies to help us push back against him before he turns his sights on them.
“Who can you meet with in the 17th Street Gang?” I ask Dante.
“Ruiz, Tyson, Masters.” He ticks the names of a few 17th Street gang members off on his fingers, then grins, reading my mind like he often does. “Finally time to strengthen our ties over there, Madd?”
I nod sharply.
“Allegiance,” Logan murmurs, staring off into space the way he always does when his brain is working overtime. “Withallthe gangs that hate West Point. Not a bad idea.”
“Make it happen, Dante,” I say, nodding at the burly man as his piercing green eyes meet mine in the rearview mirror. “Start with Ruiz. We need to fortify our fucking territory.”
“And then…” Logan trails off, shooting me a glance.
I nod, knowing that just like Dante, he’s picked up on the thoughts surging through my mind. He’s connected the dots and realized that the attack tonight changed everything.
We need to fortify our territory first—every street, sidewalk, and building that we control. And then…
Then we won’t just make West Point pay.
One way or another, we’ll fucking destroy them.
3
RILEY
It’s a Tuesday night,so instead of a DJ, I’m stripping to a mix from the 90s that the manager at Club M has a serious hard-on for. It’s the same one he always plays on slow nights, and it’s definitely not taking me out of my head.
“Show me your ass, Destiny,” grunts a guy with a beer gut and a stained t-shirt, waving a couple of ones at me from the corner of the stage.
Ones. Fucking Tuesday nights. But every dollar adds up, so I give him a sultry look as I trail my hand up the steel pole I’ve been working. I circle the pole once, then grab it with both hands and thrust my ass back to give him some good spank bank material for when he’s all alone, back in whatever hole he crawled out of tonight.
“Fuck, you’re hot.” Licking his lips lasciviously, he pulls out a few more bills.
I turn back to the pole and roll my eyes, thankful that the club is too cheap to have mirrors behind the stage. But Beer Gut is right about one thing. I do look hot… although why I bothered with the black garter leg wraps that crisscross my thighs tonight, I don’t even know. They look sexy as hell and pair well with the O-ring choker and black, stainless steel-heeled stilettos I’m wearing, but their main benefit is that they’ll hold more bills.
In other words, a waste of opportunity on a Tuesday.
Still, a girl’s gotta have her fun where she can, and since I’ve also got a spiked steel hoop in my nose—which made Chloe raise her eyebrows when I left the apartment earlier since she calls this one my ready-to-start-some-shit mood ring—that about sums up how I’m feeling tonight.
