AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Anyway, some of the bigger players, like McKenna, didn’t feel as threatened as they should have at the time. Madd wasn’t big enough yet to go head to head with them, so he gave them their space and focused on making headway where he could. The smaller, scrappier gangs knew he was shaking things up, and some were glad about it, to be honest. But not all of them. So one gang sent in a mole.”
“A rival gang member actually managed to infiltrate the Reapers?” Riley asks, her eyebrows shooting up to her hairline.
I nod, my finger instinctively rubbing over the back of my right thumb. A habit that should have died off when the Crimson Crows did. “It didn’t take long for Madd to figure out there was a problem, but that didn’t mean he moved on it right away. Because you know what he is besides relentless?”
“A lot of things,” Riley says drily, making me laugh.
“He is that, but I’m talking about the way he’s fucking strategic. Always two steps ahead. He’s already planning for the long-term win before the other guy even realizes he’s playing the game. It’s why, even though McKenna’s in it now, he doesn’t count as true competition. Madd’s already too far ahead, and hewillcome out on top. I need you to understand that, princess. We’re gonna get your sister back, because Madd always wins.”
She stares at me hard, and in this moment, I can read her like a motherfucking book.
I’m certain she knows that our version of a win and hers don’t fully line up, but she also gets that right now, the biggest win is getting Chloe off the streets. And I see the moment it happens. The moment when she finally believes me. Trusts that she can count on us for this. Accepts that it’s gonna happen not just because the full resources of our organization are behind it, but because none of us in this house—not Madd, not Logan, and not me—are willing to accept anything else.
“Okay,” she says, her shoulders finally relaxing as she gives me a real smile.
A small one, but still. I’ll take it.
“But what happened to the mole?” she blurts after a minute, obviously sucked into the story despite herself. “Did Maddoc ever figure out who it was?”
“He did,” I say, twining my fingers through hers and lifting our joined hands up so I can admire the way my colorful ink contrasts with all her pale, silken skin.
“Well?” she asks impatiently, the fiery spark I love to see finally back in her eyes as she tugs against my hold. “What did Maddoc do? What happened to the guy?”
I don’t let her go. Can’t, really. Instead, I lift her hand to my mouth and press a kiss over her wrist where a faint red line still lingers from those cuffs we had her in.
Then I grin at her.
“You’re looking at him, princess. It was me.”
15
RILEY
I’m sostartled it takes me a minute to pick my jaw up off the floor. And then another moment—okay, maybe two—to decide Dante’s not just pranking me.
“Youwere a mole?” I shake my head in disbelief even as the words come out of my mouth. I wouldn’t have thought anything could truly distract me from my fears for Chloe right now, but Dante’s managed it.
He always calls Maddoc his brother, and for all the faults these men have, the depth of loyalty and trust I’ve seen between the two of them—between all three of them, really—gives truth to that title, regardless of blood. So his bombshell just doesn’t make sense. I can’t see Dante ever betraying either of his brothers, and yet even though he’s still smiling, those gorgeous green eyes of his turn serious as he confirms it.
“I was.” He idly rubs his fingers over the red dagger inked onto the back of his right thumb, a habit I’ve noticed before and wonder if he’s even aware of. “After my dad was killed, I was aimless for a bit. Aimless and fucking angry. And then I was recruited by the Crimson Crows.”
I flinch without meaning to, and his mouth quirks up in a knowing smirk. “So you’ve heard of them?”
“Only enough to know Chloe and I were safer staying away from them.”
Smarter to stay away fromallgang activity, of course, but from all accounts, the Crimson Crows were…
“They were brutal,” Dante says, like he’s reading my mind again.
I shudder. “Yeah. That’s what I always heard.”
Dante’s nodding again. “You heard right. Worse, the Crows treated their people like they were disposable. They had my loyalty at the time because I didn’t know there was another way. Not back then. But still, seeing the leadership of that organization rise to power by stepping on the backs of the ones who got them there started to rub me the wrong way even before Shank, that was the name of the dickhead in charge, decided Madd needed to be taken out.”
“Taken out?” I repeat, my stomach clenching. “He wanted you to kill Maddoc?”
Dante’s expressive mouth tightens. “He wanted me to do a lot of things. First and foremost, he sent me in to find out how the fuck someone with no allegiance and no rep had managed to do what Maddoc had in such a short period of time. He wasn’t really a player before the Reapers. Then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, he claims and holds some significant territory, and then goes on to grow it and strengthen his ties every fucking time we turned around.”
“And did you find out how he managed to do all that?” I ask, sucked into the story despite myself.
