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Brute
“What is it you think this is about?” Gabe asked.
His hands were clenched in fists, just like Nico’s and Vito’s. Deo paced the room, glancing at the computer monitor with each pass. Raven and Leo stared at me, spines straight, expressions anxious. Everyone was restless. We needed to be out the damn door. Now.
Because that was the plan—follow Greta straight to Mexico, divide up into two groups. Two waves. We’d hit Domínguez and his men with the wave he was expecting, and then we’d come at him with the other. Kill every one of Domínguez’s men we came across in the process and take Greta back.
But it was the plan that Domínguez was expecting. In fact, I was damn sure he was counting on it.
“Think about it,” I said. “We’re a giant, fucking target. In no other place could a man lure away all the big players with one piece of bait. Nowhere, but here where all of us bikers and mafia men work together like we’re one big, fucked up family.”
Deo stopped pacing. “You think we’re walking into a bloodbath?”
I shook my head. “I think we’re walking into a ghost town.” And god fucking help me if I was wrong. “He’s coming for us and everything we have.”
The room was silent, so quiet, I swear I could hear every heartbeat thudding in double time.
Gabe’s gaze flickered to the computer monitor where Greta’s red dot was still moving, still heading in the direction of the RHC airstrip. But if I was right, that dot wasn’t Greta.
Gabe scrubbed his hands through his hair, still staring at the screen. “We’re the ones taking the bait, not Domínguez—that’s what you’re saying?”
I nodded. “He’s been ahead of us all along. We thought we one-upped him here, but what if we haven’t?”
Vito and Deo cursed in tandem.
Gabe dropped his hands and looked at Nico, but there sure as hell wasn’t time forthis.
“That tracker,” I said, nodding at the monitor screen, “can you backtrack it?”
Gabe nodded. “Si, it records. Why?”
“Backtrack it to sixty seconds ago.” It was hard to believe only a minute had passed. It felt like a goddamned lifetime. “And zoom in on the dot.”
Gabe did just that, turning back the dot’s progression across the screen.
“There. Stop it there.” It was the moment the red dot had paused. “Is there a traffic light or a stop sign there?”
Gabe zoomed in a little more, but I recognized the street and the SUV’s location on it—still a hundred yards from the nearest traffic light.
“They stopped in the middle of the street,” Leo said, watching the screen from beside me.
I nodded, ignoring the way it felt like I was coming apart. “They stopped long enough to hand off Greta or the tracker in her.” Except, it wasn’tinher anymore. They’d ripped it out of her, and knowing that made it feel like something inside me was being ripped out along with it.
Think, don’t feel, don’t give in.Because burning the whole world to the ground was looking damn good at the moment.
“But if Greta’s not headed for the airstrip,” Raven said, her voice quiet at first, but then it got louder and louder, “where is she? Where are they taking her?”
Silence. No answer. No one in this room had an answer.
“I don’t know,” I said, because the silence felt worse than anything else. “But I’m going to find her.” It’s what I’d promised her, and I was damn sure going to keep that promise.
“I didn’t see it,” Gabe said. His voice wasn’t just strained now; it was damn near agonized. “I didn’t see what Domínguez was planning, I didn’t see the pause on the goddamned monitor. I didn’t fucking see it coming.”
“All right,” Nico said. He was still holding Raven’s hand, but he’d stood up straighter. This was the don of the Costa family I’d grown accustomed to seeing.
“Let’s assume you’re right,” he said, nodding to me, “and Domínguez’s goal is to topple us—all of us. Where would he go?”
“He’d want front-row seats,” Deo said, and Vito nodded. “If he really believes he can pull this off, he’ll want to see it, orchestrate it, be right in the goddamn middle of it.”
