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I’d missed.
I’d clipped the car.
But they’d still stepped back, laughing as if my attempts amused them as I swung again and again while struggling to get to my knees and then my feet. Nearly falling back to the road as my body had betrayed me.
It wasn’t until the third man—who had been standing back, watching the entire thing as if we’d been his entertainment for the night—stepped up and began testing the weight of the bat in his hands, that I’d known there was no escaping that night.
No escaping them.
And then sirens had sounded in the distance.
The men hadn’t waited to see if the sirens were for us, and they hadn’t rushed to end the game they’d clearly been playing with me. They’d just turned and slowly, casually walked down the street. Away from me and the approaching sirens as if they hadn’t just left a dead man in the middle of the road.
Diggs stayed silent as I reluctantly recalled that night through strained sobs and trembling breaths, all while brushing away my tears as fast as they came. Once I’d lowered my head to his with a depleted sigh, he demanded, “Give me a way to find them.” The threat in his voice low and clear.
“They’re already here.”
His head slanted against mine as he gave another gentle brush against my cheekbone. “Person in your apartment is here for my family,” he said softly, apologetically. “They’re after you because I couldn’t let you go.”
“No, I saw them,” I argued as I leaned back, then corrected, “One. One of them. It’s—God, it’s complicated.” I dragged one of my hands across my face and tried ignoring the feel of smeared mascara beneath my fingers.
“I moved from Virginia because I couldn’t escape it,” I explained, embarrassment creeping up my neck and into my cheeks as I went on. “Everywhere I looked, I thought I saw one of them...except they were never actually there.”
“That’s normal after what you went through.”
My chest pitched with the force of my next breath. “Yeah, well, I needed to get away. None of those people were ever found, the detectives were closing the investigation, and I couldn’t escape these horrific flashbacks. So, I came here.” I waved my hand toward the windshield. “To a small town so opposite of Richmond, thinking it would help me heal from everything. And it did,” I quickly added. “I haven’t had a flashback since moving here...until this morning.”
Diggs’ eyes bounced quickly as he took in my face. “You’d been crying when I saw you this morning,” he mumbled as if to himself. “Is that what happened?” When I nodded, he said, “Tell me what you saw.”
“One of them,” I repeated.
“But how do you know it was one of them?” he asked urgently.
“Because they wear these—” I gestured wildly to my face as I struggled to find the words I knew so well. “Masks. These neon masks. And I bumped into him right outside my apartment, but I thought—”
“Wait, wait, stop,” he ground out, hand in the air and trembling as he sat back, face a beautiful mask of rage and wrath before he slammed his hand against my steering wheel. “Fuck.”
“Jesus, what?” I cried out, but he hurriedly grabbed his phone and had a call going through within seconds. “Talk to me,” I begged when he forced my car into drive and whipped out onto the road.
“You said they killed your boyfriend savagely?” Diggs asked in clarification before barking, “Would a Borello go to Keane Street?” into the phone. His head moved in tight jerks as he hurried to add, “I know, I know, but think about it. Think about the way they’ve been leaving—” Wild, worried eyes met mine for a moment before snapping back to the road. “Think about it. I’m almost there.”
“Diggs, what is going on?” I demanded when he ended the call and curled his hand tightly around his phone, looking like he’d crush it if he could.
“I’m supposed to bring you into this so fucking slowly—over days and weeks and months, not a crash course of a conversation after everything you just told me,” he said, words harsh and agitated as he took a sharp turn and came to a screeching halt in front of a gated drive. Pulling out his phone, he tapped out a quick message as he continued. “But I think you’re right. I think the person in your apartment was one of the people who killed your boyfriend. Or, at least, is associated with them. Problem is, I think they’re the same people who are after us.”
That same chill I’d become so accustomed to had burst through my veins at his affirmation and was quickly overpowered by doubt and confusion. “What? No. No, why would they be—they’re a gang from Virginia. How would they even know you?”
He looked at me just as the gate began opening, voice dropping low and hands twitching restlessly against the steering wheel as he studied me. Head already shaking when he asked, “You wanna know me? You think you can handle who I am?”
“I know I can,” I said, the confidence I felt in my soul masked by my fear of this night.
“Over the past week, people with loose connections to us have been ruthlessly, savagely killed by people who are ghosts, even to me,” Diggs said softly, slowly. His eyes never once leaving mine as he gauged my reaction to the gravity of what he was saying—as I realized he had truly been trying to keep his distance for a reason. “There are people in Virginia who murder that way—the Keane Street Gang. They’re your neon masks.”
“Oh my God,” I breathed as the weight of my nightmares settled on my chest.
A year of investigations that had gotten nowhere and with no leads, and Diggs had just tossed out the suspects’ gang name as if it were a commonly known thing.
“How do you just know that and why do you think we’re talking about the same group? Because you didn’t think it was them before. And why are they killing people who are connected to you?”
