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This feels like fuckingGroundhog Day. Alix and I received a similar threat last month, but on a much tighter timetable. I never had to make a final decision about ponying up; the cocksuckers released their tape in revenge for the raid I authorized on their Long Island compound.
This time, the Herzogs are fucking models of patience. They’re giving the Ring six weeks to cough up the cash. I suspect that means they really want the money. They don’t just want to ruin my clients’ professional and business lives.
Wait.
One Diamond Ring tape has already been released.
Braiden Kelly’s face is splashed across every news site in the world.
The Herzog motherfuckers are playing from their old rulebook. Theycouldhave jacked Kelly up for a billion dollars if they wanted, same as they tried with me. They could have gone for every kilo of Crash that Kelly lifted from the Philly warehouse. They could have pushed him out of the drug trade altogether, leaning on the Irish mob from Boston to Atlanta.
But they’d rather see him hang with Alix and me.
The headlines scream from my computer:
Philly Crime Boss Implicated in Freeport Murder
Blood on Kelly’s Hands
Kelly Murder Tape Breaks Internet
Jonas and Ansel have their revenge for the warehouse raid. They’ve got it in fucking spades.
And they’re smart sons of bitches too. Because every other member of the Diamond Ring has a front-row seat to what will happen if he doesn’t pay up. The writing’s on the fucking wall.
And Diamond Freeport’s about to collapse under the weight of it all.
9
ALIX
* * *
Istand in the hospital waiting room, staring at an aquarium full of brightly colored fish. I’m trying to catch my breath after braving the mad crowd of paparazzi who followed me here to the hospital. I’m grateful the hyenas aren’t allowed inside the building, but I’m already dreading the gauntlet when I leave.
I read somewhere that fishtanks are supposed to be soothing; that’s why they keep them in places where people are under a lot of stress. Maybe that’s true. But I keep thinking of all the movies I’ve watched where a massive aquarium is destroyed—usually by gunshot—and a tidal wave of fish and water drowns everything in sight.
I feel like I’m the one drowning here.
Jonas and Ansel Herzog are doing their level best to destroy me. Me, and everyone I’ve come to depend on—Trap and his Diamond Ring. I killed the Herzogs’ brother so they’re going to kill me, inch by painful inch.
I don’t believe in heaven. I think the world we live in is actually hell. That’s why we have war. Poverty. Disease. That’s why men like the Herzogs exist, predators who consume women, children, anyone weaker than they are.
Hell is the only explanation for Klaus Herzog’s “special guests,” the men of power and prestige who brutalized me for personal pleasure.
Hell explains street drugs—Crash, meth, heroin.
Hell explains Leo.
For the first seventeen years of my life, I wasn’t closer to anyone. For the next nine years, I ached for him. I prayed for him. I was desperate to save him.
And for the last three years I cursed him. He sold me to Herzog. He got himself killed, so I couldn’t even beg him to save me, couldn’t plead with him to help me escape. I couldn’t hurt him the way he devastated me, couldn’t kick him or scratch him or bite him.
The old Alix would have been overjoyed to discover her twin was still alive. No matter what he did, no matter how far he strayed, she would have hugged him and kissed his cheek and wept tears of joy that he’d somehow, miraculously been spared.
But the new Alix, the damned Alix,me… I can’t rejoice. I can’t celebrate. My heart has been replaced by a rock.
And the worst part? The most hellish fact of all?
