Page 4

The big fucker’s hands hang off his knees as he tilts his head and stares into Lorenzo’s face. He doesn’t have to say a word – his appearance and reputation do all the work for him.

The longer Brix glares at Lorenzo, the sorrier I feel for the bastard…because the pure, unadulterated rage etched into every line of my brother’s face is a sign Lorenzo won’t be walking out of here regardless of the information he gives us.

“Listen, it’s nothing more than a rumor,” Lorenzo finally says, grunting a sound of relief when I pull the pistol from his head. He thinks he might have saved his own life.

“What kind of rumor?” Madd asks from across the room.

He’s leaning against the counter, his arms crossed, a mixture of anger and boredom in his eyes as he sighs and rolls his head on his shoulders to crack his neck. I know he’s pissed he doesn’t get to exert some of his pent up energy through a little torture.

Thing is, we’ve been chasing rumors and tidbits of information for four years and have found jack shit.

But someone has to know where the bitch is, someone has to have seen her over the years. Even if she crossed the ocean and is living overseas, our reach is endless. We have contacts in every corner of the fucking universe, and she knows that.

“She’s dancing,” Lorenzo says when Brix pushes to his full height and looms over him like the fucking grim reaper.

Honestly, I’m not sure which of us would win if I ever had to go toe to toe with my brother. I can only hope his loyalty to me and the Family is enough to keep him from ripping my arm from my shoulder and beating me to death with it someday.

“Stripping?” Madd asks, pushing from the counter and stalking over, his arms hanging loose at his sides as he flexes his hands then curls them into tight fists. The dark ink running from his fingertips, up and around his wrists, and up his arms to disappear under his sleeves almost looks like a living organism with the way the tattoos move with the rippling of his muscles.

“Yeah. That’s the word. Two states over.” Lorenzo licks at the blood seeping from his split lip.

Dude looks like shit, his eye already swelling shut, bruising and swelling making him damned near unrecognizable. But if he doesn’t start talking a little faster, it’s going to get a whole lot worse instead of earning him a quick death.

He’ll die either way, but no point in telling him that. He should fucking know from history alone. He’s been a low-level informant for my Family long enough to know how this show ends.

“Which direction? Which fucking state? You’re not giving us much,” I say, keeping the gun where he can see it without directly shoving it against his head again.

Nah. Brix taking another step closer is enough to get his lips flapping like a fucking fish out of water.

“I heard she was in Georgia.”

I glance at Brix then Madd. “Why the fuck would she go to Georgia?” I mutter.

For some reason, I’d always thought she would have gotten on a plane and headed to the UK. While nowhere would ever be out of our reach, it might have been harder to find her there.

Then again, the three of us have been searching for Everest for the past four years, and the crafty bitch has been able to stay off the grid and under our radar. No paper trail. No social media.

Nothing. She has become a fucking ghost.

Madd sucks his teeth. Brix continues to glare down at Lorenzo as though he’s the cause of our lives being turned upside down and almost fucking completely ruined.

“Got a city? A club name? A fuckingstage name? Anything?” I ask as I circle behind him and jerk my chin at Brix, the only warning he’ll get to move out of the way now before he ends up painted with blood, brains, and pieces of skull.

“Fuck…uh…” Lorenzo tries to follow my movement but can only turn so much. He’s panicking now, his voice rising a couple octaves. He could easily clam up now and the end result would be the same.

“Come on, man. How the fuck am I taking the blame for this shit?”

I hate when they whine. Not as much as when they piss themselves, but that whiney shit grates my nerves.

“You sat on information for months. Information you knew damn well we wanted. You could have ended up as a trusted member of the Family if you’d been more loyal,” I remind him.

“Fuck you,” he says after a few moments. He still has some intel we want, information we need. But he’s come to the correct conclusion – he’s a dead man either way.

I don’t blame him. If I knew I would end up in a puddle of my own blood I probably wouldn’t sing, either.

Brix quickly moves to the left a second before I put the muzzle to the back of Lorenzo’s head and pull the trigger. The force of the bullet forces his head forward as a hole explodes through his forehead.

As he goes limp in the chair, his face pointed at his lap, blood pours from the gaping wound and puddles in his lap before trailing over his legs and onto the concrete floor below him.