Page 123 of Blackwood

The girl nods, wide-eyed and quiet. Bella walks off with her, still not looking at me, and it shouldn’t sting but it fucking does.

Knox and Nate head out to help the rest of the kids. Bella hands the little girl to an EMT. The little girl tries to latch ontoBella. She must say something to calm her down, because she nods and finally lets go.

Then Tex appears, silent and lethal as ever, and walks straight to Bella. Laing joins them. The three of them start talking. Quiet. Focused.

Knox steps up beside me, hands in his pockets, watching everything unfold. “You ready for a real show?” he asks, voice low but laced with something different. Almost proud.

I scoff. “Better than all this?” I say, gesturing around at the busted building, flashing lights, and Laing’s smug ass hovering way too close to my girl.

Knox tips his chin, cocky. “Just wait until we get the kids out of here.”

The ambulance doors shut with a final clank, sirens fading as they roll off with the kids. A breath leaves my chest I didn’t know I was holding.

“Alright. Let’s go.” Knox says and I fall in step beside him.

We round the side of the building and I see them. Bella, Tex, and Mortal Fucking Kombat are standing in a loose arc around two metal folding chairs.

And strapped to those chairs? The remaining muscle from the seller’s crew. They’re sweating bullets. Eyes flicking between the three people in front of them and the corpse cooling on the concrete beside them.

One shot.

Left eye.

Whole damn socket… gone.

Damn, nice shootin’ Tex.

Chapter 40

BELLA

Queens, New York.

581 Days Since Zeke’s Death

“Where’s Krolek?” I don’t yell. I don’t bark. I ask calmly. Which is exactly why both men strapped to those folding chairs start to sweat a little harder. Their gazes shift from the body slumped on the ground, to each other, and to the blood soaking into the concrete.

They don’t answer. Not even a stutter. They look at him. Tex. Then at Laing. And that’s their first mistake. Laing cracks his neck and steps forward.

“Yeah,” he says, voice casual and almost cheerful. “You’re gonna want to answer her.”

Tex doesn’t say a word. Just walks over to the wall, crosses his arms, and leans back against it like he already knows how this ends.

Our guests still don’t say a word.

“Fine. Guess we’re doing this the fun way,” I say.

BANG.

My gun kicks back, smooth and sharp. Left shoulder, just a little love tap. He screams.

Scarface, the other one with the jagged gash cutting across his brow shouts at me,“You crazy bitch!”

Apparently, he’s not a fan of me shooting his buddy.

“Laing,” I sigh, bored.

BANG.