Page 31 of C is For Corruption (Horsemen #3)

Az

My hand went to my hair and I tugged it, growling at myself over the action. Victoria stood with her mouth gaping open in shock in front of Candy, still holding the bloody knife. Angry wasn’t the right word to begin describing how I felt about how everything went down.

“Leighton, get a hold of Phil and sort this mess out.” I barked, my tone causing Victoria to flinch.

“Yep. On it.” He replied, more subdued than I could ever remember him being as he strolled from the warehouse, pulling his phone out as he went.

My eyes moved from Victoria to Craig. He still stood over Candy’s body, his belt hanging useless and bloody from his hands. I moved without a thought, closing the distance between us in a few long strides.

“I didn’t mean–” Victoria started.

“Stop.” I bit out, turning my attention back to Craig.

“I told you, I fucking told you not to give her more god damned ammo. That I’d reconcile this shit when the time came, but it wasn’t supposed to be today!

” I yelled. Craig opened his mouth to respond, but I cut him off.

“Fucking hell, I’m not actually saying it’s your fault, but I am yelling at you for it!

She shouldn’t have fucking been here, but I knew, I fucking knew, if I tried to stop her you’d just talk me out of it.

And you,” I whirled on Victoria, and her eyes widened.

“All you had to do was be our peace, but you just couldn’t do that.

You keep inserting yourself where you don’t have the skills to be, so fuck.

Fucking, fuck it! Starting tomorrow, you train like a fucking grunt.

I don’t want to hear a single god damned complaint out of you over it, either.

We could have learned something today, but instead, you let your emotions run you, and you killed our only lead. That will never happen again.”

“I know you’re pissed,” Craig started slowly. “But we did get information today from Jen. And knowing Candy the way I do, we were never going to get anything from her that we didn’t already have.”

“Jen’s info didn’t do anything except clarify what already went down.

Yeah, you knew Candy, but that doesn’t mean we wouldn’t have gotten anything else out of her.

The bitch loved to fucking slip bits of information out to taunt you the whole goddamned time you were fucking her! ” I bellowed, throwing my hands up.

“Az, you have every right to be angry, but you know as well as I do she wasn’t going to give us anything because we wanted her to. She’d rather have died. I know we don’t know that for certain, but we do.”

“Again. Angry, yelling. You just happen to be here!” I snapped.

A sniffle near us drew our attention, and I turned my head to see Victoria wiping tears from her eyes, leaving a blood smear across her cheek as she curled in on herself.

“I… I didn’t mean to. I just… I was so angry. I don’t—” Victoria’s voice quivered, and my mind warred between wanting to comfort her and throttle her.

“Well the fuck aware.” I snarked, barely able to rein in my anger enough not to rip into her completely.

“Bunny, that’s the problem. We don’t kill people without intention…” Craig trailed off, thinking, “Well, occasionally Leighton does. But even then , it’s never when it’s important. Everyone we end has a purpose.”

“What about me?” Leighton called out, walking back into the warehouse.

I rolled my eyes at him and returned my attention to Victoria.

“Tomorrow, when Ian leaves for work, you start training. No more going easy on you. No running to Craig when you feel like it’s too much.

When one of us says jump, and we will say jump, you start jumping.

We’ll tell you when you’ve jumped high enough.

No sass, no backtalk, you take your orders and follow through, just like any other boots on the fucking ground for the Horsemen. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, Sir.” Victoria said, looking at her hands as she fidgeted with her fingers.

“Don’t either of you go easy on her either.

She’s in this for real now, no backing out and no pulling punches.

She wasn’t built for this life, but she’s here and we’re going to make sure she fucking survives it.

Where the fuck is Joey?” I asked, effectively ending the conversation about Victoria’s training.

“What?” Joey’s clipped response had me turning in his direction, where he stood just inside the warehouse door.

“Starting tomorrow, you’re back to training her with the rest of us. She’s following in your fucking footsteps, and since she won’t take ‘no’ for a fucking answer, we’re going to make sure she’s not a danger or a liability.” I snapped back.

“The fuck? I get training her to keep her safe, but since when are we bringing her in ? That’s never been the plan!” He started storming toward us, a heavy glower on his face.

“Since she keeps killing people, that’s when. She has a body count of two, do you really want her racking up more on accident? ”

“She killed Rinaldo on purpose.” Leighton remarked.

“Not what I meant smartass, and you fucking know it.” I growled, reaching out to smack him in the back of the head. “This was an accident, otherwise she’d never have landed another body on my watch.”

Phil walked in with a small crew following behind him, acknowledged us with a two-finger salute, and started directing the clean-up operations. I gave everyone a harsh look, moved outside to the SUV without looking back, climbed in the driver’s seat, and slammed the door.

I had to remind myself to slow down when we got closer to Dawn and Ian’s house; it wouldn’t do for us to get pulled over for speeding while we had two people covered in blood in the car.

My hands hurt from how hard I gripped the steering wheel as I pulled in, cut the engine, and climbed out.

I slammed the door behind myself and stormed up to the house.

Fuck, I wanted to hit something. Or to smash things up like I had in my room at the manor, which felt like a lifetime ago. I couldn’t do either here, and I had to remind myself not to jerk the front door off the hinges as I stepped inside. Dawn noticed something was off the second I stepped inside.

“Come with me.” She ordered. Standing from the couch and moving toward the kitchen.

I followed her in silence as she led me through the door in the kitchen and into her greenhouse.

She paused near a set of shelves, opening them and reaching high enough that she had to stand on her tiptoes.

Before I could ask if she wanted help, she’d pulled down a whiskey bottle and returned for two glasses.

“When Rich would call me, I’d always come out here.

” She started, pouring both of us two fingers before handing me a glass.

“I didn’t drink every time, but the times when it was bad…

When the things he was telling me made me sure I was going to bury one of my boys, I’d have a drink to calm my nerves.

” She took a sip from her glass and then let out a huff.

“Who’d have figured it wouldn’t be any of those calls that cost me one of you.

” She shook her head and then pinned her gaze on me.

“You wanna tell me what’s going on? What’s got you all in a tizzy? ”

“I don’t think you want to know, Dawn.” I sighed before taking a sip of my whiskey.

“Well, the way I figure it, you can tell me, or I can just guess until I get it right. Either way, I think you need to let it out before it eats you up inside.”

I set my glass down on the long table where she had plants in the process of being repotted and studied her.

Rich called her when there was a problem he couldn’t solve, but, as far as I knew, he never told her more than he needed to work shit out.

My chest twinged with the reminder that I wasn’t him.

I didn’t know what lines I couldn’t cross when talking to his mother.

I knew I was starting to crumble under the pressure of his absence.

“Alright. I’ll start guessing.” Dawn nodded, taking my silence as an answer while I was still wondering if I could talk to her about what happened at the warehouse.

“Your interrogation didn’t go too well. If I had to wager, based on the glimpse I got of the rest of them getting out of the SUV when we stepped back here, somebody got a little trigger-happy before you could get your answers. ”

My head whipped back in shock. “How–”

“My son may not have wanted to tell me everything, but I’m not stupid.

I raised two mobsters, so I know enough.

It didn’t take a genius to know he moved us all the way out here away from Sacona so we couldn’t be used against you boys.

And you definitely don’t have to be the brightest to put two and two together when your child is telling you about a problem and a few days later there’s missing gangsters or bodies in the paper.

” She reached out and patted me on the shoulder.

“So, who messed up? My money is on Leighton. That boy has had impulse control issues as long as we’ve known him.

I still have nightmares about Collin confetti. ”

“Victoria, actually,” I answered, unsure I wanted to know what Collin confetti was about.

“Can’t say I saw that one coming.” She huffed, taking another sip of her drink. “Can’t say I’m mad about it either, though. You boys need a woman who has your back just the same as you have each other’s. She’s got the will, so tell me, Az, you gonna give her the way?”

I raked a hand through my hair with a groan.

“Rich didn’t want this for her. I don’t want this for her, but she’s not leaving me any choice.

” I started pacing along the length of the table, my hand on the back of my neck.

“I told her, I fucking told her that we didn’t need her to be a sword for us, we could do that.

We need her to be our peace! But she won’t listen!

” I could feel my chest tighten as my mind started flashing with all the ways this could go wrong.

Dawn sipped her whiskey, watching me with a patient look as I paced, but didn’t say anything. I picked up my glass, downing the contents and relishing the burn on the way down.

“I keep feeling like if he were here, he’d know what to do or, or what to say.

She fought him, yeah, but it was… it felt different.

He would have known how to handle her. Fuck, how to handle all of this!

” I set the glass down before I threw it.

My chest was tight, my head hurt, and my eyes burned.

“I wasn’t meant for this role! I was his right hand, his back up.

I wasn’t meant to lead, and everything is falling apart around me and I don’t… I… I can’t make it stop.”

My words were starting to jumble in my head; the world was going blurry as tears filled my eyes despite my attempts to stop it.

“He said the same thing to me once,” Dawn’s voice was soft as she set her glass down, “After Richie and Victoria got into their little spat because of his stubbornness, he called me. He was heartbroken and ashamed of himself. But he believed he was doing the best thing for her. I remember how he sounded when he said he felt like everything was falling apart, slipping through his fingers, and he didn’t know how to catch it all.

He was fighting with Joey, scared to death for all of you.

” She sounded so distant as she recalled their conversation, and something inside me started to crack.

“His shoulders weren’t made of steel, but he tried to carry it all anyway.

I kept trying to tell him, that’s what God and your momma’s for.

” She cleared her throat, looking at me.

“The point is, don’t try to create an image in your mind that he would have had all the answers.

He was only human, too, and he struggled.

It’s okay to feel like you don’t know what to do next, struggle, or even be afraid. ”

“I still need him here.” I croaked out. “It’s not the same with the other guys. I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s just not. Without him, I don’t have the one person I could go to when I needed my head sorted out. He had you, and I just… without him, I’ve got nothing.” I sobbed.

“Listen to me, Az Casadei.” Dawn said sternly, gripping my chin in her hand.

“I know I ain’t your momma, God rest her soul, but you’re my son as much as the rest of them.

I know you looked up to Rich and he helped you through some pretty dark days.

You two were close, and he loved you too.

It’s okay to grieve that. You need to grieve that.

But don’t you ever for a second think you’ve got nobody in your corner because, boy, I’ve been cheering you on since the first time your momma showed me them baby blues. ”

I was trembling from how hard I was trying to hold on to my composure, and it felt like I was pushing a boulder up a hill.

Dawn let go of my chin and wrapped her arms around me, pulling me down so my head was tucked under her chin like a small child.

She patted my back with one hand when she positioned me how she wanted.

“Now, you let it all out, honey. I ain’t going anywhere. ”

I wrapped my arms around her and buried my face as well as I could in the side of her neck.

The scent of baked goods, a soft floral perfume, freshly turned dirt, and the hint of whiskey wrapped around me like an extension of the hug she gave me.

And the part of me that was cracking finally broke.

Sobs wracked me, and it took everything to keep standing as I held on to the petite woman.

She shushed me and rubbed her hand up and down my back as I cried.

I don’t know how long we stood there before the well ran dry. Dawn’s steady comfort and the back pats felt like they were piecing my mind back together, one shushing sound at a time.