Page 47 of C is For Corruption (Horsemen #3)

Leighton

Az and Craig were in the living room when I came down the next morning. Their eyes were focused on the TV, and the tight set of Az’s jaw told me something was wrong. He lifted the remote and muted it the moment he spotted me.

“Where’s Joey?” He asked.

“Fuck if I know,” I shrugged. “I haven’t exactly seen him since that night in his room. From what my guys have told me, he’s been holed up in that warehouse of his getting things back up and running.”

“Someone made a move last night. Three homes set on fire and a dozen bodies. Craig already hacked the coroner’s office and confirmed most of them are Jackals, but four of them were ours.”

“Fuck.” I hissed. “Where?”

“Not anywhere near the locations the ones you brought me last night gave up. They didn’t have anything beyond the rest of their own crew to give me. We already knew that from Jen though, so that wasn’t a surprise.”

“Someone slipped him intel he didn’t bother sharing with the rest of us.

” Az bit out. “That’s the only thing that makes sense.

Fucking hell, I knew after that fucking wall of his that he’d gotten secretive, but I didn’t expect this.

” Az tugged at his hair in frustration. “We had a plan. Take advantage of the Jackals going ghost as long as we could to prepare, dig up everything we could find, then take them on. What the hell was he thinking?”

Craig leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “How did we let him get this far gone? No way the Jackals don’t retaliate for this and we’ve got no way of getting intel without getting one of ours killed because Joey decided to go rogue.”

“I might be able to do something about intel.” I offered. “But you two will have to deal with Joey if you want him to keep breathing.”

“Fuck!” Az shouted, tugging at his hair again before giving me his attention. “Find out what you can. I’ll send someone to hunt down Joey and we’ll deal with him later.”

“On it,” I replied, stepping back and heading upstairs to my bedroom.

I took the stairs two at a time in my hurry, practically running once my feet hit the second-floor landing. The second I reached my room, I made a beeline for my nightstand, where my phone was still plugged into the charger. Dialing a number I knew by heart, I put the phone to my ear and waited.

“Leighton?” Sarah answered on the third ring. “Quite a show you boys put on over on Twelfth and Poppy.”

“Wasn’t an authorized hit.” I replied.

“Shit. What do you need?”

“Anything the Urchins can find. One of ours went rogue and decided to get revenge on their terms instead of ours. We need to prepare for the backlash, but we can’t put boots on the ground to get what we need.

” For some reason, my mouth had decided to protect Joey instead of naming him as the idiot who went rogue.

“Whatever you need, Leighton. You know the Urchins have your back. Always.”

“Thanks, Sarah. Call me when you have something and we’ll set the meeting.”

“Sure thing, Leighton. Keep your ass alive in the meantime. You may be a Horseman now, but you will always be family. Don’t make us attend your funeral.” She ended the call without saying goodbye.

Az. Craig and I all holed up in Ian’s office for the rest of the morning.

Craig worked on his laptop, doing whatever it was he did with the thing to gather information, while Az put out calls to our men to find Joey.

None of Joey’s crew answered their phones, and I could tell it was ratcheting up Az’s temper with each man who sent him to voicemail.

Just when I was sure he was about to explode, my cell phone rang in my pocket.

“Sarah, you got something for me?” I asked, not bothering with a greeting.

“I think so. Where do you want to meet?”

I rattled off the address of a safe house we’d recently secured and told her we’d meet her there in about an hour. The tension from Az’s growing temper seemed to evaporate as I set the meeting, and by the time I ended the call, he was looking at me with something akin to hope.

“Craig and I will go with. Once we have the intel from your contact, we’ll head over to Joey’s new warehouse and see if he’s still there while you hunt down his crew and see if you can’t get some fucking answers out of them.

Where’s Victoria? She’s going to be pissed, but I want her to stay here.

This isn’t like the hunt you took her on, the Jackals are most assuredly looking for us and will shoot first if they spot us. She’s not ready for that kind of heat.”

“She was still asleep when I came downstairs.” Craig said. “If she hasn’t made her way in here to find us, I’m guessing she’s not up yet. It was a long ass night.”

“Make sure. If she is, leave her a note so she knows we’re out. She can be pissed about it later when we get back.” Az replied.

Craig met us at the front door ten minutes later, confirming that Victoria was still sleeping and he’d left a note.

We loaded into the SUV and drove to the safe house in silence.

Something that seemed suspiciously like anxiety coiled in my chest as we made the nearly hour drive, warring with the need to protect my woman and family.

I was so wound up that I didn’t wait for Az to put the vehicle in park before I was climbing out of the door when we pulled into the driveway of the small cottage we’d secured as a safe house.

The front door was unlocked, but that wasn’t a surprise.

Sarah would have beat us here. When I stepped inside and didn’t immediately spot her in the living room, I went to the small kitchen, expecting to find her making a cup of tea.

That had always been her go-to when dealing with heavy shit, and she’d consider war between the Horsemen and Jackals to be heavy.

I stopped in my tracks just inside the kitchen.

“No, no, no, no, no.” The word tumbled from my lips over and over.

Sarah was splayed out on the dining table, her hands stretched out and pinned down to the table with large knives.

Blood was everywhere, dripping off the finished wood and making a soft pattering sound as it hit the linoleum flooring.

I stumbled toward her, something inside me twisting in a way that made me sick to my stomach.

“No. Fuck. Come on, Sarah, breathe.” I commanded as I reached the table, my hands falling to her chest and starting some semblance of compressions.

On some level, I knew it was pointless. Sarah’s throat had been slashed, and the cuts along her body were all deep.

Her jaw was slack, allowing her mouth to hang open just enough to see that someone had cut out her tongue.

Still, I couldn’t stop. Incoherent words spilled from my lips as I desperately tried to bring her back to life.

“Leighton,” Craig’s voice was soft as his hand landed on my shoulder. “She’s gone. You gotta stop man, she’s not coming back from this.”

I ignored him, continuing to do compressions even as I felt her ribs snap under my hands. I was vaguely aware of my name being spoken again before a hand jerked my shoulder, pulling me away and turning me from Sarah’s lifeless form.

“NO!” I roared, violently shrugging out of Az’s hand and turning back to the table. “I can’t let this happen. Not this. Not again!”

There was a wetness down my face I didn’t quite understand, and I swiped it away with my hand, smearing Sarah’s blood across my cheeks.

My eyes burned and blurred, but the wetness still came.

Az tugged at me again, hard enough to spin me around before he wrapped his arms around me in a tight hold that almost resembled a hug.

“She’s gone, Leighton.” He murmured, and something inside me cracked open wide.

Everything I had refused to feel came surging forward. Feelings I didn’t even know I was capable of crashed over me, threatening to drag me under.

“It’s my fault. It’s my fucking fault.” I cried out, my voice cracking on a sob. “I shouldn’t have asked her to get intel. I got her killed. She’s gone, just like Rich. I can’t.. I can’t...”

I felt Craig move in, adding his arms to the hold Az had me in and I wanted to rage against them. I didn’t deserve their comfort.

“This isn’t on you, Leighton.” Az said.

“Yes, it is.” I insisted. “Just like Rich. If I had prepared more, stashed more weapons… Thought shit through like he always told me I needed to do, neither of them would be dead. He would still be here and I wouldn’t have had a reason to ask Sarah to dig up information.”

“There’s nothing any of us could have done differently.” Craig replied in a tone meant to be soothing.

His words hit something inside me that streaked blinding pain through my entire body, and I fought to break out of their hold. They only closed in tighter, forcing me to bear the weight of their bodies as their arms tightened to keep me from breaking free.

“This isn’t your fault, Leighton.” Az insisted again.

I wanted to shove him away, but I couldn’t. He and Craig were holding me too tightly between them for me to do much more than squirm.

“I knew we were at war and I didn’t prepare.

I was too busy having fun. Too busy not thinking things through and just revelling in the hunt.

I should…” Tears streamed down my face, and I realized I’d been crying the whole time, something I’d never actually done in all the time I could remember. “I should have…"

“No.” Craig’s voice was hard enough to break through the guilt drowning me alive. “All of us can say we should have done something different. That doesn’t make it our fault. That doesn’t make it your fault either, Leighton.”

“Hindsight is a bitch,” Az added. “But we couldn’t have done anything differently than we did.

You did everything you should have done, Leighton.

You are the reason the rest of us are standing here.

Candy’s men were going to put a bullet in each of our heads after she took off with Craig.

You stopped them. You . Not me, not Joey. You.”

“But–”

“No but’s man. You know I’m right.” Az cut me off.

“Why does it hurt so badly, then? I’m not the guy that feels things, but I… fuck, it hurts.”

“You’ve always felt things, L. You just didn’t acknowledge it or know how to process it.” Craig replied. “It’s okay to hurt. We’re all hurting over Rich.”

“I wish he were still here,” I whispered.

Craig and Az squeezed me tighter in response, letting me take as much time as I needed to find my way through the tidal wave of unfamiliar emotions that had burst free. I couldn’t say how long we stood there in some strange three-person bear hug, but eventually, I found my way back to the surface.

“Are you gonna be alright for now?” Az asked gently as they released me from their hold.

“Yes…no… fuck I have no idea.” I replied with a shake of my head.

“That’s normal.” Craig offered with a sad smile.

“Yay.” I drawled sarcastically, rolling my eyes. “Look at me feeling things and shit.”

Az snorted, and Craig shook his head. “Yeah, you’re gonna be just fine if you’re back to cracking jokes.

” Az said. “I’m gonna call Phil to deal with this.

Craig, you stay in Leighton’s place to look for anything she might have brought for us.

Leighton, you can come with me or you can head back to the Innocenti’s. Your call.”

Swiping my face with the back of my arm, I took a second to consider his offer. “I’ll go with you. I need to hear for myself what the fuck Joey was thinking. He has to answer for his fuck up.”