Page 25 of Entangled With The Hellhound

“What’s the job?” I ask without preamble. I can feel the bubbling of the kill ramping up inside of me.

“First things first. Roxy’s place was broken into.”

“Wait… what the fuck! Where’s Wire’s ass?” I look around for the bastard, but he’s nowhere in sight.

“Wire was with her. Calm down. Why are you so mad? Is Roxy…” Axel doesn’t finish his question as he ticks his head to the side and studies me for a second. I take a deep breath to calm myself.

I have absolutely no claim on Roxy; hell, the only thing we’ve done is fool around a little. But I still feel like she’s my responsibility.

“I’m good. Who broke into her place? And does this have anything to do with the job?” I asked, getting back to the point.

“We found one of Raymond’s boys not too far from her complex. He didn’t feel like talking. We still can’t find Po Boy or Raymond, so we need answers that only death can scare out of him. He’s a low level dealer in the Street Lords crew. Calls himself T-money. A real gutter motherfucker. If it was him that broke into Roxy’s place, I’m glad she wasn’t there. He’s had more than a few rape charges against him.”

After Rock tells us a few more details about the break-in and T-money, I’m ready to do my part.

“He’s in the lounge.” Ace stands, and I follow him.

The lounge is what we call the basement dungeon we have. There are benefits to owning a large building in the middle of nowhere. Guests of the lounge never walk out on their own. So no matter what this asshole tells us, he is still a dead man.

Ace and I walk down the back stairs away from the crowd and party and around the corner to the lounge door. Ace places his palm on the reader, and the door slides open. The new digital palm reader is something new that Wire got from a friend of his from a place called Founder’s Island.

They must take their security seriously out there because Wire swears that the high-tech feature can’t be hacked. I’m inclined to believe him cause nobody has been able to breach our system since we upgraded it.

The metal door slides open, and we walk past two small rooms that we use as holding cells before we make it into the largest room. The man isn’t as small as I thought he’d be, but it doesn’t matter his size. I ain’t afraid of no man.

“Hey! It’s about time you mothafuckas let me outta here. My crew ain’t gone be happy about this shit.” The man is talking a lot of shit for someone tied to a chair, but I can tell it’s all bravado because no matter what his mouth says, his eyes are wide with fright.

I can smell the stench of fear rolling off him in waves, and it makes the sinister side of me stretch and take notice. I can feel the shadows of my darkness seeping into my vision. I move my neck from side to side, cracking it in the process.

“Listen, man. I can tell you a crazy peckawood. I ain’t done nothin’. You got the wrong dude. Just let me outta here, and you’ll neva have to see my black ass again.”

“Peckawood,” Ace chuckles, “I haven’t heard that in a long time. I’ll have to say it to Sassy and see her face.”

I would laugh at the thought of Sassy hearing Ace use the racial slur, but my alter ego won’t let me laugh. Nothing is funny about dealing death.

“So, it seems you’re in the talking mood now. Why don’t you tell us who broke into Roxy’s place?” Ace asks in a calm voice as he walks around the chair meticulously slow.

“Man, fuck that snitchin’ ass hoe. I don’t know shit about no fuckin’ break-in.”

“Well, hell. I thought we were gettin’ somewhere.” Ace shakes his head in mock disappointment.

I walk to my special table and unzip the leather bag that’s settled on top. I slowly pull out my instruments one by one. The largest of my scalpels has made grown men cry, beg, and pray for mercy. But the only thing that came for them was the silence of the grim reaper.

“What the hell is he doin’? Aye, man, what the fuck you doin’ ova there?” The man is really scared now, but my thirst for the kill will need to be satisfied even if he starts talking.

“You go by T-money, right?” Ace says, but the guy doesn’t respond. Instead, his scared eyes follow my every movement while I sharpen my tools.

When I’m finished, I start toward T-money, and I can see his whole body tremble. He breaks out in a sweat, and I know his bitchass is about to talk.

“Okay, okay. Listen, I didn’t break into Roxy’s place.” I stop walking and stare at him so he can keep talking. “I was supposed to be watching her, except some huge redheaded motherfucka was with her, so I got lost. I swear I wasn’t in her place. I just got the text to go ova there when I saw big red.”

Again Ace starts to chuckle, and I know Wire just got a new nickname. It will piss him off, and the thought of pissing Wire off almost makes me smile.

“Who told you to watch Roxy? Was it Raymond?”

“I ain’t no fuckin’ rat!”

I don’t know why he’s trying to act like he didn’t just tell us exactly what we asked. I don’t know why he’s trying to be hard either, it’s not like we’re gonna tell his boys he didn’t snitch and how brave he was, but we killed him anyway. Nobody will ever find his body. It will be like he never existed.