Page 108 of Severed Heart (The Ravenhood Legacy #2)
Chapter Fifty-Six
T YLER
B LINK .
Exhausted and reeling from these last relentless weeks, images of my latest mission threaten to shutter in as I lower my truck windows, allowing the breeze in.
Fall announcing its imminent arrival as brisk air filters throughout the cabin.
Restless and unable to sleep, I left Delphine in bed to take a drive, and since then, I have ended up aimlessly roaming the streets of Triple Falls as I did years ago.
Only vaguely aware I’ve lost time due to the visions continually threatening to batter me.
Eyeing the clock on my dash, I see it’s a little past 3a.m. Since the day we buried Dom, Delphine and I have been vigilantly trying to stop the hemorrhaging that started with that gunfight—and after, an attack on every southeast chapter, resulting in the death of at least one bird in each.
So while Tobias spun out, figuratively and literally, leaving Dom’s casket to race toward Cecelia, it was mine and Delphine’s back-and-forth during the drive home that birthed my first mission.
Our first step toward retribution. A minute into the drive, Delphine had deduced one of the reasons Miami had been so quiet.
They were scoping us out to the point that they put a strategy together to start their attack and used the contract on Roman to kick it off.
Terrified that was the truth of it, both of us became hellbent on coming up with a plan.
“There was someone in that car that escaped with too much intel,” she expels confidently, as the truth of it guts me.
“Even with a practical cannon in my fucking hands, I didn’t have a clear shot due to the glint of the sun, and I don’t fucking miss, Delphine.
” I glance over at her, seeing the wrath in her posture in my passenger seat.
“But I did miss that day, and it cost us dearly. I should have taken them out when I had the chance.”
“Try not to doubt Ezekiel’s reasoning, Soldier.
He’s as trained as you are and spent just as many days at that kitchen table with me.
His biggest hesitance in taking out Miami was their mafia connections.
There is reason there, and we need to get to the bottom of it so we can move forward.
But first, do you remember the make and model? ”
“Yeah, hard to miss. It was an obnoxiously painted street-illegal performance car—an orange and lime green Honda. One I didn’t recognize from the meetups, which means fuck all.
They were too far clear of the gate by the time I made it there, so I didn’t get the license plate.
I’ve put a call in with Phillip to track it, but chances are slim he’ll find it. ”
“We start there. Grab your Miami ledger and hunt down that fucking singing canary, if he exists, and I will help you,” Delphine relays, her whisper lethal.
“If it’s one source, you’ll find he’s one of the most established in the Miami chapter, probably closest to Matteo and Andre in ranks if he has so much knowledge of our club.
Once you do, silence him and all his closest in a very messy way.
” She turns to me in the seat. “It’s time to send a message, Soldier—one they cannot ignore and will have them rethinking they have the position of high ground.
Compile a list of possibles if you can’t locate the car or the owner, and I will help you find a way to narrow it down. ”
As we pull up to the house, she immediately opens her door before rounding the truck to meet me at mine. “No, Soldier. Go, now. Find the source.”
“Baby, but your treatment—”
“Is the only reason you’re going alone,” she states emphatically, forcing me to drop it.
“We’ve already lost too much time and need to find that canary.
If you track him and decide to move in before getting back to me, make him sing his last song for you.
For intel on Miami and the extent of their connections.
Including what branch of mafia before he bellows his last note.
If he refuses, find personal leverage against him.
” Her comment hangs in the air between us. “Which will be very messy,” she warns.
“I excel at messy,” I assure her.
“I know,” she whispers, her worry for me evident. “I will work on a strategy while you’re gone. One that will get our birds back home in their own beds, but . . .” When she reaches for me, I bend, giving her access while pulling her to me. “One last order.”
“I’m listening,” I murmur against her lips.
“Come home to me, Soldier. That is a priority order.”
I didn’t argue with her, selfishly in need of a way to purge my grief.
Within hours of zeroing in, I found the bird, one that hypocritically wore our fucking ink, and a Miami veteran.
For him, I had taken my most trusted of the Triple chapter and called in a few of our inked military before carrying her order out to the letter in Florida.
Though I was gone for too many days, we left a brutal blood trail in our wake while delivering our intended message.
A trail I’m still processing now as I pull up to the darkened, abandoned garage.
The second I’ve parked, a vivid flash of Dom behind the hood of his Camaro crashes into me before another surfaces, followed by another, until I’m flooded by them.
Every day, I feel the added weight against my bulging levee, but so far, I’ve held it, keeping myself upright for my birds.
Tonight, that task is especially taxing, and I fear that if I let so much as a drop through, I won’t be able to get upright again.
Working through the burn, I stare at the dark, abandoned garage from where I sit, the need for release briefly paralyzing me.
We promptly shut down King’s after the attacks started on our southeast chapters and have yet to get the garage back up and running.
Not that any of us are anxious or have the fucking time anymore to keep the ruse going as we fight to keep our birds safe and get our club back to functioning on some level.
Right now, Tobias has been forced to play the role of politician in damage control and is, at present, a moving target.
A target at his wit’s end to try to restore peace in our club.
We’ve been so busy scrambling on the offensive as Miami continues its assault that none of us have had time to grieve.
But with my most recent mission, their advances have slowed slightly.
To the point that several birds have migrated back to their houses from Denny’s compound since I ordered us all there the morning of the gunfight.
As of now, we’ve taken every imaginable step to safeguard Triple Falls.
With eyes fucking everywhere, and thanks to the digitization and access by the club to Delphine’s maps, we’ve got birds posted at every single vantage point to detect any possible threat or motorcade that looks even remotely suspect.
Her strategy, combined with the police vigilantly monitoring every major road in and out of Triple Falls—thanks to Roman—has me feeling confident in some respects.
While feeling utterly helpless in others, Delphine’s sickness being the first.
But with the added help of Beekman and the rest of our rapidly increasing number of feathered Feds currently scouring the media and everything in circulation to keep our street war unlinked, if control wasn’t an illusion, I might feel some sense of it this side of the half hour.
Delphine’s and my new reality so far from the hammock-swinging, snooze-inducing state of bliss we were in not so long ago.
A place and state I would do anything to get back to for the moment, but this war is far too close to home.
At this point, I would do anything to erase the days between that night and this one for any other outcome than Dom’s permanent absence.
The echo of his death haunting my every waking hour.
But it’s the image of Dom’s lifeless body in Tobias’s arms as he brought him down Roman’s staircase that morning that keeps the rage lacing the blood pumping through my heart.
That keeps me in constant need of an outlet.
It’s that need that now fuels my strategies and upcoming plans for retaliation.
For the purpose to purge on the motherfuckers who took him from us in an effort to shift this war in our favor and bring Tobias back.
Though, day by day, Tobias becomes more and more lost to us.
As does Sean. That sting becoming harder to ignore.
Knowing I won’t be able to sleep anytime soon—and in need of mindless work—I stalk into the garage. Letting Delphine witness my anxiety isn’t something I want right now, but the idea that her treatment won’t take—of losing her ...
Tamping that fear down, I enter the side door of the garage and stop at the open hood of the closest car, needing the mind-numbing work to help me sort my shit.
Fully aware that I, too, am a moving fucking target, I keep the main bay lights off and pop on the shop light already hanging over the engine.
Shortly after, I flip open a toolbox, ready to assess what needs fixing.
An instant later, my Glock is drawn and pointed at a .
.. kid whose eyes bug out of his head as he gapes back at me just as a soft “Russell?” leaves his lips.
“The fuck?” I say, immediately tucking my Glock back into my jeans. “Who in the hell are you?” I ask, darting my eyes to the couch to see a blanket and pillow discarded there.
“I-I’m—I thought you w—” he says, backing slowly away from me, his palms up. “I d-d ... I’m sorry.” He skitters toward the couch as I slowly trail him.
“You can’t fucking be here, kid,” I bark, confusion setting in.
When he glances back and sees me on his heels, he does a one-eighty before stumbling backward and falling on his ass, palms still up as he speaks rapidly.