Page 18 of Eight Years Later

Tie stepped up beside me, squinting to see through the glass and scanning the damage. “Well, that tells you everything doesn’t it,” he fumed, shaking his head.

I stepped back, looking at him with a raised brow. “What do you mean?”

He tapped on the glass. “These guys aren’t from a dangerous crime syndicate or something like that. They’re petty crims. The kind who don’t make a lot of money doing whatever they do and need to steal Christmas presents to sell or trade.”

A twelve-year-old’s Christmas presents.

And I knew Kat.

I would guarantee she’d been saving and working her ass off for whatever had been wrapped up under that tree. That was what she did. She was independent, strong, and determined to reach her goals, no matter how many mountains she had to climb.

And she’d climb them all for Dylan.

“Are you Tally?”

Tie and I turned back to the street and saw a young woman walking up the driveway, Wreck, and Kit was right behind her.

I nodded. “I am. You must be Eve.” Kat had called ahead, letting her neighbor know we’d be coming by and that we needed to talk to her about what had happened. Though, mainly I wanted to know who had done it and where I could find them. “You want to let me know the details?”

She pulled her sleeves down over her hands and wrapped them around herself. She wasn’t young, but the way she pulled into herself and kept her distance from us screamed abuse. Not to mention the glaring bruise across her cheek, a reminder that we were doing the right thing by coming to let this asshole know who he should not fuck with.

“Milo Granger,” she said with absolute disdain. “He’s the leader of this little street gang called the Sixth Street Sinners. My brother Karl got caught up with them for a little bit, but he’d just moved in with me and got a good job, so he went to tell Milo he wanted out. Milo accused Karl of stealing drugs and money from him, saying he couldn’t leave until he’d paid him back.”

I scoffed loudly. “He didn’t like that he was losing a man.”

Her head bobbed up and down. “When Karl said no, Milo stabbed him with a pocket knife. Karl managed to drive to my place, but he was bleeding. I didn’t know what else to do, so I brought him over to Kat.”

Kat didn’t blame her for what happened—she’d been clear about that.

Eve was doing what she had to for her family, and that was something I knew damn well.

“Your brother make it?”

She nodded. “Yeah. Barely. After Milo watched Kat and Dylan drive away, he and his buddies trashed the place, grabbed what they could, and ran. Cops showed up not long after.”

I was ready to be done with this asshole and head back home to Alabama. “We want to have a few words with Milo. You know where we can find him?”

She scrunched up her nose. “Yeah. He lives downtown in this old condemned place. Hold on, I’ll find the address.” She pulled her phone from her pocket. “Just do one thing for me?”

I looked to Kit, who shrugged.

We weren’t exactly in the business of making promises, but I would still hear her out. “What’s that?”

She pushed her shoulders back, lifting her chin despite the tears in her eyes that sparkled in the sunlight. “Thosefew wordsyou have with him, could you make sure they hurt?”

I didn’t even have to think.

The words fell straight from my mouth.

“Count on it.”

***

The roar of our Harleys as we pulled onto the street Eve had shown us was anything but subtle. Their rumble shook houses and made windows rattle as we rode by. The vibrations themselves were intimidating enough. Add in the fact that I’m sure I looked like I was ready to rip someone’s head off, and we probably made a fairly scary sight. So imagine my surprise when we pulled up to this run-down shack masquerading as a house, and the damn prick I was looking for stepped out onto the porch.

Kat’s description of him had been on point.

Post Malone, but on crack.

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