Page 98 of Bourbon & Blood

Every one of us startled and turned to the narrow doorway where Alina’s broken voice filtered over the table.

“Aw, shit…” Hex mumbled but I don’t think she’d heard us. At least not really. Because she clutched some kind of a book in her hands and a sheaf of papers on top of it.

“cher, you ain’t supposed t’ be here,” I said gently, and she sniffed.

“No, I know, but I found this,” she said and broke into a smattering of sobs, holding out the book and the papers.

I got up from my seat as Bennie took them from her. Setting the book down, he started going through the papers.

“Oh, shit,” he said. “This is a lot.”

“A lot how?” Hex asked, looking over Bennie’s shoulder.

I went over to Alina carefully, while the boys started spreading the papers out over the tabletop.

“Shit, this is big,” Hex said.

I pulled Alina into me while they were distracted.

“Baby, you can’t just come in here like that,” I whispered and she clung to me.

Her voice muffled by where she pressed her face into my chest, she said, “No, I know. I’m sorry but I tried to call and I just didn’t know what else I should do! It’s just so awful!”

I held her tight and several of the guys’ attention was got and on us.

“We all gon’ let it slide,” Hex said. “Aren’t we boys?”

“Yeah.”

“Too right,” echoed around the table and I nodded, grateful.

“This is real damn big, boss,” Bennie said to me and I nodded.

“Alina,” I said gently, and she nodded.

“No, I’ll go,” she said. “Um, Dorian and Marcus are on their way. I called them.”

“Good, that’s good,” I said, nodding.

“Hey, boss, I’m still so new, I’ll go sit with her ‘til they get here so she’s not alone. I think y’all know where I stand on kiddie diddlin’,” Louie said, and I nodded.

His momma had sold his ass when he was a boy for a fix here ‘n there until he got strong enough, she couldn’t do it no mo’. We all knew about it. We also swore we’d never speak on it again after the night he’d come apart after a hazing stunt gone wrong. There were certain things you didn’t fuck with, no matter how big of an asshole you were.

I passed Alina off into Louie’s care and watched him, arm around her shoulders, lead her on out through the club.

“Sorry about that, boys,” I said, turning. Hex was lookin’ at me just a little excited.

“Nah, bro. She brought us a fuckin’ treasure trove of information the likes to shake up the political system from here to kingdom come,” he said and I scowled.

“Just what kind of names you got in there?” I demanded.

The papers were a sort of salt the earth, raze and ruin that Maya left behind just in case somethin’ were to happen to her. She left it right where she knew Alina would find it. Handwritten in her own hand that she knew Alina would recognize and be able to have authenticated. We had somethin’ radioactive on our table.

This shit was something that was gonna have some far-reaching consequences and needed to be handled with some kid gloves.

We came up with a couple ways of dealing with things and put them to a vote. Surprisingly enough, the boys voted to error on the side of caution this time around and decided not to leverage what was in those pages for our own gain. I had mixed feelings on that. On the one hand, I was a little relieved – I mean, this wasn’t good trouble. This was as down and dirty and in the fuckin’ slop as you got. Add to that, if it ever reached my little Alina’s ears that we’d done leveraged her friend’s pain and the reason she’d been murdered to our own benefit?

I would lose her. I was sure of it. There wasn’t no way I would let that happen. She meant too much to me.

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