Page 15 of Reconciling the Consequences

The only time Kara saw Johnny, Derrick, or Kevin without their cuts was on Carmichael and Associates property or inside their home. She assumed they didn’t wear it to other jobs either, but she didn’t really know.

Her eyes traced over Johnny’s back as he and the kid lifted her grandmother’s cedar chest and walked it out of what was left of Kara’s house.

More than half her house had been destroyed in the fire. The half with the three bedrooms and her kitchen was gone. Her master bedroom and bathroom had been on the opposite side of the house, with the living room between them.

The front door was still standing, as was her front coat closet. She was able to salvage some shoes and coats from there, especially her winter gear. Mourningside, Illinois, was roughly two hours southwest of Chicago, and they felt the same winters.

She had slipped on her running shoes when she walked in the house to make Johnny shut up, but now she was grateful. Her knee was on fire, and the added support from the shoe was nice.

She hobbled toward the front door just as it swung open.

“You OK?” Johnny asked, looking her over.

She shook her head. There was no point hiding it; she wasn’t OK.

She wouldn’t be OK until they caught her father and locked him away.

MarcoslookedaroundtheDevil’s Psychos clubhouse. Once a motel in its prime, it hadn’t been kept up over the years and had slowly grown dilapidated. The old restaurant of the motel had been turned into a bar for mostly club members. They did get some hangers-on but not many.

The Devil’s Psychos were a rough sort of breed, and they came from rougher neighborhoods than most. Down the Evermore River from Mourningside was the prison city of Creekton, Illinois. Creekton not only housed Mourningside County Correctional but also Creekton State Prison, a maximum security prison for only hardened criminals.

People that lived in Creekton either worked for Mourningside Correctional or Creekton State or they knew someone that did. Kids grew up faster with parents who were overworked and saw too much on the inside.

Marcos had grown up right here in Creekton. His mother had stripped at The Midnight Raven for decades, but even that gentleman’s club hadn’t made it in the cesspool of a city. Not after the Riverboat Casino had gone in about ten years ago on the border between Mourningside and Creekton.

Back in the day, Illinois law dictated that any casinos in the state had to be on water. The Seratellis’ casino had cropped up to fill a void. A void in the market, a void between the two cities, a void within the criminal underworld.

A void the Seratelli family was all too happy to fill. Italians from the old country, they were just another cog in the wheel that was Creekton. With the casino, they built their own gentleman’s lounges and dance clubs. They brought sophistication and class to the unsophisticated and classless.

Marcos’s mother had slowly faded out of the limelight as younger and prettier girls came up. Marcos had to watch his mother take waitressing and cleaning jobs at Seratelli hotels, scrimping and saving every penny to get by.

All for the wheel of time to keep on spinning.

Marcos was glad his sister had gotten out of Creekton, happy she worked downtown for her rich father, and grateful she had a posh house on the west side—until she had been attacked. Until she’d been beaten within an inch of her life and her house had been burned down around her.

Marcos had people looking into her whereabouts, but his sister had vanished from the hospital. Momma, the nurse that had been taking care of Kara, had told him that she’d been discharged two days ago, she’d gotten in an Uber, and that was the last she’d seen her.

It was the last time Marcos had known her whereabouts. Kara wasn’t answering her phone. Her house had been burned down, so she didn’t go back there. He knew she wouldn’t stay with her father; they didn’t have that kind of relationship. It was possible that she went to stay with those guys she told him about, the three men she had mentioned that she was sleeping with. If only he’d listened to her to know anything about them… even their names.

Marcos looked up from the peeling wallpaper he had zoned out on as boots scuffling the floor got his attention.

Stone walked in with Nico “Dagger” Gage, Marcos’s longtime friend and brother. Both men were dressed in Devil’s Psychos cuts and had heavy rings on their fingers.

Dagger, despite his Italian heritage, was blond and blue-eyed, a handsome motherfucker with a darling smile. He was a pretty boy, but anyone that tried calling him “pretty boy” quickly learned why his nickname was Dagger.

“We got something,” Stone said as they headed his way.

He watched his buddies as they took seats at the old diner table next him. “Whatcha got?” he asked, his voice raspy.

“We drove past her place. There was a navy-blue pickup in the drive, bed piled high with bags. Must be cleaning out,” Dagger said.

“We saw her though,” Stone added. “We rode right by as she walked out of the house. She didn’t see us, and we didn’t wear our cuts, but she was walking out with a bag.”

Marcos took a deep breath of relief and covered his face with his hands as he tilted his head back. “Thank fuck.”

“You want us to keep an eye out?” Dagger asked.

Marcos shook his head. “Nah. She’s alive and doing her own thing. That’s all I can hope for. She’ll call if she wants to talk to me.”

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