Page 61 of Hell In A Handbasket
“Break!”
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“Shhh!” The girls giggle, the horde of heisters tiptoeing along this shitty little town’s main street, while just a block or so over, a wedding party lights up the evening sky and conceals any sound we might be worried about making.
Fuck this dare. It took the men two seconds to decide we weren’t letting the women out of our sight.
“They have a habit of fucking shit up,” Corey rumbles. Unlike the girls, we move in relative silence. We stick to the shadows and remain entirely hidden from the group just half a block ahead. “Jen’s already wounded, which might make a sensible man more cautious.” He meets my eyes in the dark, wide and verging on panicked. “But not her. She’s like a shark, Malone. She smells blood and goes into a fuckin’ frenzy. Doesn’t matter that it’s her own blood.”
“Great,” I snarl. “Mine has a bleeding disorder, and if she cuts herself, she won’t be able to stop the flow.” I gnash my teeth and press my back to the outside of a bookstore. “She was supposed to medicate already, but instead, she’s a walking hazard and making friends with a shark.”
“Like father, like daughter,” Cato drawls. “Gotta expect that Lawrence fuckery to show up in his kids.”
“Soph will get ‘em in and out without trouble.” Jay drags a candy whip between his teeth. “She could take over the US government if she thought it would serve her somehow. I’m not worried.”
“I mean…” Troy pulls a black cap low over his eyes and slows on my right. “I’m a little worried. Slim isn’t Soph, and even if they’re sisters, their skills aren’t transferable. Slim’s more of a smash-n-grab kinda fiend.”
“Shit!” Felix hisses. “Fuck.”
I shove away from the wall and stalk toward my brother, just a single beat behind Micah. “What’s wrong?” I swing my eyes toward the women as they creep around the corner and out of sight.We’ve gotta hurry. “Lix?”
“Christabelle’s sugars are tripping.” He turns his phone around and shows us a screen of… numbers. Fuck knows. “She’s low.”
“She’s with two doctors,” Kane drawls. “She’s fine, bro.”
“Doctors for the dead! You figure they can take care of her once she’s already down, huh?”
“She’s not gonna die.” Cato charges to the end of the block and peeks around the corner. “Hurry the fuck up.”
“We need to steal something.” Spence stares through the bookstore window, tilting his head to the side. “Not even the cash register stuffed with the daily float will get us tograndlarceny. We need more.”
“We need to sweep those women up and put them back where they belong,” Felix declares. “I’m an old man. I’ve gone my whole lifenotplaying camp games with a bunch of giggling girls. Starting now, while my wife is ready to give birth, isn’t my idea of a good time.”
“Kinda curious why we weren’t invited to the wedding.” Moving on from the bookstore, Spence drops his hands into his pockets, only to pull one out again and bring his phone up so the backlit screen illuminates his face. “I thought we were friends. Something about getting your boy out of Mancino’s beach house that time.”
“And Fletch still owes me.” Jay spins and walks backwards, grinning at an unusually quiet Fletch. “A favor owed remains owed until I discharge the debt, Detective. I’m still pondering what I’ll ask in return…” He taps his chin in contemplation. “I could have a case intentionally botched. A body hidden…”
“You could turn your ass around and stop your wife before she destroys the town’sonlybank and its security system.” Fletch kicks a rock on the ground, sending it forward a half dozen feet. “You could consider the favor to society, and not me. That dude was a shit stain on Copeland City.”
“And now he’s dead.” He slurps on his candy and spins around again. “I took a life, Detective. On your orders. That’s prison for us both.”
“Allof us,” I growl. “Knowing about it makes us all accessories after the fact.”
“I’m not going to prison.” Kane fists Cato’s shirt and yanks him back, making room at the corner for himself. “Jessie wouldn’t survive without me.”
“Heartbroken?”
“Impulsive. She’d plan a prison break and fuck a bunch of shit up. And though I reckon Soph would help, I’m not willing to risk Jess’ freedom. Or her neck,” he adds, stepping around the building. “She’d fashion a fucking tightrope from my cell window to Cuba, and she never did have good balance.”
“We’d have less chance of going to prison if your brother stopped talking about that thing he did for me.” Fletch comes up on my right, his shoulder brushing mine, and stresses.
His gritted jaw is all the hint I need.
“Jay.” Kane hits his brother with a glare. “Shut up about the thing.”
“We’re not going to prison,” Troy chuckles. “One drug peddling gangbanger piece of shit is hardly at the top of our list of infractions.”
“Shut up.” I move around the corner and catch the giggling girls a whole block ahead. “Don’t tell us what’s on your list. Jesus.”
