Page 88 of Constantly Cotton
Burton stared at the phone in his hand and caught his breath.
Have what handled?he asked when his fingers could work. Dammit, Ace—where were you—
At that moment his phone rang.
ACE HADN’Tbeen a good boy growing up. He’d broken into a few places—usually liquor stores to steal beer, and once an enemy’s house to leave a note to say not to fuck with Ace’s little sister, or Ace and his big brother, Jake, would give them their just deserts. It took him less than two minutes to spot the servants’ door on the east wing of the house and break in.
The place was empty—at least downstairs.
Upstairs, they could hear two people arguing in Russian, and Ace looked to Jai, who smiled unpleasantly as they made their way through the kitchen.
“They know where the children are headed,” Jai translated. “And they don’t want them to go back to Sacramento.”
“Why not?” Ace asked. Then, “Damn. That’s not what a dining table is for.”
Through a couple of french doors, they could see a pricey marble dining table, except instead of food, it was heaped with drugs and C-4.
“I do not want the drugs,” Jai said. “But that other thing…”
“Yeah—I don’t think Burton brought near enough.” He’d brought enough to take the RV out, this was true. But seeing that there weren’t that many bad guys here—and that they were going after the kids Ace and Jai had rightfully saved—he thought maybe he and Jai should have bigger plans than that.
“You take the C-4 back to the RV,” Ace said. “I’ll check around to make sure nobody else is here but the two assholes upstairs.”
Jai’s gaze shot back toward a door behind the kitchen. “Nyet—I have a better way.”
Two minutes later they were in the security room, because Jai’s instincts were spot-on. And looking from camera to camera, Ace didn’t see a fucking thing.
“I really don’t want to get a batch of kids if they’re here,” Ace muttered, “but see—” He aimed a camera at an empty room that had mattresses on the floor and one toilet. It was in the basement, unsurprisingly, and the door to the upstairs was wide open. “—it’s us and the two assholes upstairs.”
“Then we go,” Jai said. “This C-4 wants to become something else. It has a feel that way.”
JESUS. JACKSONfucking Rivers, private investigator and general badass, was on the phone, and he had some bad fucking news.
Jason and the bus full of kids were on the way north still, but he’d been waylaid by mobsters, which might explain where they’d all gone for the moment—but also by his own military, which was pissed that Jason hadn’t brought the shipment of children here, to this deserted fucking house.
And Jackson knew that Jason was headed his way because Jackson and his boyfriend, Ellery Cramer, defense attorney at large, were working on a case involving two of the kids on that bus.
Seriously. Burton could not believe their fucking luck, both good and bad.
But right now, it was mostly bad, because he and Ace and Jai were—
He watched in disbelief as Jai and Ace hopped into the RV again and fiddled.
“Burton?”
“Uhm…”
The RV made a circle around the fountain and off to the side a bit, crushing some of that unbelievable vegetation. Then Ace and Jai leapt from the vehicle and Ace reached inside and did some quick work with his hands on the pedals and the steering wheel.
And both of them came hauling ass up the hill.
“No,” he shouted, figuring out what in the fuck they were doing before the RV even got past the fountain again. “No, you assholes, this isn’t what I told you to—fuck!”
The RV crashed into the house just as Ace and Jai got to his hiding spot, and the explosion that came next shook the world.
Part 4—Sonny
I DIDN’Tlike it when Ace was gone, nosirree, I didn’t. But he was gone, and he was gone to help kids, which I got. When bad stuff happens and you’re a kid, well, it sticks. It makes it so you’re not a kid no more but it’s hard to grow up too. You’re stuck, half the time thinking it’s all bad and half the time hoping someone will save you, even if youaresaved, and youbeensaved going on five years now.
