Page 6 of Pack Rivals: Part Two
Then he’s up on his feet, the spoon clattering to the floor along with his chair.
He slams a wad of notes on the table and then he’s halfway out the door, pausing in the doorway to look back at me.
“Are you coming or not, motherfucker?” he calls.
I roll my eyes, hearing several small kids ask their moms what a motherfucker is, as I weave my way through the tables and step out into the street. The sky is heavy with gray clouds and I can smell the storm coming, rolling in from the ocean.
Nate paces as he waits for me to catch up, his switchblade spinning in his right hand.
“Tell me,” he says as I unlock the car and we both dive inside.
“Her cousin rang Axel. Said she dropped Bea off at the clinic–”
Nate wheels off a long string of expletives. I wait for him to finish, then continue.
“The cousin went back a few hours later to deliver Bea’s phone, and she’d gone. No one could – or would,” I add darkly, squeezing the steering wheel between my fingers so that I can see my white knuckles through the straining skin, “tell her where Bea was.”
Nate fidgets in his seat, flicking the blade of his knife in and out.
“So we going there? To the clinic?”
“Axel and Angel are already on their way. I came to pick you up.”
Nate’s fingers freeze; the blade pauses halfway in and halfway out of its handle.
“AxelandAngel?”
I nod.
“What the fuck?” he growls.
I nod again. I can’t get my head around it either. The two brothers have hardly said a civil word to each other – have hardly looked in each other’s direction without fists flying – for nearly ten years. Yet, who was the first motherfucker Axel called when he heard Bea had been taken? Not me. Not Nate. Not even Mrs. fucking Finch.
No. He’d called his brother Angel.
“Are you fucking with me?” Nate growls, giving me a look that would have most people shaking in their boots.
“No, I’m not.”
We’re both quiet for a moment, watching as fat raindrops begin to hit the windscreen and slide down the glass. The wipers switch on, creaking back and forth, and the beat has my heart pumping faster.
“Who took her?” Nate asks finally.
“We don’t know.”
“You haven’t looked into it yet,” Nate says, with a disapproving tone.
I snap my head round. “I was looking for your sorry ass, you dickwad.”
Nate slides the nail of his thumb along the blade of his knife, the metal singing when his nail flicks against the point. “I’m going to kill them. I’m going to slice every single one of their fingers off their hands, and then I’m going to twist this knife in their gut and watch the motherfucker bleed out, slowly and painfully and—”
“Get in line!” I swing the car left, racing down the side streets and avoiding the gridlocked city roads.
Nate’s eyes flick up and down the street. “Where are we going?”
“Back to the apartment.”
He tugs on the door handle. “Nope. I’m going to that clinic, Connor. I’m going to wring every neck until someone tells me where she is.”
