Page 42 of Love Thy Brother
Oops.
I trooped through the garage to get to the rolling doors where vehicles entered and exited the building. They were secure, which left the foot entrance by the minimal effort River had put into a customer reception. An alcove with one chair, a four-year old copy ofPiston Heads, three used plastic water cups, and red paint hurled up the scuffed white walls.
Fuck.My gaze darted to the door. At first glance, it appeared locked and loaded, but closer inspection revealed the jimmied Yale and busted hinges.
On guard, I retreated back into the garage and snatched a crowbar from the tool rack, lights on, sweeping every dark corner of this damn fucking place, daring any motherfucker to be lying in wait.
It was a messed-up thing that it pissed me off to find no one.
“Cunts.” I tossed the crowbar and secured the front door.
Then I moved to the red-stained walls and a sickening realisation slammed into me.
This ain’t paint.
Jesus-fuck, it was blood. Pig, by the smell of it, but what-the-fuck-ever. The origin wasn’t important. It was the message. The sentiment. And in our world, blood meant one thing.
Death.
“Motherfuckers.” I dialled Saint, wheeling away from the alcove and into the main garage. “Pick up, dickhead.”
“I did.”
“Fucking speak then,” I snapped before I remembered who I was talking to, but it was beyond me to apologise right now. “Some cunt’s been in here and chucked blood up the walls.”
“Blood?”
“Yeah. As in claret. Lots of it.”
Pause. Then a rustling that sounded a hell of a lot like a windblown tree. “River’s safe. I can see him.”
Relief flooded me. But it was short-lived. He was safenowbecause Saint was watching him. He’d be safe when he got here because I wouldn’t let him out of my sight. But what happened when he took that choice away from me? Or when I blew my stack and flounced off like I had last night?
Can’t happen again.
Shouldn’t have happened in the first place. But I couldn’t control it—the temper I didn’t recognise as mine. The fuse that had so rarely tripped as long as I’d been alive but felt frayed now.
Fragile.
I shoved a hand in my hair, tangling my fingers in the knots, wrenching hard enough to ground me. “You ain’t gonna let me rip that fucker out of his van if he shows up today, are you?”
More rustling came from Saint’s end. “Not yet. It’s not logical.”
“Since when do you care about logic?”
“I don’t. But you do, and when you take a breath, you’ll see the sense in what I’m saying.”
“You think I’ll get nicked for head-stomping a foot soldier and it won’t solve the problem?”
“You think that too. You just don’t know it yet.”
“All right, Yoda.”
I hung up on him and scowled at my phone, willing him to call me back so I could be an even bigger dickhead. Willinganyoneto pop up in my orbit so I wasn’t alone with the grating, violent haze hanging over me.
This isn’t me.
But whoever I’d once been, maybe he wasn’t coming back. Either that, or I’d traded personalities with Mateo.
