Page 98 of Stay with Me

I look around at all four men in my home. Gutter remains quiet as he glares at me. We’ve never met in person, but I’ve read plenty in his profile.

“Why are you here?” I bite out. “If you know so much, you know I didn’t hand over shit to indict a single one of you.”

“And that’s why I’m here,” Ice says. “You have a problem, brother. Someone wants you dead so they can pin the murder on us. I’m not going to let that happen.”

“But in order to prevent that, we need to do things our way,” Brick says. “It’s about to get messy before we all walk away clean.”

“Why? Why help me and why come here to tell me?”

“Like I said. I like you and I have respect for what you did for us while a part of our family. I told you, you have my loyalty for life. I meant that shit.”

“My Prez says he owes you a favor as well. So, we’re here to solve your problem and ours,” Brick says.

“Do you know what really happened that night you were shot?” Vault asks.

“No, I got a text to come inside. It was a little weird. Ice had said he’d be right back, he forgot something. The text came right after he left me.”

“You didn’t think something was fishy about that?” Brick asks.

“I did. The text wasn’t from his number,” I muse aloud.

When I got inside, I heard someone behind me, but they got off the shot before I could turn. From there, I remember bleeding out and Ice’s voice telling me to hold on. That’s all I remember.

“You were shot by a Falcon,” Ice says gruffly. “An Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms agent, named Eddy Broker.”

“Motherfucker. Can you prove this?”

“Sure can, that’s why he wants you dead,” Gutter speaks up for the first time.

“So what’s the plan?”

“We need him gone, but Eddy isn’t going down without a fight. He’s fucked over too many people to land in a jail cell,” Brick says.

“This is true. However, he and the others need to be revealed or else this shit will just continue,” Vault counters.

“We want to be left alone to live our lives in peace. You’ve been a brother. You see how hard we work. We don’t have time for this shit. It took years to get to where we are and we’re not going to let anyone take that from us,” Ice says.

“Then we need to expose him, not dispose of him,” I reply.

My phone rings pulling my attention. When I pull it out, I see it’s Rem. I frown knowing I can’t answer right now, I need to take care of this situation. I send the call to voicemail.

“He’s right, you know. We need to root out everyone involved,” Vault says.

“So tell me what you would do,” Ice says to me when I look up.

* * *

Reminisce

I look at my phone and grind my teeth. It’s the third time I’ve called Knight and received his voicemail. I know something is off. It’s a feeling I have.

I place the phone against my forehead. I should let this go and move on. It would be for the best. Only, my heart isn’t in agreement with that.

I dial my sister. She will be the sounding board I need. I have to get out of my head after the things Knight said. If I don’t, I know I’ll spiral into a panic attack.

“Hello,” Saga says, not sounding like herself.

“Everything okay?”

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