Page 49 of Borden 3

“Do you need help?” Hawke probed.

Borden stared up at the smoke filled sky, at the flashing lights of police cars and firetrucks. They’d descended on his harbour like flies on shit.

“I gotta fight this one alone,” he said to Hawke.

“I understand.”

Borden hung up soon after. Gerry lingered nearby, stationing the men around the harbour now as he gathered intel on the latest shitbrain responsible for the fire.

“Cameras caught a black car, no licence plate, driving out of the parkway after the attack. Sounds like a bunch of thugs stirring the pot,” Gerry explained to him. “I think these were the Red Mambas.”

Red Mambas? Jesus fucking Christ.

Borden’s head pounded. “Any idea where they are?”

“Guys are scouring the streets now. Police already asked for a copy of the surveillance tapes.”

“Don’t give them shit. Torch the fucking tapes. Tell them it malfunctioned.”

“And when we find the guys responsible—”

“Kill them.”

Gerry blinked. “You don’t want us to round them up?”

Emma’s words echoed in Borden’s brain. They needed to fear him. “No. We’re going to make this as fucking apparent as possible. Let the Red Tacos see what we do to fuckers when they cross us.”

“Red Mambas,” Gerry corrected him.

“I don’t care what they call themselves, Gerry.”

Gerry’s shock was apparent. “What if we find them in residential areas—”

“Gun them down.”

Borden had fucking had enough.

Gerry swallowed. “Sure thing.”

When Gerry left him, Borden rested his arms on the rails overlooking the river. He peered out across the waters. The moonlight reflected on them, casting an eerie glow. Disarray was just behind him, but in this moment, he took a deep breath and let it out slowly. This river fucked him up. It never stopped fucking him up. Looking at it never dulled the pain of finding Kate, of losing Emma, of feeling the utter fucking despair and hollowness when he tried to survive after he lost Kate.

He had been fucking brutal because he’d had nothing to lose.

He could watch men burn to death, shrieking for mercy without blinking. He’d been a scary motherfucker. A true monster.

Monsters never feared the dark.

He thought of the man that startled Emma. Of his cool smile but demonic stare. The greenest eyes Borden had ever seen, peering at his woman like he had every right to. Like she wasn’t Borden’s, but his.

Perhaps that was what pissed Borden off the most.

“Theo,” he whispered, testing out the name. “Theo.”

It didn’t ring a bell. He’d never read that name in the reports he’d ordered Hawke to give him when he had first wanted to dig into Emma’s world.

That bothered him.

Something about it didn’t sit right.

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