Page 64 of Once A Crime Lord

He reloaded his gun and walked outside to see if there was more work to do. Unfortunately, his men had already taken care of everything. Those who thought they were safe in these cabins were now strewn across the sand. His men knew the drill and were already loading the bodies into the SUV to bury them in the desert where they would never be found.

A man at his feet moaned. He looked down and saw that the man had been shot twice in the gut, a painful way to die. When he saw Gavin, his eyes bulged, and he made urgent, terrified noises. He crouched beside the man who tried to edge away. He pulled out his knife and yanked the man’s head to the side to examine Santana’s brand—a skull tattoo with the number twenty-four in roman numerals on his throat.

“I’m gonna need this,” he said, tapping the tattoo with the tip of his knife.

The man tried to push his hand away. Gavin restrained him with ease and got to work. By the time his phone rang, the man was dead and he held a dripping slice of skin with Santana’s brand. He grabbed a switchblade and pinned the piece of skin on the door. If more men tried to take refuge in these cabins, they would know he wasn’t far behind.

“Yeah?” he said into the phone.

“I unscrambled the numbers. What are you looking for?” Z asked.

“An incoming call that came in around nine or ten this morning.” An hour or two before the attack.

“There was a call at ten oh one. It’s a prepaid phone, not registered to anyone.”

“Give me the number.” As Z rattled off the number, he wrote on the wall in the only ink he had in abundance—blood. “Got it.”

“The caller was at the hospital when he made the call.”

He tried to rein in his beast. “And which hospital is Stark’s mother at?” He waited, but already had a sneaking suspicion that he knew the answer.

“Same hospital. She’s on the fourth floor.”

Was it chance that Stark had been visiting his mother at the same hospital where the Pyre Foundation was having an event? “I’m gonna call the number. Try to pinpoint his location.”

“Will do, sir.”

“How is everything with the surveillance tapes?”

“Scrambled.”

“Good work.”

He hung up with Z and glanced at the bloody numbers as he plugged them into his phone. As the phone began to ring, he walked into the silent cabin so the caller wouldn’t hear the groans of the dying.

The line picked up, but no one spoke. The silence stretched.

“This is Gavin Pyre,” he said.

He thought he heard an indrawn breath on the other end but couldn’t be sure.

“You fucked up today. I’m coming for you.”

The line went dead. He stood in the middle of the cabin for a moment to get himself under control. There was a fine trembling in the hand holding the phone. He needed blood so badly, he could taste it.

He dialed Z again. “Did you get his location?”

“He’s at the hospital.”

Adrenaline fizzled in his veins. The monster inside him roared with the need to end this fucker. He swallowed his need to mutilate the dead bodies and washed his hands before he walked outside. He slid into his car and didn’t have to signal for a group of men to follow. Six men stopped what they were doing and loaded into an SUV.

He headed back to the city. There was a firestorm taking place inside him. Fury burned a hole in his gut. When he was gutting Santana this morning, the man claimed he didn’t know the identity of the Phantom. He figured Santana was telling the truth since he cut off his fingers one by one. Either Eli Stark was the Phantom or was working with him. Either way, this was going to end.

He strode into the hospital with his men following at a discreet distance. The lobby was filled with cops, reporters, medical staff, and concerned family members who were still trying to figure out what had happened this morning.

He took the elevator to the fourth floor. As he strode through the corridor, he approached two cops. Their hands edged toward their weapons. Every officer in the state recognized his face. The dirty ones knew exactly what he was capable of while the other half suspected and dreamed of being the one to bag him. Too bad they had never been able to pin shit on him until the money laundering charge. He had been at such a low point that he hadn’t acted swiftly enough and had to serve time or let them dig deeper and possibly find evidence of other, more grievous transgressions. He eyed the cops boldly, daring them to do something. They didn’t make a move.

He glanced into rooms as he passed. Most patients were asleep. Hospital staff rushed through the halls despite the late hour. He opened a door without knocking and leaned in, expecting to see a sleeping patient. Paul Vega sat up in bed, papers scattered over his sheets and a laptop on his tray table. Paul peered over the top of his glasses at him. The light from the screen illuminated the hatred in his eyes.

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