Page 183 of Golden Atonement

Getting to my feet, I started barking orders, “Montana, go with Fedorov and Vladmir. Grudge, go with them and make sure they don’t do anything stupid, like get their kids killed. Everyone else, you’re with me.”

“Who the fuck put you in charge?” Montana snipped, getting in my face.

“You did, the second your kid was taken. Now get the fuck out of the way.”

“Come on, Prez,” Grudge said carefully. “You know you can’t run this one. Not with your son in the middle of the fire. Let Reaper do his job. Fucker may be meaner than a snake, but he ain’t gonna let anything happen to those kids.”

“Where the fuck is my son!” Montana roared while he threw chairs across the room, turned over tables, and broke glasses. The man was throwing a fit, and he had every right in my opinion. After day two, Maxim stopped talking, which was new. Didn’t know if a silent Bloodletter was a good thing or bad, but I did notice that even Vladmir was steering clear of the volatile man. As for Vladmir himself, he tried to be useful and help when he could, but the longer his daughter stayed missing, the harder it became for him to concentrate.

The fact was, all three men were ticking time bombs, and if we didn’t locate their kids soon, all hell was going to break loose.

“They don’t leave your sight,” I whispered to Vengeance, the Birmingham enforcer, who silently nodded when I headed back to church to find several men going over maps of the area while Grudge sat looking at the live feed.

Taking a seat next to him, I noticed he was frowning.

“What’s wrong?”

The man sighed, rubbing his hands down his face as he answered. “I think I’m seeing things.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look,” he said, turning the computer toward me. “That’s the live feed we’ve been watching since the kids went missing. What do you see?”

“Three kids sitting on the floor.”

Grudge looked at me. “You’re a father, Reaper. Have you ever known your son to sit on the floor and not move?”

Shaking my head, I smirked. “Jesse can’t stay still for more than a minute. He’s always moving.”

“Exactly. It’s been three days now and yet those kids are staying put.”

“Drugged?”

Grudge shook his head. “No. I think whoever took the kids looped the feed.”

“If you’re right, that room could be anywhere.”

“I hate saying this, but we need Ravage.”

“Which is why I called him after we raided the first warehouse and the kids weren’t there. If anyone can find those kids, it’s him. Ravage is damn good at what he does but we need to give him time.”

“Reaper, I need to speak with Zane.”

Frowning, I sat back in my chair. “Why?”

“Lucky keeps checking in, and he swears he’s got eyes on the kids, and I believe him. But this feed is our only clue. Zane is good at seeing shit others don’t. At least he was.”

“When is the last time you’ve talked with your brothers?”

“Been over ten years now. We had a falling out and we went our separate ways.”

Wanting more, I said nothing as I stared at the man, waiting for him to continue.

“It was my fault. I let my temper take over and I did something I shouldn’t have. Our parents had just died, leaving me to finish raising Zane. Jon had already left for the Marine Corps, but Zane, he was sixteen and hell on wheels. Always getting into trouble, skipping school, drugs, you name it. The only thing that kid cared about was getting his next fix. God, Reaper, Zane was so fucking smart. Too smart. He could havebeen anything. The shit he knew how to do was fucking unreal. Did Zane ever tell you he scored a perfect sixteen hundred on his SATs? Kid had scholarships coming out of his ass. Could have gone anywhere, done anything, been anything. Instead, all he cared about was the bitch that got him hooked on drugs. It all came to a head when the police showed up with an arrest warrant. According to them, Zane and a few others broke into some pharmacy looking for drugs. My brother was looking at five years for armed robbery, amongst other charges. His life was over, and I lost it. When I found Zane, he was off his rocker and could barely throw two words together. I didn’t really have a choice. I knew if Zane went to jail, his life would be over, so I called George. I was already a brother in the Soulless Sinners by then, and when I told George what happened, he said he would take care of it. If I had known what George had planned, I wouldn’t have called him, Reaper.”

“What did George do?”

“He beat my brother within an inch of his life and left him to die in some alley in Denver. Fucker told my brother to never contact me again. That if he did, he would put a bullet in his head.”

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