Page 72 of What Lies Within

What fucking gain did he think was worth fucking up my family for?

Guess I’ll find out soon.

My knuckles strike the painted door, and I take a step back, hand resting on the gun at my side. Minion stands behind my right shoulder; weapon clutched between his hands before him. To a passerby, he'd look as though he stands with hands clasped between his hips, but he conceals the very thing that ensures that even if my brother gets one up on me, Fox won't take more than two breaths before he pays for it.

The seconds tick by painfully slow, and I cock my head a little, hearing attuned to any and every tiny scuff or knock that comes from inside the premises.

The lock clicks, and the door cracks open… then stalls.

No light spills through the gap. No shadows tell me where my brother is.

I draw my weapon and glance at Minion out of the corner of my eye, registering his tight nod.

"Just wanna talk, Fox." I project my voice through the gap and wait, the steady rush of my breath all that can be heard.

Boot to the timber, I nudge the door wider with my gun held before me and sweep the entrance. Precious seconds pass as my eyes adjust to the change in light from the bright afternoon sun to whatever this den of iniquity is. Nobody’s there.

My heart rate increases.

“Thought you were better than this,” I taunt. “Better than hidin’ from the consequences of your actions.”

A door to the left opens out to a small living room, another further down the narrow hall to what must be a bedroom before the short hallway ends, and an open doorway leads through to what appears to be the wash house. On the right is another bedroom, a crack in the nailed fabric for a curtain leaving a strip of light that illuminates the messy space. Minion edges into the room, sweeping the area.

I lean into the living room on my left, find it empty, and then edge toward the bedroom behind.

"Dad raised you better than to be a coward, you asshole. Fuckin' face me, and let's square this out."

The door is closed most of the way, with only two inches of space showing the pitch-black room beyond. I kick the panel, flinging it open, and duck across the gap as I do to assess the room from the opposite side. No movement draws my eye, but I don't trust the asshole not to set this room up as a trap to draw me in while he lies in wait elsewhere.

I back away, facing the dark room as I glance over my shoulder and move toward the laundry area.

The back door is shut, and cardboard is taped over the three glass panes. The small room sits empty save for two discarded boxes of bullets on the countertop—not even a washer or a rack to hang clothes.

Minion moves out of the front bedroom toward what I glimpsed to be the kitchen opposite the darkened door. I nod toward the bedroom space, and he stalls, tucked out of sight.Slowly, the big guy lowers to a crouch and pulls a small flashlight from the pocket inside his cut. He sets it on the dented floorboards and slides it across to where I stand, the scrape of metal on timber confronting in the otherwise quiet house. I retrieve the light and click it on, setting it in my left fist and bracing my right over the top to keep the weapon trained on the room.

The beam of white light spills over a stack of boxes, an unmade single bed, and what seem to be garbage bags full of clothes. I move closer, Minion watching my back, and sweep the room, yet it comes up empty. With a shake of my head, I click off the light as Minion moves toward the kitchen.

He gets one step inside the door and then stalls, shoulders relaxing. Without looking my way, he jerks his head to indicate I should come see.

I step into the room and come to a grinding halt.

Seated at a small Formica table against the far window is my goddamn brother. His weapon sits on the surface, his hand resting over the top. "Took you long enough to cross that damn road." He smirks. "Almost fixed myself a drink while I was waitin' for you assholes to quit the dramatics."

It could have just as easily been the look on his face or the arrogance in his words, but it's the audacity of the asshole to wait on me whilewearing our colorsthat has me march toward him, raising my gun to his head.

He moves in a swift strike, lifting his to match my stance. “Nuh-uh-uh.”

“Take them off.” I nod to his cut. “You don’t have permission to represent the club anymore. You don’t have ourrespectanymore.”

“And you no longer tell me what to do.” He grins. “Got yourself a Catch-22 there, brother.”

Wood splinters at Fox’s feet with a resounding crack from Minion’s gun. “Take. Them. Off.”

The tension raises my heart rate to a fever pitch. I take a deep breath, focus on holding it for a beat, and then let it out twice as slowly.

Fox’s gaze slides from me to my enforcer and back.

For a split second, I believe that he'll do it. I calculate the odds of who he'll shoot out of me and Minion first and then what the best reaction would be to incapacitate him.

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