Page 24 of The Grief We Hold

Spark smiles sadly, as if he can see the world and I can’t. Like he knows better. “You’re right. I can only guess. Maybe I would know more”—he leans forward in his seat and nails me with his gaze—“if you fucking talked about it.”

Feels like I walked into that one.

“Fuck you.”

“And third, Butcher may never replace you as sergeant at arms, but King will. We all worry about you. But, if you want to keep your position, you need to figure out how to look forward, brother. Or the past may be all you ever have.”

I’m still thinking about Spark’s words when we arrive in Denver. The main emotion is anger. Not sure I’m ready to dig any deeper than that right now.

It’s dark, but there is no attempt at stealth on our part. You can’t miss the engines and chrome and cuts in procession as we ride in our club formations. Butcher leads the way as King doesn’t know this part of the city like we do.

We pull up at the edge of the neighborhood our last round of intelligence said the Russians were settling into. Tonight, we need to figure out if it’s just a local Russian crime gang or truly is the worldwide Bratva.

Our plan is to separate into four groups and go scour the neighborhood for any information that could tell us who exactly we are dealing with. For kicks, we mix it up. I go with Niro, Bates, Halo, and Smoke. We start with a street that looks prime for protection money. Late night stores that trade in tobacco, weed, alcohol, and rub-and-tug massages.

“Hear you’re handy with a blade,” Bates says as we walk toward the first store.

Smoke throws an arm over my shoulder. “Let’s just say the fish he catches aren’t the only things he guts.”

Bates pulls his cut back a little to reveal two knives on his belt. “I’m more of a stab-rather-than-shoot kind of guy. Today could be fun.”

The owner of the cannabis shop refuses to tell us anything. Neither does the owner of second, third, or fourth store we enter. They all have that same no-eye-contact vibe. They’re lying and we all know it. But we agreed on not hurting innocent people to get intel.

“They know shit,” Niro says. “They just don’t feel safe telling us about it.”

I nod. “At the next place, maybe we take our cuts off.”

Halo and I both shrug out of our cuts and hand them to Niro.

“Why the fuck do I get to carry the leathers?” he asks.

“Because you look most like a coat stand,” Smoke says and Bates laughs.

“Fuck you all,” he replies.

But the gesture doesn’t help. The woman at the massage place practically starts crying when she sees Halo. “We don’t have any more money for you.”

Halo raises his hands. “We’re not here for money. But we do need to know who’s asking you for it.”

She shakes her head and looks away.

I step forward. “We can help you, if you help us. We have the same goal. Getting rid of them.”

She tips her head across the street. “They hang out in the bar over there. Please. Don’t tell them I told you. They smashed up my friend’s hair salon because she refused to pay.”

My phone vibrates, and I see Butcher’s name on the screen. “Get descriptions, Halo,” I say as I step outside to answer the call. “Butcher.”

“You got anything?” he asks.

“Possibly. They’ve got some kind of protection racket going on. A shopkeeper told us the people who run it hang out in a bar across the street from us.”

“On our way.”

“You get something?” Grudge asks when he arrives with King, Spark, Saint, and Catfish. “Because there’s pressure being applied from somewhere, but it’s enough for people to not want to talk.”

I tip my head in the direction of the bar. “Apparently, they hang out in there. There isn’t a discrete way to do this. Suggest we go in, speak to the bartender, and see where his eyes go, seeing he probably won’t answer.”

Energy is contagious. Niro bounces on the balls of his feet. Halo checks his Glock. Atom lights a cigarette and takes a long draw. The rest of the groups join us.

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