Page 25 of The Grief We Hold

“I’ll talk to the bartender,” Butcher volunteers.

“Halo, Spark,” King says. “The two of you figure out our exits.”

Catfish steps forward. “I can go around back and make sure no one leaves.”

“I’ll go with him,” Saint says.

Once we have a semblance of a plan, we step forward as a group. And honestly, there is no more powerful feeling on the planet than stepping forward with people you know have your back.

It takes approximately seven seconds of being in the bar to know the place is hostile, we’re not welcome, and this is gonna end in a fight.

And it’s not because Niro shouts, “Hey, Russkis,” as we walk through the door, although I’m certain that doesn’t help.

Butcher heads to the bar, and I stand by the door, covering his back. With the music playing, it’s a little hard to hear what’sbeing said, but there’s immediate discomfort among some of the patrons.

An older couple grabs their coats, and I allow them to leave. Two men, both bald, eye us carefully. One reaches for their phone and seemingly takes a photo, then makes a phone call.

“You’re not welcome here,” a young man to my right says as he slips his hand inside his jacket.

“You reach for that weapon, and I’ll break your fucking hand,” I say.

He simply smiles. “You have no idea who you are messing with.”

“Pretty sure we do.” I tap my patch. “But you know who we are because we aren’t scared to show ourselves.”

And it’s the last thing I say before the fighting starts.

8

WRAITH

“This is the fucking downside of having dealers,” Butcher says two days later, nursing knuckles that are still bruised from our fight at the bar.

It had been informative, if not overly helpful. We don’t have our shipment back, but we do have a handful of leads to follow up on. And we’d tailed the injured from a distance to gain more intel when they’d left the bar.

Most importantly, we left a clear message we won’t be fucked with.

Atom and I look at the pale man hanging by his feet from the rope attached to a beam in our old barn. A wannabe gangster who goes by the name Tenacious, when his real name is Ian.

“More like upside downside of having ‘em,” Smoke says, tilting his head to look at the man’s crying face.

“I’ll get it back. Please. My kid depends on me. If I don’t?—”

The sharp left hook I give to the side of his face shuts him up and sets him swinging like a boxing sandbag.

It also wrenches my shoulder, which took a pounding in the fight. But we came out on top and that’s all that matters, except…

For a heartbeat, I imagine it’s Spark’s face I’m hitting. The fucker’s words about the past and the present keep rattling through my brain. Since my anger needs to flow somewhere, this guy is my outlet.

“Oh my God, is that piss dripping from his shoulder?” Catfish asks.

“Glad I fucking punched him before it got that far,” I say, flexing my knuckles.

“You took ten grand of weed from us,” Grudge says. “We need ten grand or the weed back.”

“No. Please. My car broke, and then some shit happened. I only borrowed the money. I’ll pay you back. Get me some more weed and I’ll sell it.”

I shake my head. “But that isn’t going to pay us back, is it, you little shit? That’ll just be giving us the money you should have for the first load we gave you.”

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