Page 17 of Addicted Lies

My eyebrows furrow. “So why didn’t you just kill him?”

She sighs and rolls her eyes, then sits on River’s lap. He pulls out his phone, and I imagine it’s because he’s ordering takeout. “Well, he had his ten-year-old daughter in the room.”

Hawke and I are silent for a moment until it dawns on us.

“Wait. Did you not kill him because you didn’t want to traumatize his daughter?” Hawke asks, openly in shock.

She curses with a thick Russian accent. “I’m not a complete monster.”

“Bullshit!” Hawke says, and I look away, ready for the reprimand to come because Hawke can’t keep his mouth shut. But it seems my brother, and I’ll be going on a hunt for this fucking ring tonight, and I wonder how many men exactly we’re going to have to kill for it.

If the man had any smarts, he would’ve fled the country by now. But some people tend to underestimate my mother because she’s a woman. And they discover their error too late.

CHAPTER 7

Ford

Hawke fastens his spiked gloves, and the buzz of energy around him is palpable. I drag my two crowbars—my preferred choice of weapons—out of the trunk of my car. It’s not that we can’t use guns or knives; Anya and River trained us extensively with both, but Hawke was accustomed to using his bare hands when we lived on the streets, and I found an affinity for the use of crowbars. I liked the various ways I could use them.

“All of this for a fucking ring,” Hawke mumbles with a menacing smirk.

Ironic, considering how much of a big deal she’d apparently made about wearing the one River gave her after their wedding. “What Mother wants, Mother gets,” I say, not at all surprised that she’s wildly pissed by someone who won’t give her something shiny she likes.

From our intel, the man is new in New York’s underworld. Anya has had only two business dealings with him, auctioning some of his items on the black market.

He became too cocky, trying to overcharge our mother, but the intel we received from Will Walker showed that he doesn’t even have a child, which means he used some poor kid as a decoy and purposefully undermined our mother.

“Hey, I’ve actually been to this bar before; it’s not so bad,” Hawke muses as we stand outside the bar in one of the outer suburbs. “I wonder what it will look like coated in red.”

“Just don’t get blood on my leather seats,” I make a point to add because Hawke can get messy once he’s in a frenzy.

I don’t believe in God, and there certainly isn’t room for mercy in what we do. I’d called the cleanup team ahead of time.

“How many do you think will be inside?” Hawke asks giddily as we approach the bar that is a front for the illegal dealings happening inside. Everyone here works for Laurence Tate, which is an unfortunate fact.

“Ten,” I guess as I hide my crowbars behind my back. Hawke begins to whistle a tune as he stuffs his hands in his pockets.

“I’m going to say twenty,” Hawke says, and I know it’s wishful thinking on his part. My brother and I are the same in that we like to challenge ourselves. Hawke because it feeds his superiority complex. And I love the thrill of putting my life on the line. I love the adrenaline rush. “Don’t forget to count how many you kill,” he adds because it’s always a competition. And I often win simply because Hawke hyper fixates on pummeling each and every one to death or close to it. Whereas I go for precise and debilitating swings.

The security guy steps in front of the door. “You’re not invited,” he says in a low, menacing tone.

“Oh, that’s okay. We often enjoy crashing parties,” Hawke says with the biggest fucking smile as he suddenly grabs the guy, who’s too slow to pull out his weapon, and throws him into the door. The door bursts open, and I walk in after Hawke.

“Well, well, well. Looks like we have fourteen.” Hawke hums approvingly.

“I was closest,” I say as I quickly evaluate the scene. Twelve men and two women. Laurence Tate is sitting in the back with a cigar hanging from his mouth in shock. Everyone is frozen in silence before all hell breaks loose.

A woman screams as Hawke takes the right side and I take the left. I waste no time, swinging the crowbar into the security guy’s head, knocking him out cold. I use the other crowbar I’m holding to knock a gun pointed at my head out of the man’s hand. I plunge the curved end of the crowbar into his stomach, winding him, then smash it across his face, the force of the blow throwing him back against the wall.

Another man grabs one of my crowbars, and I let him as I pull out a gun and shoot him in the head. And when I look up to check on Hawke, I aim for the others who are pointing their guns at him.

Another woman screams, and it’s a bloody mess as Hawke headbutts another man and drives his spiked gloves into some guy’s face. Blood splatters everywhere.

I catch my second crowbar as it slips from the dead man’s hands, holding it by the straight end and swinging it into the back of someone’s knee. The guy’s leg buckles, and I hook him with the curved end of the crowbar, tugging him close enough that I can bring my foot down on his face—red splashes across my jeans.

A man runs at me with a bat, and I quickly switch my grip on the crowbars so I’m holding them together in both hands like a sword. When he swings the bat at me, I block it with the crowbars, the metal clanging together, sending a vibration down my arms. The guy is stunned for a moment, and I take the opportunity to jab my elbow into his face.

Hawke’s maniacal laugh echoes in the room as he grabs Laurence by the dress shirt. “Thought you could try to cheat our mother, huh?” he asks, then headbutts him, blood oozing down his face.

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