Page 30 of Demise

Trig waves toward him, signaling everything’s okay.

I frown, knowing the dumbass doesn’t answer to this man, but he listens anyway.

“Look, I heard there was a misunderstanding,” Trig says. “I just wanted you to know it wasn’t me who did that to you and Bones. I was set up by a druggie. So, there’s no reason to be frightened of me.”

I ignore the tremble in my hands. “Yeah,” I say. “Big misunderstanding.”

I killed the wrong person.

“I have some things I need to do.”

He looks down at my foot. “Hurt your ankle when you fell?”

“How do you know I fell?”

“Well, not many ways to hurt your ankle.”

Fresh blood mingles with Danny’s dried. My head whips toward a snapping branch in the woods. I narrow my eyes toward the sound. The hairs on the back of my neck stand and chills run down my arms.

“You were there. You saw me,” I breathe.

His eyes slant. “I was making an assumption. I told you already, I had nothing to do with what happened to you two.”

Worried for my own safety, I lie. “Yeah, sorry. Just… a lot on my mind lately. I really need to get going.”

“Okay,” he says. “You take care.”

I hop past him toward the SUV. The driver helps me in, and I look out the window as we ride off, watching Trig as he gazes toward me. I get the same anxious feeling I got in the woods when I twisted my ankle.

Iknowit was him.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Bones

Over the years, we’d gotten pretty good at avoiding getting caught. Sweep and I, we ran the streets of Postings like they were our own personal playground, and they were.

As kids, we did moonshine runs for Moretti; as teens, we made drug deals and whacked anybody who didn’t follow the rules.

As adults, we made the business bigger than it ever was. Our heroin dealing grew tremendously. We set up the relationship with Miguel, our Latin American friend who works on a cargo ship.

He transports pure uncut China White from Latin America to the Jersey port near Postings. It then goes straight to our warehouse, where beautiful women work naked, cutting and bagging the drug.

We convinced Bryce Grant to sell Red to us so we could have a good location to deal cocaine coming up from Miami, and we began controlling the best illegal gambling operation in the Southeast.

When we walked into the club, everyone catered to us and our needs. We were treated like royalty. I’ve never been the flashy type, but even I indulged from time to time. The fancy dinners, the fine whiskey—we were living in a dream.

Andwedid that.

We were kings in the world we chose to live in. Black knights walking down a road paved in gold.

But all kings must fall, and all crowns must be thrown.

And the story of our demise started with a phone call.

“Sweep got caught. I need you down here, Danny.”It was my brother.

The one phone call I never wanted to receive. The one phone call that had me sitting with three pig motherfuckers…

---