Page 81 of When Sinners Fall
He straightens his suit, sighs. “Are you calm?”
“No.”
“Go drive then. You’ll be quicker if you’re already on the road. I’ll call you when I know more.” I pace, trying to find sense in the senseless. There isn’t any of that either. This is just the kind of fucked up world we live in. “Dante?” I look back at him. “Go. I’ll let Knox know what’s happening. Shaw’s already covering Mariana and Mother.”
With nothing else here but pacing and shouting, and possibly fighting, I leave, slam the fucking door, and head out onto the roads to do something with myself. It doesn’t help, but he’s right - I don’t wait well. I’m a ball of energy and rage, all of it less than useless if I’ve got nothing to go at.
It’s another half hour before he eventually makes contact with a location on the border with Mexico. My brakes get slammed all the way down, and I end up sideways against the oncoming traffic so I can turn around and head south. “Dante?” he continues. I’m not talking. I’m moving until I’m in Ortega’s face, and I can give him something real nasty to try fucking with. “Dante. I need you to talk to me. At least damn well listen to me.” No talking, but if he needs to talk me through something, I’ll listen as best I can in this mood. “We need to do this carefully.”
Screw that. The only thing careful about this will be me cutting an Ortega’s heart out while he’s still alive to make sure he feels it. “Think, brother. What’s he got to lose by killing her?” His own goddamn life. “He wants something. We need to know what it is. Where are you?”
I let him know exactly where I am and keep powering on, jumping reds like they don’t exist. The roar of his own car in the background between us is the last thing I hear as he cuts off the line. There’s at least some relief in that. He’s driving there too, ready to back me up whether he agrees with the way I’m gonna do it or not. We might as well be in the same car in reality because we’ll both be thinking the same thing, just in different ways. Maybe he doesn’t care about Wren like I do, but he sure as hell cares about our name.
By the time I’m out on the freeway and heading for the meet point, I’m pushing every limit this car has to get me there in time. She’ll be scared, needing me, and probably hurt. Nothing I can do about that until I get there, and I’m not going down the road of her being used yet because I’ll end up crashing this car rather than driving it.
A black Corvette comes peeling up the inside of me from one of the slip roads after a while. I look over and nod, acknowledging Knox’s appearance. That’s three of us, and I don’t need Shaw to look after anything other than Mariana and Mother. Just these two and me is enough to take on whatever might be coming.
So I keep driving, at full speed, side by side with Knox, and wait for Abel to find us. He will eventually because we all know where we’re going now.
Kill, that’s all that’s running through my head.
Kill.
~
Forcing me off down a slip road, Abel cuts across me to send us all down towards some part of town I don’t know. I follow, watching as Knox comes in behind me, until we all end up pulling up to an old diner. Abel gets out and stands there, a frown on his face as he stares at me still in the car. I’m doing nothing but grabbing at my steering wheel until he tells me where she’s at because we’re not at Nicolas’ place. Damn sure I might go full throttle at him if he doesn’t get on with delivering where she is to me. I’m wound so fucking tight the ground’s shaking with me.
“I don’t know how many are in there with him,” he says to Knox.
Guns get locked and loaded, and they both slip them in the back of their jeans as if this is a goddamn discussion rather than the fucking war it is. I’m out of the car and running at Abel before I can stop myself, fury levelling everything in me at him. He shunts back at the wall, not even trying to hold me off him. Knox is on my back in seconds, swinging me sideways to get himself in between us.
“Cool down!” he shouts.
I can’t even see him in my face. I’m just pacing, trying to hold my own wrath off both of them before I do something I’ll regret. “WHERE THE FUCK IS SHE?” bellows out of me.
Abel looks at me some more, as if finally acknowledging how much she’s worth to me. It’s about ten seconds of me meaning every second of my glaring at him, because if he gets in my way, if he even thinks about trying to deny me my vengeance, I might fucking kill him myself.
“Alright, brother. Alright.” He looks sideways along the road, probably calculating what that means to us all going forward. Doesn’t matter what it means. It’s happening.
Nicolas Ortega is dying.
Today.
We’re all moving after that. Running. Three blocks passed, a gun now in my grip, too, and we’re under an old railway station and slipping through abandoned tunnels. Abel nods Knox off to the right, then tries sending me off to the left. Fuck that. This is my woman. I’m not being told what to do on any level.
I keep going forward with him until he stops and shoves me at the wall.
“Youwilllet me lead,” he growls, holding me firm. I wrangle and push back, rage and fire bringing the animal out in me. “Use your fucking head, Brother. Go left. You’ll come in from the far side, hopefully behind him.” I’m still trying to get out of his hold, to the point where he eventually lets me go and pushes me away. “Me up front means he’s focused on me. Get your head in gear, because if you go down, she means nothing to me, and you know that.” I glare and keep pacing, knowing that’s the fucking truth. “But if I go down for you, you’ve still got a chance.”
Everything about me comes to a stop, and I stare at him. “You mean that?”
“What’s the fucking point of all this if not for family.” Not a question. A statement. Can’t say I’d do the same if he had a woman. Maybe I would now.
I swallow and nod, and then start backing off, still staring at him, until I’m turning to run silently along the left route he wanted me to go through. Doesn’t take long before I end up finding some smaller passages ducking under the old lines above.
Voices start echoing and filtering back at me as if it’s a way off. I follow the sound and eventually come up to the entrance of an old warehousing depot deep underground. Abel’s in there already. He’s standing in the middle of the space, talking. Don’t know what about, or care. There isn’t any reason for this to have happened, as far as I’m concerned. Taking her, even fucking thinking it, was a declaration of hatred in my head. Still, I do start listening as I skirt the boundary around me to look for her. Can’t see anything from this angle, not even Nicolas himself.
“We don’t need you, Abel. We never have. Never will. My father is a fool. As is your whore of a mother,” he says. I look over at an old crate, searching for her, until I finally get a glimpse of Nicolas. He’s standing there, one hand on a table, a suit in place, and three of his guys behind him. No one else that I can see. “This was just to prove how insignificant you are to me.”
