Page 77 of The Collector
The man swallowed hard, tears brimming in his eyes. "Honestly... we came to finalize the deal. Hector wasn't part of any hit. Raul hates him—that's no secret—but he stood to profit from him. Killing Hector wouldn't serve that purpose. Please—I've got a wife and four kids. If there was anything I could say to save myself, I would. They need me, Raven. We did hear some rumors going around about a hit out for him."
Raven's voice was low and steady, laced with pain. "And I needed my father. Not in the way your family needs you—no bedtime stories, no porch light waiting. But I still needed him. And the Kings needed him, too. Now, who the fuck, issued the hit?" He took a drag from his cigar, the ember pulsing like a war drum.
Tears poured from the man's eyes. "I don't know, all I know is that the payout was 25 million dollars."
"Clearly... It's going to be a long night, boys. Because no matter what—"He stepped closer, smoke curling around his words. "War has just been declared between the Kings and the Stallions. And one thing's certain—"
"I will —win."
The holding room now reeked of iron. Arcs of blood dried across the gray walls in shades of rust and wine, as if the walls themselves had bled out. The flesh of the three men had collapsed into unrecognizable lumps, hung limply from their chains—limbs distended, faces swollen past any memory of whothey'd once been. Raven had tried everything: pain, threats to their families, promises laced in venom. Nothing worked. All he'd been able to find out was that a hit had been issued wide.
Stoker had arrived only minutes into the interrogation, helping Raven rain down pain on the men relentlessly. But still their silence held. The men never broke. Raul even pleaded for his life. Pathetic, but holding to what his father told him about the man's character. His persona was all a show. He lacked the backbone and the grit to be a true leader.
Raven stood amid it all, unmoved by the carnage but hollowed by its finality. The silence was not submission to the pain they endured—it was loyalty, or perhaps something deeper—a secret they refused to spill even as their bodies unraveled.
Raven knew now: if there had been anything to give, one of them would've cracked. But they hadn't. Either they were clean—or so bound to the cause that even dying felt preferable to betrayal. Suppose the Stallions hadn't ordered the hit. It raised the question of who had done it and why.
As he and Stoker exited, exhaustion seeped into Raven's bones, slow and merciless. Sleep was a luxury he couldn't afford—not until he had names, not until questions surrendered their grip on him.
What he needed now was Mynx.
Her softness wasn't weakness—it was sanctuary. It was the only place left where sorrow could be unmade, where his regrets could be momentarily erased, and Raven could forget what kind of man he had become in that room. With her, he didn't need control. He could let go of questions, of rage, of the ache that pulled at his chest.
She would ask nothing of him but himself.
His body needed her. To rest. To be undone. Before he destroyed something else. Before he forgot the man he wanted to be.
Stoker flexed his fingers—blood crusted deep in the creases of them, knuckles split and swollen. Raven watched him, wondering if he was trying to shake the pain from them—or the memory of what they'd just done.
"What are you thinking, Raven? Where do we go next?" he asked, voice rough with fatigue.
"We've got options," he said. "First, round up every King. Associates too. I want them questioned—who saw what, who heard anything. Get the other underbosses to help. Divide them—pressure them. If anyone says something worth hearing, I want to hear it myself. Send Mynx's father to talk to Cat in Seattle. She's remained loyal to the Kings even after her marriage to Alfonse. See what she can dig up about people's thoughts over the negotiations with the Kings. If anyone is boasting about plans to take us out? If there's information to uncover, she'll find it."
Stoker exhaled through his nose, lips pressed thin. "That's going to take more time than we might have."
"I know. But until we know something more, we are just pissing in the wind. And we need intel for the war that's going to go down when the Stallions figure out that we killed their Capo. With the head of the organization cut off, we have a little time while they restructure to figure out a plan of attack. We still don't have any answers on the Sugar murder either. My father was dead set on the idea that her murderer is within our ranks. And I can't stand around and wait for the FBI to come knocking on our door to collect them. And I need to know if her murder was for blood — coincidence... or consequence. So, rounding everyone up for questioning can serve both purposes."
Silence settled, heavy as concrete between them. They both knew things were about to get a whole lot more interesting in the next forty-eight hours, and what they did now before the Stallions suspected anything was wrong could help them comeout of this successfully. But if they didn't act fast enough, this could be the end of them both, not to mention every member of the King's ranks that depended on them.
Raven didn't blink. "We go deep before we go wide. If there's rot in this organization, I want to know where every bit of the decay starts and ends."
Raven studied Stoker from the side. His posture had shifted subtly—more upright than usual, more still—dedication to Raven, or the illusion of it, sitting just under the skin.
He wondered if things would now revert.
Back to the old rhythm. Back to the hierarchy they'd once relied on between each other, before ambition started clawing at its edges. Now that Raven was in charge... would their dynamic reset? Or had the damage run deeper than either of them chose to admit?
Raven needed some assurance from Stoker before he could fully trust him as his right-hand man.
"Can I count on you to help me lead the Kings now that my father is gone, Stoker? You and Shelby are my right and left hands. And if this isn't what you want, I would rather know sooner rather than later. You are more of a brother to me than a cousin, and there is no other person alive I trust more to help me navigate this bullshit. But I need to know where we stand."
"The whole Mexico thing with my father pissed me off, Raven. I won't pretend otherwise. Blood should've mattered more than whatever the Dons wanted. We should've found another way."
His gaze hardened as he continued.
"But I'm past it now. What I want—what I need—is for whoever killed my uncle to feel what we feel. To know the Cordobas aren't men to be fucked with."
A beat passed. Stoker's voice dropped, quieter but fiercer.
