Page 58 of These Monstrous Ties
I’m going to fucking enjoy breaking him, too.
“Tell me what I need to know to get this shit done.”
Nicolas stares at me a moment, reading me. Trying to gauge my mood. But it’s impossible to do that. I don’t even know my own mind in this moment. I just know what I want. What I’m going to take.
What I fucking deserve.
Chapter Nineteen
Present
I haveto hand it to Lucifer. He’d hidden his girl and his baby boy well. Not in Alexandria. Not even in the state of North Carolina. No, he’d taken them north, to Virginia. A small town just outside of Roanoke called Acid City.
Fitting, really.
Acid City is a four-hour drive, which was his first mistake. That isn’t far enough. Especially not for a Rain. Nowhere would have been far enough, but this just makes it easier.
His second mistake is staying at that house in Raven Park. It means my brother can keep an eye on him, make sure he has no idea anything is amiss. I don’t know what kind of war him and my brother have, what exactly it means for an Unsaint to desert, but Lucifer wants to hurt Jeremiah just as bad as Jeremiah wants to hurt him.
That much is obvious when one of my brother’s clubs, Dead Weight, burns down in the middle of the day, right after Nicolas and I finish our lunch. It’s a loss that my brother takes lightly enough; he has more than half a dozen clubs in and around the city. But to be so brazen about it, to bypass the security cameras completely…it’s bold.
But it means Lucifer is still around.
And Jeremiah knows it had to be him; he’d left a skeleton mask at the entrance to the parking lot. Motherfucker.
When afternoon comes, while Jeremiah deals with insurance and restoration and adjusters, Nicolas and I leave. We take one of the spare cars, a black Porsche SUV with blacked out windows and wheels. I think that in itself might be conspicuous, but Nicolas reminds me this is Alexandria.
A portion of this city is fucking made out of money.
Which reminds me of the Unsaints. Atlas, Cain, Mayhem, and Ezra. I wonder if they’re all with Lucifer at the house in Raven Park. I wonder if they’re that stupid.
Trey had stashed knives and guns in our black zip-up bags in the backseat. I make Nicolas run through a drive-thru for a large iced coffee, and then we’re on our way.
I flip onUpperdrugsby Highly Suspect from my phone and turn it up. Nicolas glances at me from behind the wheel as we merge on the highway.
“You know,” he says, speaking loudly over the music, “it is possible to be a gangster and still keep your hearing.”
I laugh, shaking my head to the beat and singing out loud. “Don’t think so,” I call out after my favorite part passes. “And besides,” I add, “what’s the point?”
Nicolas laughs and rolls down the windows. I relish in the cool air ripping through my hair, my bangs obscuring my vision. It’s sunny this afternoon, but finally turning cool. Finally changing with the season. Halloween will be here soon, and once I burn Lucifer’s body, I’ll fucking dance on his grave.
Nicolas turns down my music when the song ends, and I’m about to protest when he puts a hand on mine.
“You seem excited,” he observes over the wind blowing through the vehicle.
I crisscross my legs in the seat and he looks over and laughs, shaking his head. “I wish I could do that,” he murmurs.
“You’re driving,” I point out, squeezing his hand. “You need a foot on the gas.”
“Fuck, Sid, even if I wasn’t driving, my legs would never fit in the seat like that.”
“Chop them off,” I deadpan.
He bursts into laughter again.
I feel light. Even though I know we’re carrying more weapons than can possibly be legal. Even though I know we’re about to do something veryillegal, I feel lighter than I have in ages. I’m not going to see my brother’s leftovers. I’m not going to be forced to touch their corpses. No, I’m going to do the job this time.
It doesn’t matter that I’ve never done it before. My anger, seething beneath my skin this past year, it’s enough to get the job done. And for practical matters, Nicolas is with me.
