Page 62 of Ravaged
“Fuck that,” I said. “We’re not going to hand her over because some prick on the top floor of a building thinks he can use her to figure out where his wife’s gift went.” I crossed my arms. “If Axe can’t do it, then Muro sure as hell can’t either.”
“Listen to yourself, man,” Derek said. “You can’t defend someone in this world just because you like her. We’re in a crime family, Ethan. You’re an Adler.” He reached over and smacked my shoulder. “You’ve got to start thinking like one. Don’t think of her as a person. Think of her as collateral. Property, like she’s always been. She’s just property, man.”
My brain warred over the thoughts roaming through my head. Derek had called me an Adler, had said we were family, which meant acceptance.
But he had also reminded me that I couldn’t let myself become weak, especially not over her.
Still, I had to argue my case. I couldn’t let her go.
“Give Oliver one chance. One more chance, with the threat of being delivered to the Midnight Miles Corporation,” I said. “You know he’ll talk.”
Derek sighed deeply. “All right,” he said. “You really want to save this woman? Then fine. I’ll talk to Muro again. See what I can do.” I narrowed my eyes.Thatwoman had a name, but we didn’t need to get into that right now. “But you have got to get yourself under control. She’s not family. She wouldn’t do the same for you.”
But that’s where he was wrong. I knew Teagen. She defended her father and her best friend. And I knew, even if I didn’t like it, that she felt loyalty to me. She would defend me if it came down to it too. I trusted her to do that.
Once we parked the car with the others, Derek checked his phone, then flicked a finger for me to follow him. We went to Axe’s workroom, where the standing cage still held Oliver. The front of his pants was covered in piss and his face was bruised, his eyes swollen shut.
Axe turned to me. “He’s all yours,” Axe said, pointing to a different man, a stranger in the corner. He was crouching, both knees knocked out, a blindfold over his eyes.
“All mine?” I asked.
“We thought it might be a good way to help break you in,” Derek said. “Time has passed since that first one. And we know about what happened in New Mexico.” He shrugged his shoulders. “It’s different now. You’re one of us.”
“Take the woman with you to bury the body,” Axe said. “Scare her into a confession.”
“Don’t take my daughter to bury a body, you sick bastards,” Oliver hissed. Axe lifted the bludgeoning end of a club, and Oliver cowered, his lips closing tight.
The blindfolded man was on the ground, his shoulders loose. He was covered in grime and seemed resigned to his fate. As if he had already given up before he was caught.
“What has he done?” I asked.
“Boss gave him some heroin to sell,” Derek said.
“Two extensions,” Axe said, sharpening a knife.
I had been on enough deliveries and collections to recognize a few faces, but this man didn’t call up any memories. And killing someone hadn’t been a daily part of the routine. Axe took care of most of that.
But not today.
“We’re reasonable people,” Derek said. He kicked the man’s shoe, but the man didn’t move at all. “But this fucker decided he’d rather shoot it all up his arm than make a rich man out of himself.”
I took the gun out of my holster, cocking the hammer. It was one thing to feel a man’s life vanish with each blow, another to take it away in a mere second. I had done both. This man meant nothing to me, but taking Abby’s husband’s life had haunted me—not because of him, but because of how the murder had ruined her.
But the second man, the bouncer I had put a bullet inside of, had vanished from my memory. Until now.
Derek removed the blindfold. The man blinked up at me with his constricted, brown eyes.
If killing this man meant a proper belonging with the rest of the Adlers—if this was what I had to do to gain their trust, then so be it.
Because at least it wasn’t Teagen.
I pulled the trigger, and the man fell backward, his body slumping to the concrete floor.
