Page 123 of Love Thy Brother
Folk drew us together. “One’s on the couch in the front room. Can’t tell if he’s awake. He’s got a laptop open on the table. The other’s cutting around the back. He’s the bigger dude. He’s got some tools too. Couple of screwdrivers. A bat. No blades or straps. Can’t be sure if sofa dude has anything, but I’ll handle it if he has.”
Straps. Firearms. Disquiet coursed through me. I’d seen what a bullet had done to Cam, inside and out. I could still smell his blood. His mangled flesh. I gritted my teeth, fighting to keep Rubi from taking Cam’s place in the graphic flashback. Fighting to remember that Cam was alive, well, and grumbling about some shit or other two feet away from me.
It was the kind of moment in recent weeks where Rubi’s warm, intuitive touch had pulled me back. It didn’t happen now. I crash-landed back to reality, and he wasn’t looking at me. No one was. They were focused on the house, all business.
Get a fucking grip.
We split up, Rubi and Folk staying put until the signal arrived from Saint’s crew, me and Cam creeping around the back. Alexei had already cut holes in the fence. I eased through and opened the gate for Cam.
He joined me behind the greenhouse and passed me a cheap butter knife. The metal was cold against my palm. The nostalgia scratchy and unwelcome in my chest. I wrapped my fingers around the handle, missing Rubi’s warmth, but I pushed the ache away. Blocked him out the way he had me. I was late to the party, but there was a soldier inside me too.
“How long?” I whispered.
Cam checked his burner phone, hiding the light in his jacket. “Any second. Wait for the buzz.”
I nodded and focused on the door. From our concealed position, I couldn’t tell how thick it was. How much give I’d find in the frame. But there was no time to worry about it now. It would open, or it wouldn’t. Either way, this ended tonight.
The burner vibrated with an incoming message.
Cam nudged me. “Go.”
I rose and slipped into the shadows of the open garden. The back windows were shuttered by vertical blinds that swayed with the breeze flowing through the air vents in the glass, casting thin flares of light onto the grass.
Sure footed, I wove around them and reached the back door, listening hard, every nerve and sense strained tight.
The back door led into an empty hallway. Folk’s intel had placed the mark in the back bedroom, but change could happen in the blink of an eye, let alone the long minutes it had taken us to get to this point. Dickstain could’ve been anywhere by now.
I heard nothing, though, and an edgy need to get it over with won out.
Fuck it. I slid the butter knife into the slender gap between the handle and the old plastic frame, testing the flexibility.
It was bendy as fuck. I jammed the locking bolt, unhooking it, and it was done. Open. We were in.
I stepped back from the door, flattening myself to the wall, listening again.
Nothing but silence greeted me, and I whistled for Cam.
He crossed the garden in a split second and held my gaze, the question in his expression clear.Ready?
Maybe I hadn’t been before, despite every murderous thought that had crossed my mind. But as the scent of sweat and stale Pot Noodle hit me, I knew without doubt I couldn’t rest until these cunts were three shades of fucked up.
I swapped the butter knife for my hammer.
Cam held a pipe. “You want to take the goon in the bedroom or the front door?”
“You’re asking me now?”
“Six seconds ago you were getting the fucking door, whether you liked it or not. Now I’m giving you the choice.”
There was no choice. “Take the door, brother.”
Cam nodded and we burst into the house.
He shot past me to the door.
I exploded into the back bedroom, on top of the lone figure bent over a product distribution line before he knew which way was up. Gripping him beneath his arms and launching him across the room.
He hit the wall, his startled shout loud in the quiet house for the heartbeat it took for the commotion at the front to erupt. For the pump of blood to my organs to reach a fever pitch of cold fury. I didn’t know this bloke from Adam, but he’d either driven the car that had run Rubi down or he’d sat in the passenger seat and laughed. Whatever became of him in the next few minutes, I’d have no regrets.
