I need more answers and information. For now, she’s safe until she reaches their destination while my phone takes a road trip with her. They want her alive, and they are travelling by car, so they won’t be going that far, and they need to keep her alive. My bullet would have gone straight through her shoulder. I was aiming to kill her with my second bullet once I’d talked to her. I’m not sure why I feel relief that I didn’t get that far. If she’s my father’s whore, then she deserves what she gets from me.
But is she?
Jesus Christ, what have I stepped into? Even in death, he’s causing trouble.
My phone is the only lead to finding out who is behind all this and why Whisper is involved.
“Move away and mind your own fuckin’ business.” Ivory’s losing his patience with me. He’s on a schedule, and I’m fucking that up. I can’t win against a gun at close range pointed at my head. I move away and he slams the trunk down. “Don’t even try to follow us.” Then he shoots me in the foot. “Sorry about that. No hard feelings, just doing my job.”
“Mo...ther... fuuuck...iiiing... ass...hole,” I let out a deep groan as I go down on one knee. I had been toeing the line, playing the part, because it was as easy as him pulling the trigger to blow my brains out, and that silencer on the end of his gun would ensure nobody heard my death, but the fucker still shot me.
I know the cocksucker isn’t going to let me watch them drive off. Just to add insult to injury, I have to let him knock me out. Such a predictable son of a bitch as he pistol-whips me across the head.
Just as I’m blacking out, I remind myself to find these two guys. They have just been added to my retribution list.
Yeah, no hard feelings, Ebony and Ivory.
***
When I come to, lying flat on my back, my foot’s throbbing and my head’s pounding, and I find I’m having an inner battle with myself, knowing I should just walk away.
None of this shit is anything I need to include myself in. So she was a good fuck? I can still burn the house down now and be done with it all. So what if my phone is in the trunk with her? I can buy another one.
No, conscience isn’t part of the Soulless Bastards fucking code. Whisper won’t last long under the guy who wants her. She will pay whatever debt my father owed him, and then she will be done for. My world will continue the way it was revolving.
I roll to my side and pound my fist into the dirt.
Fuck!
There’s too much blamelessness surrounding this woman that I can’t ignore. I don’t hurt innocent people.
My foot hurts like a thousand razor blades have been embedded in it as I stand up and hobble over to the house, when I’m distracted by a phone going off. I head towards the sound and find her phone lit up, lying a few yards into the trees. I scoop it up and check the caller ID. ‘Miss Catherine’ is showing up on the screen. I ignore it and let it ring out. I use the phone to first text my president with a code word to let him know I’m going to be calling on an unknown number, and then I call him and organize for nothing to be sent through to my phone. Hazard wants to know how it’s all going because he knows if I don’t have my own phone, something has gone down. I tell him everything just turned complicated, but it will get sorted. He wants to send a brother to help me out, but I decline.
I use the flashlight app to search for her bike keys, but I can’t find them with a quick inspection of the area, and I don’t have the time to search for them properly. They may even have kept them.
I head back to the house. There’s gotta be something I can find out about her inside it.
Blood’s dripping everywhere as I make my way into the house. The front door was left unlocked because apparently she has issues with locking doors behind her.
I had watched and waited patiently for her to come back outside from that house so I could end her life, and my mission would have been completed, but something felt off to me, watching her staring at the garden patch like it meant a great deal to her.
I still didn’t hesitate to pull the trigger.
If she was associated with my father, then she couldn’t have been good, was my last thought before I laid her out on the ground and the night turned into a free-for-all dust-up.
The house is dark, only barely lit in front of me by the flashlight app. It’s enough to draw my attention to an envelope propped up on the dining table. I hobble closer to see a key sitting next to it.
The envelope is addressed to Dallas Dupré.
A red flag went up when I received my letter from the lawyer, because it was addressed to my new family surname, the one I was given to hide my identity from my father. The check was also made out to Dallas Masson.
Christ, what game is my father playing?
Something was off about the will and I didn’t take the time to follow it through. I flew out of Albuquerque all hot-headed, instead of taking the time to think. That’s a rookie’s error.
I open the envelope and start reading. I can’t read fast enough.
Motherfucking cocksucker asshole!
I shove the letter into my jacket pocket and also pocket the key. I have to get out of this house and get to a computer, but first I have to clean up the blood spilling from my foot, where I had trailed it into the house. I find some dish towels in a cupboard and I take the fucking time to clean up any evidence I have been here.
It takes too long.
Now, I can’t get out the house quick enough as I try to work out where I can find a computer this late at night, so I can track where Whisper is being taken. I didn’t want to let Hazard know about this clusterfuck. I can handle this shit myself. There’s nothing I can’t handle.
My bike’s hidden in the thick trees surrounding the property. I had walked a distance to get here, and that was gonna come back to piss me right off.
I push Whisper’s bike into the trees and then head off on foot to get to my bike.
Time is wasting away. My foot’s exploding with pain as I jog as best as I can all the way back through the forest to my bike where it’s hidden, and get back on the road and ride towards town. I’ve lost blood, and I’m having trouble seeing through the blinding pain from when the second prick knocked me out. Feels like the fucker used a rock on my head.
I’m speeding along the dirt road when my bike’s light picks up a shadow on the side of the road, and then the shadow decides to step out into the path of my bike.
It’s an old lady.
What the fucking hell?
I swerve to miss her at the last minute, which sends me careening off the road into a painful slide.
Jesus Christ, this night just keeps getting better.
I know how to let my body fall so the damage will be less, but it’s still gonna do some damage. My helmet saves my head, and the leather jacket and pants I’m wearing save me from the impact of the ground sliding harshly underneath me. When I’ve finally come to a stop, I groan from the pain in my foot. It’s wedged underneath the bike, which is lying sideways and partially on top of me.
An old face appears in my vision. “I’m Miss Catherine, and I’ll be needin’ your help, young man. I need to find a girl; it’s an emergency.”
“Christ, lady, I’ve just missed killing you and you want to have a chat?” Un-fucking-believable.
Then her name registers to me, it’s the lady who was trying to call Whisper. I struggle to get up and see if the bike is still roadworthy. My response is muffled. “Lady, you should not be out here at this time of night. What the hell are you thinking?”
I take my helmet off, which is wet with blood, and assess the damage, ignoring the little old woman standing beside me, hovering. I stand the bike up and notice the tiny blinking red light of the tracker that has come loose and is lying in front of me. I’d forgotten about it. I pick it up, smothering a curse under my breath. As long as they think I’m not following them, this will work in my favor.