He always did that. Looked me in the eyes as if reading whatever was going on in my head. He never said anything, and I suspected it was to make certain I was okay.
He took my hand and helped me to my feet then we walked outside. The sun beamed down on my face so brightly I couldn’t see for a few seconds while my vision adjusted. Every step I took, the cuts on my back rubbed under the bandages. I learned to wear loose clothing when I came here. This time … I’d worn Deck’s shirt. It smelled like him despite the scotch that now splattered the material. Still, if I tilted my chin down, I could breathe Deck in and feel … solid again.
“Faster than usual.” I heard Tanner say as we approached the car.
He snorted and when I looked up at him through parted blue streaks of hair, I caught the fierce glare he sent Tanner. I had the impression he didn’t like him very much, but Tanner had been with us since the beginning. It was odd. If he didn’t like him, why was Tanner still part of this? “Get your head on the job, Chaos,” he said.
I opened the passenger door and slid in, careful to keep my back from touching the leather seat. Like always, my mind was a fog of emotions attempting to block out the memories and bring me back to the numbness of surviving.
“You have the cover story?”
I nodded.
“Better be convincing. Vic isn’t stupid.” He looked at Tanner then back at me. “You need to find a balance to what you’re doing.”
I knew what that meant. Cut the drinking back.
He placed the bottle in my hand and shut my door. Fuck. I hated the taste of scotch. I hated the smell and I hated everything about it. I unscrewed the lid and chugged it back, ignoring the scorching pain in my throat and drinking as much as I could.
“Whoa, Chaos. Take it easy. Didn’t you hear what he just said? You need to be drunk not comatose.” Tanner’s door shut and he started the car.
It was only a half-hour back to the city, and I needed to be pretty smashed by the time we arrived. It was the one day of the year that I really did get drunk. All the other times … yeah, it was a façade, a cover-up, but today wasn’t by choice. Getting drunk at Connor’s tombstone then cabbing it home was our cover. I would hide in my bedroom and no one would bother me for days.
Another year gone. Another year filled with lies.
This was who I needed to be.
The perfect chaos.
I HAD TO consciously relax my grip on my cell phone before it crushed under the pressure. Fuckin’ Georgie. I should’ve known she’d do something stupid like this. Shit, I had known. That was why I left Vic with her. Every year, she got drunk at Connor’s grave and every year, I fucked off not wanting to be around to see her destroyed. I had no way to stop her pain, and it cut through me so deeply I couldn’t breathe thinking about it.
I knew exactly what would happen if I saw her upset—I’d take from her what I’d always wanted and that could never happen.
Tyler, Josh and Sam leaned against the crumbling wall of the beaten-down house and watched as I calmly took the news Vic laid out for me. They knew me well enough I may be calm on the outer edges, but past that I was fuckin’ furious.
“How long?” I asked Vic.
“Couple hours. She went by her coffee shop, grabbed a bottle of scotch, and then got in a cab. Located the company, driver was at his kid’s birthday party. Fits her description, but her name was Goldie. Not sure why she’d go way the fuck out there.”
Goldie. “Jesus.” The name of her fuckin’ goldfish Connor had buried in the backyard. “Follow the lead. That’s her.”
“Got it.”
I heard the tires squeal as if Vic was making a quick turnaround. “And Vic?”
“Yeah, Boss.”
“You find her. Lock her down.” It was escalating. It was as if she didn’t give a shit about herself. That wasn’t her and yet … Georgie had become a different person when I came back two years after her brother died. Harder. And the sweetness I used to see in her eyes—vanished.
“Got it.”
I pressed ‘End’ then tossed my phone on the makeshift table. An uneasy feeling crept down my spine and made my stomach churn and my heart pound. Why couldn’t I fuckin’ get through to her? This wasn’t just about her brother. Something else was fucking with her mind to make her want to numb it out with alcohol. It didn’t fit. She didn’t fit.
She was stronger than this. Where was the girl I used to know? It was like she was drifting further and further away from me year after year. She was hiding; I’d known it for years. But what I didn’t know was from what.
What the fuck was I going to do with her? This shit had gone on too long. Maybe it was time to cut her loose like Vic said. Was I enabling her by protecting her? Probably, but the thought of losing Georgie was like having to cut off my leg. I couldn’t do it slow and easy; it’d have to be brutal.
“Fuck.” This mission was too important to not have every man I had available, and here I had one of my best men watching Georgie.
I ran my hand down my face and then got my shit together. I was not fucking this up.
“All good, Boss?” Tyler asked.
I met his eyes then looked to Josh. “Failure is unacceptable. We bring our boy home.”
But it was only two hours later that all went to shit. The snitch turned up, bloody and tortured. Eyes wide open, staring and lifeless. There was a note pinned to his shirt, written in blood.