Chapter 15

“Jeremy!”

I run around the corner, where chaos reigns supreme. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a black car peeling out of the parking lot, but I’m focused on Jeremy, who’s lying on his side.

People are screaming, some running, others frozen in place as they pale in terror.

And somehow, there’s a group gathered around him... doing nothing. My brother’s lying on the ground, and they’re not even helping him up.

“Out of the fucking way!” I roar, shoving people aside. Someone grabs my arm, and before I know it, I turn and punch them just so I can break free. It’s the next day before someone tells me it was Tiffany Washington whose nose I broke.

Jeremy’s bleeding all over the blacktop. There’s so much blood that I’m not sure how my little brother held so much inside him. I gather him into my lap, letting his head rest on my leg as I look down at him. “Jeremy... don’t you fucking die on me!”

“It doesn’t hurt, Bro,” he whispers, blood trickling out of the corner of his mouth. “But—”

“No,” I beg, pressing my hand over the hole in his stomach to stop him from leaking all over the place. But the pool of blood under him keeps getting bigger, and it’s bubbling up around my fingers. “Jeremy—”

“I love you, Ga—” he says, but before he can complete my name, his body breaks into convulsions. I hold him close, praying it stops, but when he stiffens and a blood-stained breath hits my face, I know.

“Jeremy... I promise I’ll find who did this.”

I wake up in the afternoon dimness, the sun coming through the curtains in sanguine ripples, the dream that haunts my sleep coating my face in sweat. I wipe it away, reminded of how I had to clean Jeremy’s blood off my body. He’d soaked everything, and later I found out that both bullets had gone all the way through, one of them clipping his spinal cord, which is why he didn’t feel any pain.

Small comfort.

I shudder, sitting up in the cheap motel bed and burying my face in my hands, letting the pain wash over me for as long as it needs to. It’s the only way I can face the rest of the day clear-headed.

I remember everything.

I remember watching the ambulance show up, the way they made a big show of trying to help Jeremy at first until they knew it was just that. I remember the look the two paramedics exchanged when they thought I wasn’t looking.

I remember the funeral, the way everyone stared at me, the way my parents both seemed to have the light in their eyes just wink out as Jeremy’s coffin was lowered into the ground.

I remember everything.

Since that moment, my brother’s head cradled in my lap, his last breaths ghosting over my cheek as I pleaded with the Grim Reaper to take me instead, I have never let anyone or anything get in the way of my single-minded pursuit of Jeremy’s killer.

I couldn’t find out who’d done the shooting the ‘proper’ way, though I’d tried. The local police proved unable to find the culprit, and the local DA quietly dropped the matter since he was running for re-election and didn’t want newspaper headlines about an unsolved murder of a dead teenager messing up his campaign.

So after a while, I turned my back on my friends, my family, my life, and immersed myself in the dark, dirty world that had spawned Jeremy’s death.

Along the way, I’ve gotten plenty of dirt and blood on my soul. It started small, little steps that I thought would get me closer to some kind of answers. But along the way, I got lost. Even with my ethics, my own moral code and rules, the list of my sins is long. More than once, I’ve wondered if I’ve become just as evil as the monster I’ve been searching for.

But I hadn’t questioned my life until her. I’d taken this job thinking it was going to be one like so many others, except I would finally get what I’d been searching for . . . the truth. Or at least some real intel that would send me in the right direction.

I wasn’t expecting my princess, or this warm buzz in my chest every time I think of her. I pray the feelings I have for Bella aren’t just my guilt catching up to me, latching on to an opportunity to feel ‘clean’ again. Whether she does that to me or not, and she does, she deserves better than to be used just so I don’t feel so bad.

I climb out of bed and head to the shower. The hot water pulses on my neck and shoulders, cascading through my hair as I wash, trying to think.

“What should I do, Jeremy?” I ask the steamy bathroom air, trying to get some clarity. “How do I get out of this and do right by her?”

How should I know? You’re the one who’s spent years learning how to be a killer. You’ve picked up a few other skills in that time too.

Even in my head, my brother’s biting sarcasm resonates, making me feel close to him.

I quickly wash and step out of the shower, drying off before checking my shave in the mirror. A day’s growth... no need for my razor today. Instead, I head back into the motel room and open up my travel bag, grabbing jeans, a black T-shirt, and a red zip-up hoodie to get dressed. Leaving the motel room, I get into my ‘work’ truck and drive, trying to think about how I can protect Bella.

It’s the million-dollar question that’s been tearing me up since I snuck out of Bella’s bed this morning with no more ideas than I’d had when I fell asleep with her in my arms.

It’s a ticking time bomb situation and I have to make a move.

I pull over into the parking lot of a convenience store on the north side of town. There isn’t much else around, and it’s ancient enough that there are probably no cameras on the side of the building where I park.

Using the privacy, I pop open the console next to me and take out my burner phone. I dial a number from memory, knowing it’ll be missed but that my recipient will get the voicemail and respond accordingly.

“You’ve reached Larry’s Plumbing. I’m out of the office. Leave a message.”

“Hi, I’ve got a problem with my toilet. The ball float won’t do its job. If you can replace it ASAP, I’d appreciate it,” I say, using the necessary code words. “A rush job, if you’re available.”

I hang up, knowing I just tacked a hefty fee onto what I’m asking, but there isn’t much I can do about it. I need help now.

It doesn’t even take two minutes before my phone rings. I pick it up. “Hello?”

“You called about a toilet?” the voice on the other end asks. I’ve never met Larry the Librarian, but there are few in the underworld who don’t know that slightly nasally voice. I do wonder just how he’s able to pull off a front of being a plumber, but for all I know, that’s just his damn cellphone line. “A rush job?”

“Yes, Larry, I did,” I reply. I hear the grunt on the other end. He knows me and recognizes my voice. “I need a supplement.”

“Just a moment,” Larry says, and a moment later, I hear an electronic beep in my ear. “Go ahead. The line’s scrambled.”

“I need everything you can give me on a man named Blackwell.”

He whistles, long and low. “I can’t help you with that.”

“Excuse me?” I ask, surprised. Never in the years that I’ve been using Larry as my primary information broker has he refused a request.

“No. As in, if you want to stay topside and not six feet under in an unmarked hole in the forest, you’ll drop any inquiry into that man. There are people you should not look into. He’s one of them.”

“That a threat?”

“Just advice. From one professional to another. Goodbye, Gabriel.”

Before I can say anything else, Larry hangs up. I try the number back, but I don’t even get the voicemail, instead getting a computer voice that tells me the number I dialed is no longer available.

Shit.

Not even a moment later, my other phone buzzes, and I see it’s a text message.

I want an update.

Speak of the fucking devil.

“Fine, you want an update?” I ask, starting up my truck and pulling out of the convenience store parking lot. “I’ll give you one,” I say to myself.