Chapter Sixteen

Trick

C ash gets distracted from the conversation as his phone goes off, and he pulls it out of his pocket.

He looks up at us, "It's from Rachel. She sent back the photograph that we sent her and circled the guy who gave her friends the drugs."

"And?" Luc questions, "Who is it?"

Cash's eyes widen slightly as he uses his fingers to zoom in, "Fuck. It's Boyd."

"One of Billy's inner circle, Boyd?" I ask, needing clarification because this is bad.

Cash nods, "Yeah, that Boyd."

"Fuck," Riot echoes me, "it's a damn good job that we didn't involve Billy he would have protected his guy."

"How sure can we be that they aren't all involved? I mean, if one is, then the rest tend to be," Luc asks.

"That's a good point, but I hope you're wrong," I reply. I look at Cash, "Can you message Trev and see if he has any idea where Billy's inner circle is this weekend? We need to get this sorted as soon as possible, but it's not going to be a good idea to talk to Boyd when all of the others are around; even if they don't know anything about it, they'll all close ranks around him because he's one of their own."

"On it," Cash replies, already tapping out a message.

"Yeah, good point. We're going to have to handle this really carefully," Rafe signs.

I sigh, "Why does everything have to get complicated."

No one has an answer for me, and the car lapses into silence for a moment as we're all consumed by our own thoughts.

"Seriously though, where is Jensen?" Cash asks after a while, breaking the silence as he looks out of the window and in the direction of where Jensen disappeared.

"I have no idea," Riot replies, looking down at his phone to check how long he's been gone, "do you think we should go after him?"

He's barely finished asking the question when Jensen walks around the corner, a slight smile on his face and completely unharmed. He's also got no blood splattered on him, which means Knox is most likely okay as well. Just because Jensen's okay doesn't mean that Knox necessarily is, but I'm sure we would have heard it if something happened and there was a fight.

"Hey guys," Jensen says as he gets in the truck.

I immediately start the engine and turn it around so we can leave. "Did everything go okay?"

"Yeah, he's going to stop throwing the parties until it's sorted out," Jensen replies. His pause seems loaded, though, and I realize why when he adds, "He knew that we were going to be taking care of the issues ourselves."

"What do you mean he knew?" Riot asks.

"He asked me point blank if we were the ones taking care of it. Actually, he said, ‘I assume that you're going to be the ones that are taking care of it.'"

I raise my eyebrows, "He knows more than most then."

"Yes, he does, and no I don't have any idea how," Jensen replies, "Although he told me that his family founded the town and because of that he feels somewhat protective of it, so he likes to make sure that he knows about any threats in town."

The rest of us all share a look.

"His family founded the town?" Cash predictably asks intrigue sparking in his eyes. I know why. If his family founded the town, then why aren't there any pictures of them anywhere, and why don't they mention that they were the founders of the town in any of the news articles?

"Yeah, which is strange because we're normally taught about that sort of thing, and I don't remember being taught that," Jensen replies.

"That's not the only strange thing," Cash replies, and he quickly fills Jensen in on everything that he's just told us.

By the end of Cash's explanation, Jensen's eyes are wide and his leg is bouncing up and down with excitement. He's just as intrigued as the rest of us, maybe even more so since he actually knows Knox.

"Ooh, that's a proper mystery," Jensen grins and then frowns. "I don't think it would be a good idea to look into it, though. As much as I want to, I feel like we'd be heading down the rabbit hole, and right now, we don't have time for that."

"That's what I said," I tell him, "fortunately, everybody agreed, and we're letting it drop, especially since we know from you that Knox just wants to be left alone. If we started looking into his family's past and shit, we could end up bringing up some really painful things for him, and none of us want to do that."

"Especially since some of us know what it's like to have really painful pasts," Jensen replies knowingly, shadows dancing across his eyes.

"Exactly," I reply.

"So, is it the usual plan for Ryan then?" Riot asks, successfully changing the subject.

"Yeah, we don't really need to talk to him. We just need him to know that we know where he is and that we are watching him," I reply.

"And that we can get to him whenever we want to," Jensen adds, violence flashing through his eyes.

I think I'm going to have to watch him a bit closer than usual today. He's been on edge ever since the last fight at the Pit, and although we've all been taking it in turns to spar with him, Atlas was the only one who could really give him a run for his money and wear him out well enough. I've been trying to think of a different approach, something that's going to help Jensen burn off some of that extra energy, and the best that I've come up with so far is to have him spar with more than one of us at a time. I haven't suggested it to the others yet, but the more I think about it, the more confident I am that it's the right thing to do.

Hopefully, it will not only make it more of a challenge for Jensen, but it will also give us a bit more of a fighting chance since there will be two of us fighting him at once. My mom is starting to get worried about the bruises that we give each other when we spar, but she's let it go so far, mostly because she thinks that we're sparring at an actual gym and in a controlled environment. She doesn't know that we're actually sparring at Cash's place since he has a private gym that is fully equipped and mats that at least cushion some of our fall when Jensen launches one of us.

She would not be happy if she realized that we weren't being trained and, in her eyes, were just fighting; mind you, none of the parents would be. Fortunately, Cash's mom and dad are out a lot at work, so we haven't run into the issue yet. I make a mental note to talk to the guys about it when we're not on the way to stalk some fucker.

I have to admit that I kind of like doing this. We've done it more than once when we've run someone out of town, and it's proven to be needed more often than not. We've had to reinforce our threat on a couple of people who thought they could do what they did here in their new towns. Predictably, they moved when they were caught here, and we followed them to the next town they moved to just to prove that we could. We check in every now and then and have a couple of contacts that keep an eye on some of them, but we haven't had anyone offend a third time.

I am aware that I probably shouldn't like it as much as I do, but we're all a bit dark and twisted, and quite frankly, I wouldn't have us any other way. We're helping people in our own way, and that way just happens to be violent and a tad bit bloodthirsty.

It works for us, and we're unlikely to change it anytime soon.

"Rafe wants to know if anyone would like a brownie? His mom made them." Riot asks, pulling me out of my thoughts.

"Yes, please," Luc says.

"Absolutely," Cash answers.

Jensen makes grabby hands as he replies, "Do you even need to ask? I am literally starving."

"No, you're not," I retort with a smile, chuckling when he gives me the finger and nodding to Rafe when he offers me a brownie, "thanks man."

"No problem," he signs in reply, taking one himself and then closing the lid on the rest of them and putting them back in his backpack.

"Oh my fucking god," Jensen suddenly exclaims, and I panic that we're being followed or something until he adds, "These brownies are the best thing I have ever tasted."