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Chapter 21

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

LANDON

A fter Lily leaves, I take a few minutes to calm myself down. I've never experienced that level of emotion before. When she was crying, it was like something was breaking apart inside of me. All I wanted was to make her better. All I wanted was to make it so she'd never have to cry again.

Pure delusion. I'm not going to be her " ever" anything. Months together, then what? Shatter her heart when I go?

I stalk into my bedroom and grab my gun and my digital camera. The camera is high-end. It was a gift from Dad the last time he was in the States. I'd made an offhand comment about being interested in photography. Dad took it to heart. I haven't used the damn thing, which is points in the bad-son column, but it'll come in handy now.

Dressing all in black, I know this is a moment the old Landon would snap to his senses. He'd feel like the world's biggest ass as he looked at himself in the mirror, black hood pulled up, black jeans, black boots, with a gun at his back. He'd think, "What are you doing, jackass? Who do you think you are?"

Yet I don't have any of those doubts or hesitations. I get in my car, ready to do whatever needs to be done. Driving to the outskirts of The Row, I go into a convenience store and grab a bottle of whiskey and a brown bag. Then I pull my goods up and start half stumbling, half walking through the neighborhood.

I've got the camera in my hoodie pocket, and the pistol is in a chest holster. It's slightly less convenient, but I can hide it with my hoodie. I stumble to the apartments opposite The Bear, dropping down against a wall and sitting on the sidewalk. A block over, another drunk is wailing into the night.

I just sit here, occasionally taking a pretend sip from the bottle. I don't care how long I have to wait. The Bear is quiet for the first hour, but then people begin to arrive, and the music starts. Nobody looks my way. I spot Damon and a few men I recognize from before. My hand twitches for the gun.

I focus. The last thing I need is to black out like I did on the apple tree job, only this time, with a pistol in my hand.

My body begins to ache about two hours in, and I need to take a leak. I seem invisible as I sit here and sip. Nobody gives a damn about some drunk homeless guy in a neighborhood that's full of them. I just keep waiting. I don't care how long it takes or if my bladder bursts.

Finally, at around half past midnight, the music gets much quieter. About ten minutes later, men swagger from the bar, heading to the apartment building on the other side of the street. I take out the camera and set it in my lap, covering the light with my hand when I click record. I don't know if the angle is any good. I can't move around too much or make it too obvious.

Then I see him, the sick fuck. I watch as Damon walks, like the biggest, baddest man who ever lived, right up to a window and knocks on it. He must say something, but I can't hear. I see it, though. As the window opens, I watch a boy, maybe a teenager, jump out. He's laughing.

The sick fuck has convinced them he's their friend until he has enough, and then … I take a risk, adjusting the camera so I can see the viewscreen. I get a video of Damon lifting one girl from her bedroom window.

"Uncle Damon," she calls out loud enough for me to hear.

I'd wonder how this could be possible, but I've seen enough deadbeat, junkie parents to understand how it could happen. Their parents are probably passed out, not even thinking of their kids, too doped up to be jolted from sleep. Or maybe Damon has even paid some of them off.

The men return to the bar with around six children, walking around to a side exit. I have to stop myself from following them. I have to remind myself that they won't hurt them, or they haven't yet .

I will need to get this video to Ethan, who can get it to his cop buddies. Then I'll give them twenty-four hours to shut this shit down, or I'll go nuclear. I can't leave this life knowing this is still happening.

Once the street is quiet again—not a single parent has raised the alarm—I move around to the side of The Bear. They've taken them to a small basement door that could be missed easily. I get some extra footage of that, take a piss in the alleyway, and then return to my spot.

I can't leave until I see those kids back in their homes. I wonder if I should call the cops. I could tell them that kidnapped children are in the basement of The Bear right now. The cops have been called before, and nothing has happened. Still, surely, I have to try.

My primary concern is that these freaks haven't hurt the kids yet . If they suddenly hear sirens—and somehow hide the kids or grease the cops—then I might force their hand. Maybe they'll realize they need to speed up this sick process.

I chew the inside of my cheek, wishing the world was simpler, wishing I could just go in there and challenge Damon to a fair fight. A rat like him, dealing in the sick shit he does, would never agree to it, but if he had the stones, it would make this so much easier for everybody involved.

Taking out my cell to check the time, I almost instinctively call Lily. The quick dinner and all those revelations at the apartment have made me feel even closer to my mortality. It's like having a small preview of what we could share if given a chance, but it has hammered home the fact that I'll never have that chance.

I put my cell away, still chewing the inside of my cheek. Insane visions tempt me as I sit here, trying not to think about her, but I see the future—an impossible one. Regardless, I see her sitting with a baby in her arms. I see her smiling at me during a celebration dinner after she gets promoted. I see her moaning with her wedding dress draped over the end of the bed, tearing her nails down my back.

Blinking, I rub my eyes. I need to get a hold of myself. She's brought so much to the surface.

What the hell am I going to do? I take out my cell again. The cold, ugly truth is that those men could do anything to those kids, but they're probably still in the grooming stage.

I stand up, put my hand on my chest, and feel the gun. This is driving me nuts. Then it hits me like a cold slap in the face. Lily was right. Things like this have been happening all over the city, and I was in my penthouse or a high-rise someplace, severing marriages.

I've got to decide?—

A scream cuts through my thoughts—a child's, high-pitched and terrified. It's muffled coming from the back of the bar, but then I hear another.

I'm running fast, no longer thinking or feeling anything other than cold and focused. The basement door is metal and looks difficult to open from the outside. I take out my P365 and use the butt to hammer it over and over until I feel it open.

Quickly, I move to the side of the door and into the shadows. I'm not blacked out this time, but the same cold aggression has gripped me. The same feeling I experienced when I tied that man's body up in the tree.

A burly man walks up the stairs. "What the …"

I dive on him and smash the gun over his head. He stumbles and falls to his knees. I hit him again, and he falls flat on his face. He won't be out for long, but he'll be damn groggy when he wakes up. Moving fast, I aim my gun down the basement stairs.

When I turn the corner, the door at the end of the narrow hallway bursts open, and a little girl runs out.

"Will somebody get her?" a man's voice roars. I'm sure it's Damon.

Staring at my gun, the girl freezes when she sees me. She's got a red braid over one shoulder, and her eyes are the same shade of red, bloodshot and full of pain. She's been crying.

"I won't hurt you," I tell her.

Damon appears in the doorway behind her, a grin on his face. "You brave bastard."

"This shit ends tonight," I snarl, pointing the gun at his head.

"Is that so?"

"I will fucking end you," I snap.

Damon snorts and gestures to the room behind him. "If you fire a single shot, what do you think happens to those kids there?"

"Do you have any idea how sick you are?"

"We're playing video games. Relax."

"Is that why she's crying?"

"I want to go home," the girl whimpers, squeezing herself against the wall like she thinks she will disappear.

"Let all the kids out. Now."

"If you shoot me, you're a dead man."

I walk forward slowly, my gun trained on him the whole time, waiting for any movement. He's got his hands up. The closer I get, the more terrified he looks.

"Make a move," I say when I'm halfway down the hallway. "Give me a fucking excuse. You've been around killers before. Look at me and tell me I'm bluffing."

He swallows as I dart my hand out and grab the front of his shirt. I pull him roughly against me and then wrap an arm around him, putting my gun to his head. Then I kick the door open the rest of the way to find a small entertainment room, a flat-screen TV on one wall with a video game setup with the kids huddled around it.

Men stand in a circle around the kids, none of them with their guns out, but all with hands near their hips, the implication clear.

"You're all pathetic," I snap. "You're all scum. Those kids are all walking out of here right now. They're going home. If you try to stop them, I'm going to kill your boss right here."

None of them laugh or show any sign that they think I'm bluffing. They exchange looks of complete horror. They know another killer when they see one. They know I'm more than capable of doing this. They must be able to tell.

"Boss?" one of the men grunts.

Damon stiffens against me. "Go on, kids. Go on home. Fun time's over. Little Gracey ruined it for you all."

Grace . The girl in the hallway. That was the name Lily gave me when this started, the moment I saw her again after all those years. Grace is the girl trying to do the right thing.

The kids stand, all looking petrified, more like cattle than children. They walk in a docile way out of the door and down the hallway. I look behind me, watching them leave, keeping the gun to Damon's head the whole time.

"Now what, tough guy?" Damon says, doing a half-decent job of hiding the fear from his voice, but there's nothing he can do about the stiffness in his body. He can't hide that.

"Now, you shut The Bear down and never come back."

"Ha ha," Damon says.

"Tell your cartel buddies you waited too long. The place got too hot. You'll have to find somewhere else."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

I slowly back out of the room, keeping Damon close, never relieving the pressure of the pistol's barrel against the side of his head. He needs to understand that I'll pull the trigger any time. His men stalk after me slowly, cramming into the hallway, all looking ready.

"Going to be difficult to walk backward up those steps, buddy," Damon says.

"We'll figure it out," I grunt, backstepping as I drag him after me.

He groans and struggles not to fall on his ass, but I keep dragging him until we're in the cold night air. It feels like an eternity since we've been down there. The kids are walking across the street, all except the girl with the red braid, who lingers near a trashcan. Damon's man is leaning against the wall, his hand on his head, looking confused.

"Go home," I snap at the girl, Grace.

The girl's voice is hollow, too jaded for anyone her age or anybody. "Shoot him, mister. Shoot him!"

"Oh, how lovely, Gracey," Damon says with shit-eating sarcasm.

I twist the barrel of the gun, causing him to whine and shift against me. He quickly cuts it off when he remembers his men can see and hear us, but I can sense how much effort it takes him.

"I heard you talking! You said you were going to put us in trucks, " Grace yells.

"Eavesdropping little bitch."

I snap—a mini blackout—and when I "wake up," I realize I've smashed Damon over the back of the head with my gun. His men rush toward me. I catch Damon before he can fall, then heft his body up, putting the gun against his head again.

"Grace," I say over my shoulder.

"Yeah?"

"I need your help."

The little girl is heartbreakingly eager. "Yeah?"

"I've got a digital camera in my pocket. I want you to take it out and start recording."

"Yes, sir," she says right away.

"What game are you playing?" Damon groans, slowly returning to his senses.

"This isn't a fucking game," I growl, resisting the urge to hit him again … for now.

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