31. Nitro

THIRTY-ONE

NITRO

ONE WEEK LATER

We've been watching the commissioner all week, we've been looking into everything meeting, every lunch date, every dinner date he has been too. Getting all the information we need, the house is ready to put his family in for the week, because I want to fucking kill him slowly, and my bothers have all said I can.

Ares is on the couch with Esha reading a notepad. He has been looking for Emily's sister, and she hasn't asked about what he has found, but every time he reads, she's watching him like crazy waiting for him to say he's found something.

"You're on speaker," Nyx puts the phone in the middle of the table and I lean in to see who the call is from. I mean it can only be one person.

"I got a hit on the print. Ddo you want some fun tonight?" he asks, and the three of us smile, as Ares is still on the couch reading. "Good news, they only live thirty minutes away. Have fun." The line goes dead, and I look at the time.

"Shall we go to the pub, then tonight we can go get him?" I ask them all, it's been a few days since we've been over with everything going on at the moment.

"Yeah, lets go to the chippy on the way. I want a kebab," Ares shouts, not looking over at us.

"Don...doner kebab." Tic joins in on the conversation grabbing his jacket. "Smo...smo...smoke?" He stands in front of Nyx, who's rolling up a joint for him.

"Hey-" I turn to Emily, finishing her wine. "-Once this is all over do you think I can get a job?"

"If you think I'm letting you go back to the strip club, you're crazy," I laugh. She's not good enough to tattoo clients yet, but I have a feeling she only wants to draw for fun. Not sure what else she can do, because she only finished high school.

"Not the strip club. I thought maybe something for a few hours to get out of the house." Emily gets off the chair, and walks over to the kitchen to put her glass away. I'm sure we can find her something, might ask Owen if she can work during the day while we're working in the shop.

I look at Ares walking over to us as he put the notepad in his jacket pocket. Taking a drag of Tic's joint, I get up to grab my jacket.

"Ares, Jaya's parents have invited me for dinner next week, but they want you to be there, ple-"

"No," he answers and the three of us start laughing, none of us will ever meet family. We aren't the ones you take to meet family.

"Ares, please. I think you should do it. You did kill my family-" she stops talking when he bursts out laughing, and we join him.

"Oh Princess, you've already used that one this week, better luck next week." Ares jokes. She never says it to upset us, it's normally when she wants something, and when he says no she throws that in his face which always makes us laugh.

"No, I haven't," she fights back.

"I'm sorry Esha, but you have," I join in on the conversation. "You wanted to tattoo Ares, he said no, you said the same thing, so we all agreed you could. And I'm the stupid fucker who went first. This little squiggle of a line was all you did." I show her my wrist. "The only reason I haven't covered it is because it's fun seeing what a bad job you did."

"And then you said Nitro was making you nervous, so I'm the stupid fucker who shares a bed with you, and said you can tattoo me got very lucky, and got this. I still don't know what you were drawing to tattoo on me." He points to the side of his hand, no one knows what the hell she was trying to do.

"I want a small rose there. How about I don't mention it for a month-"

"Not happening, Princess. Let's go." Ares turns to the three of us still laughing.

"That was meant to be a fucking rose." I shake my head, because that is nowhere close to being a rose.

"Wait, what do you mean you killed her family?" Emily looks between us all, this is one thing I was hoping wouldn't come up, but how long can I hide it.

"Her family were one of the founding members of the organisation." I watch her as she stares at Esha. "She knew nothing about it."

"Your family took my sister." Emily goes to walk over to Esha, already a fucked up thing to do, because Ares blocks her way.

"Emily, leave it!" I snap at her, she needs to know Esha had nothing to do with it, and the quicker she learns that, the better,

"No, her family-" She stops when Ares grabs her by the neck.

"Ares." There is a warning in my voice, that I will sort her out myself.

"Now you listen here, I'll kill anyone who hurts my brothers. Now the woman behind me is mine, and no one, I mean fucking no one upsets her. Do you understand?" Emily nods at Ares' question, then he looks at me. "Sort your girl out, then come over to the pub-" he turns back to Emily. "Now because of you upsetting my girl, I have to go to a family fucking dinner." He lets go of her, and they all leave the room.

"Her family took-"

"No!" I shout. "Her family took your sister, she didn't. She knew nothing about what they were doing. She wasn't taking kids from the park, she wasn't hurting any kids, she was a girl who was in the world, and knew nothing about it." My voice is loud, but she needs to know Esha did nothing wrong. "I will burn this fucking world into ashes for you, even put the ashes in a little jar necklace so you can wear it around your neck, but you hurt my bothers, I'll burn you." Her eyes open wide, as if this was new information to her. From the very start I told her my brothers come first, she will always be second. "Do you understand? Esha was a victim in all of this." I watch her shoulders drop, biting her lower lip.

"I'm sorry," she whispers, "it's just I've spent most of my life looking for my sister."

"Come on, let's get some food and a drink. I'll ask Owen if he needs anyone to work in the day." Finally, I see a smile on her lips. "You can be there while I'm in the shop."

"Really? Thank you." She gives me a hug, and I lean down to give her a kiss. "I love you," she whispers agonist my lips, and fuck knows why my whole body tenses up. "You don't have to say it back-"

"It's not that I don't. It's just I-" I stop and take a deep breath, and wonder what the right words are. Because I never would feel the way about something like I do Emily, so why are the words getting stuck in my throat?

"Nitro, should we get a drink?" She smiles, and stands to the side of me, my arm over her shoulder as we walk over the road.

How long can I go without having to bring up this conversation? Or it is a conversation I can ignore.

Joining them all at the table. "Got you kebab and chips, Emily, Tic said you like burgers and chips." Ares points to the food on the table.

"Thank you." Emily looks over at Esha as we both sit down. "I'm sorry, I was wrong."

"It's okay," Esha gives her a smile, then Emily turns to me and asks.

"You think I could ask Owen about a job?"

"Sure," I reply, thankful she's leaving the table, and the second she does I turn to my brothers. "She said she loves me, and I froze." And being my amazing brothers, the three of them start laughing.

"Ares still hasn't said it to me, but I know he loves me. If you've opened up to Emily the same way, I bet she knows it too." Esha dips her chip in the sauce, we all know Ares does, maybe not saying the words isn't the only way to prove it. "You guys show your love in a different way, that's all." She nods letting me know Emily is joining the table again.

"Owen said I can work three afternoon shifts. I'm so happy." She pulls her food closer and starts eating. Then she looks at me. "You have a tab here, which Owen says you've not paid once. How big is that now?"

"Haven't a clue," I answer then start eating my food before it gets too cold.

"Do you think Owen will ever ask us to pay?" Nyx is the first to ask, and I look over at Owen who's asking if we want more beers, but I shake my head, and tell him to come over.

"Let's ask him." I wait for him to grab a chair, and sit down. "My girl said we have a tab, but wants to know how much it is, and then we are wondering if you'll ever ask us to pay."

"The tab is in the thousands, and I will ask you to pay when it hits the amount I need to fully pay the loan back for the pub." He jokes, and the four of us look between each other, and already know we're thinking the same thing.

"And say the loan gets paid off, then what we have to pay every week?" I ask, taking a bit of my food.

"I don't know what you four have planned, but it's going to be a while yet. Now, would you like a drink?" He stands up and waits for us all to give him our order.

Well, we all know what we're doing tomorrow morning, paying off his loan. From all the jobs we do as the Ghosts we have enough money to last us lifetimes. So we might as well help the ones we have respect for, and Owen is one of those people. He never kicked us out when we walked in, never questioned when we wanted to open a tab, always there when Wes needed a room for a witness. The man and his wife are good people, have a daughter married in London, and a son who is travelling in America with his girlfriend. So Owen and his wife are people we would help in a heartbeat if they needed it.

"How much did you order?" I watch Ares take more food out of the bag.

"It's going to be a long night, I need the energy." Ares gets back to the conversation Esha is having with him, and I look in the bag to see what else he has ordered.

"Well, I'm not saying no to food." Leaning back in my seat, while Nyx and Tic go to grab the beers.

For now I'm going to enjoy my night with my brothers, before we go out and be the ghosts for some extra fun.

When Wes said he got a hit, I was picturing two types of people. It was either going to be some big ass prick, or it was going to make a man who was a teacher or something. Someone who would easily get the children to talk to him. What I wasn't expecting is the person sitting in front of us.

"So Claire, why was your print on a lens which was put into someone's eye?" I ask again. It's been an hour and she's not talking about anything.

I looked around her house to see if I could find anything. Nothing. Not nothing as in no evidence, nothing as in she has three t-shirts, two hoodies, two pairs of jeans. No other clothes, bathroom, shampoo, body wash, kitchen one of everything. It's like she doesn't really live here and is only here when she needs to be.

"This is going to end in one way, death-" Ares moves the knife over her cheek. "-so it's up to you how you die, dying with the regret of everything you've done, or make some sort of peace and tell us something."

"I was there to take the kids, then they asked me to start putting lenses in some people's eyes. I didn't ask a question, because I know what happens. I did what they said. Please." She looks between the four of us, and I tilt my head to the side.

Claire knows nothing about the lens. She was given a job. But the children, that's a different story.

"Where would you take the children once you got them?" I ask.

I see her shaking, panting, licking her dry lips. "They didn't give me a choice, I needed the drugs." She starts crying, and I shake my head. They fucked her up enough for her to do whatever for a hit of whatever she needed. Is she any different to what they did to Emily? Can we kill her knowing this?

"You answer our questions, you live. My word." The three of them look at me, and I nod telling them I will not kill her.

"You stay." Nyx pats Tic on the shoulder, and pushes me out the room. "What is happening?" he snaps at me, I look over his shoulder as Claire is shaking.

"She's innocent, she didn't ask for this life. She was another part of their game. We kill her, we're no different to them," I tell them, and Ares is the first to tell me to fuck off, and Nyx stays quite. Always does, he has his own conversation with himself, fights the angel, me; and the devil, Ares.

"We can send her to Kai," Nyx whispers and Ares tells him to fuck off too before walking back in the room.

"Looks like you live, now talk," Ares snaps at her, as Nyx and I join them.

"They would tell me to meet them on a random road. Always a different ones. I would hear them talking about which one to take them too-"

"Take them where?" I ask.

"To...to the black hole." The words come out shaking, fear in her eyes. "The...Black...Hole."

"What is the black hole?" I ask.

"Hell." She starts crying, her body shaking. Not sure if it's because she needs another fix, or out of fear.

"Fuck," I hear Ares and I turn to face him, and he puts his palms together then opens them, letting us know he's seen the words in the notepads.

I take a deep break, another fucking question to add to the ever growing list we already have.

Just what we fucking needed.

The only thing is we have the notepads, and Ares has already seen the words. He's written about it, so I will be reading everything he has written about it so far.

"You go home, I'll take her to Kai," Nyx tells us, and we give him a nod.

Kai helps anyone who has had a rough start to life. He helped us when Wes asked, and so many more along the way. He will find her some more and hope to keep her off the drugs, so she can start a new life.