“It’s okay, son. We’ll get your girl back. You’ll see.”
“I certainly hope so.”
The guys began talking amongst themselves, discussing their opinions on what needed to be done for Sophie’s safe return. I was trying to make sense of it all when I turned to Jagger and asked, “You got anybody that might have an issue with you?”
“An issue with me?” Jagger looked at me with a surprised expression. “You seriously think this shit has something to do with me?”
“Yeah. I mean, when you think about it, it’s a real possibility,” I answered. “You worked the late shift the night of the explosion, then Kordarius and his buddies broke into your place—no one else’s, and now this thing is happening with Sophie—who is your ol’ lady.”
“What about Lisa and the girls? They ain’t got shit to do with me.”
“They work at the club. A hit on them is a hit on us.”
“He makes a good point.” Viper turned to Jagger. “Maybe there’s someone out there looking to settle the score.”
“Yeah, but I can’t think of anyone who’d be stupid enough to try and do something about it—especially something like this.”
“What about Sophie?”
“What about her?”
Jagger’s fuse was already short, so I was hesitant to ask, “She works with folks who have anger issues. There any chance this has something to do with her?”
“I don’t fucking know.” He dropped his head into his hand, then let out a slow, frustrated breath. “I don’t know anything anymore.”
We were grasping at straws when Menace walked into the conference room with Shotgun. Viper immediately asked, “Did you find something?”
“I’ve been trying to track Collins’ phone for hours and haven’t been able to get a damn thing, but I checked just now, and it worked.”
“You got a location on him?”
“I do.” He glanced over at Jagger. “It shows he’s over at Jagger’s place.”
“What the fuck?”
Without waiting for further information, Jagger charged towards the door. When we realized he was leaving, Viper shouted, “Whoa, hold up, brother! You’re not going there alone.”
“I’ll go with him.”
As soon as I started for the door, Hawk added, “I’m going, too.”
“Not without me.”
Shotgun followed Hawk and me out to the parking lot with Jagger. We mounted our bikes, whipped out of the parking lot, and raced towards his place. The four of us pulled up to the house, parked, and charged towards the front steps. The house was positioned on a slight hill, and there were shrubs leading up the path, making it difficult to see ahead of us as we followed Jagger towards the front door.
I expected him to head straight inside, but just as he was about to reach the front door, he stopped dead in his tracks. The blood drained from Jagger’s face as he stared down at the ground and shouted, “Motherfucker!”
I had no idea what had him so shaken until Hawk, Shotgun, and I came up next to him and saw Collins—the prospect he’d put on Sophie—on the ground with his back propped up against the front door. The earth shifted beneath my feet when I noticed the bullet wound in the center of his forehead.
They’d killed him in cold blood and left him sitting on Jagger’s front steps like a fucking puppet with a note pinned to his chest:
IF YOU WANT TO SEE YOUR GIRL AGAIN, COME ALONE.
Next to the note was an odd-shaped coin.
I leaned in for a closer look. When I saw the bullet hole in the coin’s center, I asked, “Isn’t that the quarter you were looking for? The one your old cellmate gave you?”
“Yeah, it’s the one.”
“But how the fuck did it end up here?”
“They must’ve taken it the night of the break-in.”
Jagger leaned down and grabbed the note from Collins’ chest, then stared at it while grumbling curses. I was still stunned that our prospect was dead and struggling to figure out why. “This whole thing was Tully?”
“Apparently so.”
I had to give it to him. Jagger’s old cellmate was smart. He knew the coin was all he needed to get Jagger back to the prison, but I had no idea why he’d gone to all this trouble. “I thought you two were tight.”
“I thought so, too, but clearly, I was wrong.” Rage marked Jagger’s face as he growled, “I’m gonna fucking kill him. I’m gonna fucking kill him with my bare hands.”
The words had just left Jagger’s mouth when he whipped around and started for his bike. He hadn’t gotten far when Shotgun ordered, “Don’t even think about it!”
Jagger stopped and roared, “You saw the fucking note!”
“I saw what it said, but you’re not going anywhere until we run it through Viper.”
Without any further argument, Shotgun pulled out his phone and called Viper. He put the call on speaker so we could listen while he filled him in on everything that had gone down. As soon as he was done, Viper asked, “Jagger... you got any idea why he did all this?”