CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
*Vincent “Vee” - Road Captain*
“Bay…” My breaths come in short, ragged gasps. I pat him roughly on the cheek, while my opposite hand presses against the blood gushing over his flank. Baylor’s head flops to the side, expression lax, his usually light-red hair now stained a much deeper, wetter red.
Quickly lifting my hand, I tear the fabric at the wound and try pushing the seeping fluid aside to get a good visual. As soon as my fingers move even an inch, the spot douses red again. “Cazzo!”
A groan hums beside us, and my eyes slant sideways to the target. Fucking bastard was a goddamn thorn. Running out of time, I stumble to the kitchen and light the gas stove. Fire sparks and expands around my bloody knife as it begins to heat over the deep-blue flame. I dig the prepay phone out of my back pocket with trembling, bloody fingers and dial up Kal.
“Yeah?”
“Need a cage, Prez. Stat. Bay is down.”
“How bad is it?”
Desperately hoping for the faint glow of red heat along the sharp edges of my weapon, my eyes go unfocused on the edges of the charred knife. “I am not a fucking doctor, Kal.”
“Okay, Vee, I hear you. I just need a few details so we can help best.” His voice is calm, collected. A leader who works well under pressure. Whereas here I am about five seconds away from losing my shit.
I shift from foot to foot. “Them,” I correct. “The victim is here, locked inside their bedroom. I… I… I think she is dead already.”
“Deep breath, brother. Where are we taking them?”
A shaky breath exits my lungs, making the stove flame billow.
“One in-house, one curbside.”
Everything is taking too long.
Heating the knife.
This conversation.
“And the target?”
Logically I know only a matter of seconds have passed, but it feels like a goddamn eternity. “Not dead yet, but that will be rectified soon. Very soon.”
The line clicks. I shove the phone into my pocket, toss my head back, and whisper a sincere prayer, pulling on my Catholic roots. A blistering burn licks against my thumb. I hiss and yank my knife away from the stove.
Vision blurry, I stumble my way over to Bay and fall to the ground at his side, knees slipping in the lake of blood. Saliva and air catch in my throat. I was wrong. Wrong about his being an in-house job. Bay is dying. Too much blood.
I take the knife and press it to his puddling wound. The blood gurgles and hisses against the seared knife. I hold it on there firmly until the hissing stops, all the while keeping my eyes on the man who is to blame. The target blinks at me, incapacitated, face contorted in anger.
That anger — how he is bleeding and seconds away from no longer living yet is still unrepentant — reignites the madness inside of me. An unrequited fury imprinted on my memories from a different place and time flares to existence.
I pull the knife away from Bay, stand, wipe the blade clean, step over my partner, and loom over the pig, twisting the blade around and through the fingers of my tattooed hand. “Remember that you have to die,” I recite my Memento Mori tattoo to the man who I am about to kill. Dropping into a squat, I wipe the back of my bloodied hand over my forehead then hold the tip of my knife up to one of his nostrils, digging it in deep, stretching the thin membrane until fear flashes in his gaze.
Even then I keep going, milking that fear, slicing him from nostril to forehead, until the mocking light in his unrepentant eyes snuffs out, and his head lolls to the side. Gripping the handle tight with both hands, I lift the knife high over my head and lodge the blade through his ribcage and into his faintly-beating heart.
Twisting and pulling it out seems more challenging than putting it in did as my heart rate does an exaggerated drop, plummeting low into my belly and churning. I fall backward, my ass landing between his spread legs.
The only thing that saves me from the dizzy spell overtaking my body is the combo ding and vibration from my pocket letting me know help has arrived. I push off the ground, drag myself over toward the door, and wait. After slowly returning my knife to the sheath at my ankle, I pull out my gun and aim it about two feet higher than the knob, eyes boring holes into the spherical metal, watching for it to turn.
When it does my focus flicks upward, I click the safety off, and tighten my finger over the trigger. Instead of the door swinging wide, four fingers poke through the crack, letting me know that Kal is here and he brought three other HFL members. I put the safety back on and lower the gun to my side.
The door opens the rest of the way to reveal our Prez standing inside the frame. His eyes lock on mine as he enters. Coty, Brodi, and Zane follow on his heels, but they bypass me entirely en route to Bay.
Kal scans me from head to toe. Concern drifts across his hard features. His hands lift to press down on my shoulders, but the absurd amount of blood on me stops him, and his fingers curl and drop back to his sides instead.
“Need a lift?” he asks.
“No,” I respond.
He opens his mouth again, probably to make certain, but he does me a solid and stops himself short, giving me a curt nod. “We’ve got this from here,” he states.
I return my gun to its holster, step around him, and get the fuck out of there, not even daring a glance back at Bay… because if I do, I will fall to the floor right at his side, and they’ll have to carry two club members out of here instead of one.