Dutch leaned with his arms on the table. “I’ll keep an eye on him. You might be the bigger asshole between the two of you, but Onyx is the loose cannon. We can’t afford for him to lose his shit.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “Especially if you’re as obsessed with Alyx as I think you are.”
Usually, I denied and played down everything Dutch said that related to me and what I may or may not have been feeling. Getting psychoanalyzed was not my thing, and I hated when others pretended to understand me. I didn’t even understand myself half the fucking time. But Dutch was my best friend. He was like my goddamn twin, and about the only one who remotely knew who and what I really was.
Dutch opened his mouth, about to say something, when Manic came rushing in. “We got trouble.”
I shot up from the chair. “What?”
“Pythons.”
“Where?”
“Across the road.”
“Jesus. Here?”
Manic nodded. “And they brought leverage.”
Dutch got up, and all three of us made our way out of the kitchen and down the stairs. Onyx joined in the second my boot hit the bottom floor. “They’ve never come so close to our turf before.”
I passed Ink, and he handed me my gun, which I placed at my back underneath my cut. By the sound of it, everyone else got their guns as well.
“They know we won’t make a scene on the street. Especially so close to the gym.”
“I have a bad feeling about this, brother.” From the corner of my eye, I noticed Onyx glance my way without saying a word. Even though we wanted to kill each other ten minutes ago, right now we were a team. A family ready to eliminate a threat if we needed to.
All five of us stormed through the gym. It was late afternoon, which meant there weren’t a lot of people. Thank fuck.
We got to the front door, Ink and Dutch moving in front of me and Onyx, taking the lead. They opened the door slowly, Ink holding his hand on his gun at his back, ready to use it if he had to.
Onyx wanted to walk ahead of me, but I reached out and held him back with my arm against his chest. “Keep your shit together.”
The glare my way was his only response. But he knew as well as I did that if it was Slither on the other side of that goddamn road, Onyx would have to work extra hard at keeping his temper contained. Ever since the Pythons’ president murdered our dad, revenge was what we craved, and we knew the day would come when we would finally have it. It consumed us both, but it ruled Onyx.
I nodded at Ink, and all of us stepped outside. And true as fuck, across the road was the president himself. Slither.
The sight of his ugly motherfucking face aggravated my rage, and I had to take a deep breath to try to stay in control. Dutch stepped in next to me, close enough to act in case I lost my shit.
Slither smiled, his freaky-as-fuck split tongue darting out of his mouth like the snake he was. The sly fuck basically invited me to kick his face with my goddamn boot. The fuckers who stood around him were proof he wasn’t such a dumb fuck after all, since he knew between Onyx and myself one of us was bound to kill him when we got the chance.
Slither held up a hand. “Gentlemen, please. Come closer.”
I moved, but Dutch grabbed my elbow. “Don’t. Ink and I will go.”
“Not a chance.”
Dutch moved closer, leaning into me. “It can be a trap.”
“Is there a problem?” Slither called out.
“Fuck you!” Onyx wanted to sprint across the road, but Ink grabbed him before he did.
“Come on, Granite. I just want to talk.” The fucker was calling me out. Only I wasn’t stupid. There was no way I trusted him. Something was up; I could feel the warning tingle at the crook of my neck.
Slither let out a maniacal laugh, reached behind him, and revealed a young boy. This time I had to grab Dutch to keep him from rushing across the road.
Motherfucker.
“Let the boy go, Slither,” I called out while trying to assess if Trent had been hurt.