Onyx glanced over his shoulder at me like he knew what I was thinking. He turned back to Crow. “What’s the plan?”
“You mean once we find the fucker?”
“Yeah.”
Crow scoffed. “He dies, of course. No one fucks with my business and gets away with it.”
“We have our own score to settle with Slither.” Onyx crossed his arms. “Is that going to be a problem?”
Crow smirked. “Not at all. I’ll just double the pain while I kill him.” He shrugged. “That way, I’ll settle both scores.”
I straightened, but Onyx shot me a warning glare, silently demanding I keep my mouth shut, before facing Crow again. “I think you can appreciate a man’s need to settle his own score.”
“I do, which is why no one else will deal with him but me.”
Onyx shook his head, rubbing his fingers across his jaw. “You know what he did to us, Crow. He kidnapped two of our women, and almost killed one. You can’t expect us to just let that go.”
“Of course not. Which is why I’ll up the pain when I slaughter him.”
Onyx shifted from one leg to the other, crossing his arms. “You don’t get it. This war was between us and the Pythons—”
“And now it’s mine. Unfortunately for you, we got dragged into the war the second that motherfucker soiled my streets with that shit he called cocaine. Do you have any idea the damage he’s done to my reputation by selling coke that killed underaged kids and making everyone think it was my product?”
“I get it,” Onyx muttered. “But he mutilated, raped, and fucking broke one of our women. You can’t expect us to just let that go.”
Crow squared his shoulders and frowned. “The woman who got hurt, she an old lady to one of you?”
“Does that matter?”
Crow leaned his head to the side while focusing his dark eyes on Onyx. “There’s only one card you can play here, King, and that’s the old lady card. If she ain’t an old lady, my business with Slither comes first.”
Onyx dropped his arms at his sides before pulling his fingers through his hair. “Listen, man, it’s complicated.”
“I don’t give a shit how complicated it is. If she’s not an old lady, Slither is mine.” He stepped closer to Onyx. “Now, I’d hate for our business arrangement to come to an end over some low-life piece of shit. But you need to understand that my right on Slither’s life outweighs yours, and if you find him before we do, I’d like the assurance that you’d hand him over for us to deal with.”
My fists balled at my sides. This was exactly why I decided to keep my secret, to not tell anyone that I already had the fucker tied up with chains, currently suffering through a broken knee. There was no way in hell I’d let anyone else get their hands on a piece of his flesh. Every drop of blood that coursed through his body was meant to be spilled for one reason, and one reason only—justice for what he’s done to Neon. Nothing else.
Onyx moved up close to Crow, matching him in height and weight. “The woman he hurt might not be an old lady, but she’s someone special to all of us. And we promised her we’d make him pay. Don’t force us to break that promise.”
Crow pressed his lips in a thin line, his jaw clenched and eyes focused. For a moment I actually thought the man was considering what Onyx was requesting. Full rights on Slither’s demise. But as the corners of his mouth quirked, malice oozing out of him like venom, I knew there was no way in hell Crow would meet us halfway with this. He wanted Slither for himself, and he didn’t plan on sharing.
“The man is mine.” Warning clung to his words. “If you find him and do not hand him over to us, you’ll be ending one war only to start a new one…with us.”
Unable to keep my mouth shut any longer, I rushed forward. Dutch forced himself in front of me, holding me back. “Not the time, man,” he whispered. “Let it go.”
Crow smirked in my direction before glancing at Manic, who met his gaze. There was a familiarity in the way they stared at each other, even though it only lasted for half a second.
As Crow turned his back on us, it was clear this conversation was over, according to him. No negotiating. No compromise. Just a giant threat that we’d pay heavily if we didn’t give him what he wanted.
“Fuck!” Onyx blurted, kicking at the asphalt. “Jesus Christ.”
“What the fuck was that?” Manic walked up to us, his eyebrows slanted inward. “I did not expect this meeting to go down like this.”
“None of us did,” Onyx replied.
“I did.” I stepped away from Dutch and turned to face them. “I knew Crow wouldn’t be satisfied just by knowing Slither was no longer breathing. He wants to kill the fucker himself.”
Granite flicked his cigarette butt onto the street. “I guess it’s safe to say this complicates things.”