Seventeen
Kitty
“Nitro!” I shouted, pounding on the door of a rundown house on the outskirts of Las Vegas. “I know you’re in there. Open the fucking door, you dumbass drunk!”
When I left the clubhouse two weeks ago, I thought finding Nitro would be easy-peasy. I’d get the files and be on my way. But hell no. That damn drunk up and moved without saying a fucking word to anyone. For the longest time, Nitro was reliable. That stupid fucker never did anything out of the ordinary. So, imagine my surprise when I found his trailer empty.
“Maybe he’s dead?”
“He better be because if he’s not, I’m going to kill him!”
I didn’t have time to locate his drunk ass, so I did the only thing I knew to do. I went to Denver and got Phantom.
Let’s just say that seeing me was a shock. Even more so when I told her what was going on. Of course, it was easier when I told her why. Which put a lot of things in perspective for her. Even with her help, it still took us two weeks to locate the bastard, and now he was refusing to answer his damn door.
“Reaper just sent out the chapter’s emergency code. Something’s going on back home. Oh shit, Bullseye’s awake!” Lena said, looking at her phone as she quickly deciphered the code.
“Which means he knows I’m gone.”
“What do you want to do? Nitro’s not answering.”
“I need those files.”
“Then I guess we’re breaking in,” Lena said as she waved her hand at me. Moving to the side, I watched as Lena stepped back and swiftly kicked opened the front door, then smiled. “Look, the door is open.”
Coughing, I quickly covered my nose and mouth, trying not to gag. The smell was horrendous. Putrid. “What is that smell? God, it smells as if something is dead.”
Lena reached around her back and produced a gun, and said, “Stay here.”
Doing as she ordered, I waited until she reemerged at the door. “Its’s safe.”
I walked in and stopped dead in my tracks.
There laying on the couch, was Nitro.
Dead.
Someone had slit his throat.
“Well shit,” I muttered. “What are we going to do now?”
“I don’t know. Whoever killed him tossed the place. I doubt we will find what you are looking for.”
“It has to be here. There is no way Nitro would just leave those files out in the open. Too many lives are at stake. We have to look around.”
Agreeing, Lena and I took the next few minutes to search the already disheveled place. Thank God Nitro didn’t have a lot of shit. Other than a few sets of clothes and some meaningless papers, the area was relatively sparse. He didn’t even have a bed. Yet as we both moved around the small house, I knew I was right.
I could feel it.
Those files were still here…somewhere.
I just had to find them.
“Kitty,” Lena softly said my name as she leaned over Nitro’s body. “Something’s not right with this picture.”
Walking over to her, I asked, “What?”
Looking at the dead man before me, I saw what she was talking about. Something wasn’t right.