Perfect Chaos(25)

Tyler, Josh and Sam leaned against the crumbling wall of the beaten-down house and watched as I calmly took the news Vic laid out for me. They knew me well enough I may be calm on the outer edges, but past that I was fuckin’ furious.

“How long?” I asked Vic.

“Couple hours. She went by her coffee shop, grabbed a bottle of scotch, and then got in a cab. Located the company, driver was at his kid’s birthday party. Fits her description, but her name was Goldie. Not sure why she’d go way the fuck out there.”

Goldie. “Jesus.” The name of her fuckin’ goldfish Connor had buried in the backyard. “Follow the lead. That’s her.”

“Got it.”

I heard the tires squeal as if Vic was making a quick turnaround. “And Vic?”

“Yeah, Boss.”

“You find her. Lock her down.” It was escalating. It was as if she didn’t give a shit about herself. That wasn’t her and yet … Georgie had become a different person when I came back two years after her brother died. Harder. And the sweetness I used to see in her eyes—vanished.

“Got it.”

I pressed ‘End’ then tossed my phone on the makeshift table. An uneasy feeling crept down my spine and made my stomach churn and my heart pound. Why couldn’t I fuckin’ get through to her? This wasn’t just about her brother. Something else was fucking with her mind to make her want to numb it out with alcohol. It didn’t fit. She didn’t fit.

She was stronger than this. Where was the girl I used to know? It was like she was drifting further and further away from me year after year. She was hiding; I’d known it for years. But what I didn’t know was from what.

What the fuck was I going to do with her? This shit had gone on too long. Maybe it was time to cut her loose like Vic said. Was I enabling her by protecting her? Probably, but the thought of losing Georgie was like having to cut off my leg. I couldn’t do it slow and easy; it’d have to be brutal.

“Fuck.” This mission was too important to not have every man I had available, and here I had one of my best men watching Georgie.

I ran my hand down my face and then got my shit together. I was not fucking this up.

“All good, Boss?” Tyler asked.

I met his eyes then looked to Josh. “Failure is unacceptable. We bring our boy home.”

But it was only two hours later that all went to shit. The snitch turned up, bloody and tortured. Eyes wide open, staring and lifeless. There was a note pinned to his shirt, written in blood.



“Jesus Christ,” Tyler said, crouching down beside the mangled body. “Boss, do you really think it’s Connor? And who the fuck is Chaos?”

Did I think that was him? Fuck, yeah, I did. Only I knew who Chaos was because Connor had called her that and Georgie Girl. “Yeah, it’s him.”

I knew torture. I knew the shit it did to your head. But ten years of it? Even Connor could break under that. Any man would.

This wasn’t bullshit.

Fuck this all to hell. Damn it! I punched the rock wall and blood instantly rose on my knuckles. I did it again and again until Josh pulled me back with an arm around my waist and shoved me.

It didn’t stop me. Nothing would as I picked up the table, laptop crashing to the floor, our map billowing in the air a second before settling on the floor. I threw the table at the wall and the loud cracking of wood splintering felt like me. I was splintering. Parts of me were being ripped off and burned as my anger tore through me.

But it wasn’t just anger. It was fear, an emotion I kept locked down all my life, but seeing that word in blood broke the dam and I couldn’t control it.

I destroyed chairs, ripped up plans, crushed the laptop with my fists. I sensed the men watching and I didn’t give a fuck. This was bad.

All my hope for bringing him home detonated in my face. No wonder it took us so long to locate him.

He fuckin’ didn’t want to be found.

“Boss.”

I heard the voices, but they were drowned out by my madness of destruction. This was my fault. I should’ve found him sooner, but fuck, how could I? I thought for years he was dead. Christ, I’d seen the truck blow up. The memory. The anguish was still vivid in my mind even knowing he lived.

“Boss.”

Now, he was threatening Georgie? Fuckin’ Georgie? His sister? How was that even fathomable? The one person he loved more than anyone.

Because he knew me too well. That was my failure. He knew I wouldn’t give a shit if he threatened me or my men, but Georgie … he knew I’d walk if Georgie’s life was in any way threatened.

“Deck!”

Tyler held his phone out. “You need to take this.”