“Seems to me you’re going to owe some big money to cover this loss,” Trigger said.
“Connor and his two buddies are going to get their asses moving to replace what his sister cost us.”
“I told you I’m out.” Connor needed to get out before it was too late. Maybe it already was. Maybe he was already dead and reality just hadn’t caught up. He scratched at his arm again, watching it bleed, wondering when he’d run out of blood.
“You keep saying it, but you wanted in and now you’re in. You don’t get out when you owe.”
“Fuck you,” Connor spat out. “You keep telling me I owe, but you’re the one who keeps fucking up. You and this damn obsession with my sister. I told you I’d go alone. She’d have let me go if it was just me.”
“Even you don’t believe that anymore. If you do, you’re stupider than you look. The next time I get my hands on her . . .”
“What? You’re going to lose another shipment because you’re so focused on her, you can’t see that we’re fucked. We don’t deliver, we get killed,” Connor yelled.
Derek pulled the knife, twisted in his seat, and swung, slicing Connor’s cheek. Connor pushed back into the seat, but with nowhere to go, no way to get out the single door on Trigger’s side of the car, he was as good as dead. He slapped his hand over his bloody cheek. Derek pulled his hand back to stab him, but Trigger pressed the barrel of his gun into Derek’s temple.
“Move, fucker, and I will blow your head off.”
I’m surrounded by fucking madmen.
The car rolled to a stop and they all sat in the tense quiet.
“Get that fucking gun away from my head.”
“Screw your head on straight. We don’t need this fucking bickering. You’re supposed to deliver at midnight. Where?”
“I’m not fucking telling you.”
Derek refused to introduce Trigger to the head guy. Probably because Torres would choose to work with Trigger over Derek. At this point, so would Connor. The dude might be lethal, but he kept things straight and focused on the job. Derek needed that because he tended to work on Tweak Time, setting out to do something, getting distracted, and finding that what should have taken him an hour took four.
They probably would be better off with Trigger in charge. He wouldn’t be bleeding. No, if he pissed Trigger off he’d be dead. Probably the only way he’d get out of this shit pile that kept getting deeper.
“Man, I have been in this shit with you for months. I stopped that bitch from blowing off your head tonight and you still can’t trust me to come through for you.”
Trigger narrowed his eyes. Something dark and deadly lurked in the depths. Even Connor could see it in the dark car interior. It didn’t help that he still held the gun to Derek’s head.
“I need to make a call.”
“Put the knife away and make your call.” Trigger didn’t move the gun.
Derek carefully sheathed the knife and held his hands up in front of him as he turned and sat back in his seat.
Connor let out a sigh that sounded pathetic to his own ears. He gritted his teeth against the pain in his cheek.
“You okay, man?” Trigger tucked the gun back in his belt.
“He sliced my face.”
“Next time it will be your throat,” Derek said through tight lips.
Trigger glared. “Don’t you have a call to make?”
Derek pulled the door handle, shimmied out of the car, and slammed the door. He stood outside in the cold a few feet away and glanced over his shoulder and directly at Trigger. The intense stare-down turned the air thick and heavy in the car. Trigger watched from the front seat, his eyes narrowed and ever watchful of Derek, waiting for the guy to either make his move or get on with his call.
Connor had a bad feeling, like Derek still had a gun to his head. With Connor trapped in the backseat, maybe he did too.
CHAPTER 15
Rory walked into the house through the back door. He pried off his dirty boots and set them on the metal tray Sadie had found and put down to help keep the laundry room clean. He and his brothers tended to track in the yard. She got tired of cleaning up the dirt, dust, and field debris every day. He looked around the small room, taking in the piles of clean clothes she left for each of them on the table by the window. The washer and dryer gleamed white when it, too, had been covered in dust from them traipsing in and out through this room. The tile floor was scrubbed clean; a new multitoned brown rug she made Ford buy covered the floor.
He made his way into the kitchen, hoping for a cup of coffee to ward off the cold day and warm his bones. He expected to find Sadie at the stove, cooking dinner or some other meal she’d leave in the fridge for them to heat and eat whenever they got hungry. He’d gotten so used to having her in the house, the emptiness of the kitchen unsettled him. His spirits sank. He stood in the quiet room and stared at the spotless countertops and cooktop. Only a few dishes sat in the sink to be washed, whereas before they’d piled high until he or one of his brothers decided to finally fill the dishwasher. The basket of mail sat on the countertop by the phone. No messages. Sadie hadn’t brought the mail in like she did each day when she arrived and picked it up from the box up on the road.