AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“So we use the girl as bait?” Jones asks, eyes on me, that butter-wouldn’t-dare-fucking-melt smile playing on his face. His eyes are dark. Hard. Empty. “You going to fuck that up, Orion? Like you did to Malone over getting caught rescuing that kid?”
I bite down on my tongue and count. Slowly.
“You can’t see it’s me.” I stare back.
“The guard you let live said it was a big guy. There’s a fucking photo of you with the kid.”
“Not,” I say to Jones, “of my face.”
He ignores me. “Are you going to fuck it all up?”
“I do what I want, how I want.”
“That takes you out of the Knights.” His eyes narrow.
Which is code for death, but I’d like to see them fucking try.
The only treasonous thing in this organization, this secret little society of the underworld’s elite, is exposing the Knights. And apparently not playing ball here.
“I don’t put a client at risk. End of fucking story. And I don’t fuck things up.” I straighten up and head for the door.
“What the asshole means is yes. He’s gonna fuck it all up,” Malone says, following me out.
When we’re in the hall, I grab him by his vest and slam him into the wall. “What was that?”
“Me. Saving your ass.”
“Bullshit. They’re not going to kill me.”
“This is big.” He breathes out as I let him go. He brushes off his suit. “The cleaner’s already worked on this. Small things here and there. And?—”
Something occurs to me. “Don’t fucking tell me we’ve wiped out scenes of some of the other victims and the virtuoso?”
“It’s how we get the big guns. On this hemisphere.”
“And Smith didn’t?—”
“It’s his fucking daughter. You think he knew? No. At least not then.” He looks at me. “All I know is I got offered the job to get the kid. From what I’ve pieced together, there’s someone bigger who wants whoever’s operating this group. And that person thinks the maestro has taken to Dakota.”
“I don’t care?—”
“Start fucking caring. You might do vigilante shit, but you’re a Knight. And unless you wanna be stuck in purgatory with all privileges revoked, then help me get this guy.”
“Brutus? You think he’s the maestro? Or just close to them? Whatever. I’ll take him out?—”
“The right way, Orion. They want it all. They want people alive. They want documentation to lead in deeper. Play it right and we’ll bring him down together.”
I step back. “I’m not sacrificing Dakota.”
“Just be a team player.”
And I leave, knowing I just might be well and truly fucked.
THIRTY-FOUR
dakota
“For fuck’s sake,” Orion says when he sees me sitting on his step, the noise of Bushwick and the train a song around us. It’s dusk, and he’s a giant as he towers over me, his voice pissed off, his expression…
