AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’ll be right back,” I said, peeling away from them.
“Bennett!” Leander growled, but it was too late. I was already committed to my course and the man saw me coming.
He glanced from side to side, clearly debating his next move, as if running was even an option for a man his size. I had no idea why he’d be nervous in the first place. He probably had seventy-five pounds on me and looked like he’d been in his fair share of fights from the broken nose and the way he carried himself.
“Can I help you with something?” I asked as I approached.
The stranger cleared his throat, shoving his hands in his pockets. “That was Cole Holliday, right?”
“Who are you?”
“I’m his dad.”
My spine straightened as I took the man in once again. If you knew what to look for, you could see the resemblance to Cole, particularly in their large build and sandy-colored hair. “What do you want?”
It wasn’t a secret his father had been out of his life for quite some time. Even when he was around, he wasn’t worth a damn. Given the few memories Cole shared, I wasn’t about to put the man up for a Father of the Year award just because he managed to drag his ass to his son’s funeral.
“Look, I didn’t come to cause trouble,” he said, shifting on his feet. “I just wanted to see if my boy left anything for me.”
I narrowed my eyes, replaying his words in my brain one more time to make sure I heard him correctly. “Excuse me?” My family were greedy fucks, but Jesus! They could at least wait until the will reading before they ran to the trough. “You came to his funeral — not to bury him — but to see if he left something for you?”
“Yeah. Like an envelope or something?”
“An envelope of what? You think he wrote you a letter before someone blew his brains out?”
He expelled a sharp breath, shaking his head and muttering to himself. “I told him not to fuck around with those people. And now they’ve gone and killed him.”
“Who?”
“The Marcheses.”
I reeled back as sharply as if he punched me. “What the fuck do you know about the Marcheses?”
The man looked me over from head to toe, his bushy brows knitting together. “What are you? A fucking cop?”
Fury bubbled up inside me. Having put my friend in the ground not but five minutes ago, I was not in the mood to play Twenty Questions with some shitbag who turned up out of the blue. For all I knew, the Italians got someone with a vague resemblance to Cole to come here, just to fuck with us.
Determined to get to the bottom of his murder once and for all, I kicked out with my right heel, directly in the center of the man’s kneecap. There was an audible crunch and his leg bent in the most unnatural way.
He collapsed to the ground, screaming and trying to clutch his fractured knee. The denim and extra weight around his midsection made the task of self-soothing a little difficult.
Before he could even think about getting up, I stepped on his knee, forcing it to the ground.
“Do I look like a fucking cop?” I shouted over the top of his screaming. “Now answer the goddamn question! What do you know about Marchese?”
“You broke my fucking knee!”
“That’s not all I’m gonna break.” I leaned more of my weight on his shattered kneecap, until sweat broke out across his brow and his face turned dark red. His screams tapered off into pitiful squeaks of pain.
Elijah and Jake rushed up behind me, yelling my name as their boots pounded across the manicured lawn.
“What the fuck—oh.You.” Elijah seethed when he saw who was sprawled in front of me on the ground. “What the fuck areyoudoing here?”
“He knows something about the Marcheses and he isn’t being very forthcoming.” I let up on the asshole’s knee. “Feel like talking yet?”
“It don’t fucking matter what I say,” the man panted. “They’re going to kill you. All of you! And you’re never gonna see it coming.”
“I’ve got the chains in the truck,” Jake offered helpfully.
