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Lee and I arrived at the shitty apartment complex five minutes ago. It didn’t take long to find him; the motherfucker hasn’t even bothered to skip town yet. When we pulled up, his car—a distinctively colored greenish-blue 1999 Maserati 3200—was sitting right in its usual spot. Lee and I wasted no time storming up here. We’ve been banging on the door for the past few minutes, trying to pick the lock and kick the door in, but he must have something blocking the way.
“Is there a back way?” Lee grits out, balling his hands into fists. He’s jittery, the telltale sign that he’s ready to let off some steam.
I shake my head. “Just the window.”
He’s on the third fucking floor. There are no balconies in this complex, which is working in our favor right now. No ladders or stairs, so the fucker literally has no way of trying to escape without falling to his death. Only downside to that is we have no other options for getting to him.
Lee lifts his booted foot and tries to kick in the door again. It gives a little, ripping away from the doorframe. Several people open their front doors and peer out at the commotion. One look from me has them scrambling back inside, locking their doors behind them.
“Let’s start a fire,” I suggest, pulling out my cigarette lighter. Fuck, I need a smoke real bad right about now.
Lee shakes his head. “Too much attention.”
“More than we’ve already attracted?” I counter with a cocked brow. I jerk my head in the direction of an old lady peeking her head outside. When she sees me and Lee looking at her, she quickly goes back inside and slams the door shut.
Way to be subtle, Susan.
Lee just pounds the door again. His knuckles are already bruised and scraped from banging on the door before. “This guy really isn’t coming out.”
I flick the top of the lighter open and closed, open and closed. It’s a habit of mine—when I’m about to rain hell down on someone, this is usually my tell. Lee notices, and something in his eyes turns feral.
The sharp sound reminds me of my life before I joined the Syndicate.
“What are you thinking, brother?”
I shake my head, try to shake my thoughts away.
“You still have that saw in your trunk?” I ask him, voice cold and quiet as death. As soon as I ask, his eyes light up. He says nothing as he bolts down the three flights of stairs to his truck.
I chuckle. He’s always had a penchant for sharp objects. He keeps a whole armory of knives, daggers and saws on him at all times.
Lee races back up the stairs, out of breath, but I think it’s more so from the excitement of using his saw than it is from running.
“You have to be quick,” I remind him. “For all we know, Dom Carlo could be on his way here right now.”
He nods and wastes no time sawing the life out of the front door. I stalk to the stairwell and scan the area below.
“What are you looking for?” Lee calls out, carving through the thick wood.
“Making sure Donny Boy didn’t try to make a suicide dive out of his window.”
Lee chuckles. When I walk back over, he’s already done. There’s a big, ragged oval carved into the old wood. Lee and I pull it out and toss it to the side. We finally manage to move the object out of our way. It’s a dresser, and a heavy one, too.
“Donovan!” I shout. “Come on out! There’s nowhere for you to go!”
“Aww, he was expecting us,” Lee says sarcastically, using his booted foot to knock it over. The two of us make quick work of hauling the dresser out of the way and searching the apartment. It doesn’t take long. There’s only one bedroom and one bathroom, and a small kitchen and living room. We find the coward hiding in his closet.
Lee and I grin at him. “Hey, Donny Boy. You’re coming with us.”
* * *
“We’ve got him.”Lee called Ezra as soon as we got back to his truck. “We’re on our way back now.”
I keep turning around and glancing at Donovan in the backseat, grinning. I swear he looks like he’s about to shit his pants.
Lee hangs up the phone with a whoop. “Wooo, boy, this is a good ass day!”
We laugh maniacally on our way back to the house. Fifteen minutes later, we’re driving down the long gravel driveway and up to the front door of The Fortress.
