“Who the fuck else would it be?” Jax loosened his hold on his weapon and took a deep breath. If he had to end Cruz in front of everyone, he’d do it. “What do you want?”
“The medical supplies and guns. All of them.” Cruz sounded closer, as if he’d stood up. “Take a look at what I can give to you, hermano.”
“You and I have never been brothers.” The words felt false, cut like a knife. At one point, Jax would’ve died for Cruz without hesitation. Things had changed. Jax stood, and his gut froze. “Shit.”
Cruz smiled, angled to the side of a truck, his arm wrapped around a teenage girl’s chest, his Ruger 23 pointed at her temple. Tears streaked down the girl’s pale face, mingling with dirt. Terror filled her blue eyes. “I have something of yours.”
Snyder’s kid. Haylee had gone scavenging earlier that day. “He’s got Snyder’s kid,” he said to Wyatt.
Wyatt groaned and stood, his gun pointed toward Cruz. “Remember? She was part of the group scouting earlier in local businesses. Didn’t even know she didn’t make it back.”
“I remember.” Jax kept his gaze on his old friend and not the girl. “We need better procedures in place.”
“No shit. We need more people in general.” Tace crab-crawled to his other side, still wearing his combat gear. As usual, he’d probably spent all day in the lab and hadn’t bothered to sleep or change. “What’s the play here? That prick won’t really kill a kid, will he?” He stood, set his elbows on the van, and pointed his weapon toward Cruz, who stood at the edge of the vacant lot with the girl.
The attackers hid behind cars they’d driven into the abandoned lot. Maybe the cars still had gas.
Jax studied Cruz across the distance. Olive skin, gang and kill tats along his neck, lines of experience too hard for the face of a thirty-four-year-old. His former buddy had had a rough life on the streets and behind bars. “Yeah. He’ll kill her.” Hopefully he hadn’t done anything else to her yet, but it wouldn’t surprise Jax. “Stop hiding behind a little girl,” he yelled.
Cruz smiled and nuzzled his nose into the kid’s hair, his mouth moving as he whispered something.
She answered him, fear all but shooting from her eyes, but the crackle of fire covered her voice.
Cruz nodded. “She’s not so little. Sixteen, apparently. There was a time, brother, when we fucked our way through sixteen-year-old girls.”
Jax settled into kill mode. “We were in the tenth grade, asshole. Now you’re just a pervert with a gun.”
“And you’re a coward who ran.” Cruz must’ve tightened his hold, because the girl cried out, tried to struggle, and then quickly stopped. “Away from home, away from us, and decided to act like a soldier boy. While I did time.”
“You deserved time.” A snap of a board springing loose caught Jax’s attention, but he didn’t turn. If he had to guess, he’d say Lynne had just uncovered his window to watch the action. If anybody saw her, he’d kick her ass. “It was your third offense, and you fucking deserved to go away.” The prick had shot at a defenseless shopkeeper.
Cruz grinned, and a gold front tooth glittered in the sun. “You half-breed piece of shit. I should’ve never allowed you in Twenty. Jax Mercury. A boy with a white daddy who probably paid for your mama’s cunt. You have a made-up name.”
Yeah, and he’d earned it. The second he’d been born, his mama had changed her last name to Mercury, giving them a family name that sounded strong. “You’re boring me. Let the girl go, and I won’t blow off your head.”
Forces of three, guns drawn, spread out alongside Cruz. Some former Twenty members, others from rival gangs. Jax’s chin lowered. Apparently Cruz had discovered how to bridge the gap and combine forces. With everybody but him. “I don’t like you, and you don’t like me, but we have the numbers to work together against Rippers and whatever else is coming.” He didn’t like it, but he’d do it, and then he’d probably kill Cruz. The bastard deserved to die.
“Work with a traitor?” Cruz tangled his fingers in the blonde’s hair and jerked back, exposing her jugular. She cried out and went up on her tiptoes.
“I don’t have the shot,” Tace muttered.
“I’m not sure of the shot,” Wyatt whispered. “Might hit the girl.”
Jax could make the shot, but Haylee had to move to the left. And even if he took out Cruz, there were six guns ready to plug the kid before she got to safety. “Work with me, or I’m going to make sure you die, and it ain’t gonna be slow. You know how personal this is.”
Wyatt stiffened, and Tace breathed out. They’d heard him threaten folks before, but apparently enough truth lived in his words that they believed him.
“You’re the one gonna die, mulo, and you’re the one who screwed up by leaving your brothers. Any sorrow is on you.” Cruz’s upper lip curled as hatred filled his eyes. “Give me the supplies, or you’re going to burn. You and the rainbow of pricks you’re standing with right now.”
Wyatt glanced over at Tace. “Rainbow? Fucking rainbow?” He settled his stance and steadied his weapon pointed toward Cruz. “I’m black and he’s white, dickhead,” he yelled over the fire. “There aren’t any colors here. Dumbass son of a bitch.”
Jax slowly turned his head. “You okay, now?”
Wyatt harrumphed. “Just hate dumb people. You weren’t a racist way back when, were you?”
“No.” Jax fought the urge to look up and back, feeling Lynne’s eyes on him. “I was all about brotherhood, safety, and survival. Didn’t give a shit about skin color then any more than I do now.”
“Good, because I tell y’all, it’s tough being black,” Tace drawled.
Wyatt snorted. “You’re the whitest white boy I’ve ever seen, Texas.”
Jax caught movement on the roof of the abandoned apartment building behind Cruz. In the distance, Jax could see Raze’s dark hair and odd blue eyes as he unpacked a rifle. “Sniper in position, but a kill shot won’t help the girl.” At the moment, Jax had no choice but to trust the new guy and hope he didn’t shoot him. Frustration heated his throat, and echoes pinged his mind. Gunshots, fire, blood. Remembered pain flared along his damaged arm and wrist. He shook his head, banishing the flashback to a different war, when he’d lost Frankie in a burning pile of metal. He’d failed, and his best friend had died an unbearable death. But now wasn’t the time.
“Mercury?” Wyatt muttered. “We need orders here.”
Jax nodded. He couldn’t fail. Not again.
“Haylee!” a female voice screamed from behind Jax.
He pivoted just in time to grab April Snyder and take her down to the torn asphalt. She fought him, kicking and punching, her elbows hitting the van, trying desperately to get to her kid. He flattened her until she couldn’t move.
She gasped for air, her eyes filling. At thirty-two or so, she had pretty blue eyes and wildly curly brown hair, now matted with dirt. “Haylee.”
“I know.” He kept his voice low. “If you want her back alive, you’ll go inside.” April’s presence did nothing but escalate the situation, and he had to shut her down and now. “That’s an order.”
Her lip firmed. “I’m not leaving my daughter.” She started to kick again.
Damn it. He needed Wyatt and Tace on the guns, and everyone who could fight was in position. If he left to drag the woman back, there was a good chance Cruz would get frustrated and just shoot the kid. “April. Last chance. Go inside so I can save your daughter.”
April got an arm free and punched him in the throat, struggling with everything she had.
He went cold as the mission took over. There was no choice. Scrambling off her, he turned her around, wrapping her in a headlock and increasing the pressure. She flopped and fought, but within seconds, she went limp.
He set her against the van and rose back up.
“Was better than knocking her out with a punch,” Wyatt said quietly.
Was it? Fuck. He hated this world. “Cruz? I’m done playing. Let the girl go, or I’ll blow your head off.”