But truth be told, even before that, I’d known I’d made a mistake.
Lucas had looked at me with hope, thinking I’d come to help him, and a part of me died back in that apartment with the rest of the men who dared to attack Lucas. When he had realized I was the mastermind all along . . .
There’d been no coming back from that.
It had been too late.
Too late to say, “You know what, man? Never mind. We’re cool.” The second Lucas had found out I was trying to kill him to move up the ranks—I’d known I was a dead man, whether he pulled the trigger on his gun or not. Angry at what I had become, I’d lashed out at Lucas. Tried to get him to pop me to put me out of my misery. But he hadn’t. He’d done the honorable thing and let me live. He hadn’t wanted to kill me, even after all the shit I’d done to him. He’d told Scotty to let me walk away . . . and I had.
Now, with Scotty’s help, Lucas was gone.
Dead. Only he wasn’t. By now, he was probably miles outside Boston and away from this slum we called Steel Row—while I would die in the worst section of Southie, knowing I put power above brotherhood.
I should have lived the life that Lucas led. He was the type of guy who put friends first. Family first. The type of guy who saved a guy’s neck, even if that guy had just tried to kill him, because he’d made a promise he’d be blood brothers with him when they were kids.
And here I was, a fucking fool.
Any minute now, my phone would ring with the news of Lucas’s “death,” and I would be expected to be shocked. Raging. Grief-stricken. And the thing was, even though I knew he was alive and well . . . I was all those things.
Because I’d become a monster.
I laughed again. “Rest in peace, Lucas Donahue.”
As if on cue, my phone buzzed in my pocket. Wincing, I dug my sore fingers into my pocket and pulled out my iPhone. Squinting at the screen, I sighed. It was Tate, the head of the Sons of Steel Row, my gang. Time to put on a good act. “Hello?”
“Where are you?” Tate asked, his voice hard.
I struggled to sit up, resting my back against the concrete wall, right next to my bloody smiley face. “I ran into some Bitter Hill guys, and they did a number on me. I’m just trying to recover a bit before I head back in. Why? What’s wrong, sir?”
“We just got bad news . . . about Lucas.”
I rubbed my forehead. It hurt like a bitch. I didn’t know what Scotty had or hadn’t told him yet, so I didn’t want to say too much. “Where is he?”
“I’m sorry, but he’s gone.” Tate made a growling noise. “Fucking Bitter Hill took him and his girl out. They burnt the place down, leaving nothing but bones and ash, but the dental records match. Lucas is dead.”
I blinked. How the hell had they managed to pull off a damn dental records match—and so quickly? I’d hung around after the attack to make sure Lucas and Heidi had actually kept their word and left. They had. Scotty had waved them away with a smile. They weren’t dead, and yet . . . Oh, shit.
Son of a fucking bitch.
It all made sense now.
Scotty had seemed so sure that Lucas and Heidi could get away, just as he agreed to keep my secret. And when he’d come barging into Lucas’s apartment, the way he’d held the gun had been telling. It had screamed his true identity, clear as day. And the way he’d stood, straight and at attention with a firm grip on his pistol—like they teach at the academy. Scotty was a fucking cop.
In the eyes of Steel Row, that was worse than what I’d done. It was worse than a betrayal. Beyond a death sentence, it was a mutilation sentence.
If I told Tate about this, Scotty would be dead within the hour, and no one would ever find all the pieces that would put him back together. My position in the gang would be more secure than ever before, if I helped take him down. I would successfully take over Lucas’s position, and Pops would finally be proud of me.
It was the perfect way to secure my future.
But it was Scotty Donahue, Lucas’s little brother . . .
The brother of the man I’d wronged.
“Chris?” Tate said, his voice raised. “Are you there?”
I must’ve been silent too long. But my shock over Scotty’s occupation would double as my grief over Lucas’s demise. I cleared my throat. “Y-yeah. I just . . . I can’t . . . I’m gonna fucking kill them all. Every last one. Right now.”
“No.” Something slammed down on wood. More than likely on Tate’s walnut desk. He loved opulence as much as I loved women. “We need to be smart about this. We’ve got enough cop focus on us right now, and we don’t need more by bringing a gang war down on Steel Row. All that’ll do is land our asses behind bars. I think we’ve all done enough time.”