“I thought going to prison and leaving me alone was the worst you could ever do to me but it’s not… Letting your grandson and I starve is far more fucked up.”
My stomach turned because, even though I was sorry I spoke then, I was even sorrier they were true.
I got what I wanted.
The combination and location of the safe.
The money my father had been after would be long gone after three years, but maybe it’s been replaced with more. I have no idea the condition Art left his only son when he died. Did he take over the business? Did he leave him an inheritance?
The estate my father described might not even be owned by the Knights. What if Bea or Angel sold?
I had no choice but to risk it all to gain in return, so I shook off what ifs and plotted my next step.
“Hey, how did it go?” Joey stood next to his car and pocketed his phone he was just thumbing through.
“Better than expected.”
He grinned and bounced on his toes. “So, did you ask him?”
“No, sorry. Must have forgot.” Joey wanted me to ask my father if he ever caught two buff dudes getting it on. There was no way in hell I would ask my father that. Not that he would discuss it with me anyway, but I agreed for the sake of getting a ride.
“But you were in there for over an hour!”
“We had a lot of catching up to do since it’s been two and a half years.”
“Right. Forgot.” We hopped in, and he cranked up the car. “So where to, Miss?” He tipped his cap and made a goofy face.
“Actually, I need a favor that doesn’t involve you driving me, but does involve your car…”
“Name it.”
Chapter Four
Some ghosts are just memories.
ANGEL
“When are you coming home? I need to get my dick wet.”
I laughed into the phone, not at all surprised at the topic my right hand chose after two weeks of no contact. Lucas Devlin was the male equivalent of a nympho. If it was hot, tight, and wet, he fucked it.
“Why do I need to be home for that? You need me to hold your hand or some shit?”
He snorted and said, “It was a separate question and statement. I just thought I’d save time by getting it all out at once.”
“I’m flying in tonight. I had to tie up some loose ends and knock a few heads together.” That was putting it mildly, actually. The blood I spilled on this job wouldn’t be easily washed away.
“We should do something tonight. Z misses you.”
“It’s true, sunshine!” His shout came from the background rather than another phone line, telling me they were together.
A groan escaped me. If the two of them spent the last week together, I knew I was walking into more bullshit than I cared to handle. Lucas Devlin and Zachariah Ellis were runaways who escaped the system together at the age of fifteen and thirteen. They managed to evade getting caught for six months when my father found them robbing a married couple for their money with stolen guns and no bullets. He admired their brass balls, as he put it, so he hired them. Despite my father’s reservations involving me in the business so soon, the minute the three of us were put in one room, we became inseparable. We stole together, killed together, and even fucked together. The first time someone called us The Three Musketeers, Z literally tried to stick his foot down their throat.
We’re brothers. Simple as that.
“What have you two been up to?”
“Nothing much. Getting shit-faced and fucking,” he answered bluntly. Lucas was usually nonchalant about anything that didn’t directly involve killing and getting paid.
I shook my head, feeling like the cock blocker in a nontraditional sense. I was the leader, but with it came feeling I wasn’t just their friend but their father too. This was all after pops died of course. He had been as much a father to them as he had been to me and his death gave us a common goal.
Each of us wanted the man who killed him dead.
Three years after my father was murdered and my rage was just as strong as the day I received the phone call. My day of birth had taken on a new meaning.
“Angel, you there?”
I sprinted away from the dark reaches of my mind and tucked away the memory of my father’s murder where it belonged. “You two act like horny thirteen-year-olds.”
“But possess the stamina and finesse of a man at least twice that.”
“You’re twenty-seven, genius.”
“Precisely,” he retorted. “Chicks dig me.”
“Whatever. I’m out. I’ll see you tonight.” I ended the call and rubbed my aching shoulder. This job hadn’t been an easy one, but then they never really were. My list of reaps was growing ever long, but what else was I supposed to do when they resisted?