The Hunting Town (Brothers Book 1)

by Elizabeth Stephens

A sob roars out of her mouth, echoing around me. I touch her arms, but she pushes me off and races down the hallway into the hallway bathroom. She leaves the door open and I arrive behind her just in time to hold her hair off of her neck as she pukes.

  I hold my finger to her pulse and let her vomit, having seen it all before but never when I wasn’t able to look at it objectively. My heart is wrapped around hers and right now we’re both way too out of control. I try to think of something nonchalant I can say, but nothing comes to me. I can’t think. Dixon left and Mer’s protecting me and I left Brant on the couch. What if he rolls off? What if he hits the coffee table? I close my eyes and take the advice I just gave Mer. I breathe.

  “Four seconds in, four seconds out. Breathe,” I say, once the dry heaving has stopped.

  Mer’s breath still comes unevenly. She starts to choke and, fighting for breath, she coughs so violently it shakes her whole body. Until now, I’d never fully realized how small she is. She’s shorter than I am, but far meatier, with a woman’s shape and muscles that mean business. She’s my protector but now I’m protecting her from herself.

  I blurt, “Dixon told me you and Knox had a fun time at putt-putt the other day.”

  Mer’s laughter echoes inside the basin. She laughs, chokes, sobs, then sobs some more. This cycle goes on for the next ten minutes before she collapses backwards onto her ass. Her left hand goes to the gun on her hip while her right goes to her forehead. Beads of sweat drip down the sides of her face and plaster her dark hair to her skin. I wet a towel with cold water in the sink and wipe it across her cheeks, forehead and neck.

  “Thank you.” Her voice is gravel, throat torched. She takes the towel from me and drags it across her mouth. I reach around her and flush the toilet. “Thank you,” she says again, “thank you.” Her face twists, her lovely lips clamping together. She squeezes her eyes closed and curls her knees tightly into her chest. “Fuck,” she breathes, struggling to maintain her even inhalations. “Fuck.” Tears stream down her face and I’ve never seen anyone more beautiful crying. On her, tears become something for the poets.

  I say nothing, but drop down to my knees and take her hand. She grips it back fiercely and when her eyes open she blinks at the contact. The white tiles beneath and behind her scream order, but the two of us are only chaos. White tiles, plush black hand towels, stainless steel fixtures. A weeping woman with a pistol at each hip and me, the terrified mother hovering over her.

  Reaching above her head, Mer drags the last remaining hand towel off of the heated rack. She presses it to the front of her face and inhales, exhales, inhales, then chokes on a quick, jerky sob.

  “I know you blame Dixon for all of this,” she whispers, “but it’s not his fault.” Her gaze is bludgeoning and her hand tightens around mine. Somewhere in between the syllables, I sink down onto my haunches at her feet. She bows her head over my hand and brings it to her chest. She releases another sob. “Maldita sea. Dios los salve…”

  “What do you mean, it’s not his fault?”

  “Por favor perdoname,” she says. “It’s my fault. Everything is because of me.”

  And with no prelude, she launches into an explanation of how she was the daughter of a Mexican cartel boss who was killed by a Russian mobster who then imprisoned and tortured her, and how Knox and his brothers took her in and saved her life.

  She tells me how they found a black duffel bag filled with over ten million in heroin and how they hid that bag in a safety deposit box at the bank and how now, the Russians have taken Charlie in order to get their heroin back.

  Part IV

  The Exchange

  Knox

  We’re silent in the car. Each of us thinking about what lies ahead, and what we left behind. All but Aiden, perhaps. From his position in the backseat, he stares listlessly out of the window, pupils large and unfocused, nearly obliterating all of the grey. I wonder what he sees, where he’s at, wishing I could see the same things and join him there.

  As it stands now, all I think about is Plumeria and the look she’d had on her face. The admission that she couldn’t face them had hollowed her out and ripped straight through me like a baseball bat through glass. My stomach pitches and I’m revisited by images of her tied to that bed, Spade menacing over her body. She’s fighting. She’s always fighting. But she’ll be done today. I’ll make sure of that.

  In just under an hour we’re gliding over gravel. The sound of crunching beneath the Hummer’s tires is familiar. So is the tree line which conceals the horizon in strokes of ash, pine, and hickory. The pale disc of the moon hangs directly above us. It’s almost full tonight. I glance up at the sky, seeking stars as I exit the car. There are none, and the wind is a sword but I unzip my jacket so my weapons remain in reach.

  We’d locked the barn when we’d last closed up, but I don’t imagine it had been difficult to break in. The door hangs open, orange light streaming out and illuminating the swatch of dried pine and leaf-covered soil that is the only welcome mat this place has ever known. Avoiding the light, we walk around the side of the barn, approaching the smoker’s entrance in silence, with no plan but the one: trade the key Dixon carries for our brother. My fist clenches, twitching reflexively towards my weapon. The belief that he’s still alive is not a certainty, but a hope. Red flutters over me and it’s harder to fight through than it was before, not with thoughts of Plumeria and Charlie so close to the surface.

  Stepping through thickets and thorns, we make our way towards the side door, hanging crooked on its hinges, while sounds of discord within fill the encroaching night with pain. The shouting grows louder still as Dixon approaches, but he doesn’t open it. Instead, he gestures with two fingers and we all draw in close and peer through gaps in the slats that form this, and most other sides of the shabby space we call ours. I press my cheek against the sliver of space where the door meets the lintel at an angle.

  Scanning the scene quickly, I clench my teeth. Plumeria hadn’t been kidding when she’d mentioned our need for firepower. We’re fucked. With a quick tally, I count eight of them on my first pass before I notice two others lingering beside the front entrance, automatic handguns at the ready. Ten then. No sign of Charlie either. Instead, the eight are grouped in the center of the space, between the smoker’s entrance and the bar. Six of the men are standing, but they’re too busy restraining two redheads on their knees to have noticed us.

  The prisoners are screaming, fighting against their bonds. The taller of the two manages to surge up and onto his feet, dragging a man on each arm before one of them punches him in the right rib. He buckles around the blow, falling back and clutching his side. From his mouth, he’s bleeding, but he doesn’t appear to notice. His whole body’s straining towards the large metal bin Plumeria and I use as a backup beer cooler. From what I can see, liquid is sloshing over the side. Water, maybe. Don’t know why water would have anyone this pissed but the man is fuming, face nearly as red as his hair.

  A Russian wearing a grin and a tan jacket barks an order and a bald man reaches into the water and withdraws a black duffel bag. The redheads anxiously settle against the straw-covered ground. Words are exchanged and tan jacket’s smile slips. He snaps his finger and a fat-faced fucker throws the bag back into the pool. The red head shouts Russian words at the same time something huge hits me from behind.

  The weight crashes into me like a car. We’ve been ambushed. How could we have been ambushed? We were careful. We know the area, would have heard something slinking towards us into the woods. My body hits the wall of the door and the boards shiver beneath my weight. As I hit the ground, I reach for the 9mm lining my coat. I withdraw it, click off the safety and aim up. I wasn’t far off when I’d thought this was an ambush. It is, just not by the Russians.

  “What the fuck?” I mutter, stowing my gun and lurching onto my feet to help Clifton restrain his twin. Aiden’s lost his goddamn mind. I’ve never seen emotion in him like this before. I’ve never seen
emotion in him period and now Clifton’s got him in a headlock, but he’s still reaching for his weapons, as rabid as a caged wolf so I grab his arms and pin them to his sides.

  Dixon is the last of us to react, turning with a slowness that’s seen only in film as the whole world comes to a standstill. The birds chirp in the birch tree high above us, the grasshoppers sing far below. There are lightning bugs lighting up the density of the forest in the distance and in front of me, one of my brothers has the other by the throat.

  Aiden’s face darkens to the color of a plum while the vein beneath his left eye throbs with its own pulse. He’s saying words, but I can’t hear them as he wrenches against my hold, kicking me hard enough in the shin that if I hadn’t slipped on dried leaves at the last second, I think he might’ve broken it. Instead, his boot catches me in the thigh and I hiss as I hit the soil, knowing it’ll leave one hell of a bruise. Dixon tries to take over for me, but when he gets close enough, Aiden grabs the front of his shirt and drags him until they’re chest-to-chest, nose-to-nose.

  “Stop him or I will,” he rasps, voice acidic and scalding. Spittle flies from his lips as he uses Dixon’s weight to throw Clifton off balance. They hit a tree and Clifton releases a quiet “ooph” that, against the silence that’s fallen, echoes like a machine gun.

  Dixon plants his feet and raises his arm at the same time a voice calls through the door, “Don’t be afraid, we don’t bite.”

  Dixon hits Aiden with all the force he’s got, his whole torso hurtling forward, propelled by the slight shift in his footing. Dixon’s fist hits Aiden square in the mouth. Aiden’s head snaps back, his lower lip splits, and blood weeps down his face but when he straightens it’s only to continue fighting towards the door. He doesn’t even wipe off his chin. It’s like he doesn’t notice the blood, or any of us.

  Dixon advances on the door, a last look of warning on his face that I remember seeing many times when we were much younger. He doesn’t have time to tame the beast we didn’t know we brought with us, but opens steps inside the barn like a dignitary going to meet another. I follow him and Clifton and I share a look trying to determine how to proceed. We keep Aiden between us – me in front, Clifton bringing up the rear – but the moment we pass into the light, I wonder if I haven’t hallucinated the past few seconds.

  Aiden is cold once again as he plants himself at my left shoulder. His face is emotionless, cruel eyes open and hollow. His bloodied lips are pursed rigidly and I fight to understand what changed. Still eight men in the center of the room, two by the door, tan jacket standing slightly apart, an ice bucket on the ground and a duffel back beside it and two redheads writhing.

  Stepping within fifteen paces of the nearest man, Dixon speaks first. “We didn’t come here to watch you torture one another, Erik. Thought we’d wait it out.” He sounds equal parts maniacal dictator and bored algebra student and I am grateful that he’s here speaking for us. I wouldn’t be able to speak in such a stilted, calm manner. Hell, if I had anything to do with it, I’d probably have come in guns blazing alongside Aiden.

  Tan jacket – Erik – steps forward, away from his men and towards Dixon. He wears an immaculate white polo under the leather and has his hands clasped carelessly behind his back. “Looks like you had some trouble on the way in.”

  He cocks his chin at Aiden who still doesn’t react. If he’s breathing, I can’t see it in the movement of his chest. He is Michelangelo’s David, frozen in time in all but the eyes. He’s glancing again and again down and to the left. Towards the bag.

  Dixon shrugs. “Some of us were more eager than others to end this.”

  “End this?” Erik laughs and it’s full of violence. “Why end it when we haven’t even gotten started?” His English, like his Russian, is flawless and I’m not surprised he was able to fly under Sara’s radar, and Dixon’s.

  “You came for the drugs. We have them.”

  One edge of Erik’s mouth lifts and he muses, “You’re lying.”

  “Am I?” Dixon reaches into the front pocket of his black pants and pulls out a densely packed brick of heroin. The plastic spirals through the air, meeting Erik’s palm.

  “Alright then.” Erik pops the bag open and places a pinky to the powder and then to his tongue. “Now the rest of it.”

  “In a safety deposit box. We don’t carry that kind of merchandise with us casually.”

  Erik’s grin broadens. “You come to play ball and tell me now that you’ve only got a brick of my shit and a code to a safety deposit box?”

  “A brick and a key.” He flashes the silver object but doesn’t hand it over. “This opens a box at First and Mutual. You give me back my brother and I’ll tell you which one.”

  When Erik laughs again I imagine cutting his tongue off with the clean edge of the hunting knife tucked against my left ribs, and forcing the thing down his fucking throat.

  “Take the offer. Give us our brother,” Dixon says. “We’re not a part of this, so this is the only offer we’ll make.”

  “Brother?” Baldie sneers, then speaks to the others in Russian. Even though I understand fuck all, it’s clear he’s trying to make a joke. The others look to Erik, rather than respond.

  Erik says something to the man and he winces, then kicks the duffel at his feet. My attention follows Aiden standing right next to me. His right foot shoots forward about a centimeter, but enough for me to know something’s up. I’ve got no fucking clue what it is, but Aiden’s staring at the bag like someone’s thrown his heart and brain inside of it. Aiden must know something I don’t. Maybe…fuck.

  The thought comes and escapes my mind in seconds. There’s no way Charlie could be in that bag. Near six feet, one hundred seventy pounds, it isn’t big enough for someone his size. Hell, it’s not big enough for an adult-sized human. I just want to get this fucking over, and get the fuck out and get my fucking brother, then go home to Plumeria and fuck her just to know we’re both alive.

  “I have no desire to offend by presuming he isn’t your kin. Kin often don’t share resemblance.” He glances to the larger of the two redheads on the ground as he speaks. “And as much as I admire your tenacity, I can’t just give you back your brother in exchange for the drugs. Not after everything else you’ve taken from me.”

  “If you’re referring to Spade, it wasn’t us that killed him…”

  “Don’t you dare lie to me.” Erik’s expression shifts, becoming something maniacal, and when he snaps the two goons by the front door go to the bar. One of them drags my brother out from behind it. The other, the Mexican I thought I killed. Both have been torn to shreds.

  I bathe in red when I see the blood on Charlie’s rumpled suit jacket – the one Plumeria had teased earlier – and his torn pants. The blonde Russian grabs Charlie by the neck and drags him up onto his knees. My nose twitches, so does my mouth. I’m biting down so hard, I wonder if, when my teeth shatter, they’ll impale my brain. Charlie’s face has been slashed from right temple to left jaw bone. His chin bows to touch his silver shirt. It’s scarlet now. So is his whole face, his throat, his matted hair. He’s lost a lot of blood and is barely conscious.

  Dixon says nothing and Erik makes a face, a mockery of sadness. “Your brother had a little accident. Ran right into my knife.” He pulls a blade from behind his back and takes slow steps towards my brother. When he reaches him, he pulls on Charlie’s hair so that his face lifts towards the light. “Pretty boy had a few other accidents too.”

  Charlie’s jaw clenches and blood and spit dribble down his chin. He says something I don’t catch and Erik hits him with the butt of his knife and the angry wound on his forehead reopens like a mouth. Charlie falls back and Dixon takes a step into the loose circle so many bodies have formed.

  “Return our brother and we’ll give you your key and go home.”

  “Is this you lying to me again? Because we picked up your little runaway less than a day after you butchered Spade. He was a good fighter
. One of my best. This little shit told us that it was one of you who killed him. With your bare hands.” Erik’s eyes sparkle. “I didn’t bring you here just to get my money back. I came for a little sport. I want to see what the hands can do that slaughtered Spade and if you do live up to your legend, I’ll even throw in a reward. Vlad,” he barks and the bald guy grabs the duffel bag and drags it forward.

  I hear Aiden inhale beside me and am distracted from Charlie’s mangled face by the sensation of Aiden’s shoulder jerking forward to hit the back of mine. I grab his wrist and squeeze hard enough that it should have crippled him. It doesn’t. His grey eyes burn like coals, looking nothing like his brother’s. The man who isn’t capable of anything beside ambivalence is looking at the duffel bag like he’s being flayed and gutted. Not an expression unlike that which the two captives wear.

  The shorter of the two prisoners rears up, kicking back hard into the dirt and throwing his full bodyweight towards the Russian called Vlad. He hits Vlad hard enough in the stomach that the man drops the bag and doubles over with a pained sigh. The redhead then wrenches the black bag’s double zipper down. Bound hands are the first thing I see. They’re a pale brown – somewhere between my skin tone and Plumeria’s – and covered in hundreds of freckles, like her face. She’s beautiful, even with wet hair plastered to her neck and cheeks and duct tape covering her mouth. I glance to my left as Aiden’s body slumps against mine. His eyes have never been so big and he inhales between his teeth. He looks… Hell. The guy looks relieved.

  The redhead holds her shoulder and the back of her head. He’s speaks to her rapidly and she nods, chest convulsing as she fights to simultaneously breathe and cry. Then a clacking sound fills the space, followed by the sound of a gun’s hammer cocked.

  “Enough.” Erik points his weapon at the bag and Aiden breaks forward on a snarl. Erik fires and Aiden comes to a quick and sudden stop. The sound carries in the space, echoing where it has no right to echo. The duffel hits the ground and I can no longer see the girl’s face, but it’s the man the bullet was aimed for.