7th Circle (Hades Book 1)
Page 9
So, acting purely on my gut feeling, I surged out of my chair. Skate started babbling some panicked bullshit, but I wasn't listening to his lies any more. He was no longer in charge of his gang; I'd stake my whole fortune on it.
My jaw tight and my resolve hard, I pulled my gun and fired a single shot. The bullet hit square between Skate's eyebrows, blowing out the back of his head in a splatter of blood and gore. His lifeless body toppled onto the floor as his chair tipped backward. My Desert Eagle packed a hell of a punch, especially in such close confines.
Immediately, Joseph made a break for it—predictable as shit. Zed was quicker, though, firing a shot through the back of the fake Wraith's knee.
Joseph fell to the ground, screaming in pain, and the sound echoed through the crypt in the most fitting way.
Zed paid the man's protests no mind as he grabbed him by the back of the neck and dragged him back to the table. He nudged Skate's body aside, and Vega's man, Diego, helped by righting the fallen chair again. A chair into which Joseph the snake was dropped unceremoniously and held in place by Zed's heavy hand on his neck.
"Well. It looks like I have a lead after all," I murmured, eyeing Joseph critically. He wasn't the one calling the shots, but I'd bet he knew who was. "Does anyone else have anything to tell me before I get on with this?"
I arched a brow at Vega and Maurice. Cass had already come forward about the angel dust found on his guys, and Archer was removed from suspicion in this.
"Now or never, gentlemen; I'm a busy woman."
Surprisingly, it was Maurice who cracked. "I might have heard something," he admitted with a heavy swallow. "One of my guys was picked up a couple of weeks back by the local PD. They claimed he was carrying dust, but there's no way. Not my crew." He shook his head firmly, perspiration beading on his brow.
I stared at him a long moment, weighing the sincerity of his words. My father had thought it was a cute trick to teach me poker as a seven-year-old, so I'd been reading body language a long time. Some people were harder to read than others, of course, like Cass, who was a closed and locked book. Maurice, though, was a pretty open one.
He also wasn't lying to me. Or he was telling me what he believed to be the truth.
"You think the cops planted it on him?" I asked. That would create a common denominator in all the instances of PCP I knew of. But why the fuck would law enforcement be doing the dirty work for a criminal with a vendetta? It didn't add up.
Maurice spread his hands wide. "There's no other explanation."
Yet.
I gave a small nod. "Next time you keep information from me, Maurice, you'll be joining Skate in my shark tank. Do you have anything else I need to know?" He shook his head quickly, his naturally bronzed skin ashen. "I expect you to send me the arrest details and to immediately contact me if it happens again. Is that clear? You're dismissed."
The leader of the Riverstone Vipers quickly scurried out of the crypt, his plus-one tight on his ass like hellhounds were snapping at their heels.
"Vega?" I tilted my head to the Death Squad president. He had been in his position for a long time, wisely making good choices after my father’s fall from grace and surviving to live the tale. He was no idiot.
"Nothing to tell, Hades. I can assure you, if that shit turns up in my turf, you'll be the first to know about it."
"I'll second that sentiment," Ezekiel offered, adjusting his glasses. "But if trouble does come knocking, my services are, as always, at your disposal, sir."
I inwardly snorted a laugh. Yeah, at a price.
Also, the fact that Zed's use of sir had caught on with other people was annoying the shit out of me. But it was better than ma'am, so I let it happen.
"Very well. You can both go. But keep your ears to the ground and your eyes open. Someone isn't finished making their point." I turned my attention back to Joseph, who was sweating and pale but watching me with an intensity that said he still thought he'd make it out alive to report back to his boss. Poor fool. He’d been a dead man the second I’d made him as a fake Wraith.
Vega, Ezekiel, and their men murmured pleasantries and left the crypt without even glancing at Skate's body. It was nothing new for our way of life.
"Thank you, gentlemen," I told Cass and Archer. "I trust you'll both keep me informed if you hear anything of interest."
Neither one of them made any move to leave, despite the clear dismissal in my tone. Instead, Archer leaned forward and rubbed a thoughtful hand over his stubbled chin.
"You think this has something to do with the Lockharts." It was a statement, not a question. He knew full fucking well that's what I was thinking. What I feared was true.
Cass drummed his fingertips on the table. "The death of your boy last night was a definite message," he commented, his rough, gravelly voice too damn welcome in my ears. I'd truly thought my afternoon with Lucas had kicked my Cass addiction, but clearly, I was wrong.
"I'm aware," I snapped, a thread of anger evident in my tone. It was frustration at myself more than anything, though. "Zed filled me in."
"I could have run you through it myself," Cass pushed, not dropping the matter like he badly needed to. "My calls weren't going through though." His dark gaze caught mine, and I had to fight to keep my calm, emotionless, supreme resting bitch face in place. Fucking hell, when had my crush on him gotten so out of hand?
I wasn't playing games though, not when I had a slippery spy to torture and kill. "Thank you, gentlemen," I repeated. "You can go."
Archer knew when to back down and pushed back from the table. "I'll dig around a bit," he told me, despite me not asking for his assistance on the Lockhart matter. "Maybe someone survived."
I shook my head. "They didn't."
He gave a one-shouldered shrug. "All the same." He gave a nod to Zed, who returned it. The history between us all had Archer sitting awfully close to friend status for both Zed and me.
Cass was slower to rise from his seat, and I breathed a small sigh of annoyance.
"Actually," I said before he got to the door, pausing him in his tracks. "I've had enough of the Wraiths. I don't think another change of leadership is going to do them any favors here."
Cass arched a dark, scarred brow at me. "What would you like done, Hades?"
"Absorb them into the Reapers or kill them. Your choice. But as far as I'm concerned, Shadow Grove belongs to the Reapers now." I gave a small smirk. "With the exception of my venues, of course."
Cass dipped his head in acknowledgement. "Of course. I'll get it done." His gaze remained on me for a beat longer than necessary, then he left silently.
As the footsteps of all our guests faded away from hearing, I drew a deep breath and turned my attention back to Joseph.
"Hello, Joseph," I said with a saccharine smile. "I think it's time we got to know each other better."
9
Several hours later Zed and I emerged from the crypt covered in blood and no better off for our efforts. Joseph had proved a harder nut to crack than I'd encountered in a long time and ended up taking his boss's identity to the grave with him.
The only useful thing we'd learned from him was that the Wraiths had been flipped over a month ago.
I grimaced as I peeled my blood-soaked gloves off on our way through the main bar’s construction zone. They were leather fingerless gloves with metal woven into the knuckles, a Christmas present from Madison Kate last year, designed for maximum impact with minimal damage to my hands. They were easily my second favorite accessory, after my Desert Eagle.
"You feeling better, boss?" Zed asked, leaning against the rough stone wall beside the main entrance. We needed to wait on our cleanup crew to arrive before we could leave. It wasn't the smartest thing to do, leaving bloody corpses unattended on my own property—especially not with the current state of cleanliness in the local law enforcement.
I frowned at Zed, tucking my gloves into the pocket of my jacket. "What's that supposed to mean?"
He gave a
too-casual shrug. "Sure seemed like you had a lot of pent-up anger to work out there. I can't remember the last time you beat the crap out of someone that thoroughly without a weapon." He paused, scrutinizing me. "Wouldn't have anything to do with why you turned your phone off today and shacked up with a barely legal stripper boy, would it?"
"He's twenty-one, Zed, and what did I tell you about throwing stones inside your glass house? Pretty sure that perky blonde you picked up in August was barely even out of high school." I gave him a judgmental grin, but I really had worked off enough of my built-up tension that he wasn't irritating me. Not while there was no one around to hear us talk like this. Like friends.
Zed just rolled his eyes but gave a smug grin. He was a fucking man-whore and had zero qualms about who knew it. Hell, I was at least ninety percent sure he had an exhibitionism kink. He was also gorgeous, so it was no freaking wonder he picked up women so easily.
"So... did you fuck Cass out of your system, then?"
Ugh. Of course he knew exactly what I was doing. Goddamn fucker knew me way too well.
I breathed out a long sigh, giving a mournful shake of my head. "I thought I had."
Instead of making a smart remark like I expected, Zed just watched me from the corner of his eye for a long moment, then huffed a sound.
"Fucking shoot him, then. You don't need that shit taking up space in your brain, boss. Plenty of other guys out there are more than willing to throw you around a room if that's really what you want."
I snickered a laugh. "Trust you to remember the shit I say while I'm drunk."
Zed just arched a brow at me, then pulled a rolled blunt from his pocket. He lit it up, took a drag, then handed it over to me. He watched me with a weird look on his face as I placed the spliff between my lips and inhaled deeply. As usual, it was way more weed than tobacco, but that was how we both liked it. We never smoked enough to get properly high, but a light buzz every now and then, particularly after torturing and killing a motherfucker, was nice.
"You're acting weird tonight, Zed," I told him when I passed the cigarette back. His fingers brushed mine as he took it, and he frowned abruptly. "What gives?"
"Nothing," he replied, a clear lie. I squinted at him with accusation, and he grinned as he placed the cig back between his lips. "Nothing for you to worry about, boss," he amended.
"If you say so," I murmured, noticing a familiar white van on its way down the street. "Robynne's here."
We made no move to leave, though, staying where we were to finish the shared spliff while our cleanup crew pulled into the loading zone and started unloading their equipment from the van.
The ancient woman who owned Rodent-Rid Pest Control hopped out of the driver's seat and followed her staff up the main steps as she pulled on a pair of industrial-thickness gloves. She was already neck-to-toe in a blue coverall, and I knew from experience that she'd pull the hood up and wear a full face mask before entering the crime scene.
"Hades, Zed," she greeted my second and I. Her wrinkled lips pulled in a wide grin as she ran her gaze over me. "You look good, boss. Red is your color." She cackled at her own joke, then passed us to get on with business.
"She scares me," Zed murmured as we made our way down the steps of the old church, heading for his car. "But you probably should clean up before you get in my Ferrari."
He popped the passenger door open, then pulled a packet of baby wipes from the glove box and tossed them to me with a smirk.
"Seriously?" I deadpanned.
"Seriously. I don't want to have my car stinking of blood, thank you. Just hurry up. I had a date with Emily tonight, and I'm already about nine hours late." The lazy smile on his face said that he was feeling the small amount of weed already.
I rolled my eyes and used the pathetic little wet wipes to wipe the worst of the blood from my face and neck, then slid into the passenger seat of Zed's car.
"There's no way that girl is still waiting for you," I told him with a mocking headshake. "By the time we make it back to Shadow Grove, it'll be almost dawn."
Zed just gave an easy shrug and wide smile. "Perfect. I'll creep into her bed, wake her up with my face between her thighs, blow my load all over her perfect tits, and then leave before she goes to class."
"You're a class act, Zayden De Rosa," I muttered in a dry tone, relaxing back into my seat with a yawn. That easy, comfortable sort of chat between us was few and far between these days. Most of the time I was so caught up in my Hades persona I couldn't even let myself relax around my oldest friend. Most of the time, he treated me like a grenade with a loose pin.
But not now. I could almost picture us as we used to be. Before the massacre. Before I made the choice to become a mass murderer. Before Hades.
We drove most of the way home in comfortable silence, and Zed didn't even speed much. For a guy so eager to get his dick wet, he was really in no hurry. It wasn't until we were almost back to my apartment building that our idle chat turned back to business.
"Dissolving the Wraiths won't be an easy task for the Reapers, you know." Zed's comment was an echo of what'd run through my mind right before I’d made the decision.
I let out a long, tired sigh and nodded. "I know. But Cass has the experience necessary and the loyalty of his Reapers. He can handle it. And there were far too many cooks in my kitchen as it was."
"No disagreements here," Zed agreed. "I'll just keep a close eye on things to make sure it doesn't raise any unnecessary scrutiny from SGPD. Want me to offer any assistance if the Reapers need it?"
I snorted a laugh. "Fuck no. If Cass needs our help, then maybe we should dissolve the Reapers too."
Zed gave me a sidelong look. "So you're not killing him, then?"
"Cass?" I arched a brow at Zed. Then shook my head. "Not today. But fuck, he's on thin ice."
Zed slowed his Ferrari and glided to a stop directly in front of my building. It was an old one with no concierge to monitor people coming and going, but I loved it. I had enough security on my actual apartment; I didn't need anyone stopping people in the lobby.
"Speak of the ice-skating elephant himself..." Zed muttered, nodding across the road.
Sure enough, there was the Reapers’ leader himself, seeming like he was just waiting for me as he leaned against his sexy fucking motorcycle.
"Fucker has a death wish," I commented, unbuckling my seat belt and climbing out of the low car. Zed started to follow, his gun already in hand, but I waved him off. "I can handle this alone."
My second snorted a laugh. "No doubts about that. I'll go make sure Seph is home safe."
He waited until I jerked a nod of approval, then disappeared into my apartment building while Cass crossed the street toward me.
"What's happened?" I asked as he got closer. I didn't miss the way his eyes ran over my exposed skin, taking in my crappy cleanup of Joseph's blood. Weird.
His dark brows furrowed as he took a step closer than necessary, making me crane my neck to look up at him. Bastard was six-foot-five, so even in my high heels he towered over me.
"Nothing happened." His growly voice was in full effect, and I stiffened my shoulders to stop the thrill it sent through me. Goddamn moronic hormones were taking control of my life.
I folded my arms under my breasts, cringing inwardly as I felt the tightness of dried blood in my cleavage. "So, why are you here?"
His frown deepened, if that was even possible. "Can I come up so we can talk?"
I shook my head, firm. "Hell no. We're allies, Cass, not friends."
He scoffed a humorless laugh. "Bullshit. I'm as close to a friend as you've got outside of Zed and Archer's boys." He swiped a hand over his half-shaved head, and I couldn't help following the movement.
So damn sexy.
"You're a business associate at best," I snapped back, letting my anger get the better of me for a rare moment.
Fucking Cass must have been drinking from the idiot fountain, though, because he took another step closer. I was sti
ll standing beside Zed's car, and if I'd been inclined to back up, I would have ended up with my back against the Ferrari’s door. I didn't back up for anyone, though, not even a sexy-as-sin mountain of a gangster.
"You make a habit of kissing all your business associates, Hades?" he asked in a low rumble, his neck bent so that his lips were right beside my ear. All I could see was the broad expanse of his black T-shirt, and the rich scent of his leather jacket filled my nose. I couldn't even be mad, because he smelled delicious.
Still, he was pushing his damn luck. "Maybe I do," I retorted, placing a hand against his chest and applying a little pressure to remind him that he was walking a tightrope with my temper. I'd already dissolved one gang tonight; I could easily make it two.
He didn't take the hint, though. Far from it. If anything, my hand on his chest was taken as an invitation, and his rough fingers grasped my hips as he pushed me into Zed's car.
"I don't believe you," he whispered, all husky and...
But his rejection from Saturday night was still fresh in my mind, barbing me with embarrassment every time I thought about it. No way was I giving him more power than I'd already provided.
"Believe what you want, Cassiel," I told him in a sultry sort of purr, "but if you don't take your hands off me, you'll find out real fast what I do to people that don't respect my personal boundaries."
He didn't immediately step away, not like he would have a week ago, prior to me making a move on him. Instead, his thumb teased the bare skin between my lace top and leather pants, and his breath warmed my neck as he sighed. Then, slowly, he released my hips and stepped back.
I almost wished he'd refused.
But that wasn't Cass's style. He was easily the most respectful-around-women gangster I'd ever met. It was half the reason I trusted him to keep Seph safe when Zed and I weren't around.
Still, my shriveled and pitch-black soul craved a bit of defiance from this man. I wanted the unpredictability and challenge that I knew he could provide.