by Bella J
As I glanced from Alyx, to Ink, to Dutch, to Manic, watching the looks on their faces as they passed the syrup and butter around, eating pancakes. Talking and laughing, they seemed like men without a care in the world. I couldn’t remember the last time the atmosphere around us felt so light, having my brothers seem so relaxed.
I looked back up at Alyx. “Thank you,” I silently mouthed, and she shot the most heavenly smile that crashed against my chest, ricocheting to my heart. The moment was fucking perfection. It was like her being here managed to make the air not so goddamn heavy. Even Ink smiled, chatting with a mouthful of pancake, like he managed to forget about all the shit that had happened.
I was about to reach for a pancake when the chatter stopped abruptly, everyone looking toward the back door.
“Hey, Onyx,” Dutch said, taking another bite. “You want a pancake?”
I looked at my brother, and our eyes met.
The despondent look on his face, his eyes glum and uncertain, had me seeing the little boy he used to be years ago. The boy I had to take care of, protect, love. We couldn’t all be the same, and I couldn’t expect Onyx to be like me, think like me, act like me.
A moment passed with not a single word spoken, yet we said everything we needed to say. He was my brother, and no matter what happened between us, there would always be a place for him at our table.
“Have a pancake, brother.” I held up a plate, and he came over, removing his gun from his back and placing it on the counter.
Alyx turned, the warm smile still on her pretty face. “You better grab one before Manic eats it all.”
Onyx stopped at the side of the table and held out his hand toward Ink. “I’m sorry.”
Ink chewed, glancing from Onyx down to his hand, and back up. He nodded then shook Onyx’s hand. “Yeah, bro. Me too.”
Yup. This was turning out to be a pretty fucking good moment. A bunch of dirty bikers laughing and eating pancakes. Go figure.
Onyx grabbed a chair and sat at the side of the table, reaching for the last pancake.
Alyx pointed over her shoulder. “I guess I’ll need to make more, then.”
“Hell, yeah,” Manic exclaimed, a greedy grin on his face.
Just as Alyx turned, the door blasted inward with a deafening crash, almost torn from its hinges, and chaos erupted. Masked men forcefully rushed in, loud, angry voices shouting, all while pointing guns in every direction. Then there was the sound of glass breaking as Alyx dropped the plates.
God, it all happened so fucking fast, it was like my mind couldn’t register what the fuck was happening. All I could think of was Alyx.
“Police! Get your fucking hands up!” the men screamed at us, pointing their guns right at us, the glint of their badges around their necks flickering.
“Alyx!” I yelled, and for a second she turned to me, the fear on her face slicing through my skin like razors.
Ink jumped up, flipping the table over, and I launched myself in Alyx’s direction. But someone slammed into my side, knocking me into the wall, the impact ripping the air from my lungs.
“Get your fucking hands up now!” someone screamed, but I refused to take my eyes off Alyx, the need to get to her shooting adrenaline to every bone in my body.
Alyx dropped to the ground, arms covering her head, her hands shaking.
Jesus Christ.
I reared back and punched the fucker pinning me against the wall right in the face. I slammed my knee in his stomach, pushing him to the ground as he hunched over.
“Dutch!” I yelled. “Get Alyx!”
“Granite!” I heard her scream, and I went fucking savage, growling, roaring like a fucking demon as I flung my fists, wanting to tear apart every fucker who stood between me and Alyx.
It was fucking anarchy with too many faces, making it impossible to fucking focus. All I wanted to do was get to Alyx.
“Granite!”
“Alyx!” I yelled, pushing through a goddamn wall of men so I could get to her. But men came from behind and slammed me into the ground. “Onyx!” I cried, and he turned my way after slamming his fist in a cop’s face. “Get Alyx. Get her out of here.”
Immediately, he started to rush to her when a loud crack erupted, smoke blasting fucking everywhere, and I could no longer see any of them. All I felt were hands and bodies pinning me to the ground. I jerked hard, desperate to push myself up, fighting to get free. But the harder I fought, the more men rushed to hold me down.
“Alyx!” I narrowed my eyes, desperately trying to see through the gray smoke. My nose burned as I inhaled, the smell of sulfur potent and overwhelming. “Alyx! Fuck!”
Gunshots fired, bursting through the blinding chaos, and my heart stopped. It fucking stopped.
“Get her out of here!” I heard someone yell, and then I lost it.
A roar ripped from my throat, hitting the goddamn roof as adrenaline exploded in my veins. I had no idea where I got the strength, but somehow, I managed to jump up, knocking down the fuckers around me.
“Granite!” I heard Ink call. “Granite!”
“I’m here. Ink, where’s Alyx?” The smoke slowly started to dissipate, and I rushed ahead in the direction I saw her last. But she wasn’t there. I searched for her, but she wasn’t fucking there among the masked faces.
“Ink! Where the fuck is Alyx?” My heart thundered in my throat, my spine numb with fear—the fear of losing her.
I frantically searched around me and spotted Dutch on the floor clutching his chest as blood oozed through the slits of his fingers. “Jesus Christ! Dutch!”
“Find her. Find Alyx first,” he ordered as he steadied his back against the wall. “Find her.”
It was a fucking frenzy of violence and mayhem around us, but I managed to rush out the door, wild with the need to find her.
I stopped on the back porch, panicked and turbulent as I searched around me.
“Granite!”
I heard her. I fucking heard her voice, but I couldn’t find her. For a second, I hesitated while trying to find her when two men crashed into me, and I got a mouthful of fucking grass as my head hit the ground.
“Alyx!” I bellowed, feeling like panic was about to crack open my motherfucking spine while I fought to get free. “Alyx! Jesus fucking Christ! Alyx.”
“Stop, or I will shoot you,” the motherfucker behind me yelled while his knee pressed into my spine. He grabbed my wrists and twisted my arms behind my back while another guy pushed my shoulders down. Fighting back proved futile when I felt the cold metal of the cuffs around my wrists.
“You fuckers are making a mistake!” I growled, and that was when my eye caught movement in front of us, a black van pulling up. It happened so fucking fast, but when I saw Alyx being dragged to the van by more masked men, my heart wanted to jump out of my goddamn throat.
“Alyx! There. There she is. Go help her!” I thrashed, gritting my teeth, certain they would break at any moment. “Alyx!” No one was listening to me. They weren’t fucking listening.
“You motherfuckers! She’s right there. Let me fucking go.” A fist slammed into my side, but I was too focused on Alyx to even care about the pain that exploded up my ribcage.
I bent my knees, and with every ounce of power I had, I pushed myself up, knocking one of the fuckers to the ground. “Go help her!” But it was too late. The van door closed, and I heard the tires speed across the asphalt. “No! Jesus. No!”
One of the cops moved in front of me, and I reacted by slamming my head against his motherfucking nose. Blood gushed down his face as he fell, and I lurched to the side, stars exploding behind my eyes.
“You son of a bitch. Where is my daughter?”
I paused and looked up, right at the PC’s face. “What the fuck did you do?”
“Where is my daughter, Granite? She was in there a second ago, and now she’s gone.”
“Someone took her!” I squirmed, feeling like a goddamn rabid dog, ready to tear everyone and everything apart. “
Let me fucking go so I can find her.”
“You’re not fooling me again, Granite. Not this time.”
Someone jerked me up, and I yanked forward. “Someone took her!”
“Don’t fucking lie to me.”
“I swear to God!”
The PC’s face hardened, and he swung his fist, slamming it into my gut, and I tried to launch myself at him as a second pair of hands grabbed my shoulders.
“All this time, you pretended to look for her, and you had her all along.”
My breaths came out rapidly, my entire body shaking. “You’re making a fucking mistake.”
“Take him to the precinct. And search this entire goddamn house!”
Onyx came running out. “What the fuck, man?”
“Onyx. You need to find Alyx.” My body shook, panic gripping every bone tight.
“What the fuck is going on? Let go of my brother.”
A cop jumped in front of Onyx, and Onyx didn’t hesitate for a second, slamming his fist right in the cop’s jaw and sending him ploughing to the ground. It took all of two-point-three seconds for Onyx to eat dust as two more cops grabbed him, cuffing him as well.
“You filthy motherfuckers, let me fucking go.” He jerked, and I thrashed. But we were fucking surrounded.
I didn’t stop fighting, not for a second. It took four men to drag me to the cop car, and as one of them pressed my head down, trying to force me into the back seat, I launched to the side, and they momentarily lost their grip on me. I swung a leg and kicked one of the sons of bitches in the balls and knocked him down with a shoulder. I needed to go find Alyx, and that was all I cared about—getting her back.
All it took was an unexpected blow to the head, and I staggered to the side before I got shoved face first into the back seat of a cop car.
My skull was on fire, my mouth dry, and adrenaline burning the inside of my veins. Jesus Christ. What the fuck was happening? Alyx got taken, and I had no idea who it was. Dutch was shot and bleeding inside the house, and Onyx got cuffed as well.
It was fucking pandemonium…and Alyx was gone. Every second they had me in cuffs was a second she was taken farther away.
Chapter Seventeen
Granite
I slammed my fist against the steel bars. “Let me fucking out of here!”
Onyx sat on the filthy bench, head leaning against the wall. He was as cool and collected as last week’s marijuana special.
I snapped my glare at him. “What in the name of ever-loving fuck happened tonight?’
He shrugged. “My guess is the PC figured out we were bullshitting him.”
“You think!” It wasn’t a fucking question. “But how? How the fuck did he figure it out, and how in Jesus’s name did they know where we were? No one fucking knew about that safe house.”
Onyx bent forward, placing his elbow on his knees. “I dunno, man. It doesn’t add up.”
“And we have no idea where Alyx is. Jesus!” I pulled at my hair, rage threatening to explode inside me.
“You saw her get into a van?”
“I saw her getting shoved into a van, man. There’s a difference.”
“Maybe it was cops getting her out of there.”
I shook my head and crouched with my back against the bars. “No. No. They weren’t cops. The van was unmarked. And if it was cops, why did the PC keep asking me where Alyx was?”
Onyx placed his palms together. “I don’t fucking know, man.”
“And Dutch. Fuck.” I pulled my hand down my face. “He got shot, and we don’t know if he’s okay.”
“Let’s just hope Manic or Ink got to Neon in time and closed the floor door. If the police find Neon, it’ll raise a lot of fucking questions.”
We heard a door unlock, and a detective held it open. “You have five minutes.”
I narrowed my eyes and stood. Manic came walking in wearing a hoody and sunglasses. “Thanks, man.”
The door closed, and I grabbed the steel bars. “Manic, what the fuck is going on? Did you find Alyx?”
He pulled the hoody off his head and removed the sunglasses, worry lines creased on his forehead. Even the goddamn scar on his face seemed more prominent than usual.
“No, dude. Sorry. There’s no goddamn trace of her.”
“Fuck!” Like a maniac, I slammed my head against the bars. I didn’t even fucking feel the pain. “And Dutch? He okay?”
Manic rubbed his chin. “He’s fine. While you two made a scene outside, Ink and I managed to get him in the basement. Police searched the house, but they didn’t find us hiding.”
“Thank God for one thing.”
“Yeah. The doctor got him sorted. Just a shoulder wound.” He looked at me, his eyes brimming with remorse. “Listen, man, Ink and I, we’re sorry we couldn’t help you and Onyx.”
“No.” I held up my hand. “You did the right thing by getting Dutch to safety and keeping them from finding Neon.”
I pressed my fists against the bars and stretched, letting my head hang down. “Where the fuck is Alyx, man?”
“We don’t know.” Manic glanced at his wristwatch. “But there’s something else.”
I snapped my head up. “What?”
“Tanit. She’s gone too.”
I shot up, and Onyx stepped in next to me. “Where the fuck is Tanit?”
Manic shrugged. “We don’t fucking know. But Trick said she hasn’t seen Tanit since this morning.”
“Maybe the same guys who took Alyx took Tanit?” Onyx looked at me questioningly.
“No.” I shook my head. “I only saw Alyx. Tanit wasn’t there. Plus, Manic just said Trick hasn’t seen Tanit since this morning.”
Onyx stared straight in front of him. “Are you sure the police don’t have Alyx? Maybe they took Tanit as well, I dunno”—he shrugged—“maybe to see if they can get some information on us.”
“No.” I pushed myself away from the bars and started pacing. “They don’t have Alyx. Her father was pretty fucking upset. He didn’t seem like a dad who just found his daughter. No, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the police who took her.”
Onyx stepped up to the steel bars and held his hand out to Manic. “Dude, gimme a smoke, would you?”
Manic pulled out a pack and gave Onyx a cigarette before lighting it for him through the bars.
With arms still dangling over the rails, Onyx let out a long breath of smoke. “Either someone spotted us out here, or we have a snitch.”
Manic and I stilled. Talking about a snitch was big shit. That wasn’t the kind of accusation one idly flung around. If you went around accusing someone of being a snitch and you were proven wrong, you kissed your motherfucking patch goodbye.
“A snitch?” I walked closer.
“Yeah, man. It’s the only thing that makes sense. That, or we were followed to the safe house. How else?”
I shook my head, rubbing my beard. “No one would have followed us. We never used the same way to the house twice in a row. Plus, Manic had been doing runs, like, ten times a fucking day. No,” I shook my head again, “we couldn’t have been followed.”
Onyx leaned to the side, facing me. “Then the only other option is we have a snitch.”
The detective came back in. “Hurry your asses up. We got company coming this way.”
“Manic.” I pressed against the bars. “Find her.”
He gave a light nod and pulled the hoody over his head, disappearing out the steel door.
I hung my head. Alyx was gone. I had no idea where she was. And to make things worse, I was in here, behind bars and unable to do shit about finding her.
“Do you think the Pythons are behind this?” Onyx went to sit back down on the bunk.
“It crossed my mind.”
“But?”
I bit the inside of my mouth. “I dunno. It just doesn’t seem like the Pythons’ typical MO.”
“Maybe they decided to be a little less predictable this time. And since you and Ink have been burying and burning
dead Pythons, it wouldn’t be surprising if Slither upped his game.”
I opened my mouth, wanting to respond, when the steel door opened again.
“PC wants to see you.” It was the same detective who smuggled Manic in here, one of those dirty cops on our payroll.
I straightened. “Detective Harrison, right?”
“Yeah.”
“What the fuck is going on?”
He leaned closer, glancing at the door to make sure we were not overheard. “PC wants his daughter, man.”
“Yeah. And we were helping him find her.” I was getting sick of playing this game.
He shook his head. “An anonymous tip came through this morning. Said his daughter was spotted with Kings in Coney Island.”
I roughed my hand through my hair. “Who gave the tip?”
He lifted his shoulders. “Fuck me if I know.”
“Yo, Harrison.” Another guy peeked through the door. “The PC is waiting for him. Hurry the fuck up.”
Harrison unlocked the cell door and held out a pair of cuffs. I hesitated, thought I’d try to make his head implode with my mind. But he gave me a once-over and lifted a brow. “Don’t make trouble, okay?”
“You ain’t getting no trouble from me.” I held out my hands, planting my wrists together. The cuffs were cold, and he tightened them a little too fucking tight.
Two armed officers stood by the door. They were packing heavy security around me. Probably a good thing because I was one threat away from ripping every goddamn person’s heart out in order to find my Alyx.
They cuffed me to a chair in one of the interrogation rooms. It wasn’t my first rodeo. I’d been in rooms like these more times than I could count.
One-way mirrors.
Security cameras.
Little to no air conditioning. The more you sweated, the more anxious you got, the easier you talked. Usually, I’d be super chilled while waiting in one of these rooms, confident the cops wouldn’t be able to rattle me. But not today. Today was different. There was so much more on the line than telling lies and getting out of trouble. Protecting the crew. It was about Alyx. It was about getting myself out of here so I could go protect the one person who had somehow managed to become the center of my fucking life.