Better When He's Brave
Page 16
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He wasn’t just mad at Reeve for turning on him. She was now the enemy and she would be treated as such if he got his hands on her. This guy didn’t care who his victim was. Man, woman, or child, his brutality was growing more and more apparent and targeted. This guy took making his point to another level. He was all about the impact and carnage and it seemed like the targets he chose to leave as calling cards were getting younger and younger.
The woman had been sliced across her chest much in the way Dovie had been cut the night she was abducted. Only Dovie had survived and had the scars to prove how hard she fought to live. This girl just had the wounds. She also had burns across every surface of exposed skin, a bullet hole in her forehead, and none of that was as gruesome as the things Roark had done to the parts of her that should never be treated with anything but reverence and appreciation. There was rage and hatred acted out upon this girl like I had never seen before and it was eerie because she did bear a remarkable resemblance to Reeve, only much younger and much smaller.
“Is it okay if we take her now, Detective?”
I glanced up at the young tech and nodded. I hadn’t been aware that I had zoned out and was just staring at the body like she was going to wake up and give me Conner Roark’s name so I could go arrest him with zero hassle. Nothing ever worked that way.
“Yeah. Do we have an ID on her yet? She’s just a baby. Someone needs to notify the family.”
“Not yet. The only lead we have is that she may have been a dancer over at Spanky’s. She was found with a whole lot of cash in her purse and not much else.”
Oh, great. Nassir was already on the edge and close to going over because of what had happened to his club. When he found out that one of his girls was in the worst place at the worst time and the same guy who torched the club was responsible, he was definitely going to go over. There were some men that I could care less if they decided they wanted to do battle on my streets. I was tougher, I was faster, I was smarter, and when I had to be, I was more brutal. None of that was the case with Nassir Gates. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure what his background was but I knew training and cunning when I saw it. He might try and play himself off as a typical thug but I knew better. Nassir was the Devil, and if he dropped off that thin ledge of civility he was holding on to, the bloodbath that would ensue when he fell would drown us all.
As they put the girl in the coroner’s van I stared out over the industrial waterway and felt the weight of one more unnecessary death settle deep into that part of my soul where they collected and filled me up. I lost track of time, trapped in my own thoughts wondering how exactly I was going to fix this particular mess, when a heavy hand fell on my shoulder.
I didn’t think.
I reacted and had my gun out and pointed at the offender before my next breath. We both swore as Race took a step back and lifted up his hands in a gesture of surrender.
“Whoa, Titus.”
I narrowed my eyes at him and put the gun back in the holster. “What are you doing out here, Hartman? Shouldn’t you be off running numbers, or better yet, dealing with all the dark shit that has to be in your head knowing your old man got smoked?”
I wasn’t being tactful or kind. I didn’t have it in me anymore and I think Race saw it because he just smirked at me and looked as regal and unruffled as ever. He was a different man from the one that had been in my office yesterday. I wondered how much a good woman, a woman that understood him and the life he lived, helped with that. I felt a surge of jealousy that I had to struggle to choke down.
“I live out here. Brysen’s little sister heard the commotion and we peeked at the security cameras from the building. I saw you arrive and figured I would wait until the rest of the boys in blue took off before coming down to see what was going on.”
“You live here?”
He nodded and motioned to a concrete-and-glass building that looked way too nice to be anywhere in the Point and definitely way too slick to be on these crumbling docks.
“My old man used this place to stash his mistresses. The property owner is shady as hell, so when all that stuff with Brysen’s stalker came to a head, I had him transfer the deed over to her name so she had a safe place to go. I like it out here. It’s quiet, and when Booker got out of the hospital after he was shot, I moved him into the building to keep an eye on things when I’m working. I like that the girls have someone they can run to if I’m not around. Plus I upgraded the security system so that it’s harder to get into the place than it is to get on Bax’s good side. No one gets in or out without me or Booker knowing it. There are cameras everywhere.”
Noah Booker was an ex-con and an all-around badass. He was a lot like my brother in both of those aspects. Booker was smart enough to know that Race was the one that was going to be running things in the dark and in the back rooms and alleyways now that Novak was gone, so he had gotten in on the ground floor. He had offered himself up as a bullet catcher when Race’s girl found herself caught in the sights of a deadly stalker. Booker had almost died trying to keep Brysen and her sister safe, so it didn’t surprise me at all that Race had promptly put the man at his right hand and was relying on him for protection not only for himself but for his girls as well.
I rubbed a thumb across my scruffy jaw as the wheels in my head started turning. I lifted an eyebrow at Race and asked, “Is there any open space in the complex?”
He crossed his arms over his chest and his green eyes narrowed at me.
“Why? What’s wrong with your place?”
I had a small Craftsman-style house that wasn’t exactly out of the Point but it was far enough at the edge of the city that when I did sleep I did so without worrying too much about my windows getting shot out or my front door getting kicked in. It was just a place to store my stuff and crash when I got a few minutes. It absolutely wasn’t secure enough to take Reeve, with all the people that currently wanted a piece of her. She would be too isolated and alone if I left her there while I continued to hunt down Roark.
“Nothing is wrong with my place, but I’m in the middle of a situation and I need someplace safe to hang out for a few weeks.”
“That situation involves a certain dark haired beauty that’s back in town?”
Goddamn, was he too smart for his own good. Well, my good, really.
“Yeah, it does, and I don’t want to hear anything about it. The guy that torched your car, the guy that worked over Roxie, the guy that tortured the poor girl and left her here on this dock like she was trash, is not only after the Point but he’s after Reeve with a vengeance. She gave me his name and she’s willing to be the bait we use to draw him out, so I need to do what I can to keep her safe. Help me out, Race.”
The woman had been sliced across her chest much in the way Dovie had been cut the night she was abducted. Only Dovie had survived and had the scars to prove how hard she fought to live. This girl just had the wounds. She also had burns across every surface of exposed skin, a bullet hole in her forehead, and none of that was as gruesome as the things Roark had done to the parts of her that should never be treated with anything but reverence and appreciation. There was rage and hatred acted out upon this girl like I had never seen before and it was eerie because she did bear a remarkable resemblance to Reeve, only much younger and much smaller.
“Is it okay if we take her now, Detective?”
I glanced up at the young tech and nodded. I hadn’t been aware that I had zoned out and was just staring at the body like she was going to wake up and give me Conner Roark’s name so I could go arrest him with zero hassle. Nothing ever worked that way.
“Yeah. Do we have an ID on her yet? She’s just a baby. Someone needs to notify the family.”
“Not yet. The only lead we have is that she may have been a dancer over at Spanky’s. She was found with a whole lot of cash in her purse and not much else.”
Oh, great. Nassir was already on the edge and close to going over because of what had happened to his club. When he found out that one of his girls was in the worst place at the worst time and the same guy who torched the club was responsible, he was definitely going to go over. There were some men that I could care less if they decided they wanted to do battle on my streets. I was tougher, I was faster, I was smarter, and when I had to be, I was more brutal. None of that was the case with Nassir Gates. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure what his background was but I knew training and cunning when I saw it. He might try and play himself off as a typical thug but I knew better. Nassir was the Devil, and if he dropped off that thin ledge of civility he was holding on to, the bloodbath that would ensue when he fell would drown us all.
As they put the girl in the coroner’s van I stared out over the industrial waterway and felt the weight of one more unnecessary death settle deep into that part of my soul where they collected and filled me up. I lost track of time, trapped in my own thoughts wondering how exactly I was going to fix this particular mess, when a heavy hand fell on my shoulder.
I didn’t think.
I reacted and had my gun out and pointed at the offender before my next breath. We both swore as Race took a step back and lifted up his hands in a gesture of surrender.
“Whoa, Titus.”
I narrowed my eyes at him and put the gun back in the holster. “What are you doing out here, Hartman? Shouldn’t you be off running numbers, or better yet, dealing with all the dark shit that has to be in your head knowing your old man got smoked?”
I wasn’t being tactful or kind. I didn’t have it in me anymore and I think Race saw it because he just smirked at me and looked as regal and unruffled as ever. He was a different man from the one that had been in my office yesterday. I wondered how much a good woman, a woman that understood him and the life he lived, helped with that. I felt a surge of jealousy that I had to struggle to choke down.
“I live out here. Brysen’s little sister heard the commotion and we peeked at the security cameras from the building. I saw you arrive and figured I would wait until the rest of the boys in blue took off before coming down to see what was going on.”
“You live here?”
He nodded and motioned to a concrete-and-glass building that looked way too nice to be anywhere in the Point and definitely way too slick to be on these crumbling docks.
“My old man used this place to stash his mistresses. The property owner is shady as hell, so when all that stuff with Brysen’s stalker came to a head, I had him transfer the deed over to her name so she had a safe place to go. I like it out here. It’s quiet, and when Booker got out of the hospital after he was shot, I moved him into the building to keep an eye on things when I’m working. I like that the girls have someone they can run to if I’m not around. Plus I upgraded the security system so that it’s harder to get into the place than it is to get on Bax’s good side. No one gets in or out without me or Booker knowing it. There are cameras everywhere.”
Noah Booker was an ex-con and an all-around badass. He was a lot like my brother in both of those aspects. Booker was smart enough to know that Race was the one that was going to be running things in the dark and in the back rooms and alleyways now that Novak was gone, so he had gotten in on the ground floor. He had offered himself up as a bullet catcher when Race’s girl found herself caught in the sights of a deadly stalker. Booker had almost died trying to keep Brysen and her sister safe, so it didn’t surprise me at all that Race had promptly put the man at his right hand and was relying on him for protection not only for himself but for his girls as well.
I rubbed a thumb across my scruffy jaw as the wheels in my head started turning. I lifted an eyebrow at Race and asked, “Is there any open space in the complex?”
He crossed his arms over his chest and his green eyes narrowed at me.
“Why? What’s wrong with your place?”
I had a small Craftsman-style house that wasn’t exactly out of the Point but it was far enough at the edge of the city that when I did sleep I did so without worrying too much about my windows getting shot out or my front door getting kicked in. It was just a place to store my stuff and crash when I got a few minutes. It absolutely wasn’t secure enough to take Reeve, with all the people that currently wanted a piece of her. She would be too isolated and alone if I left her there while I continued to hunt down Roark.
“Nothing is wrong with my place, but I’m in the middle of a situation and I need someplace safe to hang out for a few weeks.”
“That situation involves a certain dark haired beauty that’s back in town?”
Goddamn, was he too smart for his own good. Well, my good, really.
“Yeah, it does, and I don’t want to hear anything about it. The guy that torched your car, the guy that worked over Roxie, the guy that tortured the poor girl and left her here on this dock like she was trash, is not only after the Point but he’s after Reeve with a vengeance. She gave me his name and she’s willing to be the bait we use to draw him out, so I need to do what I can to keep her safe. Help me out, Race.”
