Unhinged by Onley James
“What if they don’t show?” Noah asked again for the hundredth time, chewing on his thumbnail as he watched Adam gaze out the window through a pair of binoculars.
They sat in an abandoned shack that had once been a bait and tackle shop, approximately five hundred yards away from an old wooden building that had once been a fish hatchery, whatever the hell that was. Adam had said the whole marina had shut down years ago and had sat abandoned for more than a decade. It was one of the forgotten properties in Thomas Mulvaney’s vast portfolio.
“They’ll show,” Adam promised without looking up from his post. “Your idea was smart. Even my father thought so.”
That wasn’t entirely true. Thomas had said the plan was reckless and risky. But he’d also said he was going to sit back and let it play out. He was putting a lot of faith in Noah. Too much faith if he was being honest. Noah’s bravado from the other day had vanished in a puff of smoke the moment they’d posted up in this dirty dilapidated shack that reeked of rotting fish, even though there were none to be found.
Still, the area was perfect for their purpose. The rotting wooden building would go up like a tinderbox once they were all inside, and—unlike Gary’s cabin—was unlikely to start a forest fire. Thomas didn’t strike Noah as much of a conservationist, so he imagined it had more to do with unwanted attention than saving wildlife and vegetation.
Noah shook his head, chewing harder at his nail until Adam had reached up and tugged his hand from his mouth without looking, dropping it to Adam’s jean clad thigh.
“You’re going to chew off your own hand like a bear in a trap. If you need a distraction, I have something you can play with,” Adam said, clearly amused with himself.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Archer muttered in Noah’s ear.
“Yeah, coms are live. Try not to act like heathens,” Atticus added.
It felt weird hearing other people in his ear, but there was something weirdly exciting about it, too. The adrenaline rushing through his veins made him jittery, his heart racing like he’d had too many energy drinks.
Adam chuckled. “Baby, relax. I can literally feel your nerves from over here.”
“Here being six inches to your left?” Noah sniped, feeling suddenly sulky.
“We don’t have time for marriage counseling today,” Avi said, voice low. “How about we save the hurt feelings for when we’re on the other side of this pile of bodies? No?”
Adam continued on like his brothers hadn’t even spoken, looking only at Noah. “Relax. Everything is going exactly as planned.”
“You know who says that? That one person in every movie right before it all goes to shit,” Noah said, earning another amused smirk from Adam.
Adam was right, though. Gary had sent out the distress call, alerted his pervy friends that they had a verifiable threat to their operation and he was calling an emergency meeting to figure out how to rectify the situation as quickly and quietly as possible. He’d been impressively convincing. Noah assumed it was the hunting knife pressed to his balls and not a sudden attack of conscience.
He gnawed on his lip. “Seriously, though, there’s twenty of them and only six of you.”
“Seven,” a strange voice corrected in Noah’s ear.
“Seven?” Noah echoed.
Adam nodded. “Yeah, Aiden is here, too. He flew in for the kill. Say hi.”
“Hi,” Noah said before shaking his head. The mystery brother had made an appearance just for this? Was that supposed to make Noah more nervous or less?
Adam gave a wild cackle. “Look,” he said, handing Noah the binoculars.
Noah put the lenses to his eyes, watching as a car slowly pulled up to the entrance. They sat for a good five minutes before they slowly exited the car, glancing around in a way that screamed the man was doing something shady. Hard to believe these guys were criminal masterminds.
When the wind caught the man’s suit jacket, Noah caught sight of a gun holstered to his side. His heart dropped into his stomach. He should have considered they’d come armed. “He’s got a gun,” Noah said to nobody in particular.
“He’d be a fool not to,” Atticus said. “We anticipated that.”
Adam didn’t seem troubled by this new information either, smiling in Noah’s direction. “Told you they’d come. They have too much to lose.”
“Yeah, but they could have just run,” Noah countered.
Adam took the binoculars back. “Sure, they could have, but it’s not easy to abandon a whole life. Especially not when you seemingly have the world at your fingertips. These men think they’re untouchable, so they’ll do whatever it takes to maintain that power. Most of them are probably going in there intent on killing the messenger. It’s why they didn’t think it odd for Gary to say he’d arrive last. They need to believe they can make this problem go away.”
Noah watched the wind pick up Adam’s dark strands, fanning them across his forehead, the sunlight making his pale blue eyes look almost white. “Shit. You look really hot right now,” Noah murmured.
“Again, coms are hot. Keep it in your pants, boys,” Archer muttered.
Why were people always saying that to them?
One of the brothers gave a frustrated grunt, but Noah couldn’t tell who until they spoke. “This is stupid. We do so much better alone. We could have just killed all twenty separately in one night. You know?” Avi asked. “What do they call that?”
“A serial killer?” Noah asked, exasperated.
“No, serial killers have a pattern,” Asa said, sounding like he was searching the farthest reaches of his brain. “A spree killer. We could have been like spree killers.”
“That would have been, like, three kills each,” Atticus chimed in.
“Two for one of us,” August corrected.
“I hate math,” Aiden muttered.
“And twenty separate crime scenes to clean up,” Noah reminded them.
“I’m just saying, killing three guys in one night would have been cool,” Avi pouted.
“But, instead, you get to kill twenty guys during the day, with your brothers, as a family,” August said.
“Other families just have barbeques,” Archer said, tone dripping with sarcasm.
That seemed to be his default setting. His unkempt hair and eye liner made him look like a pirate. A hot sarcastic, drunken pirate.
“Well, you’re in luck. In about thirty minutes, it’s going to smell a lot like barbeque,” August assured them.
That killed the conversation for a short time. Noah grew restless as each man parked their vehicles and filed into the old building to wait for Gary, who was still stashed in the back of Atticus’s trunk. Acid pooled in Noah’s stomach, his heart hammering in his ears.
When the last man arrived, Archer came over the speaker once more. “All targets are on site.”
Adam grinned at Noah. “It’s go time.”
Noah followed Adam from the bait shop to the windowless fish hatchery. They all had jobs to do. Noah was the lookout. Archer barricaded one of the two points of entry, the wooden double doors at the back of the building. Asa and Avi took the cans of gasoline, thoroughly saturating the wood and the surrounding ground. Adam dismantled the water line at the dock to ensure no stragglers had access to anything that might help put out the fire. Atticus was at the car, making sure Gary was where they’d left him, and August stood at the closed front doors of the building, holding a metal device in his hands. It was an iron locking mechanism, like something out of Game of Thrones. Noah supposed it was only appropriate. They were about to have their very own Red Wedding.
Aiden didn’t participate much. He stood beside Noah, arms crossed over his chest. He didn’t look like any of his photos. The clean cut boy was long gone, replaced by a man, who looked like he spent his nights sleeping on park benches but was somehow still cute even with his hand floating over the Glock at his side.
They were all armed. Though it was unlikely anyone would make it out, the wood was old and somebody might be able to kick a piece free.
August was just about to chain the door when Asa pulled a generic butane lighter from his pocket. He flicked the starter, but it sparked and then went out. Once. Twice. Half a dozen times.
“Oh, no. Take your time,” Aiden drolled. “It’s not like people won’t start to suspect something any minute now.”
Asa looked at the others sheepishly. “Um, anybody have any matches?”
“Jesus Christ. You have got to be kidding me,” Atticus hissed.
“Fuck this,” August muttered, freeing his phone from his pocket and pulling his com from his ear, replacing it with his earbuds.
“What’s he doing?” Noah asked, his pulse skyrocketing, watching as the others pulled their weapons free. “What the fuck is happening here?”
Adam grabbed his face and kissed him thoroughly. “You stay here. You shoot anybody you see who isn’t us. No hesitation.”
“What the fuck is happening?” Noah asked again.
August pulled two knives free from God knows where, twirling them in his hand like a carnival performer before kicking the door open like a SWAT team, all attendees turning on them, faces slack. Adam could only watch as the others followed suit, giving Noah one last look before closing the door on him.
August’s voice could be heard even through the wood panels. “Hello, gentlemen. I’m afraid your friend won’t be attending your meeting.”
That was when the screaming started.
