Vicious Desire by Leslie V. Walker
Chapter Eighteen
Brendan
The fuckers here at Eastview have everything going right for them with this secret hangout. The place is not in its finest shape but it’s still good to be where no cops will ever think of checking.
We passed doors down a hallway as we head to the main office where the meeting is being held. They’ve entered from the back where one of our guys was hiding out to give us the signal.
Stopping in front of a door, I take a peek—hell they’re fucking asking for it if they leave the door halfway open—and see people at work collecting cash and packing up drugs.
We stand against the wall signaling to each other what to do.
I bare my teeth, fighting the urge to barge in and fucking demand to see what’s up. “They picked the wrong town,” Zane whispers.
“No. They picked the wrong fucking people to mess with,” I correct.
Moving past the old rusty doors, we finally make it down the hall and to the last door. We can hear people talking as well as footsteps pacing every now and then. I motion for Rocco to open the door and with a kick, the door swings open letting out a thud as it hits the wall.
Everyone stays still as we walk in, letting out a wolfish grin I enter, watch them all—a round table sits in the middle with chairs filled with mid-twenties to fifty-year-old men. They look terrified to see us here, knowing very well the moment they stepped foot in this place and betrayed us, they were fucking dead.
“So, this is the inner circle.” I make quotation marks with my fingers.
Gunner closes the door with a click of the lock heard loud and clear. “Brendan.” A bald head guy that I know works for me, Chris, stands with his hands up in the air.
The guys settled in the room while I drag an empty chair and slide it, so it’s placed in front of them taking a seat. “Well shit, Chris, what the hell are you doing here? I thought your wife was sick and you had to take the day off to help out with the kids.” Being the fucking bastard that I am I take a cigarette out and light it up putting it against my lips and breathe out a cloud of smoke, taunting them on what’s to come.
Everyone knows what I love to use when I torture someone, it’s part of my MO.
“She is, sir, but I—”
“You what? Don’t tell me you guys were about to go at it with each other.” He stiffens in his seat his jaw locked in tight.
“Is that it huh? Can’t get your dick to work it up for so she lets you fuck around with these guys.” I jerk my chin to the others.
“Cause fuck, I have no problem with that, but all you had to do was tell me the truth, unless…” I stand up leaning my cigar next to his ear. “Unless there was something else you were hiding from me.”
The guy in front stands up throwing his hands at the table, making it shake. “Who do you think you are? You are not allowed here. You should have been stopped once you set foot in this part of town.”
Zane lets out a laugh shaking his head. “This part of town?” he says slowly moving closer to the guy with red hair and with a quick move. He has his knife pressed down on his neck, the guy’s hands tightly on his back as Zane pushes him down onto the table. “We fucking say what goes and what not goes in this fucking town. No one else.”
“It’s not right. You guys don’t get to own it all. You should be stopped,” Chris says as I snap my attention back to him.
“And who says we are? What we’ve been doing is making everything better. You saw how it played out when we were trying to have both sides together. It was fucking chaos. Both sides at each other’s throats. This was the best option left. We don’t mix but stay together. Not fall out of line to stab our partner in the back. We take care of both sides, and you all know it.” I take in a breath hoping to control the anger burning inside of me. But all I want to do is rip these fuckers apart.
“You guys don’t want peace. You want power. And I’ll be damn to give it to any of you scumbags,” I say.
No one is going to come at us without getting cut so deep. They tug, we fucking throwback full force. This is our town and it’s been two years since anything has gone bad. We’re not about to let it go downhill from here.
“Now, here’s the deal. You guys are going to tell us everything we need to know about this stupid inner circle thing, and we’ll let you guys leave town with your family in peace. You cannot return ever again or take anything with you. What’s yours is ours now.”
“And what if we don’t comply?” another man asks who I don’t recognize.
Rocco chuckles. “Then the fun begins.”
“I love hearing them beg for their life,” Zane taunts. “It leaves me satisfying as they reveal their deepest darkest sins. Isn’t that right Rocco?”
“Definitely.” Rocco’s eyes grow dark and the man beside me jumps in fear. We never killed anyone unless it wasn’t necessary, in which this case it would be to show who has power.
“We don’t know anything!”
“Save it.” I stare straight on. “Tell us who runs all of this. Who leads the inner circle and what’s your plan with this town and the people?”
They stay still not making a sound as the people from downstairs scream of the fight going on. I can fucking feel myself already suffocating for how small this place is. I swear there’s no fucking room for oxygen.
There are many other things I’d rather be doing right now. Like Ayanna, for example. I can still fucking smell her on my fingers and feel how tight she was. Fuck I’m hard.
When none of the guys make a move to say anything, I motion for Zane to take his course. Grabbing the guy by the throat he gives him a slight cut on his throat drawing blood, but making sure not to go deep to where he will die, yet anyway.
The old guy screams in an exaggerating pain, “What the hell is wrong with you? You’re all crazy!” Zane pulls him by the hair to lift his face up, “No man. He’s crazy.” He points the knife to Rocco and then to me. “He’s violent. And him over there my friend,” he lets out a dark chuckle taunting him on as he points to Gunner who sits there with a bored expression, “is Satan in disguise.”
A whimper escapes his lip, and I couldn’t help but laugh at the dumb fucker. “Who said we were asking? You either talk or you don’t at all, and I’ll cut your fucking tongue out and give it to Gunner so he can use it for his next hunting trip.”
I stand up straight, ready to make my move. When Chris finally speaks, all the men look at him scared.
“We only know the one who hired us to take action. But even said, the leader of us is not the only one. He’s the third in command. Before him comes two others, but no one knows who they are except for him himself and then before them a higher level. And even we don’t know the full plan, just what thereafter. They want everything you own. They want the company, money, and all the land that comes with it. They want to get stronger, but we don’t know why. They were never going to tell us. Just make us do whatever they ask and then at the end we would have gotten paid and left town right after. look Brendan we never meant to cause any harm we just needed the money and with the amount, they were going to give us it would have saved us from debt and work.”
“Who is he?” I bare my teeth. I don’t have fucking time for this. Time’s ticking.
“Neo. Neo Quinn. He’s the one who started this. But like I said he’s not the one controlling it all. It’s someone else. Someone stronger.” I feel my blood boiling hot at the mention of his name, I’m not surprised, but relieved we finally have evidence of him to set the blame hard and high. Now it’s just time to catch him.
The guys take a step forward signaling to Chris to continue talking. “He approached us with nothing more than a packet with some money and a contract. We’re not to ask questions but just do what we’re told. Like I said before Neo is the only one who knows everything. He runs this place.”
Gunner looks straight at me, and I shake my head. “You guys have until sunrise to get your ass out of town and far away from here or I swear to the devil himself that we will come back and cut your throats and then feed it to the fucking wolves.”
“Neo’s in TrailStar tonight, in the after-party; we can go and get him,” Rocco says.
Before we go get him, I have to take Ayanna home. I can’t have him anywhere near her.
“Well then what are we waiting for? Let’s get this son of a bitch.” The door bursts open and Ayanna walks in like she owns the place as she heads straight toward me not sparing a glance at anyone else.
“So, what happened?”
“It’s Neo,” I say.
“Then we get him and make him tell us what’s going on. He wasn’t the only one I saw tonight.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I saw Summaya. After four years of nothing, she all of a sudden shows up here.” I glance at Zane watching him to make sure he doesn’t pounce.
“You’ve never actually been part of town, Ayanna. She most likely has been here all those years, but you’ve never noticed.” She shakes her head not believing what I said is true.
“We’ll figure it out later. In the meantime, we got to get you home and then out to find Neo. We have to go now before someone warns him, we’re here. Johnathon!” I yell and not even a second later Johnathon comes running in. We told him to be our lookout and hide out with the crowd before we got here but stay close to Ayanna at all times.
I motion to the shits on the table. “Make sure they leave tonight and never return. If they dare to cause trouble you know what to do.” He nods his head and kicks the table yelling at them to get the fuck out and follows right after them.
We head out and once we’re in the car I drive her home. I thank my lucky stars she doesn’t put up a fight as she begins to drift off to sleep.
I watch her as smile spreads at her lips and wish I can spend the night with her, but now I have someone else to protect and can’t let them be in danger.
Fuck me, this girl. I would risk everything for her.