Nester

 

I knew where Santos lived because I had kept tabs on him back when we were trying to be something like friends and were quickly turning into enemies. When he moved—around the same time he started to bring in a lot of money from his illegal activities, not unlike myself—I made a point of finding out where.

 

There was no question in my mind that he did the exact same thing with me.

 

I was in the lead on my motorcycle, followed closely behind by Wildcard, Schumacher, and Bones. The Bobby Boys were coming, too, but they were taking the back way just to make sure no one tried anything stupid—like try to run.

 

The rest of my guys were in the area at my behest, but I wanted them to still look like they were harassing Santos’s people. Keep most of the distracted, I hoped, but I still wanted my guys close enough to call if things got messy at Santos’s.

 

Which they probably would.

 

The neighborhood where Santos lived wasn’t great. It was one of those middle class places that was just a little too poor to actually be middle class and so far away from actual suburbia that it was kind of funny. All the same, the houses were at least interesting because they were older—and rundown for the most part—as opposed to the cookie cutter monstrosities of true suburbia hell. I knew that Santos picked this area—this neighborhood—specifically because of those qualities. It meant he could have a nice house without paying out the ass, a means of showing his wealth and making him feel like the top dog without having to pull a Scarface and get all the gaudy shit that would be necessary to outdo any truly rich neighbors.

 

Santos had money, but he didn’t have that kind of money.

 

My bike whirred and roared as I sped down the road, not caring that I was likely waking up and disturbing everyone in the area. If Santos lived here, they were probably used to it anyway and I wasn’t in the mood to be generous as far as other people’s peace just then.

 

Santos’s house was at the very end of the road, the side of his house without neighbors was half overgrown, though it had been partially cleared out at one point to make room for the next level of development. It hadn’t gotten that far yet, the land slowly being cleared away, then trading hands before there was any time to do much.

 

When I pulled into the driveway—my boys came to a stop along the road—I saw that there were five bikes and potentially more in the garage, the door closed so that I couldn’t be sure. It meant that there were more than a few of Santos’s men here and I didn’t have to be told that there were likely more lurking around in the shadows, waiting for Santos to say “jump.” I slung my leg around, dismounting my bike. I motioned for Wildcard, Bones, and Schumacher to follow, the three of them doing so quietly, gravely. Even Wildcard seemed subdued.

 

I had the file I needed tucked away safely in the waistband of my jeans, my shirt pulled down to cover it. I’d taken several precious minutes to search through the file and make sure I had something, anything to use against Santos in it, praying that I hadn’t wasted what little time I had on a false start.

 

I hadn’t.

 

The file was all the details regarding the charity construction—the official documents that would show what they paid, how long it took them, who worked at the site, and so on and so forth—all of which was basically useless. It was drawn up to show that VCI wouldn’t be held accountable, because they’d done everything by the books. Those were the documents provided to lawyers and police and whoever else came sniffing around.

 

But what was behind that, sealed up with red tape and blacked out ineffectively with black Sharpie, was what I really needed.

 

And I found it.

 

Hoping it was enough to scare the fire out of Santos, I marched up to his front door. It felt wrong to do so, like I was stupidly just walking into a lion’s den without half a brain cell to spare, but I reminded myself that I had a meeting and they were expecting me anyway.

 

I knocked and waited. Schumacher lingered outside near the door as Bones and Wildcard followed me closer.

 

The door opened to reveal a big, burly man with shoulders almost as wide as the doorway and a shaved head that made his head look too small for the rest of his body, as though shrunken by magic or deformity. It wasn’t an attractive look and I felt like telling him that maybe if he grew it out just a shade, he wouldn’t look like some kind of voodoo shrunken head.

 

For the sake of civility and my own damn life, I kept my mouth shut as far as that went and said instead, “I’m here to see Santos.”

 

The man looked me over first, then glanced behind me at Wildcard and Bones. I could guess the sort of steely glares they returned to him, but no one said anything. After a moment, the guy returned his attention to me.

 

“Yeah, come in. The boss is expecting you.”

 

He led us inside, showing a house that was large and opulent, but sort of lacking character. It wasn’t a cookie cutter place, but it wasn’t designed with personality in mind either. Instead, it was designed with the idea of making someone look like they had a lot of money. Or proving it, whatever.

 

The only reason I was looking around at it carefully was because I was searching for Santos—and Zelda. I saw neither.

 

A cold feeling of dread settled in my stomach. I covered it with anger, directing said anger at the man who met us at the door. “Well?” I demanded, clenching my hands into tight fists at my side. “Where the fuck is he?”

 

The man glanced over his shoulder at us. His eyes flashed and a sickening smile spread across his lips, making them thin and showing half rotted teeth. It was enough to make me know that something was wrong.

 

“He’s…busy,” he told me, still grinning like some twisted clown. “But I’m sure he’ll finish in a little while. You can wait for him down here.”

 

I was about to demand that he go get Santos right then and there when I heard it. A piercing scream tore through the house and I recognized it instantly as belonging to Zelda. Before the man had a chance to react, I was shoving him aside—Wildcard grabbed him somewhere behind me, preventing the man from following me—and running up the stairs towards the sound of her terrified, tortured voice.

 

There was no telling what Santos was doing to her, torturing her, and how long it had been going on. God, how late was I?

 

I picked out the room where she had to be right away, because there was a man standing right outside of it. His face was blank, deliberately so, probably in an effort to hide whatever he was really feeling about what was going on inside that room.

 

He turned just in time to see me coming.

 

“Hey!” he began, but never got anything else out. My fist slammed hard into the side of his face and blood and spittle left his mouth as he rocked back into the wall. I kicked him hard with my boot then, catching him square in the chin. He slid down then and didn’t move.

 

By this time, the second guard—I hadn’t seen him at first because he was actually standing slightly inside the room—had noticed me, too. He spun around, reaching for something tucked into the waistband of his leather pants. I punched him hard in the face before he could get it. The guy caught my arm as I tried to hit him again, but I just came around with a left hook and he cursed as he stumbled back, holding his jaw.

 

After that, I spotted Zelda.

 

Or more accurately, I spotted Santos on top of Zelda, pinning her to the bed, her chest bare as she cried and he fumbled with his pants to pull out his dick. I saw red. Hot anger washed through me more intense than anything else I had ever felt in my entire life. I moved without even thinking, as though I were just a visitor on the outside of my own body, watching in a detached sort of way as that body reacted to the situation.

 

I grabbed Santos by his shoulders, yanking him back off of her, taking full advantage of his surprise.

 

“Run!” I heard myself yell to Zelda as Santos stumbled off the bed. But Zelda didn’t move except to sit up, pulling her knees to her chest and wrapping her trembling arms around them, covering herself up as she stared at me with wide, wide eyes that were rimmed in wet red.

 

I would have gone to comfort her, wrapping her up in my arms, carrying her away from all this, but I didn’t have time in that moment. I had Santos to contend with and he had to pay before anything else happened.

 

My fist landed squarely in his face, and I felt something crack, maybe his nose. There was blood leaking from it, so I felt confident that was what it was. Good. The surprise had worn off of Santos by now and he just looked pissed.

 

“You fucking cocksucker!” he roared at me, his hand touching tentatively at his nose.

 

But I didn’t let him say more than that. In fact, I wasn’t going to let him breathe after what I had just seen. Santos was the kind of man who would have walked in on that and thought that Zelda was a whore, that she wanted to be in that bed with him on top of her, but I saw the complete helplessness and fear on her face as she cried and struggled. I’d heard her scream and there was no doubt in my mind that Zelda didn’t want it—and that made me mad.

 

Mad in a way that I couldn’t control. I wanted to kill something, needed to, but I also needed to protect Zelda and comfort her. The only way to do one was to take care of the other first. Which meant kill Santos, make him pay for what he did to her.

 

The bastard was on borrowed time.

 

Santos had just enough time to zip up his pants—I was disgusted that they were undone and it only made me angrier to think that I really had gotten here just in time. If I’d been even moments later, what would I have walked in on? I shuddered at the thought of how much worse it could have been for Zelda and it was already very, very bad.

 

I wished she would go, run and get away from here, but a quick glance out of the corner of my eye told me that she was terrified and likely in shock. I would have to get her out of there myself, which meant taking care of Santos as quickly as possible.

 

Santos came at me then, his hands coated with his own blood which still dripped down from his nose, and raised a hefty fist. He landed it because I was still distracted by Zelda. I staggered back from the force of the blow and bit the inside of my lip, tasting copper. I recovered quickly, however, and when he came back at me, I was ready. I ducked out of the way of his next punch and threw one of my own, landing it on the side of his head instead of his face because he moved away at the last second.

 

He grunted angrily, but didn’t slow down. Throwing himself at me hard, he hunched down and barreled forward to grab me around my middle, successfully knocking the wind out of me while at the same time managing to get me down on the ground.

 

Santos landed on top of me and my lungs burned with the combination of sudden loss of air and the weight of him. Santos wasn’t necessarily a fat man, but he was stocky and most definitely heavy if only because of the thick muscles that made up his boxy form. At this point my height advantage—not huge to begin with, but noticeable—didn’t do me any good and I knew being on the ground was not in my favor.

 

Pulling his arm back, Santos through a heavy fist at my face. I jerked my head out of the way in time to dodge, letting him punch the floor instead of me. He howled in pain, gripping his throbbing hand.

 

I took the opportunity to destabilize him, bucking him off of me. When his back slammed down to the floor, I managed to get an arm around his neck to choke him. He coughed and sputtered as I squeezed his neck as though trying to pop off the top of a bottle. He slapped and jabbed at me, clawing at my shoulders and arms, anything to try to get me to give him some air. I wouldn’t have relented, but I didn’t have much choice.

 

Zelda screamed. “Nester!”

 

In a one on one fight with Santos, I would have won. But this wasn’t one on one. I looked up to see the barrel of a gun trained on me, the line of sight poised right between my eyes.

 

I held Santos for several ticking seconds longer before the man—one of Santos’s burly guards who looked pissed that I’d gotten the drop on him—shouted at me, “Let him go, you fucking bastard!”

 

It was only the knowledge that Zelda was still here, that if I died, not only would Santos live, but Zelda would suffer further, that kept me from just choking the life out of him.

 

With reluctance, I released Santos. He scrambled away from me, choking and wheezing, massaging the tender part of his neck that I’d just been crushing a moment ago. I let him, moving to get to my feet with my hands raised —this made the guard nervous, but he let me do it, maybe not sure how to go about making me stop without actually shooting me. I risked a glance back at Zelda. She had slid off the bed and was standing now, clutching at her shirt, the buttons having been popped off. Her eyes were wild with fear and she was staring at the gun.

 

“Let Zelda go,” I told Santos, who was struggling to get to his feet. He was still coughing and his face was red, but he no longer looked like a balloon about to pop. Unfortunately.

 

He glared daggers my way and bared his teeth at me like some wild dog. Which wasn’t far from what he was in all fairness. “Fuck you,” he told me.

 

“I’m giving you this one last chance to walk away from this,” I told Santos, conscious of the fact that the folder stuffed down the back of my pants was somehow, miraculously still there. It could take down Santos’s entire operation, but it was my only leverage. I would trade it for Zelda if I had to, but I wasn’t stupid.

 

At this, Santos’s expression changed. His tooth baring grimace shifted to a wide, grinning smile that was just as disturbing. The blood covering his face didn’t help with it at all, and made him look like some sadistic monster.

 

Which he happened to be, so that worked out at least.

 

He opened his mouth and let out a long, drawn out laugh. It was as twisted as he was and sent a shudder of chills down my spine. “You’re giving me a chance to walk away?” he repeated back to me incredulously. It was clear that he thought he had the upper hand, but he didn’t know that I had the file or the witness. He didn’t know that I’d been snooping around. Santos could be smart when he wanted to be, but he got distracted by things easily—like Zelda. He was so busy being angry that she’d slept with me that he hadn’t considered that maybe I had been doing research elsewhere. He thought he was the only one who knew what was going on, who made plans and had contingency plans beyond that. It was his own folly that he thought everyone else just wasn’t as smart as him and it was finally working in my favor now.

 

And although part of me wished he would take my offer and just let me and Zelda walk away without a fight, the rest of me was going to enjoy tormenting him.

 

Maybe that was my own folly.

 

“Yes, I am,” I told him, not even looking at the man with the gun. He was the least of my concerns. In the end, he had the gun, but Santos was the one who controlled it. He wouldn’t shoot me without Santos’s order to do so, which meant I wouldn’t waste time and effort worrying about it. Period.

 

Santos laughed again. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Zelda flinch. She was a haggard mess and I wanted nothing more than to get her away from all this, to someplace safe where I could tend to her and make her feel protected, safe, and most of all, loved. Unfortunately, if I didn’t get this whole thing with Santos taken care of, one way or another, there was every possibility that even if she managed to get out of here, there would be no safe place for her.

 

Escape wasn’t the only thing I was concerned with anymore. Maybe I could take down the guard and grab Zelda, making a break for it while Santos was still hacking and a little disoriented. Maybe I could throw her on my bike and we could run as far and as fast as possible.

 

But I wasn’t naïve.

 

Santos was a powerful man with more members in Wicked Titans than I had in the Berserkers. Which wasn’t all that important to me, except that right now it meant there was a good chance that I wouldn’t be able to stop him that way. If it was an all-out fight between my boys and his, sheer numbers would dictate that I would lose. The Berserkers just weren’t strong enough right now to pick and win that kind of fight. All of that meant that outright fighting with Santos’s boys was a bad idea. Something we couldn’t win. But it also meant something else. It meant that if I ran with Zelda right now, we wouldn’t get far.

 

Maybe if we got lucky, I could get Zelda out of the city. There might be enough gas in my bike for that. And let’s say I did. What then? Money and resources, things like that, would be pretty scarce because I couldn’t risk that he had a means of tracking that. There was every possibility that he had the sort of connections that would allow him to get information on bank accounts or other things like that.

 

Especially since it was no secret that he was engaged to Zelda. It didn’t matter that he was a bastard who, not five minutes ago, had just been trying to rape her. Officials wouldn’t know that. Whatever contacts he had wouldn’t know that. They would only know what he told them. They would only know that Zelda was “missing” and that he was a “concerned husband” searching for his “beloved” wife.

 

No larger piece of bullshit had ever been conceived in my personal opinion, but it wasn’t my opinion that mattered. It was only those who he could convince, and he could be very convincing.

 

Snakes were like that.

 

So running wasn’t an option. A full, all out fight wasn’t an option. That only gave me one thing left. Being sneaky. Being smart.

 

“You’re sure you want to play it this way, Santos?” I asked one last time, more to rub it in his face when I produced the information I had than anything else.

 

He smiled maliciously at me. “Is there any other way to play it?”

 

I reached behind me, but the guy with the gun didn’t like that too much. “Don’t fucking move, asshole.”

 

I gave him a look that said exactly what I thought of him and his leash, then promptly did the exact opposite of what he said. I finished reaching behind me and produced the folder with a flourish.

 

Santos and the gunman both stared at it blankly for a minute. It was clear that neither of them had any idea what I was currently holding in my hands or maybe that guy with the gun would have already pulled the trigger. In fact, it occurred to me that if I wasn’t very, very careful, I would be dead before I even got the chance to make my threat. Which was not a good thing.

 

Where the hell is Wildcard?

 

I’d brought him and Bones both with me. Schumacher had lingered by the door, but after the ruckus we’d been making up here, there was a good chance that he’d raced inside. There was a possibility that my guys were dealing with Santos’s men—or worse, but I wasn’t in any mood to consider that just yet—but they should have been nearly finished with them.

 

Unless there had been a lot more men in this place than I had reckoned when we went to the door.

 

“What the fuck is that?” Santos demanded, motioning towards the folder. You could still see the red tape lining it, cut open, but still stuck to the cardstock that the folder was made out of. After a moment, Santos narrowed his eyes at the folder. Like maybe he had some idea now of what it might contain. But he didn’t say anything else, instead just waiting for me to explain what I was holding and why I thought it was important enough to wave around like a fucking bulletproof shield. Which it most definitely was not.

 

“Evidence,” I replied simply. Santos frowned, but before he said anything more, I kept talking. My eyes flickered over to Zelda as I did so, evaluating her, wondering if she would have the sense right now after everything to run even if things went south for me. I wasn’t sure, but I hoped so. “The kind that might cause you a little bit of trouble if it got out.”

 

The man pointing the gun at my head made a move, baring his teeth and stepping forward at the same time like maybe he was going to hit me with the gun instead of shoot me. Or maybe he was just going to try and bite me, I couldn’t tell.

 

Before he got too close or had any funny ideas of his own that his boss hadn’t had the time to think through and consider yet, I stepped back just a little and waved the folder at him. “Easy, bullets for brains. This may seem like just a piece of paper, but it’s pretty important to your boss there.” I motioned towards Santos and it was enough to get the gunman to pause. He looked over at Santos, who gave a single, quick shake of his head, then didn’t move any further. He’d wait for Santos’s all clear before he took me out.

 

“Alright, what is it, Nester boy?” Santos finally asked, forcing himself to smile tightly, attempting to appear calm and collected and not at all like I was holding something that might forever fuck up his life.

 

I offered him a smile, glancing at Zelda quickly—she was staring at me curiously, the terror only marginally softened—before focusing again on Santos. “It’s the information on the charity project. You know, the building that collapsed several months back?” I quipped, jogging his memory though based on the stricken look on his face he hardly needed it.

 

Sucking in a breath through clenched teeth, he made himself smile at me though it turned into more of a grimace or baring of teeth. It wasn’t pretty whatever it was. “I don’t know what you’re talking about Nester. They already investigated that collapse and found that Vanguard wasn’t at fault. No harm, no foul.”

 

My smile widened. “So you admit that you are a backing partner of VCI?”

 

Santos cursed, then quickly dropped pretenses, growing tired of my game. “That’s public knowledge,” he spat at me, though I could tell by how angry he was that he didn’t like that I knew. It might have been public knowledge, but it wasn’t widely advertised. In case Vanguard went under, he wanted to make a clean break from them so that no one would end up pointing the finger in his direction.

 

“Besides,” he added, his voice gruff with anger and irritation. “We did everything by the books. Nothing in there can hurt me.” He jerked his chin towards the file.

 

“Is that so?” I asked mildly, unaffected. “So you know that this file contains receipts for purchases of subpar materials? That there are stress tests and weight calculations and transcripts of conversations between you and a Mr. Caraway regarding prices versus strength when choosing building materials?”

 

Santos paled. “I don’t—”

 

But this time I didn’t let him finish. “Let me just tell you what’s in here, since you clearly don’t know. Your manager of VCI got wise. He seemed to think that you might throw him and his people under the bus if things got too hot. So on the top portion of this file, I find the ‘official’ reports that he was expected to give to the authorities. Which, as far as I can tell, he did. And beneath those, lo and behold to my great surprise, there was a second set of documents. Documents that held very specific information that ties you not only to VCI, but to their decisions regarding materials, cost cutting measures, and the overall knowledge that that building wasn’t safe. You knew it was coming down and so did they. Your manager just wanted to make sure that if he went down, you went with him.”

 

“What do I do, boss?” asked the gunman, glancing between me, the file in my hand, and Santos, who was red faced with anger.

 

Santos opened his mouth to answer—likely to tell that asshole to shoot me and get ahold of the file—but before he got the chance, there were the sounds of shouting and things breaking coming from just outside in the hall. It was just enough of a distraction that no one shot me right then and there.

 

A second later Wildcard burst through the door. Behind him, I saw Bones, who was cursing as he beat one of Santos’s men to a bloody pulp. I could only imagine that there was a trail of bodies behind the two of them, probably still alive but in pretty bad shape all things considered.

 

Wildcard didn’t waste any time and used the distraction of his sudden appearance to his advantage. He barely wasted a second scanning the room and taking stock of what was going on. He saw the gun, Santos, Zelda, and me holding the file. That was enough for him. With a war cry that was piercing and a little nuts, Wildcard made a mad lunge for the gunman.

 

Santos’s man widened his eyes and let a single cry escape his mouth before Wildcard landed on him. The gun was knocked from his grip instantly, sliding across the hard floor to bank off of a wall and skid under the bed somewhere.

 

It was a shame, because I would have liked to have it—Santos had said no guns, and I’d obliged only for the sake of Zelda’s safety—but I was grateful nonetheless that it was at least no longer in the hands of one of Santos’s men.

 

Thank god for small favors.

 

The man reacted to Wildcard, pulling his fist back and then throwing it as hard as he could towards my guy. But Wildcard dodged easily and took the man down, landing on top of him and suddenly throwing him into a fury of flying fists that the man had no chance of blocking or retaliating against. He tried at first, but in a few moments he was unconscious. For a few moments longer, Wildcard continued to beat the crap out of him until the man’s face looked like hamburger meat.

 

It wasn’t pretty, but I was grateful just the same. It was good to have Wildcard on my side. The man was an animal.

 

When he looked up at me, I said, “What the fuck, man?”

 

“Sorry, boss,” Wildcard apologized, breathing heavily. He had a cut across his forehead that was bleeding profusely—he swiped at it repeatedly, only for it to drip right back into his eyes—and what looked like a healthy bruise forming on his jaw. “We got held up in the kitchen.”

 

“What, were you sitting down for fucking dinner?” I asked incredulously, but there was no bite in my words and my expression must have been one of pure relief, because Wildcard only shrugged at me and grinned.

 

A grin that dropped instantly as we both saw Santos, as though moving in slow motion. He darted away from me and I turned just in time to see him grab a strong, painful grip on Zelda’s upper arm. She cried out, yelling at him to let her go, and tried to jerk away from him. She struggled and I surged towards her, about to kick Santos’s ass for what he was doing, but instantly we both paused.

 

Santos had produced a gun from somewhere—probably the top drawer from the chest of drawers behind him—and now had it pressed against the side of Zelda’s head. She couldn’t necessarily see it, I didn’t think, but she could definitely feel it and there was no question in her mind what it was.

 

Fear masked her features for not the first time tonight and it pained me to know that she was once again in trouble.

 

How had I let this happen?

 

“Give me the file!” Santos roared at me, jerking Zelda by the arm to emphasize his words.

 

“Don’t hurt her,” I told Santos, keeping my voice calm, though even I could hear the tremble in it. Wildcard made a move as though to rush Santos, but I held out an arm like a bar to stop him. I shook my head just once and Wildcard backed off.

 

I couldn’t risk Santos losing it and shooting Zelda.

 

“Give me the fucking file!” he yelled at me again, furious and panicked, a dangerous combination for anyone, but especially a snake like Santos DeArma. “Give it to me or I’ll fucking kill her!”

 

I had no doubt that he would do it, too.

 

I thought of the folder in my hand, how it was growing damp from my sweaty palms. I thought of what it contained, of all the people Santos had hurt and would continue to hurt. I thought of how this file was the only thing I had left to use against Santos. After this, it wouldn’t matter about Calvin or those injured or who else might think Santos was guilty. He would throw his manager under the bus, VCI would go down, and that would be it.

 

Then I thought of Zelda and realized that there was just no choice. I had to save her.