Chapter 1

 

I kick my feet up on the coffee table that the girls have brought into the lobby. I swear this shit gets more and more girly by the day. If the guys didn’t enjoy it so much, I’d make them stop, but I guess there’s still a soft spot in me.

“Don’t act like you haven’t heard a word I’ve said Dragon! This is serious.” Wiley, the cop we have on payroll, paces in front of me. It’s slightly amusing, too.

“What was the question again?” I ask in a cocky tone. Cocking my head to the side, Wiley’s face reddens. It’s hysterical. There’s a vein in the side of his neck that pulses when he’s pissed. I would know, I piss him off a lot!

“Do you have any idea how many bodies we had to clean up from your little alley adventure?” Alley adventure? That was a good one.

“Are we talkin’ a guess, or do you want straight numbers?” There it goes, that vein.

“Goddamn it!” I laugh as Wiley tugs at his hair. It’s funny to see just how much of a rise I can get out of that guy.

“Twelve. There was twelve. Feel better?” I ask, his eyes jerk to mine and hold there. Something’s off in them.

Wiley shakes his head when I ask, “What?”

There better have been twelve. I know there was when we left.

“There was only eleven,” he states. Plucking the cigarette from my mouth, I shove off the couch.

“Don’t bullshit me, Wiley! There were twelve there when I left. Now, unless the fuckin’ dead have begun to walk, you need to recount that shit,” I growl, my muscles jump as he looks at me.

“There was only eleven, Dragon. I was on the front side of that shit.” And bad just got worse. 

***

I called a meeting so I could let the guys know what was going on. I don’t know how one of those motherfuckers would have walked out of there.

Devil watches me intently when I say, “Wiley stopped by. Let us know that there was a missin’ body from our pile up.”

“How the fuck did that happen?” Ghost roars as he shoves out of the chair, running his hand through his hair.

“Fuck if I know. Deadman walkin’?” I say comically. Roc chuckles, but no one else does.

“Fuck this shit. How the fuck do we figure out who it was?” Ghost says, beyond pissed. How little they think of me.

“Wiley’s goin’ to get me some pictures of the assholes from the morgue. We’ll narrow it down from there. He isn’t too happy about our body count either,” I say that last part with a laugh.

Devil grumbles, “Fuck Wiley. He gets paid to fix that shit.” Devil agrees. How shocking.

“Yeah, he does. Ok, for now, though, we need to watch our asses. I don’t expect the motherfucker to show up at our front door wavin’ and shit. He’ll lay back for a while. Don’t matter he got away; he was shot,” I say, Roc grunts knowing what I mean.

He may have gotten out of there, but he sure as hell didn’t get out without a few bullets in his ass.

Ghost finally throws his two cents in saying, “We fuck it. Shit’s rollin’ good, we don’t need to dwell on that shit. Let’s do what we do, and when Wiley gets us some information we can use we roll with it.” That’s the first thing that has come out of Ghost's mouth that has made sense in a long time.

“Look at you. Glad you’re back, motherfucker.” Ghost laughs, knowing that he’s been off lately. I can’t blame him, though. He had a lot of shit hit him all at once.

I know this isn’t sitting well with him either. Those assholes were after his son and girlfriend.