We hadn’t gone fifty feet when I heard Lou’s voice in the darkness.

“Jaaa-aaaack,” he called out in a singsong voice. “Wasn’t very nice, interrupting my business deal like that. If you were that pissed off at me, we coulda just hammered something out on the side, man to man.”

Jack turned back, put a finger to his lips, and motioned me to go right. I stealthily headed to the other side of a rusting, silo-like tower.

Lou kept talking, his voice eerily disembodied as it carried through the gasworks. “Was that your idea or Sloane’s? Her making me think she was backing me up?”

Why the fuck is he still talking? I wondered. We can find him easier if he keeps doing that!

Then I found out why.

“Ohhh…” Lou said, as though he’d just realized the answer. “It was hers, of course. You’re too fuckin’ stupid to come up with a play like that. You’ve always been too fucking stupid.”

Now it made sense. He was trying to goad us into replying, so that he could find us.

“That’s why you lost the club… because you were too dumb to see the sucker punch coming. So you turned traitor, and took it up the ass from the DEA… because you were too stupid and weak to get the club back any other way. Fuckin’ pussy.”

My blood boiled on Jack’s account, but I didn’t say anything. I just kept moving as carefully and as quietly as I could, trying to home in on Lou’s voice.

But keeping quiet got a whole lot harder to do the angrier I got.

“And you know what I do to rats. If you don’t, ask Eddie Deacon… oh, wait, you can’t. But trust me, I took care of him reeeeaaal good, Jack. Just like I’m gonna take care of you.”

Jesus…

He was all but admitting to Eddie’s murder.

“Eddie didn’t give up your bitch, though. Not even at the very end. By the way, is your bitch here with you? And by that I mean Kade. I thought I saw Vince clip him in the gut the other day. Is he dead yet? Did he bleed out in your arms? Did the little faggot cry before he died? You know, I woulda shot you, too, but you cheated with that fuckin’ rocket launcher. Where’d you get that?”

Lou paused, as though he was just now realizing the answer.

“Jesus… Sloane, too? Can’t even wipe your own ass without her holding your hand, can you? You really fucked up on that one, Jackie boy. I don’t care how good Fiona gives head, Sloane’s ten times the woman.”

Jealousy burned in my stomach. I wanted to shout out, Oh yeah? She fucked YOU royally, scumbag, but I held my tongue.

Lou addressed it, though, with the next thing he said. “Or she was ten times the woman. Yeah, I know she double-crossed me. And she’s going to pay for it. The things I’m gonna do to her… I think I’m gonna leave her alive, though. I want her to wake up with nightmares for the next three years till she finally slits her wrists.”

My skin crawled listening to him – and it got even worse when his monologue turned to me.

“And you, Fiona… oh, I know you’re out there, too. You’re a troublesome little bitch, aren’t you? All… this… shit on your account. You learned a lot the last couple of days, but you didn’t find out everything. Your whore of a cousin? She looooved to suck my dick. You should have seen her on her knees, gagging on my cock. Then I found out she was a traitor – that’s when I got Benjy to shoot her.” He laughed evilly. “I guess you could say she took one final load, except it was in the back of her head instead of her mouth.”

I wanted to kill him. I wanted to bash his face in, to torture him, to break every bone in his body. I wanted to make him suffer for hours, for days, and only then would I kill him.

I heard Sid’s voice whispering in my earpiece: “He’s just tryin’ to get in your head, kid. Don’t listen to him.”

I know that, Sid, I thought, but I still had to clench my jaws to keep from screaming back at Lou.

“You should thank me, by the way, for putting Benjy down,” he continued. “You wouldn’t have had the balls to do it. But then, that’s obvious, ain’t it? You’re a woman. Weak… stupid… only good for one thing. Just like your cousin… she’d let anybody fuck her for a line of coke, did you know that? I can’t tell you how many times she sucked me off for drugs.”

He was closer now. All I wanted to do was find him and make him take my gun in his mouth so I could say Suck THIS before I pulled the trigger.

“A little blow for a blowjob. I’ll let you suck my cock, just like her, right before I put the gun to your head and – ”

Suddenly, he stopped talking.

I was furious. I wanted to find him so badly. I kept on stalking, searching, staring into the darkness –

Suddenly the cold muzzle of a gun pressed against the side of my head.

“Ah-ah-aaaaah,” Lou whispered.