“We’ve got everything ready,” Marcus tells me while we ride through the streets in a nondescript gray Toyota in order to blend in. I don’t like leaving Sarah behind, but I’ve got three good men on security at the building, two in the lobby while one is right outside her door, and it can’t be helped.

“Good,” I reply, picking up my phone as we hang a right. “Then let’s make the call. Are we near any of the restaurants?”

“The Waters of Meribah,” Marcus says, pointing at the in-dash screen. “About a mile away.”

“Cool, put us a half block beyond the thing so we can drive away easily,” I tell him, dialing Jacob. I’m on a burner phone this time, I don’t want this particular call tracked. But not for the reasons some people might suspect. If the cops are listening in by now, they’ll help me out, a rep of their union approached my people, they’re ready to talk once Jacob’s out of the way.

“Hello?” a woman’s slightly accented voice asks. The Waters of Meribah is Jacob’s neo-Persian restaurant, and from what I hear is quite good.

“Jacob Waters, please. Tell him it’s Ryker Johns.”

The hold is less this time than when I called his restaurant, and when he picks up, I can hear the anger and frustration in Waters’s voice. “What do you want, you prick? You said a fucking week!”

“Decided to up the timeline,” I reply, not worried when a little bit of anger creeps into my voice. There’s a time to be ice cold, and there’s a time to be angry. Besides, this bastard deserves anger and more. “Some of your boys in blue and other crews have been giving mine a hard time.”

“You son of a bitch! I swear I’m going to—” Jacob starts, his voice rising again, and I cut him off brutally.

“What you’re going to do is call your restaurants and tell them to clear the fuck out. If they’re not out in exactly . . . six minutes from now, they’re going to be dead in a big pile of dust,” I finish for him. “Those deaths are going to be on your head, not mine. Hope you have them on speed dial.”

I hang up, waiting for a second to see if he’ll waste time trying to call me back while at the same instant, Marcus speaks into his phone. “Dial now.”

He hangs up, looking over at me. “Okay, they’re getting the warning calls. Hope they take us more seriously than Waters has.”

I watch as people start to stream out of the restaurant, mostly workers, but there are a few late patrons as well. I don’t want innocents hurt, and that includes workers who most likely are just schlepping food in a restaurant to make ends meet. I may be making a mistake trusting that this psycho will tell them, but I hope not.

“Thirty seconds,” Marcus says softly, and I’m grateful as the crowd slows to a trickle then stops, a few standing around across the street, wondering. Idiots, there’s always someone who wants to just watch things blow the fuck up, but there’s nothing I can do about that now. I lift the cover on the trigger. I might have told Jacob it was on a timer, but I wanted to do this myself. Just in case, to ensure no innocent casualties. “Three . . . two . . .”

I trigger the bomb a second early, a Claymore mine that one of my crew planted near the natural gas lines that feed the water heater and the cooking ranges. The explosion ignites the spewing gas, turning the whole back of the restaurant into a gigantic fireball that builds before the roof tears off, the doors following a second later to fly across the street. I squint at the glare and pat Marcus on the shoulder. He drives off without a word, turning left and bringing us back toward the freeway. We’re on the onramp when my phone rings and I see that it’s Jacob Waters.

“I don’t fuck around, Jacob. You should know that by now. What do you want?”

“You son of a bitch,” Jacob says with his usual greeting. It seems he doesn’t have much of a vocabulary when he gets angry. His voice is low and deadly this time, though, more collected instead of just yelling. I raise an eyebrow. This is the Jacob Waters that I’ve been looking for. I’ve gotten past all his bullshit, all his shields, all his buffers. This is the man I want to hurt, the man who casually slaughtered my father and put Sarah through hell. “I’m going to make you beg me to kill you, motherfucker.”

“Call me names if you want, Jacob, but you know the old playground chant? They’ll never hurt me,” I reply, keeping my voice level. I’m both excited and, to be honest, a little scared. I’m excited because not only am I hurting the real Jacob Waters, but I’m pitting myself against the man who has run this city and most of this state for over two decades. But that’s scary too, and I momentarily wonder . . . have I fucked up in my thinking? Is my army of the streets enough to take him down? Is there a variable I’m not accounting for? “I think we have an understanding, don’t we?”

“Oh, I understand just fine,” Jacob says, his voice still a deadly whisper. “I understand that you won’t be able to go home again. That little forty-eighth story penthouse of yours? That fucker’s going to be destroyed by the end of the night. You know, I spent a whole day trying to think of why you’d be so fucking stupid as to try and take me on this way. Then I remembered. Your old man. I killed him like the bitch he was.”

“You might just be right,” I concede, not letting him piss me off. “Of course, the reason could be even simpler. Maybe I just think it’s time for this city to have a new king.”

Jacob laughs, something that worries me more than any scream of rage or threat he could make. Laughter means he’s still somewhat in control of himself, and that is dangerous. When you’re in control, you think. When you think… you’re deadly. “If you think you’re man enough, boy, I guess we’ll find out. Fuck it, I guess I’ll just have to move on to wife number four before I turn fifty-five.”

The line goes dead, and I look at Marcus. “Get us home, now.”

“Ryker . . .” Marcus starts, but he stops when he sees my face. “Take a moment and think, man. He wouldn’t kill her. He wants her back. He needs her back to show he’s still the man.”

“If she goes back to him, she’s as good as dead,” I reply. “I get her out and you get the shit from the penthouse that we can’t lose. Then we boogie for the safe house.”

* * *

The back of the van is packed, five guys along with me and Sarah. She didn’t even have time to really change. She’s wearing one of my old sweatshirts along with the sweatpants and a pair of shower sandals while she looks around worriedly. I sit next to her, and when she puts a tentative hand on my leg, I take it and give it a reassuring squeeze. “You’ll be safe,” I whisper. “It won’t be as comfortable, but you’ll be safer than if you were in Fort Knox.”

Henry, one of the guys in the back, keeps looking over at us, mostly at Sarah, and it pisses me off the way he’s looking her up and down. He’s looking at her like she’s a piece of meat, something he wants to fuck just so that he can have a story to brag about in the bar. He doesn’t look at her like she’s a real woman, a woman with hideous scars underneath the sweatshirt she’s wearing, a real woman who’s scared shitless and whose only comfort in the entire world right now is me, and to a lesser extent, my brother. Even worse, he’s looking at her like maybe it’d be easier for us to just get rid of her, to get rid of the distraction so we can focus on taking down Waters.

He just doesn’t understand how everything that I want to do, that keeping Sarah free, and letting her be free from the hell she’s been through, is just a miniature version of the entire reason I’m on this fool’s errand. Finally, after the third time, I get pissed off enough to say something. “There a fucking problem, Henry?”

“Uh . . . no, Boss. No problem at all,” Henry says, looking down suddenly before looking up. “No disrespect. Just . . . Miss D, I wanted to say I liked your TV show.”

Sarah looks over, smiling slightly. “How old are you?”

“Nineteen,” Henry says, fidgeting. “Why?”

“Aren’t you a little young to remember that?” Sarah asks. “There’s no way they play it on the air now.”

Henry blushes, looking down. “My big sister really liked the show, too. And it’s on daytime cable now.”

Sarah nods, then looks at me. “Oh, yeah. I forgot about syndication. Where old shows never die.”

“Either way, let’s keep our heads in the game,” I say gently to Sarah before giving Henry a hard look. “Got it?”

Henry nods, and I hold my tongue. He’s normally an okay kid.

“We’re getting close,” Marcus interrupts from his traditional shotgun seat spot, again with a shotgun between his legs. “The advance party should be there already.”

It takes us another five minutes before the van makes the final turn and pulls into the safe house, a warehouse in the Docks that is in the middle of a block that my men control more than any other in the city. Even more than the neighborhood that I started with, the Docks is the closest thing we have to a fortress island. For almost four years, my word has been law in the Docks, and everyone here has benefited for it. To a man, the Docks would die for me, and the whole city knows it.

“There’s going to be people here,” I tell Sarah softly. “But they’re here for your protection. Okay?”

“Okay,” Sarah says softly, giving my hand another squeeze before entwining her fingers in mine. “For luck.”

The van comes to a stop and Marcus hops out, already hollering orders. “All right, get the door closed and get this fucking place locked down tight! Locals, I want your asses out on the streets making sure not a single motherfucker who ain’t part of our crew comes within a half mile of this spot. I don’t care if it’s fucking Santa Claus going for a jog with the Pope!”

“I didn’t think he could be so commanding,” Sarah says in amazement softly, and I have to chuckle.

“Marcus is only a teddy bear around the house. Don’t worry, it’s something he’s good at. He does most of the yelling for me . . . usually.”

The crew scatters, and Marcus turns around. “What else do you need, Ryker?”

“Let’s get Sarah over to her bed, then we need to have a powwow,” I reply, leading her over to the office area. It’s not as comfortable as her ‘cell,’ but she’ll be safe here. Inside, there’s an old metal frame Army surplus bed with a decent mattress, sheets, and a wool blanket. “Here, catch some shuteye.”

“Like that’ll happen,” Sarah says nervously. “I’m a nervous wreck and—”

I close the door and pull her close, kissing her hard and cutting off her words. She’s stiff at first before she melts into my arms, and when her tongue touches my lips, I open up to her, tasting her delicious natural flavor for a moment before releasing her. “Better?”

“A little,” she admits. “Where’d you learn how to do that so well?”

“Lots of fantasies of some hot chick on TV who liked to wear a schoolgirl outfit,” I tease. “I’ll be right next door in the meeting room, talking to Marcus. You’ve got an army protecting you tonight, and even if Superman himself got through them, he’d have to take out me and Marcus to get to you.”

“I’d put money on you two,” Sarah says before sitting down on the bed and stretching out. Sarah wiggles her bare feet as she does so, and I’m reminded that she only had some cheap shower sandals, a total no-go in this building. It used to be a legit warehouse, and after that a chop shop. There’s metal shavings and more all around this place.

“Thanks. Oh, but I need to ask . . .” I say, turning around. “Shoes? What size?”

“Ten in women’s,” Sarah says. “Sorry, I’ve got big feet.”

“You know what they say about women with big feet, right?” I quip, and Sarah grins, shaking her head. “They need big socks.”

“They got it mostly right,” Sarah says. “At least it rhymes the same.”

I laugh and leave the room, closing the door behind me. Entering the ‘office,’ I turn to see Marcus already waiting for me at the table, a can of generic cola in his hand and one awaiting my attention at the head of the table. I can use the caffeine and sugar right now. My smile disappears, and I sit down. “Everyone in place?”

“They’re pros, Ryker. As much as street gangsters can be. She’s in good hands.”

I crack the can, drinking deeply as I try to calm down, but I can’t. “Where the fuck is he?”

“I don’t know,” Marcus says. “The war’s about to go very fucking hot after what we did. We knew this was going to happen, though. That’s why we prepped this place.”

“Yeah . . . still . . .” I rasp, crumpling the now empty can after draining it the rest of the way. “I’m worried about the beast we woke up tonight. No, fuck that, the beast I woke up tonight.”

“You’re stronger than he is,” Marcus says. “If you think you’re compromised—”

“Why would I be compromised?” I ask sharply, and Marcus raises his hands. I take a deep breath, calming myself. Marcus is more than my brother, he’s the one person I can trust to tell me the truth all the time. “No, tell me what’s on your mind.”

“Nothing, Ryker. I’m just saying . . . if you’re worried about time, maybe we need to take him out now,” Marcus says. “Put the word out and make some motherfucker rich for his head.”

I shake my head, slamming my fist on the table. “No! I want to do it. He made Pop kneel and die with no honor. His blood belongs to me. Where is he now?”

“We’ve got people looking for him,” Marcus says. “Like us, though, he’s got to have safe houses, probably ones a lot more comfortable than ours. Knowing our luck, the fucker’s in some five-star hotel downtown sipping on Dom.”

“If he is, then I’ll shove the whole bottle down his throat,” I growl, but what goes through my mind isn’t the image of my father dying but the sight of Sarah’s panicked eyes when she begged me not to let her go back to him and the feel of her skin under my fingers as we were in the shower. Either way, the fucker deserves to die. “Put the word out, fifty grand to whoever gives us his confirmed location. But nobody moves on Jacob Waters without my say so.”

Marcus nods, standing up. Before he can go, I reach out, taking his wrist. “That means you too, Marcus. I lost a father to this asshole. I won’t lose my brother, too.”

He looks like he’s about to protest, but he knows it’s useless. We’ve had this discussion before, and I’m not changing my mind. I’m the elder brother, and while that might sound old fashioned as hell, I’m the one with the right of vengeance. Still, it burns Marcus, and he opens his mouth to say something when his phone rings and he takes it out. “Huh, didn’t think he’d call. Not after all this time.”

“Who?” I ask, and Marcus shows me his phone. “Joe Strauss? What the hell is he calling for?”

Joe Strauss is one of the best hitmen in the city, and perhaps one of the top ten in the entire country. His biggest advantage is that he doesn’t look like you’d expect a hitman to look like. He’s not tall, he doesn’t look athletic, and in fact, he’s nearsighted to the point that if he ever got into a hand to hand fight with someone, he’d probably get his ass handed to him. He looks more like an accountant or a dentist than a hitman. But that’s one of his biggest advantages too, because nobody sees him coming until it’s too late. It’s been two years since I last talked to him, and I wonder what brings him back into my life now.

“Hello, Joe?”

“It’s nice to hear your voice, Ryker. Thankfully, your brother never changes his damn phone number, unlike you, Mr. I Love Burner Phones,” he says in his pleasant, middle-class sounding voice. Listening to him, I can understand why he’s a junior high school teacher in his normal life. “How are you doing?”

“If you’ve kept your ear to the ground, Joe, you’d know how I’m doing,” I reply sarcastically. “What can I do for you?”

“It’s not what you can do for me, but what I can do for you,” Joe says. “I just got a call from a representative of Jacob Waters. The man wants to meet me.”

“Oh, really? And I guess this isn’t to discuss the newest round of test scores from the city’s schools,” I reply. “Get to the point, Joe. Sorry to rush you, but I’ve got a list of things to do.”

“No offense taken. He offered me five million dollars to take you out,” Joe says. “With a bonus the faster I get it done.”

“And he knows you work for me, right?” I ask. “At least, the last time you were active in the city, it was for me.”

“Of course he knows,” Joe says. “But he still made the offer. Twice my normal rate for a hit of your . . . value.”

“I’m honored. But if you’re calling me, you didn’t take the contract. That’s not your style. So, what gives?” I ask, chilled by the idea of Joe Strauss after me. He’s the sort of man deadlier than cancer, at least cancer can be beaten sometimes. “You’re not the kind to switch sides, either.”

“I know I’m not, which is something Jacob Waters doesn’t seem to understand,” Joe says. “I remember ideas like honor, Ryker. And I remember when you and your brother helped my daughter out with the problem she was having with those punks. Some things are more important than money, you know.”

I nod, relieved. It wasn’t much, just a bit of trouble that Joe couldn’t get involved with directly, and I was more than willing to do as a favor. Seems my investment’s reaping rewards. “I do know. Thank you, Joe.”

“Don’t mention it. Also, I wanted to pass on a little info. Waters is getting desperate. I don’t know how far you’re willing to push him, but I heard it in his voice—the man’s close to cracking. If I were you, I’d end this soon before the streets run red with innocent blood. Trust me, you don’t want that on your conscience.”

“I plan on it. Thank you, Joe. Good night.”

I hang up the phone, looking over at Marcus. “He’s right, you know. Taking over the city’s one thing, but I’m not the type to massacre the innocent.”

Marcus nods, picking up his phone. “So how do you plan on doing it?”

I think, staring long and hard into the scarred, scratched surface of the table, running my fingers along the scratches and thinking about how familiar it feels. Sure, I might be living in a penthouse now, but the fact is that I’ve spent most of my life in grimy little offices like this. There have been so many nights sitting at a hand-me-down Formica table, so many nights where I wasn’t wearing Gucci slacks but Dickies, my boots not custom tailored but the Vietnam jungle variety. And if I’m going to end this quickly, I need to get back to that man I was.

“I need to get out on the streets, take it old school,” I finally say. “Trade in the comfort for getting a little grit under my fingernails.”

“Why?” Marcus asks. “Why not wait for him to come out? He’s gotta come out eventually. If he sits on his ass he’s going to lose his rep.”

“And if I sit on my ass, I’m going to lose the same thing,” I reply. “I need to get my hands dirty again. You still got my old gear?”

Marcus nods. “The jacket, at least. Why, you want it?”

I think, then shake my head. “No, but I do need some street gear. What’s here?”

“Enough that you’ll find what you’re looking for,” Marcus says. “You sure about this, though?”

I nod, getting up. “Let me get changed. We’ll talk while I do.”

* * *

The lights are off when I open the door to Sarah’s room, and I think she’s sleeping at first, so I start to back out when her voice comes out of the darkness. “You’re leaving.”

“I need to. If I don’t, this could stretch on for weeks, even months. Innocent people could die. I signed up for this life, but most of this city didn’t.”

I close the door most of the way and cross over to Sarah’s bed, kneeling next to her. She shifts and turns, rolling over to look at me, and in the darkness, her already dark eyes look nearly black, but still I can see the emotion in them. It’s hard to miss when she’s nearly crying. “It’s what makes you different from him,” she says softly, reaching out and stroking my hair. “The only reason he’d even think of exposing himself would be to save his own neck.”

“I know. And it’s a weakness I’m going to exploit. I need to go stake him out, figure out where he’s holed up,” I reply. “I need to know where your husband is so I can position my troops and end this soon.”

“Don’t call him that,” Sarah whispers fiercely. She takes her hand back, clasping her hands together for a moment before holding out her engagement and wedding ring for me. “I don’t want them anymore. He has never been a husband to me.”

I take them and tuck them into the left hip pocket on the baggy fatigue pants I’m wearing. It’s been a long time, but they still feel right. “I’ll toss them in the river.”

“No,” Sarah says. “I want you to keep them. Because . . . because I don’t want you to go. And I know you have to anyway. You have to bring those back to me so I can throw them in the river myself.”

“You’ll be safe here,” I reassure her. “Unless it’s a perfect opportunity, I won’t make a move.”

Sarah reaches out, cupping my face and kissing me again. “You’d better not. You come back, and I’ll follow that up with every fantasy you’ve ever had of me.”

I chuckle, getting to my feet and leaning over, giving her a little kiss on the nose. “I don’t need the fantasy. The real thing was better than anything I ever fantasized. I’ll see you in two-three days. At most.”