Chapter 2

Hitting the gym to release stress is not nearly as fun as hitting the people that caused the stress to begin with.

-Note to self

Ridley

Things had to look up, didn’t they?

I certainly would’ve hoped so, but it was immediately apparent, as soon as I saw my brother’s car parked next to my curb, that it wasn’t going to be.

“Mother fucker,” I growled as I pulled into my drive, rode up to the front walk, and parked my bike underneath the overhang.

As I shut it off, my mind started to race with the possibilities of why my brother could possibly be here.

My brother, my twin brother actually, was my polar opposite.

Where I live my life fighting crime, he lives his committing crimes.

Where I was once a family man, he’d gotten four women pregnant within a two-year period. He now had four kids, ranging from four- to six-years-old, all by different women.

He’d been a part of my life, but only when he needed something.

Now, most likely, was another one of those times.

I hadn’t seen him since my wife had died and he’d graced me with his presence for the last fifteen minutes of her funeral.

That’d also been the night I’d beat the shit out of him because he’d had the nerve to ask if I was up for a trip to the bar with a couple of ladies he’d met the night before.

So, after all that had happened today, I now had to deal with my brother.

Fucking wonderful.

Taking the keys, I opened the front door and walked inside, not surprised to find every single fucking light in the goddamned house on.

My brother didn’t like the dark. He was a pussy like that.

“Where are you?” I yelled.

“Kitchen!” Connor yelled.

I growled low in my throat, knowing when I got in there all of my food would be fucking gone.

Perfect.

Not.

I moved with annoyance into the kitchen, freezing in the doorway when my brother’s face came into view.

And then other things started to make themselves known.

“Where’re your fucking fingers?” I asked him, surprised that he only had three.

My brother grimaced and picked his hand up, looking at it as if he’d never seen that half his hand was missing before.

“Got fucked up,” he shrugged and went back to the huge bowl of Captain Crunch cereal that was mounded in front of him.

I sighed as I picked up first the milk and placed it back into the fridge. Then followed suit with the cereal, putting it in its rightful place in the cabinet next to the fridge.

With my kitchen once again set to rights, I turned my attention to the other man in the room.

“What are you doing in my house?” I asked the two of them.

“Your brother got into a spot of trouble, and we’re here to ask you for your help,” the man said.

I crossed my arms over my chest.

“No,” I declined, not knowing why he was there to ask for my help and, frankly, not giving a flying fuck.

“Listen,” my brother’s handler said. “You’re all we have. If we don’t get you to do this, then all of Connor’s hard work goes down the fucking drain.”

I looked over at my brother and studied his face.

“You’re such a fucking asshole,” I said to him.

My brother gave me a thumbs up.

Or would have had he still had a thumb.

That or maybe it was his ‘fuck you’ gesture.

I couldn’t really tell, seeing as his fingers were missing.

“What’s needed of me?” I asked.

“Your brother was able to get into a gang and was sent down along with a few of the other brothers in conjunction for a crime they all committed. One orchestrated by your brother on purpose to get him sent down. There are a few choice people we need him to try to get in close with that belong to the club that are currently incarcerated. He was armed with all the necessary information to try to sway the informants to our side, but he was stabbed with a shiv in his hand on his fourth day in there; due to complications from infection, the fingers were removed about two weeks after he got stabbed. He’s still fighting a serious infection, and we’re needing this information as fast as possible.”

I looked at my brother as he finished up the last bit of cereal.

“It doesn’t look like he’s doing too bad,” I supplied.

Kelly, a man I thought I could trust, grimaced and stood up, walking towards me.

I’d met Kelly while in the military, and we’d crossed paths quite a few times since then seeing as we both covered the same area, albeit for different law enforcement agencies.

Last year he’d approached me about using my druggie brother—who already had the street cred needed—to approach a gang that they were trying to infiltrate.

Me, not caring about my brother or anything he did, gave him my permission, but made sure that he knew I wasn’t involved in any capacity.

“Can we talk?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder at Connor, who was oblivious to Kelly’s question and what it implied.

“Yeah,” I grunted, walking out into the living room once again, then further until I reached the back door.

My sister and Apple were luckily gone, but that didn’t mean I wanted them to overhear what we were about to discuss if they showed up while we were speaking. In case things got heated and loud, I wanted to make sure she was protected from what she might hear.

‘Cause that would suck balls.

Once outside, I turned to him, crossing my arms over my chest.

Kelly sighed and then ran his hands through his hair.

“I should’ve listened to you,” he admitted, walking back and forth across the length of the back porch.

I snorted.

“You think?” I said. “And what exactly happened to make you come to this shocking realization??”

He sighed and pulled on his hair, yanking it roughly up until it stood on end.

“Well, it started about three weeks into the job. He stayed clean until then,” he added, wincing slightly. I didn’t doubt it, either. My brother was able to stop using for short stretches, but, then something would knock him off the rails again and he’d go right back to using as if he’d never stopped. “But once I finally realized that he couldn’t hack it, it was already too late. He’d given them his name and everything. Something we told him not to do.”

My brother was a dumbass.

He was stupid. He didn’t listen to anything because he thought he knew better than anyone.

But, he was my brother. My goddamned twin brother.

The thing about my brother and me was that we really didn’t look all that much alike.

He was always rough and unkempt.

Which was why I did all I could do to make myself look like a presentable human being and nothing at all like him.

That way everyone would be able to tell us apart in a police lineup if it ever came to that.

“What’d he tell them about me?” I asked softly, knowing where he was going with this.

“That he could get them anything they wanted on you, pretty much,” Kelly disclosed. “I was able to listen to everything,” he said. “I had it translated onto paper so you know exactly what was said.”

I sighed. “Fucking wonderful.”

My brother’s handler, Kelly, grimaced.

“Everything was going according to plan. He got in with the gang, no problem. What we didn’t know was that they were in the midst of a turf war of sorts with another gang. That gang had members inside, and they saw your brother as some sort of a threat. They moved on him, and he was fucked up pretty bad.”

“I’ve kept him in ‘isolation’ and have managed to get the other gang members moved to a different prison…but now I need you to take over. I can’t trust him anymore, and this job…it’s sensitive. They won’t know it’s you if you pose as your brother,” he cleared his throat. “Y’all look alike…or could if you let your hair and beard grow.”

I shrugged, playing along with him so I could figure out just what my brother was into and why it was a big deal in the first place.

“What makes you think I want in on this operation at all, never mind impersonating this dumbass? Especially considering the fact that his stupidity is probably why he was shivved his first week in there,” I said, knowing for a fact that I was right. Most likely he’d pissed off the other gang in some way, and they’d decided to teach him a lesson. “Which is another thing, I’m not chopping off three fingers so I can impersonate him. He’s a lost cause. Let it go and find another way in.”

Mother fucker deserved it.

So I wasn’t the most politically correct of people. I didn’t like my brother, so sue me.

I also wasn’t known for being the nicest of arresting officers.

I did what I had to do to get the fuckers—like my brother— off the street so someone else didn’t end up suffering the way I did.

So that someone else didn’t lose their wife to a piece of shit like I had.

It also meant that I would know a lot of people in that prison…mostly because I’d put them there.

Sure, I’d go in as Connor, but there’d be people in there who might think I’d actually care if something happened to Connor—which I can assure you I don’t—and they’d take their grievances out on Connor—me—because he was there and convenient.

“You wouldn’t have to do anything to your hand. No one knows he was hurt as badly as he actually was. They just think he’s in isolation as punishment for instigating a fight.” I rolled my eyes, and Kelly gritted his teeth. “Okay,” Kelly sighed, his eyes going far away. “I know you need more convincing…”

I knew I wasn’t going to like what he was about to say. Not in the least.

“What are you trying to get information about?” I pushed. “Who?”

He swallowed visibly.

“We don’t know who the man is that keeps making the decisions,” he admitted. “We know he’s in the Coller Gang. We also know he’s probably the vice president or the president himself.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose.

The name ‘Coller’ hit me right in the gut, just like he knew it would.

If there was one fucking name in the history of the world that could get me to react, Coller was it.

“The fucking Coller Gang?” I bellowed. “Are you fucking kidding me right now?”

My fate was now sealed. I had to do it.

My brother laughed from the doorway, and I didn’t feel an ounce of remorse when he groaned in pain immediately after as I hit him with a punch to the chin.

“You’re such a fucking asshole,” I said to him. “Why’d you get caught up in this anyway? Did you forget your brother was a cop? Did you forget what they did?”

My brother was the mother of all fuck ups.

He was the loser stoner in high school, while I was the straight A, varsity football player who made honor roll and volunteered in his free time.

When my brother started to get into trouble, everyone started to point fingers at me.

Why?

Because my brother is an asshole, as I’d already said.

He thought it would be funny to use my name when he got in trouble, and before I knew what was going on, there were warrants out for my arrest. Parking fines. Debts.

So, good Ridley had to be replaced, and in its place was fucked up Ridley.

I’d had to work my ass off to get everything straightened out, and by the end of it I’d made good friends with a few of the cops who had arrested my brother.

They knew instantly that I wasn’t my brother, being able to see it once I’d introduced myself.

And with those friendships came trust, and they led to me becoming a sheriff’s deputy within a year of my college graduation.

“If I do this…I’m not staying in prison for years on end. Pending approval from my boss, I’m giving you a three-month limit, then I’m out of there whether the case is resolved or not. I’ve made too many enemies, and if I give them any longer, they’re going to find a way to get me killed in there. They’re going to figure out I’m not my brother, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to die in there.”

Kelly started moving, pacing back and forth until I was dizzy with his movement, before he nodded.

“Yes,” he agreed. “I understand, and approval has already been given.”

“I have a few conditions,” I continued. “I’m keeping my phone. I won’t share a cell. I have access to a gun. I get food that I like, and if I say I want out, you get me the fuck out. No exceptions.”

Because, if the Coller Gang was involved, I was already involved.

We had history that went back a good, long while.

Six years, to be specific.

I’d shot the son of the Coller Gang’s president three days after he’d shot and killed my wife in a home invasion, and he hadn’t forgiven me for it.

Hell, I hadn’t forgiven his son yet, either, so maybe we were even.

“Anything else?” Agent Kelly drawled.

“If you can’t promise me all the things that I’ve asked for, then I’m out,” I said. “I told you last year when you started this venture with him that I wouldn’t get involved. And if it involved someone other than the Coller Gang, I wouldn’t be; do you understand?”

He sighed. “Anything more?”

I shook my head. “You need to assign someone to keep an eye on my sister and her daughter. And you don’t let that fuck up anywhere near them,” I pointed to my brother.

He really did look bad.

His right hand was mangled so badly that it would be a miracle if it ever worked correctly again.

His hair was cut close to his scalp, parts of it bloody and scraped. His face was raw, and I didn’t even want to begin to survey his bottom half. All injuries he’d sustained, according to Kelly, after he’d entered prison.

He was absolutely filthy, too, and that was only the body parts that I could see.

There was likely a lot more than I could take in, but I couldn’t find it in me to care.

At his nod, I curled my hands into fists then said, “Good. Now get the fuck out.”