Stone

There’s a place at the top of the Bradford where a greenhouse used to be. I never saw this place in its heyday, but I imagine it produced thick red roses to put on crisp white linens. Now it’s my lookout.

I have a room in the hotel, like the other guys. Bare walls and a clean mattress. More than I could have hoped for when I was a kid, but the ruined greenhouse is where I spend most of my time. From here I can see all four corners of the Bradford. I can see the cross streets and the buildings beyond—abandoned, mostly, which is what makes this place perfect. Over the ridge of brick and metal, the city spreads out in front of us, bustling with headlights, with sound. The world spinning on without any idea that we’re here.

That’s the point, of course. If the cops knew about this place, they’d be on our asses. Some of our business interests are legal. Some of them aren’t.

And Grayson, well, he’s a fugitive since his prison break.

The Bradford is more than a place to sleep, more than our operational headquarters. It’s a safe haven. And it’s my job to keep it that way. That means keeping my finger on the pulse of the streets. I have a network of informants throughout Franklin City. A few cops on my payroll. There are a hundred ways I make sure this place stays secret, but I like to watch for myself. Sometimes it’s the only way I can take a deep breath—with my gaze on the empty streets around us, making sure the crew is safe.

Something is off today.

I lift my face to the breeze, clench my hand around the rusted wrought-iron banister. What the hell is it? I’m about to go downstairs, to make Knox run his scans or whatever the fuck he does on the computer to find a problem I can fucking solve, when I see it—a streak of red.

For half a second, there’s relief. Part of me always knows when one of the crew is away from the Bradford. I can feel it as surely as if I were a farmer sensing a goddamn storm rolling in. The red streak? That’s Knox. The cherry-striped Shelby is his favorite car, which is saying something. He has twenty in his personal inventory alone, not to mention the garage he keeps for the rest of us.

His favorite, which is why I know he’d never grind the gears so loud I can hear the crunching echo off the brick walls a block away. Tires bounce onto the broken curb. The bottom of the car scrapes concrete with an ear-splitting screech.

I have my cell phone out, a calm sense of purpose washing over me. This is what the crew needs me for. For times like this, when I can be cold as ice.

The Shelby cuts the corner too close, sending mortar and brick flying into the street.

“Get Nate here,” I say, knowing Cruz will be on the other end of the line, pinging the only brother who doesn’t live at the Bradford on our secure line. “Nine-one-one,” I say as the car comes to a haphazard halt in front of the hotel, where the old valet station would have been.

Fuck. I’m flying down the stairs, still talking.

“And find out what’s happening on the police scanners. Some shit went down, and I need to know what they know.”

I make a quick stop to grab Grayson.

“It’s Knox.”

Grayson doesn’t argue, but I feel his tension as he follows me down the steps. “On a Tuesday?”

Every single one of us has our demons. Whether it’s sex or blood or drugs. There’s something we use to numb the pain. Or, worse, something we use to relive it. What happened back then fucked us up so we’re not really human anymore. We’re animals with damn-near unlimited funds and access to the world’s worst vices. Knox’s demon is alcohol. At least it was until I sat him in a fucking room for a month, while he swore at me and called me every name in the book, and dried him out. He hasn’t touched a drop since.

“No,” I say on a growl, but the truth is, I don’t know.

I don’t know until I reach the car, its engine still running, and yank open the door.

The smell of rum doesn’t greet me. No, it’s metallic. It’s blood. Knox is bleeding from a hole in his chest, slumped against the black leather, eyes glazed with pain and delirium.

“Fuck,” Grayson mutters, and I hear the panic in his voice.

I hear the panic, but I don’t feel it. Because this is who I am. Cold. Hard. Steady as a rock. “I’ll pull him out. You grab his right side. We’ll take him upstairs and stabilize him.”

When you say words like that, that’s what makes them true. The fact that I could say it so strong and clear, that’s what Grayson needs to pull himself together. Maybe it’s what Knox needs to hear deep in his shock-numbed mind.

We’re in the main living room twenty minutes later, keeping the wound stanched, when Nate shows up, looking winded and pissed.

“If this is another one of your pranks—”

“It’s Knox,” I say flatly.

“Still? He needs an AA meeting, not a doctor.”

“It’s a gunshot,” I snap. “You got anything in your bag of tricks for that?”

That spurs him into action. Nate gets off on healing people, though they don’t let you near human bodies when you’re not actually a person on any government records. But vet schools, we faked enough documentation to get him through admissions. He earned his diploma, and that’s all he’s needed to practice ever since. It’s good, though. The animals. The farm. The fucking wholesomeness of it.

It’s another hour before Nate’s removed the bullet and sutured the wound.

Another two hours before Knox wakes up from the anesthetic. Those horse drugs don’t fuck around. Which means I’ve been in the dark about what actually happened for way too long. Cruz has checked around enough to know there aren’t any reports about someone matching Knox’s description or even gunfire on this side of town. There’s no disturbances on the perimeter. It seems like we’re safe, but I need to know for sure.

Knox blinks up at me, still groggy. “Stone?”

“Yeah,” I say, my voice hard. Like I don’t care that he just went through hell.

“It was the…” He pauses through a labored breath, pain bright on his features. “The detective.”

“Detective Rivera?” There’s a sharp sting of disappointment. I would never admit this to the crew, but I thought that guy was clean. I don’t usually trust cops, don’t usually trust anyone, but I at least thought he was clean.

“Yeah, but not…he must have been following me. When I tried to make the deal, he was there. They thought it was a setup. Shot…me. Rivera tried to pin us down. Barely got out.”

Jesus. Rivera may not have pulled the trigger, but he’s going to get us killed pulling a stunt like that. The men we do business with, they aren’t about cocktails and handshakes. More like guns and bloodshed.

They don’t care about those boys in a basement somewhere. All they care about is cold hard cash, which is what we were going to exchange for information.

“Did you get it?” I ask, my voice tight.

A different kind of pain flashes over Knox’s face. “I’m sorry.”

Fuck. We need that information. Those guys won’t come near us again after this.

We can’t protect ourselves long term without information about what happened to us. About who framed Grayson. Forces more powerful than us need us quiet. Dead, preferably.

I want to swear and kick something. Instead I force down my feelings. Force myself to look at the bandage stained red. At the sheen of sweat on my brother’s face. He’s hurting. If I were still in that basement, I would have told him to touch the hot rivet, to let the pain out that way, because I was dumb and desperate.

Now I nod to Nate from across the sofa, and he injects something into the bag. Morphine, probably. It will take a few minutes to kick in. I grasp Knox’s hand so he doesn’t feel alone between now and then. “You ever seen a Shelby Cobra with an automatic?”

He lets out a strangled sound. “Blasphemy.”

This is what we talked about that month I kept him locked up. Felt bad about it, like it was some grown-up version of the basement, but I didn’t have any other choice. Couldn’t let him drink his life away. Or endanger the rest of the crew. This was our grown-up rivet, talking about cars. I read all these books on pointless car facts just so I could keep him interested.

“There were only twenty ever made. Three-speed.”

“You’re shitting me.”

I shrug. “Probably easier to drive when you get shot.”

His laugh turns into a groan, and I keep up the steady stream of useless car talk for fifteen minutes. By then his muscles have turned soft, his lids lowered. His hand is burning hot in mine, but he doesn’t let go. “You gonna stay?” he whispers.

He must know he’s going under. He’ll be asleep; what does he care if I’m here? But I can’t tell him no. “I’m not going anywhere,” I say, thinking that maybe I’m the rivet now. Taking all the hurt inside myself. Maybe I always was.