Twenty-Three
Garin
Fifteen Days Ago
I was stepping into my private elevator when my cell phone rang. I knew it was Billy. He usually called around this time, right before I was about to get my dick wet. Tonight was no different. The slut on my arm was some chick who worked at the club downstairs. I wasn’t sure if I’d fucked her before, but she met all the requirements—thick ass, decent rack, eyes that told me she’d take whatever I gave her.
What I was about to give would tear her the hell apart. I wanted her screaming as loud as she was moaning. And when she walked out of my condo, I wanted it to hurt.
I reached into my pocket and put the phone up to my ear. “Billy, I’m going to have to—”
“It’s Mario. Not Billy.”
I looked at the slut next to me. “Hold on a second,” I said into the phone.
I hit Mute on the screen and held the phone against my chest while the elevator climbed to the penthouse. When the door slid open to the entryway of my condo, I walked her inside and pointed at the living room. “Sit there. Don’t move. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
I headed toward my office without waiting for her to respond. I knew she’d sit there and wait for me. She’d wait until morning if that was how long it took me to get back. The girls I brought up here obeyed all of my commands. When they were anywhere inside this building, even on the top floor where I lived, I was their boss. And, if they didn’t comply, they knew there were consequences.
When the door to my office was shut, I brought the phone up to my ear. “Sorry. I wasn’t alone.”
“Pour yourself something stiff to drink, and sit down.”
I pushed my back against the door and looked around the room. There was plenty of booze in here. None of it appealed to me. Whatever Mario had to tell me, I needed to hear it sober. Because the sound of his voice and the sharpness of his demand told me his news was personal.
“Spit it out, Mario.”
He sighed into the phone.
A sound I fucking hated.
“Billy was found about an hour ago in an alley not far from the boardwalk.”
I gritted my teeth together and slammed my fist against the back of the door. “Say it.”
“He’s dead, Garin.”
My heart was beating so goddamn hard that I felt it in my stomach. I reached my fist forward and slammed it back into the door. The wood splintered under my knuckles; pieces of it stuck into my flesh. I didn’t care. I didn’t give a fuck about anything besides Mario’s words that repeated in my head.
“He’s dead, Garin.”
“He’s dead, Garin.”
“He’s dead, Garin.”
Billy Ashe. My best friend.
Dead.
I pulled my hand out of the door and walked to the other side of the room. “How?”
“The needle was still in him.”
“HOW?” I yelled.
“My boys are looking into it right now. I got the call and wanted to tell you before you heard it from anyone else.”
I knew the procedure. When one of us died, Mario’s boys got to the scene first. They’d take what they needed and leave what evidence they wanted the police to find. Billy wasn’t one of us, but Paulie was. Because no one had been blamed for Paulie’s murder, I was sure Mario wanted to see if the deaths were somehow related.
“Send me the pictures,” I said.
I knew he had them. Snapshots of the body, the weapon, the scene, the evidence—it all was part of the procedure. They were immediately sent to Mario along with a detailed report. He usually had it in his inbox before the police even arrived.
There was that sigh again. “I’ll send them over in the morning.”
“Send. Them. Now.”
“He was family to you. You should wait until the morning to look at them. You need a second. Trust me on this, Garin. I’ve lost enough people to know.”
“Send them.”
“Fine…but I warned you.”
I grabbed the picture frame off the back wall and walked it over to my desk. It now sat on top of a stack of folders and stared at me while I took a seat. It was of the three of us—Billy, Kyle, and me. We were in Mario’s basement. We were laughing. We were high.
We were so fucking happy.
“Have the cops filed anything yet?” I asked.
“I hear they’re going to rule it an overdose because of where he was found and since the needle was still in him.”
So, the police weren’t going to look into it. I wasn’t surprised. It was less work for them that way than pulling together an investigation. One less junkie on the street, they thought.
Billy wasn’t just some junkie. He was my goddamn family. But having the police investigate wouldn’t help me. If there was something to be found, I’d find it on my own.
“Who sold him the junk? Was it us?”
“I’ll have that answer tomorrow. If it wasn’t us—”
“I’ll want his name, Mario, and I’ll want to know who he works for.”
“You’ll have everything you need.”
I flipped the picture over. I couldn’t look at it for another second.
Billy should have been in rehab, sober living, or clean and living with me in Vegas. But dead? Fuck no. My best friend shouldn’t be dead.
He should have been saved.
And I should have been the one who saved him.
“You know we’ll take care of everything—the funeral, any other costs,” Mario said. “Whatever you need, you just tell me.”
“Thanks.”
I wasn’t looking forward to the call I needed to make. Billy’s ma rarely answered her phone. Hell, she wouldn’t have one if I didn’t pay the bill. I just hoped I could reach her before she heard the news from someone in The Heart. She needed to hear it from me.
“I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’ll be in Atlantic City by the morning.”
“I’m sorry, brother.”
“Me, too.”
Seconds after I hung up, Mario’s texts came across my screen.
Leaving my phone on the desk, I went to the other side of the room and poured myself a few fingers of whiskey. I’d heard the news. Now, I needed to numb it. I swallowed down the dark liquid and poured more.
I knew where Billy should have been right now, but that didn’t mean I hadn’t thought about this moment. I’d told myself plenty of times that the day I saw my best friend sober would be the day he was lying in his casket. Still, that didn’t mean it didn’t fucking hurt.
I carried my third glass of whiskey over to the desk and picked up my phone, finally pulling up the snapshots. The first picture showed his face. The shot was zoomed in, his lips dull blue.
The color, that blue, I couldn’t get it out of my fucking head.
The second shot showed his whole body, his back slumped against a brick wall. His feet were out in front of him. His shirt was pulled up to his neck, and there was an empty needle sticking into his heart.
His goddamn heart.
I shook my head, my fist balling again. The only thing close enough to hit was the desk. The desk was going to get hit. So were the walls and the door and someone’s fucking face once I got my hands on them.
Mario knew.
I guaranteed that was one of the reasons he didn’t want to send me the pictures. He didn’t say anything because he probably figured I couldn’t handle it right now.
Anyone who had been around drugs as much as we had would know.
Billy had OD’d. There was no question about that. The heroin had been too potent, the dose too lethal for his body. That had ultimately caused his death.
But Billy wasn’t the one who had stuck in the needle.
A junkie hit up a vein. They shot straight into their bloodstream. They sure as hell didn’t stick a needle into their fucking heart.
Someone found out that Billy had been looking into Paulie’s death. Someone wanted that secret to be kept buried. Someone thought that killing Billy would ensure that. So, someone filled that syringe with a dose strong enough to take Billy’s life and had tried to make it look like an accidental overdose. That someone had stuck the needle into Billy’s heart.
They had murdered Billy.
Whoever that motherfucker was…I was going to murder him for it.