Vicious Rebel (82 Street Vandals #2) - Heather Long Page 0,8

he needed to be.

“Call in more rats, we may need the distraction.”

We could do more, just the three of us, than most of the rats.

“Liam’s at the clubhouse,” Kellan suggested.

“I don’t care.” He shouldn’t be there either, but the guy kept showing up for Rome. Short of kicking Rome, which I would never fucking do, I had to deal with it. It meant Liam would keep showing up until we put a bullet in him or someone else did. Since we wouldn’t do that to Rome, we were stuck with him.

Didn’t mean I planned on sharing shit with him.

“I meant to tell him so he can watch Rome’s back. If we’re all heading into 19 Diamonds…”

Emersyn was at the clubhouse with Rome. He needed to be there while still nursing that stab wound, whether he took it seriously or not.

Fuck.

“I’ll take care of it.”

I texted Rome to check in and got a middle finger in response.

That was about par for the course.

Asshole.

So I sent Liam a text. Watch for 19D. Heading South.

There was no response from Liam. Not even an acknowledgement.

But the fucker read the text.

He’d watch Rome’s back. Rome would watch Emersyn’s. I pulled off a block away from the Smokestack. The old bar sat squarely in Old Town. Dingy, shitty piece of real estate, and the bar offered all manner of sins. It was great on those nights when we were just looking for a fight. But it wouldn’t be open for another couple of hours.

During the day, it belonged to the 19D only.

It was also a good place to score some E if you were looking for it, along with eight-balls and other drugs. They were a lot looser on what they distributed. They also took a bigger slice of the pie and didn’t give as much of a damn about who they hurt. The only rules they bothered to enforce were the ones we made them enforce.

JD was out of the car without saying a word, and I flipped open the glove box and pulled out a set of brass knuckles. Some jobs called for a knife. Some for the gun.

This one?

This required a few broken jaws.

And that was if Freddie wasn’t there.

The 19D needed to be reminded of their place. They shouldn’t have shown up at ours in the first place. I circled the car and opened the trunk for my bat. Better to be prepared.

Kellan and Vaughn pulled up behind me with three more cars slotting in neatly behind them. They met me on the sidewalk, and the rats arrayed around us. Nine of them, three of us.

Twelve was not a big number.

Ten was fewer.

But two had to stay with the cars.

Without a word, because the boys and I didn’t need that, we divvied up the rats’ assignments. While there might be tension and secrets inhabiting the ever widening gulf between us, we still moved together.

“Do we even know if Freddie’s here?” was Kellan’s only question. Like me, he wore a jacket to cover the gun he kept tucked at the small of his back and the second weapon in the shoulder holster.

The clouds that threatened earlier had blown back in, and lightning flashed in the distance. “Unless he’s shacked up with some new pussy, he’s here, or worse, he’s in Royals’ territory looking to score.”

“Maybe stop cutting him off closer to home,” Vaughn suggested in a dry drawl that I didn’t even acknowledge. None of us wanted Freddie flushing his life down the toilet, and if he had even an ounce of restraint, I might not be such a hard-ass.

But he’d OD’d the last time, and if Doc hadn’t still been at the clinic when we rolled in with him, we might have been burying him instead of listening to him cuss us out for the next week when we detoxed him.

It had sucked.

For all of us.

“We go in, we round up who’s there, kick out the pussy and the civilians, and then get some answers.”

I didn’t hurt pussy.

Period.

None of us did. We all had our weird little hang-ups about it.

Correction, I did and Vaughn did. Kellan held no such illusions. He just shook his head. “I’ll question them.”

Fine by me.

Course, he had a way of looking at them, and they either pissed their pants or threw their panties at him. It could be downright entertaining when I could afford to be amused by it. Right now, the only things I wanted were to find Freddie, make sure he was fine, then get