A Captive Situation (Kings of New York)

The coordinates he sent were for a warehouse. The door was left wide open so I drove right in.

Lane wouldn’t be alone. He’d have men, a multitude of men with him. I was a good shot, but I wouldn’t be able to get all of his men before one of them got me. I’d have to make my shots count, but it was really only one bullet I needed. Just one.

Two of his men opened my door for me and jerked me out of it.

“Hands up,” one growled.

I knew the deal.

He was searching for that gun on me.

I lifted my hands in the air, spread my legs, and he patted me down. Ignoring him and his buddy, who had an assault rifle pointed at me, I glared across the warehouse to where Lane was standing.

I had a file on him. I’d read everything compiled from my previous colleagues already. Read the file that Ashton sent me too. His was more in depth, but I called in a favor and the file from the unit that was assigned to Lane solely was better. How he moved, how he operated were the actions of an older man. Not the twenty-eight years that his file said he was.

He was seven years younger than me.

Dressed in a black Henley, black jeans, black boots, he looked nothing like the criminal mastermind he was. His face was one my previous colleagues would’ve laughed about. He was too pretty to be who he was. Short black hair, a little more on top that looked like he ran his hand through it often. I wondered if that was a tell of his. I’d look out for it, but I cataloged the rest of him. Gray eyes. Tan skin. Caucasian. No distinguishable tattoos, which I had to assume was by design because a guy in his life, they were covered with them. It’s how stories were told on their bodies. It’s how they were identified, how their rank was known, what they’ve done in their service to whichever family they vowed their life to. If the police raided this warehouse right now, he could simply walk out with a backpack on him and a baseball cap. He would’ve looked like a normal college kid. He was tall, with broad shoulders, and had a lean build. Maybe a preppy college kid, but he would’ve blended.

That was done by design.

There was no backpack, though. No baseball cap. Instead, he had men with guns and that, no matter how young his face looked, those eyes gave him away. Always had to look in the eyes. That’s where you’d find anything you needed to know about someone. Eyes could be masked, yeah, but at some point, the mask would fall and you’d get the window you needed.

My cousin had my mother’s eyes.

I fucking hated that. “I never knew your mother.”

His two men finished searching me and shoved me forward. One held back, looking into my truck. “Blake’s not here.”

His man used her first name and Lane barely paid him attention. His focus was on me. That also told me his men were familiar with her, familiar enough to be comfortable using her first name.

Lane gave a slight nod and his other man started walking me toward him. I caught him by surprise with what I’d said. He hadn’t been expecting it.

How much did he wonder about his family? Did he at all?

I was jerked to a stop a few yards away and lowered my hands, my one hand itching to grab my gun and get this done. I’d be killed, but it wouldn’t matter. Sawyer would be safe. EJ would be safe. I’d be with my brother.

It was a win, win, win.

Justin . . .

“What do you remember about your mom?” A part of me wanted to know. He was my cousin. “Your mom ran away when she was a teenager, from what I grew up knowing about her. They never talked about her.” My gut shifted. There would’ve been a reason. A reason why she left, a reason they didn’t talk about her, a reason why no one went after her.

I frowned, thinking about that now as an adult.

Lane’s eyes narrowed, but he was letting me talk. His face was blank. He wasn’t letting me read him. There was no flicker of life in those eyes of his.

Justin’s same eyes.

“She was a whore, used up by the Santorinis. They hooked her on drugs and sold her body every night. I was taken away from her in the hospital, maybe the one good decision she made when she gave birth.”

He was right. If she’d had him in a hotel room or on the street, he would’ve either been tossed in a dumpster or sold.

“The Santorinis are no longer in business, from what I know.”

“They shouldn’t be. I killed them all.” There was still no emotion shown from him. Murdering an entire family was like taking out the trash to him. It was just something he did so the stink wouldn’t build up. “It was the least I could do for what they did to my mother. Don’t you agree?”

That last question was a test. He was looking for something in me now.

If someone did that to my mother? To Sawyer? Would I wipe out an entire family?

The answer was swift inside of me. I would have no problem killing the ones who had a hand in hurting either of them, but extending that to others who had no part in it? No. I wouldn’t kill anyone who was innocent, but I knew that absolutely no Santorini existed anymore. Even second cousins and third cousins had been executed no matter where they lived. One was in Singapore and had no idea of his relations, and he’d been killed. It was a mystery that cops talked about because no one had a clue.

“I’m not like you in that regard.”

He raised his chin up. “Not a killer?”

“Not a mass murderer.” But that was a lie. It’s the first job I’d been trained for in my life.

He smirked, the first emotion showing from him. “That’d be the cop inside you. Once a cop, always a cop.”

“Yeah, sure.”

He tilted his head to the side, sizing me up again, as if looking for something he hadn’t looked for before. “You’ve always been the lone wolf too. Except you had a cub with you.” He paused. That smirk only deepened. “Your brother. Justin.” He was so fucking smug, indicating his eyes. “I saw the pictures. I share these with him. It’s the one family trait I noticed. Your mother. Your brother. My mother. There’s a few others in the family with the same eyes. Do you miss him? Your brother. You dedicated so much of your life to protecting him. Coddling him.”

My blood started to heat. “I didn’t coddle him.”

“You did.” His voice was even, casual. “If you hadn’t sheltered him so much, he would’ve had a different reaction when he found out who your cousin was working for. That’s the real reason he’s dead, isn’t it?”

My blood was fast on its way to boiling. “You don’t know shit about that.”

His eyes went back to looking like death. The smirk disappeared, his mouth returning to being flat. A flat affect, it’s a term used to categorize someone who didn’t show emotions. Some people had resting bitch face. Creighton had a non-emotive face. It was his default setting.

The corner of his mouth lifted up, a rareness. There’d never been a picture of my cousin grinning or smiling. I saw it now and it was surprising, but none of it reached his eyes.

He was gone. There was no redemption for Creighton Lane. He was a crime lord and he had no soul. He would never care about anyone. He would never feel guilt or shame. He was a corpse that walked around with a ruthless brain.

I pitied Blake Green.

“Your strength is also your weakness. You’re a lone wolf. That makes you dangerous. Those men couldn’t kill you because of how good you are at being the lone wolf, but it made you weak today. Out of everyone in this game we’re playing, you have the most power, and you never once thought to wield it. You could’ve used our shared family, called in some of the Worthing men to back you up. You were police. You could’ve called in favors, used those resources. It’s the biggest gang, after all. Or the other two kings of this city. Why are they not here having your back? Why are you alone, like you always are? Being a lone wolf was reckless, but that’s your nature. I wondered what you would do, but a part of me knew you wouldn’t go against your nature. So very few actually do. It’s who you are. What other options do you have except to be who you are? Still, though. I hoped you would surprise me today, but you didn’t. There’s no cavalry coming for you. It’s just you. I’m disappointed.”

I was done with the formalities. “Don’t you want to know where your woman is?”

His eyes sharpened, but he blinked lazily. “There have been a few changes since our initial agreement.”

The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. “What changes?”

“Well, the first one is that I’m aware you don’t have my toy. You, in fact, don’t have her at all.” He motioned to his men, and a far door opened.

I shifted, my hand reaching for my gun. There was a flap on my vest, which his men would’ve skipped over, not questioning it. They wouldn’t have felt for the small compartment where my gun was hidden. It was designed to mold against my body so their hands shifted over it, just assuming it had a rough extra layer.

I began tugging at the flap, pulling the Velcro off slowly.

More of his men stepped through the door. They were dragging two people with them.

No.

Everything stopped for me.

My body went cold.

No. No. No . . .

“I mentioned a cub earlier.” Lane’s smirk was back. “I wasn’t only talking about your brother. I was talking about your son.”

They were dragging Sawyer and EJ into the warehouse.

My knees almost buckled.

They dropped both of them on the ground between us. His men went to each, grabbing a hold of their hair, and yanked them up so they were kneeling on the cement ground. His men took position. Two behind each of them. Two guns pointed at their heads.

Both had been worked over with bruises already showing. Their faces were swollen. Their hands were taped together, the tape so tight their hands were turning white. The same duct tape was over their mouths. Fresh and dried blood covered their faces.

EJ’s eyes weren’t focused. They’d tortured him.

Jesus. EJ.

His sweatshirt was torn. His jeans roughed up. Bloodied. He had no shoes. His feet were bare.

Sawyer was alert, but pained.

She met my gaze, an apology flaring brightly in her eyes.

Rage swept through me. It wasn’t fast, how I might’ve assumed it would be. It was slow, blanketing over every organ, every limb, every cell, every tendon.

It was shutting everything off inside of me.

“Like I was saying earlier, you don’t have my toy, but you know how to find her. My men informed me that Blake went with your woman’s family. So because of that, I’ll give you a choice. You go and get my toy for me, bring her back to me, and I’ll reward you. You can choose who lives. Your woman or your son.”

He wasn’t going to do this.

I had no choice. I had no options, just the one I came here to do.noveldrama

“You should’ve done your homework better on me, cousin.” I didn’t recognize myself. That voice that came out of me belonged to someone else, someone who was at his end. I sounded like Lane, and so be it. “I didn’t call on our family because they would’ve come, but you would’ve killed them. You’re smarter than any of them. I’m aware of this. I’m sure you’re smarter than me, but in the end, you would’ve killed the rest of our family and in the process, I would’ve gotten you.” My voice cracked, thinking about a possible shoot-out with Sawyer in the middle, with EJ in the middle, and hardened again. “Maybe I could’ve called in favors from some police buddies. But you would’ve been alerted by that too. You have men on your payroll, I’m sure of it. You would’ve known before we even showed up. And as for Ashton and Trace, you’re wrong about them.” My hand moved away from my flap. My gun would need to stay where it was. “I’m done with taking orders. I’m done with receiving ultimatums. That means I’m also done being used as a pawn. You want your woman? Too bad. She doesn’t want you.”

There was no way out of this for me, for Sawyer, for EJ now.

I said, “I’ll give you one option.”

Something flickered in his eyes. Interest. “What?”

“My life for theirs.”

Whatever it was flickered right out of his eyes. They returned to being flat. I momentarily interested him, but just as quickly bored him. “That’s nothing new. You’re going to die no matter what. You were always going to die. You’ve just been very good at evading it until today. You are a dead man standing right now. That’s all you are.” His eyes turned mean. “I don’t care enough about you to kill you myself. This is the only choice you will get today, and I’m being gracious in giving this to you. You can save the life of one of these two. Your woman or your son. You failed to bring me my toy, so one of them will die because of that, but the other I’ll set free. Your life will take their place.”

I shook my head, a part of me disassociating with myself.

My soul was leaving my body, stepping away because of what I would need to do, what I’d been trained to become.

His men took the safety off their guns.

Creighton said, “Choose.”

I did. “My son.”