“How is he–” Tango started.
Aidan didn’t hear whatever else he said. He was tumbling, tumbling, headlong into a memory that was a nightmare. The cattle property, wind lapping at his face, Greg begging with him, pleading…
“Aidan!” Tango snapped. “Why is he still alive?”
He slammed back into his body, and though he was shaking, it was anger that overtook him, skinned his lips off his teeth. “I told you to stay the fuck away,” he hissed. “I let you go! And that’s how you pay me back? Killing Fisher? Dealing his dope in my city?”
Greg had calmed from his initial shock, and stood watching him with quiet eyes, palms held outward to show he was unarmed. “You couldn’t shoot me before. Can you do it now?”
“You’re damn right–”
Chaos. The buyers tumbled into the room from the front hallway, a knot of college boys, swearing, gesturing, shouting. It diverted Aidan’s attention just long enough…
And then Greg was running, slipping around the corner. “The side door!” Aidan shouted.
Tango surged ahead of him, the faster runner, and they barreled through the butler’s pantry, the kitchen. The door stood open, sunlight streaming in.
Greg was gone.
~*~
The mood in the common room made Aidan’s skin itch as he entered. All patched members were present, called in from their jobs across Dartmoor, everyone gathered around a table where Ratchet and Walsh were making notations on a map of the city and surrounding counties.
The confession he’d meant to spill –“Dad, look, about Greg…”– shriveled up in his mouth and he swallowed it down. “What’s going on?”
Walsh glanced up and pulled the pen from his mouth. “Five of our dealers dead.”
“Mitch and Marcello we found,” Mercy said, gesturing between himself and the VP.
“We checked in on Scott,” Rottie said of himself and RJ, “and he’d been dead for a while.”
“Anthony and Cracker are gone too,” Briscoe said grimly.
“Jesus.” Aidan felt his knees tremble and locked them tight. “How?”
“Knife,” everyone said at once.
He should tell them about Greg. He should. But there was no way Greg had done all of this. Which meant –
“This is on a much bigger scale than we thought,” Ghost said. His face at grim angles, eyes blazing with dark light. “It’s not a message. It’s an act of war.”
“From…Ellison. You think?”
“That’d be my guess.”
Walsh looked uncharacteristically nauseas. “We pissed them off. What happened with Em…”
“Hey,” Ghost said, turning to him, “we would have gone in there after anyone linked to us. This isn’t on you, VP. Ellison woulda made a move on us eventually.”
Then Ghost turned back, gaze sharpening. “Where have you two been?”
“Hamilton House,” Aidan said woodenly. “I’m still trying to find that dealer who had Fish’s stuff.”
“Yeah, well, mystery solved it looks like,” Ghost said.
“Yeah. Looks like.”
~*~
