Kiss the Stars (Falling Stars #1)(110)

His voice was grim. Hatred riding in behind the despair.

“Where?”

“North. Some sketch neighborhood.”

“Drop me the location.”

“Coming with you.”

“No, Lyrik.”

“This is my sister and niece and nephew you’re talking about.”

I swallowed around the ball of barbed wire in my throat. “These people . . . they’re cruel . . . evil,” I told him, knowing he now knew the truth about me.

I was one of them.

“You think I’m a stranger to that? Coming with you. Where are you?”

“About five minutes from your house.”

Hadn’t been able to stay with Mia, but I couldn’t bring myself to get very far, either.

“Meet me at Whitaker and Taylor in ten.”

He didn’t give me a chance to refuse before he hung up.

But we didn’t have time to fuck around. Despair hit me at the thought that we might already be too late.

I purged the thought and shoved my gun into the back of my jeans, tore open the door, and stepped outside, furiously blinking through the blazing daylight.

Trying to keep control.

Focus.

Knowing the time had come, but it looked entirely different than I’d ever anticipated.

My gaze moved.

Drawn to the parking lot below.

Braxton was there, leaning against a car. Skin dark and eyes fierce and loyalty firm. He tossed his cigarette to the ground and straightened.

I lifted my chin.

He grinned.

“It’s time,” I told him.

“Yeah, brother. I know. Let’s roll.”

I bounded down the steps of the crappy hotel and climbed onto my bike. Braxton got behind the wheel of the car he’d rented, falling in line behind me. My bike grumbled and groaned, reigned like a pack of vicious dogs that were fighting to be unleashed.

I took the couple turns through the shadowed Savannah streets.

Lyrik rolled out beside me at the intersection where he’d told us to meet. Tattooed arms stretched out, hands fisted on the handlebars. He gave me a look. I gave him one in return.

He throttled it, flying down the road.

Braxton and I followed suit.





Thirty-Seven





Leif





It was a sleazy street.

Same damn story but a different town.

Rundown houses on every side. Chain link fences fronting the overgrown yards. Sparse trees and dead weeds growing up all over the place.

A few were nicer. People trying to make something out of this life.

Our motorcycles rumbled through the stagnant heatwaves as we took another turn deeper into the neighborhood, our pace slowed and controlled while our spirits raged.

Could feel it.

Coming off of Lyrik.

Coming off of me.

Do or die.

And I had no idea what I was going to come up on. Come up against.

If it’d be the same scene that had destroyed me three years before.

If this would be my end.

But I would give it all to them. No questions or reservations.

Lyrik put his left hand down, gesturing for us to slow. We eased off to the right of the narrow neighborhood road.

Engines chugging and rumbling before we killed them.

Silence rolled.

Evil howling through the sticky stillness.

We both climbed off our bikes, and Braxton stepped out of the car. Could only imagine what we looked like.

Nothing but bloodshed and brutality.

Someone was probably peering out their blinds right that second, calling the cops, which part of me had already wanted to do, but I knew full well this had to be handled a certain way.

Only chance we had was taking this motherfucker by surprise.

We edged down the street. Three of us shoulder to shoulder, stalking toward disaster.

Each step riddled with my deepest fear.

We moved farther down the road. Past one house. Then another.

Every second felt like eternity.

Torture.

Wanted to fucking blaze a path of carnage.

But I held it. Bottled it. Let it feed the determination that lined every muscle in my body.

Lyrik slowed a little more, on guard, silently angling his head to the right at the house that sat on the corner of two streets.

It faced out to the road to the right, blips of the backyard visible through the broken-down planks of rotted wood that was meant to serve as a fence.

Knee-high weeds filled most of the lot. A dilapidated shed was at the very back, roof caved in at one side. But it was the tiny glimpse of a new but plain white SUV parked haphazardly off to the side that sent a dagger of aggression through my soul.

My entire being lurched forward a step, but it was Lyrik who was putting out his hand against my chest, a silent, “Stay cool,” mouthed from his lips.

Cool.

Not possible.

It wasn’t like he was any closer to managing it, either.

His entire body vibrated with madness.

It only amplified tenfold when there was a sudden wail echoing from the house. Distorted and blunted.

Muted.

But there all the same. I nearly cracked because there was no length that I wouldn’t go.

This time it was Brax who stepped in. He gestured with his chin to Lyrik, letting his line of sight glide to the back fence. Lyrik nodded, slinking that way, gaze darting everywhere before he scaled over the top. Landing silent on the other side.