Page 60 of Hiding In the Dark (The Righteous 4)
“Please, Brother. We both know you’d love nothing better than to dig a hole and bury that man in it. Just tell me, is he still alive?”
“I swear I have no idea,” Arek grumbled.
Kes couldn’t hold it back any longer and laughed. “He didn’t make him disappear, Trev. I did.” All eyes turned in his direction, and he shrugged. “The guy had no useful information about the Golden Dragons other than the fact they ship the product from Mexico, and he thought that the person pulling the strings here was some rich guy. His phone was full of low-level dealers for the drugs, but he did prove useful for the trafficking hunt I’m on.”
“See, it wasn’t me. I always get blamed,” Arek said, shooting a glare in his direction.
Trev rubbed his eyes. “And you didn’t think this would be a good thing to mention to me?”
Kes shrugged again. “As I said, he had no useful information, and now, he’s swimming with the fishes,” Kes said, putting on his best Godfather impression.
“How did I ever put up with the two of you for so long without killing both of you?” Trev bit out as he glared between him and Arek.
“Why am I getting lumped in with him again?” Arek whined.
Trev lifted a brow at his brother but didn’t bother to answer the question. “Let’s go. I need dessert and then a little more dessert.” Trev’s eyes flicked to Cody and there was no denying the heated stare, and that was Kes’s cue to get the hell going.
He stood, but a drawing on Trev’s desk caught his attention, and he walked forward, picking up the large photograph. “Why do you have this?”
“Do you recognize it? I’ve been searching all the databases but can’t find this spider image.”
“Yeah, I do. You guys should as well.” Kes turned it around and held it up to Trev and Arek. “You don’t see it, do you?”
“If I did, I wouldn’t still be looking. Please, just tell us,” Trev insisted.
“Give me a marker.” Kes held out his hand and accepted the black marker. Popping off the cap, he drew what he could remember around the image until it looked like the tattoo he’d seen more than once. He held the image up again, and it was Arek that recognized it first.
“Well, slap me silly and fuck me twice. How did we not see that?” Arek asked, his eyes wide. Arek looked to Trev, who still didn’t seem to recognize the intricate symbol. “Brother, that’s Dean’s symbol. Well, his family’s cartel symbol. Don’t you remember the tattoo on his forearm? He said the first thing he was going to do when he got out of the Sandbox alive was to have it colored over and changed into something else, because he never wanted to see it again.”
“The question then becomes, why is it not coming up in the database?” Trev asked as he looked to all the eyes in the room.
“Like none of the databases?” Kes asked.
“I have sent it to The Righteous line multiple times and I either don’t get a response or they come back saying it doesn’t exist.”
“Shit,” Arek muttered.
“Is this bad?” Cody asked as he looked at their worried faces.
“Yes, unfortunately, this is very bad. I think we have a much bigger problem on our hands. Until further notice, only those in this room, Wolf, and Morry can be trusted, and no one relies on anything they get from HQ.”
Kes leaned against the desk and crossed his arms over his chest. “What do you think is going on?”
“I honestly don’t know, but….” Trev poked the picture lying on the desk. “Until we find out, it’s better to be safe.”
“Hang on,” Kes yelled. The alarm continued to scream like a demon in his ear as they spun like a child’s toy through the air. The black sky was disorienting, and he couldn’t tell what end of his asshole was up. Every muscle strained as he tried to keep the bird from dropping like a stone and blowing them all to smithereens. The spinning would’ve turned his stomach if he wasn’t so focused on them not dying.
With a roar, he pulled on every ounce of strength he had, and by the grace of luck, he slowed the spinning enough to see the sand and a decent spot to crash land. Anywhere on his left side of the window was better than the jagged terrain on the other side.
“Oh, when they call me home,” Ringo sang through the headset. “There’s a man in a black coat standing at a crossroads.”
Kes glanced over at his friend, and although he couldn’t see his face behind the visor, he could feel his terror as they continued to drop from the night sky. There was a sudden lurch like the helo just got her tail yanked back, and then they dropped with such force that his teeth slammed together. Without their belts on, they would’ve been plastered to the roof.
There was a moment of stillness where there was no regret and no fear. They weren’t falling or spinning, and the alarm wasn’t screaming in his ear. In the calm between one breath and the next, he saw Ashley smiling at him. Her blue eyes sparkled in the dark, her blonde hair flowed like a fantasy as she mouthed the words, ‘I love you.’ She seemed so real, and he had the urge to reach out and touch her. He wanted to draw her in to his body and never let go, and then, with the next blink, she was gone.
“Oh fuck,” he mumbled as the image of dancing orange flames reflected back at him in the windshield.
“We’re on fire,” Jimmy screamed from the back. Until Jimmy spoke, Kes had assumed the man had been tossed out the open door. “Sit the bitch down, Kes!”
