Prohibited (Tulsa City Sinners #1)

24. Alex

Chapter twenty-four

Alex

The building was in ruins.

The Crystal was gone, buried somewhere beneath the rubble where most of the building had caved down inside of itself. All that remained was a charred skeleton, the frame of the building that rose above the rest of it. A grim memorial to everything buried beneath.

With a cold sort of detachment, Alex nudged a piece of blackened rubble with the tip of his Oxford shoe, envisioning all of them buried beneath it.

Just looking at the charred remains of the building made the burn on his arm throb. He gritted his teeth.

Rage kept leaping through him like forks of lightning, coming on in waves as he prowled around the perimeter of the ruins. The fire chief was walking alongside him, talking, but all Alex could do was nod and pretend like he was listening.

“--an accelerant, definitely arson,” the man was saying. But Alex already knew that.

“How soon can we enter the premises?” Alex said, interrupting whatever else the man was saying.

The fire chief gave him an incredulous look. “You want to enter–?”

“Yes,” Alex said. “I want to see what can be salvaged.”

The fire chief didn’t even try to hide his look of disbelief as he glanced at the ruins of the building. “I– Maybe a week?”

“A week.” This wasn’t at all what Alex wanted to hear.

“The fire may seem like it’s burned down,” the fire chief explained with barely contained patience, “but the ashes can still be hot enough to reignite. We’re going to need to monitor the situation closely.” The man hesitated. “So far, we’ve discovered the remains of at least one person in rubble.”

An alien feeling of anxiety prickled in Alex’s belly. “And it’s likely too early to tell who.”

“We’re working on it,” the fire chief said, scratching his chin and looking troubled. “As for the other properties… there were five bodies discovered outside of the candy shop on Peoria. No further casualties so far discovered at any of the other three properties.”

The math made Alex so furious he wanted to vomit. Five of his properties, gone. Burnt to ash.

They exchanged a few more words and then the chief left, leaving the rest of the fire crew behind. Alex was going to have to deal with such a mountain of paperwork and so much haggling with the insurance company that he was certain he felt years of his life falling away, just thinking about it. And who the fuck had died?

And it would be a week or more until he found out if any of the hooch had been spared by the fire, though it seemed less and less likely. At the Crystal, it was obvious from where he stood right now that the floor had been burned away, everything had caved inward and downward. He didn’t even want to begin calculating the financial loss all of this was going to cause him, or he was going to fly into a rage that would end in the murder of the first person he could get his hands on.

Walter Stanley. Walter Stanley. Walter Stanley.

It was more than time to deal with Walter Stanley.

The heavy, deliberate tread of feet, preceded by the smell of Lucky Strikes and a certain aftershave, came to him as he stood there. A sort of calmness settled over him. A certainty. They would get this handled. They would get it handled thoroughly.

“Took you long enough,” he said, though he didn’t turn to look at Ryan. Rare though it was, he was far too distracted to feel especially affected by Ryan’s presence.

“I had to wrangle our guest,” Ryan said. Though it was a hot day he could swear he still felt the heat of Ryan’s body as he drew up next to him. Alex turned his head a little so he could see Ryan’s expression out of the corner of his eye.

His lovely lips were set into a grim line as he surveyed the catastrophe laid out in front of them, a ruin of charcoal and the stink of the burnt remains laying thick on the heavy, humid air.

“I called Malcolm, told him we were coming,” said Ryan. He fumbled with his cigarettes, lit one. “He asked about Saoirse. Said she was in town last night, that she was in to see us at the Crystal.”

A small zap of alarm went through Alex and he looked at Ryan sharply. “He hasn’t heard from her?”

“No.” Ryan shook his head, looking grim.

“They found a body in the rubble.” Alex wasn’t one to catastrophize, but somehow the thought of the anguish her death would cause Lindsay made his stomach twist.

They looked at each other. Ryan swallowed audibly. They looked back at the building.

This fact hung in thick silence between them as they both stood staring at the ruins of their business.

“Goddammit,” Ryan said at last.

“They said it’ll be a week before we can get inside and see what’s left,” Alex said, folding his arms while his eyes traveled over the ruined building for what seemed like the thousandth time, looking for any indication that the damage wasn’t as bad as it seemed.

“How many other properties?” Ryan asked in a low, rough voice.

“Five, all told,” Alex said sullenly.

“We’ve got to deal with this,” Ryan said. He had that tone in his voice, the cold, calm fury that made Alex’s belly flutter with anticipation .

“We’re going to ruin him.” Alex began to pace, ignoring the passersby who stopped to gawk at the building, on foot and in cars that slowed to a stop. “From the ground up. Everything that matters to him is gone. His business. His house. His face. His fingers. Everything.”

They’d learned a lot about Walter Stanley the hard way over the last couple of months. He knew that Stanley would hit back, but he hadn’t anticipated that it would happen at this scale and that he wouldn’t see it coming. Stanley wasn’t the only one with a network of spies in the city. Still, Stanley had gotten the better of them.

For the last time.

“Evelyn offered to be of use,” Ryan said. Perhaps a bit too casually.

“Oh, did she.” Alex looked at him, narrowing his eyes. “How very helpful of her.”

Ryan shrugged.

“You really think she’s suddenly experienced a change of heart?” Alex said, scoffing at him. “She’s going to betray the man who’s burning down half the city to find her?”

Ryan shrugged again, expression unreadable.

“We’ll see,” Alex said again. He forced himself to tear his eyes away from Ryan and watched the firefighters gathered to one side of the building, fending off passersby who kept stopping to ask what had happened.

“What magic web did she spin to convince you?” he asked at last, looking back at Ryan, whose eyes flickered as though he was resisting the urge to look at him .

After a long pause, Ryan inclined his head. “No magic web. She said she didn’t know they were planning a hit. She thought it was a robbery.” Another pause. “I think she’s repentant.”

Alex laughed. “That’s a big word from such a pretty mouth.”

Ryan wasn’t laughing, but Alex didn’t allow this to sway him from his amusement. He stepped closer to Ryan and put a hand on his shoulder. Beneath his fingers, Ryan’s flesh began to tense, as though he were a stallion that would kick.

“Don’t underestimate that woman’s capacity for treachery,” Alex said softly into his ear.

Ryan’s brilliant eyes found their way to Alex’s again, burning with annoyance. “I wasn’t born yesterday, Alex.” He tried to shrug him off, but Alex gripped him so tightly that he saw his jaw flex. A prickle of pleasure went through him.

“Don’t let one good deed convince you that she’s changed her ways.” They stood there staring into each other’s eyes for a long moment. And Alex savored every second of it. “She helped him kill our brother. Never forget that.”

Ryan shoved him this time and Alex allowed himself to be propelled away, only for Ryan to grab him by the front of his jacket and draw him back in. His face was alive with a black anger that lit Alex’s body on fire from his head to his toes. “Don’t talk to me like I’m a naive boy. Nothing has convinced me of anything. I will never forget what happened to Tommy, or who was responsible.”

Alex put his hand on Ryan’s wrist. Ryan shook him like a dog with a rat in its teeth.

“But unlike you, I have a sense of honor that comes from somewhere other than my own self interest,” Ryan went on. His eyes were so bright that they seemed to glow. It took Alex’s breath away. With a final shake, he released Alex who staggered a little. With as much dignity as he could muster, he straightened his shirt and his waistcoat.

“Then you’d better hope this nice girl act isn’t an act at all,” Alex said. “Because I don’t deal very nicely with traitors. And if it’s so easy for her to suddenly turn on Walter Stanley, why wouldn’t she turn on us?”

“If she betrays us,” Ryan said, his voice so cold it gave Alex chills, “it’s the last thing she’ll ever do.”

Alex smiled.