Chapter One
“Allison’s down,” I shouted and took off at a sprint, but Tony reached her first. Tony’s fast. He cut Alex Cruz’s throat in something like three seconds. Tony has anger management issues.
We were looking into the theft of inventory from a paper mill, a stinky paper mill, in South Georgia. It took three days to identify the idiot, addict culprits, and another two weeks to catch them in the act. Both brothers bolted when confronted with Anderson’s video.
When Edwin, the more dimwitted of the Brady brothers, darted past Allison, she snagged his arm and asked, “Where are you off to in such a hurry?”
Too stupid to keep running, Edwin whipped around and backhanded Allison. She spun and hit the ground face first. I called to Tony as Edwin yanked Allison to her feet by her blonde braid. My heart and fists clenched as he dragged my friend toward the white serial-killer van the brothers used to transport stolen goods.
As Tony closed in, he stretched a hand to the clown’s collar, yanking so hard the smaller man’s shirt-buttons popped and flew off in multiple directions. Edwin landed on his face on the gravel drive. Allison freed herself and struggled to her feet as I reached her.
Edwin Brady managed to flip himself to his back and used his elbows to push into a sitting position, Tony planted his feet on either side of the skinny man’s legs and ordered, “Stay.”
Brady grunted and, using his elbows and heels, pushed himself away from Tony, who raised a foot and brought it down on his victim’s most sensitive parts.
“Argh, umpgh, ogod!”
Sean pushed the other scrawny meth head out of the self-storage warehouse the brothers used to stash the mill’s goodies.
“What’s all the noise, Emi?” Sean asked
“Edwin hit Allison,” I reported.
Allison lives with Sean and his family. She once saved Sean’s baby daughter, Connie, from a kidnapper. Sean is fond of Allison.
“Carry on, Tony,” Sean said. He shoved tweaker number two toward the gray Odyssey van, where Theresa waited with handcuffs and zip ties.
Tony gave Edwin a full, sharp-toothed smile before bringing the heel of his shoe down again. When the screaming settled, Tony issued a sigh from deep inside his chest. It was the same sigh I’d heard the one and only time I’d had sex with Tony. As I watched, I was grateful that Edwin Brady would likely never be able to reproduce. I was also thankful Tony considered me a friend.
