The Silent Sounds of Chaos (21 page)

Joe leveled a steely glare at him. “I should be askin’ you that same question.”

It quickly became obvious he would get no answers out of Joe, so Finn answered them on his own. “Looks like Charlie’s reach goes farther than I thought it did. How many people are in debt to him? To you? Why did you bring her into this?”

Joe’s eyes narrowed as he considered the question. He glanced over at DU, whose unwavering stare never left the boy in front of them, before replying on a shrug, “You said it yourself. Debts had to be paid.”

Pure, unadulterated fury consumed Finn. He lunged at Joe, who blocked the attempt with the mere wave of his muscle arm, sending Finn tumbling into the chair. Spinning around, he readied to attack again. “Where is she!”

“Oh, boy, you already know the answer to that.”

DU’s voice slicked over Finn’s flesh, a sticky coating of shame that weighed him down. He’d heard that voice too many times, tried hard to forget it after so many nights praying deep down the man would stay gone after skipping town more than a decade ago.

But he wasn’t that little boy anymore, Finn told himself, He was twenty goddamn years old, with a reputation to match his place in Charlie’s organization. Cops knew better than to fuck with him. Junkies knew better than to cheat him. It was time DU suffered the consequences of crossing him.

The plan formulating in his head went no further than thought. Joe took advantage of his silence and landed a punch to his jaw, knocking Finn back on the bed and stunning him into complacency. “You’re more clever than I thought, kid,” he spat out, reaching down and grabbing a bag before slinging it over his shoulder. “At first I thought it was about the chick. Some piece of ass you wanted to get a hold of, puttin’ on some scheme to be her knight in shining armor. Didn’t make sense that you’d even tell Charlie about it. But now I know why you told him and why you threw out that little babysitter idea. You knew Charlie would send me with you. He’d never let his precious prodigy go off on his own.”

Despite’s Joe’s conviction at his own words, Finn shook his head, one hand rubbing his aching jaw. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m here to find—”

“Yeah, yeah. Your little girlfriend. It was a good scheme. But I know what’s going on up here.” Joe lifted a finger and tapped his temple. “The best laid plans go to shit when you tell everyone what you’re doing, smartass. I knew I had to knock you out when you confessed who you were really lookin’ for, get the truth out of you when you woke up on my terms. Then you made it even easier on me. You should learn to keep your mouth shut when you’re sleeping. Then people won’t know when you’re plottin’ behind their backs.”

When Finn made to move off the bed, Joe lashed out, his foot connecting with ribs. Finn grunted and fell back. “You shoulda let the past be the past. Would have made my day so much easier.”

Refusing to back down, Finn pushed up from the mattress, only to have a gun pressed to the center of his forehead. “Be a good boy and stay there,” Joe ordered, his hand steady as it gripped the weapon. “Now, I’ve got places to be. Loose ends to tie up now that it turns out you ain’t as slick as you think you are. ‘Ole DU here is gonna take good care of you.”

With a knowing grin, Joe stomped out of the room, the door slamming behind him. The sound echoed between the remaining men. Finn’s heart pounded sorely as he searched his sides, desperate for a way out, but he couldn’t think straight. It was too quiet in his head, the silence scattering his thoughts, save for one.

This would be his end. In this filthy hotel room, looking up at the man he never wanted to see again.

“Just you and me now,” DU sneered, cracking his knuckles. “Just like old times.”

THE MOTEL ROOM was too small, walls seeming to close in and force the two men together. Finn thought DU would waste no time either killing him or attempting to reenact his favorite filthy pastime. He was surprised when the man simply pulled up a chair and set it in front of the door, then lowered himself into it.

“Sit.” The single word was an order, not a suggestion. Finn found his body doing as he was told and hating himself for it. “Good boy.”

“Fuck off,” Finn growled in response. He wasn’t a kid anymore. Nights of silent protests were over.

DU smiled and stretched, palms sliding down the chair arms. “It’s been many, many years, hasn’t it? I’m sad you never tried to find me.”

“Cut the shit. You didn’t want to be found.”

“Oh? What makes you so sure?”

Finn thought back to the days in his mother’s house, all the hushed conversations he overheard. “Talk around town was you skipped out to Georgia. No one knew where. Or if they did, they weren’t talking.”

“Smart people,” DU mused, shifting in the chair so his legs were spread wider. “Yet here we are now. One might guess you wanted to find me.”

Finn’s eyes narrowed. “One might think too highly of himself.”

Another leery grin. Another raised brow as shifty eyes roved over Finn. “I do enjoy our … oral foreplay.” He winked, the motion curdling in Finn’s gut. “I must say, time has been good to you.”

“Can’t say the same about you.”

The smile only widened. “Come now, don’t be like that. We had such good times together.”

A claw clutched at Finn’s insides, gripping him in disgust and humiliation. Why, after all this time, did the man still have such power over him? He didn’t understand his own weaknesses. And he sure as hell wasn’t willing to talk about them.

As much to defy DU as to piss him off, Finn leapt up from the bed. “I plan on having a real good time tonight, ripping your throat from your body.”

The threat brought DU to his feet. He wasn’t a large man, but his every move exuded a self-assurance that would send most men to their knees. Finn wasn’t most men. He stood his ground, letting DU stalk closer, watching him carefully.

DU stopped an arm’s length away. “Such big talk,” he said in his low, raspy tone, “for a little boy who cries himself to sleep.”

“It’s not gonna work,” Finn snapped back, refusing to let his mind take him to that place. “You’re right. Time has been good to me. I ain’t that kid anymore. You left town, scared of Charlie I always figured, and you missed a whole hell of a lot.”

“Did I?” DU’s head cocked to the side almost playfully, but the frown tightening his mouth spoke of his growing anger. “I certainly don’t recall missing your precious little girl.”

That was all Finn needed before he launched into attack. Yes, time had favored him, wrapping his arms in solid muscle and giving him the strength he needed to finally be the one knocking someone to the ground. DU dropped when Finn’s fist connected with his jaw, but he was already countering, his shoulder ramming into Finn’s gut and sending them both to the floor.

Grappling for control, Finn grunted as he was struck somewhere in the face, his head slamming against the floor. DU’s face hovered over him, a contorted mask of rage lined with the love of the fight, the expression tightening when the younger man got a hand around his throat.

“What did you do to her?” Finn asked around a mouthful of blood. He was tempted to spit it in DU’s face, but the haunted child inside him feared the consequence of such an action.

DU grinned despite the hand around his throat, thin lips pulling back to reveal yellow teeth. “Oh, boy, you already know the answer to that.”

Finn’s hand slipped, sending his childhood nightmare down on top of him. The weight was too familiar. Sickeningly familiar.

You should teach your momma how to pay her debts
. The man’s voice from fifteen years past flooded Finn’s mind.
Otherwise good boys with bad mommas have to pay for them.

How many times had he heard those words? Had there ever been a time when he didn’t know what they meant, what it meant would soon happen to him? How loud had he screamed for his mother to make it stop, until he simply stopped crying at all?

He’d been scared as a child. But as Finn glared up at DU now, recognizing the set of the man’s jaw, the glint in his watery eyes, the way his hand tapped on his belt buckle, he felt nothing but fury. Not for him. Not for the little boy he once was, the man he never got to become. But for Snow. However she was involved, whatever her father did to owe his debt, however fate intervened to make sure they heard one another’s thoughts … his fury had all been leading up to this moment.

“You are done,” Finn snarled, finding a strength within himself he never knew he had. Two hands shoved against DU’s chest and he rose out from beneath him. “You are done taking payment. Now you owe
me
.”

DU laughed, loud and wild and with complete abandon, a laugh accompanied by a storm of fists. Each one found their mark until Finn finally lost his balance and fell, landing hard on his knees, the jolt sending shards of pain through his back. But he didn’t have time to react. His body was thrust forward against the bed as DU hit him from behind, wrenching an arm behind his back.

“Don’t say you haven’t thought about me,” the man rasped, shoving up against Finn, whose jaw clenched with disgust. “Don’t say you haven’t missed me. I know I’ve certainly missed you.”

A hand fisted in Finn’s hair, yanking his head back and exposing his throat. He felt hot breath against his skin, the wet trail of a tongue below his ear. He could have fought, flung himself backward and tackled his opponent, but he didn’t. Instead he let DU believe himself the victor, as his hand stealthily lowered to his pocket, where he always kept pieces of wood and metal.

One chance. One shot to end this nightmare once and for all.
Don’t fuck it up
, he ordered.
Be a fucking bad-ass.

Trembling fingers closed over the scrap metal, feeling jagged edges he hadn’t yet had a chance to smooth. Retracting his arm and making a fist, Finn gave himself only one second to allow his vision to tunnel, his senses to focus on the body behind him, the feel of breath and tongue and teeth, before he yanked his captured arm free and spun.

The metal buried itself in DU’s throat. Blood spurted from the torn-open wound, but Finn didn’t stop. With a rage-induced scream covering all the years of his pain, he drove the metal in deeper, not feeling it slice his hand in his fury, spurred on by the gurgling pain erupting from his enemy.

DU fell forward on top of Finn, whose arm shook with the strength to support his weight and shove the scrap steel farther. Beady black eyes stared down at him vacantly, the smallest sparks of life left in them, and thin lips parted to gape for final gasps of air.

Never had Finn been filled with such grim and carnal satisfaction. It strengthened his arm, sending the metal through another layer. “Debts have to be paid,” he growled in DU’s ear, feeling hot blood sluice down his hand and arm.

Only when the body stopped shuddering did Finn slide out from under it. For too long a moment all he could do was stare down at DU, thinking back to all the years he’d dreamed of seeing the man bleeding at his feet.

“You took everything from me,” he muttered, unable to stop himself from kicking the body before reminding himself he had other places to be. Rushing to the bathroom, he stripped off his soiled shirt and wrapped it in a bag from the trash can, then did his best to wash the blood off his face, neck, and arms using one of the towels by the sink. Water splashed over the counter each time he rinsed the towel, running red down the drain so thick it threatened to stain the cheap porcelain.

“Good enough,” he said to himself in the mirror, barely seeing the bruises starting to color his eye and jawline, or his ribs, or the light smears of blood still staining his chest. He threw on his leather jacket, then grabbed his blood-stained shirt and headed for the door, sparing DU one last look almost as an afterthought.

“Maybe you’ll be useful after all.” Finn paused long enough to dig through DU’s pockets for his car keys and grab the gun holstered at the small of his back, momentarily surprised his mother’s former dealer didn’t try to use it on him, then he was out the door, making sure the scrap of steel was back in his pocket before pulling the locked door shut.

The body would eventually be found. Cops would be called, forensics sent out for testing. Nothing he could do about it now. He had neither the time nor the skills to drag the body to the car, dump it, and somehow strip the room clean of all DNA and fingerprints. At least he had the murder weapon—he could dispose of it later, assuming the cops didn’t find him before he had the chance.

As long as he got to Snow first, Finn didn’t care what happened to him after.