“Don’t worry. The pain will go away in ten seconds.”I keep him on the ground with my boot on his neck while I ready the syringe again, but a baseball bat slams into my back from the left.
“Get off him!” a shaky male voice cries out.
Figures this guy would have a junkie buddy look out for him.
Looking that way to assess who and what I’m dealing with now gives the injured dealer a chance to throw a punch. I duck and return one that connects with his jaw. It’s a satisfying crunch, but the second guy grabs me from behind. He’s bigger with a lot of rage that’s doing most of the work.
He tackles me hard enough that the back of my skull bounces off concrete.
Fuck.
With the impact, I drop the syringe, and it rolls into a patch of leaves. I’m acutely aware there’s a deadly weapon nearby that I don’t have control of. It can be stuck in my neck next. I might die.
My vision whites out. Behind my eyes, I see all the faces dealing with my death.
When hands close around my throat, I lift a knee to find his balls, but he’s ready for that. He lifts his knee, too, blocking me. I jam my thumb into his windpipe, roll us, and hit him again, and again, and again until blood sprays my mask and he collapses.
Out of instinct, I lift the leather off my face. My DNA and his are on this thing.
I stagger to my feet, but it’s too late. The dealer, my original target, is over the fence, braced for me to follow him. Waiting, he’s wide-eyed with his jaw tipped open.
Seeing my uncovered face, he says, “Dr. O’Rourke?”
Everything chokes in that moment. He knows who I am. I have a name, but I’ve never seen this guy before in my life. Yet he grins a rotted smile and disappears in theopposite direction.
Was he a fucking student? Does he think I’m Darragh? Jesus, did I just put a target on my brother’s head?
I stand there, chest heaving, my pulse detonating in my ears. What the fuck just happened?
Everything spins again, but I get my shit together. I have a dead guy at my feet, and blood is on me.
I brush the leaves aside and find the syringe. The hairline crack I see in the glass fills me with dread. They’re hermetically sealed inside. I can’t leave it here. A drop of what’s inside is deadly. I snap off the needle and ditch it, then shove the barrel filled with the poison into a plastic bag for Harrow to handle. The bloody mask and my gloves go into another bag. Both will get tossed in the incinerator in my building’s basement.
Back on the street, I think about the dead body lying in the park and the guy who has my name on his lips running in the other direction. I have to find Harrow. I need that guy’s last known address. I stop, and all thoughts fall out of my head when a shiny, black Mercedes pulls up in front of me.
I can actually read my obituary.
The front passenger door opens, and I brace, but then nearly crap myself in relief when the wide shoulders and curly mahogany hair come into the light.
“Rough night, Doc?” Trace’s thick Irish brogue is like a hit of fucking morphine.
“It’s nothing.” I wipe the blood from my jaw with the back of my hand. “Go home,” I mutter.
To my sister…
“Doesn’t look like nothing.”
I glance around, realizing I’m in Quinlan Empire territory. Trace patrols the streets. He was probably driving by and saw my sad ass limping along.
I grind my molars. “I have it under control.”
He steps closer, invading my space. “You told me you whack these guys, they die, and that’s it. You’re beat to shit,” he says quietly.
How the hell did he locate me?
A Denali idles across the street, and I recognize Blade’s shaved head and beard. Next to him is Jett, his tall, lean partner with inky-black hair.
Trace’s fucking trackers. That’s how.