The Devil's Honey

TWENTY-EIGHT

TWENTY-EIGHT
⛓️Xavier⛓️

"I can't wait to kill your cousin," Rocky speaks out in the silence of the van, and the other men all grumble something in agreement.

"Hate to break it you, my friend but I'll be the one doing the killing." I pat his shoulder, give him a tight smile, and then go back to polishing my gun. "And let's not get ahead of ourselves, gentlemen. The motherfucker might not even be there."

"And if he is?" Santiago, one of my best men questions, the Spanish man arching an eyebrow.

"Bullet to the head."

Rocky scoffs. "You don't think he won't have insurance to back him up, X? Think wisely now, don't let this anger of him taking Honey away from you for a year cloud your judgment. A bullet to the head is not going to be so simple." Rocky reasons and my jaw clenches because he's right. Not only are we walking into this place blindly, Xander will have some other sort of fuckery up his sleeve.

My phone chimes, pulling me out of my angry state, and I grin when I see it's my wife.

Little Star - Are you still alive?

We left twenty minutes ago.

Me - Very much alive baby

Little Star - Good

Me - A picture?

Little Star - fuck you

And then seconds later she replies again.

Little Star - I love you

I chuckle and slide my phone back into my pocket.

About forty minutes later, we pull up to the address of the apartment. It's run down, full of druggies outside the building and I grimace, stepping out of the van.

"See anything suspicious?" I question my best friend, scoping the outer building for anything that could cause my Honey's worries to become true. Really trying to avoid that outcome as much as I possibly can.

"If you're asking if I can see any invisible bombs, I'm afraid to tell you I don't have supervision and can't see shit." He retorts walking ahead of me with his gun clasped in his hand, and I roll my eyes.

As we walk into the building, we notice the lift is out of order — not that all twenty of us would have fit in there. I don't even think Rocky, and I combined would fit.

"Stairs it is my friends." All the men grumble out a disapproval and follow myself and Rocky up the concrete stairs which are covered with probably piss and shit, as well as words I shall not repeat written in colourful graffiti. We walk past a couple of used syringes and empty packets which could have only contained a suspicious-looking powder — probably coke.

"It stinks of shit." One of my men states and I stop on the stairs and turn to face him.

"What? Did you think it was gonna smell of roses and daisies, Harry? Look around you. You hate it that much, stuff some tissue up your fucking nostrils." I say, and then go back to walking up the treacherous steps, but not before hearing him mumble to someone how he has no tissue.

The moment we reach the top floor an eerie feeling washes over my body and I hold my arm up to make everybody stop what they were doing. A door stands ahead of us with a number one on it, sticking out like a sore thumb, and my brows turn downward because why would an apartment on the top floor be number one?

I storm toward the door, ignoring Rocky's protests not to go in there yet, and I smash the flimsy door open to reveal an apartment with barely any furniture. But my mouth drops open at the state of the walls. They're all covered in pictures of Honey, pictures of where she's been, who she's been with. Pictures of my little Ayla from when she was a little toddler on the streets with her mother.