The Rules of Survival (Mercer #1)

RoS Chapter Twenty Six

Chapter Twenty Six

Thunderous silence followed Justice hanging up on Callahan. Justice glared at his phone with a vicious hatred, Sal remained with his head in his hands, and I began addressing the whirlwind of thoughts in my head.

Callahan Cordero was responsible for Kalen's death.

Honestly, I wasn't surprised. The revelation actually brought with it some clarity. All of the pieces of the puzzle came together to and it was such a clear, vivid picture I wondered how I hadn't taken a stab at completing it before now.

Kalen had been shot at point blank range. He'd been found in an alleyway. None of his personal effects had been taken, ruling out theft, and his body hadn't been tampered with in any way – gangs carved their signs into the corpses to lay claim for the hit and gain notoriety. The CBK were the only gang in Chicago who didn't desecrate bodies. Apparently they had a little more respect for the deceased.

After adding everything up, I was left with two options: either some random gun toting idiot had come along and shot my brother dead and then moved him for no other reason than he felt like it, or someone from his own gang had turned on him.

I felt my stomach summersault as a wave of dread hit me. Justice had just told Callahan exactly what we were going to do with his coveted CD.

"Um," I said, clearing my throat. "You just told Callahan you were going to send him to prison. And yet you told me we couldn't go to the cops. I'm confused."

Justice glanced up to meet my gaze and it took everything I had not to flinch. I had to remind myself that murderous glare wasn't directed at me, or at least, I hoped it wasn't.

"Yeah, I know what I said. But now I have a better idea of what we're working with."

"Which means you have a plan, right?" Sal piped up, lifting his head from his hands to eye the two of us dubiously.

Justice laughed, only I was pretty certain he wasn't finding anything amusing. "Yeah, no, I don't have a plan."

Sal's expression was one of utter disbelief. "Oh, right, so you just like pissing everyone the fuck off, which is why you not only hung up on the bastard, but you told him he was about to have a change in address."

"Sal, you need to start paying attention to the details."

Sal snorted. "Funny, I thought I was. Or did I miss the part where you called him a son of a bitch and told him to bring it the fuck on."

I was starting to think Sal freaking out was contagious. The more irate he got, the quicker my breathing became and sweat coated my palms. It made me wish Justice's whole be-calm bullshit would rub off on me as well.

Ignoring Sal's very valid points, Justice folded his arms across his broad chest. "He offered me a second chance and he's prepared to leave you, Gin and Henry alone, even though he knows there's a possibility you may have seen what was on that CD."

"So?" Sal and I said at the same time. At least both of us were on the same blank page.

"So, it means he's pulling this on his own. Lupe has no idea what's going on."

"Mercer," Sal said, bringing his hands together and resting his chin on his fingertips. "You were here for the entirety of that conversation, weren't you? You heard everything I did, didn't you? I mean, I don't know, maybe I went deaf for a few seconds there, because I seem to have missed the crucial part where Callahan was like, 'Oh, dude, Lupe would shit a brick if he knew I offed the superintendent' and then Montoya was like 'Really, wow, I had no idea you were doing this as an independent project, but thanks for telling me'."