“Okay . . .”
“At first, it was just a routine assignment, you know?”
“Until . . .”
Xavier drew in a breath. “Until one of Bria’s informants got caught up in the middle of it. Max Young, he was one of her snitches, eighteen years old, even younger than that dead kid over there. Typical story. Never knew his dad, mom died when he was ten, bounced around from foster home to foster home until he aged out of the system at eighteen. One of those guys who’s always on the fringes, you know? Not really in a gang but staying on the edges in order to have the protection they offer in Southtown. Doing odd jobs for the real gang members to scrape together enough money for food and a lousy apartment every month. A nice kid, a likable guy, doing the best he could to survive.”
“So how did he meet Bria?”
Xavier shrugged. “He was about to get the shit beat out of him by a couple of guys outside a Southtown bar. We were on patrol, and Bria jumped in and saved Max from them.”
I knew my sister, so I could guess what had happened next. “And she took him under her wing.”
“Yep,” Xavier said. “Gave him some money, got him into a better, cleaner apartment building, even tried to get him to think about going back to school. In return, Max would feed Bria info about dealers, pimps who liked to beat the folks who work for them, gangbangers who were going to get a little trigger-happy with their rivals. Things like that.”
My gaze cut to Catalina, who was still holding Troy’s hand. She’d tried so hard to get away from Troy and the memories she had of growing up in Southtown, but here she was, another witness to the violence all the same.
“That sounds like low-level stuff,” I asked. “So what happened to Max?”
Xavier glanced at Bria again. “Max calls Bria last week, all excited and bursting with pride. Says that he finally has some high-level intel for her—info that will blow her Burn case wide open. Says that Benson is the one distributing it. We knew that, of course, but we couldn’t prove it, because—”
“No one talks in Southtown,” I murmured, finishing his sentence, which was a common saying around Ashland.
“Exactly.” Xavier nodded. “But Max says he can prove that it’s Benson who’s running the drug. Says he heard about a big shipment of Burn coming in from a dealer he knows. A kid selling at the community college, flashing a lot of cash and bragging about how much more he was going to make when the drugs came in.”
My eyes narrowed. “That sounds like our dead friend there.”
And if it was true, then Troy Mannis had been a marked man before I’d ever met him. Benson hadn’t held on to his empire this long by letting his dealers blab about drugs coming into town. Most of the cops might take bribes and look the other way, but there were a few honest ones like Bria who could cause trouble for the vamp, especially if they got a tip that panned out. At the very least, the drugs could have been seized by the cops or jacked by a rival crew, and Benson would have been out hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more.
I thought about what Benson had said to Troy about paying for his actions, all his actions. He must have been talking about Troy’s loose lips. Well, he’d certainly silenced them tonight.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought too,” Xavier said. “So anyway, Max sets up a meet with Bria. She goes to the location. Max is already there—dead. But that wasn’t the worst part.”
“And what would the worst part be?”
“The way Benson killed him.” Xavier jerked his head at Troy. “It was just like that.”
We both fell silent. I glanced at Bria, who was still talking on the phone. The death of any informant would be hard, but losing a kid like that—a kid she’d been trying to help—that would cut her deep.
“Max’s death was also a message,” Xavier said in a much softer voice. “To Bria.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because Benson stuffed a dead rat into the kid’s mouth—and inked Bria’s rune on Max’s forehead.”
I thought of all the pens I’d seen in Benson’s shirt pocket. My gaze shot over to Bria and the silverstone pendant glimmering around her neck. A primrose. The symbol for beauty. Her personal rune.
“Has Benson made any threats against Bria?” My hands curled into fists at the thought.
Xavier shook his head. “No, nothing like that. But no one’s giving her information anymore either. None of her snitches will return her calls about anything, even if it’s not related to Benson. Nobody wants to end up like Max. So Bria’s been on a tear to take down anyone and everyone associated with Benson and Burn.”
“Why didn’t she tell me?”
“She tried to talk to you about Benson once, when you were having that girls’ day at Jo-Jo’s salon. But she didn’t get the chance—”
“Because that’s the day Sophia was kidnapped,” I finished. “But why didn’t she try again? Especially after Max was murdered?”
Xavier gave me a pointed look. “And what would you have done if she had?”
I opened my mouth, ready to tell him that I would have supported my sister and let Bria handle things the best way she saw fit, but that would have been a lie.
I sighed. “I would have paid Benson a quiet visit on the sly. Or at the very least, some of his men, enough of them to send him a message not to mess with my sister.”
“And we have bingo,” Xavier said. “I know you, Gin. If there is the slightest risk to anyone you care about, then you will eliminate that risk. And we all know how you do that.”
“By carving people up like Christmas hams,” I finished.
“Exactly.”
I shrugged. “Bria’s hands are dirty enough just being related to me. Just acknowledging that I exist and that we have a relationship, that she cares about me. She doesn’t need to sink down any deeper in the muck with me.”
“And you need to realize that Bria is her own person, especially when it comes to being a cop,” Xavier replied. “She likes to do things herself, in her own way and time. Just like you do. She really liked Max. We both did. She feels like Max’s death is on her, and she wants to be the one to bring down Benson. You should understand that better than anyone else.”
I scuffed my boot over a skid mark on the concrete. “Oh, I understand it, but that doesn’t mean I like it.”