Rebel punk, Oscar Bradley, discovers that his party friend, Max, is the prince of Kingsport's Irish Mob; fierce rivals of the biker gang that's served as Oscar's surrogate family. With Max quickly pulling him deeper into his luxurious but deadly wor...
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Max heard the ping of his phone in his pocket just after he and Rory stepped into the elevator at the office downtown. He glanced at his watch as he fished his phone out, expecting it to have been Darren, or maybe even his dad, asking why the two of them were running behind.
Rory clearly expected the same. "Tell 'em to calm the fuck down."
Why Rory was running late, Max wasn't sure. He, himself, had intended to stop for coffee, but after seeing the line as his favorite coffee shop decided against it. Choosing to bravely face his morning uncaffeinated...
But when he checked his phone, the text wasn't from his da or Darren...and when the elevator doors opened and Rory stepped out, Max didn't move an inch. He just stared at the image he'd been sent from Elise, trying to make sense of what he was looking at.
Rory stopped the doors from closing with a quick grab, but didn't speak initially. "You look sick. What's wrong?"
"...Chief and Terry aren't okay," Max muttered.
"What do you mean?" Rory asked as Max rushed past him. "Marcus?"
"Da!" Max yelled while he hit the call button just below Oscar's number.
There wasn't a lot that made Max panic or run, but this did both.
The phone rang...and rang...and rang.
He burst into his father's office with Rory on his heels, and his dad couldn't have looked any more confused.
"What in the fec-" his father started, but Max hissed out a shush. He'd heard a click that, for the briefest moment, he thought was Oz picking up.
"On the elevator he said something about Terry and Chief not being okay," Rory said, looking just as confused as James, and just as eager for an explanation.
But instead of that click being Oscar, picking up the phone and answering in some smart ass quirky way like he tended to do, especially when he was in trouble, Max was met with the impersonal electronic voice of a woman.
"You have reached the voicemail box of-" she stated in a stilted manner, followed by an awkward pause and then a clipped recording of Oscar saying his name in an unenthused tone. "Please leave a message after the tone, then hang up..."
"Marcus?" his dad again questioned, reading him like a book. Just like he could when Max was a child.
He was pale, trembling... Max couldn't even communicate. Instead, in his frustration, he tossed his phone onto the desk in front of his father like he'd just tried to pick up a searing hot pan with his bare hands. It made a loud 'clack' as it landed. And Max had to turn away, running a hand through his hair and then over his face, pinching the bridge of his nose as he shut his eyes tightly.
Whoever had sent the pictures of their driver and guard, both likely dead, had sent more than just that...
Pictures of a bloody heap lying somewhere on the bird-shit and dust covered cement loading docks of one of the piers not far from where they'd sent two of the Devil's Rejects to a watery grave. The shitty side of town. Commerce City.
