“The Crew isn’t that different than the Hells Fury. I can get in.”
Peyton’s head was starting to hurt as badly as her ankle. It was the stress. And she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Sometimes she just got too busy. “Prison gangs are racially based. Does that mean you’re a supremacist, a racist?”
“I’m a survivalist.” The wryness in his voice told her as much as his words that it’d been a practical decision. Joining a gang often had nothing to do with believing in the ideology. It was about having protection when you needed it, about living to see the next day in a racially charged environment where survival would be nearly impossible without allies. In prison, you either conquered or were conquered.
She knew which side a man like Virgil would choose to be on. He’d conquer or die trying.
He, more than anyone, would know the stakes involved in what they had planned. And yet he was going back inside—as an informant. He couldn’t possibly put himself in a more untenable position.
Then Peyton remembered the letters she’d found in his bag and the suspicion his sister had conveyed about being watched and everything became a little clearer. The Department of Corrections had found a man they could bend to their will because he had someone he hoped to protect. If he managed to gather the information necessary to bring down the Hells Fury, he and his sister would get new identities—for real—which would also give him a clean slate. Apparently they hadn’t charged him for whatever he’d done on the inside. Maybe they couldn’t; maybe they didn’t have the evidence they needed for a conviction. But they were still holding it over his head.
And if he didn’t succeed? What would it matter? He wasn’t a police officer with a family and a community behind him who’d demand action and answers in response to his murder. He was just another gangbanger, and they could prove it. That made him expendable.
“You can’t get what you want by informing on The Crew?”
“No. I won’t give up any member of The Crew.”
“You still feel certain…loyalties?”
“I honor my word. It’s that simple.”
“How do you know you won’t find friends—people you won’t want to rat out—in the Hells Fury?”
“Because I don’t need a friend. What I need is a fresh start.”
“So you’re working against the Hells Fury instead as…some kind of compromise?”
“Exactly. From the way they’re growing, and the control they’re exerting, they’re just as big a threat as The Crew. And I haven’t given them my word—on anything. They’re fair game.”
So…he’d be a fraudulent gang member—a “buster”—when it came to the Hells Fury. But that was just as dangerous as snitching on his own gang. Maybe more dangerous because he’d be locked up with the men on whom he was informing and they’d feel very little loyalty to one so new.
Peyton cringed at the memory of what the Hells Fury had done to Edward Garraza, the last brother they’d suspected of turning “traitor.” A corrections officer had found him in the laundry with his toes and fingers cut off and his eyes plucked out.
“That can be hazardous to your health,” she said.
His eyebrows slid up. “Since when did anybody care about that?”
He knew the score. That was partly what bothered her about Virgil Skinner. Keen intelligence showed in his eyes, in his bearing. At a minimum, he was smarter than the average gang member, many of whom had little or no education. He’d likely been swept up by events he couldn’t control, and they’d carried him fourteen years down a path he never would’ve chosen. Which hardly seemed fair. No more so than being forced to make the sacrifice he was now making as a result.
Peyton climbed carefully to her feet. Her ankle hurt, but she hadn’t twisted it so badly that she couldn’t stand. It would be fine in a few days. “Why were you incarcerated in a federal institution?”
“Because I was prosecuted federally.” He grimaced. “Tougher sentencing laws. Otherwise, maybe I would’ve met you sooner, since I’m from L.A.”
The return address on the letter from his sister had indicated Colorado Springs. “But your sister’s in Colorado?”
“That’s right. She left L.A. to be able to visit me on a regular basis.”
“She sounds nice. I hope the government’s putting her in the Witness Protection Program immediately.” Because he was right. If he left The Crew, they’d put out a hit and “torpedo”—send someone to shoot—his loved ones. The fact that they were watching Laurel so overtly meant they were trying to scare her—and keep Virgil mindful of his allegiances and his duty to support them in their criminal activities. Those could include murdering someone, charging taxes for drug deals going down on what they considered their turf or robbing a bank.
“They’re going to move her soon. Now I just need to do my part.”
Which wouldn’t be easy and it might even be impossible. “Blood in, blood out,” she murmured. No wonder he’d reacted the way he had when she’d said that before. He knew the meaning of those words far better than she could’ve imagined.
A bitter smile curved his lips. “Blood in, blood out.”
Peyton felt such sadness for the dreams his sister had expressed in her letter. We’re going to live the most boring, safest lives in the whole world, she’d written, and just the opposite was true.
“Do you think your mother had anything to do with the murder of her husband?”
“I’d bet my life on it.”
That explained why he hadn’t opened her letters. “A pretty unequivocal response. What makes you think—”
“And that’s all I’ll say on the subject,” he interrupted.
Peyton could see why he might not be eager to discuss it. She didn’t need to know any more, anyway. She’d already figured out what she deemed important.
After their little tussle, her hair was too messy to walk outside and risk running into Michelle. Pulling out the elastic, she shook it loose so she could redo it. “You’re not the luckiest man in the world, are you?”
He leaned against the wall and watched her from beneath half-lowered eyelids. “No. But I haven’t done myself any favors, either.”
At least he accepted responsibility for his actions.
“So where do we go from here?” he asked. “Are you planning to march over to Wallace’s room and try to blow up this deal? Because you won’t succeed. The department isn’t going to back off. They have me right where they want me, and they’re going to take full advantage of it.”