When I turn around, Cade is watching me with a small smile on his face. He nods at me, scrubbing his hand across his jaw. I’m seriously fucking lucky to have my best friend at my back through this, just as he’s been at my back through everything else.
If he weren’t here, reminding me of who I am, who I want to be, then god knows. Maybe I’d have been throwing that barrel over the edge of the roof after all.
Maybe I’d have been lighting the match.
REBEL
NOW
My body has that delicious burning ache to it as I climb off my motorcycle. It’s taken me far too fucking long to ride from Vegas to New Mexico, but I wasn’t exactly rushing. I had a lot to think about. I have approximately ten hours until I need to give Maria Rosa her answer. Either yes, I will kill this DEA agent who has pissed her off so much, or alternatively me and my boys are gonna become her runners, operating on her behalf for, well, forever. When you start working for Maria Rosa, there’s only one way you ever end up stopping. And I don’t particularly want to die just yet. I have a number of things I plan on doing yet, and I’ll be fucked if I let her mess that up for me.
There is one other option: go this thing alone. But Hector’s amassed an army over the past few years, ramping up his personal protection. Increasing the volume of his business, which means more hired guns. More people on his payroll. Ergo, less chance of us sweeping in and smashing his operation to bits. Three or four years ago, maybe, but not now. Now, we have to approach things differently. We need backup, and Maria Rosa is the most sensible option. She has as much to gain from Hector Ramirez’s downfall as the Widow Makers do.
“You still need me, Prez?” Carnie’s still got a shit-eating grin on his face, twelve hours after the end of our meeting with Maria Rosa. The guy has no shame. Usually the dynamic between two guys shifts a little after one of them watches the other get his cock sucked, but things are exactly the same with Carnie. He’s a total extrovert. And that wasn’t the first time I’ve seen his dick, either. The guy barely wears any clothes at the best of times.
“No, man, we’re good,” I tell him. He jogs off across the compound, laughing to himself, shaking his head—my money’s on him heading straight to Fee to tell her what happened. She’s gonna punch him in his stupid, grinning face.
I think about heading over to the clubhouse, the low-lying, squat building at the far end of the compound, to see if there’s anything left over from last meal, but that would mean facing everyone. Dealing with the chatter and having at least three shots of Jack poured down my throat. I don’t feel like that right now. I feel like taking a moment. Clearing my head. Breathing, just for a second.
I head in the opposite direction, instead, toward my place. The cabin’s outside of the compound proper, over the small ridge that curves naturally around the Widow Makers’ HQ. That ridge was part of the reason why I set up out here in the first place. A good natural defense in case anyone tries to fuck with us.
It’s winter but I’m still sweating by the time I summit the top of the ridge. The sun’s setting to my right, casting angry, long red shadows across the plane in front of me. It’s gonna be cold, tonight.
Behind me, the four buildings that make up the compound—the clubhouse, the workshop, the storehouse and the barn—are all lit up. I can hear Carnie somewhere down there, shouting something loud and obnoxious. Laughter follows. Cheering and shouting. I smile to myself as I make my way down the other side of the slope toward the cabin. It doesn’t register as odd that the lights are on inside my place. It doesn’t seem strange that the door is locked and I have to use my key to get in. The first thing I do when I see the girl sitting on my couch, watching my television, is pull my gun. Force of habit. She scrambles away from me, backing into the corner of the couch. Her eyes are so big I can practically see myself reflected in her irises. She looks terrified.
I catch myself, then—a gun shoved in her face is the last thing this girl needs. But she shouldn’t be here. I tell her as much. “You shouldn’t be in here. Who put you in here?” Carnie joked about this on the way to Vegas—her needing to bunk in with me. I never gave it serious thought, though. This is so not happening. I lower my gun, tucking it back into my waistband. The girl visibly sags, though it’s obvious she’s still afraid.
“Cade. Cade put me in here when I was passed out,” she says. “After he drugged me, that is.” It doesn’t sound like she’s too impressed about that. I know people who’d pay good money for the high she received, but it looks like she’s not one of them.
“Yeah, sorry about that. We’ve found in the past that being a little sleepy often keeps the people we’re transporting calm. And calm is something we value around these parts.”
“How old are you?” she asks. The question catches me off guard.
“Why do you ask?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know.”
“When you’ve figured out why you wanna know, tell me and I’ll decide whether your reasoning’s valid enough for me to share that information with you. In the meantime, I need to talk to my V.P.” I kick the door closed behind me, scowling as I bring up Cade’s number on my cell. He answers quickly, on the second ring.
“Hey, man, what’s up. Are you almost back?”
“I’m already back. And I’m standing in my cabin. Is there something you want to tell me?”
“Ahhh shit. I thought for sure I’d be back before you. Don’t blow a gasket, all right? There was nowhere else to put her.”
“What about the barn? That’s where we usually keep people, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, when we plan on keeping them cuffed to the water tank and beating the shit out of them twenty-four-seven. You really think this situation warrants that?” When he puts it like that, I suppose he’s right. That does seem a little excessive.
“What about the room at the far end of the clubhouse? The one I used to use?”
Cade huffs—I think I’m pissing him off. Well, tough shit. He knows this place is strictly off limits. “You said you didn’t want anyone to know she was here, dude. If I’d dragged her through the clubhouse and up the stairs, someone would have spotted her. And they sure as hell would have wanted to know who she was and why we won’t let her out of the room.”
He kind of has a point there. “And so this was it? This was the only solution you could think of?” I pinch the bridge of my nose between my index finger and my thumb, feeling a headache coming on.
“She could hardly bunk above the shop with me, man. People are in an out of my place all day long. She’d have been seen in five seconds flat. If you can think of another option, I’ll head back to the compound right now and move her myself.”
I scowl at the floorboards, the floorboards I laid myself, hammering each and every nail by hand, hating that he’s fucking right. “All right. All right. I guess you did the right thing.” I exhale, my head working overtime. “Wait, if you’re not at the compound, where are you?”
“At the shop. I needed to pick up the gear for tonight. We had late appointments, too, and Chloe couldn’t work. I’m finishing off a back piece. Won’t take me more than an hour, though.” The shop, the Dead Man’s Ink Bar, the Bar for short, isn’t located within the compound. A twenty-minute ride down a dirt track brings you to Freemantle, the closest town to our location, though to call it a town is a stretch. There are five or six streets with actual stores on them, and then perhaps three or four as many residential streets, and that’s it. There was public outcry when the Widowers bought up High Street real estate and unveiled a full-blown, state-of-the-art tattoo parlor. The townsfolk probably wanted another florist or something. Instead they got burly bikers with a penchant for ink and very loud motorcycles. They complained at first, but that soon stopped when they realized the Bar was actually bringing a lot of out-of-towners into Freemantle. People from the surrounding small towns, who otherwise would have no reason to even pass through. More people means more money for the other local stores and diners; the folk who come to get inked at the Bar have to eat, after all. They buy groceries. They replace their old work wear at the army disposal store. Ironically, the business front we use to launder our ill-gotten gains has been really good for the local community.