“You don’t need to remind me.” Duck rubbed his right thigh, and I doubted he realized what he was doing. The injury was old, but I knew it still bothered him.
Billy Winston had broken Duck’s leg years ago, before the kid had been a full member. The young recruit thought he’d mess with the Winston brother because everyone was a little afraid of Romeo’s second boy.
That had been Duck’s first mistake—thinking.
He and another recruit threw their empty beer bottles in the bed of Billy’s truck and made sure they shattered, filling it with trash and broken glass, pissing in it, taking a dump. Billy had come upon them in the act and knocked them out cold. They were lucky he hadn’t broken more than one leg each.
Tossing them unconscious in the bed of his truck, he let them roll around in broken glass and piss and shit before dumping them outside the club. He’d left a note, stapled to Duck’s chest—something about it being bad manners to leave one’s trash in another person’s yard.
He’d also signed the note. Just his first name, but we didn’t need more than that. Recruits and younger members talked about him like he was the boogie man. I encouraged it.
Point was, Billy Winston didn’t fuck around and I wasn’t getting in his face. Especially not when these assholes had been in the wrong.
“Don’t do deals on the old Oliver property,” I said, calm as you please, my glare cutting to Wolf. “You know better.”
“He dumped all our product. I’m out ten grand.” Wolf returned my glare best he could, considering. “Razor needs to know. He went too far this time.”
For maybe the hundredth time since Jessica had left Green Valley with Duane Winston, I wished I could leave. I was so damn ready to leave all this bullshit behind.
Pushing the shot back to Burro, I strolled toward the front exit leading to the lot. “This is your responsibility, Wolf. Not mine. These are your people. You want Razor to know, you’re gonna have to tell him yourself.”
He wouldn’t. No one wanted to talk to Razor Dennings, especially not when there was nothing but bad news to share.
I’d just made it to my bike when Burro came busting out of the bar, waving his arms. “Just a minute! Wait. I got something to tell you.”
I straddled my bike. “Text me.”
“No. This is something I think you’ll want to hear.”
Settling in the seat, I pulled my helmet off the handle and I leveled Burro with an impatient look. “Don’t make me late.”
“I won’t. I won’t.” He finally made it to my bike, huffing and puffing. “Listen, so, here’s the thing—you know that farm up on High Hill? The one Principal Sylvester wrangled away from that Miller fella last year?”
My movements stilled. “What about it?”
Principal Sylvester was Kip Sylvester, Diane’s ex-husband. Many of the recruits and members from around this area called him Principal Sylvester because that’s how they thought of him: as their old high school principal.
Burro put his hand on his hips. “Word is, the new owner—”
“Kip Sylvester?”
“Yes, Kip. Word is, he wants to sell it. Miller’s son says Kip has been dangling the possibility in front of their family, and even brought Miller to the Lodge to—”
“The Donner Lodge?” Now I was listening with interest.
“Yes, the Donner Lodge. Kip told Miller he’d lease the place back to him if Miller could talk that dragon lady—uh, Twilight’s momma—into giving Miller back the cows. You know, the ones she bought last year at a price that raised eyebrows.”
For once I felt grateful for Burro’s habit of giving too many details. “Kip and Miller went to the Lodge? And did they get the cows?”
“No, no.” He gave a sad shake of his head. “The way his son told it, Miller and Kip tried everything. They threatened and begged, tried to reason with the lady, but she sent them away. She was with Ashley Winston, so maybe—”
“Wait—they threatened her?”
“Ashley?”
“Not Ashley,” I said between clenched teeth. “D—Ms. Donner. They threatened Ms. Donner?”
“Oh yeah, they tried. She wouldn’t budge. You know what she’s like—uh—well, I guess you might know better than most of—”
“When was this?” I balanced the bike between my legs and lifted the kickstand. My helmet dangling from my fingers, I backed it out of its spot. I didn’t start the engine, I wanted to hear Burro’s response first.
“Oh. I don’t know.” He scratched his chin. “I talked to the younger Miller last week, so it was before that, but after New Years for sure. The point is, that land might solve our problems, if it’s for sale. We can reopen the shop. It’s out of the way and there’s a level field in the back, behind the house, and—”
“Gotta roll, Burro.” Setting my helmet on my head and clipping it in place, I brought my bike to life and steered around the barkeep, leaving him in the dust kicked up by gravel.
I didn’t head straight over to the safehouse.
It was my night to cook dinner and I needed to swing by the store, which was why I’d been leaving when Charms had stopped me in the hall. But now, knowing what I did about Sylvester and Miller and Diane, I needed a drive first—to clear my head, calm down, and think things through.
Her ex had threatened her. He’d threatened her and he was still walking around on two working legs. That farmer had threatened her. She’d stood up to them both on her own. On. Her. Own. That was unacceptable.
I’d been on my own most of my life before joining the Wraiths, without the means to defend myself. She was vulnerable to their threats, and that was not okay with me.
Who had her back? Who had she told? Who did she trust with her safety? Obviously, she hadn’t told the Winston boys. If she had, they would’ve done something immediately, and they would’ve noticed she disappeared every night after work, and they would’ve followed her, and I would’ve had a visit from Cletus. Or Billy the boogie man.
I wanted it to be me. I wanted her to trust me. But the longer I drove around aimlessly, the more I understood wanting this was impossible. How could she trust me with her safety if we weren’t together in private and in public?
I couldn’t step up for her if we were a secret, and we had to maintain the secret to keep her safe from the Wraiths.
Pulling into the Piggly Wiggly parking lot—I still needed to grab food for dinner, and I expected Diane at the safehouse in an hour—I decided that the impossibility of the situation meant I needed to take a page from Diane’s book. I needed to be more creative.
But first, she and I needed to talk.
As I removed my helmet and fastened it to the handle, I resolved to tell her the truth about keeping watch over her last year, not just because she deserved to know what type of person she’d tied herself to, but also because I wasn’t going to stop. I couldn’t.
If we were together, I had to keep her safe, and that was that. She had to tell me when someone threatened her. I had to be in her loop. Stepping off the bike, I moved to walk across the lot and into the store, distracted by my own thoughts and not particularly noticing my surroundings.