Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 117379 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117379 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Picnic came over to stand next to me, his face grim.
“Yup,” he said. “He’s not one of yours.”
It took everything I had not to roll my eyes.
“Yeah, we covered that before,” I said politely. “So whose is he?”
“Cartel,” Pic replied. “Of course, this one’s not important or valuable. They sent him up here to parade around in fake colors, set things up. Cut’s over there, you can take a look in a few … But that’s not the interesting part.”
I cocked a brow in question. I found someone wearing fake Devil’s Jacks colors pretty damned interesting.
Pic walked over to the chair and kicked it. The man moaned.
“Tell my friend here what you just told me,” he ordered.
The man lifted his head, although I had no idea if he could see me through the swelling.
“I’m just a halcone,” he whispered, his English faintly accented. Mexican, I figured. Of course, not a huge leap, given where the cartel was headquartered. Men like this—poor and desperate—made up most of their cannon fodder.
“I follow orders. They told me to go with some gringo boss, come up north. Wear that vest, go to bars, talk to people. Do whatever the boss says. Tonight he said to shoot at people, so that’s what we did.”
“We?” I asked.
“Soldier,” he muttered, his words slurred. “Called himself Sam, don’t know who he really is. He came with the boss, maybe.”
“White?”
“Sí. American.”
“Who was shooting at the truck?”
“Sam shot the tires,” he said. “Then he told me to kill the people in the truck and he disappeared. I don’t know where he went.”
“Do you know anything about the other shootings?”
“I was down south until last week, when they sent me here,” he said. “Nothing to do with any of this. Are you going to kill me?”
I glanced at Picnic. His face was blank.
“Burke will want to talk to him, if you’re willing,” I said. “This isn’t just about your club—the Jacks need all the information we can get, too.”
“Holding him for a couple days is no problem,” Ruger said. He pinned me with a hard stare. “We have plenty of room down here, could keep someone prisoner forever, if we wanted to.”
I had a feeling he wasn’t talking about the bloody pawn sitting in the chair.
“Take him out and get him cleaned up,” Picnic said to Horse. The big man stepped forward, nodding to one of the others I didn’t know. Together they lifted the man—chair and all—and carried him out of the room. I looked down at the blood on the concrete, considering my own situation.
Fuck it. Now was as good a time as any to play this through.
“I’d appreciate it if you could give Burke a call,” I said to Picnic. “I’m fresh out of phones.”
“I’ll take care of it,” he said. He turned to leave, but I caught his arm. Ruger stepped forward, cracking his knuckles. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes again. Yeah, I get it. You’re gonna protect the prez, kill me with your bare hands, et cetera … So fucking predictable.
“We need to talk,” I said. “Might as well get it over with. Can’t do it in front of Em.”
“No offense, but you’re not my favorite person,” Pic replied, narrowing his eyes. “Just because we called you in to witness for your club doesn’t mean I feel like chatting. Better be damned important.”
“I think it is. I figure you’ve spent a fair amount of time and energy considering different ways to kill me over the past couple months?”
Pic gave a harsh laugh, nodding.
“You would, too, in my shoes.”
“Can’t argue with that,” I said. “Here’s the thing … I don’t want to spend the next twenty years waiting for you to shoot me in the back. I love your daughter and I won’t give up on her, so if that’s a deal breaker, you should kill me now. Otherwise you need to back the fuck off me and my old lady.”
That caught his attention.
Picnic studied me. I waited for him to say something, but Ruger stepped forward, his face cold and tight.
“Let’s put him in the ground,” he said. “Sophie went through hell because of this asshole. I nearly lost her.”
I held Hayes’s eyes, ignoring the other man. This was about me and Pic, about determining—once and for all—whether he could tolerate me as Em’s man. I raised my hands, palms empty, and turned around so my back was to him.
“I’m ready,” I said. “Go ahead and do it. Good timing, too—you can say the cartel got me. She’ll never know the truth, and neither will my club.”
“Why?” Pic asked.
“Because she deserves a man with a future,” I said, stretching my neck to one side. Already getting sore from the accident. “I want that man to be me. I love her and I’ll do everything I can to keep her safe and happy. But I’m a realist, too. If the Reapers are determined to kill me, I’m dead already. Might take you a while to make your move, which means it’ll hurt her even more when it finally happens. I’d rather end it now than set her up for something worse down the line.”