Dante

 

“Are you sure about this, boss?” Lion asks.

 

“It’s a bit late for that question, ain’t it?” I reply as we load the duffle bags into the back of the jeep. “The men are already whispering about electing a new president. Make sure to keep an eye on that. Might be useful to know who can be trusted in every circumstance and not just when things are rosy. You asked if I’m sure? Hell, no, I ain’t sure. But I don’t see that I’ve got a choice, apart from letting her die, and that ain’t no kind of choice. And listen.” I place my hand on Lion’s shoulder. “This is about more than Selena. At least it can be. Those trackers are gonna lead you straight to Brose. I want you to promise me something, Lion. If Brose clips me the second he gets these bags, you find him and you kill him. You kill him for Markus. You kill him for the club. And you save Selena.”

 

Lion smiles sadly. “I remember when Markus asked me to join the club. I was seventeen, and my dad had just got out of prison for killing my mom. You remember that?”

 

“I remember Markus mentioning it.”

 

“He comes swaggering out of that prison like he’s the biggest badass in history, so Markus takes me to his apartment and we do our work. Bastard killed and raped my mother and thought he could just walk about town and nothing would happen. I became a Saint that day, and I’m never going to stop being a Saint. Sorry for the ramble, boss. What I mean to say is that Markus was my friend as well as my president back in the day. I’ll end Brose if shit goes south; I’ll save the girl. But don’t let them go south, all right?”

 

“I’ll try.” I climb behind the wheel of the jeep. “I can’t help but feel like I’m riding to the hangman.”

 

“Let’s hope that isn’t true,” Lion says.

 

I follow Brose’s directions out onto I-10. The sun is setting now, its slow summer descent turning the world the color of a ripe apple. My anger hasn’t gone but I’ve pushed it far back in my head, not allowing myself to feel it. When I get my hands on Brose, when I get Selena back … those are the times for emotion. I turn onto the dusty track and bump along the road, feeling the shiv taped to the back of my knee, wondering if it’ll work, wondering if any of this’ll work.

 

I keep thinking about the way Selena looked when I asked to know more about her, all shy, all cagey, and then I imagine two futures. In one, we’re back in my apartment and we’re talking, just talking and I’m happy just to talk because this woman is so interesting to me. In the other, I’m at the bottom of a waterless well and her corpse is watching me, making the place stink. I don’t want my mind to go there but I’ve lived a violent life, and with a violent life comes violent thoughts.

 

I drive until bright headlamps cut across the darkness. There are five sets of them, all shining at crossed angles so that they appear like overlapping glow worms. I squint against the light, covering my eyes with my hand. I’m all too aware that at any second now a bullet could take me through the head. One shot from the darkness and this is over. It’d make more sense than dragging me in. But Brose isn’t the sort of man who does anything because it makes sense. Brose is the sort of man to twist the knife just for the thrill of twisting it, the sort of man who never learned how to cash out after a winning streak.

 

Brose steps into the light, dressed like a peacock as usual with his fancy suits and fancy hat. He swings his silver wolf-pommel cane back and forth as he walks. Then he approaches the jeep and taps the window with it. “Howdy there, Dante,” he says, smiling. “Would you mind stepping from the vehicle? I certainly hope you brought the merchandise like I instructed you.”

 

Instructed you. I want to break his jaw for those words alone.

 

I don’t have a choice, though. I step from the car and wait as Brose’s men remove the duffle bags and take them into the darkness. Brose just watches me, hands overlapped on his cane, smiling like an indulgent parent. Everything about him reeks of smug.

 

“A nice evening for it.” His smile gets wider. “I love a Texan sunset. It makes one feel in tune with nature, does it not?”

 

“Sure,” I say.

 

“Don’t you want to call me sir again?”

 

All around us men snigger in the darkness.

 

“That’s not happening,” I say.

 

“Oh, really?” Brose leans forward. “What if I said I’d let my men have their wicked way with your woman if you didn’t? But I won’t. Don’t worry. I have plans for you and the cunt.”

 

I bristle at the word. Every instinct I have is telling me to grab this man’s head and twist it so quickly that his neck snaps, and then keep twisting and twisting until his head comes away from his neck.

 

“Wow,” Brose says, watching me. “You really care for this girl? How curious. I always thought you and Markus were stupid ape-headed morons, but this is another level. I suppose your father was the same, a true idiot.”

 

“You didn’t know my father,” I say.

 

“I’m quite a bit older than you, in case you hadn’t noticed.” Brose grins that shit-eating grin. “But no, you’re right. I didn’t know him personally. But I’ve heard stories. I heard that he cheated on your mother so much the poor woman tried to take her own life. I suppose it was a relief to her when she finally died.”

 

“My dad never cheated on my mom,” I say. “What you’re doing here is trying to make me angry, because if you get me angry I might hit you, and then you have an excuse to put a bullet in my head.”

 

“My dear boy.” Brose makes his tittering noise. “What on earth makes you think I need an excuse to put a bullet in your head?” He waves a hand into the darkness. “Is everything accounted for?”

 

“Everything’s here, boss.”

 

“Okay. Make sure he isn’t carrying any weapons. You know how sneaky these Saints can be.”

 

I do as Whisper told me: bend my knee ever so slightly so that the small shank is buried within the crook, hiding it. I feel stupid standing there like that but the man patting me down doesn’t notice anything. He does a quick job. He pats the back of my knee, I hold my breath, and then he goes onto my calf. I let out the breath and try to appear calm.

 

“I have some business in town,” Brose says, turning away from me. “But we’ll talk soon enough.”

 

“What about Selena?” I take a step forward. Several men emerge from the darkness, guns raised.

 

“Oh, your whore?” Brose titters again. What I would give to throttle that tittering asshole…

 

“Did you really think it would be this easy?”

 

“Do you want to be known as a man who goes back on his word?” I talk loudly so that everybody can hear. “Do you really want that to get out, Brose? Every bastard in Austin will hear of this.”

 

“And how’s that?” Brose asks. “My men are loyal.”

 

“Every single one of them?” I laugh harshly. “No one is completely loyal.”

 

“I am not giving you that girl!” he screams, his hat falling from his head. He waves his cane in the air. “Do you hear me?”

 

I watch him silently, and then say, “That wasn’t very gentlemanly of you.”

 

“You think you’re funny?” Brose gestures into the darkness. “I want three men to drive him into the middle of nowhere and bury him up to his neck. I’ll collect him in the morning. We’ll see if that teaches him some manners.”

 

“What is she to you?” I ask. I hear a note of desperation in my voice, a note I hate. But I can’t help it. This isn’t how men are supposed to conduct business. “Why not just let her go, now that you have me?”

 

Brose just smiles, picks up his hat, and walks away.

 

Three men approach me, herding me toward a coupe parked off to the side. The man who sits in the back with me is wide-shouldered and hard-faced, exactly the sort of man I can imagine carrying out Brose’s orders without second-guessing them. I evaluate the situation: all the men have guns, but they’re not easy to get at since the car is small. And in small places small weapons work better anyhow.

 

The driver starts the car and heads into the dark.

 

I sit silently, my hand inching toward the tiny slit Whisper and I cut into my jeans.

 

“I can’t believe you got me on digging duty,” the passenger says. He’s a ginger-haired man with freckles around his nose. “I’ve got the game taped at home, man. And now I have to spend all night digging in the hot dang desert. What sort of deal is that?”

 

“Be quiet,” the wide-shouldered man says.

 

“Why?” Ginger cranes his neck around. “I kill for him, I rape for him, I steal for him, but now I have to bury for him.”

 

“The last time I checked,” Wide-Shoulder says, “you like killing and raping and stealing.”

 

Ginger shrugs. “Well—still.”

 

I strike as quick as a viper, taking the shiv from my jeans and slicing the neck of the wide-shouldered man in one fluid movement. He thrashes wildly, his fist catching me on the side of the head, but blood is pouring from his neck like a busted fountain and soon he’ll be still. I dart forward and grab Ginger’s hair, pull his head back and then slit his throat in another viper-quick movement. As both men thrash as men’ll do when they die, I grab the driver and bring the shiv to his throat.

 

“I guess you’re pretty damn scared right about now,” I say. “Look at your friends there.” He looks; both of them murmur, mouths full of blood, lying back as if falling asleep. “Is that how you want to end up? No, I guess not. So here’s what we’re going to do, friend. You’re going to drive me to wherever they’re keeping Selena. How does that sound?” I press the shiv firmly into the fleshy part of his neck.

 

“That sounds fine, sir,” the driver says. “That sounds just fine. There’s no reason to get nasty now.”

 

“Get nasty.” I laugh. My hands and face are covered in blood. “There’s a word for it.”

 

“What’re you going to do with me now, mister?” the man croaks. He brings the car to a stop outside a dingy-looking warehouse.

 

“If I let you go, you’re gonna go and tell your boss, I reckon.”

 

“No, sir!” the man snaps. “I’ve got more smarts than that. I don’t wanna tell my boss a thing. I won’t do this anymore. I’m done. I’m done.”

 

I sigh. I don’t want to kill this man. Killing the other two was self-defense; if I didn’t kill them they’d stop me from getting to Selena. But if I kill this man, it’s cold blood. It’s strange, because usually I don’t give a damn if it’s cold blood or not when it comes to killing, especially if I’m on a job. But I don’t have the will to drive this shank into his neck. He looks too scared, too vulnerable, too pathetic.

 

“Is there a rope in trunk?” I ask.

 

The man nods.

 

“All right, then. We’re going to climb out slowly together. If you make a move I don’t like, you get stuck like your friends.”

 

We climb from the car together, but as soon as his feet touch the ground he ducks his head and springs for the warehouse. I sprint after him. I’m faster, and I catch him in less than a few seconds. The shank bites into the back of his neck, cuts down between his shoulder blades and then nips at his lower back seven or eight times. He falls with blood gushing from the myriad wounds. “Fucking idiot,” I mutter, stepping over him.

 

I go into the warehouse, shank at my side, ready to strike. I creep along the hallways, listening for any sound. To the right, there’s the sound of dripping water. To the right, there’s the sound of men grumbling. I sneak to the right, almost growling now with my excitement to get Selena back. Get her back and get the fuck out of here. I’m done messing around with these Wraith fucks.

 

I stop at the metal door. It’s half open and inside men are talking. “She got you good, Rolf,” a young man says.

 

“Is it bad?” The older man sucks in breath through his teeth, making a whistling noise. “Not so hard!”

 

“Don’t be a baby!”

 

“How do you think she got that screw loose?”

 

“No fucking clue. Good job she’s tied up proper now though.”

 

I knock the shank against the door, making a ringing metal-on-metal sound, and then retreat into the shadows.

 

“What was that?”

 

“I don’t know. Let me check.”

 

“Be careful …”

 

“Probably just the metal cooling or whatever it is metal does.”

 

“Make annoying sounds to freak us out?” The old man laughs awkwardly.

 

The ginger-haired kid walks past me, squinting into the darkness, gun at his side. I leap at him and stab him through the side of the neck, grabbing his weapon with my free hand. He gurgles and spasms and then collapses, bleeding everywhere. I heft the pistol and aim it forward as I creep through the metal door. The old man holds his hands up. “It’s you,” he says. “Oh Lord. No, no, no. Not you. I thought the boss had you?”

 

I shoot him twice in the leg. He screams, clutching at the burning flesh. “Limp out of here,” I say. “Right fuckin’ now.”

 

Tears stream down his cheeks as he limps past me. I keep the gun trained on him the whole time, and then creep down the hallway to door jammed at an odd angle into a frame. My guess is there never used to be a door here; it was an open passageway to a communal shower. I shoulder the door open and find Selena hunched against the wall, cuffs tied behind her back.

 

“Dante?” she gasps.

 

I take a step forward, and then another, and another. And then I kneel down next to her. “Wait, let me get the key.”

 

I quickly get the keys to the cuffs from the younger man’s pocket, and then return to her. She stands up when I uncuff her, smiling at me in a serious, focused way. “I’ve thought about you a lot,” she says. “Does that make me crazy?”

 

“If it does then I guess I’m crazy, too.”

 

She throws herself at me, wrapping her arms around my shoulders and kissing me like no woman has kissed me before. For a moment I’m so stunned, I just stand there like an asshole as she presses her lips against mine. And then the relief and the joy at seeing her explodes out of me. I know we should get going, but I want to savor this moment. I grab her by the hips and pull her close to me. We’re strangers—I have to keep reminding myself of that—but our kiss is like we’ve known each other for a long time and are coming together again after a long torturous absence. I reach down to her ass, knowing I shouldn’t, knowing that now isn’t the right time.

 

I want her to stop me, to tell me we can do this later. I can’t stop without her. But then she reaches down for my crotch. Madness grips us and we begin tearing at each other’s clothes.

 

It’s only when I hear the man step into the room behind me that I stop, cursing myself. I turn, gun raised—too late.

 

A shot fires and then I’m falling. Selena screams, charging at the figure. But I don’t see anything now. Falling seems to take a long time. I topple like a tower. When I finally crash into the ground, everything goes dark.

 

The last thing I hear before falling into the abyss is a bony crack and Selena’s body hitting the floor beside mine.