Xander

 

I sit on my couch, feeling the effects of the alcohol withdrawal but feeling the effects of Kayla’s absence a hell of a lot more. I rest my elbows on my knees, staring down at my cellphone and my pistols. I’ve been all around town looking for Connor and Kayla and I haven’t been able to find either. I even called up Maxwell and had him work some of his army shit but nothing came up. I’m stranded, alone, lost—and Kayla could be anywhere and anything could be happening to her.

 

I thump the couch, so pissed at myself I could put a bullet in the goddamn wall. Why did I have to get drunk? Why did I have to push her away? A small voice whispers that I barely know her, that I’m being too hard on myself, but it’s a voice that has little to no sway within me. It doesn’t matter; all that matters is keeping her and my nephew safe.

 

I almost break my phone, I answer it so quickly.

 

“I hear you’ve been looking for me,” he says, sounding as smug as he always did back in the day when he waged war against the club.

 

“Where is she?” My voice trembles. It’s not a good idea to show a man like Connor how angry I am, but I can’t help it. I pace up and down the room, from the wrecked armchair to the bathroom. “What the fuck have you done with her?”

 

“She’s safe,” he says. “For now, anyway. It’s amazing what a few hits of morphine can do to relax a person. She’s sleeping like a little angel, which, I suppose, would make her fit in with your lot, wouldn’t it?”

 

“Very funny,” I mutter. “What about the kid?”

 

“Snoozing, both of them are snoozing. I have to tell you, they’re lucky to just be sleeping. They ought to be dead for what that little bitch did to me. Spraying me like that. It was very foolish of her. And you really care about her, don’t you? That’s the most amazing thing to me. You really care about this whore. I had my fun with her—she could be fun, when she tried—but you, you don’t … do you love her?”

 

I don’t answer. I’m gritting my teeth and clenching my fist and imagining what it’d be like to wrap my hands around his throat and squeeze until his face goes red and then dead-white. “Let her go,” I say. “Don’t be a fuckin’ coward.”

 

“There it is!” he cries, sounding gleeful. “It always comes back to that with you biker fucks, doesn’t it? Bravery, honor, toughness, blah, blah, boo. It always comes back to some twisted sense of what makes you a good man, but what you all forget is that you forfeited the right to be a good man a long time ago. Good men don’t kill people. Good men don’t commit crimes. These lines you draw, Xander, between murder and rape, between arson and gun-running. Do you really think they make you better than me?”

 

“Yes,” I say without hesitation. “I do, ’cause we’ve never kidnapped women, children. We’ve never burnt down a bar which had civilians in it as well as outlaws. We’re careful.”

 

“How fun that sounds,” he mutters. “I get it. Really, I do. She has her grandmother’s egg just waiting to be cracked open and you want a taste of the yolk. I can’t blame you. I’m exactly the same. Once I’ve played my tricks on her for a couple of weeks she’ll marry me without resistance. I know her. I know how I can bend her mind.”

 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I tell him. “To me you just sound like a madman spitting out horseshit.”

 

“You don’t know about the egg?” I can almost hear him stroking his chin. “How interesting. Perhaps it truly is love. Anyway, let’s forget about that for now. I want you to bring me twenty thousand in cash and an assurance that you will back off, leave me be. I have business in this town and I don’t need you hurting my men. Pay me the cash and back off, and I’ll let her live. Keep on like you are, and I’ll rape and kill her. The only mercy she’ll get is that I might switch the order.”

 

I press my knuckles against my forehead, trying to get rid of this pounding headache. “What do you want twenty grand for? That’s not exactly a king’s ransom.”

 

“No, but it’s enough for you to show me that you’re sorry and that you won’t fuck with me again. It’s enough to show me that you won’t overreach again. Because here’s the thing, little guy, you’re not much to me in the grand scheme of things. You’re just a rodent, and all I require from a rodent is a show of submission. Then, maybe, I won’t step on you.”

 

“Sure.” I bite down on my finger to stop myself from growling at him. Kayla, I remind myself. Cormac. They need me to stay calm. “Where are we meeting?”

 

“Why don’t you come by the laundromat?” He smiles; there’s no noise but I know he’s smiling. “And Xander, if you bring even one of your biker friends, I kill them both. I want her money but I won’t give away my respect for it. Disrespect me and she dies. Come alone, bring the cash, and then get on with your pathetic, pointless life. See you in half an hour.”

 

My head is spinning when he hangs up the phone. Grandmother’s egg … that must be an inheritance of some sort, but she can only get it when she’s married. Her grandmother must’ve been the old-fashioned type. But I can’t think about that right now. I rush into the bedroom, under the bed, and take out the duffle bag full of cash.

 

I take out a few stacks, stuff them in my jacket pockets, and then go down into the street. The sun has fully set now. How many days since I last saw Kayla? Two, three? Time has a funny way of warping when your body is screaming at you to load it full of whisky. I ride toward the laundromat feeling nervous and already defeated, because if Connor has Kayla that means there isn’t much I can do here except give him the cash and regroup. At the very least I can make sure that she’s okay. Perhaps I can wait for an opening; it depends on how cocky Connor gets. But all in all, to call this a less than ideal situation would be one hell of an understatement. I stop outside the laundromat, make sure my guns are ready for a quick draw, and then walk across the street.

 

The door is locked. I knock on it and wait. After a few moments, the door swings open as though a ghost just nudged it. Nobody is standing behind it, just the deep darkness of the inside. I walk in, looking around me, listening for sounds of life. This is always a bad situation for an outlaw to be in, in a place he hasn’t staked out properly without backup. Anything could happen to me here.

 

Then Connor steps out behind the desk, most of his body blocked by a large drying machine that wasn’t there earlier today. The only part of him I can properly see is his head and his knee, visible at the side of the machine. Otherwise he is protected.

 

“Hello,” he says, smiling. “How are you doing this fine evening?”

 

“Where is she?” I shoot back. “I’ve got the cash and I’ll give you your fuckin’ promise, but if you don’t show me that she’s all right, we ain’t got a deal.”

 

“I don’t think you’re in any position to be making demands, you silly fellow. If you like, I can go to her now, cut her a little, see how her blood tastes. I remember when she danced for me. Once I had her dance for five hours straight. How she moved, Xander, like a real princess …

 

“Where is she?” I take out my gun and point it at his head.

 

He grins wider. “You’re not shooting me this evening.”

 

“No? I guess we’ll see about that. You better start talking. I’m tired of this horseshit.”

 

“Tired? Yes, me too. I’m so tired I could eat a baby. Oh, wait, I suppose that doesn’t make much sense, does it?”

 

“If you’ve kept an eye on our club, then you know that I’m the best shot in the Angels, which means you know it ain’t a big deal for me to take off your head right now. So I’d suggest that you go and get Kayla and show me that she’s alive, and then we can talk like men. Right now you’re acting like a fuckin’ spider.”

 

“You have been talking to her.” He drums his fingers against the dryer, an echoing metallic sound. “She called me a spider many times when we argued. It was one of her favorite insults.”

 

“You don’t have her, do you?” I take out my second gun and aim both of them at his face, stroking the triggers. “You fuckin’ lied to me.”

 

He shrugs. “I guess it doesn’t matter now, does it? No, tough guy, I don’t have her. I don’t know where the little whore is. As far as I’m concerned, if she’s lying at the bottom of a ditch with her throat slit, it’s a good day.”

 

“Why am I here, then?”

 

“I thought it would be good for us to talk,” he says. “I want to make an offer to you, the same offer I gave to your brother before he so unfortunately passed away.”

 

“You mention my brother again and I’ll paint the wall red with your blood.”

 

“Fair enough. But let me give you the offer anyway. If you leave the state and go someplace and never bother me again, I’ll let you live. I don’t kill people for the sake of it. I don’t get any special thrill from it. I’m a businessman above anything else. So just leave, cut your losses, find a new woman. You don’t need to tie yourself to Kayla like she’s got a magic pussy or something. There are plenty of them out there.”

 

“You’re insane if you ever think I’d agree to that. And you’re a fucking idiot for coming here.”

 

I’m about to end it, my finger is on the trigger, when a man leaps from the shadows, the size of a vending machine with four bandages for four bullet holes. He knocks me off balance. I squeeze the trigger. It hits the ceiling. The man punches me in the gut but I manage to get another shot off, clipping Connor in the back of the leg as he runs out the back door. He lets out a yelp but then the door slams and it’s just me and the vending-machine fella.

 

He grabs the guns from my hands and tosses them over the counter, and then starts waling on me. He hits me four or five times in the face before I knee him in the ass, knocking him off me, and then slide over the counter for my guns. He grabs my leg and yanks me back to the floor and goes for the guns himself. I leap at him, punching him several times in the face, headbutting him, biting part of his ear off and spitting the bloody flesh in his eyes. Then I grab my gun and lay it against his temple.

 

“Stop,” I tell him. “Or die.”

 

He stops shifting about.

 

“I’m leaving. Make one move and you’re a fuckin’ dead man.”

 

He might be as big as a vending machine, but he ain’t as dumb as one. He lets me leave without messing around.

 

I ride back toward my apartment.

 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I whisper. “Kayla, where are you?”