I throw my right hand up in the air without turning around, and keep right on walking to locate Hazard, to let him know I will be MIA for twenty-four hours.
I’ll also need to find somebody who knows how to pilot a private jet and can pull some strings to get A1-fucking-security-clearance to take that big, sleek, white bird, of motherfucker Cezar’s, and get me as close to the small town of Connard, Louisiana, as possible. I don’t care if he lands it in a fucking field. I need to get to Miss Catherine. Pronto.
The surgery is quiet. Half the men are here, and the other half are back at Ghost’s cabin, catching up on some well deserved rest and then they rotate. I haven’t budged from the surgery.
I locate Hazard and Adam together in the small, serviceable kitchen. They’re drinking coffee and they seem to be having hushed, angry words, which are too low for me to make out.
The moon boot, Doc had thrust into my hands earlier, gave my presence away as I thumped towards them.
“Something I should know about?” I ask, stopping beside them and crossing my arms over my chest.
Hazard is the first to break away, ending their heated discussion.
“Nope,” they both say, looking at me.
Hazard’s changed into fresh clothes: black jeans, a gray long sleeved Henley and a leather jacket with his hair tied neatly back.
“How you holding up, Edge?” Hazard’s dark eyes search mine to see if I heard what they were squabbling about. He’s trying to move the spotlight away from what was going on when I walked in. He doesn’t ask me how Whisper is because he knows I’m out of the loop.
“Fucking brilliant,” I say in a tone that says I’m not buying what they’re trying to sell.
I take my time eyeing them both up, because I can smell bullshit in the air and I don’t like it.
Adam’s out of the sentinel suit and dressed in borrowed jeans and a warm sweater. He looks good for a man who’s been deep undercover. He’s definitely aged from the stress of the job, his hair salt-and-peppered and some cosmetic modifications have been added to the appearance of the man, I once trusted with my life. His poker face is looking back at me.
“Good to see you under less extreme conditions, Adam.” I shake his hand.
“Good to see you looking better, if not in need of a shower.” Adam tries to pick up Hazard’s slack of shining the spotlight away from what I walked in on.
I let it slide for the moment. “We’ve got some catching up to do, brother.” He knows I’ll want to talk to him about what went down in The Pen—on his watch.
“That we do, and I’ll tell you everything I can,” he replies.But I don’t like the way he says the word ‘can’. “I might not have seen you for a few years, but I know that look in your eye you got aimed at me, Edge. What’s on your mind?” Adam has always been sharp. It’s kept him alive.
“Need a pilot ASAP and to borrow evidence for a trip to Louisiana to collect an old lady, who means the world to Whisper, instead of sitting on my ass waiting for Boxer to get off his ass and talk to me.”
Adam grins at me because he knows the evidence I need to borrow. “Hell, yeah, I can accommodate, got me a pretty fancy jet at my disposal—free. Nobody in the real world knows Filip is deceased, so nobody will question me taking the jet from the hangar. Money can change hands and I’ll get you to where you need to go.” He looks me up and down with concern. “You can have a snooze between Versace sheets if you like, but you might want to get one of your boys to bring you some fresh clothes, prior to takeoff. You can even take a shower in Cezar’s bathroom down at the hangar.”
“Doubt I’ll be able to sleep, got too much going on in my head.” That’s a fact. “But I could do with some clean clothes.”
“Don’t forget that shower.”Adam reaches out and places his hand on my good arm. “All joking aside, Edge. I just wanted you to know, Whisper was so fucking brave in there. Cezar forced her to cane Mathias, making her participate in one of his sick mindfuck games.” Jesus. “She’s carrying around so much in that head of hers. I need you to know that, because it seriously messed with her head. She’s carrying—”
“Enough!” Hazard squares off with Adam, shoving his face into his personal space. “Don’t!”
“Whoa, settle down, big guy.” Adam forcefully pushes Hazard back a few feet, a fierce look in his eyes, which would force a lesser man to back down.
Adam’s changed under Cezar’s rule. He’s had to do bad things to earn a place as a sentinel. You can’t just wash that off your back in a few days. There is a deadly edge to him now.
Fists are being clenched by both men, a storm is rising and I didn’t need this escalating to weapons being drawn. No fucking time for it.
“I told Ghost I wouldn’t… Hazard,” he says through clenched teeth. “Have some motherfucking faith, will you. I was going to say”—he turns his attention back to me, not caring there is a Soulless Bastard biker staring him down with death on his mind for pushing him backwards—“she’s carrying around a lot of guilt for what she did to Mathias. It nearly broke her in there, after all the shit she’d been put through, that was the thing that almost made her lose her mind. She needs zero stress and no violence until she can be strong enough to mentally take on what you and your club stand for… if she can.”
It’s my turn to get my nose pushed out of joint. “What the fuck do you mean by that?” Even though I know what he means.
“You need me to break it down for you?”
No.
I’m just being defensive because Adam’s right. She’s led a life filled with violence and I’m a man of violence. I kill people; it’s a fact. She doesn’t need more violence in her life and no mercy is what I show my victims.
FUCK!
Adam was always one for being direct.
“You all have to tone down your badassery and bring her some security where she won’t want to run. She will run if she fears for her safety around you and the men.” Adam looks at Hazard as though they share a secret. “She’s got a lot more to lose now and she won’t take that risk. That’s all I’m sayin’.
“I’ve been around the women who have come and gone, seen one event prior to this one and I have to live with the fact I couldn’t break cover, because I had squat to go on. Cezar and Filip kept us in the dark. I wasn’t in the same position, back then. It took time to climb the ladder. This event was the first time I was able to bring in the attendees and be privy to the destination. Filip always did that.
“Fucker took from a lot of families over the years. I’m glad Rose finished him off,” he says with a mixture of regret and pride. “He broke that girl’s spirit, I had to stand there and watch or know what was being done to her. I couldn’t intervene, and that was fucking hard, because I was always thinking of Eve, my sister. I’m glad Filip has been accounted for among the dead and subsequently barbecued. I’ve been speaking to the other men, asking about a black man, the only black man who was at that house and some of your men saw him face down dead when they were fleeing before the bombs went off. I can rest knowing a man like that is confirmed dead because you don’t want that dark, twisted man coming after you.”
I’ve not had time to think about the man who killed Ruby Rose—another fucktard who escaped my retribution. They all got off too light.
“Come on Adam, we got time to talk it all out on the flight. I got an old lady to surprise.”
“I’ll come with you.” Hazard is ready to back me up.
“Rather you stayed here and kept Whisper safe. Don’t need more than one person to do the job.”
“I don’t suppose you do; pretty straight forward run to go get her and bring her back,” Hazard says.
You would have thought so.
But it was me who was gonna be the one surprised.
And not the good kind.