Neither the vicious sex nor the wind in his face had taken an edge off the fury of Gunner’s temper. The look on Lola’s face when he’d turned away from her after one of the most intense experiences of his life… God, what kind of monster was he? He wasn’t an idiot. He knew that she wanted to hear that he loved her. Fuck, he wanted to say it. There, with the taste of her on his tongue, he wanted to say it more than anything. But his baby girl was still missing. How could he profess his love to anyone right now? How could it possibly mean anything?
Maybe that was stupid, maybe he was selling both of them short. Hell, it wasn’t like she’d fucking missed the part where the girl was missing. But it didn’t make it easier or less painful.
How could he declare his love to a woman his daughter hadn’t even met? He hadn’t told a woman that he loved them since Sam. He hadn’t told anyone that he’d loved them before Sam, either. So, what kind of track record was that?
He’d left her behind. He’d done the right thing. She’d get over him now, and she’d be able to move on. And he... Well, who the hell knew what he’d do. Something. Something smart, and sensible, and responsible. There had to be an answer.
Horse was waiting for him at the clubhouse, a bottle of Scotch at the ready. He’d already poured two fingers for Gunner, who threw them back without hesitation. His jaw ached, his fists ached, his body ached. His heart ached, although he didn’t want to think about that any goddamn more than he had to. Horse didn’t say a word, not for a long time. Whenever Gunner’s glass got empty, it was refilled.
“How much do you know?” Gunner asked after a very long time.
Horse gave a shrug. “Whoever they are, they covered their tracks. This is bigger than two clubs pissing on each other’s territory, Gunner. We have to start looking at the bigger picture.”
Gunner spent a moment sizing up his old friend. “You think it’s time to call the police?”
“Not in any official capacity. But I called up a couple of old friends — guys who used to ride with us before they decided the straight and narrow had some kind of appeal. They’re looking into some things. Maybe Sam knew something we didn’t know about at the time, man. Maybe she was involved in some darker shit than we ever thought.”
The idea that this wasn’t all his fault. God, he could cling to that like a goddamn life preserver, but at the same time, it felt so fucking wrong to even consider.
“I don’t know, Colton, it just seems. So wrong. Sam never did anything dirty, you know that. She hated that I was ever here, she hated that I was ever a part of this life. She wanted nothing to do with it.”
“I know,” Horse said, nodding. He’d consumed more than his share of whiskey as well; the bottle, nearly full when Gunner had arrived, was at the bottom of the label. Horse tipped it again, filling both of their glasses, and emptying the bottle. He gestured at the bar, and someone reached down to find another bottle of the reserve Scotch Horse kept for himself back there.
“Tell me again. At the end. She had a new job, you said. Interning with someone.”
“Legal aid,” Gunner replied. “She said it was her way out, that she was really going to make a difference. For kids like her, who’d grown up rough. She never said kids like me. But she meant it.”
Horse waved that part away. “Focus with me for a minute, man. Did she mean that the job was going to make a difference, or that she’d learned something about someone who was going to help her make a difference? Would she have told you which it was?”
Gunner sat back in his chair, his entire world suddenly shifted ten feet to the left. He couldn’t follow the words in his head, not with any ease. It had been so many years ago, but — no, Sam had never been really clear, which it was. He’d assumed because he’d been a dumb kid. They’d both been dumb kids. And he’d been sure that they were going to change the world, yeah, but they were going to do it together, and how was Sam going to do anything by being just another fucking wage slave, and especially one who’d just gotten some shit job where she didn’t even get paid. Cocky Gunner had been sure that was some kind of fucking rip-off gig and a piece of crap. And maybe he’d been right, but it had been their last fight, so he’d avoided thinking about it for years.
He stared at Horse, and everything he hadn’t been able to finish thinking was there in his eyes.
Horse nodded. “I’ll make some calls. Find out what she was looking at, what she might have found out. Who we can talk to.” Horse lifted the bottle to fill it again, and Gunner nearly choked. He reached forward, grabbing the bottle, splashing whiskey over both of them. Horse shouted but stared as Gunner lifted the bottle up into the air.
There, on the bottom, was a symbol sketched in black. The bottle from Horse’s private collection that no one goddamn well touched. He wouldn’t have known the symbol twenty-four hours ago, but now… Lola had drawn it for him in the dirt outside the Red Vipers’ clubhouse. It had been etched into the base of a bullet that had been hanging from her kidnapper’s rearview mirror.
“Horse,” Gunner said, his voice scratchy and broken. The man had been here. The man had touched absolutely everything that Gunner had ever considered his.
The man was going to die.