22

I MAKE IT back to Saylor just as they are unhooking her. She is all smiles until she sees my face. When her brow wrinkles, I force the corner of my lip to turn up, and diminish all thoughts but her from my mind.

She looks fine. Great. Better even, but I know all that can change in a matter of minutes. I ask her how it went and she tells me all about the new people she met. Apparently, she is now on a first-name basis with everyone she will be sharing a room with every Friday.

She talks animatedly about her plans to brighten up the room, and has already talked to the doctor and gotten his approval. She even contacted the art department at Jackson State University, and they promised to have her request filled by Thursday of next week. The local Home Depot would be donating the supplies, and she asks me to forgive her for using up some of her charm to convince the manager to do it. I do, of course, and then wonder if the manager was a man and if she was using the word charm instead of flirt to keep me from paying him a visit. I decide that the excitement Saylor has about her project is more important. At least the “charming” was done over the phone.

She wants ice cream, and I drive through Dairy Queen and am introduced to the Peanut Buster Parfait. It’s the most delicious fucking thing I’ve ever tasted, other than Saylor, and we agree to make it part of our Friday post-treatment routine.

When we get back to Saylor’s apartment, Donnawayne and Jeffery are there waiting. Because we flew home and Saylor doesn’t have a car here, we borrowed theirs for the day. Shady was driving ours back from Nevada. He claimed he would be here in the morning. I sure as hell hope so. Driving a hybrid was sucking all the masculinity out of me.

While Saylor told Donnawayne and Jeffery about her visit, I stepped outside to call Shady back. But not before kissing Saylor’s lips and telling her to holler if she needed me. This earned me a sigh from Jeffery and an eye roll from Donnawayne. Even after everything, he still didn’t like me. I started to tell him that the fucking shirt he was wearing so proudly was bought with the money someone paid me to kill a man that looked similar to him, but then thought better of it. I didn’t want to upset Saylor.

—

“What was wrong today?” Saylor asks while we are lying in bed. I’m rubbing her naked thigh, staring at the ceiling while she writes in her diary. I want to tell her the truth, but I can’t.

“How do you feel?” I ask, avoiding her question. She gets it and doesn’t push the issue.

“I feel great. I have tons of energy.” We both know that this won’t last long. The doctor warned us that the steroids would give her a false sense of well-being and to not overdo it just because she felt good.

“You still drinking?” I ask, catching a peek of her bare ass as she leans over and grabs her half-empty bottle of Gatorade off the nightstand.

“Yep.” She turns the bottle up and drains it. Glad I have something to do, I get up to get her another one out of the fridge. My job as a Nomad was to always pay attention to my surroundings. I heard things and noticed things that wouldn’t attract most people’s attention. So when I hear the sound of muffled voices outside the kitchen window, I know they are not the voices of Saylor’s neighbors.

Even though the next-door neighbors often hang out on their back patio this time of night, and their sound often travels through our kitchen, I can decipher between what is and isn’t familiar to me. And these are the voices of people I’m not familiar with.

I walk casually back to the bedroom and stand in the door, waiting for Saylor to notice me. Within seconds she looks up and smiles, then I watch her face fall and head nod when I put my finger over my lips. I walk to the bed, making sure to put my body between her and the window, and take her hand, leading her into the bathroom, where there are no windows.

“I need you to lay down in the tub. Don’t make a sound. There are some men here and I don’t know what they want.” I turn to leave and she grabs my hand, panic filling her eyes. “I’m coming right back. I promise.” I kiss her softly on her lips and leave, hoping like hell she listens to me.

I pull my gun from my bag at the foot of the bed, then poke my head back into the bathroom to find Saylor laying in the tub. Her eyes are wide and scared, so I shoot her a wink. She offers me a small smile, but my wink does nothing to ease her worry.

I close the door, and when I’m out of her sight, I put my gun up and make my way down the hall. I’m sure nobody is inside, but I don’t know Cyrus or what he is capable of. If he wants me dead, I’m sure he is the kind of man that will stop at nothing to get just what he wants. I grab my phone off the table, making sure it’s on silent before I punch in Shady’s number.

“Yeah?” This time, Shady must sense something is wrong because he is anxious.

“I got a problem,” I whisper into the phone, and the sounds I hear on the other end tell me he is already on his way.

“Six minutes,” he answers, and I hang up, putting the phone on the floor because there is nowhere else to put it considering I’m only wearing boxers. I hope like hell they don’t kill me tonight. Mainly because of Saylor, but I damn sure don’t want them to drop me wearing nothing but my fucking underwear, and I don’t have the time to waste getting dressed.

The voices are now in the front parking lot instead of out back. I don’t know how long I have, but I’m sure that within six minutes, someone is gonna be dead. A knock at the front door has me nearly jumping out of my skin and shooting out of impulse. The thought of being caught off guard is more terrifying than what’s on the other side of the door.

I can hear my heart beating in my ears and I wonder why I’m so worked up. Maybe it’s because I’m so wired. Maybe it’s because Saylor is here. Or maybe it’s because for the first time in my life, I’m scared of dying. A knock sounds again and this time I expect it. Unless Cyrus is stupid, or just don’t give a fuck about respect, he isn’t gonna shoot me as soon as I open the door. His street cred would go to shit for being such a pussy. Taking out a man like me should be done in a more brutal way. This will ensure you high respect and earn you the fear of other men. Shooting me at my door, well that just shows that you were too weak to take me on.

I think of Saylor and what they will do to her if they kill me. Then I think of Shady and how he is now only five minutes out and will likely be able to track them down and get her back, if they even take her. Fuck it.

I put the gun behind my back and open the door, making sure my facial expression tells whoever is on the other side that I’m fucking pissed. When I see Cyrus standing with his arms clasped in front of his waist, showing me that he isn’t holding a gun, I immediately feel the fear of dying leave me. Then I get pissed that it was ever there in the first place.

There are four men standing around Cyrus, but none of them wear cuts. Even though Cyrus is proudly wearing his. I open the door wide, then walk backward to retrieve the phone from the floor, never taking my eyes off the five men crowding my doorway. I hit redial and put the phone to my ear.

“Two minutes.” He must have taken a shortcut.

“No need,” I respond, watching as the corner of Cyrus’s lip turns up slightly.

“I’ll be two blocks over. I’ll have eyes on you; you’ll have none on me.” I hang up, knowing in two minutes, Shady will be in the shadows if any of these men try anything stupid. The knowledge is reassuring.

“We’ll be in the parking lot across the street when you’re ready.” Cyrus turns to leave and I shut the door, watching his retreating back. I find Saylor still in the bathtub. This time, she is praying. Or asleep. When I say her name, her eyes open and prayer is confirmed.

“I’m going across the street to talk to some people. Shady is close and nothing is gonna happen, but I need you to stay in here until I get back. I’ll only be ten minutes.”

My words do nothing to ease her mind and I know she is fixing to fire off questions at me. I open the door wide and point to the alarm clock on the nightstand that is visible from where she is. “Ten minutes.” I pull on some jeans and a shirt, tucking my gun in the back of my pants, and slip my boots on. I walk outside, lighting a smoke on my way over to where Cyrus and his men are standing. I position myself so that I can see the front of the apartment in case someone has balls big enough to try to go in.

“No one is gonna mess with your girl, Dirk.” I remain silent, knowing that my ten minutes have already dwindled to eight. “I know that wasn’t your call. I know Tick, the SA your man Shady shot, initiated the fight. You say he made it personal. I don’t care. You know as well as any man that wears a patch that right and wrong goes out the window when it comes to your brothers. I didn’t know the club had taken it upon themselves to seek out Saylor.”

The mention of her name from his mouth makes me want to pull my gun out and end this all now. And I don’t try to hide how I feel. He already knows Saylor is my weakness. And I know he is lying. He was fully aware of what they did.

“The twelve men I buried, their blood is on your hands. And their deaths will be avenged.” He pauses, and I see his eyes flick to the pocket of my jeans. “I’m gonna ask you for a cigarette, Dirk. I don’t want the men whose guns are trained on my head to fire when I reach for my own.” He knew Shady was here. It doesn’t make him good, it just makes him experienced. He would be stupid to think I would walk out here all alone.

I hand him a smoke and even light it for him, then offer one to his men, who refuse. I don’t want a gunfight any more than they do. “But avenging my brothers’ death is only worth it if I get something out of it. When Sinner’s Creed offered your life in return for peace, they had one exception. They wanted me to give them six months. I refused, so they sweetened the deal. Not only are they giving me you, they’re giving me five mil on top of it. So, if you think about it, your club is actually paying me to take you out. I never thought Sinner’s Creed was the type to turn on their own. I guess I was wrong. But killing you won’t bring back my brothers. So I have a new demand. Your club has something I want. Something that can make this all go away.”

I watch his eyes as they dance with pure fucking elation at the question that he thinks is running through my head. What the fuck could he possibly want? But I already know what they want. If he’s waiting for me to ask, he’ll be waiting all night. Or at least he would any other time. But I don’t have all night. I have four minutes.

“What?” I ask, feigning boredom.

“I want Texas.”

“Why?”

“Why is not important. All that you need to know is Texas belongs to Death Mob. If a Sinner’s patch rolls through, he better have permission from me before he does.”

“You already know that’s not going to happen.”

“I was asked to spare your life for six months. That was two months ago. Now I’m rethinking the negotiation. So it would be in your best interest to make this happen.” Cyrus’s suggestion sounds so simple coming from his mouth. And just like Jimbo predicted, he is going back on his word. But what he doesn’t know is that I have something he wants too.

“I don’t think you’re in a position to negotiate,” I say, unable to hold back my smirk as I watch the fear spread across his face.

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“It means that you made a deal. You gave your word. But, because we’re aware of what a lying piece of shit you are, we collected something of yours.” The monster inside me becomes ecstatic at the thought of his reaction when he finds out what it is I have.

But he surprises me when he laughs. “What the hell do you have that can be more important to me than Texas?”

I give him my best smile. One that wipes that shit-eating smirk right off of his face. Shady really was the best at what he did. And he found out a secret Cyrus never thought would ever surface.

“I have your daughter.”