Rosie

Age Seven

Death isn’t something kids understand. It’s some black cloud that drifts in and out of their lives, perhaps when some barely known great aunt gets swallowed up in its embrace. They witness it from afar, feel its chilly grip drifting past. But most children, the lucky ones, they forget that fleeting coldness and sense of terror; the cloud drifts away with the winds of youth brushing it quickly by, replacing it with whatever new toy was around, the best places to ride their bikes, the best way to escape the newest bully.

For most children.

I was not, nor had I ever been, a normal child.

Death wasn’t a disembodied cloud, drifting far above my innocent head. It didn’t just brush me and then move away. Death was always a thing, a personification that had always existed.

Like Santa Claus.

But instead of the red jolly man, the black and imposing thing did not come giving gifts. That menacing presence came and snatched things off me. Little pieces here and there, leaving empty spaces in the mosaic of my family.

Always violent. The endings of the men patched into the Sons of Templar were not anticlimactic, withering away in old age and senility.

No, it was always a rapid and violent end.

I was spared some of the violent endings.

Some were inevitable.

Like the time, right after my first day at school, when I’d been sitting on Dad’s workbench, swinging my boots, sucking on a lollipop and daydreaming of that boy I’d seen. Then my magical daydreams of princes and princesses and all those simple fantasies that can only be made in youth were snatched away with the screeching of tires and shouts and chaos.

There was always chaos.

“Rosie, baby, stay there and don’t move until I say,” Daddy shouted, dropping his tools with a clatter and sprinting toward where the black van had stopped. It was parked funny.

I wasn’t focused on how Evie would yell at the grown-ups for blocking the parking lot because there was more than that to focus on.

Red.

Blood.

It stained the cracked concrete of the parking lot.

I blinked, just in case I was seeing something that really wasn’t there. Like how I had been just seeing that boy smile at me and say hello and take me for a ride on his horse even though he’d never smiled or talked to me.

But it stayed.

And it got worse when I saw the blood was coming from Sonny.

He wasn’t moving.

He was staring at me.

But not in the way he did when he pulled a penny from my ear. There was no sparkle in his eyes. No twinkle. There wasn’t anything in them.

My lollipop tumbled to join Daddy’s discarded tools on the ground, where the blood would eventually creep up and swallow it away.

That was only the first, and most dramatic, time.

When I’d met the man called Death.

It didn’t happen often, but I saw him more than Santa Claus.

He had been taking pieces from the mosaic of my life, but I managed to glue what remained together, still smile and pretend to forget about the thing called Death.

That was until he grabbed me by the throat and smashed every piece of my mosaic apart.

It was when he took Daddy.

I didn’t see the glassy stare of Death replace the fond gray gaze of my father like I had with Sonny.

I wished I had.

It would’ve been bad. Horrifying. Terrifying.

But it wouldn’t have been—couldn’t have been—as bad as Evie walking woodenly toward me. Like a zombie. Like a stranger wearing her skin and impersonating her almost perfectly.

Almost.

“Rosie, it’s your father,” she said, the rough husk somehow disappearing from her voice. It was the audible version of cardboard.

My stomach dropped, in a hideous and unbearable way, and it didn’t stop dropping. Like a pebble tumbling into the black depths of a well.

“He’s dead,” she choked out, her shaking hands pulling me into an uncharacteristic embrace. “Your dad’s dead.”

Evie didn’t hug. She wasn’t like the other moms: she didn’t bake, didn’t dress in pastel, didn’t join the PTA.

She wasn’t even really my mom.

But my real mom was even less like a mom than Evie.

And Evie loved me in her own way. But it was never in a way that hugged me, held my hand or kissed me on the forehead.

Yet she did all three now, like if she did something as completely uncharacteristic as show me affection that maybe it might work to distract me from her words. Take the burn away from them.

But it only intensified the pain.

There was no moment of blessed numbness as a child tried to reconcile the distant concept of death and wrap it around the constant figure of their parent.

There was none of that.

Only Death’s gaping and toothless smile as it engulfed my father, snatching him away, showing me that I’d never see him again.

He was gone.

Sonny’s stare replaced Evie’s eyes, tears streaking through her makeup.

That was my father.

Not exactly the same, but it would’ve ended in blood.

My seven-year-old self knew that.

We were at war.

My seven-year-old self knew that too.

Because I wasn’t allowed to play after school. Or ride my bike with the neighborhood kids. I was only allowed out if at least two people with at least two guns on their hips came with me.

I knew that because even when I tried the hardest, I could only coax the smallest smile from my father’s marble face. Because sometimes he didn’t hug me good night because he didn’t come home at all. And sometimes he hugged me so tight I was sure he was going to squeeze my eyes right out of my head. He hugged me like he never might get to do it again.

And now he wouldn’t.

I wondered idly if he knew, if he’d seen glimpses of Death at the corner of his eyes, knew that he was waiting.

I tried to remember if it seemed that way, if when he said goodbye to me he knew it would be the last time. Even though I’d only seen him that morning, before I left for school, I couldn’t remember what he said. What I said to him. It was desperately important to remember what my last words were. Did I tell him I loved him?

I didn’t know.

How could I not know? I had the best memory. I played a game with Brock at who could remember the most current patched presidents.

I always won.

But now I could barely remember what my daddy looked like.

It was like Death had snatched not just my daddy’s body and that light from his eyes but all of the memories of him, scratching my mind clean when I was too busy practicing how to pick locks with Steg.

Evie brushed my wild curl away from my face, clearing my dry eyes. “Baby?” she asked. “Did you hear me?”

I nodded. “Yes,” I said robotically. “Daddy is dead. I heard you.”

She flinched like I’d hit her, her grip relaxing on my shoulders.

I hadn’t planned it, but I used the slackening in her grip as an opportunity to yank myself away from her grasp. I escaped hers, but not Death’s, its skeletal hands still digging into my shoulder so deep I was sure it drew blood.

I didn’t look to see.

I reasoned that I just needed to run fast.

And I did.

It was the first time I’d ever done something like that. After that, the club, down to the freshest prospect, knew to be prepared against it. These guys didn’t expect it. Which was what made me successful.

Which was what got me miles away from the club, sitting at the end of a wharf, dipping my toes in the ocean as it gushed forward at high tide. I was wishing it might swallow me up. That’s how I discovered another first on that day: no matter how hard you tried, wishes never came true.

I didn’t hear his approach because of the roar of the waves, because of the deafening cry of the pain echoing in my ears. It was only when his lanky body folded down next to me that I realized Death and I had company.

The ocean swallowed my swift intake of breath.

It wasn’t Cade, as I’d expected it to be.

It wasn’t anyone wearing a leather cut.

It was a tanned and lean teenage boy wearing a navy-blue tee, neatly pressed so his sculpted and tanned arms snaked out of it perfectly. His mussed hair blew in the wind, and I gaped at his glassy blue eyes. They almost matched the water I’d been wishing to drown in.

I got my wish then. A different kind of ocean swallowed me up.

Luke.

I didn’t know how he found me. Didn’t know, at that point, that half the town, including his father, were so focused on the death of my own father that only one person noticed me missing.

Don’t ask me how he knew I was gone. How he knew I was sitting on that wharf. How he knew to gently engulf my small and pale hand in his large and tanned one. Knew not to say a word but just to sit with me, holding my hand and watching the ocean.

I didn’t know any of it. I only knew that it was the first time Luke Crawford, the sheriff’s son and the future sheriff, saved me.

It wasn’t the last, either.

* * *

Luke

Age Fourteen

Luke couldn’t remember when exactly he stopped looking at his father as a hero.

He couldn’t exactly remember when he started to, either. It seemed he’d always thought of his father as that, in that way that everybody who has a decent dad who gives them time, attention, teaches them how to ride their bike, play catch, winks at them at the table when their mother is chastising them both for having candy and not having room for dinner.

There was all that normal hero worship that every kid had, every child should have had if they had a father who was doing their job right.

Then there was something more than that. There was Luke watching his father drink his coffee, read the paper, have his mother kiss his clean-shaven cheek and hand him a soft-boiled egg, wheat toast, bacon on the side.

OJ for vitamins.

He’d be wearing his uniform, collar unbuttoned, gun belt absent—it hung at a hook beside the door, where he’d put it every night when he got home, too high for Luke to reach.

Luke would eat his Froot Loops or Cheerios, watch his father read the paper, dip his toast into the yellow of his egg.

“You gonna catch the bad guys today?” Luke would ask.

His dad would chuckle, his eyes appearing from the top of the paper, crinkling at the sides. “No bad guys to catch. Not in Amber, son. Gonna make sure it stays that way.”

“So you’ll keep us safe?”

His father’s eyes wouldn’t crinkle. Something would pass over them that a young Luke couldn’t understand, and an older Luke would recognize as his father’s silent battle between his job and his moral responsibility.

“I’ll always keep you safe. Whatever it takes.”

And he did. Luke and his mom were safe, happy, content. He would walk down the street with his father, watch him greet everyone, most people by first name—he took the time to do that kind of stuff. Amber was small, and there weren’t any bad guys, so he had the time.

He didn’t know when it stopped. That hero worship thing, that boasting to his classmates that his daddy kept the whole of Amber safe.

Maybe it was when Luke began to understand the politics of the town. Who really ran it. Not his father with his uniform and moral responsibility but the motorcycle men, with the tattoos and that something else that Luke wouldn’t see as morals.

He didn’t know when the hero worship started to fade off. But he knew when it disappeared completely.

He’d often ride with his father in his cruiser after school, when his mother was at book club or working at her part-time job at the library. He loved it at first, riding up front, watching his dad at work.

But he was older now, and he didn’t quite know if he liked watching anymore. He didn’t quite like what he saw.

He’d been pissed that day that he couldn’t go shoot hoops with his friends. He couldn’t escape this horrible feeling creeping up on him like a bad tuna sandwich that his dad wasn’t the man he thought he was.

Then he got the call on the radio telling him to go to the compound. The one on the outside of town where the bikers lived. His dad’s jaw went hard and he raced out there, lights and everything. Before that, he usually only put them on when Luke begged him. Or if someone was going just a little too fast on the road outside town.

His dad usually didn’t give them tickets, just warnings. Luke used to think that was cool.

Now he wasn’t so sure.

“You need to stay in the car, Luke,” his dad ordered in a voice Luke didn’t quite recognize.

Luke didn’t answer, because they were screeching into the clubhouse and he saw blood. A lot of it. And a dead body.

His father saw it too.

“Luke, do not move and do not look.”

Luke squeezed his eyes shut, not just because his dad ordered but because he didn’t want to look. No way.

But he couldn’t help it.

When he heard the car open and close, and muffled voices and radio noise, he opened them again. His father was looking down at the man with the blood. Talking with the men.

He waited for his father to do more than look and talk.

He was waiting a long time.

He didn’t know what made him move his gaze.

And then he saw her. She was swinging her legs, with boots much too big for her hanging off them. He didn’t think she was doing that for any reason other than she must’ve been doing that before.

Before the man and the blood.

Luke saw her face. It was the girl from school. Cade’s pretty sister who didn’t look at all like she belonged to this. Luke watched her. Watched innocence seep out of her like water from a fast-emptying bathtub. He watched the hurt that didn’t even seem to fit on such a small face take over.

He clenched his fists on top of his knees, itching to clasp the door handle. To do something to help her.

His dad would help her. It was his job. He kept people safe.

He’d somehow keep her safe.

Because he was watching her, that frozen moment of when a little girl had something sacred stolen from her in the backyard of her childhood, Luke did not see that his father had finished the conversation with the men.

Not the bleeding man, of course. That man wouldn’t be having any more conversations.

He didn’t notice until the car door opened, slammed closed and his father started reversing out of the lot. Luke whipped his head around, hating that he had to leave the girl. He focused on his father’s hard-jawed profile.

“What are you doing?” he demanded.

His father didn’t look at him. “Taking us home.”

Luke gaped at him. “You’re not doing anything?” he spluttered. “You’re not helping them?”

You’re not keeping her safe? was what he didn’t say.

There was a long silence, long enough for his father to direct them out of the parking lot and back onto the open road. Long enough for Luke to realize that he didn’t even get one glimpse of that little girl.

One last glimpse.

Because the next time he saw her, she wouldn’t be a little girl at all. She’d be changed, matured beyond her years, something ripped from her soul that would ensure the absence of carefree happiness.

“Yeah, I’m not doing anything,” his father murmured, little more than a whisper. “And that’s how I’m helpin’ ’em.” The last part was barely audible.

“What are you talking about?” Luke’s harsh adolescent yell somehow didn’t seem as loud as his father’s muted whisper. “You have to help! That’s what you do. That’s your job.”

His father finally looked at him then. Luke thought he glimpsed something like shame, but it was quickly replaced by something just as unfamiliar.

Anger.

“No, son. My job is to keep Amber safe. Keep you and your mother safe. That’s exactly what I’m doing. I’ll hear no more about it.”

“But—”

“I’ll hear no more about it!”

Luke flinched at his father’s cruel tone. He didn’t want to be quiet. He wanted to yell, scream at his father that he was doing it wrong. Being wrong. Beg him to at least take him back so he could do something for that little girl.

But he did none of those things. Instead he folded his arms across his chest, staring out the window and trying to blink away the tears that inexplicably rose behind his eyes.

No, Luke could not remember when he started respecting his father less. But he could remember when he stopped respecting him altogether.

That moment right then.

And he’d always thought it’d been because of the injustice of letting outlaws make their own justice, which turned out to be revenge. Thought it was encouraging lawlessness.

Or maybe he’d forced himself to think that.

Because it was actually none of that.

It was because he’d driven away from that little girl before Luke could do anything.

Before Luke could protect her.

* * *

Present Day

Rosie

I was roughly yanked out of the bed of truck that I’d been hurled into an hour before. My arm caught on a protruding piece of metal, sharp pain followed by the warmth of blood radiating from my bicep.

I didn’t flinch, keeping my body slack as they muttered to each other in Spanish. My eyes stayed squeezed shut, but I keenly took notice of my surroundings: the smells, the crunch of gravel, not dirt, beneath their feet.

They didn’t know I was awake. Nor that I could understand how they were arguing over who would “fuck the mouthy American first.”

Of course, they counted on me still being unconscious for that particular rape. They’d make sure I was awake for the rest of them. They’d try not to hurt me too badly, or bruise my face. Couldn’t damage the merchandise before they sold me.

Then I’d be raped again. But it would be by someone different. Someone richer, most likely. Maybe I’d get brutalized on a private jet, surrounded by beautiful things. But a woman may as well be surrounded by filth—she always would be at the moment a man took something brutally that should never be taken. That was never his to take.

In the States, back home in civilization, there is a reported rape every six minutes. That’s just what’s reported. Here, who the fuck knew. Who the fuck knew how often a woman had that innocence, which she didn’t even know she had, stolen.

She’d know she’d had it the second it was taken. The absence of it would eat her up inside.

Which is why I’m here. To hopefully take it right back.

Along with their manhood if it was a slightly less shitty day.

It didn’t look like it was going to be difficult. The idiots didn’t even notice me swapping out my dosed beer for the one I’d stashed in the corner behind me. I always chose a seat with a view of the door and my back to a wall. A little of my brother’s advice sticking, or just common sense in this particular line of work.

I let myself be groped and roughly tossed around, gritting my teeth when the dirty paws of some animal cupped me between my legs. Even though I was prepared, even though I knew I was in control, it didn’t make that moment any less degrading, didn’t mean it didn’t take a tiny slice of my dignity from me. Every time it happened, I was back in that room—he was touching me, violating me. It was almost too much in those few seconds before I got a hold of myself. And I did. Remembering that I couldn’t stop what happened to me in the past, but I might be able to do something for someone else who hopefully would never know what I did for them.

The stench of sweat and human waste was thick enough to choke on in the room they planned on being their house of pleasure and my house of horrors. I could taste the sorrow and the pain of the women who came before me. Or maybe I was imagining that because I knew those women were lost. No matter what I did now, they would be lost.

There was money to be made, after all—trafficking in human beings was the third biggest business in the world. Almost one million people were trafficked among international borders annually. Eighty percent of them women, half of them children. And of that almost one million people, eighty percent were trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation.

They were gone the second they were put in this room. The second they took a sip of the drink laced with rohypnol, GHB, or ketamine, or a cocktail of all three.

Not me.

I was already lost in a different way, in a way that meant I could at least prevent someone else being taken, even if I couldn’t save the ones who’d come before.

My bones and muscles protested with the way they handled me, but it was good, because them being rough gave me the opportunity to press a button stitched into the thick leather cuff at my wrist without them noticing.

No sound came when I pressed it, but I knew what it did.

I had about seven minutes, give or take, depending on how much of a distance Lucian kept when he followed us from the bar.

I’d run into them by chance, him and his team. It was the first time people like these assholes had tried to drug me. Lucian and the boys came in to try and save me. My captors were all dead by the time they arrived, guns drawn.

I grinned at them. “Sorry, boys. You snooze, you lose.”

And it began. They were all ex-military, all here for reasons that weren’t important to anyone but themselves. They were here to escape something. And it just so happened that the best way to escape something was to kill people who deserved to die. Our operation was just that, traveling around Venezuela mostly, with me as the bait.

Which was what I was right then.

I lost a handful of breaths as I was hurled onto broken and cold concrete, the impact winding me. I stayed still, braced against the pain. I was used to it.

I mentally scheduled myself in for a tetanus shot and maybe a round of penicillin to be safe. I immediately changed the maybe to a definite when rancid breath kissed my cheek and an equally rancid tongue ran along my face.

“Cunt tastes good,” he declared in Spanish.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of black as a figure entered the structure that could be roughly classified as a shack. After I kicked the man with the knife off me, breaking his neck in one swift movement so he collapsed gracelessly at my feet, I glanced up and found my initial guess of a newcomer was correct.

A very familiar one at that.

His icy eyes regarded me levelly, thick tattooed arms crossed as he leaned leisurely against the wall, not speaking, not interfering, just watching.

“Perra!” a voice snarled.

My attention moved from the newcomer to another attacker. I skirted the body at my feet to dodge the knife that was hurtling toward my neck. My dodge meant that I sank my own penknife into the man’s own neck before he knew what was going on.

His eyes widened in grotesque surprise, a wet gurgling noise coming out of his mouth. I held his frantic and desperate gaze, keeping my grip tight on the handle of the knife.

“Yeah, you didn’t expect to meet your end in this room, did you?” I hissed at the small amount of darkness remaining in his eyes. If you looked really closely, you could see the evil draining out of him, sinking into the soil, searching for a new home and a new landlord. His warped and ugly soul would follow and meet a man named Lucifer. I hoped.

Or maybe that was just my mind taking creative license in the midst of murder. My teachers always said I had an ‘active imagination.’ And ‘problems with authority.’

They weren’t exactly wrong.

I held his eyes a beat more. “It’s been a profound honor killing you. If only it had been a lot sooner and your death a lot longer.” I sighed. “But a girl can’t get everything she wants.”

Another thick and wet sound escaped from his body as I yanked the knife out, then stepped away from the spurt of blood that came with the gesture.

“Hit the carotid artery,” a flat voice observed. “Nice.”

My would-be attacker turned victim collapsed ungraciously on the ground, the smell of fresh excrement filling the already rancid air.

I screwed up my nose.

People shat themselves when they died, something they did not show you in the movies. Then again, good always triumphed over evil in the movies, and the girl always rode off into the sunset with the hero.

This particular girl rode off into the sunset alone to make sure her particular hero stayed far away from her. She’d already turned him into the villain; no use ruining what remained of his life.

I whirled, shaking thoughts of referring myself into the third person out of my head. I was already half crazy, I so didn’t need to go full Charlie Sheen.

I glared at the owner of the voice.

“Yeah, I know how to kill someone. I’m not in kindergarten,” I snapped, then regarded him, tilting my head and holding my scowl. “You didn’t feel like, I don’t know, helping me?”

Gage looked at me, then at the two bodies at my feet, with a blank, unblinking gaze.

“You didn’t exactly need help,” he replied, digging in his pocket. “And I’m rather attached to my balls. Don’t like the thought of you ripping them out because I decided to get all chivalrous and help you kill a man. Feminism and all that.”

He put his smoke between his lips, the flicking of his Zippo replacing the quietness of death that hung in the air. I’d quickly gotten used to that, though it didn’t mean I liked it. Death was ugly, whichever way you spun it. Killing someone evil didn’t make you good. It did exactly the opposite. Murder was murder.

Gage wasn’t wrong. Him helping me would’ve been the most annoying thing he could’ve done, apart from just being here in general. Any other man in my brother’s club would’ve rode in, guns blazing, testosterone overdosing, determined to save the girl they saw as their little sister.

Not Gage.

He was the exception to the rule.

He was the exception to a lot of rules.

I took the smoke he offered me, even though I didn’t particularly want it.

I needed it.

Just like after getting laid, you needed a smoke after killing someone. A bowl of pasta wouldn’t go astray either. Neither would an orgasm. But I wasn’t looking to Gage for that. Even if he did brave the ‘no touch’ rule Cade had plastered all over me, I didn’t think even I had enough kink in me to handle all of that.

Murder, sex, and food. The basis of life. They all worked together in some kind of twisted threesome.

“You found me,” I observed, taking a long and unpleasant inhale.

He grunted in agreement.

If it was anyone else, I would’ve been surprised. In regular circumstances, I excelled at hiding my tracks. My most recent exit had been under more than regular circumstances; therefore, I more than excelled at hiding my tracks.

But like I said, Gage was an exception to a lot of rules.

“You going to tell my brother where I am?” I asked, blowing out another plume of smoke while wiping my knife on the thighs of my jeans.

Gage regarded me, and I squirmed under his gaze. He was one of the very few people who made me uncomfortable when he looked at me. His glassy stare always seemed to push right through whatever mask or costume I was wearing at the time and see the ugly truth. Gage lived the ugly truth, his past dark and twisted and full of things that would even give me nightmares. I didn’t even know the details—I could just tell. A piece inside that had fallen off, been ripped out. And they may operate the same by appearances, but there was something wrong in there.

The kind of wrong that Jeffery Dahmer and Charles Manson had. But Gage channeled his in different directions. Not the ‘right’ ones, by far, but what was right anyway?

“No,” he said in answer.

That time I was surprised. “No?” I repeated, dropping my smoke and crushing it amongst the blood and dirt at my feet. “You came all this way, to this shithole in the middle of the jungle, spent all this time on what I can only assume is my brother’s request, and now you say you’re not going to tell him? Bullshit.”

Gage didn’t move, didn’t blink. Like a shark. Except if sharks stopped moving, they died. I didn’t know of anything that could kill Gage.

“Your brother didn’t send me.”

“Yeah,” I spat sarcastically.

He shrugged. “Believe what you want.” His tone communicated the fact that he couldn’t care either way. “I was curious.”

I gaped at him. “You came to Venezuela, in the middle of rebel-owned territory, dirtied your boots, just because you were curious?”

The corner of Gage’s mouth turned up, the closest he’d come to a smile. “In case you hadn’t noticed, haven’t had much cause to get my boots or my hands dirty with all this straight-and-narrow stuff we’ve got going on.” He glanced down to where a trail of blood had pooled at the toe of his motorcycle boots. “I like getting dirty.”

It was comical how uncomical that statement was coming out of his mouth. It wasn’t sexual. Not by a long shot. It was cold and calculated.

I crossed my arms and his glance flickered for a second to my chest, where I’d unintentionally pushed up my boobs. It only stayed there for a moment, then moved up to my eyes, uninterested.

I wasn’t offended. I was used to it. Gage barely looked at any woman with any real interest. Sure, he’d fuck a club girl if the occasion arose, but he wasn’t really interested. Like the way a man might regard a freeze-dried meal when he had nothing else to eat—yeah he’d have it, but only out of need, not out of actual want.

“You were curious,” I probed.

“Yep,” he agreed. “’Course, I knew you’re prone to goin’ walkabout, but this time felt different. Had some time on my hands, checked out your place.” He gave me a look. “You did a good job of cleanin’ up, babe. Almost perfect. Most likely anyone else, save a cop with a black light, wouldn’t have noticed anything. I’m not anyone else.”

No, you’re not. A bitter taste of dread climbed up my throat. Not for me, of course. Gage would never say a word to a soul to rat me out. Definitely not to the cops, and it seemed not even to my brother. He was loyal. To family. To me. But not the cop who had spent the last decade trying to bring down the club.

I’d unwittingly handed him the evidence that would do what Cade had been wanting to do for the last decade.

Bring Luke down.

I struggled to keep my composure, watch Gage for any signs that he knew. But that asshole had the poker face to end all poker faces. We could’ve been talking about motorcycle parts for all he gave away.

“And you didn’t run to Cade,” I said, a statement, not a question.

He shook his head. “Not exactly my style. Would’ve, if I had any inkling you were in trouble. Well, a different kind than usual,” he added. “But had a pretty good idea you were alive.” He gave me a pointed look. “You are. Will say I’m impressed.”

I raised my brow. “Impressed?”

“Your current line of work.” He nodded to the bodies at my feet.

Of course he would be impressed with anything that had to do with blood and murder.

“Curiosity satisfied, and you’re not telling Cade?”

“You left for a reason. I’m guessing a good one?”

I nodded.

“Then no. I understand what you’re doin’. Maybe not the specifics, but enough to know that it was the only choice you had. Runnin’ away from demons is a hard job. I’m not the one who’s gonna make you face them. Doesn’t work that way. You gotta face ’em yourself.”

I tilted my head. “And you’ve faced yours?”

He laughed. A throw back your head, hold your belly kind of laugh. “Why do you think I chased you? Chase the blood? I’m the best runner there is, darlin’.”

I gaped. The small glimpse I had into Gage’s past, not exactly with the words but the way he said them, the way they sat heavy in the air. His thousand-yard stare. It was like staring directly into a black hole. My demons were infants compared to his, and I shivered at the thought of just what was chasing him. Despite the bitterness of the air, I wanted to know more, but the gun raised to Gage’s temple kind of stopped our heart-to-heart.

Gage didn’t move, didn’t flinch. He continued smoking his cigarette, slowly, casually, as if he didn’t have a worry in the world. “You may want to lower that, friend, in case you’re attached to your head.”

I glanced at the four men training semiautomatic weapons on Gage. They’d obviously noted that I’d neutralized any and all other threats.

“It’s okay, guys, he’s… a friend,” I said calmly. A woman always had to stay calm when in a room full of men with guns. They were children who just needed their mom to firmly tell them what to do. “Guns down.”

It took a second for the words to puncture, but they did. Three of them lowered their guns.

The handgun at Gage’s temple remained. Lucian eyed him with a thick and distrusting glare. He wasn’t an idiot, knew a threat when he saw one. Though he was stupid to think that he was going to come out on top, or even that his connection to me might stop Gage from killing him. Gage was loyal to an extremely small group of people. Everyone else was disposable.

“Lucian,” I warned.

His emerald eyes flickered to me, keeping the gun raised for a beat longer, like a petulant child might to remind the mother that it could, then lowered it. He didn’t even get it to the holster at his hip before Gage moved in a blur. When they both came into focus again, Gage was holding Lucian’s gun to his temple.

The rest of the team scrambled for their weapons, eyes panicked. I rolled mine and sighed audibly. Gage wasn’t even breathing heavily, his almost-finished smoke still hanging out of the corner of his mouth.

“I don’t like guns waved at my head by people who don’t know how to use them,” he said.

Lucian glared. “I know how to use it.”

Gage smiled. “You knew how to use it, I’d be dead.”