The revolver was sitting on the table when I stepped into the motel room.

The mother-of-pearl grip shimmered in the light, and I shivered despite the heat. I didn’t know why Chaser brought it with us. Now I knew what the gun symbolized, I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to keep it. Then there was the fact I’d killed Marini with it.

“You haven’t heard from Gasket?” I asked, sitting on the end of the bed.

“No. It’s only a matter of time,” he replied, filling a glass with water from the bathroom sink.

“Is that safe to drink?” I grimaced as Chaser handed me the glass. Lifting it up to the light, I checked for floaties. “I heard there was uranium in Las Vegas water. You know, from all the nuclear tests the army did out in the desert.”

“Seriously? That’s what you’re worried about?”

“Radiation poisoning is no laughing matter.”

Chaser raised an eyebrow and fished around in the plastic bag hanging off the corner of one of the chairs. After a moment of annoying plastic crinkling, he tossed me a packet of Advil. “Here, take some for your headache.”

Shrugging, I slipped two pills into my mouth and chased them down with some water. Seriously, worse things had happened to me, so what was a little radiation? I rubbed my temple as Chaser sat beside me, the mattress dipping.

He took the sheet of pills from my hand and popped two out onto his palm. I watched him down them dry with utter fascination. It wasn’t only his acknowledgment of pain that had me rattled, it was also wondering how the tablets went down without getting stuck in his throat.

“Are you okay?” I asked, realizing I hadn’t asked. I didn’t think I had to, but every day held a new surprise for us.

“I’m fine.”

“Your leg…”

“It took a hit, but it held.” He plucked the glass from my hand and took a sip of tepid water before placing it on the floor.

“We can’t do anything until your face heals, can we?”

“The bruising will be gone in a week or two,” he replied. “That’s no time at all.”

“So we have to wait until then to make a move?”

“Bruises draw attention. Unless you want to dab a bit of makeup on my face, we’re better off sticking around. No one’s caught our scent yet.”

“You want me to put foundation on your face?” I laughed and couldn’t imagine it. Chaser’s skin was perfection…usually. “I can put a little mascara on your lashes. It would really make your eyes pop.”

“I wouldn’t if I were you.” He reached over and grasped my face, then twisted his body over mine, forcing me down onto the bed.

“Why not?” I murmured, allowing my legs to open as he moved over me. “You have lashes a woman would die for.”

“Eyelashes are a stupid thing to bleed over.”

“It’s metaphoric,” I drawled.

He grunted, tracing a path along my neck with his lips.

“Hey, Chaser?”

“Yeah?”

“Wanna do me? I hear orgasms are great for headaches.”

His fingers found the zipper on my jeans shorts. “Thought you’d never ask.”

As soon as he’d removed all of the clothing from my bottom half, he knelt over me, dropped his jeans, and his cock sprang free, standing tall and hard. Spreading my legs, he rubbed his tip through my slickness, then thrust, driving into me with a grunt. What an animal.

His palms rested on either side of my head, and his knees propped his body above mine, giving him the perfect angle for powerful fucking. I arched my back, lifting my hips off the mattress so he could delve deeper inside me. Chaser lifted his head as a moan of pleasure tore from his throat. I tensed, clenching around his shaft, my hands grasping his forearms.

He drove into me, thrusting with reckless abandon. It seemed as if he was taking out some of his stress on me, but I didn’t mind. I loved it when we fucked like this. It was our…thing.

All too soon, my body broke underneath the onslaught, bringing Chaser down with me. He came, spilling into my body in hot spurts, and I moaned, riding the wave the best I could.

A shrill ringing sound punctuated my orgasm, and I gasped.

“The cell’s ringing,” Chaser said, grunting.

“You better answer it. Some fuck’s on top of me.”

Chaser grunted and pulled out. Rolling over, he picked up the cell and checked the screen.

“It’s Gasket.” He answered the call, put it on speaker, and then set it on the bed.

“Yeah,” he barked, pulling up his jeans.

“What the hell are you doing?” Gasket asked, sounding confused.

“Putting my cock away.”

I snorted and rolled my eyes.

“Glad to see you’re making good use of your downtime,” the old man drawled. “You got a slot for me in your busy schedule?”

“Gasket,” I said, relieved to hear his voice. “You’ve got news?”

“Hey, Sloane. You okay?”

“I’m fine. What’s going on there? Have you found the renegades yet?”

“We lost them on the road,” he explained, and Chaser cursed under his breath. The last thing we needed was to worry about two separate enemies coming after us.

“And the cabin?” Chaser asked. “How many of ours made it out?”

“Forty,” Gasket replied. “We lost eight guys in the firefight.”

I glanced at Chaser, but his reaction was zero as per usual. Eight good guys were now in the ground, casualties of our messed-up coup.

“The renegades?” he asked. “How many are left?”

“Hard to say. Thirty. Thirty-five.”

“What about Shondra, Kelly, and the others?” I chipped in.

“They’re safe, Sloane,” Gasket replied. “Bones has some contacts in San Fran. He’s taken them up there with Spike until things die down.”

“And how long is that going to be?” I demanded, my irritation rising.

“It’ll take as long as it takes,” Gasket shot back. “Damn, you’re impatient, woman. Guns blazing isn’t going to help us right now. You saw what happened at the cabin. I don’t want a repeat if I can help it.”

“Speaking of,” Chaser interrupted. “What happened to the place after we left?”

“It’s swarming with cops,” Gasket replied, his voice crackling over the call. “Deluca went back to scout it out but couldn’t get close. The whole area was cordoned off.”

“Better to stay away,” Chaser agreed.

“What about the bodies?” I asked. “What happened to those? They’d have club insignia on them and tattoos.” I held up my hand and wiggled my thumb at Chaser. “They’ll trace them back to us, then…”

“I left a couple of guys behind to clean up,” Gasket explained. “Not entirely honest but we can’t afford cops on our tail. It’ll only complicate things.”

I glanced at Chaser, wondering how detailed ‘clean up’ was. I had a vague recollection of dragging my father’s dead body through the desert.

“Don’t worry, Sloane,” Chaser said placing his hand on my thigh. “This isn’t a first for us.”

“So, what now?” I threw out into the void, hoping I would like the answer.

“We’re going back to the compound and clearing it out,” Gasket said. “It’s only a matter of time before the cops link the cabin to Fortitude. We have to clear it out before they toss it down. Then we’ll track down the rest of the renegades. Chances are they’ll make it easy for us and come knocking.”

“How do you know they aren’t already waiting?” I fretted.

“We’ve got eyes on the place, Sloane. It’s free and clear. Don’t worry about us, okay? You’ve got bigger fish to fillet.”

I snorted and rolled my eyes. “You sure you’re not CIA? You’ve got some real network there, Gasket.”

He laughed, the deep, throaty sound comforting. “Nope. I’m just an old dog who’s been around the block a few times.”

It was more confirmation he was the perfect choice to be president of Fortitude MC. To think I had the gall to stand up and throw my hat into the ring. Even as part of a revenge plot, I wasn’t leadership material.

“I’ll be in touch if I have more news,” Gasket said. “If you need anything…”

“We’ll let you know,” Chaser replied.

“Good luck.”

Chaser ended the call and put the cell phone back on the charger.

“So that’s it,” I murmured. “We’re on our own.”

“It was always going to be this way.”

“Yeah, I still don’t like it.” I leaned back against the wall, propping a pillow behind me. “You and me against the mafia to end all mafias. I bet King owns a casino. A really big one.”

“King has a large stake in one of the big casinos on the Strip,” Chaser confirmed. “Apparently, he owns three-quarters of the Halcyon and maintains the upper three floors and penthouse as his personal residence.”

“That isn’t reassuring,” I drawled. “It’ll be locked up tighter than a virgin’s butthole.”

“A virgin’s butthole?” Chaser cocked an eyebrow.

“It makes sense in my mind. A hole that’s never been touched.”

He snorted and shook his head. “Anyway, you’re right. Security is tight. I’ve never done a job that required me to crack such sophisticated measures.”

My ears pricked up at the mention of his work. Chaser hadn’t spoken in detail about what he did before and after he was conscripted into Fortitude. FBI, mercenary, assassin, husband. He’d been all those things.

“Then how do we get close?” I thought about it and began imagining scenarios where we took on different aliases and wore wigs. I could impersonate a stripper. I’d been around enough of them.

“We’re going to have to do a lot of surveillance,” Chaser said. “You good with that?”

I sighed and shrugged. “You know I’m an impatient bitch.”

It was Chaser’s turn to sigh. He stretched out on the bed beside me, throwing an arm around my shoulders. I nestled against him, his warmth comforting. I’d almost acclimatized to the dry heat of the desert, though I longed for the milder weather of the east coast.

“Chaser?”

“Hmm…” he muttered, tightening his grip around me.

“If we manage to kill King, it won’t end there, will it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it will for us.”

“But there’ll be someone else just waiting to step into his shoes. The Hollow Men won’t end with the death of one person.”

“Probably not.”

I sighed, closing my eyes. The reality of our situation wasn’t offering much hope. We could kill King, then the man who came after, and then the man or woman who came after that and still do nothing to change anything. Someone had better call up the dictionary because futile had a new definition.

It sucked, but I longed for a life that might never come.

“Chaser?”

“Hmm…”

“It’s not just King. We have to make sure…”

“I know,” he whispered. “We will.”

I hoped he was right.