“Do what the kid says.”
Kelsey nodded, eyes wide, sliding off the bed and scuttling along the wall to get out.
“Go down to my room and wait,” I told her. “Lock the door and don’t open it for anyone but me.”
Time hung heavy as she disappeared.
“So whatcha gonna do, shoot me?” Jim slurred, his voice belligerent. Not the brightest man at the best of times, but when he got drunk, things really fell apart.
“Depends,” said Burke.
“On what?”
“The kid, here,” he replied, jerking his chin toward me. “You want to shoot this ass**le, son?”
I glanced over, startled. His face was cold and serious—Burke wasn’t joking. Shit.
This was real.
“Think hard,” Burke said. “You pull the trigger, you can’t go back. But you won’t have to worry about him rapin’ your sister, either. We can make the body disappear.”
Jim’s eyes darted between us, wild with terror.
“Don’t listen to him,” he whispered. “You’ll go to jail. Death penalty. He’s talking about murder.”
“Unlikely,” Burke told him. “Never cared for you, Calloway. In fact, I don’t think one person on earth gives a f**k if you live or die. Your wife is gone, your kids hate you, and according to the papers on your kitchen counter, you got no job. It’ll be like you never existed. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.”
“The social workers,” Jim gasped in desperation. “The social workers have to come check on the kids. They’ll notice.”
I couldn’t help myself—I started laughing. I hadn’t seen my social worker in over a year. If it weren’t for the state checks Jim drank up every month, I’d assume they’d lost my file. My foster father’s face reddened in rage, and I saw the exact moment his brain turned off and he forgot about the gun.
“I’ll kill you, you little shit,” he growled. “You think you’re so special but you’re trash. That little slut of yours is trash, too. Two piles of garbage stinking up my house.”
“Probably should decide soon, kid,” Burke muttered. “You wanna take him out or not?”
Did I want to kill him? I thought about Kelsey crying, and the time he’d broken my ribs when I refused to hand over a cut of my sales.
Fuckin’ A.
I definitely wanted to take him out.
“Give me the gun,” I said, the words tasting sweet.
Jim lunged toward us and the sudden, cracking echo of a gunshot rang through the room. My foster father screamed and fell to the floor, clutching his shoulder. Bright red blood oozed out between his fingers.
Burke didn’t even blink.
He just held his weapon firm, still trained on Jim, and reached around his back to pull a second pistol from his pants. Then he handed it to me.
It fit my hand perfectly.
“You know how to use it?” he asked.
I flipped off the safety and cocked it in answer.
“Finish him off, boy,” Burke said, smiling for the first time. Almost like a proud father. “You’re already in deep, so you might as well make it count.”
I centered the barrel on Jim’s chest and fired.
• • •
Looking back, the neighborhood had been exactly what we needed that day—nobody in it gave a f**k about each other, because they didn’t give a f**k about themselves. All of us were already dying slowly. When Burke and I sped up the process for my foster father that afternoon, the neighbors didn’t even notice.
Nobody complained about the shots.
Nobody bothered calling the cops when I carried a hysterically crying Kelsey next door to Burke’s house.
They didn’t look outside when a cargo van pulled down the alley to stop behind Jim’s place. Ten minutes later it left again, carrying a human-shaped package wrapped in black plastic garbage bags.
Jim ceased to exist. So did me and Kelsey.
The next week, we were living in a different town with new birth certificates, courtesy of Burke’s cousin and his old lady. He gave me a hell of a deal on that motorcycle, too. I paid him with the wad of cash I found in Jim’s wallet. A year later, I celebrated my eighteenth birthday by becoming an official prospect in the Devil’s Jacks MC.
Burke couldn’t have been more proud if I were his son by blood.
In a way, I guess I was.
Part One
CHAPTER ONE
FIVE MONTHS AGO
COEUR D’ALENE, IDAHO
HUNTER
“Who the f**k gets a pedicure in February?” Skid asked. “Won’t her feet freeze?”
“You don’t know any women at all, do you?” I asked, cracking open a Mountain Dew. We’d driven all night to get here from Portland. What I really wanted was sleep, but Burke’s orders were clear. Scope out Reese “Picnic” Hayes’s daughter and figure out a plan of action. With all the drama that’d happened between our clubs, Burke insisted now was the perfect time to make a move, maybe even rewrite the future for the Devil’s Jacks.
Leverage with the Reapers would be critical—maybe even make the difference between a successful takeover of our club or a shallow grave if we failed. Leverage this little bitch was supposed to provide us, apparently. I wasn’t entirely sure what the old bastard had planned, but I’d do my part. I always did.
I glanced down at the picture of her taped to the truck’s console, then looked at the storefront again. Pretty girl. According to her Facebook page, she was meeting a friend here this morning. I’d spotted her car as soon as we pulled in. Now we waited. I wanted to study her, maybe trail her a little. Get a sense of who she was before making my move. There were so many different ways to play a woman—I found it never paid to make assumptions.