asking you, would I?”
The knot in my stomach has turned to pure acid and if I don’t get a sensible answer out of this kid, I can’t be held responsible for what I’ll do.
“Look, I don’t know,” the kid says, backing away again, so he’s standing in the open doorway to the office. “A group of bikers came, she left with them. I thought it was you and your friends. I don’t know anything else. I don’t want any trouble.”
I take a deep breath to try and cool the acid that’s burning through my entire body now. Did the Sinners find her and pack her away before they left? But that’s impossible. I saw all of them leave that town, and none of them turned back this way.
“When was this?” I ask, needing to be sure.
“The day before yesterday,” the kid says. “I was just leaving for my weekend off when she left with them. With you, I thought…”
“The day I was here last?” I ask.
He nods. “So I thought she left with you.”
I shake my head. The possibility that the Sinners got her is very real and very scary. But I would’ve seen her down in that town as they left today? Wouldn’t I?
Not if she was already dead, I wouldn’t.
It’s a thought that fills my mind with such blackness I can’t let it consume me yet.
“Did you see what was on their cut, what colors…”
The kin stares at me blankly.
“The cuts, the jackets they were wearing…the ones that came to get her?”
“Oh, right,” he says. “Well, they wore black leather, except one of them I think had a jean jacket on—”
“No, goddamn it, not those colors,” I snap. “The pictures on the back of their jackets, were they like mine?” I turn so he can get a good look at my cut, before realizing I’m not actually wearing it, since we’re here incognito.
I deserve the confused look he’s giving me now, though I won’t hesitate in wiping it off his face if he doesn’t tell me what I need to know soon.
“Was it a horned skull with roses?” I ask. “Is that the picture you saw on the backs of their jackets?”
He looks up, as though trying to recreate the image in his head.
“Nah, man, it was more like a crown type deal. Like gold on blue, kinda tacky, I thought. And the name was Kings MC or something like that.”
This time I’m the one stepping back and I don’t know whether it’s to prevent falling on my ass in shock or to get away from the kid so I don’t end up knocking him out because of what he just told me.
Kings MC. Monarch. The guy she was with before she got tangled up with the Sinners. She told me about him. Told me he’s the reason she’d rather not go back to Vegas just yet and certainly not alone.
But she’s a woman with a plan. What did she do? Call him to come to get her after she gave up on me ever doing what I said I would and taking her away from here?
I’m mad as hell at her for that, angrier than I’ve ever been at anyone in my life.
But at least I know where to find her now.
And after all we’ve been through, after the love I have for her that is still clutching at every thought that passes through my brain with its clawed paws, she better tell me to my face she wants me gone from her life. That she wants some fat old man more than she wants me.
I’m on the highway heading for Vegas before I’m in the moment again. I pull up on the shoulder to tell Blaze where I’m going and why. Back in the day, I wouldn’t have bothered. But the new me has grown up some.
“What are you gonna do when you get there?” Blaze asks me.
“I’m gonna walk into their clubhouse and demand to see her?”
I can literally hear him shaking his head in exasperation. “You’re gonna just demand to see their president’s woman. And you think this is a good idea…”
“Look, I gotta see her and I gotta talk to her,” I say. “I’ll be as careful as I can.”
“At least wait till I get there,” he says. “For backup.”
“I’m making no promises,” I say.
But in truth, I’m hoping the long ride to Vegas will clear my mind some. Because my plan spoken in Blaze’s level voice sounds like the dumbest plan anyone’s