sisters are waiting. Both of them have their hair in a wet, messy bun, their eyes are red from crying, and they are wearing the same shirt I am.
“Ready?” Victoria asks.
“As I’ll ever be.”
I slip my arm through Veronica’s and give her a tired smile. It’s all I can muster right now. “I don’t think it will be as bad as we think.”
“I hope not. We have enough on our plates,” Veronica says.
“We will get through it. We always do.”
“Hey, look.” Victoria points to the pictures on the wall. “They all look so happy. Oh, who is that?” her voice deepens, and I peek around her to see her looking at a man who is way too old for her.
I push her down the hall, and she giggles. “Keep dreaming. He is way too old for you. Anyone here is.”
“But he is so handsome. I wonder who he is,” she sighs, practically having hearts in her eyes.
Great. My sixteen-year-old sister is crushing on a biker. Maybe I need to get us out of here. “You can wonder until you’re eighteen, but not a day until then.”
“Pshh, whatever,” she waves away my attempt at being authoritative.
When we get to the main room, a group of men are sitting on the couch. One is playing with pliers while another is whittling a piece of wood into a sharp point.
“Oh my god, that’s him,” Victoria gulps, then stands behind me.
Yeah, she’s not ready for this.
None of us are.
My eyes drift to the pool table where a few men have stopped their game. There are more solids than there are stripes and whoever is winning is really kicking ass.
A young guy stands from the couch, tall, in shape, and for some reason, the first thing I notice is that he is missing a finger. I gulp when he walks toward us, and the men all stand at the same time.
They are all massive.
I look over everyone to find Kansas, and he isn’t here.
I’m all on my own.
I pull the ‘Mom’ move again and stretch my arms out to protect my sisters. A patch on his cut says ‘President’ and then, to my horror, the name underneath says ‘Boomer.’
Fuck.
“Ladies,” he eyes me, grinning when he sees I’m protecting Victoria and Veronica. “Follow me, would you?”
Victoria whispers in my ear, “Oh my god, we are going to die.”
“We are not going to die,” I talk out of the side of my mouth so only she can hear me.
When we get into the room, there’s a large table in the middle stretching from side to side to accommodate everyone.
“Take a seat,” he says.
Like I’m going to disregard a man who only has nine fingers. I scoot by him, keeping my sisters behind me and my arms spread. He looks amused as we inch through the tight space, since he doesn’t move.
We take the closest seats, and then one after the other the members start to file in. I keep my eyes on Victoria as she watches all of them.
Until one with the name patch ‘Satyr’ walks in. She looks away, and he hasn’t noticed her, but her cheeks are flaming red.
Great. I have another thing I need to add to my list of worries.
“I have a few things I want to talk to you about,” Boomer starts to say and then digs into a black duffel bag and places square packages on the tabletop.
“We aren’t going to be your drug mules!” Veronica slams her palm on the table. “We are getting out of here. Right now.” She stands up and grips Victoria by the arm, but a man named Arrow steps in front of the door, folding his hands in front of him. “Get out of my way.”
“Veronica—” I begin to say, but Boomer stops me.
“Actually, Veronica. We were hoping you could explain why your boat crashed onto my shore and dumped about fifty pounds of cocaine.”
“What?” I feel like I’ve been slapped. “What are you talking about?”
“Sit back down, please,” Boomer gestures to my sisters. “You’re Veronica. And you must be Victoria, right?”
She nods, hiding behind Veronica.
“Well, I can not keep up with three names beginning with V, so you’re going to be Ronni. Okay?”
“Fine,” Veronica gives an eye roll, pretending not to be afraid. I know her better than that. She’s scared out of her mind right now
“Where is Kansas?” I ask, wishing he were here.
“On a run. Now, don’t change the subject. Why were you sailing with all these drugs?”
“Those aren’t ours,” I say.