by Dahlia West
Finally, a Beretta clattered onto the cement walkway.
Jack snorted, almost amused. “Kick it,” he called out, above the pounding rain.
Reluctantly, the gun came flying at him, at least out of reach now from Jack’s target. “Come out,” he demanded, keeping the shotgun trained carefully at the dark shape. He waited again, patiently, until Haze stepped into the light.
Face to face now, it was tempting just to pull the trigger and be rid of him. But as Jack gazed at the man who’d betrayed him a year ago, something was wrong about him. Something just wasn’t quite right. And it wasn’t the gunshot wound he was nursing on his upper thigh.
Haze’s shirt stretched too far across his broad chest and the buttons didn’t line up.
Curious about that, Jack eased his finger off the shotgun’s trigger. He lifted the barrel an inch or two. “Open your shirt,” he demanded.
A huge flash of lightning crackled above them and thunder followed quickly on its heels, as if emphasizing Jack’s order.
Haze hesitated, though.
Jack lifted the weapon and repositioned his finger. He didn’t repeat himself, though. The threat was clear.
Finally, slowly, Haze raised his hand and yanked on one of the shirt flaps. Buttons flew in all directions and he drew the fabric open. The formidable black armor was barely visible out here in the dark, but the bright white, reflective letters could probably be seen from several feet away.
DEA
Jack scoffed. He was less pissed at Haze, surprisingly, and more angry with himself for not following through on his instincts. “You know I never liked you,” he called out to Haze over the thunder.
Haze nodded. “I know. I called my handler, after I left you out there,” he shouted back. “They said they looked, but they couldn’t find you.”
Jack shrugged. Could be true. Might not be. Haze could be as dirty as the dead RCPD officer lying just a few feet away.
Just then Jack sensed movement on the right. He whirled and retrained the shotgun in that direction.
“Ronan!” a panicked voice called out.
“NO!” Haze bellowed.
A thin, lithe form appeared from around the corner of the motel and darted out into the shadowed parking lot. Jack squinted through the rain as the woman slammed into Haze, nearly knocking the wounded man down.
“Oh, my God!” she cried, clutching at him, her left hand coming away covered in blood. “Oh, my God!”
Jack thought she looked familiar. Anya. Or Arya. Some weird shit like that. Club ass, though Jack couldn’t remember ever fucking her.
In this light, she looked a little like Erin with her long brown hair falling around her shoulders. Jack had a sneaking suspicion that he wouldn’t be able to shoot her.
“Goddammit, Aries,” Haze snapped. “Get behind me.”
Aries. That was it. Jack nodded to himself. He hadn’t been that out of it those last few months.
Haze pushed the woman behind him and held her there. He could barely stand as it was, though.
The girl held tight to him, as though Haze could somehow save them both.
“Preacher,” Haze said slowly, almost plaintively.
Jack’s hands tightened on the shotgun. He didn’t much care for that name anymore. Especially not coming from a pissant nancy who was begging for his life.
“Let her go,” Haze demanded, surprising Jack.
“Just her?” Jack asked.
“You and me, there’s no way around it,” Haze replied, apparently accepting his fate. “But let her go. She can’t hurt you. She’s nothing to you.”
“But she’s something to you,” Jack countered. “Or are you just protecting and serving, Agent?”
No matter what this girl meant to Haze, those three bastards at the ranch had tried to hurt Erin just to get to Jack. Erin, who’d done nothing, and had no part in this shit show. It hadn’t been right.
But this girl…well…Haze was right on that score. She was no one. Jack couldn’t hurt her, let alone kill her. Erin wouldn’t forgive him. Hell, he’d never forgive himself.
Morbid curiosity, though, led Jack to wonder at Haze’s motives. “Ah, true love,” he intoned. “A rat and a whore. Wonder how that’ll end.”
The hard look that crossed Haze’s face was answer enough. He did love her, the poor bastard. Jack was pretty sure they were doomed, like Shakespeare fucking doomed, but whatever. Who was he to judge, really?
He took a step back but kept the shotgun trained on Haze just until he was out of arm’s reach, then he lifted it, pointing the muzzle away from them both. “If you really love her,” Jack said in between rumbles of thunder, “you’ll get her out of here. Out of this fucking town. And never bring her back.”
Jack popped the last two shells out of the shotgun and pocketed them. He lowered it to the ground, into a fast-rising puddle, and walked away.
Chapter Sixty-Nine
‡
He drove across Rapid City, through downtown with its shuttered storefronts. Half the traffic lights weren’t working now due to the storm. He threaded through nice, manicured neighborhoods where decent people slept, and crossed the tracks to a rowdier part of town.
The electricity must have been out on this grid, too, because all the houses were dark. Better for him, though, as he parked in an alley and stalked through the inky blackness toward a ramshackle house with a broken screen door.
Jack picked the lock in under thirty seconds and slipped inside. It stank, horribly, and a too-thin cat greeted him, winding through his legs. The place was a shithole, but Jack had expected nothing less. The harpy who lived here wasn’t exactly a neat freak.
He would have left her alone, like the woman at the Starlight, but while that girl (and Erin) had not deserved to be dragged into this, Diamond was, essentially, the one who’d started it all.
Diamond had set him up, walked him straight into hell just because he wouldn’t claim her as his old lady. She’d been the lynchpin in Hook’s plans, the only one who could get close enough to take Jack down. She’d get what she deserved.
He lingered in the shadows of the cramped laundry room as he watched her come in through the back door. She stumbled a little, like maybe she was already fucked up. This was Diamond so of course Jack wouldn’t be surprised if she was.
She kicked off her monstrously high heels. In the moonlight, Jack could see she hadn’t bothered to change from whatever club she was working at now. Her tight gold short-shorts gleamed in the dim light and her tits were barely contained by the black half shirt she’d squeezed into.
She opened her purse and Jack watched her remove a pipe from it. She tossed the bag on the counter and lit up at the sink. A sharp ammonia smell wafted through the tiny house.
Diamond moved to the table shoved up against the wall, lowered herself into one of the two chairs, and set the pipe down with a clatter. She closed her eyes and didn’t see him when he stepped into the small kitchen. When she finally opened them, she jumped. “Jesus,” she whispered.
Jack came more fully into the lighter kitchen and she gasped suddenly when he saw her eyes narrow in recognition.
“Oh, my god,” she hissed.
“Is that how you treat an old friend?” he asked her.
Diamond’s eyes widened into saucers, but Jack merely smiled and held up the bottle he was holding. “I thought we’d have a drink,” he told her. “You know, for old time’s sake.”
Diamond started to get up, but Jack stopped her with just a look. Slowly, she sank back down into her chair. He moved forward and set the bottle down on the table. He took the chair across from her. It creaked under his considerable weight.
If Diamond noticed that there was only one glass to go with it, she remained silent about it. “I—” she began.
“You,” said Jack, cutting her off, “are an untrustworthy cunt. And I did nothing to you but reject you. And for that you betrayed me.”
“Jack—”
“I never rai
sed a fucking hand to you,” he growled. “Not once in all the years we’ve known each other. Not even after all your bullshit.”
Now, sitting across from her, Jack suddenly admitted to himself why he’d become an ass-man so many years ago. And why he’d taken to cumming in condoms and rinsing the semen down the drain after he was through.
Before, he’d never really let himself think about it too much. For all the terrible things he’d done in his life, all the horrors that he’d seen—and perpetrated. This wasn’t a place he liked to go, even now. One of the teeny-tiny bits of humanity he’d managed to retain throughout his increasingly dark life.
He watched her now as she snatched a pack of Marleys from the table and lit one. It took several tries before her nerves steadied enough to manage it.
“How many of my babies have you killed?” Jack asked quietly.
Diamond narrowed her eyes at him through the haze of blue smoke. “They weren’t all yours.”
She’d tried to trap him a few times, in earlier years. Sometimes club ass did that to the boys. The men would, begrudgingly, hand over their patches (and their money) and maybe it would last a year or two and then it would fall to pieces. There were kids, though, usually unhappy ones, left in the wake.
But, unlike the others, when Diamond saw that a little blue strip wasn’t going to get Jack Prior to give her his patch, she’d…unburdened herself. Kids were a pawn to her, a means to an end. If she couldn’t get money or status by having them, she wasn’t interested.
Jack drummed his fingers on the table slowly. “Got one in you now?”
She looked at him for a long moment, then shook her head. “No,” she said cautiously.
“You sure?”
“I’m sure,” she snapped. “Want to tug on my tampon string?”
He lifted his hand and she flinched, but he pressed two fingers to the bottle and pushed it toward her across the table. “Then…have a drink on me.”
Diamond’s eyes widened and she shrank back from him. “Jack,” she pleaded.
He narrowed his eyes at her. “Drink. Or we can do it the hard way.” He clenched his fist, flexing the thin leather glove in the dim light. “Up to you.”
Her eyes shone, either with tears that hadn’t fallen or from the cheap meth she’d smoked just as she’d come in. He waited, patiently, for her to weigh her options, and then watched her raise a shaking hand to the glass of whiskey he’d poured for her.
She’d apparently decided that begging would do her no good. She shook out her hair, giving him a defiant look, then she tipped the glass and swallowed it all down.
Jack reached for the glass, caught it before she dropped it, because she didn’t want him to touch her. He filled it again and pushed it over.
Diamond didn’t hesitate as long this time. She took a long swallow, not chugging it all this time. Then, when he looked at her pointedly, she finished it off.
They sat in the silence of the ticking clock on the wall above them, which must have run on batteries because the lights still hadn’t come back on. Diamond smoked, the red tip of her cig glowing in the darkness. Jack heard her sniff, figured she must be crying by now. When enough time had passed, he got up from the table, picked up the bottle, and walked out the door.
By Jack’s estimation of her weight, the heroin would take about fifteen more minutes to damage her internal organs permanently. In this neighborhood, this late at night, EMS could get here in roughly ten, maybe a tiny bit more considering the storm raging outside.
If her phone got service tonight.
Diamond had better pray—hard—and hope the Man upstairs was listening to whores tonight.
Chapter Seventy
‡
Jack returned to the warehouse, parking farther away this time so that his truck wouldn’t get damaged. Also because by now they might have found the presents he’d left for them out back in the alley and they’d be on high alert for anyone in the area they didn’t know.
Jack eased out of the cab, softly clicked the door closed, and peered down the alley toward the rear of the building. Sure enough, the three bodies he’d left on display were gone. The back door stood wide open, despite the storm raging overhead, and he could see a small group of men inside, huddling together. Occasional barks of angry speech made it all the way to Jack on the wind. He inched closer, hiding behind the cover of a dumpster.
“I don’t know!” Baldy shouted. “I went out for a piss and there they fucking were!”
“It was Prior!”
Jack recognized the screech of that one. Little Paulie, a prospect that Jack hadn’t felt was anywhere near ready to join up with his guys. Slider had apparently patched him into the Kings, though. Jack could only roll his eyes.
“I told you!” Paulie screeched. “I told you it was him when Rawlins called! I said he wouldn’t go out like that, like a bitch! He’s back! And he’s going to kill us all!”
“Shut up,” Slider snapped and turned away, still listening into his phone. A few seconds passed, then he sighed and disconnected the call. “Rawlins isn’t answering.”
“Because he’s dead, man! Just like those poor bastards,” Little Paulie cried, pointing at the bodies laid out on the warehouse floor. “And we’re next!”
Slider ignored the kid and glared at Baldy. “Where are Keller and Zane?” he demanded. “They should be fucking done by now. Get on the phone, get them back here. Now.”
Jack watched as Baldy grabbed his phone and made a call that was pointless. The half of RCPD that wasn’t currently at the storage unit explosion was probably now on their way to the Starlight, about to ask themselves how two of their own could have gone to the dark side without anyone guessing.
Jack slid his own cellphone out from his pocket and typed out a text.
Inside the warehouse, though Jack couldn’t really hear it himself, he knew a loud buzzing had sounded. Slider and Baldy stopped arguing abruptly.
“What the fuck is that?” Slider demanded.
One of the Kings shrugged.
Slider glared at Little Paulie. “What the fuck is that?” he repeated. “Is that you? Is that your phone blowing up?”
Paulie’s eyes widened and he shook his head. “It’s not mine!” he insisted.
Both Slider and Baldy turned to gaze at the bodies on the floor.
No one wanted to move.
Finally, Slider moved forward, bent down, and opened the flap on one of the dead King’s jackets. He reached in and pulled out a phone.
Baldy frowned at it. “That’s not Red’s,” he proclaimed.
Slider stood up and thumbed the screen. He stared at it a moment, deep lines furrowing in his brow.
“What…what is it?” Paulie asked.
“Text,” Slider replied in a sharp staccato.
“What’s it say?” asked Baldy.
The soon-to-be-ex-president frowned at it before looking up at his second-in-command. “Boom.”
Jack pressed the button on the detonator in his hand.
Chapter Seventy-One
‡
Bee was panicking, struggling to move. Buck pressed a light knee to her neck, holding her in place so she wouldn’t hurt herself while straining to reach her colt, who still wasn’t moving.
It wasn’t all that unusual for a newborn foal to take a moment to come to its senses after being ejected from the womb, but it shouldn’t have taken nearly this long.
Erin stripped away the amniotic sac and, though her hands shook terribly, she worked at a steady pace, grim determination settling in. Carefully, she stripped the amnion from the foal’s face, freeing up his nasal passages. Without taking her eyes off her newborn patient, she groped for one of the towels that Buck had brought her.
She rubbed the foal dry with vigorous, sweeping movements, trying to stimulate him. With more than a little trepidation, she paused just long enough to check the heartbeat again.
It was slower now, weaker.
The foal’s eyes were still
closed.
Erin wrapped the cleanest part of the towel around her hand and cleaned out his nostrils, giving him the best chance possible. Then she ditched the filthy cloth and took hold of his ears, one in each hand, and rubbed her thumbs along the insides with steadily increasing pressure.
“Don’t give up,” Buck said quietly, keeping wild-eyed Bee in place as he watched. “Keep going.”
Bee cried out just then, as if emphasizing Buck’s point.
Erin’s heart squeezed as she held the foal’s head in her hands. “This is not going to happen, Bee,” she vowed, tears streaming down her already damp face. “We’re not going to lose this baby.”
She pinched the colt’s ears harder, for maximum stimulation.
The foal’s nostrils flared at the same moment his eyes fluttered open.
Erin let loose her own breath in a whoosh of fevered relief.
The foal flopped around the straw bedding, bleating anxiously. Buck released his hold and let Bee sit up to tend to her baby. She didn’t stand, though, and Erin wouldn’t have let her anyway. Erin gripped the foal’s front legs and pulled him to his mother, nose first.
“Here,” Erin said, positioning his head at his mother’s teat. “Here, come on. Here it is.” She held her breath again, her whole body tensing as she waited. She had bottled colostrum in the foaling kit if they needed it, but it was better from the source. The colt had a better chance if he could feed on his own.
She tugged at his lips, to elicit a response. He tried once, failed, then arched his neck for another attempt. Finally, he latched on and Erin could see the muscles in his damp throat working as he swallowed.
Buck waited for a few moments until he was apparently convinced that they’d done all they could do. The foal might not be entirely out of the woods just yet, but things were looking up.
Thunder rumbled overhead, much fainter now. The storm had moved away, south toward Rapid City.
They were all out of the worst of it.
