She stops talking and leans over to give me a quick peck on the cheek, all while keeping her eyes on the road and her hands at a safe 10-and-2 on the steering wheel.
It’s awkward, it’s quick, it’s the best kiss I’ve ever had.
“You love me?” I say. That anger in my blood isn’t burning so bright at the moment; there’s something else lighting me up. “You’ve decided it, just like that?”
Her cheeks are red and she’s smiling. “Maybe. It’s scares me. It makes no sense at all. I feel crazy just saying it. But it also feels like the truth. I love you, Blaze.”
There’s an expectant silence in the air. And, for the second time in the recent past, I stop and think; I can’t go charging into a gunfight without telling her the truth. I stare out the window, watch suburban homes fly by, a quiet world that has no idea of the violence that’s about to erupt. And yet, the biggest thing for me is happening right now — I’m sitting next to a woman who bared everything to me, and now I need to do the same.
“I think I’ve been an asshole.”
“We both have.”
Shaking my head, I hold up my good hand to silence her. “Give me a second, all right? I sure as fuck don’t have all the same words you do, so this will be quick.”
She smiles.
“I was an asshole. You fucking stood by me, even when I was being dumb by my own standards. And that’s sure as shit saying something, because sometimes I make not-thinking an art. At some point, I should’ve stopped and realized that I have a fucking brilliant woman who, despite all the shit I’ve pulled, is still there by my side, doing her damnedest to help me,” I say. My voice is raw in my throat. I look over to her and she’s smiling and watching me, glassy-eyed. How fucking lucky am I? I clear my throat and continue. “So, yeah, I fucking love you. I’d have to be the greatest fucking idiot on earth not to.”
Her eyes are back on the road, she’s still got her hands at 10-and-2 on the wheel, but I’ll be damned if she’s not smiling the biggest smile I’ve ever seen. That smile fades as the car slows, as the wheel turns and we come to a stop at the construction site.
“We’re here,” she says.
I lean over and kiss her like it might be our last time, though it sure as hell won’t. There’s no way I’m not coming back to this woman.
“Stay here,” I say. “This won’t take long.”
“Come back to me, Blaze.”
I ease my injured body out of the car. Look down at her and give her my most reassuring smile. “There’s no way anything can keep me away from you. I’ll see you soon, Tiffany.”
I shut the door and turn, just as my brothers bring their bikes to a stop behind me. Stone, Sarge, Razor, and Crash get off. Stone is the first to my side, with the others just behind him. The rest of the club is on their way to track down Anna’s father and make sure that rich bastard doesn’t leave town.
“You think your mom is in there?” Stone says, nodding toward the mass of concrete, rebar, and steel beams that makes up the construction site. The site is quiet, but I know it won’t stay that way long; we don’t have much time and there’s no chance that we can do this quietly; it will be quick and bloody. “You sure about this?”
“Anna said she was going to put my mom’s body under concrete.”
“Like the Mafia did to Jimmy Hoffa at Giant’s Stadium,” Crash says.
“I tailed her and her dad here a while ago. They had some meeting with the foreman. They’re still putting the foundations in on a lot of this place, which means there’s still plenty of concrete to pour.”
Stone takes a spare pistol from a holster on his back and hands it to me. “I pray you’re right, Blaze.”
I check the gun; I’ve got one clip. I better make it count.
“Me too, Stone. Me too,” I say.
We split up — Stone and Crash and me in one group, Razor and Sarge in the other — and we circle the site, a big warehouse development in a quiet area on the outskirts of Torreon. The construction site is dead quiet. Vehicles sit unattended, cement trucks and backhoes sit motionless at the perimeter. Tools sit abandoned on the ground — sledge hammers, jackhammers, axes, shovels — and we move through the yard as stealthily as we can, every sense on high alert, just waiting for the lightning-fast moment that signals all Hell is breaking loose; Stone and Crash sneak along like pros, but I fucking hobble along with my gun ready. I don’t give a damn about the quiet, I just want to find my mom and make sure she’s OK. And then put a bullet in between Anna Ebri’s eyes.
Sand and gravel mingle beneath my feet, and I scan the surroundings, gun up, eyes boring into every nook and cranny, every corner, looking for a flash of bleached blond hair.
I
