Still clutching my manila envelope, I race inside, not even looking for the butcher or seafood counter. Instead, I head right to the customer service desk and buy a whole packet of stamps, which I stick onto the envelope the second I get them.
Now, all I need is a mailbox.
And I’m certain that I can convince my mother to stop at one on the way home.
Then, grinning and feeling proud that, even in the face of everything that’s going on in the club, I’m still working to establish my identity, I head to buy the kind of steak and shrimp that’ll leave every single one of the men in the club — especially Snake — satisfied and smiling.
I pick out enough skirt steak to make the butcher’s eyes go wide.
Then I head to pick out an equal amount of shrimp.
But it’s at the seafood counter that things go wrong.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see the lanky, older FBI agent that spoke to me at the clubhouse. His eyes are trained right on me, with an unmistakable message in them: come here.
He’s been following me.
“Can you hold on to this for me for a second?” I say, leaving the steak and shrimp on the counter for a very confused store worker to take care of. Then I storm over to Agent Jones. “What the heck are you doing here?”
“Good to see you too, Ms. Stone,” he says. His greeting is too warm for my liking, and I don’t like either how he’s looking me up and down. “Glad you could come over for a chat.”
“All I have to do is raise my voice and I could have someone from the club over here to beat you up before you know what’s hit you,” I say.
“But you’re not going to do that, are you, Addie?”
“You don’t get to call me that. Tell me, what the hell are you doing here?”
“You know I’m here to ask you what you know about the man who’s been in contact with your father.”
“I don’t talk about club business. Especially not to a damn federal agent,” I say, clenching my fists. Calling over Razor and Trips is seeming more tempting. I don’t like this man, don’t like how he looks at me, don’t like his predatory attitude toward the club, the club’s business, and, even worse, his predatory attitude toward me.
Plain and simple, this man creeps me out.
“You would talk to me if you knew who you were up against,” he said. “You’d be begging for my help.”
“But I don’t. And it’s not for me to know,” I say. That last part and the obligation inherent in it — the limitations I live within because of my place in the club — makes me flinch on the inside.
“If you care for your family, you’ll help me. Because, I can tell you now that the man your father’s going up is more dangerous than he knows. We’ve hunted him for years,. He’s a menace. For decades, he’s stayed under our radar and always one step ahead. It wasn’t until something happened in Carbon Ridge a few months back that we got close to catching him. And now this dangerous man is desperate. He won’t hesitate to come after you, your mother, or anyone else you love, just to get what he wants. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll help me.”
I don’t care for how insistent this FBI agent is — no one talks to me like that.
“You have five seconds to get the hell out of here.”
He nods, reaches into his pocket, and pulls out a card.
“You change your mind, or decide you need someone who can actually keep you safe when your world falls apart, call me. That’s my personal number.”
I take his card and watch him leave, stunned and still half-debating calling for one of the boys to teach him a lesson.
I wish Snake were here.
Even with how off things have been between us, I’d feel safer with him around.
I shove the card into my pocket and turn around and head back to the seafood counter, more than ready to get the heck out of here, even though that means heading back to a likely lockdown at the clubhouse.
In a rush, I grab my seafood order, pay for it, and hurry to find my mom.
“You ready?” I say.
“Almost. I just need to get some tomatillos so I can make a salsa verde to go with the steak tacos. Can you grab them for me? We’re going to have to rush to prepare everything before your father gets back from the meeting and picking up the delivery that’s supposed to be coming in.”
“Do you think we can stop at a mailbox on the way back?”
“Of course. There’s a post office not far from the clubhouse. We can drop it there. But only if we finish up here quick. I don’t want to your father to worry about us.”
We finish our shopping, hurry out into the parking lot, and get back into the SUV.
We’re a couple miles away from the grocery store, in one of the more rundown industrial parts of Lone Mesa that lies on the way to the clubhouse, when something pulls my attention out the window.
There’s car tailing us.
A car with a familiar face behind the wheel.
Silas. The barrel-chested menace. And he’s not alone. Next to him in the front passenger’s seat is a face I don’t remember, and hope to never see again.
But it’s not seeing Silas and his companion that takes my breath away in a sharp gasp.
It’s the assault rifles in their hands.
“Look out.”
I barely have time to turn
