“Don’t move. I know how to throw this. This close, I’m sure I could hit your throat. And if that doesn’t kill you, my mother will.”
“Fucking bitch,” Slade growls, but his hand doesn’t move another inch. Even though in his eyes, I can see that he’s thinking about it. This man wants nothing more than to take his chances; he might die, or he might get what he wants — me and my mother, both at his mercy.
Slade reaches over and puts a hand on Silas’ arm.
“We’ll go,” he says. “Put your weapons down.”
Silas looks up at his brother, anger still burning in his eyes.
“Just say the word, brother…”
“No, Silas. You remember his instructions. Do you want to be the one to tell him you decided not to listen?”
Silas flinches. It’s quick, subtle, and I doubt anyone but me caught it.
Still, his hand drifts a little lower, toward the gun in his waistband.
Behind me, I hear my mom take a quick breath, the kind I’ve heard at the shooting range many times before.
I can’t let either of them pull the trigger.
One wrong move and this room will be decorated with blood.
I know my mom’s an excellent shot, but am I willing to risk her — or me — going up against two intimidating creeps like Silas and Slade?
Carefully, I take two steps to my right, putting myself directly between her and Silas.
“Addie, what are you doing?” She hisses.
I don’t look at her.
I look directly into Slade’s eyes.
“You two were going, right?” I say, coolly.
He smiles. “Right, we are. Come on, Silas.”
He pats his brother’s back, and the touch seems to shake his brother out of whatever murderous fog was clouding his vision.
Then Silas slowly reaches into his pocket and draws out a plain white card and a pen. He scrawls a number on it and slaps the card down on the bar.
“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll have your husband call that number and make a deal. And soon. Our uncle is not a patient man. If you delay, there’s no telling what we might do. Maybe we’ll even pay you a visit, beautiful.”
Chapter Four
Snake
We run to the front of the warehouse, every one of us screaming out Goldie’s name.
My heart pumps adrenaline through my body in a thudding roar, behind my eyelids burn the memories of my time in the service — of roadside bombs, burnt-out humvees, and bodies stacked in ditches; horror that’s haunted me for years and left a stain on my heart.
Out front, we find him flat on his back on the concrete, blood dripping from the back of his head, his face covered in soot and burns.
But his eyes are open, and he’s already stirring.
The car — now nothing more than a burning heap spewing a thick column of smoke up into the sky — smolders a good thirty feet away from where Goldie lies prone on the ground.
“Well fuck, it’s like the Troubles all over again,” Mack shouts.
Stone is the first to reach Goldie’s side, and he starts checking him over.
“He’ll live, but he will have one god damned monster of a concussion,” Stone says. “Snake, I want you to check out that car, see if you can find any evidence of who the fuck set that bomb. Mack, Rusty, go inside and grab every goddamned fire extinguisher and bucket you can find. We need to put that fire out before the fire department gets here.”
Mack and Rusty race to get the fire under control and I advance on the car, my eyes peeled for anything even approaching a clue. Though I’m not optimistic — fires and bombs incinerate most any evidence, unless you’ve got some top quality CSI type shit on your team. Still, I keep my eyes open and scout around.
And it only takes me a minute to spot something.
Stuck flush to the ground, not fifteen feet from the car, there’s a small black device about the size of a quarter and, as I get closer to it, I see the faintest flicker of a laser beam. It’s a motion-trigger.
Bending down, I stick it in my pocket, and then do a quick and careful loop around the burning car and find no further clues.
I head back to Stone, who’s now helping Goldie into a seated position. I hold out the device to him.
“The hell is this?” He says, taking it from me.
“It’s a motion trigger. It was set about twenty feet away from the car. Whoever put this there wanted it to detonate the bomb when someone was close enough to get the shit knocked out of them, but not so close that they would die.”
“So it’s a warning?”
“Can’t be nothing else. Whoever set it could have easily made it so it went off when Goldie was much closer. This was fucking deliberate. And done with skill.”
“Whoever set it can go fuck themselves,” Goldie says, holding his bleeding head in his hands. “Oh my god, I feel like every metal concert in the world just took place inside my head at the same time.”
“Oh, they’re fucked all right,” Stone says.
He looks about to say more, but stops.
Mack is standing in the entryway to the warehouse, a fire extinguisher in one hand and his cell phone in the other, pressed to his ear. There’s a dire look on his face.
“What is it, Mack?” Stone says.
“It’s Tricia,” he says.
“Tell her we are gonna be late taking care of this shit here.”
“Stone, some guys came by the clubhouse while she and Addie were alone,” he says.
Stone is already on his feet before the words leave Mack’s mouth, and he snatches the phone out of his hands.
“Trish,
