Page 76 of Bishop

Startled, Evie looked up at me with a wounded expression. “What’s on it?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I kept telling myself I should look, but I never did. I realized that looking would have been a violation of your privacy and I didn’t want to learn stuff about you that you didn’t tell me yourself.”

The freckles on the bridge of her nose scrunched up in that adorable way I loved. “How come?”

“Because I want to find out about my girl the old-fashioned way,” I explained. “I want you to share that stuff with me when you trust me enough to share it. The good, the bad, and the ugly.”

“I want that, too,” Evie said, her words sounding thick from emotion.

I smiled reassuringly. “So, what do you say? Do you want to be my Old Lady, Evelyn Wild? Do you want to share our lives, love, and our hardships, together?”

Evie nodded excitedly. “I do,” she whispered, tossing the flash drive onto the bed and throwing her arms around my neck.

Flipping her petite frame onto her back, I straddled my Old Lady and dragged her arms up and over her head. “Let’s start with you getting naked and me finding out what makes you blush. The bad stuff can wait for another day.”

Giggling, Evie agreed. “I have a few things in mind,” she returned, moaning already when I reached between us and slipped my fingers under the waistband of her sleep shorts.

Nipping her neck, I used my free hand to loosen my belt and drag down my jeans. “I’m sure you do.”

Epilogue

Bishop

The car on the side of the backroad was banked just off the turn of Barns and Holland. This far out, there weren’t any street lamps. No houses. Just silence, woods, and the moon’s light.

The stranded man was cursing not far from his ten-year-old Chevy pickup as he struggled to get cell reception. The way the vehicle had canted to the right told me everything I needed to know about why he was parked there. The man had not one, but two flat tires. Slow leaks that had allowed him to get this far out into the boonies before he’d had to pull over and call for help.

Driving up to the stranded motorist, I didn’t kill my lights right away. Instead, I allowed them to blind the man as I slowly banked my Harley to the right side of the road.

Irritated, the driver covered his eyes. “Hey, man. Can you cut those lights? I can’t see a goddamned thing with them blasting me in the face like that.”

Without speaking, I killed the headlights and allowed the man’s vision to naturally adjust to the moon’s glow. When he got a good look at me, his eyes bulged and his Adam’s apple began to frantically bob up and down in his throat.

“Wilmont!” he whispered like he’d just spotted the boogeyman after believing himself well and truly rid of such nightmarish things.

Shrugging off my leather jacket, I placed it neatly across the seat of my bike. “How’s it going, Peckerhead?”

Becker’s cheeks reddened with rage at the insulting nickname. “Are you following me, psycho?”

“I’m not just following you, John. I had someone puncture slow leaks in your tires so you wouldn’t make it home.”

I’d actually gone much farther than that. I’d had Hammer’s mechanic buddy stash an air-tag under his vehicle as well as install a kill switch in his engine so I could force him to stop at just the right spot. To add insult to injury, I had his job application denied by the Fenton Police Force through a friend of a friend over in HR. But I wasn’t going to tell him any of those things. I wanted to continue to fuck with Becker for the rest of his natural-born life for what he did to Evie.

John looked horrified. Swiveling around, he checked the road from every angle as though he was waiting for something or someone to jump out of the bushes and tackle him.

“No one’s coming, John. Not my crew. Not anyone to help you. I told you before, when I whipped your ass, I was going to do it on my own.”

Paling, the prison guard stepped back in the direction of his truck, his hands raised defensively. “I’m not fighting you, Wilmont.”

Smiling coldly, I advanced on him. “Maybe not well, but you are fighting me tonight.”

Swearing, the prison guard made a break for it. Just like I hoped the coward would. I caught him right before he reached his Chevy.

“Come on, John,” I said, as I shoved him hard against the driver’s side door. “I’m about to do you a big favor, man. Don’t you know what they say about women?”

Terrified, the beaten loser vigorously shook his head.

Balling my fist, I shot it directly into his soft stomach and watched the weak fool crumple to the ground. “Chicks dig scars. And I’m about to make you the prettiest prison guard in all of Cantiville.”

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