Page 84 of Eden's Joker

“Give or take a few,” he says. “But they’re not exactly what you’d call disciplined. I’m starting to see why they were losing the war even though they started with greater numbers than the Devils.”

“All right,” I say and stand up. “We have a day and a night to make all the preparations. Let’s get to it.”

I’ve been working on how best to defend this town pretty much since I found it. And then I startedworking on how best to lure our targets in and kill them all. I’ve been doing that for years too. The plans are all laid. I just have to get the men into positions. As long as I just work the plan and not think of anything else, everything will be fine.

It won’t matter so much if they’re disciplined or not. As long as they’re willing to die for the cause. And they’ve been proving that they are for over a year now.

There’s actually no way to give Eden what she’s asking for. It’s already a snowball and it’s rolling fast downhill. There’s no stopping it. Even if I was inclined to. It’s hard having her ask for something I can’t give her. Because honestly, I just want to give her whatever she wants.

44

Ice

Why was everything about getting Eden back so hard? We’ve been successful in most of the jobs we rode on in the past. Jobs where the odds have been stacked against us a thousand times worse than now. And yet, finding my daughter alive proved impossible. After a year of successfully warring with ten different MCs. After a quarter century of succeeding where everyone else failed. After bringing me back from the dead and killing off all the bastards that kept me caged.

Now it’s just one hurdle after another. One dead end after another.

At least this won’t be a dead end. At least we know where she is now. Dead. But at least we know.

And still, it seems impossible to recover her.

Hawk, Cross, and the rest have been poring overthe maps and photos of the town of Justice for a day and a night straight. I’ve mostly just looked over their shoulders after they got tired of my suggestions. Those are always the same. Ride in and kill everything that breathes in there. Especially Joker. But he’s mine.

If I’d know that scared-looking kid we left locked in a car on the side of the road over twenty-five years ago would come back to haunt me like this, I’d have… no, I’d still have let him live. But I’d take better care not to kill his mother. If he got to keep at least her, maybe he wouldn’t be so vicious now.

But that kind of thinking isn’t helping now. No kind of thinking is helping. Nothing’s ever gonna help.

I haven’t told Barbie or Summer about the text I got, the confirmation that Eden is gone. Every time I even think about doing that, I remember the day Barbie told me she was pregnant. I see it clear as day, as though it happened just yesterday. The fear in her eyes when she thought I’d be mad, the sheer joy when she realized it was exactly what I wanted too. I promised her I’d keep our children safe, that I’d die before I let anything happen to any of them. I failed. I broke that promise. How can I ever look her in the eyes again? How can I look at myself? I can’t.

“We’ve been going over how hard this’ll be for hours,” I say. “Let’s just ride. Let’s just light up the whole place like the fourth of July. We’re not riding on a rescue mission.”

They all look at me and even Cross seems shockedat the darkness and directness of my words. He’s not the type of guy who gets fazed, ever, but this war, his son almost dying in it, and now the impossibility of getting Eden back alive has taken a toll even on him. I never thought I’d see the day when Cross admits defeat, but we’re getting closer and closer to that point. I hope I’m wrong.

“The problem is, we don’t have enough guys to storm in and we don’t have enough guys to surround the place either,” Cross says. “But we’re gonna do both anyway. I just gotta figure out a way to keep as many alive as I can.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to lure the guy out?” Rogue asks.

He’s the president of Rogue Angels MC, one of our new allies, and even though they have no dog in this fight and don’t owe us any particular favors, he hasn’t pulled out of this losing fight yet. I wonder if he’s reconsidering that choice right now.

“Joker won’t come out,” Karma says. She’s one of the Forsaken Outlaws, who have also stood by us since turning on Joker and making sure we at least knew who and what we were up against.

At first, we didn’t trust them, because they’d worked with Joker and his asshole MC for years. But they’ve earned our trust since. They’ve been front and center in every battle we have fought so far, going in berserker style. Even though they have no dog in this fighteither.

“He knows he has us over the proverbial barrel, hiding in that town, and he loves that kind of control,” she elaborates. “I don’t see a way to get him to come out again the way he did for the battle in the desert. But…”

Her clear blue eyes lock on mine. She can’t be much older than Eden, but she’s nothing like her in any other way. Tall for a woman, with her long blonde hair braided up like a Viking and tattoos covering both her arms and what I can see of her chest. She fights well, better than a lot of guys I know, and she hasn’t been wrong about Joker yet. She has the guy figured out. Not that it’s helped us any.

“But what?” I ask since she’s still just looking at me.

“I don’t think your daughter’s dead,” she says. “That photo, it could be anyone. There’s no face visible.”

“You think he just goes around beating and killing random women and photographing them?” I ask.

I will never come to terms with my daughter’s death, I already know that. But false hope is worse than no hope at all. I learned that a very long time ago, locked up in a small windowless cell.

She doesn’t break eye contact with me. “He’d want you to have no doubt that she’s dead. If she were, he’d send you a photo of her face. I figure he’s keeping her alive just in case things go wrong for him. That’s how he is. A schemer through and through. He always finds a way to endup on top.”

“That doesn’t change anything,” I say. “It’s a fool’s hope, a philosophical answer to a very practical question.”

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