Page 89 of Hunter

I felt my heart slow to a heavythump, thump, thump. Time dragged as my eyes moved. That small jawline I could make out, how square and sharp it was. The color of his tanned skin. The slightly sharpened ears. The breadth of his shoulders. The height of his body. The slight arch in his back. The narrowness of his waist.

“You died,” Mallory said. “You’re dead.”

The man stepped forward and looked at Mallory as her body fell limp against her chains, eyes pleading.

“I saw you. I saw you in the parking lot,” she continued. “They didn’t believe me, but I saw you.”

“Look closer, Mallory,” he said, voice soft.

Mallory’s eyes flickered back and forth, and I saw the moment everything changed for her. Her eyes went wide once again, her mouth parting, her head softly shaking. “You’re—” Mallory collapsed against her chains, her body falling limp as she dropped into unconsciousness.

The man straightened, his eyes jumping to Spider, who pulled a small syringe from her neck and dropped it on the floor.

“What did you do?” the man hissed, reaching toward her.

Gunfire exploded in the air, and the man stopped. He looked down at the chip of concrete the bullet had left in front of his feet, and then he looked back at Spider.

Spider held a gun pointed down at the ground, his eyes never looking away from his face. Anger and rage were a turmoil within them, but his face was a sheet of stone as he lifted the gun and placed it at Mallory’s temple.

“Move again, and she dies,” he warned. “That goes for all of you Black Angels as well!”

I stiffened, and the man stood still now.

“Well, well,” Spider said. “I didn’t think you’d be the traitor of all people.”

“Things have to change, Spider,” the man replied. “This way of corruption will kill the club. We’re no different from outlaws.”

“So, what, you give the information to the Black Angels to take us down then plan to run to them once all our asses are in jail?”

“No.” The man shrugged off his jacket, the black material falling to the floor to reveal what was underneath. It was a cut. The same skull and flames as the president’s patch. “I’m a Hell’s Runner. That won’t change.”

“So, a coup, then?” Spider continued, the disgust beginning to show through his features. “You gonna become president? Take my place?”

“No,” he said. “I don’t deserve that position for what I’ve done.”

“Then who?”

“Spider,” a deeper voice said.

Out from the other side of the warehouse stepped a slender man. His hair was black and short against his dark skin. His reputation, the reason I knew his name on sight, was for the color of his eyes. They were a burning, molten gold.

Charon.

As in the Greek legends, his eyes were as golden as the coins paid to the ferryman to deliver them to the underworld, and Charon’s gold would be the last thing you would see before he sent you down to hell. From rumors I had heard, he lived up to the legend.

First Spider, and now Charon? I hadn’t realized how many big bads the Hell’s Runners had accumulated. I thought Charon was the president of the Grim Reapers. Was he taking over the Hell’s Runners?

I looked at Wolf. His expression seemed to say the same thing I was thinking.

What the fuck have we gotten ourselves into?

“Charon,” Spider said, his cold face returning. “So, you’re his patron. You finally here to take my club? It’s been years, brother. Didn’t think you were interested in settling old debts?”

“We have a history, Spider,” Charon said, his voice aged from years of smoking cigars and downing hard liquor. “But so has everyone. Everybody’s got a story. Everybody’s got an end.”

History?I had heard rumors of Spider being an ex-Reaper, having lost the battle with Charon for the president’s seat, but I had never imagined the confirmation coming out like this.

“You think you’re my end, Charon?” Spider scoffed. “I don’t think you know who you’re dealing with anymore. It’s been a long time.”

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