Page 21 of Dear John

“I already talked to her about it. Without giving her specifics about the job…she said I have to do what’s right.”

“Does she know this could get her killed?” Eli asked.

I nodded. It was bold and brave, just like her. But I had the feeling she was agreeing to it because she knew it would eat at me. “Fuck, I don’t know what to do.”

The table was quiet as we all considered our options. The last job was a shit show, and repeating it wouldn’t help any of us.

“You know who would know what to do?” Red said, his lips curling at the corners.

“If you say Fox, I’ll shoot you,” Eli snapped.

“Hey, I’m just saying, he’ll know whether or not it’s realistic.”

Fox was exactly the type of man we needed on this job. He was ruthless and willing to do anything to get the job done. Andhe had an ally that had high stakes in this. “He’ll bring Knight into it.”

“Christ, are you serious?” Eli scoffed. “The last thing we need is to torture Knight. Hasn’t he been through enough recently?”

“And we would need Shadow,” Red added. “He has the contacts to work this job.”

“You can’t be seriously thinking of going along with this.” Eli leaned back in his seat, shaking his head at Red. “Think of what you’re suggesting. It’s bad enough with Fox on a normal day, but now you want to bring in Knight and Michael and have them all in a room? Are you fucking outside your mind?”

“Are we really thinking of doing this?” I asked Red.

“You’d need the support of everyone else. I don’t know that they’ll go along with it. Either they do or they fucking hide. Any association with us could get them killed if this is as big as the senator says it is.”

“Sure, we’ll all just hide our families,” Eli grimaced. “No problem. I know a huge fucking compound that could hold all of us.”

“Actually…” I scratched the back of my head, unsure of why I was even suggesting this. “There might be a place up for grabs.”

“The silo is no place to hide all our families for months on end. Are you fucking crazy? Do you want them to never see the light of day again?”

I looked at Eli, shrugging helplessly. “It’s not the silo.”

“Then what the fuck—” Realization dawned in his eyes and he immediately started shaking his head. “He’d never allow it.”

“Why not? Rafe was his brother. Don’t you think he wants revenge just as much as Cash? Why wouldn’t he go along with it?”

“Because Knight is a territorial prick,” Red said without missing a beat.

“And he has all that space waiting for him. It could work.”

“It would never work,” Eli cut in. “There’s no fucking way you’ll convince all our families to go along with this. You couldn’t even get Isla to agree to extra security. How the hell are you going to persuade her to give up her life here to move to another state indefinitely? And how would you convince everyone else? Is Duke supposed to give up his business? What about Bowie? He’s not part of OPS, but he works for Duke. Do you really think Duke would leave him behind? And what about the rest of the fucking town?”

“Breathe!” I snapped, stopping the rant that could have gone on for days. “I’m not saying it will happen. I’m just talking about what-ifs.”

“What if my leg gets bitten by a dog and I get gangrene?” Eli said. “Yep, I can put out scenarios like that too.”

I rolled my eyes, desperately trying to hide the chuckle that wanted to slip free. I’d never known Eli to be so crazy in all my life. Which meant he was hiding something. Something fucking huge.

I narrowed my eyes at him and he sighed. “Sarah’s pregnant.”

I shook my head at both of them. “What is it with you guys? You can’t keep it in your pants for one fucking night? Is it impossible for you guys to not procreate? You know, the planet isn’t on the verge of collapse.”

“Hey,” Red argued. “I’ll have you know that I don’t fuck Zoe every night.”

“Thank fuck for that.”

“Sometimes, it’s during the day,” he grinned, shrugging at his own joke. “Hey, when you get married to Isla, you’ll know what I’m talking about.”

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