Page 79 of Biker's Prisoner: Property of Bucky

“Nobody else knows these things about me.”

Tamiyaand I both know that man chronically over shares online. I doubt he has a bunion that his Instagram followers don’t know about. I clear my throat, ready to put my foot down before Curtis inevitably fights me.

“I didn’t send him anything. It’s a trap. Ruger lured him here and… he really needs to leave.”

I don’t even address him. Part of me is too scared to address him. What if Ruger walks in at the last minute? Can I really risk that? I have to be smart here. Tamiya looks at me and she can tell, I’m not messing around.

“Do you think Ruger could do that? Write in English?”

I have to bite my lower lip to keep myself from screaming and laughing. I’ve spent enough time with Ruger to understand why she asks. But also, I know him better than anyone in this room. I’ve been in bed with him. This isn’t a man you want to underestimate.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Ruger

Ican smell salmon all the way from the motel room where I’m laying low to complete this last kill. Every sense of mine is at its peak. It’s not just the smell coming off the fishing boats.

I know that motherfucker went to my house – thatCurtis. I sense it. I listened to Zayna’s pretty words about trust and relationships. But modern relationships don’t work. Modern folks don’t have any ideas about commitment or how to make relationships last. I have a few secrets.

My family was correct. My first wife wasn’t right for me. But Zayna…

The longer Ispend away from her, the more time I have to think. I don’t sleep anywhere fancy on my drive to kill Grant. Motherfucker must be running from his guilt because my little road trip takes me on a journey by land – following the vague path north of a fishing boat containing my last target.

I had to do a couple lines to get the energy to ride without stopping. No meth with the family, but it’s not exactly hard to find. Cut it up nice and clean on a personal mirror I keep in my pocket. Since I became a father, I haven’t done a line of meth ina Flying J bathroom, so my nose burns as the powder shoots up straight to my brain.

My mind opens like a lotus flower and my thoughts shoot in a million directions at once. It’ll take a while before I hone in on one singular obsession. If I give myself too much time, I’ll end up eating more than a fat grizzly at this Flying J gas station and getting nowhere. The entire drive up to Seward, Alaska is meant to take sixty-four hours without stopping.

Sixty-four fucking hours.

It takesme three days to get up to Seward. I have to be careful. No people out here means new people get noticed extra hard. Few hours away from Seward, I take my cut off at the last gas station I stop at and put on some clothes that make me look normal. More like a new guy looking for work on a fishing boat. Or a junkie.

I swear I put some weight on living with Zayna. Everything she cooked turned directly into muscle and now I have shoulders bigger than Gideon’s. Abs that look thick and strong on their own. My biceps and legs are more like tree trunks now. I might have looked a little more like a junkie before her constant flow of roasted venison and delicious baked potatoes.

All that shit she sprinkles on the food makes a difference. And she says a lot of it is butter but… I’m not a chef. I just know I miss this woman’s food and her warmth now that I’m out here in Alaska trying to blend in with a bunch of damn civilians. I think it works. I haven’t shaved my face since I left, so I have a thicker than normal beard.

I cut another line and continue into Seward with my tattoos and any outward signs that I’m a barbarian covered up. I look…normal.I get to the motel where I plan on staying while I carry this work out. There are two cars parked outside, neither of them activate any sort of concern in me. I pay for my room in cash, which they still let you do in the middle of bumfuck America. Then I sit and plan Grant’s death.

It’shard to be here planning his death when every last one of my instincts tells me that Curtis will fall for my trap and he’ll be well on his way to Elk City. I have to trust Zayna now. Which I don’t, because she won’t see this coming. The thing is, no sane man could “get over” a woman like Zayna. Her strength might intimidate them into leaving her. They might find themselves put off by her spirit.

But once you love a woman like Zayna, you can’t stop. She’s the type to worm her way into your head and make a home there. She’s the type of woman you kill for. Gentle and strong. Stoic when necessary. But feminine. She keeps my stomach full. She warms my bed with her soft curves and mass of suffocating curls. When I feel her hands on my chest, I feel the love I never had growing up.

The love I suspected other people got from their families. Or even from women.

I never hadthat until Zayna. She has to understand that real love like that can make a man do crazy things. I’ll kill the guilty or the innocent to have her. It doesn’t matter what I do, as long as I prove to myself and God that I am utterly devoted to the cause of loving Zayna. Her past doesn’t matter, but our future does. And I want to make it a good one.

Grant’s fishingboat docks two days after I get to Seward. I spend each night at the bar collecting as much information as possible – lying about my origins and intentions. Hoping that nobody notices the stranger who rolled into town and suddenly left. I play the part of a scumbag pretty well. It’s hard to change certain parts of yourself after you join the Army.

I sit and stand a certain way. I have to force myself to be less proper. To act like I couldn’t care less about my surroundings while soaking up every last piece of information available to me. The night the boat docks, all the fishermen go out drinking. Learned that from the old guy working the bar.

Strange thing about Alaska. Been here two days and I haven’t seen a single woman. I never thought I would find the absence of women particularly unnerving. But even in the Army, you get more contact with them than out here. I can’t imagine the type of scary bastard this wilderness might produce. I become a creature of the darkness. I can’t spend too much time outside without wanting to piss myself from the cold.

Using the list of men on the fishing boat and a careful analysis of the dormitories, I guess which one will be Grant’s. Alphabetical order seems to be the name of the game here. I count off the rooms and find the right one. Nothing to secure out here, so the door might be locked, but the windows are popped right open. It doesn’t take much for me to scale to the second floor.

The men areall at the bar. Grant’s place is meticulous. Impersonal. I don’t know how much money he makes doing this shit, but he would thrive in the Army. The room would pass inspection and possibly be used as an example. No pictures anywhere. No signs of who the room actually belongs to. There’s a pair of New Balance sneakers by the door.

Like you could get away with anything other than boots this far up North. Maybe he uses them to pace the halls when his mind gets a little too fucked. I’m overthinking it and tempted to do another line of meth – which definitely wouldn’t help at this point. I keep searching for evidence, making it a game to comb through his possessions quietly.

It’s too quiet out here.

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