Page 27 of The Grief We Hold

Guess it was good enough for his old lady, but not for his daughter.

Took me another seven months to convince Hallie to give me another shot.

Was I faithful while trying to woo her back?

You bet I was. My palm was in use so often, it was practically welded to my dick.

But when she finally forgave me and checked out the sexual health report she made me get, it was worth every single minute.

As we pull into the clubhouse, I can see the exact spot where I asked her to marry me. When she freaked out over the size of the rock I gave her. And how Ma and Two Bit hugged me.

I was the one who arranged for Two Bit to get taken care of in prison. The guy told the club lawyer he wanted immunity from prosecution for sharing major club secrets because he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life behind bars.

We made sure he was dead before he could testify.

Hallie and Margie never knew it was the club.

“What’s up?” Butcher asks me when we get into the clubhouse and order a coffee with whiskey to warm us up.

“Two nomads were seen in Kansas City. I want permission to ride out.”

Butcher looks at me. “No can do. You were just gone. And now that spring’s around the corner, we got groundwork to get on with. Repairs to the clubhouse. And a road trip to Sturgis in the summer to plan.”

His words irritate me, like nails across a raw wound. “That sounds a lot like keeping me here for months.”

Butcher shrugs. “Listen, brother. I understand your need for vengeance. But the men who gave the orders for Hallie’s and Lottie’s deaths are long gone. What’s your body count at now? Seventeen? Eighteen? We took out the cell in Denver, and they haven’t returned. Chances are, you already killed the man who gave the order. At the vote of your brothers, everything we took from them went to you.”

“You think I give a shit about the fucking money? It doesn’t bring them back.”

Butcher slams his palm on the thick wooden bar. “Neither does killing nomads you aren’t even sure were in the state when Hallie was murdered.”

“Except they’re in Kansas City. And it’s a day’s ride. If I wait too long to leave, they’ll be gone, and I’ll never know the truth.”

“And then what?” Butcher asks. “You’ll spend two days hunting around for ghosts, followed by another two days where you drink so much your liver goes on strike. Then you’ll ride home, sleep for another two days, and then come back to us. You’ve got to let this go.”

I glare at Butcher. Somewhere deep inside, a voice acknowledges that Butcher is right. But my heart. Jesus. Myfucking heart calls out to me from its resting place in that coffin with my girls, saying that I can’t walk away from them now.

Unable to explain to Butcher why it matters so much, I simply chug my coffee. It burns my tongue, the roof of my mouth, and my throat. Might even blister in the same way a bite of flaming-hot pizza can do.

“Fair enough,” I say finally. “I got shit to do.”

“Wraith. The brotherhood isn’t your enemy.”

I walk out of the clubhouse and look up at the blue sky. It’s six weeks until Lottie’s birthday. She would have turned three years old.

I’d never lift a blade to a baby. Can’t imagine what kind of fucked-up brain you need to be able to commit such an act. I suppose that’s the difference between me and them—I only kill those playing the game.

When I found one of the men I believed was involved, I tore him apart slowly.

Over days.

I skinned a lot of his body and would sharpen my knife in front of him between sessions, telling him all about Lottie. About how fucking happy I’d been when we found out we were pregnant. About the day Hallie called me to tell me she’d gone into labor five weeks early. How I’d sat by Lottie in her incubator for four days, praying to a god I didn’t believe in that she’d be okay.

Then I skinned him some more.

Butcher intervened, in the end.

He held a gun to the man’s head and a one-minute timer in his other hand.

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