Page 68 of The Grief We Hold

He cups my cheek and brushes a kiss across my lips before running from the diner with Smoke.

22

WRAITH

Smoke and I give chase on bikes that miraculously work despite the hail of bullets, but the van is long gone.

Our bikes have been shot up good, and I mourn the damage to my favorite ride. As we park up by the diner, I see the bullet holes peppering her body, highlighted by the flashing blue lights of the cop cars outside.

Sure, I can work night and day in the garage to fix her up, but she’ll never quite be the same again.

“Fucking Bratva,” Butcher says when I find him looking up at the wrecked diner.

We called him while riding for backup and cleanup.

We’re not going to let Ma carry the brunt of this on her own. The club looks out for this town, regardless of what Tanner Radcliffe thinks. And they were after us.

“Definitely Russians,” I say. “Fuckers knew where we were and came for us in a public place. That’s as ballsy as it gets. They’ve got eyes on this town if they know where we eat.”

Butcher lights a cigarette and takes a long draw. “Did you get anything?”

I tug a hand through my hair. “Nothing. No plates. Nondescript van. Probably torched somewhere down the highway. At least, that’s what I’d do if I were them.”

“Fuckers. I’m gonna kill each one of them and feed their entrails to the fucking wolves,” Butcher says.

I got other ideas for their entrails. Gonna pull ‘em out slowly and watch each of the fuckers suffer.

“They aren’t gonna let us do anything here until they’re finished with it as a crime scene,” I say. We’re a small town. Decent-sized police force due to our presence. But other things like true crime scene investigators, coroners, and the like have to come in from the next town over. It’ll be an hour before the cops have all the resources they feel comfortable having here.

“You left a crime scene,” Tanner says when he reaches me.

“So fucking sue me,” I say.

Tanner rubs a hand over his jaw. “Don’t be unreasonable when people are dead.”

“Like you were?”

His nostrils flare, but he says nothing in return. He knows what he did the morning Hallie and Lottie were killed.

Catfish joins us, and over his shoulder, I see Raven giving her statement while holding Fen close. Her hand is acting like a horse blinker, shielding him from everything that’s happening.

And now I feel like a complete shit.

I should have stayed. I could have advocated for her being interviewed in her own home so her kid didn’t have to see all this. Should have gotten Catfish to take the kid to the burger joint at the other end of Main Street for a milkshake or some shit.

I’m immune to violence. I dispatch it. I’d step over a dead body without breaking a sweat. But a kid. He shouldn’t be here.

“We need a statement from you,” Tanner says.

“Didn’t see anything,” I say. “Heard the gunfire, acted on impulse to protect Raven. Spent most of the time with my back to the window and body lying in shattered glass.”

Butcher raises an eyebrow at my statement.

“Don’t look at me like that,” I say to Butcher.

“Didn’t say a word,” he replies.

Tanner coughs, like some polite fucking interruption. “Well, we’re still going to need to get all that on paper.”

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