Page 49 of The Devil's Scars

“No,” Dawson stammered, dropping his eyes, taking a step back, but Scars wasn’t fooled at the docile act. He’d seen the flash of sheer, murderous rage in those dark depths before Dawson had looked away. “No… it’s cool, Wolf. We’re cool. I’ll – I’ll figure something else out.”

“You do that.” Wolf turned, trusting Scars to have his back. “I have complete faith in your ability to screw someone over for your personal gain. Carry on, man.”

Scars and Wolf left the clubhouse, barely glancing at their former brothers who were standing around, but their every sense, every nerve-ending, every fibre were all straining, prickling, alert and pumped to the max full of adrenalin. If they heard so much as a ‘click’ – even if it turned out to be a goddamn pen – they’d pull first and ask questions later.

Nothing happened, though, and they hit the parking lot without an issue. They got on their bikes without a word, peeled out and away. Scars knew that Wolf had plenty to say, though, and so he wasn’t surprised when Wolf pulled over at Dangerous Curves, killed the engine.

Scars parked next to his Prez, removed his helmet. “You need a beer, man?”

“Nah.” Wolf shook his head, flattened his hair. “Just wanted a second to talk to you before we head back.”

“OK.” Scars leaned back, his weight braced on his long, strong, jeaned legs, crossed his massive arms. “Shoot.”

“First, thanks for havin’ my six in there. For a second, I thought it might go another way.”

“Yeah. I did, too. Glad it didn’t.”

“No shit.” Wolf ran his hand over his stubble, briefly shut his eyes. “Can you believe him askin’, though?” He snorted. “‘Illegal-lite’, my ass.”

“Right? “ Scars managed a grin at Dawson’s idiotic choice of words. “Anything that involves Crusher and Skulls isn’t ‘lite’ anything.”

“Amen, brother. Now, the second thing is… what do you think the chances are that Dawson’ll do somethin’ as payback for me sayin’ no?”

Thiswas the big question, and Scars knew it. He also knew his answer, and he believed in it with everything that he had, despite Dawson’s split-second of rage.

“Honestly?” Scars said. “I think the chances are slim-to-none.”

“Yeah.” Wolf blew out a breath, looked at the passing cars and trucks on the busy highway. “I think so, too. The man is too busy sortin’ things out right now, especially with probably losin’ two key drug buyers… but once he does sort shit, he may turn his attention our way.”

“I really don’t think so. I think that by then, he’ll have forgotten it ever happened. I mean, we know he can plan, and we know that he can follow through. We saw that with him starting up The Blood Crew right under our damn noses.”

“Mmmm,” Wolf said darkly. “Too true.”

“But even though he’s a two-faced, sneaky prick, Dawson doesn’t hold a grudge. He never has. He gets mad fast, he gets over it faster. He doesn’t dwell on his failures either. Look at Ice and Cain and the twins: he begged them all to join his new crew as Enforcers, and they turned him down flat. He bitched and screamed for three days, threatened them and acted like a jerk, then he just stopped, and put his time into scouting and recruiting new guys. After the temper tantrum, he always comes to his senses, refocuses his energies, solves the problem, moves on to bigger and better things. I say, he’ll be pissed at us until he comes up with a plan to get new clients and sets it in motion. In a week, he’ll have forgotten he ever asked us for help.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I agree. But still – I need you to keep an eye on Zoe. Just for a little while.”

“What? Zoe?” Scars damn near toppled backwards off his bike, both in shock and delight. “Why?”

“Because I promised her that she and Keira would be safe if she came back here and worked for the club. I said all the shit was over and in the past. I don’t think Dawson and his crew will do a damn thing to any of us, let alone her – but I ain’t takin’ even the smallest chance with that woman. We protect her, we protect her baby, and since Zoe’s the most important damn thing in my world, she gets the best I got watchin’ her back. That’s you, man.” Wolf looked as soft and worried as Scars had ever seen him, in all the years that he’d known the man. “Do this for me, OK?”

“Of course I will. You know you don’t need to ask twice.”

“Thanks.” Wolf straightened up, his tone going brisk and cool again. “I’ll tell the guys what’s what with Dawson so they can watch Zoe at Blue Dragon and Silver can watch her at home, but I don’t want her in the loop yet.”

“Agreed.”

“So.” Wolf put his helmet back on, lowered his kick stand. “Let’s go, Innis. We got to call a meetin’ of all The Road Devils, and give ‘em the news. They need to be on alert until I think Dawson’s over it.”

“Wolf?”

“Yeah?”

“You think… you think we can ever really get out? Out of the life, even though we were in it for so damn long?”

Scars hated to ask, hated to sound pessimistic, or like he was questioning Wolf’s leadership and decisions, but this was weighing heavily on his mind. Some days, he thought that it was just about all he thought about.

Except for Zoe, of course. He thought about her near-constantly, and it had just about killed him to keep his distance for the past week, but she’d been up to her eyeballs in settling in at work, and trying to find a babysitter, and moving fully into the house.

He’d figured that she’d need to focus and get organized, and his private welcome gift to her had been to give her the space and time to do what she had to to start a new life, on her terms. Scars had watched with interest and pride as she’d kicked the parlor into a semblance of order in record time, and hired Maria Torres, a genuinely sweet and good-hearted woman, and had listened to Silver talk about how he’d hung some of Zoe’s own art on the walls of his house.

In short, Scars had backed off, but it was always meant to be a temporary capitulation, a brief respite in his campaign to take Zoe on a real date, one with clothes and talking and maybe even some good old-fashioned hand-holding at the movies. And if he were being totally honest, he’d also been hoping that his short, self-imposed absence would give her a chance to miss him, maybe just a little bit. He’d been planning to make another Zoe approach soon, anyway, and Wolf had just given him the green light.

“Hell, yes, we will.” Wolf was firm, fierce. “It’ll take some time, Scars. Longer than I’d hoped, I see that now, but that don’t mean that it’ll never happen. We just keep makin’ the right choices – like we did today. We keep sayin’ ‘no’. We keep watchin’ out for each other. We keep the faith, and we keep puttin’ one foot in front of the other on the right road. We do that, and one day we’ll be free from it all. No more calls to wipe out one-percenter MC’s lookin’ to do us harm, no more requests for cooperation with drug runners. One day at a time, man. We’ll do it, if we do it together. If we stick together.”

And just like that, Scars believed all over again. He believed in his President, in his plans, in his ability to change Scars’ world for the better.

Now… he had to figure out how to watch out for Zoe without having that woman make him lose his freaking mind.

Easier said than done.

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