Page 54 of The Devil's Ice

Scars told Elle to put the call through to the bar manager’s office, then sat at his desk and waited for the phone to ring. As he did, all he could think about was Zoe and Keira, how much he fucking missed them. He’d sent them to one of King’s safe houses – which one and where, he had no idea, for their own safety – and they were now being guarded by two of King’s Men. Scars hated every single fucking thing about having to do it, but for as long as he lived, he’d never forget the sight of Keira screaming and crying in Saint’s arms, and Vixen lying broken and bloody on the ground, and the look of terror on Zoe’s beautiful face as she ran to her daughter.

In those few seconds, all Scars saw was hurt and horror; devastation and danger. As soon as Zoe had gotten Vixen’s place ready for her to come back home from the hospital, Scars had sent her and Keira with King. It was all he could do as a man, and husband, and father… so it was what he did.

The phone rang, and he took a deep breath before he grabbed it up. Whatever was going to come down the line at him, he wasn’t going to be in any way prepared for it, he knew that. But he had to at least sound competent and in control – even if that was the last way that he felt right now.

He picked up the phone, but didn’t say anything. There was a pause, then a voice in his ear:

“Scars Innis?”

It wasn’t a voice that he recognized, but that didn’t mean anything. There were plenty of men floating around in the MC orbit that he’d never heard speak, even if he knew them through word of mouth, maybe even glimpsing them himself from a distance.

Or across a scene of battle. Is this a friend or a foe? Or is he in the middle of switching from one side to the other?

“Yeah,” Scars said.

“You’re looking for a few people,” the man said. “Two of them are pretty small.”

Scars held his breath, then exhaled slowly. “Yeah.”

“I know where they are. ThemandWolf Connor.”

Scars had a hundred questions that he wanted to ask, everything fromWho the fuck are you?,toHow the fuck do you know any of this?,toWhat the fuck do you want in exchange for your help?

But if there was one thing that he’d learned from watching Wolf in negotiations and in situations where he had close to zero information, but had to look like he was in control, it was to say very little. Make the other person do all the talking, let them blab and monologue and lead you out of the dark, let things slip. Things that Wolf stored away and then used against them at the right time, when he decided to go for the jugular with the ferocity of the wild animal that he was named after.

So Scars said nothing more. He was in a very bad position here, and he knew it… but he would lay money that the man on the other end of the line was too. Probably worse, in some ways, becausehewas the one reaching out. He might be framing this as some kind of favor to Scars, like he was all great and powerful with his knowledge, but he needed something too. Something from Scars, something that if Scars refused it to him, he might end up hurt badly. Maybe even dead.

Scars waited some more. He heard the man breathing, noticed that it was getting tighter and faster. Scars gripped the phone, gritted his teeth, stayed quiet. Held on, willed his heartbeat to stay slow and steady, prayed to a God that he didn’t believe in that this man might be offering him the chance to get everyone back safe and whole.

“Look,” the man said abruptly. “You know that it was Viper who took those babies. You know that he’s got Wolf. Youalsohave to know that making any moves into Utah will just spook Viper, and put everyone at risk. You can’t take that chance.”

Scars made a sound of assent in his throat, a sort ofMmmmhmmmm.

“They’re alive, all three of ‘em. But I can’t say for how much longer.” The man seemed to hesitate. “Viper is – he’s fucking pissed about what happened in Denver.”

“Whatdidn’thappen, you mean.”

Another pause. “Yeah. Yeah. The boys fucked it all up, and as it turns out, Viper’s not good with failure. He’s – well. He’s fucking spinning out, Innis.”

“Uh-huh.” Scars got the sense that they were reaching the point where the man’s reason for picking up the phone was fast approaching, so he decided to push. Just a bit. “And?”

“And he’s now killing his own people,” the man said quietly. “Anyone who makes a mistake, or who questions what he’s doing, they’re gone. Old-timers, men who have been loyal to the club for decades and to four Presidents… just disappeared.”

Scars realized that this meant that the men who’d tried to kill Vixen and Keira were dead now, at the hands of their own brothers, and he felt a pang. He’d have taken great pleasure in making them suffer, but then again, there was a kind of perverse justice in them being taken out by the people that they’d trusted the most, their own brothers, their own family. If Wolf ordered for Scars to be killed by Arrow, or Holt, or Jinx, Scars thought that he’d die from the betrayal before they could get on with it. It would be the absoluteworstway for him to go, and so a part of him was fiercely glad that the assholes in the van had been shown that level of contempt and disrespect by and from their own.

But healsorealized the reason that this man was on the phone with him now: he thought that he was going to be the next to disappear, and he was quite probably right, and he was scared enough to reach out to the enemy. Which meant that Scars might not have a lot of time to get what he needed to know from him, to find out what he wanted in return for his help. For all Scars knew, the guy was in a scope-sight right that minute, seconds away from having his fucking Hellion head blown off.

“And?” Scars said again. “You next?”

“Yeah.” The man sighed, and for the first time, Scars got the sense that the guy was quite a bit older than he’d originally thought. He was almost certainly one of the ‘old timers’ that he’d mentioned. “I know it.”

“So what do you want?”

“I don’t believe in kidnapping kids,” the man said suddenly. “And I sure as fuck don’t support running them down in parking lots. I’ve done plenty of bad shit, don’t get me wrong, but there’s always,alwaysbeen a line that you don’t cross, and fuck knows that kids are on the safe side of that line. Viper – Viper doesn’thavea line, Scars, but I didn’t understand that until Preacher showed up with those babies in a fucking cardboard box.Thatwas when I knew that my club – myfamily– had changed into something that I don’t recognize and I don’t want anymore.”

“So you want out?”

“I do.”

---