Page 67 of The Devil's Ice

Vixen gestured at the neck brace wryly. “It’sallwe’re about right now.”

Zoe laughed, and Vixen smiled back.

“OK, yeah,” Zoe said. “I can see that. So you’re asking me how to be in a committed relationship with a Road Devils MC member, who lately belongs to a club that always seems to be spinning from some insane drama straight into another one? And how to cope when your man, and mine, are heading to Utah to face fuck-knows-what, in order to retrieve yetanotherMC member and two kidnapped babies?”

“That’s what I’m asking you.”

“Yeah, it’s a lot.”

“But you’re sogoodat handling it all,” Vixen said. “I mean, I know youhaveto be worried about Scars and Wolf and everyone, but you just get on with it, and take care of Keira and take the whole ‘safe house with bodyguards’ thing in stride. So maybe you just – you get used to it?”

Zoe sighed. “Nope. You don’t.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Shit.”

Zoe laughed again, but with some sadness. “I getbetterat handling it every time, I think, but between you and me, I’m so upset and worried right now, and I’m keeping myself busy just as a big distraction. Scars called this morning before they headed out, and I was in tears when we hung up – me and Keira being here means that I didn’t even get to say goodbye in person.”

“God. That has to be hard.”

“It is. But even when we can talk in person, it’sstillhard because I know that he’s getting ready to head off and do something dangerous, and I can’t help. Ialsoknow that he protects me from a lot of what the club gets up to – both him and Wolf talk to me, but I never get the whole story from either one of them.”

“And being married to Scars hasn’t changed that?”

“No. He was really open and honest with me when we were living together before marriage, and it’s the same relationship now. Being married hasn’t made him tell me moreorless.”

“Do you think,” Vixen said slowly. “That in some ways, it’sbetterfor us to not know what our men do for the club? How they fight for it, what they do to protect it?”

Zoe gave her a hard look, those emerald green eyes as sharp and bright as jewels. “Real talk now?”

“Yes. One hundred percent.”

“OK, then.” Zoe took a deep breath. “I absolutely do not want to know what the guys do, how they do it, where they do it, or who they do it to. I’ve known Wolf for a long,longtime, from way before he patched in to the club, and he’snevertold me everything to do with The Road Devils. Frankly, if he’d told me, as an outsider, any club business back when Wheels Jordan was in charge, he’d have been lucky to just get thrown out of the MC and not killed – there’s a code of silence and secrecy, and every man swore an oath to it. Telling us even the little that they do is just down to Wolf’s generosity in leadership. But if he was adifferentkind of leader, if he was like Wheels, and he told Scars tomorrow to never breathe a word to me ever again, Scars would do as he was told. Failure to obey would put Scars, and me, and Keira in danger.”

“But Wolf’s not like that.”

“In some ways, he is. Some stuff – the really bad stuff – stays between the boys. Some stuff I can kind of take a guess at, but I don’t want to know if my hunches are right.”

“So… so theydokill people.Still, I mean. Since Wolf taking the club straight.”

“Yes.” Zoe’s tone was flat and final. “Yes, I knowthatfor sure. I don’t have all the details, but I know they still take lives. I even know who was killed, in a few cases, but I don’t knowwhoactually did the killing, or what happened after.”

“You mean with the bodies?”

“I mean at all. I don’t know where the bodies are – if there evenareany bodies left – and I don’t know who helped make everything disappear. I don’t know who was tasked with what, inside or outside the club, and I never ask a single question about any of it. You shouldn’t either.”

“I have to say that a part of me wants to know,” Vixen admitted. “But I alsodon’twant to know. Both things are true at the same time, and I feel – conflicted.”

“And that’s how it will feelallthe time where you’re with a man who’s patched in to The Road Devils. You want to know because you want to support him if he’s struggling, but you don’t want to know because then he’s betraying his brothers, maybe putting you in danger, maybe putting the MC in danger.”

“But aren’t we already –” Vixen broke off.

“Aren’t we already in danger?” Zoe finished for her.

“Well, yes. I mean – the parking lot. The babies being kidnapped. Elle being taken. Rebel being killed.”

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