Page 81 of The Oath We Take

He lowers me to the floor, gently, as Catfish walks into the room. My already-pounding heart steps it up a notch, and I peer around Atom to double-check my father isn’t here too.

Thankfully, the hallway remains empty.

“You better have bleach around here so I can wash my eyes out,” he says. “And some really fucking strong alcohol so I can drink enough to convince myself I didn’t see what I clearly just saw.”

I step away, but Atom takes hold of my hand and squeezes it firmly. While I have no idea what happens now, it’s good to know we’ll be there for each other.

“It’d be easy to insult you and try to come up with some bullshit that would explain away this,” Atom says. “But I’m not going to. You saw what you saw.”

“This is a really bad idea, Atom. The president’s daughter? Really?”

“You assume I have no part in this, Catfish. This isn’t some situation where he took advantage of me or something. I’m a willing participant.”

Catfish winces. “That almost makes it worse. How long has this been going on?”

“Not long,” Atom says.

“Forever,” I say in parallel.

Atom turns to me and smiles. “That sounds about right.”

“Sounds confusing as fuck. Is that what the whole vibe was between the two of you all this time? Did you really hate each other?”

“I love her, brother,” Atom says. “Always have. But for the last five years, I’ve tried to live up to my promise to Butcher. Tried not to lay my hands on my president’s daughter like he asked, but she’s always been my queen.”

“That’s cheesy as fuck, brother, but I’ll give you a pass given Butcher is still going to kill you,” he says. But I see his love and respect for Atom.

Atom nods. “Maybe. But there’s a lot going on right now involving Ember. And I need to be by her side to protect her. I’m not asking you to lie for me. But I am asking you to help me find some breathing room so we can get through this, and then we’ll be able to tell him about the two of us.”

Catfish runs a hand over his freshly shaved jaw as he looks to me. “You cool with this plan?”

I nod. “I tried to convince him five years ago we should do this.”

Atom smiles at me softly. “I was an idiot to turn you down. But in some ways, I wasn’t ready for you. Not back then.”

Catfish sighs. “All this serves me right for being happy to see your bike. I won’t lie for you if asked a direct question. But I’ll throw a smoke screen. The whole ‘hands off’ clause thing always made me itch.” He looks quickly to me. “Not because you weren’t worth protecting, but it seems so controlling.” Then, he looks back at Atom. “And not because I couldn’t keep my hands off her. Jesus, I’m gonna shut up now because I’m making it worse.”

I step forward and place my hand on his arm. “It’s alright, Catfish. We’ll figure this out.”

He looks at me like I have a contagious disease and steps out of my reach. “Don’t like the use of ‘we’ in that sentence.Youtwo have things to sort out. I have things I need to forget and just move on with my life.”

“Did you need something?” Atom asks.

“What? Erm…yeah. But I’m thinking I’m just gonna walk back outside and catch you on the sidewalk.” He begins walking backwards like we’re radioactive and he needs to get out of the blast zone.

“This is an interesting side of you, Catfish,” I tease. “I always thought you were a balls-to-the-wall kinda guy.”

He points to Atom. “He should be more worried than he is about Butcher nailinghisballs to the wall.”

Atom bursts out laughing. “Come on, let’s go back into the bar and see if this fire fried all the alcohol. You coming?”

I shake my head. “I’m just going to do a little inventory of what new equipment I’m gonna need.”

Atom walks up the stairs with Catfish, and I hear another run of expletives. My heart eases a little. Out of all the men who could have found us, Catfish is probably the least risky. Had it been some new prospect, chomping at the bit to join the club, he could have quite possibly gone running to my father to tell him.

But I trust Catfish. For all his flaws, loyalty is one of his greatest assets.

I begin looking through the wet slime and dirt and blackened walls. It looks like the industrial walk-in freezer will be just fine. But a lot of the tubing on the gas stove tops was burned. I glance at the master switch for the gas and see it’s been switched into the Off position.

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