Page 52 of Bullet

“I don’t know. For most people, greed is pretty much paramount.”

“Come on, Bullet! What does every man want to be? The famous line!”

He finally gets it. “Immortal.”

“Yes!” I leap out of my chair and start pacing like they do in courtrooms in the movies in one of those ‘Aha! We’ve got him now, boys’ moments. “Harold knows everyone. He’s found success, sure. Wealth, certainly. He’s been practicing law for a long time. People know of him, but does the world truly know his name? I’m talking about a case to end all cases. The kind that gets a lawyer into the papers and the history books after. He’d never be able to go after a more notorious club and live to see it through, but why not go after one that he knows won’t kill him? One with a president who is opposed to violence and murder?One he already has years of insider information and evidence on?”

“Jesus H fucking Christ on a cracker.”

“Props for inventiveness, by the way.” I grasp the back of my chair and keep going. “I would say he has some fail-safes built into this. Like if something did end up happening to him, all the evidence goes viral.”

“Why not just do it out of the blue? Release all the evidence and bring us down?”

“I don’t know. Unless it’s not the fame he wants. Not the immortality. Maybe he’s got himself in trouble with someone or something else. Something he needs a great deal of money for.”

Bullet shakes his head. He’s not so placid or controlled now. “This fucking guy is turning into a thorn in the ass.”

I try to give him a stern look and fail horribly. I almost break down and laugh.

“We don’t know how to get his attention. He’s been refusing to contact us. Wizard thinks Harold might not even be in the country.”

“You could always go spray paint CALL US in screaming capital letters across the front of his house. No doubt he’s getting security feeds, no matter where he is.”

Bullet’s laughter is sharp with surprise. “Tyrant still wants to take the high road. And vandalism is not exactly legal.”

“You’re surprised that I’d suggest something like that?” I sit down and swipe my finger across the trackpad to turn my laptop back on. There’s no way I’m going to leave here withoutjotting some of my thoughts down so I can come back to them later. “I wasn’t serious, but fine. Rent out a sandwich board and stand out in front of his house. Hire one of those vans that drive around before elections with a loudspeaker and message plastered over the side, I’m sure that would catch his attention.”

“I think we might be rubbing off on you. You’re getting more and more nefarious as the days go on.”

“I’ve been trying to work this out and it’s starting to drive me crazy.” I press down hard on the pulse point in my wrist to focus, but all that does is remind me of how Bullet touched me there in my kitchen, and how much Ilikedit. “On the outside, none of this makes any sense.”

“Let’s go back to the red herring idea.”

“You think all of this is just a distraction.”

What’s distracting is how unreasonably handsome this man is. I thought he’d be gone by now and that Smoke would have come to stay in his place. It’s distracting how I find myself thinking about missing him.

“Or a threat.” I push the words past my dry throat. “But yes. Mostly a distraction. If it’s not for Harold, then what? If he’s not here, then why is Donny?”

“Because he’s in law school.”

“But why not just buy him a spot in some prestigious European school, if that’s where Harold really wanted him to be?”

“Maybe Donny doesn’t want to go. He might have an independent thought in his head after all.”

“Or why not Harvard or Yale?”

“They’re not here?” Bullet says, but it sounds like he’s waiting for me to tell him why. I’ve been leading him down this path and he’s a more than willing participant.

He’s far,fartoo easy to talk to. Most people would appreciate that, and I do, but it’s also problematic, because it makes me want more.

More conversation, more time with him, more of his smiles, his laughter, his gruff grumping, his calming, steady presence, his odd biker charm. It’s so wild that I ever thought this man was rough around the edges. He is, but I barely notice it now and I’ve been here all of five hot minutes, and isn’t that just the root of all my problems?

“The club obviously looked into Harold years ago when he became your lawyer, but what about his kid?”

“You think there’s something that would prevent him from leaving the country? Something Harold hasn’t been able to buy Donny a pardon for?”

“I doubt it. You’d either know about something like that, or it would have prevented him from getting into law school. Something small, like a DIU, doesn’t seem like it would be an issue for Harold to get pardoned.”

---