Page 93 of Pay the Price

I’d felt bad about excluding Sarai — I owed her a million catch-up lunches and at least one night out — but I wanted to keep this on the down low until I knew what, if anything, it was.

“Yeah, I’ll make it up to her for sure. It’s just that the guy seemed sure, and… I don’t know…” I was trying to put into words the way my life had started to feel, like it had looked like a perfectly knitted sweater that had disintegrated into a million loose threads the second I tried to put it on.

“Whatis going on, Daze?” There was real concern in Cassie’s blue-green eyes.

I shook my head. “I don’t actually know. There’s a lot, like…a lota lot, and I have this weird feeling it’s all connected, but I can’t make sense of it yet.”

“And this will help?” Cassie asked. “Finding out more about your mom and the Blades?”

“Maybe. I mean, I don’t actually know, but right now I just feel like I have to pull at everything, you know?” If the sweater wasn’t going to hold, there was no point trying to wear it. Better to pull it apart now and try to piece it back together right.

Cassie nodded. “Then I’ll ask Bram. If he doesn’t know, I’m betting he can find out. Only he’s in the city for the next few days. Can it wait until then?”

“It’s waited twenty years,” I said. “A few more days isn’t going to change anything.”

Chapter 56

Jace

The compound didn’t feel like home anymore. I didn’t know if it was because of my time in prison or the months I’d been living at the house at the top of the falls with Daisy — both maybe — but I felt like a visitor as I wandered through the compound, asking everybody if they’d seen Mac.

I thought the other members of the MC felt it too. They were friendly enough, had been fine when I’d shown up for Summer Shit and the Fourth of July with Wolf, Otis, and Daisy, but the vibe was different than it had been before I went to prison.

Maybe that was just what happened when the people you’d grown up with discovered you were a cold-blooded murderer.

I’d talked to several members of the club, all of whom had said Mac was “around somewhere” but none of whom knew exactly where, when I found Pinky sitting outside, slugging a bottle of water on the wide porch of the building we called the clubhouse. Inside I could hear the sound of squeaking rubber on the floors of the indoor gymnasium. Once upon a time it had been used as a recreation space for rich summer camp kids. Nowit was used as recreation space for a bunch of bikers who were surprisingly good at basketball.

“Hey, Pink. Have you seen Mac?”

She peered up at me and I was surprised to realize she was getting old. Not super old but definitely older.

In my mind she was still a sassy thirty-something, giving everyone shit while she traipsed around, cooking in platform sandals and tight jeans, her tits hanging out of low-cut tank tops and cut-up T-shirts even when she was standing over the stove.

She still died her short hair pink but now she was a fifty-something giving everyone shit while she traipsed around cooking in platform sandals and tight jeans, her tits hanging out of low-cut tank tops and cut-up T-shirts even when she was standing over the stove. I saw it in the crinkles around her eyes when she looked up at me, the creases around her mouth from the cigarettes she still hadn’t entirely given up.

Then again, maybe she still saw me as the knee-high punk who’d thought being the son of a Blades’ president — even a dead one — gave him the right to be a monumental pain in the ass.

Time was weird.

“I think he’s out back,” she said. “He was looking for some tax papers.”

“Fuck.” That meant either riding through the woods to the outbuilding where we kept extra bikes and all the shit we didn’t use on a daily basis or walking through the woods, and neither sounded great in ninety-plus-degree heat. “Okay, thanks.”

She studied my face. “You doing okay up there in that fancy house?”

“I’m good.”

She nodded. “Just remember, we’re still your family.”

“I know.” It would always be true, even if things were weird. The people who raised you, who protected you when you weretoo vulnerable to protect yourself, were family forever, even when other things changed. “Thanks. You good?”

She nodded and stood. “I’m always good, darlin’.”

“Life is grand,” I said, because it was kind of her catchphrase and I hadn’t heard her say it in a while.

Her tired face was transformed by a sudden smile, like she’d been reminded of something important. “Life is grand.”

“I’m going to look for Mac,” I said. “See you around.”

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