Page 90 of Devil's Due

“Ignore him, he’s jealous. Mmm, you’ve got manly muscles, Beef.” Jayden’s sweet voice sounds as she comes up alongside her man.

“Don’t hear you complaining about what I can do with what God gave me,” Pal stage-whispers into her ear.

“Well, if you lovebirds are winding up to a demonstration, I got things I’d rather be doing.” I thrust my hips leaving them in no doubt as to my intentions. Then, when they both start laughing, I flip them my finger as I walk off.

I’m still smiling as I go up to my room, or rather, Demon’s old one. Seems I won’t have spent enough time in it to lay claim to ownership. I was pleased to see Pal and Jay looking so happy and settled in their new environment. If they can move somewhere totally different, grow to call strangers friends, perhaps there’s a chance for me too. Mind you, they were moving to what they could already call family. Stevie and me? Well, we’ll be totally on our own.

Doesn’t mean we can’t do it.

And, when it’s safe. We can come back.

I pause before turning the door knob. Got to get my head around it might never be safe for her to return. Tomorrow I might be walking away from the Satan’s Devils forever.Am I doing the craziest thing I’ve ever done in my life? Giving up everything I am for a woman I’ve known two weeks?I rest my forehead against the wood, examining my feelings as honestly as I can. What I’d told her earlier is the complete truth. It might not have been long, but the time we’ve spent together has been intense. I may not know facts or figures, or who she was before she had to hide, but I knowher, the woman inside. I know she’s who I want to spend the rest of my life with. It’s not that she’s different from Sally, what I feel for her is on another level too. If I have to leave everything behind me, she’s worth it. Despite my sadness, there’s an undercurrent of excitement too at the thought of taking a step into an unknown future, a new reality that we can shape to our will. With her, beside me, I believe I can be happy. Yes, this is the right thing to do.

Ready, I turn the handle, mentally preparing to now persuade her.

On entering the room, all that greets me is the thump thumping of Max’s tail on the floor. He may have overdone it today, as he doesn’t leap up to meet me. I go to him, sinking to my haunches and stroking him. “That leg hurting, Max? You’ll soon be up chasing rabbits. And where’s your mistress, eh?”

My first thought is the bathroom, but the door’s open and from here I can see no one is inside. Clubroom? I frown. I hadn’t seen her, but she may have been in the kitchen with Jeannie, Sindy or even Mo if Hellfire’s old lady made one of her rare visits to the compound. Stevie’s clearly left Max here to rest. I stroke him again, seeing his large brown eyes on me.Why is it dogs always look so sad?

I stand, my intention to go to find his mistress. When I do so I notice a note propped up against the dresser with my name on it.

That’s odd.Stevie’s blind.

My senses immediately on high alert, with an unsteady hand I open it and being to read it.

Beef,

I’m dictating this note, and Lennox is writing it for me. I’ll sign it so you know it’s from me.

Lennox has arranged a new place where I’ll be safe. He promises to take better care of me this time. Another marshal will be taking over from him (as Lennox fears he may have been compromised as my handler). He’s taking me to him now. I don’t know where I’m going, so I couldn’t tell you if I wanted to.

I knew this would happen. Lennox has explained my testimony is too important for the government to trust me in anyone’s hands but their own. It’s why I know they can keep me safe. Their interest is served by keeping me alive.

That’s the only reason I couldn’t commit to you, Beef, though everything inside me echoes what you said. I know you too. I know you’re a good man. I know you’d do everything you can to keep me safe. But at the end of the day, I have to trust the experts. The marshals have never lost a man, or woman, yet.

I’m gutted at leaving you, and also that I’ve had to leave Max. He’s not strong enough to work yet, and I know you’ll take care of him. I would be selfish to take him with me before he’s healed. I’ve got my white stick and that will help.

I think I’m almost in love with you too. Probably more than that.

It’s best you forget me. If I can make my way back to you, I will, but we need to be realistic, and this goodbye might be final.

You’ll have a place in my heart forever. You deserve so much more than the trouble I bring, and which might never be over.

Yours, forever

There’s a scrawled signature. A blind woman’s attempt to write her name. A name she’s never seen written as it’s not the one she was born with. And there, lying where I’d found the note, the phone Cad had given her.

The roar that comes out of my mouth has Max up and growling. My fist slapping into the top of the dresser makes him bark. Without taking the time to calm him, I rush to the door and back out, leaping down the steps, my mind whirling.Did Stevie dictate that note?Or did Lennox just write what the fuck he wanted? She’d never know. She could have been tricked into signing it. That might not even be her signature.

The only thing I’m certain of is that it was Lennox who lured her away. She wouldn’t have gone with anyone else.

“Demon!” My voice thunders across the room, audible even over the blasting of the jukebox.

Sensing trouble, someone turns the music off. “What the fuck, Beef?” Demon yells almost as loudly as he walks across the room toward me.

Around me I spy men putting hands into their cuts reassuring themselves their weapons are at hand, just like my brothers would have back in Tucson. Devils are Devils. As he nears me, I thrust the piece of paper at Demon, while telling him the bare facts as I know them.

“Stevie’s gone. Lennox has taken her.”

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