Page 194 of American Hellhound
Badger’s voice was tight. “You’re fucking with me.”
“Yep. I sure am. Only, it’s not so much ‘fucking’ as making a statement. A pointed one.”
“I thought we were gonna come to an agreement.”
“I thought so too. And then I met Kristin and Reese.”
A long, tense silence followed. Ghost thought he could hear Badger grinding his teeth on the other end of the line before he finally said, “You’re gonna regret this.”
“Just like your crew over on Wright Road regrets dealing, huh? Have you talked to any of them since they got picked up? Got ‘em a lawyer yet?”
“I want those kids back.”
“I bet you do. Let’s set up a meet.”
“Fuck you.”
“Clearly, you’ve figured out by now that I’ve got the PD in my pocket. So I’ll phrase it this way: Let’s set up a meet, or you’ll be in cuffs within the hour.”
Another silence. Then: “Fine.”
Ghost gave him the address of the marina and Badger hung up without a response.
~*~
Kris’s most vivid memories of her brother were snapshots from their childhood, when he’d been a fat toddler with flyaway blond hair and rosy cheeks. When he’d been happy. When he’d been alive.
She saw him so seldom in the years after they were taken that it was hard to remember what he looked like, and then she’d finally see him, stolen glimpses when he was brought before her and she was used as a threat to force his behavior, and he was unrecognizable.
When Roman stole them, she hadn’t laid eyes on Reese in almost a year. And now, when he was around, when he chose to be near her, she stared unrepentantly, trying to memorize his features lest he disappear – for good this time, all on his own, a true ghost at last.
They stood together in a corner of the Lean Dogs’ clubhouse main room. The Dogs were all preparing to leave, bringing out guns, checking magazines, strapping on flak vests. It was a militaristic kind of preparation she was familiar with, thanks to the Saints. Old hat. But the difference was, this time, she wanted the men going out in the field to be safe – whereas she’d always hoped the Saints never returned. She would have preferred starving to death on the end of her chain to having to endure their attentions anymore.
“Are you going with them?” she asked Reese.
He wouldn’t look at her. He never did. His head was angled down and away, watching the men get ready from beneath his brows.
She ached. His hair was too-long, and dirty. Dry, dead skin flaked on his lips. Before Badger, with Holden, Reese had been groomed: shaved head, clipped nails, washed face. But Badger wasn’t someone who took care of his weapons, not even human ones.
“Reese.”
“Yes,” he said. His voice was all wrong, like he didn’t quite know how to wield it.
“You don’t have to go,” she said, and wished he’d stay here with her. Maybe meet her eyes. Talk to her a little.
“I wanna make sure…make sure they do it right.” He nodded toward the Dogs milling around the common room. “That they don’t hurt you.”
“Reese,” she sighed. “I’m not afraid for me.” Even though she was scared to death. She was the big sister, after all. She had to put on a brave face for him. “Don’t you trust Roman?”
His lashes flickered as he blinked. He lifted his hand to his mouth and bit at a hangnail on his thumb; his knuckles were scraped and scarred. “I don’t trust anyone.”
~*~
“He won’t try anything now,” Roman assured when Ghost asked if he thought Badger might try to sabotage the parlay.
Oh, the irony of Roman saying that, after he’d been the one to orchestrate the last parlay – total sham that it had been.
Still, logic dictated that Badger, with five of his crew in prison, wasn’t going to do something completely dramatic and pull guns on them at the marina. No one wasthatstupid.
