Page 223 of American Hellhound
He’d let her cut his hair a few weeks ago, but it was still too long in front, falling in his eyes. He flicked it away with an impatient movement of his head, eyes withdrawn and animalistic underneath. He shrugged. “It’s acceptable.”
“Doyouwant to leave?” she tried instead.
“I go where you go.”
She took a deep breath and tried to steady herself. He was still holding her arms, so it was more of a mental gesture. “You don’t have…Reese, you can…you can make your own decisions now. You don’t belong to anyone anymore.”
He blinked at her, not comprehending.
“You don’t have to kill anyone.”
He stared at her a moment; she always wondered what he saw when he looked at her like that. If he thought her weak, a burden. Or if there was love there, something deeper than an innate sense of obligation.
Slowly, carefully, likeshewas the one who didn’t understand, he said, “Iwantto kill him.”
That was that, she guessed.
~*~
Roman looked halfway back to sober. He stared down into his third cup of coffee as he spoke, Ratchet taking fast notes with his laptop.
“Besides Denver, there’s chapters in Boulder, Oklahoma City, Omaha, and Des Moines.”
“Plenty of farm kids looking for opioids, I bet,” Ghost said. “But no big markets.”
“Denver’s big,” Roman said. “Mostly weed and scripts. But Badger talked all the time about wanting to be on the east coast. He talked about the Dogs,” he said with a rueful half-smile. “He hated the idea of someone being bigger and better known than him. He’s got an ego; every nasty thing he’s ever done goes back to his big head.”
“Nobody ever seems to get tired of trying to wrestle us out of the top spot,” Mercy said with a dark chuckle. “Stupid fuckers.”
“So he’ll pull guys from those crews,” Ghost said, getting back to the point at hand.
“Maybe all of them,” Roman said.
“Do you know anything about any of them?”
“Besides the fact that they take orders from Badger?” Roman shrugged. “No.”
Ghost had shaken off his initial panic – blind emotion helped no one – and had instead settled into a state of grim determination. Right now, he needed every scrap of intel he could get, and then he’d formulate a plan.
“What about Badger himself?” he pressed Roman. “How does he handle something like this?”
Roman shot a glance over Ghost’s shoulder toward the spot on the wall where Reese leaned, watching them with a bird-like tilt to his head. “Used to? He’d send Reese after somebody. But he doesn’t have that option anymore.”
Ghost twisted around in his chair to look at the kid; only one eye was visible, his hair in his face – and not in an artful way, like Tango chose to wear his. The guy still looked half-homeless, hollow and uncaring.
“C’mere,” Ghost said, and tried to keep his voice kind. As kind as he was capable.
Reese pushed off the wall and came to the table, stood at attention, gaze pinned to Ghost. It was unnerving as hell. “Yes, sir?”
“You were Badger’s trigger man; you saw him in action more than Roman here. What can you tell me about him? What’s his next move gonna be?”
For the first time, something like doubt flickered through Reese’s eyes. His lips parted; quiet intake of breath. “I…” Ghost watched the words get caught in his throat.
Watching him struggle – gaze darting around the table, jaw working, hands curling into fists – Ghost felt a stab of white-hot hatred for Badger shoot through him. It was one thing to hate the man on principle, for the way he’d blown into town with plans of taking it over. Typical rivalry, typical bullshit. But to know what he’d done to this kid and his sister – that turnedhatredinto too generous a word.
He thought of all the wounded children who’d come into his life: Holly, and Tango, and Ian, and now these two. It lit a fire in him, fierce and dangerous.
“Hey,” he said, sliding a palm across the tabletop, an undemanding reach. “Look. He’s a dead man walking, okay? He’s not getting out of this alive.” He was shocked, inwardly. Up until this moment, he hadn’t known what he intended for Badger, but saying it now, he knew he’d just made a promise he’d never think of breaking. Complications be damned: he should have never allowed someone as monstrous as Badger to live in the first place. “If you can think of anything that might help us accomplish that, I’d really appreciate it.”
