Page 105 of The Heart We Guard
“Across the street, three cars down. Know that guy. He’s a Midtown guy. Mid-level.”
“Fuck my life,” I mutter.
I wonder how they knew I’d be here.We’dbe here. Maybe there’s a leak at the lawyer’s office. But I doubt it. This all happened too fast for a response to the leaked information to be organized.
Grudge is pacing the sidewalk like a man losing his mind. We’ve long since given up trying to calm the fucker down at the sight of his ex-wife. Can’t say I blame him. Getting served divorce papers the day you’re sentenced and remanded is ice cold.
“Grudge,” I shout, calling him over.
“What the fuck is she doing here, Prez?” he asks.
“No clue. I called up a friend. Got my woman a lawyer. Didn’t know Lucy would show up. But we got a problem.”
“A bigger one than my ex-fucking-wife walking around here like she’s welcome?”
“Keep looking at me, then we’re gonna look at something above the station door as a distraction. But I think we got a spy watching us. The other side of the street. A blue sedan. Wraith knows the guy. Midtown Rebel. I need you and Wraith to go deal with him. Now, look above the fucking door.”
Wraith looks with us. “Go around back of the precinct, then, come up behind him.”
The two of them leave and do as I say with perfect timing. Because Lucy and Greer emerge from the building just as Grudge disappears around back.
“Atom.” I shout to where he’s shooting the shit with Catfish and Taco.
He jogs over. “What’s up, Prez?”
A different kind of peace has settled between us after our talk at the house about their baby. After we celebrated their good news, Atom and I stepped out onto the porch, and I did something that would have previously made both of us feel really uncomfortable. I welcomed him as a future son. Told him how his work ethic impressed me, his ability to straddle his ranch and the club. And how he still made time for my daughter.
And then, he looked at me and said, “Sometimes you just have to remember what’s at the top of the list. She’s always going to be it, Butcher. No matter what I have to give up for her.”
And I spent half the night thinking about it, because he’d been willing to leave the club for her. I saw it the moment I accused him. There wasn’t an ounce of hesitation in his mind.
Even now, with the real chain of command acknowledged, I see him as my second, because we’re united by Ember.
“In about fifteen seconds, I need your eyes on the street.” I tell him what Wraith and Grudge are off to do.
“Good use of all that energy Grudge has going on,” he says with a smirk.
“Yeah. Needs something to distract him. Watch them for me.”
“Got it.”
I walk towards the front of the station. “Everything good, girls?”
Lucy smiles. “Still calling women ‘girls,’ I see.”
Greer holds out her fist, and Lucy bumps it. “I’m gonna like you.”
“Didn’t mean no offence. Everything go okay?”
“She did great, Butcher.” Lucy smiles at Greer before turning back to me. “And congratulations. I guess hell finally froze over if you’re putting effort into a relationship.”
“It’s a new dawn, Lucy. Take care of yourself.” I take Greer’s hand and help her down the steps.
“I can do steps on my own, Bu?—”
“I know you can do steps on your own. But you’re gonna get used to me offering you my hand when we take ‘em, anyway.”
Biting down on her grin, she does as I say and holds on to me. “Fine.”
