Page 44 of Blue-Eyed Jacks
“She’s Destroyers’ property.That means she’s mine.”
He was goading me, trying to get me to pop off hot-headed and admit I stole his wife.The whisper made me smile.It wasn’t a nice one.“She’s here for everyone, not just you.But she’s done for the night, right, Terry?”
The girl nodded and slipped out from under Shock’s arm.I held his bloodshot stare with my own.
“Everyone?Is that what we’re doing here?Sharing?”
I blinked.“I had her first.”Sending a little nod in Terry’s direction.
“And I had Kate first,” Shock stated.
There was a sheen of drool at the corner of his mouth.His beard covered where the rest dribbled off to hide.I focused on that.He was drunk.Easy pickings if I wanted to throw a punch.Cause a fight, bring him down, snap his neck.He was weak.“Your problem is, you don’t know how to balance.”I could have been talking about the list in his stance or the way he ran hot and cold.Or his books or payments to nationals.But we both knew I was talking about Kate and his possessiveness.“Treat women nice; they come back.Treat them like shit; they run.Terry will come back to me.Maybe even later tonight.But Kate?She ain’t ever coming back.She ran because you are an asshole who can’t balance.”
His fist shot out.
I blocked it and tucked his arm under mine, trapping him close.I had a knife to his throat.“I’m an officer, and this ismyground.You fucked up, Shock.Leave.”
He leaned his weight on me.“You fucked up, Jackson.She’s mine.Kate’s mine.”
A weakness.One I couldn’t exploit without jeopardizing her, or…oh shit, my baby girl.That sobering thought had me push him away.“Take Terry with you.I don’t give a fuck.”
His eyes glittered.“One day, I’m going to catch you.You can lie all you want, but I’m going to catch you in those damn lies and bring you down.”
“Yeah, good luck with that.It’s nice to know you care so much.”
“I don’t care.Ihateyou.”
That’s where he was dead wrong.“You gotta care enough to hate.See?I don’t hate you because I don’t care.Have a fun time, Shock.”I slapped him on the patch as I strolled past, looping an arm around another hooker so I could go upstairs and get some fucking sleep.Who gave a shit about anything?This place, this club, this life I’d carved out?It was one big pile of lies I’d have to keep cultivating forever, like a poisoned garden.
I fell onto the mattress.I don’t even remember putting a condom on, but it was there after it all.Still intact, whole, and slimy.I’d get a vasectomy.Schedule it for tomorrow.And keep my shit tight from now on while playing it fast and loose.Win with a grin and bury my enemies deep, just like dear old dad.Shock didn’t know who he was messing with.
One-Eyed Jack was a biker all his life.He held officer ranks from secretary to president and everything in between.He taught me at his knee, carried me into meetings before I could even talk.He taught me how to lie, steal, and murder my way to the top and beyond.Men like Shock?They didn’t have the education I had.
I lay awake, listening to the dark-haired hooker snore, and letting all the echoes of past, present, and future bounce around my thoughts like a whirling carousel of color.It was a puzzle to figure out.Find the pattern.The thing that repeats—anticipate when it comes around next.Plan.Let another piece fly by, set the pattern as it filled in piece by piece until the entire crazy picture was laid out as if it were standing still.Once you did that, you were invincible.No secret in the world would bring that ride to a halt.I built my kingdom in the dark.Bit by bit, horse by horse.Laughing rider by laughing rider.A machine that would live long after some asshole shivved me in the ribs.
Maybe it was the whiskey?Or maybe it was intuition.
The best day of my life was gone.I couldn’t expect another like this again.A tear slipped out of one eye.I let it fall.Let the salty trail dry until it was crusty and stiff.
I was a father.It was about time I started acting like one.
Or, at the very least, begin stepping into the ruthless shoes One-Eyed Jack left behind.
Terry’s body washed up on the banks of the Ohio River, miles from Skilletsville.I saved the newspaper clippings in a locked box I kept stuffed under a junked-out RV we sometimes used as a place to crash.It didn’t matterif the elements ruined it.I memorized the date and the headline.I could reconstruct it later if needed.Two months after that, I collected another trinket.
A smuggler who ran the border told me how he despised working with Shock.How it felt like the man couldn’t be trusted.I laughed at him and flat-out told him I couldn’t be trusted, either.
He winked at me and smiled.“But at least with you, I know where I stand.You’re in this for the long haul.Shock can’t think that far ahead.And I can’t work with that.But I’ll work with you.You can make me the connections I need farther up the lakes.”
And that was how I gutted Shock’s pipeline and became the hub Pittsburgh had to go through to get product.Each were little trinkets of businesses or people with power.I collected them like a magpie.Because one day, Shock would fall.And I’d be there to make sure he never got back up.
Chapter 14
Maine, Present Day, June 10th—Kate
It’s just a summer job.All teens got one.It was a normal part of growing up.Each sentence clawed at my heart.“Why the ice cream shop?”It was one of the major tourist stops quaintly situated at the end of the bridge on a very picturesque part of the harbor.No matter where you sat outside, you had a view of the islands and ocean.
Where everyone could see you.
