Page 124 of Roses Are Dead
His face twitched as he adjusted his plan. “Yes. Sooner. Tomorrow in fact. Unless you want to come with me now and save everyone the grief.”
“I can’t go with you today. I promised I wouldn’t.”
There was a moment his face flushed red, but he remained infuriatingly calm in expression. “Tomorrow then.”
“I can’t tomorrow, that’s a day early. You made a bargain. That’s almost like making a vow.”
He scanned the cafeteria for anyone paying attention. No one was. That emboldened him. “Did you know that two members of the Destroyers own houses on a public lake? It would be so easy for an early boater to pull out a sniper rifle and shoot that pregnant woman dead when she goes out to drink her morning tea.
Surely Sprout figured that out already. If not, I’d warn him as soon as I talked to Bear.
“Or the other one? The pretty dark-haired one? She’s vulnerable every time she stops in front of the gate. It takes two seconds to register her car on the sensor. That’s two seconds too many. And she’s such a trusting soul. Or maybe I’ll just go to Philadelphia and kill her sister. Lily is all alone there.”
Carl didn’t expect my reply. He motioned to the hospital around us. “And that old broad. The mom? She’s a target every time she takes an emergency room shift. I don’t even have to be there. I can pull in a favor. She’d be dead that very night. And you are already aware of how easy it is to get to Zoe. They can’t watch everyone all at once.”
He was right, there were too many variables to cover everyone. But he hadn’t factored in the Destroyers’ propensity for violence. I’d witnessed firsthand how quickly that escalated. Even Zoe was a party to it.
“How long do you think they’d let you live if you took one of their women out?”
“They let the tow truck driver live.” He laughed. That drew attention because most of the people in here had seen so much sorrow, laughter was almost foreign. But with the clean-cut image he portrayed, and his easy smiles at the curious, they buried themselves back into their self-imposed misery to avoid thinking about joy. “They are so worried about losing their millions, they’re slipping. They’ve become the establishment and are shackled by it.”
The sheer relish he put into that word sent skitters up my spine.
“Zoe was just a warning. Tomorrow, Rose. Come back to me before the sun sets, or someone else becomes a martyr on your altar of defiance.” He stood up and leaned in for a parting shot, “I almost forgot, Happy Halloween.”
30
Bear
“I’m staying home. KC won’t want me there.”
Rose’s words echoed in my head. She was wrong, dead wrong. When I showed up to the Friday mid-day funeral alone, KC noticed. His haunted eyes tracked the empty space to my right.
Finally, he worked up the nerve to ask me about her. “Was it your idea or hers?”
“Hers,” I said bitterly. She cared more about other people’s feelings than mine. Sprout’s, Smoke’s…even KC got more consideration than I did.
He chewed on his lip. “Sorry, man.”
I snaked an arm around his shoulders and pulled him close. “Don’t fucking be sorry. Fish was your bro. If anyone’s got reason to be sorry, it’s fucking Carl. He’s going to regret this.” And he’d get to that state. I vowed it.
KC leaned in and slapped my side to tap out of the PDA. “When you get that figured out, I want in.”
“Absolutely.”
He shuffled his feet and looked at the carpet. “That is, if you’ll hang with me?”
His reluctance confused me. “What are you saying?”
KC glanced around. There were several people in dress clothes, the discount store version, but much more “formal” than we were in our Destroyers vests. They didn’t understand that us wearing that symbol to Fish’s funeral was an honor of the highest order.
“I might pull my membership.”
I smacked the back of his head. The action causing several people to gape and whisper about us. I flipped the finger at the worst offenders, who quickly pretended they hadn’t been nosy. “What the fuck are you talking about?” I tugged him close. “You need brothers now more than ever.”
A hitch caught his breath, and he shook his head. “I don’t think I can handle it. I just… This is fucked up.”
No shit.
