Page 66 of Burned in Stone
“For what?” She leans across the bar, curious.
“I don’t know. A dog? A garden? Whatever you want.” I catch her hand. “I just want to build something with you, angel.”
Her whole face softens. “You’ve been thinking about this a lot.”
“Been thinking about a lot of things.” I stroke my thumb over her knuckles. “Like how I want to wake up to your hair in my face every morning. How I want a closet that smells like your perfume and my leather. Maybe a garage where I can work on bikes and you can come out and distract me.”
“Distract you how?”
“Wearing those little shorts you had on this morning.” I drop my voice. “Bending over to hand me tools you don’t know the names of.”
“I know tool names!”
“Yeah? What’s this called?” I make an obscene gesture with my hands that has nothing to do with actual tools.
“A torque wrench, obviously.” She’s fighting not to laugh.
“That’s not even close to?—”
The front door slams open hard enough to rattle bottles. Three cops stride in—not Gabriel this time—but their posture screams confrontation. They lock onto me immediately.
My blood goes cold.
This is every nightmare I’ve ever had since I was a kid. Cops coming for me. Taking me somewhere unknown. Hands on guns like I’m already guilty. The spike of fear is the same as it always was, but I’m not that kid anymore. I have family, people in mycorner. So I lock that fear down, bury it deep, and keep my face blank.
“Cameron Hall?” The lead cop uses my legal name, hand by his revolver, letting me know this isn’t a friendly call.
“Who’s asking and why?” I glance at Mercy, see the panic flashing in her eyes. I mouth to her to stay cool.
“Stand up slowly, hands where we can see them.”
I keep my hands on the bar, palms open. “This some kind of joke? What’s the charge?”
“Drugs,” says the one in the middle, big and puffy in his windbreaker even though it’s maybe fifty outside. He’s got sergeant’s stripes on the sleeve, and something in his eyes says this isn’t his first MC bar raid.
Mercy goes rigid. The whole bar does. I feel it in the air, the way every conversation in the place dies fast. The prospect with Tank steps up, but Bones lifts a hand, signaling him to stay back. The room’s a minefield of tension.
“Drugs?” I say it again, louder, for the benefit of everyone in the room. “You’re shitting me, right? You’re pulling this in front of witnesses?—”
“Get your hands up, now.” The lead cop cuts me off. “Turn around and face the bar.”
“You see any drugs here?” I ask, but my voice is cold as ice. “I’m clean as a whistle. So either you’re planning to plant something, or this is just the paperwork stage of Summit’s shakedown.”
Mercy’s eyes go wide. Her hand is under the bar, and since I know exactly what’s hiding under there, I shake my head—don’tescalate. She gets the message and steps back, but she’s shaking with anger.
“Stand up.Now.”
Tank steps forward, looming with all the threat of a human brick wall, but I catch his eye and give him a tiny shake of my head. We don’t want to make this easy for them, but we also don’t want to give them what they want—to goad me into doing something they can charge me with for real.
I raise my hands slowly. Then stand.
“Turn around. Hands behind your back.”
“You have to tell him what he’s being arrested for,” Mercy insists, her voice shaking. “You can’t just say ‘drugs’ and that’s it.”
The cop doesn’t even look at her. “We don’t have to tell anyone anything. Turn around, Hall.”
I turn, letting them cuff me. The metal cinches hard around bone, but I don’t react. Can’t give them the satisfaction.
