Page 9 of Dirty Eoin

It’s all my fault.

Ten years. We lost ten years.

What I’d give to replay things. To sit my selfish ass down and listen to the words he so desperately wanted me to hear. To read his messages.

You’ll always be my creep and my weirdo, same as you’ll always be my plain Jaine Jones.

“I’m sorry, Ace. I’m so fucking sorry.”

I thought we had forever.

I’ll be waiting right here, sweetheart.

And he always will be. He’ll never see New York. He’ll never leave Rising.

I gently trace the scrolled letter J behind his ear, then lean down and press my nose against his neck. The warmth from his skin has gone. I inhale the smell of his familiar aromatic cologne and all things Ace deep into my lungs before pressing my lips to his.

Warm against cold.

“I love you, Ace. Always have. Always will.” I utter the words I never said enough. Words I should have said at least a million more times each day.

Waves of pain wash over me, filling the hollow ache in my chest and drowning me in my harsh, stinking reality.

That Ace will never get to see his boys grow up.

That Ace and I will never grow old together.

That Ace is gone.

And the worst thing?

I never even got to say goodbye.

CHAPTERFIVE

EOIN

The Hudson Dusters’ HQ, Manhattan, New York

“He was shotin the gut you say?”

It’s just me, Da, and our Paddy. Cillian and Dylan are still in Nevada with their wives, dealing with the aftermath of the shooting. The unfortunate reality is the only reason Ace was in the vicinity was because he was attending Dylan and Jessie’s wedding. Then again, if he was specifically targeted, which is what’s now strongly suspected, would it have mattered where he was?

“Yes, Da. It was similar to the hit young Rafael Flores took. I spoke to Dylan on the way here. There’s reason to believe it was a targeted attack. That it was Ace they were after. No shots were fired at anyone else. Lucifer was injured in the crosshairs. By all accounts, he deliberately stepped in front of a bullet with Ace’s name on. It was the second shot fired that hit the intended target. They clearly knew what they were doing, who they were looking for, and they knew exactly where to find him. They obviously did their research in advance, so most likely a pair of professional sharpshooters.”

“But why not do it from afar like everyone else? Why be so bloody brazen about it?” Da frowns at me, the pad he never writes in open in front of him.

I shrug. “Maybe whoever was behind the whole thing wanted to make a point. Perhaps they instructed the marksmen to record it to prove the deed was done. Who knows? It’s not likely it was personal from the shooters’ point of view. It would simply have been a clause in the job description of their hit for hire.”

“And we’re sure it couldn’t have been The Exterminator? We’re absolutely certain that’s the case?”

“The Exterminator is an ally of the bikers, Da. He would never shoot one of his own without good reason or proper justification. He would also never do anything theatrical. He just gets in, gets the job done, and gets out. And always covertly,” Paddy replies.

“Not even if he needed to dramatize the whole thing in order to fulfill the brief and get paid?” Da turns his full attention to him.

“The Exterminator doesn’t need the money. It’s more a means to an end for him. He’s a vigilante first and foremost. At least half of what he earns gets donated to charitable causes representing victims of the wrongdoings he’s crusading against to secure them a better future. His sole intention for doing what he does is to rid the world of scum. Ace wasn’t scum.”

It’s all quietly spoken. And likely Paddy’s first and only verbal contribution to today’s conversation. He’s been withdrawn since the news broke. Over Ace? Or over colliding headfirst with the love of his life?

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