Page 52 of Zeke

“Hey,” I say, glad to hear her voice. She doesn’t sound tense, only a little weary.

“Everything okay?” she asks. “You kill Zeke yet?”

“Hilarious,” I say. A small part of me wishes I had. Then maybe I’d still have a chance. Yeah, right. As if Kira would have any interest in me if I’d killed my brother for her.

Or maybe she would. I don’t really know.

“Okay, so you’re both still alive,” Eden says. “What’s up?”

“Uh…” I say, trying to figure out how to say it. “Well, I’m at Kira’s right now.”

“Really?” Eden says, sounding surprised. Did everyone but me know that Zeke was going to be the one who got her?

“Yeah,” I say. “There was a… problem.”

“What kind of problem?” Eden asks, her voice suddenly alert. “Are you okay? Is she?”

“Yeah,” I say again. “Yeah, no one’s hurt. But Kira got some kind of threat in a box of flowers. Doesn’t seem like it has anything to do with us, but Zeke took her back to the farmhouse to keep her safe.”

“Oh,” Eden says, then she says it again, long and drawn out like she’s putting two and two together. “Oh… So they’re—”

“Yup.”

“I see,” she says. “I’m sorry, Eli. That must be tough for you.”

“Nah,” I lie. “I’m fine. But I wanted to give you a heads up so you know when you come back why we’re playing bodyguard. Speaking of coming back, how are things in Miami?”

I hear her sigh at the mention ofplaying bodyguard, but she lets it go and moves on to answering my question.

“Things seem to be winding down out here already,” she says. “We brought Wizard back, and Savage told the club that Attila’s dead. They seemed pretty relieved, not that I can blame them.”

“Me either,” I say, running my hand over my leg where I’d been tortured, something Attila had been a part of. It hurts sometimes, not that I’d ever tell anyone. The muscle damage was pretty bad, and Charge said there was a chance it would never fully heal.

“Well, anyway, once we told them what Wizard did, they seemed unsurprised, and one guy said that was a reason Wizard was never made VP. He just thought if he took out the old VP, he’d prove himself somehow, but the rest of the club wasn’t having it. They let him stay, but they took his cut and said he has to earn it back.”

“Harsh,” I say, though I can’t say I blame them. That’s one of the worst punishments for a biker who is part of a club. Some guys would even prefer getting kicked out completely to having to start at the bottom and work their way back up with people who used to be beneath them.

“Yeah,” she says. “But there’s a couple of guys Savage says are good for the club who have kind of been running it since Attila left, so we’re working with them to establish new leadership. Savage says he thinks it’ll be a lot better for the club.”

“That’s great,” I say, though I can hear in my voice how unenthusiastic I sound.

“Eli…” Eden says. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I lie.

“Eli…” she says again, but I don’t want to talk about this. I don’t want to think about it, talk about it, or anything. I want to move on.

“I’m good,” I say. “Really. Fair is fair, and Zeke won. Nothing I can do about it. Anyway, I have to get back to the farmhouse so we can figure out the next steps for keeping Kira and Julia safe from whoever is doing this.”

“Okay,” she says after a moment where I can almost hear her trying to force herself to not say more. I appreciate that because I don’t think I could deal with her hammering me about my feelings. “Stay safe. I’ll probably be home in a couple days.”

“See you then.” I hang up the phone, looking at it for a while before forcing myself to my feet. I turn to Brawler, who was pretending not to watch me. “All right. Let’s get home.”

We head outside and get on our bikes, and I feel heavier than I have in a long time. Even when I was injured, I had the notion Kira might choose me to get me through. Now I have nothing.

I start up my bike. As we drive out of town, I see something odd. It’s the middle of the night, but when I’m stopped at a red light, I see a parking lot that’s empty except for one single car. Inside, there’s a guy on his phone, looking pissed off as hell.

It’s weird enough that I take a mental note of it, but it’s nothing that triggers a warning in me to stop and investigate, which I’m glad about. Because right now, all I want to do is go home and go to my room alone with a stiff drink.

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