Sonny
Goddamnit, but I was willing to give that woman every fucking chance she wanted.
Up to a point.
Everything I’d told her was true. I finally understood what my father and Spawn had gone through when they went with Hailey and Melissa. Far from being distracted or unsettled, a good woman had a way of settling guys like us, allowing us to focus without having to divert our attention for an hour or two a night. Bluntly speaking, if I wanted pussy after a long—dangerous—day at work, I had to put the effort into texting and setting it up if I was single.
With Leigh, she’d anticipate it and know.
A woman like Leigh—though, regrettably, perhaps not Leigh herself—calmed the spirit and left nothing else to be done but the task at hand. I had always thought more love meant more drama, but that was only true with someone who sucked and wasn’t worth the trouble. With what I’d seen with Leigh, that seemed worth it.
But the difference between lovesick losers and myself was that I had a hard boundary and the ability to compartmentalize and focus like no one else I fucking knew.
If Leigh wasn’t going to commit—which I knew well enough meant no, but she couldn’t bring herself to say it—then that was it. No more Leigh. No more thoughts. Just game over.
And as I walked back to the house after my final kiss with her, I began removing her from my mind as best as I could. I thought about the challenge of the next thirty-six hours lying before me and how that was literally getting shorter and shorter. I thought about nothing but the death of King.
Admittedly, the sound of her car turning on got me to go upstairs and look out one last time, just to see if she’d change her mind. I shouldn’t have done it, but she really did have a fucking spell upon me. Fortunately, she was as committed to her decision as I was to mine.
And once that car disappeared from view, as far as I was concerned, Leigh no longer existed. Nothing else but the danger facing our club existed until Monday.
And by then, there was a disturbing chance I might not even exist.
* * *
I made my way back to the clubhouse, thoughts of King the only thing consuming my mind. I took stock of the situation.
My father, still in a coma. Spawn and the Black Reapers, trying to figure out plans. King, making it obvious that Sunday night would bring judgment hour with it.
And me, trying to put nothing but that on my docket to figure out to resolve.
The roads usually provided solace for me, a chance to clear my usually troubled mind for some peace and quiet. It was hard to think when the wind blew by you at over fifty miles per hour and even the smallest mistake could, at a minimum, break your leg.
But existential threats tended to override a lot of normal things, and this was no fucking different.
In fact, I almost missed the fucking entrance to our clubhouse. It said a lot that I couldn’t even recognize my own fucking club, but here I was. I pulled in with a hard left, parked the bike, turned it off, drew a deep breath, and told myself to get my shit together.
I passed by several club members and prospects, their faces barely registering with me. I headed straight for church and found the whole crew already there—Spawn, Brock, Cole, and Lane. They looked like they were about to start without me, and I decided it was better not to admit that the reason I was late was because I was releasing my frustrations out on a woman that I wanted but wouldn’t…
I stopped myself before thoughts returned tohertoo much. It didn’t do much good to say in my head to stop thinking about her since that would only encourage me to do it even more.
“We were talking just now, and I think I got an idea,” Cole said. “But can’t make any fucking promises it will work.”
“Like we have any guarantees beyond nuking Phoenix and Las Vegas,” I grumbled. “What’s the deal?”
“Well, all we’ve been doing is thinking of ways to kill King. Which makes sense, since he’s the guy that’s fucking fought us all the way from Springsville to here. But it’s hard to do it without getting him out. We can’t snipe him from the roof, and we won’t ever get a shot at him on the ground.”
“Basically, it’s fucking impossible to launch an assassination.”
“Under normal circumstances. And none of us are fucking secret agents who can scale buildings or any of that shit.”
“It’s not Hollywood,” I scoffed.
Cole nodded.
“So before we can solve the problem of killing him, we have to solve the problem of getting close to him.”
“And how do you suppose we do that?”
