My stomach bottomed out. “Shipping who?”
Red rolled her eyes. “Don’t insult my intelligence. Darla. She’s got a ticket to some Jesus-flavored ‘rehab retreat’ in Indiana. Bus leaves at dawn. They got her locked down tight. Sarge on the perimeter, couple of junior holy goons inside.”
I couldn’t even see straight. My fist slammed the drywall behind her, plaster crumbling. “Fucking hell. They’ll—”
“I know.” She grabbed my wrist, hard. “These places aren’t church camp. Last chick who came back from one didn’t talk for a year. Some never come back at all.”
I looked at her, really looked. Beneath the makeup and attitude, she was dead serious, and maybe a little scared for me. Or maybe for herself, I couldn’t tell.
I pressed my palms to my eyes, saw nothing but red.
“How’d you get this?” I finally managed.
She shrugged. “You don’t ask the source, you don’t have to lie. You gonna lose your shit, or you gonna think?”
It was a good question. My whole body vibrated with the urge to smash something. Instead, I punched the wall again. This time I split the skin on my knuckles; blood smeared onto the mop handle she used for a weapon in emergencies.
“Can’t go through the front,” I muttered, jaw so tight it hurt. “Sarge’ll have a bead on me before I clear the steps.”
Red nodded, lips pursed. “You could wait until they ship her out. Hit the bus. But then you’re in their world, not ours. Cops are watching those routes.”
“Fuck that,” I spat. “I’m not losing her to some cult dormitory. I’ll burn the place down first.”
She grinned, mean and sad all at once. “Now you sound like yourself. Just don’t do anything stupid without backup.”
“Like who?” I scoffed. “None of these assholes gives a damn unless it’s on club business.”
Red leaned in, conspiratorial. “Club doesn’t know what Maple’s up to. If you tell Vin, he might make it official. That’s your shot, Axel. Otherwise, you’re dead in the water. And if you’re dead, so is she.”
I tasted copper—blood, rage, regret. “You coming with me?”
She wiped her hands on her jeans, like she’d just handled a raw nerve. “I’ll cover the bar. But you get one shot at this. Don’t waste it.”
The supply closet felt like a cell, and the only thing I wanted was the key.
I nodded, wiped the blood on my jeans, and ducked out into the cold light. The bar noise swallowed me whole, but I was already somewhere else, plotting escape routes and body counts. Every second ticked like a land mine. I’d seen a lot of women get swallowed by darkness. I wasn’t going to let Darla be one of them.
Red’s voice trailed behind me, softer than a prayer: “These places break people. They don’t come back the same.”
That was the part that scared me the most.
***
I busted out of the closet like a rabid animal, zeroed in on the back hallway, and shouldered past the new guy with the teardrop tat who barely got his feet under him before I vanished up the stairs. The chaos of the bar faded with every step; in my room, the silence was clinical, surgical. I went straight for the duffel under the bed, the one I told myself I wouldn’t need until the shit truly hit the fan.
It was hitting now, and the fan was set to full blast.
I dumped the bag out on the mattress—Glock, magazines, buck knife, roll of twenties, spare shirt, and a bottle of oxy I’d been rationing since the Louisville job. I checked the pistol, flicked the slide, and snapped in a mag. The sound was clean, honest. The only thing I could trust. The knife went on my belt, the cash in my inside pocket. Last, I yanked the phone charger from the wall and jammed it in the bag, more habit than hope.
Every movement felt frantic and precise at the same time. I barely noticed the blood on my knuckles until I zipped the bag, leaving a streak across the nylon. Whatever. I could bleed later.
I was halfway down the back stairwell when the wall of muscle that was Vin materialized at the foot, arms folded like a goddamn marble statue. The clubhouse might have been built around him, for all I knew. He looked at the duffel, then at me, his face a granite slab.
“Going somewhere, Prospect?” he asked, voice so calm I almost missed the threat underneath.
“Move,” I said, pushing forward. I didn’t have time for a dick-measuring contest. Not now.
Vin didn’t move. He just raised an eyebrow, then blocked the last step with one tree-trunk leg. “You even know what you’re doing?”
