He looked down at me as I struggled to rise, my bad hip making it difficult. “Now, I assume my integrity will not be questioned again.”
Not wanting another humiliation I bowed my head. “No, sir.”
He continued, “The contract is sanctified by blood. If you break it, your lineage is forfeit. If I break it, the lineage of Maltraz is forfeit.”
“Noted,” I said. “Let us continue.”
He produced a scroll from thin air; the paper brown and curling at the edges. It unrolled itself, hovering above the table. The writing was in a script I didn’t recognize, but my name—my true name—was there at the bottom, waiting for a signature.
He handed me a silver dagger. I took it, sliced my palm open, and pressed it to the line. The blood hissed as it touched the paper, then vanished. Maltraz did the same, and for a moment, the room filled with a scent like flowers and rot at the same time.
The scroll rolled itself up, then disappeared with a soft pop.
“It is done,” he said.
“Details,” I demanded.
“You may take possession of the Clovis compound at dawn,” he replied. “A full inventory will be waiting. All of the properties on the premises will be open to you. Now, forty percent of all Amarillo revenue is payable to me, in quarterly installments, first payment due within thirty days. Miss a payment, and you belong to us.”
I nodded. “Noted.”
He inclined his head, then began to dissolve. First his face, then his hands, then suit and the shoes and the last glint of his shark-smile. In ten seconds, he was gone, and the room was warmer for it.
The old man gathered up his things, not looking at anyone.
My lieutenants waited until he was gone before they spoke.
“Was that wise?” Vex asked, voice raw.
I wiped my bloody hand on a towel. “Nothing we do is wise. It’s just necessary.”
Rook licked his lips, as if trying to remember what warmth tasted like. “What now?”
I shrugged. “We prep our people for the move.”
Dagger smirked. “Yeah boss. We’re running low on time.”
He wasn’t wrong. I just sold my soul so I could make my biggest move yet. After I made it, Bronc and Iron Valor would come for us. We’d be long gone when they did.
Chapter 17
Parker
Imade Wrecker drive my car back to the house, not because I was too tired or too traumatized, but because if Silas Drake had even one of his creeps on lookout, the last thing I wanted was for them to clock the black F-350. My car was an Audi that blended into Plainview’s streets like a whore in church, but they’d never expecthimto be in it. I was glad he could squeeze into the driver’s seat.
He didn’t say a word the whole drive. His eyes never left the mirrors. Not once did he touch the radio or fidget with the heater. The silence was loaded, radioactive, but safer than trying to fill it with words.
We parked at the very end of my dirt driveway right up to the garage, headlights off before we even made the turn. The porch light was out—just as I’d left it—but Wrecker hesitated anyway, hand hovering over the center console.
“You need me to clear it?” he asked.
I wanted to say, “Don’t be ridiculous, it’s my own goddamn house,” but the truth was I wanted him in there first. I wanted him to walk through every room and tell me it was safe, even though my brain screamed that nothing ever would be again.
“Please,” I said as I cuddled Rocket in my lap.
He grinned, savage and beautiful, and slipped out into the night like a shadow. For such a huge man, he moved with a weightless kind of violence, the kind you only saw in panthers on TV or in old reels of MMA fighters just before they knocked someone into a parallel universe.
I counted to a hundred in my head. Got as far as fifty-seven before the porch light flashed on. I almost broke my ankle running up the steps. He waited inside the door. Arms crossed, Rocket almost leaped out of my arms into his. The man had dog-jacked my pup.
