“Hey,” Boyd answers.
“You pick up my package?”
“Yeah, your package didn’t want to be picked up,” he responds with a chuckle.
“Not surprising,” I answer as Jake comes back inside from our van with a small tan duffel bag. I follow him back to what I guess you could call the living room in this shithole, where we have the K6ers tied up, and watch as Kai pulls a suppressed Glock 44 out of the bag Jake just brought in.
“I’ll deal with it. I’m pretty much wrapped up here,” I tell Boyd. “I’ll be twenty minutes, just don’t let her out of your sight.”
“Okay, but boss? She said she didn’t need a babysitter and, uh, she seems kinda pissed at you.”
I chuckle. “Yeah, the feeling is mutual,” I mutter as I hang up.
I’ve just sent her a text when Kai takes aim at our resident tweakers without an ounce of hesitation and the biggest fuckin’ smile on his face. He quickly takes the first one out, then the second, both clean double taps to the head. The sound of their brain matter and blood hitting the wall behind them makes more of a sound than the gun. The other three are so badly beaten they hardly even notice that Kai just killed their buddies as they hover in and out of consciousness. Even though we’re in the shittiest part of town, we still wouldn’t shoot them without a suppressor. Cops are everywhere around here, and gunshots are the fastest way to bring them to the door. There’s no reason to draw heat to us if we don’t have to, but we have no choice but to kill them. I won’t leave any loose ends untied.
I watch as Jake takes aim at the next one. It’s part of our code; we all participate. All for one. I think about Layla giving Boyd a hard time about babysitting her as Jake takes his shot. I can almost see the defiant look in her bratty eyes.
“You’re up.” Jake hands me the gun. I take it from him and move closer, needing the junkie’s eyes, needing to see the soul of the man whose life I’m taking. I kick him and he looks up at me, fucked up and glazy. He has no idea what’s even happening. I don’t waste a second, I just aim and fire, hitting him twice right where I want to—between his eyes. It’s at this moment the last one comes around.
“Hey … what? … Don’t fucking … shoot me … please,” he begs, noticing the guy beside him is now leaking from a massive hole in his forehead. I move in front of him and focus on his eyes. Even high, they’re pleading, but I’m going to finish what we came here to do. We’ve been looking for two of these men for a while. But these fuckers have stolen from us for the last time. The one I just shot is the low-life pimp that’s been known to take in girls from the street—some underage, some just desperate to belong to someone—and he feeds them drugs, using theirbodies for money until they have nothing left. Until they’re just machines that work for him. He beats them when they get out of line or even try to complain, and he takes almost every cent from them. A waste of lungs using up fresh air that someone better could be breathing in. Guys like him are the bottom of the barrel.
“Rock paper scissors?” Kai asks hopefully, but I’m done fucking around. I’m sick of the smell in here and my back has had enough. I look at the last junkie, raise the gun and pull the trigger, ending him. He slumps forward.
Five less K6 dealers make Harmony a better, safer place.
“Ax, fuck, that was rude,” Kai says, cuffing my shoulder, annoyed I didn’t give him the chance to take out the last one.
“Let’s just get the fuck outta here,” I tell them all. I’ve got other shit on my mind.
Layla might not be willing to admit she’s mine yet, but when it comes to her safety, I simply don’t give a fuck what she wants. She’s about to learn that I won’t tell her what to do very often, but when I do, she’s gonna fucking listen.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Layla
My head is a total clusterfuck during my shift at the clinic.
It’s filled with the way Sean looks at me, the life he lives, the life I don’t have anymore, and the admission that I’m still grieving that life I could’ve had with my mom free of my father. I’ve been grieving my mother more than I’ve let anyone know.
Having Sean in my space has shown me that. He’s a force that’s both pulling the air from my lungs and breathing life back into me in a way I didn’t know I needed. I make it through most of the day without hearing from Sean at all, which is odd.
The thing about working in a profession where talking is limited, it gives you way too much time to live inside your own head. By the time Sean’s appointment rolls around at three, I’m splashing cold water on my face while I wait for him to arrive. Just the thought of his skin under my hands sends a rush through me I can’t ignore. A rush I don’t want to ignore.
But by three thirty he still hasn’t shown, and I’m thinking I was right to be so hesitant about him. I’m annoyed with myself for giving into him so quickly as I exit through the doors of the clinic at the end of the day, but I stop in my tracks when I seeBoyd, one of the prospects I met at the club, in the same truck that Sean drove me home in last night. He’s clearly waiting for me. When he looks up and sees me, I get a polite, tight-lipped smile and a nod as he starts walking in my direction.
“You have to come with me, ma’am … umm, Layla,” he says as we meet in the middle of the sidewalk and I shoot him a glare. Boyd is a shorter guy with jet black hair that’s cut close. He’s only a few inches taller than me, but he’s built like a brick shithouse, as if his height fueled him to work out five hours a day—and unlike the other guys, I don’t see one visible bit of ink on his skin.
“Where is he?” I ask sharply, wondering if I should take the ride home or wait for my bus just to prove a point. “I don’t need a babysitter,” I tell him as I start walking toward the bus stop. “If Sean wanted me to go home with someone from the MC, he should’ve come to get me himself.”
“He … can’t.”
That stops me. I turn and face Boyd. “Why?”
Boyd looks up at the sky, then back down to me. “I can’t tell you that. But you have to come with me. He wants you at the club when he gets back.”
I put my hand on my hip, my suspicion growing. “Why didn’t he tell me he wasn’t coming?”
“Listen, Layla, I get you’re pissed, but can we talk in the truck? I don’t want to get my ass kicked for not getting you back to the clubhouse. It’s for your safety.”
