Saw the addictions take my mother, father, and a whole bunch of other folks associated with the Blackwoods. It’s either meth or the military with us – not a whole lot of in between. Luckily for me, I did well in the military. It lets me conduct my covert operations a lot more easily when you understand how civilians think and how to avoid detection.
Whatever. I workout. Pray. Take a shower. Pray again. I consider praying again to dispel the disturbing thoughts in my head, but I should have work soon to make it easier for me to stay away from the darkness. Exposing the truth to Magnum will be… interesting. I never took him for mentally stable and the Sinclair men need about a fifth of whiskey a day to stay level.
I grab our prisoners who we are pretending aren’t prisoners from the apartment Deacon put them up at. The redhead looks up at me with her raccoon eyeliner around those eerie blue eyes.
“I can’t be in trouble,” she says. “I was supporting myhusbandand doing what was right to keep my family together.”
“None of my business.”
“If it’s none of your business, you would be doing the bullshit with Deacon to take away our freedoms.”
Her husband speaks in a low voice, “Baby, that’s enough…”
“Come along with me. I’ll drive you out to Deacon’s casino.”
“I’m pregnant,” the red-head says with a typical entitled snarl on her face. “And by the way, does my brother know what the hell you’re up to out here?”
I don’t answer. Not getting paid to answer, so it makes no difference to me as long as it makes no difference to her. Herhusband puts his hand on her lower back and offers me a sympathetic look.
“We’ll do whatever Magnum wants to make this right,” her husband says. I grunt and nod because frankly, I don’t care what they do. Deacon didn’t pay me to worry about all of that and I’m just here to get my money so I can fuck off to the East Coast.
I want to live in a city that starts with a B.
I heard Buffalo and Boston have equally terrible winters, but I can always spend the winter time in the southwest and make my way up the East Coast earning money along Route 66 until I hit Chicago. Then I’ll gun it back to Buffalo (or Boston, wherever I end up) and settle in with booze and bad bitches until the season changes again.
Now that I’m almost twenty-two years old, I want to settle down and get some space from the club during the year. I’m ready to retire and focus on my own hobbies and interests aside from fixing bikes, which I’m pretty good at, I’ll be honest.
Magnum’s ride sits outside the casino parked next to Deacon’s when we get there. Red-head gets nervous. She looks over at her husband like there’s something he can do to save her ass right now.
“We should call Wyatt,” she whispers.
“We don’t need to call Wyatt,” he grunts. “Trust me.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Damara
Ineed to redo my hair and weave the pink hair into Senegalese twists this time because the heat has officially ruined my edges. I’m sweating more from nerves than heat for several reasons. I don’t know what to expect here and I told Magnum that I loved him, which feels more dangerous than whatever answers we’re going to find.
“Promise me nothing changes after we walk in there,” Magnum says. “Promise.”
His grasp on my hand tightens. The nervousness I felt before calms instantly in his presence. The flutters of nervousness I used to feel around loving him feel replaced with this deep sense of security in our connection.
“I promise,” he says. The earnestness in his voice scares the crap out of me. It’s easy to forget that Magnum is in love with anyone, least of all me. But his voice seals his feelings for me, and that scares me too more than I would like to admit. Love has always been a battlefield for me if not an outright war.
Magnum Sinclair. I can’t believe a man with the ability to change my mind about everything was sitting right there in that biker clubhouse. I guess it’s because he’s more of a businessman than a biker. And more of my man than either of those two things.
“I love you, babe,” Magnum says in his deep, gruff voice. He stirs something deep inside me every time he talks. The words don’t struggle to leave my mouth this time because I really mean them.
“Love you.”
I intertwine my hands with Magnum’s and we walk together into the casino. Magnum drops my hand and I feel his body tensing up instantaneously. The energy in the room shifts and lovey-dovey Magnum is gone. When his hand drops from mine, I take a step back instinctively.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Magnum snarls. He reaches for his gun.
“CONDOM, WAIT!” Deacon screams, stepping in between him and the two people who look kinda-familiar, but I don’treallyrecognize. It’s possible I met them at a previous club meeting. Magnum fires his weapon and everybody in the room screams.
He just shot Deacon. I lunge for Magnum’s arm to pull the gun away, but I’m not the only one and apparently, other people in this room have orders to keep the peace.
