“I’m sorry.”
“It’s not safe, George. I don’t want you getting hurt.”
A firm nod, and still he didn’t quite release her arm, not before giving her an odd stroke, as if to smooth away the pain of his hold.
“Six weeks?”
“Maybe sooner.”
“A month,” he said with finality before stepping away and breaking her heart just a little.
She felt him watching as she started the car and drove off at her usual sedate twenty-five miles an hour toward home, wanting so badly to go faster. Or, no, not faster. Not fast at all. She wanted to throw the car into reverse and back all the way up to where he still stood in the dark street and make him get in. Make him stay with her—although she wasn’t sure if it was for his protection or hers.
* * *
She knows about the Sultans.
Of course she did. The doc was a smart woman, and he was a fool for thinking she wouldn’t take an interest.
He should go. He should leave this place, hole up somewhere else.
Tomorrow. Right now, he needed to think. And when thinking didn’t work, he opted for the woods across the street from the doctor’s place, vodka bottle in hand.
Just enough to smooth the edges and dull the regret as he sat down, back to a tree, and watched her do her regular things. Her beautiful, healthy, perfect-life things.
Slugging back the vodka, he could watch, through narrowed eyes, and almost picture himself in there. Picture ending the other night on a different note—one where he’d stayed instead of taking off like an asshole. His belly hurt, empty of food, full of booze, and lined with acid. Up for a piss, not too far from the seat of his vigil, then back to stand guard. Empty bottle. Fuck.
He threw it against a tree, wanting a loud smash, hoping it would wake her up, and she’d come out to find him and take him in. But the stupid bottle thumped almost silently to the ground, and Clay slumped against the cool bark and let his eyes close.
His head was filled with popping, bright and real, followed by screams, the screams of friends, brothers, men he’d sworn to die with—and for.
Burning flesh and hair, sweet and sickly, acrid. Adrenaline hitting him like a dose of methamphetamines, hot in his blood, a rush like nothing else—and then instinct kicked in. Only, this time it wasn’t a lawman’s instinct to protect the innocent. It was a Sultan’s instinct to fight off the attacker—to avenge and carry out atrocities of his own. Bloodlust. Fucking overwhelming, murderous need had him picking up a beer bottle and smashing it, over and over on some fucker’s head, watching the blood coating him and wanting more, more, more.
Later, on Ape’s table, the buzz of the man’s tattoo machine, putting letters into his side. Sultans for Life, those letters had said, and with that tattoo, Clay had sworn to kill for his club. And that night, he’d meant it.
On a cry that was bone-deep remorse and shame and a vestigial curl of allegiance to a cause he was supposed to abhor, Clay woke up on the forest floor, steeped in the stench of booze and blood and stinking sweat, with something tickling his back and a crick in his neck.
He didn’t want to think of it. He didn’t want to relive the day he’d lost his shit, his mind, and any sense of right and wrong, but in his sleep, he was powerless to stop the memory.
It was a couple of months after the lie detector test and being patched in that the Sultans were attacked by a rival club—the Raising Canes. Just a regular night at the Hangover: a bunch of guys playing pool, a crew out back kicking the shit out of each other for the fun of it, grunts from the bathroom, and Ape in back wreaking havoc with his needle on some poor fucker’s skin.
Outside, there’d been a scream like something out of a horror movie, and the front door had blown in on a hazy gust of smoke and flames, surprising the fuck out of the Sultans and dragging them into a firefight of epic proportions.
The worst part had been Clay’s reaction—his visceral desire to kill. The instinct to protect his brothers. It had been so strong, he’d finished off the night getting that Sultans tat inked into his side. Meaning it, deep to his core.
Months later, long after the smoke had cleared and the big players had been indicted, Clay had taken an iron to that piece of skin. And only then had he felt even the slightest bit of absolution.
But not really, he knew, staring at the doctor’s quiet house in the middle of the night. Not really.
* * *
“Virginia?” Ape said into the phone.
After a pause, the voice answered, “Yeah. I think so.”
“If you’re pullin’ my chain, I swear to God, I’ll kill ’em all. Every last one of your—”
“No, no, I promise. I swear on the life of…” Ape could hear the heavy breathing, could smell the nerves through the phone line. “On my life, I swear that’s where he is.”
