“Okay, let’s move. We haul ass, boys,” Cole orders, and everyone scatters to their bikes.
We do almost a hundred miles an hour up the highway, swerving in and out of traffic. I half expect flashing lights to appear behind us, but none ever do.
Cole and Crash are at the head of the pack, and they slow up, and I know we’re getting close to the turnoff.
Forty minutes later, we arrive at the on-ramp to I5, and I skid to a stop on the gravel shoulder and pull my phone out, checking Heather’s location. I think in the last hour I’ve said more prayers to a God I’m not sure I believe in than I ever have.
Cole and Crash come to stand next to me, peering at the map.
“We didn’t miss them. They’re close. Should be coming south over that rise any minute.”
“Okay, half of you get on that side of the highway,” Cole orders.
I wait with Crash, Cole, TJ, and Billy, while Shine, Reckless, Shane, and the rest go to the far side.
My stomach is in knots. If this goes badly, Heather could die, and it’s all about to go down in the next few minutes. My father rolls up next to me and reaches across, patting my shoulder.
“We’re going to get her, son.”
I nod, praying he’s right, but terrified I’m about to lose the love of my life when I just found her. As we sit idling, every moment with her flashes before my eyes. The first time I laideyes on her, the first time I kissed her, the way she looked at me the first time I made love to her. The light in her eyes every time she looked at her son. I can’t lose her, and I can’t let Tucker grow up without his mom. That cannot happen.
I curse the fact that the search for Ray took my attention off Snake and off Heather’s safety. I let myself be distracted, and I swear I’ll never let that happen again.
I cannot make a mistake now. The next five minutes are too important.
Breathe, I tell myself, and I think about putting my gun to Snake’s head and calmly pulling the trigger.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Heather—
My brain is on autopilot as I watch the landscape fly past in a blur. I’m so tired, and I rest my head against Snake’s back. My life is over, but at least I know Tucker is safe, and I know he will be okay. If I had it to do over again, I’d make the same choice. I don’t regret what I did, but I do hate I didn’t get to say goodbye to Cody.
Life took my first love away, and now when I found love again, it has cruelly taken it from me.
The monotonous hum of the engine beneath me lulls me into a trance. I just need to survive. Maybe I can find a way to kill Snake and save myself. I’d have to make it look like an accident, because if the Death Heads thought I was to blame, they’d kill me without a second thought. I have no doubt about that. I’m nothing to them, and I’m nothing to Snake except money in his pocket.
He’ll use me until I’m of no worth, and he’ll drop me flat without a dime to my name or maybe even put a bullet in my brain and dump me in the Texas desert.
How did my life come to this?
Bad choices and being too proud to accept help, that’s how. I wanted to make it on my own, and so I chose the one field I knew I could make a ton of money in that was still legal. I regret so many things, but not that I wanted to provide for my son.
And now I may not be there for his birthday or his first day of school.
If God ever gets me out of this, I swear I’m going to go back to school and do what I’d planned to do when Ryan was still alive.
That life feels like a million years ago, but there was a time I wanted to go to school and become a veterinarian. I envisioned a little white house with a yard and a tree with a tire swing for Tucker, and a yard full of dogs. I wanted a simple life. I just wanted to be a wife and mother and do all the things… the PTA and Boy Scouts and teaching my son how to ride a bicycle.
Was that too much to ask?
We ride under a concrete overpass, the roar of the bikes echoing off the stone, and then another, louder roar takes its place, and I straighten, feeling Snake’s body tense.
I look around and see a dozen bikers, and then I spot their rockers.EVIL DEADemblazoned across the top of their backs.
We fly past them so fast I think they’ll never catch up to us, but then they do; they’re right on our tails.
One flies in front of us and gets in front of a semi up ahead. A moment later, its brake lights come on, and it starts to jackknife.
