“Jesus fucking Christ,” I say, before things can escalate. Sav is already bristling. “Clearly, this is my fault. Sav, this is Fallow. Yes, that Fallow. He’s also old man Murphy’s son… or something. Pet psychopath. I don’t really know. But I’m responsible for him right now, so he’s here. He does not care for making literally anything easier for me. Fallow, this is Savage, who used to be in line for my job but now is a civilian. A fucking secret civilian, supposedly, so I don’t know why he’s drawing attention to himself by showing up here, but I guess we’ll findout if you two can stop fucking glaring at each other for no reason.”
The words come out in a tumble, and by the time I’m finished and gesturing them both into the room, everyone seems to relax a fraction.
They move far enough inside that I’m able to close the door at least, which I slam, because I know the other guys are probably eavesdropping right now and I have zero goddamn patience for it.
I take a second to walk over to the desk, take another deep breath, and then lean back against it before speaking.
“Sav. How can I help you?”
He keeps staring at Fallow instead of answering, his brow furrowed and his thick arms crossed to make all that muscle pop.
It takes me clearing my throat before he looks at me again.
“I don’t mean to be an alarmist, but you should seriously consider getting out of town,” he says. “Just for a minute, until all this cools down.”
I raise an eyebrow at him, waiting for him to continue. He works at a bar now and spends all his spare time at home with his boyfriend, so I don’t know how he’s gotten information about the underworld before me. But I guess stranger things have happened, and I’m seeing more and more that the guys I have working for me are fucking incompetent.
“Everyone at the Feral Possum has been keeping their ears open. Y’know, for my sake. They’re all pretty straight—” he pauses, frowning, “—you know what I mean. They’re clean. But it’s a small town and everybody knows someone who knows someone. Turns out Kasia has an old friend that relapsed recently and spent a little time bumping rails with the Brotherhood in between running back to Kasia to dry out. She showed up today and started running her mouth about howthey’re all gearing up for something big, and she got kicked out. I happened to be there, asked a couple of questions, and it sounds like you are now their favorite fucking enemy. I don’t know what you did, but they’re pissed and they’re gunning for you.”
It takes a minute for the words to sink in. I’m not surprised, I guess, but for all the bluster between our two organizations, we rarely go to a lot of effort to actually hurt each other. Who has the time? Drugs won’t sell themselves.
“I know we’ve talked about this before, but are you sure you and Micah won’t leave town? I get that they’re pissed at me right now, but this all started with you and I don’t think they’re going to let it go.”
He sighs.
“I know. But Micah doesn’t want to leave his job or his mom, and I’m not convinced it would make a difference. If they want to come for me, they will. I think the reason they haven’t is because they care more about talking about it than actually getting it done. They treat me like the goddamn boogie man.”
“I guess, man. Whatever you want. But I’m not running, either.”
“Actually,” Fallow says, reminding me that he’s been remarkably silent this whole time. “Maybe you should go. You promised to keep me safe, remember? Well, I’m going to California, so if you don’t want me to die on the way and take the blame for it, you should probably come be my knight in shining armor.”
He says it with no particular inflection, dropping all the playfulness from earlier in the day. But that doesn’t stop Sav from clocking that it’s a weird thing to say and flicking his gaze between us a few times.
I’m too distracted by the other thing to get annoyed, though.
“Why the fuck are you going to California?” I ask him, trying to remember if he mentioned this already.
“To investigate your human trafficking issue.”
Fallow drops the sentence like it’s the most natural answer in the world, and I’m getting a fucking headache.
Sav frowns, and I bring a hand up to rub at my temples.
“Why, why, why are you doing that? I didn’t ask you to do that, and I’m pretty sure that it was only an hour ago you said you didn’t give a flying fuck about Banna business.”
Fallow shrugs, but the lightness from this morning is still gone.
“What can I say? I’m capricious. And I don’t like kidnappers. You’re clearly not doing a very good job of getting to the bottom of it, so I might as well take over.”
He’s lying. I don’t know how I know, but I do.
“So, you want to fly to California—with me—to chase down Kaitlyn’s random contact in person and ask them about this human trafficking rumor. Have I got that right?”
Fallow wrinkles his nose and shakes his head while I focus on not finding it adorable.
“No way. Flying leaves a paper trail. We’ll have to drive.”
I can’t keep the look of shock from my face.
