I nod at Grace. “She comes out of this safe. Completely unharmed.”
“She betrayed us.”
“I didn’t mean to,” she says, voice quavering. “I swear, I never told them anything. They didn’t even know who I was. I was just looking for somewhere to settle down. A family, a?—”
“You don’t have a family. Not anymore,” Axe says.
She flinches, her throat bobbing. Another crack.
He turns to me. “I do this, and you get this shit with Kat sorted. Immediately.”
Yeah. Like it’s that fucking easy. Even so, I nod. As I lower my weapon, Preacher and Tex take a collective breath.
Axe smiles. “All right. You got a deal. Grace has been pardoned. So long as she leaves my territory and never comes back.”
Her eyes widen. “Axe. Please. I?—”
“My father won’t want you either. You’re dead to us. Go slither back to those fucks you callfamily.And give them a message. They come for us again, we will put them all in the fucking ground.”
The sob Grace let’s slip is like a stab to my chest. “Wait. Axe, please. I have nowhere to go. I?—”
“You have until sunset. I see you in town after dark, and you’ll be eating a fucking bullet.”
He shoulders past me, Preacher and Tex on his heels. It isn’t until the deep growl of their motorcycles fades into the distance that either of us moves. Then it’s all silent tears from Grace as I hold her to my chest.
This has to end.
Axe Donovan needs to fucking burn.
30
I stare up into nothing,waiting for the sky to turn dark. Counting down the minutes, watching as the shadows dance over the weathered boards making up the inside of Decker’s treehouse.
This place used to be cozy. Now it just feels empty and cold.
Or maybe it’s me that feels empty and cold. All my safe, cozy corners turned dark and rotten.
When I was a kid, I’d do this. Lie here and wait. Watching as night fell. Listening for the moment when the yelling would stop, when the violence on the other side of the fence would cease. I’d take comfort knowingthat Decker boywas only a ladder climb away. That I was safe here. But unlike those moments, these four wooden walls aren’t protecting me from anything. The only thing that’ll protect me now is leaving. Complying with Axe’s order. But I’ve got nowhere else to go. No one else to run to.
A loud creek sounds below me, then another. Wood straining on wood, an old worn rope pulling against grain.
Decker pops up through the opening in the floor, balancing on the rope ladder. The setting sun beams over his handsome face, making the gash tearing across his cheek look much worsethan it did last night. A mark on his skin he’ll hold even when I’m long gone.
“What are you doing up here?” he asks.
“Just… thinking.”
He hums as he hoists himself up through the hole and then crawls in beside me.
I refocus on the worn boards above us. The cracks, the age, the warped planks.
After a long moment of silence, Decker lets out a deep breath. “Thought you might have left. I got out of the shower, and you were gone.”
I thought about it. Cut and run. No attachments. No goodbyes. No feelings. Just go. Leave. Forget this place. Forgethim.
But it’s not that easy. There area lotof feelings. And there’s no fucking forgetting Linc.
“I promised I wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye,” I say.
