Justice. We need it. The Sinners need it. There’s no turning back from this. But that doesn’t mean I like thisplan, or rather, the promise he forced me to make.
“Grace,” he sighs. “I need you to say it.”
“Yes. Okay,” I whisper, my stomach churning. “But it won’t come to that.”
Without another word, he grabs the backpack from the seat behind him and pushes out of the car.
“Don’t die,” I call to him.
He merely smiles as he shuts the door.
He slinks through the mostly empty parking lot and then across the dark, deserted street. The moment he disappears from sight, the unease in my stomach turns painful.
I set the timer on my phone. Ten minutes, and then I have to do what I promised. The thing he said he’d never do to me. I have to leave him behind.
There was a time when that might have been easy for me.
Since the second I was ripped from South Bay at sixteen, the only person I depended on was me. The only person Ineededwas me. Jimmy taught me that.
Cut and run.
But Linc is part of me now. Woven deep within the threads of my being. Etched into my bones. He’s my heart. My breath. My ride or fucking die.
It’s not all dive bars and fast bikes and fucking in truck stop bathrooms. Don’t get me wrong, my nomadic heart lives for those days, and we’ve been on one hell of a ride for the past couple of months. But it’s the slow days that really feed my soul. Days where we hole up in some mountain cabin in the Rockies and sleep away the sunlight. Days where I get to touch him, feel him, drink him in, map every inch of his skin, trace over his scars. Skin on skin, hand at my throat, breathing in my breath.
There’s no leaving that.
I hate that he keeps asking me to.
Four minutes left.
The cold no longer registers. My limbs warm, my skin prickling as my blood pumps a little faster with the beat of my heart.
I stare at the timer.
Two minutes.
I check my gun. Count the bullets. Attach the suppressor to the end of the barrel. My pulse kicks up another notch.
Thirty seconds.
When the timer hits zero, I glance up at the street.
There’s no movement. No Decker.
I don’t even have to think about it. Like I didn’t have to think when my brother called. The Sinner prez cashed in on his favour. He had a job for me. Ride into enemy territory and hunt down the men who took out our own, our family. Axe didn’t have to ask. I would have done this anyway, without hesitation. The Raiders took something from us, from me, and now they pay with their lives.
I open the door and push out into the icy night.
Linc isn’t the only one who gets to play hero, to make sacrifices. Somehow through all of this, he still doesn’t get that.
I stride towards the bar, ducking low as I pass the front entrance, then I skirt around the side into a dark alleyway. Heart thrashing in my chest, I press a calming hand to my stomach and take a deep breath.
Inhale, exhale.
Inhale, exhale.
“We’re okay. We’ll be okay.”
