Jax chuckles, a bit of pride swimming in his hazel eyes for the girl he reveled in having with us on family night. “Let’s hope she loves you back, Papa Axe.”
I never claimed to love her, but still, I think,Let’s hope.
AXEL
“Maddox and Jax are with me. You two follow,” I say to Ryker and Cash as we near the one-road town.
A throaty gurgle of annoyance bubbles up from Cash. “Uh, mind explaining that reasoning?”
“Because I’m prettier,” Maddox quips.
Cash howls as if that’s the most absurd utterance he’s ever heard—and not because being good-looking has nothing to do with a stakeout. “The fuck? You’re uglier than the east end of a horse headed west.”
“Says the guy who looks like a bulldog after chewing on a beehive,” Maddox snipes. “Both Bernards shame you.”
Jax does some honky-tonk accent that barely sounds like English or maybe English with a mouthful of straw. “That right there”—he flips his index finger between the two pretty morons with a considering pause—“looks like your family tree is a daggum circle.”
Ryker is undone, beyond useless as a fellow adult, aside from his ability to steer the SUV into an adequate spot for us to wait.Amid his laughter, he hitches a shoulder to my side-eye and adds, “When in the sticks.”
We are in the middle of nowhere. Not Montana or Wyoming. Wisconsin. Flat as far as the eye can see.
Cataloging our surroundings—cinder block and dust and tattered wood beneath an inky blanket of the brightest stars—I sigh. “Not even that excuses this dumbass conversation while stalking someone.”
They are undeterred, the stupid, insulting colloquialisms flying in all directions until I feel my temples attempting to choke their nonsense out of my brain.
So, as we scan the area that Gage supplied—the sight of an occasional poker game our host frequents beneath a hardware store—I glare at the three men in the back seat. “I’m feeling a bit trigger happy, so even though we’re parked, this would be one of those if-I-have-to-pull-this-car-over moments.”
“He’ll tan our hides,” Jax provides, so straightlaced that it would be easy to assume he was simply providing context. The slight twang aside.
“It’s always the kids who pay the price,” Maddox laments in a dejected tone. “Our wicked stepmommy can feed poisonous apples to our friends, but we have a colorful discussion, and Papa threatens us.”
For the love of fuck.
If he starts referring to Zara as his stepmom, the others will follow, and I’ll blow a gasket. It’s for this reason that I say nothing, even as they all giggle like little girls. Maddox is similar to a bat—at the slightest movement, he’ll sense the weakness and rouse the others.
“Why doesn’t Papa Axe love us anymore, Ryker?” Cash whines, sensing me squirm.
Thankfully, there is movement in the shop, so I lift my hand to quiet them. It’s go time.
Gage gave us the rundown, but I’m guessing everything about how we approach these situations differs from his crew. Their military background gives them an edge on everyone.
My brothers and I don’t have that type of training, but we move as one entity nonetheless.
Maddox and Jax slide out of the back as I step onto the pavement. We’re all in various styles of black suits, and the teasing cadence that guided us here has morphed to a grave and flinty silent stratagem. Maddox has two knives in hand, of course, while Jax and I have our pistols—HK45s with silencers—tucked beneath our suit jackets.
We walk the block to our destination, skirting a dilapidated fence that should call it quits and sticking to the shadows of buildings that probably wilt in the sunlight. It occurs to me that this is where Zara thrives—melting into the umbra to be the silhouette of reprisal. I am no less a dealer of darkness, but I do it beneath a never-dimming spotlight. She’d probably hate that. Or maybe the shadows are simply all she knows.
The chill of night has our breath panting out in white puffs, but that is the only cold that registers. My body is on fire. An itch that’s been eating at me for nearly a week will finally be scratched. And every pore is bursting with fury and adrenaline.
We stall about twenty feet from our target’s Jeep, waiting out of sight, not far from a dumpster. The stench of trash doesn’t even bother me because I can taste him. He’ll likely sense us, so this could go several ways. But even as I tick those off in my mind, I’m surprised that he leisurely carries on a conversation with another fella as they strut to their cars. His buddy turns down a side alley as our guy hits the unlock button on his key fob and lowers himself to the driver’s seat seconds later.
Before his door is shut, all three of us join him. My brothers take the back while I ride shotgun. Maddox slings his arm over the seat, his Karambit knife fringing the guy’s throat like a claw.
He doesn’t startle the way most would. Even out of the game for a decade, he is unfazed.
“Sorry about the cold.” He drops his keys in the cupholder, presses the ignition button, and tinkers with the heat, so hospitable to his passengers. “I’ve been waiting for you to arrive—for a goddamn decade. But I stopped leaving my doors unlocked a few years ago.”
“You’ve been waiting formeto arrive?” I question, realizing he doesn’t recognize me.
