Total pages in book: 38
Estimated words: 35372 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 177(@200wpm)___ 141(@250wpm)___ 118(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 35372 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 177(@200wpm)___ 141(@250wpm)___ 118(@300wpm)
He folds his hands.
"When something goes wrong on one of those routes—and things do go wrong—your people are already there. A problem appears, your men handle it, and by morning it's like it never happened."
"Problems," I say. More to myself than him.
"Badlands moves product for us. It always has. There has never been a time when Badlands wasn't compromised, Legion. So if you think you're protecting something here—if that's why you killed Brick and the rest of my men.”
His men. Interesting.
"You're wrong," he continues. "It's a dangerous thing to be a principled man inside an outlaw club."
A long breath escapes from me before I can stop it.
"Listen to me, son," Mike says, leanin' forward a bit. "Badlands exists because of me and the men I work for. If you need a minute to come to terms with that, take it. But by the time you walk out of here, it had better be gospel in your mind. You move things. You know this. You've been doin' it for years. That's your job. It's always been your job. Nothing has changed."
I get it. I understand what he's sayin'.
But I didn't kill half of my club just to get stuck inside the same deal Brick had.
I stand up, flip the chair back around, then sit on it properly, leanin’ back. I stare at him for a good ten seconds. He doesn't squirm or get impatient. Doesn't get angry. Just lets me work it out.
Finally, I say, "What do I get?"
And this time, the smile he gives me is dead real. "You get to live, Legion. You get away with what you and your brothers did in the church."
I narrow my eyes. "They didn't mean anythin’ to you, did they?"
Mike scoffs. "I barely even knew their names. The only thing that matters is that the trucks keep movin'."
The sun's fully up by the time I turn off the highway toward Badlands, my mind still rackin' and stackin' the pieces Mike laid out.
Not the parts he said—the parts he didn't.
The spaces between.
Forty miles between the gas station and home gives me plenty of time to play it forward and back. Brick wasn't just a rat, he was a fuckin' operative. And I killed an operative. And the man who ran him isn't even mad about it.
That tells me everything I need to know about the kinda value they place on a human life.
Or the president of this oil protection operation they got goin'.
Dusty's at the gate lookin' half-asleep when I roll up. He snaps to attention when he sees it's me, swingin' the gate wide without a question. Still doin' prospect work despite bein' secretary/treasurer now.
I respect that. Boy's got no entitlement in him. That's rare.
"Dusty," I say, slowin' down to idle. "You holdin' up all right?"
"Yes, sir. Got an hour left on watch."
"You get a break after?"
"Yessir."
"No more gate work," I tell him. "You're a fuckin' officer now. Assign someone else your next shift. Anyone gives you shit, you tell 'em I said so."
Dusty's smile is big and immediate. "Yeah, OK. Thanks, Demon."
I roll through and park next to Diesel's bike, which means he's been waitin'.
Inside it's quiet. The kind of quiet you get when a group of men are all pretendin' everything's normal while actually waitin' on one guy to walk in and tell them the world ain't endin'.
Diesel's the first to spot me, and I watch him clock my face for signs of trouble. He breathes out, not quite relief, but a step in that direction.
"What took you so long?" he asks, pretending he wasn't worried. "I called hours ago."
"I was with Savannah."
"And?"
"And… now I'm here."
He gives me a look. One I can't immediately decipher. One I normally wouldn't even try to decipher.
But my world has now been divided into a very clear 'before and after'.
The world before I killed Brick for being an FBI rat.
And the world after I learned I'm now the new FBI rat.
And that line I just crossed changes everything about who I thought I was.
Diesel sighs. "I cannot fucking believe we forgot about June."
OK. So that's what he's thinkin' about. June. Yeah. It's a mistake that costs more than my final nod to Mike back at the gas station.
Because I care about June. And Havoc was a brother who stood with me 'till the end.
"When do we leave?" I ask.
"Soon as everyone's sober," Diesel says. "Which might be a wait."
I look at the dark circles under his eyes. "You get any sleep?"
"Bout as much as you did. Probably for different reasons."
I don't take the bait. "We roll in thirty. You, me, Chains, Ratchet. Get 'em up."
"What do we tell her?"
I sigh, feelin' very tired all of a sudden. "Nothin' that'll make any difference."
The alarm blares through the clubhouse like we're on a fuckin' submarine about to implode. That awful whoop-whoop that means someone's at the gate who ain't supposed to be. Every man who was asleep a minute ago is suddenly fully upright with a weapon in hand.