The road to the old outpost north of Thorn Valley could be a bitch in bad weather, and right now? Right now it was absolutely pissing down.
I cursed Diesel for picking it as the meeting point tonight, not just for the crap location, down thirty miles of gravel road, but because there wasn’t a secondary way out.
It was a dead-end at the outpost. Nowhere to go but back the way we came.
A great tactic if you didn’t think you’d need to make a hasty getaway, but tonight, all bets were off. If Lenny Ace admitted the little bitch who’d been grooming Becca was doing so at his command, Diesel would put two pieces of lead between his eyes.
It would either be them leaving here tonight, or us.
Maybe Diesel was counting on that.
But if Lenny Ace had half a fucking brain, he wouldn’t even come here tonight unless it was because he thought we could part ways without bloodshed. He had to know if it came to blood, they wouldn’t stand a chance. Their larger numbers be damned.
No one fucked with the Saints and lived. Not after Mom died. And especially not when the supposed target this go ’round was Diesel St. Crow’s sons.
The wipers slashed across the windshield, and I squinted to see through them, getting tense on Grey’s behalf even though he looked calm as ever as he maneuvered us toward the meet point. Deftly avoiding potholes and sections of washed out road as the rain beat out a pelting rhythm on the roof of the Rover.
“Does anyone have a phone I can use?” Ava Jade asked from the backseat.
“What for?”
Behind me, the whiskey in Rook’s flash sloshed for the eighth time since we’d left Briar Hall, signaling another swig. He didn’t bother answering Ava Jade, and I had a feeling he was still on the edge from earlier.
No one called Rook Clayton by his given name.
No one except his bastard uncle and the people at the sanitorium where they’d stuck him when they couldn’t handle him at the group home.
There was a reason he couldn’t stand the sound of it.
Much like certain words and symbols triggered memories from my past, and an empty refrigerator triggered Grey, it was Rook’s own name that triggered him.
“I don’t have a phone,” Ava Jade reminded me. “I just want to check socials and my email.”
“Becca?” I asked, not really expecting a response. I’d tried to talk to her about it earlier, but she’d shut me down. Diesel was right though, we needed the intel only Becca could give us. Like what the guy looked like, and whether he had any discernible tattoos. And everything he’d ever said to her.
“You can use mine,” Grey offered, but I was already lifting my ass from the seat to pull mine from my back pocket.
I slipped it to her between the seats, taking in her narrowed eyes.
She didn’t think it would be me who offered.
Why not?
It wasn’t like there was anything to find.
“Two, Seven, Four, One,” I told her as she took it. “That’s the code. Don’t forget to sign out and wipe the history.”
“No shit.”
I watched her in the rearview as her thumbs tapped over the screen, the blue light deepening the shadows of her sharply angled features.
Ava Jade Mason.
My Sparrow.
My undoing.
I couldn’t believe what went on with her and Diesel’s cop bait, and the only thing that kept me half-sane was thinking that she never would’ve gone through with it. That she knew she wouldn’t from the very fucking start, but needed to feel in control.
Like me.
Having that option in her back pocket and knowing that she could use it if she wanted to was what she needed to get through the rest of it all.
She chose us, I reminded myself, the sick feeling turning my stomach again.
I cracked the window, making Rook snort behind me, annoyed when some rain flung back at him without warning. But he didn’t tell me to roll it up.
Good, because I needed it.
It helped to distract myself with other thoughts. Like whether or not I should install some form of tracking device on the new cell phone I ordered for her late last night.
If I could get away with it, I probably wouldn’t have given it a second thought, but I knew she would strip the thing and search it inside and out. That was, if she even agreed to take it from me in the first place. It was a healthy step up from the usual burners. The newest model, actually.
Better even than my own phone.
At least now her stalker would have no access whatsoever to her number.
My teeth clamped tight at the reminder, and I breathed deeply through my nose of the rain-scented air to regain the calm I needed to get through this fucking meeting.
With any luck, the motherfucker who’d tried to inject her was already dead, but something told me it wasn’t that simple. Especially after what happened at Briar Hall this morning.
It could’ve been the Aces, sure. But that didn’t sit right.
Ava Jade slipped the phone back to me over the seat, our fingers brushing before she pulled back from the contact.
“Anything interesting?” I prodded.
“Wouldn’t you like to know.”
“Sparrow…”
She sighed, exasperated as she leaned back in her seat, swiping Rook’s flask away for a little swig. He didn’t seem bothered, but took it back from her as soon as she was finished. “Nothing from creepy stalker fucker if that’s what you’re wondering. He was a text guy though, remember?”
“Was,” I emphasized. “Not sure he’s going to like not being able to communicate with you anymore.”
“If he’s even alive,” Grey grumbled from the driver’s seat.
“Good,” Ava Jade said. “Either way I won’t have to deal with being skeeved out every fucking time my phone chimes.”
“This is it,” Grey said as he pulled us around the last bend in the road to the sleepy little building nestled in the woods. It was a ranger’s cabin once, before they built a more modern one thirty miles south.
No one used this one now except hikers looking for a night’s refuge or someplace warm and dry to escape a storm. The shit brown siding was riddled with graffiti, but no gang tags. None that mattered anyway. This was just as neutral as Nomansland and a meeting place we’d used on other occasions several times over the last two years.
Diesel was already there, sitting in a plateless black truck idling in the wide drive. It looked like Tiny was beside him in the passenger seat, though it was hard to tell in the rain, and as Grey pulled us around to the other side, we saw the nondescript dark green van next to him.
No doubt filled with at least five more Saints if not more than that.
This location made me uneasy. Unlike usual, we didn’t get the details ahead of time. Didn’t have a say. We got jack shit from Diesel, actually, besides the time and location at the last minute.
He didn’t want help setting it up, and he didn’t even reply to my text cautioning him against meeting right now. This soon after finding out about the snake.
We’d be showing them our cards instead of trying to use what we knew to figure out what cards they were trying to play. Not to mention we had a dead Saint to bury, and I had it on good authority from Pinkie that Dies was told he should stay off his feet for at least ten days to let the knife wound to his Achilles heal.
I knew he wasn’t thrilled with what happened back at the Docks, but I had to wonder how long he intended to punish us.
I bent my head, grimacing as an ache formed in my skull.
“I still can’t believe you insisted on coming tonight,” I found myself saying out loud.
Diesel wasn’t going to like this, but he hadn’t said not to bring her. What he did say was to watch her. How else were we supposed to do that if he asked us all to come out here?
“This is what you wanted,” Ava Jade said plainly. “Remember?”
Grey flinched at that, but none of us contradicted her. Whether it was Grey who did the asking or not for her to take the trials, it was a fact that every single one of us wanted that same thing. It was better than the alternative.
“Get out,” I told her. “I have something for you in the back.”
I stepped out into the rain, bristling as the chilled droplets snaked through my hair, dripping down the back of my neck, bringing my focus back.
Her door opened, and she rushed to the trunk, squinting through the rain, her arms wrapped around herself as the rain soaked through her black long sleeve shirt.
I took out the vest I’d purchased for her more than a week ago, though it only just arrived this morning. It was the closest one to her size I could find. The adjustable straps should ensure it was a snug fit.
“Put this on.”
She looked between me and the bulletproof vest. She hadn’t been expecting this.
Her hesitation was making me grind my teeth again. They’d be worn down to stumps in no time if she kept being so damned stubborn about every little thing.
I lifted the edge of my grey t-shirt, showing her mine beneath it. Everyone here would be wearing one tonight. Except for Rook, who never wore one no matter how much we tried to push him into it. He had the bullet holes to prove it, but not even those could persuade him. He wore each one like a trophy. A time where death could’ve come for him but didn’t.
“Just put it on, Sparrow.”
She relented, stripping off her shirt without another word to lay it in the trunk, her skin reflecting the moonlight, bathed in rainwater. The tops of her breasts prickled with gooseflesh.
I adjusted my stance to block her from the view of the van as she turned around to slide her arms through. I helped her get it on and adjusted and then tugged her damp shirt back on over top of it.
Though nearly everyone here would be wearing one, it was bad form to show it. This was a courtesy meeting after all. Wearing a bulletproof vest meant you expected blood. And if you expected blood, you would often find it.
“It’s still visible,” she said, trying to adjust her shirt so it would cover the top part of the vest covering her perfect tits, but it was no use. I slipped off my leather jacket and flicked off the rain before settling it around her shoulders.
“Zip it up. No one will know.”
She touched the collar delicately for a second, like she wasn’t quite sure what to do, and the urge to push her up against the Rover and punish her for everything she’d put us through almost took me. But then she zipped it up like I told her to do and gave me a taut nod. She looked amazing in it.
“Good girl.”
She bit her lip.
Jesus fuck.
The rain started to let up, and I heard the truck door open, instinctively stepping forward to put myself in front of Ava Jade. She made a sound of annoyance at my tiny shove but didn’t fight me.
No. She just stepped back around me to put herself directly at my side as Diesel appeared outside the truck, shrugging his worn jacket to pop the collar as a defense against what remained of the rain.
Grey and Rook got out of the Rover, coming to stand with us.
Diesel didn’t seem the least bit surprised to see Ava Jade there as he pulled a long stick from the truck seat and set it on the ground.
A cane.
I felt Ava Jade stiffen beside me as Diesel approached us, using the sleek black cane to hold the majority of his weight.
He stopped a few feet away.
“What’s the—” I started, but he interrupted me.
“You’re here,” he said, sniffing, his icy gaze fixed on my Sparrow. “Good.”
Good?
What?
“After you threatened Rick, I wasn’t sure you were with us.”
She’d done what? Rick was our tattoo guy, owned a local shop in town. Had Dies already sent him to her? And she’d clearly refused the ink. It wasn’t negotiable.
Ava Jade jutted out her chin, offering no explanation.
“You must’ve been very tired,” Diesel said, looking at her as though she were a wounded little girl in need of coddling. I wanted to tell him if he looked at her like that for even another second, she was going to attempt to gouge his eyeballs out but that would only make matters worse.
Instead, I covertly wound my fingers around her wrist, feeling her tendons taut as a whip with her hand balled into a fist.
“Not tired enough not to make good on what I promised him.”
Diesel’s jaw ticked. “You need to be inked next time, or you won’t be welcome.”
I squeezed her wrist tighter. Calm down.
“Anyway,” Diesel said, inhaling deeply, the moment past. Time for a subject change. He jerked his head at Pinkie, who stepped forward to hand Ava Jade a white cloth.
More like dumped it into her hands.
The clatter of metal told us what was inside.
She unwrapped her blades, the ones she’d lost back at the warehouse. “Thought you’d be wanting those back.”
Her fingers curled protectively around them. She offered Diesel nothing, just a strained nod by way of thanks even though they appeared to have been cleaned and sharpened by our blade guy.
I doubted the gesture would have the effect he hoped for with Ava Jade, though. I doubted she liked other people touching her blades, never mind honing them for her.
The others from the van exited now, forming a semi-circle of six behind Diesel and Tiny.
I didn’t like the way they were looking at Ava Jade. Like she was an outsider. Like they wanted to…
If Garrett hadn’t been a newer implant into the gang, Ava Jade would’ve been in for a lot more than some hateful stares for killing him.
It’s a truth universally known among us that people died during the trials, but usually it was the ones taking the trials, not the ones administering them. It wasn’t the first time it’d happened, but it definitely wasn’t common.
There was a reason we’d told Ava Jade to try not to kill anyone.
It would take her twice as long to earn their trust—their respect—now, if she ever got it. There was also the matter of her having a different set of parts to consider. There were only two female gang members I’d ever heard of besides Ava Jade and it’d taken them years to earn their places.
“What’s the plan?” I asked when the silence stretched on.
Diesel tipped his head to the cabin. “You four inside. Pinkie and Tiny, you’re with me inside, too. Axel, I want you in the driver’s seat of the van, don’t budge. Derrik, Crowley, Shane, and Lee, you’re in the woods. Watch their entry, warn us if they’re packing more than they should be. If Lenny Ace leaves the cabin before me, light him the fuck up.”
So it was like that.
Ava Jade snatched her wrist back from me while everyone’s attention was elsewhere, sending me a scathing glare.
“Everyone got it?”
A chorus of yeah boss, and let’s get it done rising up all around as the rain finally let up.
Four of our men dispersed into the tree line, vanishing into the shadows, careful of where they stepped to leave no boot prints in the muddy roadway. Axel went back to the van, seeming unhappy with his assignment, but they all respected Diesel. Each one knew that if they followed his orders as he spoke them with no room for interpretation, their chances of surviving until another sunrise were a lot fucking better than if they didn’t.
The graves of the outliers proved that, without the need for Dies to throw his weight around.
“Arm up if you aren’t already,” he told us, and Ava Jade made a show of slipping her blades into the empty places on her ankle sheath and into the new knife slot at the top of her bulletproof vest beneath her shirt.
Diesel watched with a raised brow, and I knew what he was thinking, but he wouldn’t say it. She needed a gun. He was only half right about that.
“Let’s head inside. They’ll be here soon.”
We fell into step behind Dies and Tiny, but there was something else bothering me about this whole thing. Probably because he didn’t bother to give details about anything to do with tonight’s meet even though he knew how it would drive me to the brink of fucking insanity to not know.
“What exactly do you expect to get out of tonight?” I asked, making Diesel pause briefly at the bottom of the short staircase leading up to the front door of the old cabin.
He turned, just enough for me to see the twisted side profile of his face.
“The truth. Either they give it to me, or they live and die with the consequences of that choice.”
