More.
Another line, then one more. Peace blankets me in warmth. This is all I’ve ever wanted. Serenity.
I lose the ability to hold up my head. Thoughts fizzle away until it’s just me and the high. I lie down, wondering what I was so upset about before. Suddenly nothing matters except the tiny vial that I have clasped between my hands.
Making amends with my past, my eyes drift closed. I pull up his face.
He’s smiling down at me with acceptance, forgiveness. “It’s okay, Gia. I forgive you.”
My heart swells and slows, unable to take the full weight of his mercy.
“I love you, Rex.” Hot tears trail from my eyes to the bed. “I never stopped loving you.”
“You can let go now, baby.”
Breathing shallow . . . pulse slower . . . the world goes black.
Peace.
*
Rex
“Continue on Interstate 285 toward Leadville.” The computer-generated voice from the GPS is the only person talking in the rented SUV.
Jonah, Blake, and Caleb have been silent for most of the trip. The plane ride from Vegas to Denver seems as if it were ages ago as we trek through the Colorado mountains. Adrenaline drums through my veins, ratcheting up along with our altitude. Every motorcycle that passes ignites a fire in my gut. She better be okay. Fuck! She better be better than okay. If not, I don’t know what I’ll do.
“Rex, man, you’re going almost one hundred miles an hour.” Caleb’s voice comes from the backseat, reminding me that there are more lives at stake than the one I’m racing toward.
The second Raven found the old farmhouse in Colorado among Dominick’s list of properties, I was on the phone, booking my flight. Jonah insisted on coming and calling reinforcements. I didn’t want to take him away from his family to clean up the shit-mess I made, but he grinned, grabbed my phone and booked four tickets. We took the first flight out the next morning.
I let up on the gas and try to relax. No point walking in on a motorcycle gang’s compound half lit and ready to kill. “We get there, you guys wait in the car and I’ll—”
“No fuckin’ way. We go in together,” Blake says in his no-negotiating way.
Jonah’s in the passenger seat, texting. “Agreed.”
“If we go in together, they might see us as a threat. Let me go first, see if she’s even there, if we have the right place.”
“See us as a threat?” Blake shoves the back of my seat. “Motherfucker, we are a threat.”
“Agree with that too.” Jonah tosses his phone into the center console. “Dominick’s shit is wet. It trickles all over the damn place even after the dick face is buried in the dirt. My girl’s on a mission to erase the lasting effects of that ass. I take this as an opportunity to assist in that.” He turns toward me. “Translation? Threat.”
Can’t argue with that.
“Layla’s been crying over Mac for so long I’m happy to fuck anyone up if it means drying my woman’s tears,” Blake says. “Plus, Mac’s a good girl. She deserves better than this.”
She deserves better. Could I be the better she deserves? My hands grip the steering wheel and I lie heavy on the gas. I don’t know if I can be, but fuck I want to be.
“Threat it is.” It’s not as if I have anything to lose. If I don’t get Gia back, make up for the way I treated her, then I’ll be stuck, half-way to a cure, part sick, never healed.
“Don’t worry, bro. We’ll let you walk in first if that makes you feel better,” Caleb says with a smile in his voice.
Pine trees fly by in a blur as we leave the heavier populated mountain towns and enter the barren areas. According to the GPS, we’re less than ten miles from the farmhouse.
“Check it out, dude.” Jonah points to a sign in the distance.
It’s a pig’s face with devil horns that reads The Devil’s Hog. My stomach tightens. This has got to be it. We’re in the right place.
“I seriously love your wife, dude.” If it weren’t for her, I’d still be home feeling like shit and Gia would be on her own. Suffering.
“Take the next right at north Glengrove.” The GPS blares in the silence of the car.
I follow the directions until a rustic old ranch-style house comes into view. A row of motorcycles is parked out front. I grip the steering wheel and welcome the burn in my knuckles. Hatch may be on the run, but I’m looking forward to introducing a few of the bikers inside to my fist. “It’s go-time, boys.”
A series of fuck-yeahs and lets-do-this and we’re out of the car. The cold mountain temps do nothing to slow my feet from eating up the dirt drive until I’m at the door. I don’t see the guys, but I can feel their tension at my back.
I bring my fist to the door and pound out three knocks.
“You think they’re even up yet? It’s only eight a.m.,” Caleb says.