I’m not like her, though. I don’t wear every single thought I have on my face, or in my body language. I keep things close to my chest. It’s the only way I’ve survived this world for so long.
Other members of the club have survived by alternative means. Cade’s stone cold like me, but his temper is legendary. People don’t fuck with him, because they know the consequences will be dire to say the fucking least. Shay uses her body to protect herself. She’ll make you think you’re about to get the ride of our life, when in actual fact you’re about to get a stiletto blade slipped through your eardrum and into your gray matter without a by your leave. She really is a true widow maker. The guy I’m digging this grave with, Brassic, is our resident bomb maker. He won’t hurt you with his fists. He’ll hurt you with a pound of C4 and a remote detonator while he’s a mile away slamming back a shot of whiskey.
He doesn’t talk while we dig. Neither of us do. He’s angry that I wouldn’t let him go after the guy who killed his best friend’s girl last night when his rage was peaking, but he won’t show it openly. Good thing for him, too. I’m not in the mood to be questioned. My side is killing me, and all I can think about as our shovels make dry, shink, shink, shink sounds in the dirt is that I somehow have to fix this fucking Ramirez mess under the noses of the DEA. Highly fucking inconvenient.
“We’re digging this hole for the wrong person, you realize,” Brassic says. It’s the first thing he’s said since we started working, and it’s so true it makes my head pound.
“I do know.”
Brassic grunts. He’s slick with sweat like I am, except the vast expanse of his back bears the Widow Makers’ club badge instead of the Virgin Mary that I have inked into my skin. She was my first tattoo, my holy lady. The space had already been taken by the time I started the Widow Makers, and besides, it’s better for me not to have any club markings. There are times when I need to go places, see and do things that I wouldn’t be able to if people suspected I had affiliations to a biker gang. In those instances, if they knew I was the president of a biker gang, I’d be murdered on the spot.
“So when, then?” Brassic asks. He sounds tired; I know for a fact he was up all night with Keeler, drinking and smashing the shit out of the workshop in one of the outhouses, so his head must be killing him.
“Soon. Really soon, man,” I tell him.
“And you’ll give me free rein?”
I mop my brow, eyes still stinging, my head swimming, and I say, “Buddy, when this thing goes down, you don’t need to worry. You can turn the bastard into red mist and I will thank you for it.”
In the distance, thick plumes of dust billow up into pale, washed out blue of the sky overhead. Cars. Three of them. I can’t see what kind they are or who is driving them, but they’re traveling fast.
We walked out here to clear our heads. We fucking walked. Brassic turns giving me a concerned look. “We need to get back?” he asks.
I have a sick, anxious feeling in the pit of my stomach as I watch those cars speeding toward the distant compound. “Yeah. Yeah, man. We need to get back. Now.”
******
SOPHIA
I’ve never noticed that Cade has a slight limp before. I notice it well enough when he’s charging across the compound toward me like a crazy person, though. He favors his left side, skipping his right foot behind him ever so slightly as he charges in my direction with a stony expression on his face. I can feel the worry pouring off him when he pitches up in front of me.
“You should get back up to the cabin, Soph.”
“Why?” No way am I going back to the cabin. I have no specific reason for being in the courtyard outside the clubhouse but I’ll be damned if I’m being sent away again already. I am sick of being cooped up. Sick of feeling a prisoner. Cade must see me bristle; he blows out an exasperated breath, holding his hands up in the air.
“We got visitors, okay. And not the nice kind. Better you aren’t here for it,” he says.
I feel like being stubborn some more, but the look on his face tells me that might not be wise. “Who is it?” I ask.
“Don’t know. Not DEA, but still… no one good. C’mon. Get back up the hill. Please. Jamie will kill me if I let anything happen to you.”