Spinning around, I knocked his hand off me. “She is not my lady.”
“Got it.” With his hands held up, he nodded. “And I won’t mention her again.”
The ride back to Mt. Pleasant found Brodie and me trapped in the tense silence of my making inside the goddamn U-Haul.
“Brah, I don’t know what’s going on with you, but I’ve never seen you lose it before—and you’ve gone a little serial-killer-scary twice over Shiloh now. You can talk to me if you need to, you know?” Brodie broke the edgy atmosphere, but his words didn’t alleviate a single bit of my sudden frustration.
“Just drop me at Retribution so I can get my bike. Not in the mood to hang tonight.”
Nice. Alienating my buddies over a girl I shouldn’t want and definitely couldn’t have. Psychology degree? What a waste of good fucking paper that was.
I took the fast ride to my house on the back of my 1959 Harley, letting the breeze cool my face, cool my . . . what? I didn’t even fucking know anymore.
The memories Shy had dredged up were pale shadows of past wrongdoings that hardly haunted me anymore.
Something else.
Something I didn’t want to process. What a fucking pussy word that was.
I chuckled to myself, turning into my driveway—hoped Bo had enjoyed processing his shit with Doc Ronnie today because he’d missed my very own fuck-up.
I hit the kickstand, killed the engine, tugged off my helmet. Then something prickled along my spine, and I slowed my movements.
Unstraddling the motorcycle, I pivoted around, pulling my bowie knife free at the same time.
“Hey, Rush.” Diablo the asshole ambled in front of me from the curb.
He’d taken the throne of Satan’s League after the final time I’d been arrested.
I’d come up with the name of the street racing gang because ha ha the opposite of Ivy League, where I was supposed to go to college. When I still had money to throw around and a reputation to destroy.
You know, before I grew up.
“What the fuck do you want?” I flashed my blade at the dude whose smile didn’t reach the corners of his lips.
Chapter Eight
Better the Devil You Know?
DIABLO WASN’T UNARMED. THE gun at his hip flashed like his snaky grin. “Rush. Or are you Handsome now?”
I grasped the leather hilt of my knife. “Asked you a question, fuckhead.”
“Saw you today. Downtown. Looks like you got a sweet hookup goin’ on.”
“You’re fucking following me?”
“Nah. Just hang outside your folks’ now and then when the mood hits.” He slid closer. “They got nice digs. So does your girlfriend. Shiloh Lockhart, ain’t it?”
And that right there was the boiling point.
I strafed toward him, shaving up the side of his neck with my bowie knife. I twisted the blade, the sick-sharpened edge reddening his skin, on the verge of drawing blood.
“You want a murder rap, pendejo?”
“I want you out of my fucking face and my life once and for all.”
“That’s where we got an impasse or whatever.” Diablo lifted his chin to alleviate the pressure of my blade against his neck.
I pushed closer, breaking skin, little drops of his blood slickening the fine-honed metal.
“All it’ll take to keep everyone safe, including that Shiloh of yours, is some cash.”
“Why now?”
“Why not?” Dickbreath would’ve shrugged if his carotid wasn’t in danger of getting sliced wide open.
“I don’t have that kind of cash anymore.”
“I bet someone does.”
“You know what? There’s a cemetery right . . . across . . . the . . . road.” I pulled a thin red line across his neck.
D’s hand swung to my wrist. “And there’re a lot of thugs ready to retaliate. Not against you, bro. They’ll start with your parents. Fuck your girlfriend. Screw your sister. And kill everyone else in their way.”
With a last guttural growl grinding from my throat, I jerked the knife away. “I do this, and you do not go near Shiloh or my family again.”
“You always had the brains, Rush.”
“And you always were a complete cuntface. Seems some things never change.” I feinted toward him just to watch the waster flinch.
I sneered. “How much.”
“Just one hundred big ones.” Diablo strolled away. “But I’ll give you a couple months.”
Fuck.
****
Fucking fuck.
A hundred thousand large.
Like I could get my hands on that kind of cash, not unless I turned over the savings for the brewery I wanted to open. Or I paid the bastard with the blood money from my dad, which I swore I’d never touch.
Two months, though? I could work with that. Maybe convince my parents and sister to leave the country after I—ya know—made amends after seven years of silence.
Then there was Shy. On the Satan’s League radar just because she was my friend.
I needed to make sure she was safe.
I needed to make sure she would never be anywhere near me ever again.
This stupid shit had started when I was a junior at Bishop England.