I’m starting to feel all that’s happened tonight. It’s like a heavy weight bearing down on my head and shoulders, crushing me into the ground. I want to go to sleep and wake up into a new day—the day we put all this to rest and make it right again.
The leather of the sofa in Cross’ office is so cool it’s seeping through the thick fabric of my jeans as I sit there, explaining what has happened to Cross, Tank and Hawk for the third time since I got here.
Each time I tell the story they have more questions. Right now, Hawk’s been grilling me about Veronica’s sister and what happened to her in that supermarket parking lot. As if the events of five years ago make any real difference today.
But I’m answering all their questions, because Cross looks grimmer than I’ve ever seen him, his face so expressionless and cold he doesn’t even seem alive. And an almost identical expression is painted on my father’s face. My father, who is always ready with a sarcastic joke and a grin looks like a stone-cold killer tonight.
“What happens now?” I ask while Hawk is frantically jotting down something in his hardback notebook.
“Now we go after them,” Cross says. “If all goes according to plan, we’ll be in position to take most of them out by tomorrow night. It shouldn’t take us more than a couple of days to wipe them all out. Unless they run.”
“They’ll run,” Tank says. “They always run.”
“It won’t be far enough,” Cross says, sounding as dark as the look in his black eyes.
Stone cold killers. That’s what my father and Cross once were. And tonight, they are again. It’s like I’m watching different men than the ones I spent practically every day of my life with.
“I’ll be ready,” I assure them.
“The first thing you need to make sure of is that the woman doesn’t talk,” Tank says.
“She won’t talk,” I say, wishing I was more sure of that than I actually am.
Tank and Cross exchange a dark look, but it’s Hawk who says, “Maybe Anne should speak to her. You say she knows her?”
I shrug. “It sounded like they’ve worked together in the past. And maybe that’s not a bad idea.”
“No, I don’t usually have bad ideas,” Hawk says and closes his notebook with a snap.
“I’ll go finish that list of known hangouts the Riders use. It should help us plan the strikes to perfection,” he tells Cross. “I’ll have it for you by morning.”
Cross nods in answer and as soon as the door clicks shut behind him, Tank turns to me. “Get some sleep now, Chance. Tomorrow’s a big day.”
I never imagined this innocent statement could sound so ominous and dark. Especially coming from my father’s mouth.
I want to know what the plan is, I want to ask more questions about how we’ll take down an MC with over a hundred members down in a couple of days and I want to be part of planning to make it happen. But instead of acting on any of those impulses, I nod, stand up and walk to the door. It’s that damn dead, unnerving-as-fuck look on their faces.
Cross is pouring himself a tumbler of whiskey, the smell of it hitting my nose in a corrosive way as I pass him.
My father catches up to me in the dark, cool, marble-tiled lobby of Sanctuary, right over the spot where Hunter almost bled to death.
“This won’t be like all those stories you grew up listening to, Chance,” he says seriously, his face still devoid of all emotion or even expression. “This will be me killing. Methodical and cold.”
“So exactly like the stories I grew up listening to,” I say, not wanting to sound sarcastic, but I am my father’s son.
That mischievous light that’s usually always there in his eyes flashes for a split second, before they go dark and lifeless again.
“You’ve never killed a man in cold blood before, Chance,” he says. “It’s not the same as killing in self-defense. It weighs heavier.”
I’m not exactly scared, but the words do leave a nasty, sticky feeling in my chest. “I’m ready, Dad. This is for Hunter.”
“And for you,” he says and I nod.
“Call your mother tomorrow,” he says. “She’ll want to hear from you before it starts.”
What he’s actually saying is that I need to say goodbye to my mother just in case.
“I don’t plan on getting my ass killed, Dad,” I say sarcastically, this time meaning to completely, because this dark and ominous way in which he’s talking is way over the top.