“You’re doing this for him, for your family. He doesn’t know that so maybe one day I can forgive him for gutting you like this. But you have got to remember it. You aren’t a victim here, Rosie, you aren’t letting life catch you up in this fierce fucking storm. You are the storm, this is your set up, these are your choices, and you’re strong so you’ll blow furious and true until you see this thing through. You’re no victim, rebel Rose, but you are a martyr. So, I’ll lie here with you as long as you need to absorb this blow, then we’re gonna get up and I’m gonna take you home. Tomorrow, we’re going to wake up together and face the day that way, side by side, every day from now until we break this case and then I’m going to be at your back again when you go up the mountain and let your family take you back.”
His hand squeezed the back of my neck. “You with me?”
My withered heart shifted in my chest, the blood pumping slowly, painfully through the distressed chambers. But I could feel it moving, feel it beating again in my chest. It wasn’t as strong as it should have been, but then again, I’d just lost most of my reason for living.
Now all I had left was Lion and Hero.
I reached across the floor to grab Danner’s hand tightly in my own and brought it to my mouth so I could bite his knuckle and kiss his palm.
“Yeah, Lion, I’m with you,” I told him.
And I was, just as I had been since I fell in love with him on my eleventh birthday and just as I would be at my ninetieth.
It seemed life wouldn’t allow me to be loved beautifully and platonically at the same time as brutally and romantically, and I couldn’t say I would have knowingly made the same choice if I’d been given a calculated time to make it, but as I lay there on the ground, Lion on his belly beside me, Hero on his behind me, I knew I’d sacrifice everything I had left just to keep them with me forever.
The next night, I was done waiting.
My family hated me, it was done.
But I wasn’t.
I needed to get the goods on the fuckin’ Berserkers and I needed it done now.
So, I was already in my car, clothed from tip to toe in tight, black clothing including a pair of leather gloves with a toque on my head to contain my hair so I wouldn’t leave behind any DNA when I called Danner.
“Rosie, thought you’d be home by now,” he answered.
I loved that he called his house our home. We hadn’t talked about it, but I hadn’t spent a night without him since the hooded man held me at knifepoint in my car.
“Yeah, about that,” I explained while I chewed anxiously on a wad of Hubba Bubba. “I’m not coming home for a while.”
There was a long pause then a vicious curse, “What the fuck are you up to now?”
“I’m sitting in my car a block away from the Port of Vancouver,” I told him. “I’m going to show up in Grant Yves office pretending to look for Jacob and Honey, and I’m going to get him to tell me which company and cargo containers the Berserkers are using to transport their illegal arms.”
Another long pause. This one artic, frozen solid in a way that kept me from discerning what he could possibly be thinking.
“You remember that conversation we had about you bein’ reckless?” he asked quietly.
I swallowed hard. “Yeah, Lion, I do. It’s why I’m callin’ you.”
“You didn’t think to tell me say, last night when we got home or this mornin’ over fucking Cinnamon Toast Crunch?”
I chewed my gum, popped a bubble and tried not to let his anger touch the submissive place in me that wanted to stop, drop and roll at his commands.
“No, because then you’d have stopped me from being involved, and I know I can get Grant to talk about his brother, maybe even turn on the club and become a police asset.”
“Good thinkin’, Harleigh Rose. Only, are there any police there with you right now?” he bit out, already knowing the answer.
“Uh, no.”
“No… so how are the police goin’ to turn an asset if they aren’t involved in this rebel operation you got goin’?”
“Well, that’s where you come in. I thought you could bring your cuffs.”
Danner let out a harsh laugh and I knew he’d be rubbing a frustrated hand over his face. “Listen to me carefully, Rosie. This is what we’re going to do. I’m going to call this in. A truck is going to show up within fifteen minutes with two guys I trust for surveillance. They’re gonna outfit you with a wire, then you’re gonna go have a chat with Grant. If one single thing goes wrong with that chat, you’re outta there, and I mean he even looks at you fuckin’ funny, you’re gone. You with me?”