Chapter 7 – Corvus #2
“It’s still visible,” she said, trying to adjust her shirt so it would cover the top part of the vest covering her perfect tits, but it was no use. I slipped off my leather jacket and flicked off the rain before settling it around her shoulders.
“Zip it up. No one will know.”
She touched the collar delicately for a second, like she wasn’t quite sure what to do, and the urge to push her up against the Rover and punish her for everything she’d put us through almost took me. But then she zipped it up like I told her to do and gave me a taut nod. She looked amazing in it.
“Good girl.”
She bit her lip.
Jesus fuck.
The rain started to let up, and I heard the truck door open, instinctively stepping forward to put myself in front of Ava Jade. She made a sound of annoyance at my tiny shove but didn’t fight me.
No. She just stepped back around me to put herself directly at my side as Diesel appeared outside the truck, shrugging his worn jacket to pop the collar as a defense against what remained of the rain.
Grey and Rook got out of the Rover, coming to stand with us.
Diesel didn’t seem the least bit surprised to see Ava Jade there as he pulled a long stick from the truck seat and set it on the ground.
A cane.
I felt Ava Jade stiffen beside me as Diesel approached us, using the sleek black cane to hold the majority of his weight.
He stopped a few feet away.
“What’s the—” I started, but he interrupted me.
“You’re here,” he said, sniffing, his icy gaze fixed on my Sparrow. “Good.”
Good?
What?
“After you threatened Rick, I wasn’t sure you were with us.”
She’d done what? Rick was our tattoo guy, owned a local shop in town. Had Dies already sent him to her? And she’d clearly refused the ink. It wasn’t negotiable.
Ava Jade jutted out her chin, offering no explanation.
“You must’ve been very tired,” Diesel said, looking at her as though she were a wounded little girl in need of coddling. I wanted to tell him if he looked at her like that for even another second, she was going to attempt to gouge his eyeballs out but that would only make matters worse.
Instead, I covertly wound my fingers around her wrist, feeling her tendons taut as a whip with her hand balled into a fist.
“Not tired enough not to make good on what I promised him.”
Diesel’s jaw ticked. “You need to be inked next time, or you won’t be welcome.”
I squeezed her wrist tighter. Calm down .
“Anyway,” Diesel said, inhaling deeply, the moment past. Time for a subject change. He jerked his head at Pinkie, who stepped forward to hand Ava Jade a white cloth.
More like dumped it into her hands.
The clatter of metal told us what was inside.
She unwrapped her blades, the ones she’d lost back at the warehouse. “Thought you’d be wanting those back.”
Her fingers curled protectively around them. She offered Diesel nothing, just a strained nod by way of thanks even though they appeared to have been cleaned and sharpened by our blade guy.
I doubted the gesture would have the effect he hoped for with Ava Jade, though. I doubted she liked other people touching her blades, never mind honing them for her.
The others from the van exited now, forming a semi-circle of six behind Diesel and Tiny.
I didn’t like the way they were looking at Ava Jade. Like she was an outsider. Like they wanted to…
If Garrett hadn’t been a newer implant into the gang, Ava Jade would’ve been in for a lot more than some hateful stares for killing him.
It’s a truth universally known among us that people died during the trials, but usually it was the ones taking the trials, not the ones administering them. It wasn’t the first time it’d happened, but it definitely wasn’t common.
There was a reason we’d told Ava Jade to try not to kill anyone.
It would take her twice as long to earn their trust—their respect—now, if she ever got it. There was also the matter of her having a different set of parts to consider. There were only two female gang members I’d ever heard of besides Ava Jade and it’d taken them years to earn their places.
“What’s the plan?” I asked when the silence stretched on.
Diesel tipped his head to the cabin. “You four inside. Pinkie and Tiny, you’re with me inside, too.
Axel, I want you in the driver’s seat of the van, don’t budge.
Derrik, Crowley, Shane, and Lee, you’re in the woods.
Watch their entry, warn us if they’re packing more than they should be.
If Lenny Ace leaves the cabin before me, light him the fuck up. ”
So it was like that.
Ava Jade snatched her wrist back from me while everyone’s attention was elsewhere, sending me a scathing glare.
“Everyone got it?”
A chorus of yeah boss, and let’s get it done rising up all around as the rain finally let up.
Four of our men dispersed into the tree line, vanishing into the shadows, careful of where they stepped to leave no boot prints in the muddy roadway.
Axel went back to the van, seeming unhappy with his assignment, but they all respected Diesel.
Each one knew that if they followed his orders as he spoke them with no room for interpretation, their chances of surviving until another sunrise were a lot fucking better than if they didn’t.
The graves of the outliers proved that, without the need for Dies to throw his weight around.
“Arm up if you aren’t already,” he told us, and Ava Jade made a show of slipping her blades into the empty places on her ankle sheath and into the new knife slot at the top of her bulletproof vest beneath her shirt.
Diesel watched with a raised brow, and I knew what he was thinking, but he wouldn’t say it. She needed a gun. He was only half right about that.
“Let’s head inside. They’ll be here soon.”
We fell into step behind Dies and Tiny, but there was something else bothering me about this whole thing. Probably because he didn’t bother to give details about anything to do with tonight’s meet even though he knew how it would drive me to the brink of fucking insanity to not know.
“What exactly do you expect to get out of tonight?” I asked, making Diesel pause briefly at the bottom of the short staircase leading up to the front door of the old cabin.
He turned, just enough for me to see the twisted side profile of his face.
“The truth. Either they give it to me, or they live and die with the consequences of that choice.”