Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
The smell hit me first. Sausage, egg, grease, and heaven. Was I dead, or was it my imagination after I’d thrown a hardened bran muffin across the room just an hour before?
My eyes cracked open to see Merrick in the doorway, holding a pink Maisie’s Bakery box in one hand and a grease-stained paper sack in the other.
“Hey, pumpkin tits. Is that for me?” I asked, waggling my brows.
Merrick didn’t even crack a smile. He just tossed the bag in front of me. “So, you crashed your bike. Again.”
The way he said “again” carried the weight of years of lectures and silent looks over mangled chrome. Sometimes Merrick acted more like a father than a friend.
“The deer is more at fault than I am,” I offered, tearing into the bag for a taco.
Merrick sank into the stiff plastic chair beside my bed. “Coast hauled your bike back to the clubhouse this morning. It’s completely totaled. You got lucky.”
The words left unsaid echoed louder. One day, your luck’ll run out. We’d had the conversation too many times.
I took a giant bite of my taco and nodded approvingly. “So … you and Kenna, huh?” My words came out muffled through a mouthful of tortilla.
Merrick hesitated. “I wanted to tell you,” he said, bracing his elbows on his knees. “She just beat me to it.”
I balled up the foil from my first taco and lobbed it at his head.
“Yeah, fucker, you should’ve told me. I didn’t even know you liked her.
” I ripped open the next taco and doused it in hot sauce.
“This is so much better than the shit they fed me this morning. Fucking oatmeal. They made me eat oatmeal. Fucking hospitals, man.”
He let me rant, giving me space to get the noise out until I figured out what I was trying to say. And somewhere between bitching about oatmeal, bran muffins, and endless episodes of Judge Judy, I found it.
“You guys make sense.”
Merrick stared at me with shock. “You’re not pissed?”
I shrugged, licking a trail of hot sauce running down my hand. “I guess not. Don’t get me wrong, I liked Kenna. Hoped we’d hook up when she was ready. Never thought I’d see the day that your old ass gets the girl instead of me. You think you can keep up with her?”
He chucked the foil ball back at me, nailing my temple.
“Seriously, though. A part of you will always belong to Rose. A part of her will always belong to her fiancé. Maybe two shards can make a whole.”
Pain flickered across his expression. That old grief, buried and raw underneath all the walls and steel. It was why most of us never mentioned Rose. Seeing the man who could carve apart a traitor under a skilled blade with a broken heart was jarring.
“I’ve never felt this way about anyone. Even Rose,” he admitted.
That made me pause. Even Rose.
“Does she know that?”
Merrick scoffed. “No. We haven’t exactly had time to talk.”
I raised a brow. “Ah, too busy fucking?”
His eyes narrowed. “We haven’t even had time for that.”
I chuckled. “Brother, have you learned nothing from me? You’ve got to close the deal.”
Merrick just shook his head with that long-suffering expression he always reserved for me. “I didn’t want to go behind your back. I wanted you to know about us before anything happened. Then you had to pull the ultimate cock block and get in an accident.”
I threw my head back and laughed, holding my side where the stitches pulled. “Yeah, sorry about that. I needed a ride to clear my head. I didn’t realize the local wildlife would ignore the road crossing signs.”
His humor softened, voice dipping. “Kenna was worried. She blames herself.”
That wiped the grin off my face. “Shit.” My chest tightened. “I didn’t even think of that.” I rubbed a palm over my face, my fingers lingering in the rough stubble of my short beard. “Where is she? I should talk to her.”
“Merci took her to get coffee.” Merrick pulled out his phone and typed a quick message. “They’ll be back in a few.”
“Since we’ve got a minute …” I paused, taking a bite of another taco. “Are you ready for the sitdown in Fort Worth?”
Merrick nodded. “I think so. I’ve spent a lot of time wrangling Serpent and Jag. The last thing we need is for them to piss off the consigliere.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle, but it came out rough with the stitches in my side. “If it goes well, it’ll be a windfall for the club. I’m going to need the money after all of this. Mafia’s got the hardware we asked for?”
“Fresh shipment,” Merrick said with a nod. “Not the usual stash, either. Automatics, some custom jobs, and even a few grenade launchers. Serious heat. That’s why Thane’s having us facilitate the deal. High risk, high reward.”
“Damn.” I whistled. “Wish I could be there to get my hands on a fucking grenade launcher. Think I can still get my cut even though I’m laid up?”
“We got you. With this deal, everybody’s getting a cut, assuming Jag doesn’t pull some stupid shit and piss off the mafia boss. And Merci is moving some things around in your record, so your bill won’t be nearly as high as you might think.”
Thank fuck for that. Without insurance, I’d be up a creek—and I already had shit credit to begin with.
Merrick grinned, but his eyes stayed tight with worry. “You just focus on not dying.”
I raised my taco in a sarcastic toast, wincing but grinning anyway. “To not dying.”