Chapter 19
CHAPTER
NINETEEN
Jersey
As we sit on the porch, Slayer’s arm casually tossed across my shoulders as we watch the sun rise, I notice Booker trekking his way across the compound, headed our way.
The morning air is still crisp, but the humidity is already starting to build, a heavy blanket that mirrors the anticipation coiling in my chest. Beside me, I feel the steady rise and fall of Slayer’s breathing.
But as Booker draws closer, his heavy boots crunching against the gravel with a purposeful stride, the reality of my own personal battle comes rushing back.
“Slayer?” I whisper, my voice barely audible over the morning chorus of the birds nesting in the nearby trees.
I reach out, my fingers tracing the faded denim of his jeans, needing the physical connection to steady my nerves.
Booker isn’t just the club’s techie, he’s the one who can reach through the digital void and find the truth hidden behind the enemy’s screens.
Seeing him headed toward our trailer means the silence I’ve kept about my parents’ threats is finally being dismantled, and the terror of what he might find has my heart hammering frantically against my ribs.
He understands my unspoken question and answers, “I asked him to stop by this morning and look at those emails, baby.” Slayer doesn't shift his eyes from the approaching figure, but his arm tightens around my shoulders, pulling me firmly into his side. It’s a possessive, protective gesture that tells me I’m not facing this alone.
He promised to be my shield, and as Booker reaches the bottom of the porch steps, I realize that the Kings don’t just fight the enemies they can see, they fight the ones that haunt our pasts too.
“Mornin’,” Booker grunts, stopping at the base of the stairs.
He looks up at us, his eyes bleary from what I assume was a long night spent behind a monitor, but the intensity in his gaze is unmistakable.
He gestures with the tablet clutched in his hand.
“You ready to see what these scavengers have been up to, Jersey?”
I swallow past the lump in my throat, the fear of my parents’ reach warring with the desperate need to finally be free of their pillaging hunger.
I look at Slayer, finding the strength in his unyielding profile.
“I'm ready,” I announce, my voice sounding stronger than I feel.
Together, we stand and move toward the door, leaving the peace of the sunrise behind as we prepare to confront the monsters in my inbox.
As we breach the doorway, a throat clears behind us which has me twirling on my feet and clutching my chest when I see Icer looming in the yard.
I swear that sneaky man needs a damn bell around his neck to announce his arrival.
He stands there with his typical stone-faced expression, but the presence of little man strapped to his chest in that tactical baby carrier softens the lethal edge of the club’s enforcer.
“I’m here for Boston and Carolina,” he announces.
“I’m taking them to the pier with me, Elodie, and little man to do some fishing. ”
“We’re ready!” Boston excitedly hollers, his voice booming with that unfiltered joy that always manages to fill the air. He rushes toward the door, nearly colliding with Booker in his haste. “Bubba is letting me use his pole!”
“The Bubba said I could use his spare rod,” Carolina says, bouncing on her feet as she follows close behind Boston.
Her hands are fluttering with unadulterated excitement at the prospect of the outing.
I watch as Icer waits with a study in patience, his blue eyes tracking the kids as they gather their things.
It’s a rare moment of tranquility which causes a smile to spread across my face.
“I hope y’all have a good time,” I say to the kids, my voice filled with warmth. They look so innocent, so ready to embrace the day, and it makes my heart swell to know they have this moment of peace amidst the craziness of our lives.
Icer steps up onto the porch, his eyes glued to mine with an intensity that makes my breath hitch. “You and I, we need to talk. Letti said so,” he announces, his coarse voice leaving no room for argument.
My eyes widen as I take an instinctive step back, the old habit of retreating momentarily resurfacing. “O-okay. When?” I stammer, my heart starting to hammer against my ribs. The idea of an actual conversation with the club’s most lethal enforcer is staggering, especially one prompted by Letti.
“Don’t know.” Icer shrugs, his expression remaining a mask of unyielding stone.
“Whenever I feel like it.” He turns his focus back to the kids, the dismissal cutting and final.
He isn’t interested in my timeline or my nerves, he’s an enforcer who operates on his own terms, and I’m just going to have to wait for him to come to me.
Behind me, Slayer chuckles, the sound a low, grounding rumble that usually brings me comfort, but right now it just adds to the vibration of my anxiety.
I toss my elbow back into his ribs, causing him to grunt as the impact jars his still-healing torso.
I instantly feel a pang of guilt, momentarily forgetting that even though he’s mending, he’s not one hundred percent healed yet.
I turn to offer a silent apology, but the twinkle in his eyes tells me he’s enjoying my newfound sass far too much to hold a grudge.
“You’re impossible,” I hiss, the words sounding far more affectionate than I intended as a reluctant smile tugs at my lips.
He reaches out, his large hand finding the small of my back in a possessive maneuver that anchors me to the spot.
The heat of his palm seeps through the fabric of my shirt, a grounding contact that silences the internal tremors I’ve been fighting since Icer’s cryptic announcement.
My mock irritation causes him to bark out a laugh, a deep, gravelly sound that echoes through the quiet compound and sends a flock of birds scattering from the nearby terrain.
“Y’all have fun,” Slayer tells his brother and Carolina, his voice softening with that fierce protectiveness that defines him.
He watches them with a pride that is almost tangible, seeing the way they’ve embraced this small sliver of normalcy.
“Listen to Icer and do exactly as he says, alright?” Boston and Carolina nod in unison, their faces alight with the promise of the day as they follow the club’s enforcer toward the path leading to the water, leaving us standing in the wake of their infectious happiness.
“They’re good kids,” Booker muses as he continues into my living room where my laptop sits. He doesn’t wait for an invitation, dropping into the office chair and popping his knuckles as he prepares to dive into my personal history. “Show me from the beginning what they’ve been sending you, Jersey.”
I walk over to the desk, my fingers trembling as I log into the account I’ve come to loathe.
The inbox is a minefield of subject lines and cold, demanding text.
Slayer stands right behind me, his presence grounding me as the first email flickers onto the screen.
It’s a message from my father, dated seven months ago, right before I accepted the position Riptide offered me, and the words are just as manipulative as the day I first read them.
I feel the temperature in the room drop as Booker starts scrolling, his eyes narrowing as he tracks the escalation from desperate pleas to the latest, most visceral threats.
“Your parents are a piece of work,” Booker mumbles, his voice thick with a mix of disgust and professional detachment as he finishes analyzing the digital trail of their correspondences.
He leans back in the chair, the springs creaking under his weight, and fixes me with a level stare.
“You didn’t respond back to these, did you? ”
“No,” I say, adamantly shaking my head as a shiver of old fear tries to take root.
I wrap my arms around my middle, drawing strength from Slayer’s hand on my shoulder.
“I didn’t see the point. Responding to them would only invite more of their poison, and I’ve spent too many years trying to outrun them to let them back in now. ”
Booker sighs, rubbing at his tired eyes before looking at the digital trail of threats again.
“I hate to say this, Jersey, I’m not exactly a fan of the law or inviting the authorities into our business, but I honestly think you should file for a restraining order,” Booker advises.
“We need a paper trail if this escalates beyond digital harassment.”
“What good is a piece of paper going to do, Book?” Slayer growls.
“We both know they’re not worth a damn when you’re dealing with assholes who don't respect boundaries. They can’t do shit if it’s violated unless the cops happen to catch them in the act, and by then, the damage is already done.
” He squeezes my shoulder, his glare fixed on the screen as if he could hunt my parents through the pixels.
“Paper doesn't stop people like that. We handle our own, and I’m not letting those scavengers near her.”
“I thought you’d maybe say that,” Booker grumbles, leaning back until the office chair lets out a protest of springs.
He rubs his jaw, a calculating glint replacing the fatigue in his eyes.
“I have an alternative idea. One that doesn’t involve waiting for a judge to sign a document that your folks will just use as kindling. ”
My pulse spikes, a cold dread pooling in my stomach.
The way Booker is looking at the digital wreckage of my life makes me think he’s already mapped out a path through the carnage, one that doesn’t involve legal filings or civil proceedings.
“What’s that?” I ask, not sure if I want to hear his alternative idea.
“We hire a hitman,” he says as if he’s announcing the sky is blue. Easy as that.
The words hang in the air, heavy and absolute. I feel the blood drain from my face as I stare at him, wondering if the lack of sleep has finally caused his common sense to evaporate. “You have one of those in your back pocket?” I ask, astounded at his suggestion.
“We do, actually,” Booker tells me as he shares a secretive look with Slayer.
The silent communication between them makes my skin prickle—it’s a shorthand script of a violent lifestyle that I’m only beginning to understand.
Slayer doesn’t flinch at the word hitman, if anything, his jaw tightens with a grim, localized resolve.
“Don’t tell me, I don’t want to know,” I say, covering my ears with my hands.
I pivot on my heels, needing to put some distance between myself and the casual way they discuss ending lives.
My mind is already racing, scanning the members of the Kings for the faces that fit the job.
There are two options within the club that come to mind.
Icer and Shade. One is a mountain of ice and preciseness, and the other is a shadow that moves through the dark like a wraith.
The realization that I’m living in the same orbit as men who do this for a living has my heart leaping in my chest.
Nevertheless, even if it does go against every moral fiber I grew to believe in, who am I to judge?
I’m surrounded by people who take the bull by its horns instead of hiding behind the chutes while it charges.
In this world of chrome and leather, justice isn't always found in a courtroom, sometimes it’s delivered with flesh on flesh or a bullet to the brain.
One part of me wishes I could just shut off my emotions entirely, convincing myself that I shouldn’t care if my folks’ time is limited after the way they’ve treated me.
But the other half of me, the part that still feels like that lonely little girl, remembers that despite the neglect and the greed, they’re the reason I’m alive in the first place.
My mind replays all of the emotional and physical abuse I suffered at their hands, and suddenly, I find my give a damn busted.
If they die, it ends a lot of needless suffering, and as long as I don’t know the facts, I have plausible deniability.
I find myself scanning the room at Booker and Slayer, wondering if the casualness in their tone is a byproduct of the world they live in or a necessity for survival.
Either way, I swore to have Slayer’s back and by proxy, that means his brothers too. As Slayer glances to the side and our eyes connect, I give him a nod of approval that has him brightly smiling at me. I mouth the words, “Do it.”