Chapter Twelve
The back of my neck prickles.
I shift my weight against the bike, elbows on the tank, eyes moving slow and deliberate across the grounds.
We've been waiting on Ghost for ten minutes now.
Pope hasn't said anything about it. He doesn't need to.
His jaw is tight enough to crack, and his finger is tracing the blade of Precious, his axe, in long, patient strokes.
The kind of patient that actually isn't patient at all.
The metal of the axe glints, a silver promise of what happens to people who waste our time.
Disrespect this blatant usually ends in a shallow grave. But we’re backed into a corner. Ghost is the only bridge left to the product we need to fill our ports. We have to eat the insult, but it tastes like copper in my mouth.
When he finally strolls into the light, he’s alone.
Can't decide if it's brave or stupid. Probably both, braided together into something that functions like neither.
Manic and Butcher don’t wait for an engraved invitation.
Before Ghost can even draw a full breath, he’s got a barrel pressed to his forehead and another to the base of his skull.
Ghost doesn't flinch. Doesn't even blink.
He just finds Pope with his eyes and lets a smirk settle on his mouth.
He just eyes Pope with a smirk that doesn't reach his eyes.
There is a void in this man, a hollowed-out space where his soul should be.
Empty in a way that doesn't read as emptiness so much as absence.
Like whatever was supposed to live there packed up and left a long time ago, and the lights never came back on.
The hair on my arms stands tall. Not from fear, but from the recognition of a predator that doesn't care if it lives or dies. Those are the most dangerous ones.
“What a delightful welcome,” Ghost says, his voice as flat as a heart monitor after the beep.
"Give me one reason," Pope says, his voice conversational, "why I shouldn't let them pull the trigger. You came highly recommended. I had higher hopes."
He pulls Precious from her leather loop, twirling the axe through the salt air.
It’s a beautiful, terrifying blur. Ghost watches the blade with clinical curiosity, as if he’s heard the campfire stories about what Pope does with that steel and wants to see if the reality matches the myth.
He shows no fear. The last man who met Pope’s gaze with that kind of indifference is buried somewhere no one will ever dig him up.
“You need what I can deliver, do you not?” Ghost asks.
I listen the way I always do when I am trying to read someone, tuning in beneath the words, waiting for a slip.
But there’s nothing. No inflection, no slang, no regional color, no tell.
His voice is flat and frictionless, bored in a way that suggests he genuinely could not care less whether this meeting ends in a handshake or a body bag.
The one thing I can actually log is the thin, silver scar that hooks under his left eye like a fishing lure.
It’s shallow, a ghost of a wound that glimmers in the sunlight.
Whatever carved it barely broke the surface. It never had to.
"That's shit I can get elsewhere," Pope says with an easy shrug, though we both know elsewhere is currently a desert.
“True. But it won’t be my quality. Or my volume.” Ghost shrugs, shoving his hands into his pockets as if he’s bored with the conversation. “Kill me and give your customers trash, or accept my apology for the delay. I had... an engagement. I’m prepared for either choice.”
The thing about a man with nothing to lose? He’s the most dangerous bastard in the room. He’s already dead in his own mind.
Pope scans our faces, that same cold understanding flickering in his eyes. He exhales sharply, annoyance evident, then snaps his head in command. Manic and Butcher immediately obey, lowering their weapons.
“I’m a fair man,” Pope says, his voice tight. “I’ll take the apology. Don't make a habit of it.”
Ghost dips his head. “Of course. That would make for bad business, no?”
The tension seeps away, slow as a wound clotting. Weapons are holstered, and we shift uneasily, finally able to focus on business.
Our chapter deals in Molly and marijuana.
It’s cleaner than most. Gavel and Mad Dog once pushed the hard shit, but they walked away years back after losing too many lives to it.
Sometimes, when the weed comes up, I remember Mad Dog.
If not for the green during his last days, watching him go would have been a hell of a lot uglier for all of us.
When Pope lays out the order, Ghost tilts his head, disappointment flickering across his face. He looks like a man who prefers dealing in the kind of poison that ruins lives. “That’s all?”
“Molly and marijuana,” Pope repeats, his hand tightening on the handle of his axe. “Is that going to be a problem?”
“Not at all. I was simply curious,” Ghost says, his voice as empty as a dry well.
“Good. That’s all we need. You have access to our ports. If you need another way to bring the product in, my men are at your disposal.” Pope’s voice is all business, but I see the way he’s clinging to control, knuckles pale.
“I will need escorts from my point of entry,” Ghost states, and for the first time, a sliver of something like a demand enters his tone.
“If anything goes south, I do not take the fall.
You cover my back as I slip away. That is my only non-negotiable.
I have no particular attachment to my life—" something flickers in those empty eyes, gone as fast as it came “—but I will not spend a single day behind bars. Understood?"
"My guys are good at what they do," Pope says. "Not a concern."
“Very well.” Ghost extends a hand, his fingers long and pale. “Then we have a deal. I deliver the quality, you deliver the payment and an unproblematic escort.”
Pope curls his fingers around Ghost’s, sealing the deal.
We start to turn, bodies loosening as adrenaline cools. Then Ghost speaks again, halting us with words that turn my blood to jagged ice.
"I look forward to coming to your city," he says, almost as an afterthought, almost pleasant, "and trying that diner. Nauti Nibbles, I believe it's called. I've heard the menu has some very delicious treats."
The words land like a stone dropped into still water.
I don’t think. I don’t breathe. My pistol is drawn and aimed at his nose before he finishes the word treats. Every nerve screams to pull the trigger, to wipe out this wrongness, this living void, before he ever sets eyes on our city.
Ghost laughs, a dry, rattling sound that crawls under my skin. He raises his hands in a mock surrender. “Relax, gentlemen. I was simply talking about the baked goods. I've heard very good things.”
Butcher lets out a low, vibrating growl that sounds like a landslide, but it only makes Ghost’s smirk widen.
"Touchy about the place." He looks almost amused, which on that face looks like something that was never designed to carry the expression. "The food must be exceptional. I look forward to finding out."
And then...
He vanishes, leaving behind only the suggestion of movement, as if he were never more than a trick of the light.
One second he’s standing there, a physical presence in the broad, unforgiving daylight, and the next, there’s nothing but empty air.
In broad fucking daylight.
“Anything?” Pope barks, his head on a swivel, Precious back in his hand.
“Nothing, Prez!” Cypher calls out, his voice edged with disbelief. “He’s not on the perimeter. He’s just... gone.”
“What the fuck?” Pope snarls.
My thoughts exactly. My gun is still heavy in my hand, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs. Men don't just vanish. Not in front of five sets of trained eyes.
Marigold is waiting on my porch when I roll into the driveway.
I kill the engine, but I don't move. I just sit there, letting my eyes roam over her. Simply watching her exist is a habit I could lose an entire lifetime to. She’s so goddamn beautiful it’s an ache in my chest, a stubborn refusal of my heart to beat for anyone else.
Every inch of her leaves me ravenous. There’s nothing I’d ever want changed, except maybe her ironclad refusal to give us a chance.
I think about the stalker, the possibility that they’re the same woman. Maybe this is how she claims me when the other way feels like too much. Maybe darkness is the only place she knows how to be brave right now.
The void I saw in her yesterday is gone, replaced by a flickering, frantic kind of sunshine. She jumps to her feet as I climb off the bike, skipping toward me with a light in her eyes that feels almost desperate.
“Hi,” she chirps. Her hands find my chest, her palms flat against the t-shirt under my kutte. “I missed you.”
My hands find her hips by instinct, my fingers pressing into the soft curve of her waist. “That so?” I pull her in, close enough to catch the hint of vanilla on her skin. I search her face, trying to read where her boundaries lie today. “How much, Goldie?”
"You're my bestie." She blinks up at me, the picture of innocence. "So. Like. A lot. Obvs."
"Missed you too, Goldie."
I let her hear that I mean it.
"Hey, Axton," she says quietly. My birth name hits like a blow, tethering me to the man I was before the patch. "Do you really think the person who sent you that pretty cat is pathetic?"
There it is.
The insecurity under her tone is the final piece of the puzzle.
It’s the smoking gun. I can’t confront her yet.
Not without catching her in the act, but the suspicion is now a concrete reality.
If I’m going to have her, I have to out-stalk my stalker.
I have to meet my shadow in the dark and unmask her.
Stalking my stalker.
The idea tastes wicked and sweet on my tongue.
I lift a brow, playing the game. “Why does it matter?”