Chapter Nine
White Ravens
Gage
“Home sweet fuckin’ home,” Roz said, cutting the rental car’s engine.
Gage didn’t move, barely breathed.
But his hearing…
His surroundings whispered to him like a living thing.
They weren’t at Roz’s stepdad’s house in the city—where Roz had lived before he’d gone to jail—there wasn’t a constant stream of traffic, elevated trains screaming overhead, or pedestrians walking around having too-loud conversations.
Instead, he smelled smoke from a chimney. A dog barked twice, then quieted, and there was the electric buzz of a streetlight to his right.
The car engine ticked as it cooled, and Roz exhaled beside him, sounding bone-tired.
It had been a long ride. Long for Roz…absolute hell for him.
Every time Roz slammed to a stop because someone cut him off, Gage’s body seized.
Any time a tractor-trailer roared by, the air pressure punched him in the chest. When Roz swerved like a NASCAR driver after almost missing an exit, Gage had dug his shaking fingers into the seat so deeply he felt the springs.
Enveloped by darkness, plus high speed and constant surging adrenaline, made him want to throw up.
Two times his friend had pulled over to sleep, but Gage didn’t close his eyes once.
He’d never been more relieved to be still.
“Where are we?”
Roz was quiet for a long time before he confessed. “I left the Hustlers.”
Gage frowned. There was only one way to leave the Hustlers. Jail or in a body bag.
“What happened?”
“When you got popped, I, um…I went after Jace…hard.”
Gage swallowed. “Jace didn’t force me to get in his car. You warned me about him, and I didn’t listen.”
“He knew you were off-limits,” Roz snapped, anger flaring. “Everyone did. And he still chose to do dirt with you in the passenger seat. Besides, everyone knew how clueless you were.”
“Gee, thanks,” he muttered.
“After I put my boot in Jace’s ass, his bitch-ass brothers came for me. They shot up my dad’s place, then tried to catch me outside my job. I had no choice but to do ’em.”
Gage’s eyes were blown wide, seeing nothing. “You killed Jace’s brothers?”
Roz huffed. “You were the one good thing I had in my life back then, and he took you from me. So I took what he loved from him.”
They both went silent at that.
Gage had been clueless and dumb. He’d thought he understood the lifestyle because he’d watched it. Because he’d sat in back rooms and listened to the stories.
The judge had given him three years as an accessory. And out of the three months he’d served, ninety percent of that time had been spent in the infirmary with a bruised face, cracked ribs, and his spirit bleeding out.
Then the Ravens came.
“I can’t stop lookin’ at you,” Roz whispered, cutting into his thoughts. “The prison told your parents you died. I went to your funeral, man.”
Scar was right. The Ravens had killed them.
Gage sat there, numb before he asked. “What was in the casket?”
“That’s your fuckin’ question? What…? What the hell, G? Why would they say you were dead when you’re not? And you’re…You’re telling me you’re blind now. Like, completely can’t see. You gotta help me out here. Because you’re not the same guy I used to know. You’re…different.”
Gage’s heart clenched.
“My parents?”
Roz sighed before he said softly.
“Your mom looked bad, bro. Real bad. And your dad—” Roz cleared his throat. “He tried to hold it together. Tried.”
A tortured sound escaped him.
“Was my funeral at our church?”
“Yeah. It looked like the whole congregation showed up, even the ones who left when you got arrested. They all really came through for your parents.”
Pain ripped through Gage’s heart.
His parents. His good, kind, almost perfect parents.
The two people he was supposed to honor and respect.
The two people who’d prayed for him every day and night.
The two people he’d shamed.
He was supposed to care for them when they got older, not break them. Not bury them in grief or make them spend three-quarters of their savings on lawyer fees to keep him from doing ten years in prison.
Air whooshed across his forehead.
He shot his hand out and grabbed Roz’s wrist and slung it away from his face with a strength that startled both of them.
“I told you to stop doing that,” he gritted.
“Fuck…my bad,” Roz muttered. “It’s just…You’re doing it again. It looks like you’re staring right at me.”
“Well, I’m not,” Gage snapped. “I can’t see. Of all the things in the world to lie about, you think I’d choose that?”
“Then how’d you know I was waving my hand in front of you?”
“’Cause you’re fanning my danggone face!”
“Okay. Then how’d you know that motorcycle was coming into my lane?
” Roz threw back. “Or those railroad crossing lights were about to come on? You warned me that the skateboarder was going too fast and was about to cross in front of me, and I didn’t even see him.
And when that sedan door opened in the highway median, you jerked like you thought it was gonna’ hit—”
“I don’t know!” Gage roared. He gripped his forehead and lowered his tone. He was terrified, but none of this was Roz’s fault. “I don’t know, okay?”
Roz breathed out so hard his espresso-scented breath warmed Gage’s cheek.
“You gotta level with me. I’m lookin’ at you, and you sorta look like my boy, but you don’t act like him.
You sure as hell don’t sound like him. You’re yellin’ and throwin’ attitude.
” Roz paused before he added, “Jail always changes people, but not that fast. Something happened to you, and I wanna know what. No more stallin’, bro. No more bullshit.”
Gage understood.
He was the only person who knew about the strict religious life he’d been raised in. The only one who’d understood his curiosity to indulge in rebellion every now and then, and the desperation he felt not to be perfect all the time.
If Gage didn’t tell Roz the truth—or something close to it—he’d lose his trust. Their entire relationship was built on honesty. And it wasn’t one-sided. He also knew the side of Roz that the Hustlers never got to see…couldn’t see without judging him.
He bowed his head and whispered, “I’ll tell you.”
“Good. Let’s go inside. I think I’mma’ need a drink to hear whatever the hell this story is.”