Chapter Fifteen
Derby
The next morning the dinosaur sits on my kitchen table like a dead thing.
Blue plastic. Big teeth. Stupid yellow eyes. A toy meant for a little boy, meant to make him smile, meant to look innocent enough that anybody else would call us paranoid for treating it like evidence.
I know better.
So does Amelia.
So does every man in my house.
The note sits beside it.
Daddy knows best.
Three words.
Three plain, smug, limp-dicked words that make my vision go clean around the edges.
I don’t lose my temper the way people think I do. Not really. I run my mouth. I threaten. I swing when swinging makes more sense than talking. But real rage, the kind that settles down deep and stops making noise, that is different. That kind of rage doesn’t shout.
It plans.
August is in the bedroom now with Lottie and Janie.
Lottie got him out of the kitchen fast, talking about snacks and dinosaur court appeals like she wasn’t white around the mouth.
Janie followed with Blue Rex, leaving the new dinosaur on the table because none of us are letting that thing near the kid until Wildcat strips it apart.
Amelia stands near the sink, arms wrapped around herself, staring at the note.
She hasn’t cried since August left the room.
That worries me.
Crying I can understand. Crying is a wound making noise. This is worse. She looks like she has gone somewhere inside herself where Jeremy already knows the way.
I want to drag him out of her by the throat.
Legend stands across the table, face carved hard, my front door at his back.
Oaks is near the window, watching the road.
Whiskey has the note in a plastic bag because apparently my house now has evidence handling protocols before supper.
Wildcat is at the counter with the box, gloves on, checking seams, tape, paper, anything that might tell us where it came from.
Royal is leaned against the wall by the hallway, black as a funeral thought, silent as one too.
Too many Kings in my house.
Not enough blood on my hands.
“Wasn’t left by the mailman. Only made to look like it. Got them on camera. Whoever left it knew the gap,” Wildcat says.
My head turns. “What gap?”
“The road watch shifted at four-twenty. What I can figure is there was two minutes between one prospect moving and the other taking position. Not enough for a stranger unless he already knew where to go.”
Oaks’s mouth tightens. “Or unless somebody distracted them.”
Legend looks at Whiskey.
Whiskey’s jaw works. “Checking calls now.”
I laugh once.
Not funny.
Not close.
“We got men on the road, cameras, locks, eyes, and some church rat still walked up to my porch and left a toy for the kid.”
No one answers because there is no answer that fixes it.
Amelia flinches at toy for the kid.
I hate myself for saying it that way.
I hate Jeremy more.
Legend looks at me. “Prospects also moved when Amelia took the truck.”
“They followed me?” she asks, glaring at me.
I hold up my hands. “Not on my orders.”
Legend cuts in. “On mine.” He points to me. “You don’t leave this house hot.”
I stare at him.
“Prez.”
His eyes narrow. “You heard me.”
“I heard a suggestion dressed up like an order.”
“It’s an order.”
“Then you better make it good enough to stop me.”
The room changes.
Oaks shifts, not toward me exactly, but ready. Royal’s gaze sharpens. Whiskey goes still with the note in his hand. Wildcat looks up from the box.
Legend doesn’t move.
He doesn’t have to.
He is my president. My brother. My king in every way that counts. I have bled for him, fought for him, followed him into rooms where death was already waiting with a chair pulled out.
But Jeremy Vale put his hand inside my house.
He put it toward August.
He put it toward Amelia.
I ain’t built to stand still under that.
Legend’s voice lowers. “You take one swing without a plan, you give Vale exactly what he wants.”
“I got a plan.”
“Beating him until he stops breathing isn’t a plan.”
“Sounds like a good start.”
Amelia makes a sound then.
Small.
Barely there.
But it pulls me harder than Legend’s order.
I look at her.
She looks back.
Her face is pale. Her eyes are too bright. Her hands are clenched against her ribs like she is holding herself together with fingernails and fury.
“Don’t,” she says.
One word.
It lands where everything else missed.
“Amelia.”
“Don’t go after him like this.”
“He sent something to August.”
“I know.”
“He came close enough to my porch to leave a bow.”
“I know.”
“Then don’t stand there and tell me not to handle it.”
Her face tightens, but she doesn’t back down. “If you go after Jeremy angry, he wins.”
I laugh, sharp and ugly. “He ain’t winning much with his jaw wired shut.”
“This is what he wants.”
“No. He wants you scared.”
“He wants you out of control,” she snaps. “He wants me surrounded by proof that the men helping me are dangerous. He wants a bloody face and a police report and a judge looking at me like I chose this.”
The room goes quiet.
Her words hit everybody because they are true.
I still don’t want to hear them.
“He put a package on my porch,” I say.
“And if you go to jail, he wins.”
There it is.
The line that should stop me.
It almost does.
Almost.
The problem is, almost ain’t enough when I can still see August’s scared face.
How did he know I was here?
I look away because if I keep looking at her, I might do the right thing, and right now the right thing feels like swallowing broken glass.
Legend’s voice is calmer now. “We find out who delivered it. The camera caught him. We put pressure where it works.”
“I’m pressure.”
“You’re gasoline.”
Royal smiles faintly. “Occasionally useful. Rarely indoor-safe.”
I turn my head slowly. “You want to make jokes right now?”
Royal’s smile disappears.
Good.
Becki ain’t here. Cider ain’t here. Sophie ain’t here. This corner belongs to a terrified kid and a man with clean shoes who thinks toys make good threats.
Whiskey sets the bagged note on the table. “There’s a store sticker on the bottom of the dinosaur box. Local. Hollar Dollar.”
Amelia’s eyes close. “I was there today.”
“In Paradise,” Oaks says.
Whiskey nods. “Bought this morning if the inventory sticker matches the batch.”
“When?” I ask.
Whiskey looks at Legend, not me.
Mistake.
“When?” I repeat.
Legend answers. “Same time Amelia was there.”
I step toward the table.
Amelia moves between me and the table.
Not physically enough to stop me.
Emotionally enough to make me see her.
Her voice is low. “If you leave, I need to know what you’re going to do.”
I stare at her.
“I need you to say it,” she continues. “Because I’m tired of men walking out doors and leaving me to imagine whether they are coming back with blood on them or not at all.”
That should break something in me.
Maybe it does.
I step closer, stopping inches from her. She doesn’t move away.
“I’m going to find out who brought a threat to my house.”
“And Jeremy?”
“If I find him, he answers.”
“How?”
I don’t answer.
That is answer enough.
Her eyes fill. “Derby.”
“Don’t ask me to promise not to touch him.”
“I’m asking you not to throw yourself into a trap he dug with my child’s name on it.”
My jaw aches from how hard I clench it.
Legend steps closer. “Oaks goes with you. Wildcat too. No one moves on Vale without my call.”
I laugh. “You sending babysitters?”
“I’m sending witnesses.”
That stops me for half a second.
Witnesses.
Not to protect me.
To protect the truth from what Jeremy will try to make it.
Twila Dix’s warning from before creeps up from memory. Concerned father. Unstable wife. Motorcycle club involvement.
I hate that the law has a shape, and that shape is a noose already hanging where Jeremy wants my neck.
Amelia touches my arm.
Light.
Barely.
“I need you to come back,” she says.
Not want.
Need.
The word lands under my ribs and twists.
I look at her hand on my arm. Then at her face.
“I’ll come back.”
“Not in cuffs.”
My mouth curves without humor. “No promises.”
Her hand drops.
That hurts too.
I deserve it.
Lottie appears in the hallway then, face set, hair pulled back in a messy knot. She looks from Amelia to me to the men at the table.
“August is watching cartoons,” she says. “Janie’s with him.”
Her gaze settles on Amelia. Something passes between them, woman to woman, ol’ lady to potential sister of our Prez, fear to strategy.
“You want me to stay?” Lottie asks.
Amelia nods. “Please.”
“I got her,” Lottie says.
That is for me.
I don’t like anybody else saying they got her.
I also know I’m about to walk out.
I look at Lottie. “Door stays locked.”
She snorts. “I was locking doors before you knew which end of your pecker to aim, Derby.”
Oaks coughs.
Wildcat chokes on a laugh.
Even Amelia’s mouth twitches, though her eyes stay wet.
“Comforting,” I say.
“Wasn’t meant to be. Go do whatever stupid thing men do when they think violence is foreplay for justice.”
Legend sighs. “Lottie.”
“What? We’re all thinking it.”
I grab my cut from the chair.
Amelia watches me put it on like she is watching armor go over a wound.
I want to kiss her.
That thought hits so wrong in the middle of all this that it nearly knocks the air out of me. I want to kiss her because I’m angry. Because she is scared. Because I’m leaving. Because I don’t know what my hands will do before I see her again, and I want one clean thing before the dirty work.
I don’t.
I step toward her instead and lower my voice. “Stay with Lottie.”
Her eyes narrow because she hears the command.
I correct myself, hating every second. “Please.”
That one word costs more than it should.
She hears that too.
“I will,” she says.
I nod once.
Then I leave before she can make me better than I am.
Outside, the air feels thick, storm-humid and mean. Oaks falls into step on my left. Wildcat on my right. Legend stays back at the door with Whiskey and Royal. He is letting me go, but not loose.
There is a difference.