Chapter 24
HAWK
Damn this guy. I swiped the phone from the air and brought it up to my ear. Silence fell for a beat. “What do you want?” I didn’t need his name. Callie’s face said it all.
I’d never heard Wade Harlan speak, but I knew his type. He thought he was the smartest man in the room. Never understood he’d been three steps behind his entire life.
“Well.” A pause lingered, then a low, dry chuckle. “I was expecting Callie to have a man but you sound downright unpleasant. She’ll do that to you. Stupid cunt.”
He wanted a reaction. I felt one all right.
My hand tightened around the phone, but I forced it to relax, forced my lips not to pull into a grimace.
Years of running a club had taught me that men who used that word in the first ten seconds of a conversation were always the most predictable in the room.
They wanted to see if I’d flinch. I gave him nothing.
I couldn’t control my entire expression though, and the tight feeling around my eyes, along with the way Diesel narrowed his said he read my anger loud and clear.
“Doesn’t matter.” Wade’s looseness came back, the way he spoke dropping into a relaxed cadence that bordered on nonchalant.
Probably wanted me to think it wasn’t that important.
“You’re one of them, I take it? One of the Vultures.
I heard she found her way back to you boys.
” Another one of those grating chuckles. “Funny how that works.”
Yeah, not the word I’d use. Fate, maybe, if I believed in that sort of thing. All I knew was we were supposed to be together. No one else made sense, and I hadn’t even tried to fill that space once Callie came into our lives. Not even in the time she’d been gone.
I stared at the wall and counted specks of water dripping down the paint to keep from going murderous on the bastard rasping out those ridiculous chuckles like some kind of cartoon villain.
“Here’s the thing.” Wade cleared his throat. Finally, we could get down to what he really wanted. He cleared his throat again. “Callie took something that didn’t belong to her. Long time ago. I’m not interested in making trouble.”
It took all my self-restraint not to snort or roll my eyes.
“I just want what’s mine returned to me. Then everyone can go back to living their lives. Simple. Right?”
I wished. Simple was not a word I would ever apply to anything related to Callie.
“She’s been through enough, hasn’t she?” He almost sounded like he cared. I knew better, but to people outside this realm, he might sound perfectly reasonable and not like a psycho who preyed on kids. “It’s a real shame what she’s been through with the fire and all. And with a kid.”
Fire burned low in my gut and spread. This guy. If I had him in front of me right now, he’d be dead before his next breath.
“She owes me, boy. She knows what she did. Knows what she cost me. I’m just asking for what she took. Be a real shame if things got any more complicated for her.”
There it was. I’d been waiting to see if he pushed that button and made Cody a bargaining chip.
I ended the call, my attention on Callie as I tapped the red button and held the phone out to her. She stood in front of Diesel, her arms locked over her stomach. Every few seconds, a short burst of air parted her lips. Panic. Or panic attack? Diesel rubbed her back, his expression murderous.
“You didn’t threaten him.” She sounded surprised, and she rubbed her arms like she couldn’t get warm even though heat poured through the window as the night turned humid.
Fall would be here soon enough. Maybe she’d stick around long enough to go on some rides with us.
She’d love the fall colors that popped across Sutter’s Pass.
I caught myself building the image in my head and shut it down.
One problem at a time. The man on the other end of the call needed to stay in focus, not dreams of a future that might not exist. “Threats are for actions. Not words.” I set the phone down on the table and ran both hands over my head and down the back of my neck, stopping to squeeze the tight muscles.
“And you’re done hiding pieces of the truth.
Every missing detail is a weapon. So I need you to tell me, right now, what happened to the ledger. ”
“I burned it.” She winced, her head pulling to the side.
It was that, her single, guilty reaction, that said she’d told the truth.
Which meant we had nothing concrete to hand over even if we wanted to, nothing to use as leverage of our own.
We were running on the word of a woman they considered a thief, against a crew who didn’t believe women had enough brains to know when to sneeze.
For a split second, all the hope fled my veins, leaving me chilled and frozen on my feet. We couldn’t prove a damned thing. And I’d already told her they’d never believe she didn’t have it.
A man like Wade kept assurances hidden in a ledger and he told them Callie had taken it. They would not for a second believe she would get rid of it, much less burn it.
“I kept it for a while. All that evidence felt like my own version of insurance, you know?” She tried to shrug, but her shoulders spasmed and she pressed her back into Diesel’s chest. “But then it seemed like Wade was really going to stay gone. I didn’t hear from him and I had a baby to take care of.
I wanted out. Wanted to remove myself from that world.
I thought burning it would erase the past.”
“You can’t burn consequences.” My dad used to say that every time I made a mistake. He’d drill me into place with a look, terrifying me into maintaining perfect control. “You burned paper and ink, but not what comes after.”
“Did he admit he’s behind this?” Callie twitched her chin toward the window.
I shook my head. “No. He danced around any wrongdoing. Talked about what you owe, implied Cody was a variable. He thinks he’s negotiating because he has the upper hand.”
“He doesn’t.” It came out strong, her chin lifting, but the truth hit her a second later and she shrank into herself. “But he does have the upper hand.”
“No.” I pulled out the chair across from her and nudged her into it before she fell on her ass.
Diesel would catch her, but she’d feel weak for going down.
“He’s used to using debt and collateral as a buffer.
Which means he thinks of leverage as the same thing as power.
” I sat in front of her, propping my hip on the table and resting my hands in my lap.
“Leverage is temporary. Power is structural and harder to take away. That’s why he’s making this call instead of someone who’s actually in charge. ”
Colt made a sound.
I looked back at him, and he shifted Cody into a better position on his hip. The boy had fallen into a dead sleep, his lips parted and his head lolling to the side. Colt corrected it and rested his cheek on top of his son’s head.
Callie stood and held out her arms. “Let me take him to bed.” Her eyes shone with unshed tears.
Colt resisted for a second, then passed the boy to his mother.
“I’m sorry.” Her voice broke as she rushed from the room.
Colt spun on his heel and stormed outside.
I followed, pointing at Diesel. “Do not let her out of your sight.” Callie was not weak, but she was vulnerable right now and more a flight risk than ever.
Diesel took off down the hall, silent and completely capable.
I ran after Colt. I might not be able to stop him from leaving, but I was damn sure going to try.
“I’m fine.” He slammed a fist into the porch post and spun to face me. “I’m not running away.”
“Didn’t say you were.” But I’d thought it, and he knew it. He’d earned the doubt, and he knew it. The fact he stood on the porch instead of burning down the road going after Wade said more about how much he’d changed than anything he put into words.
A low buzz gave way to a high whine.
Colt’s head snapped up and to the right, where a drone hovered above the property lights. “Guessing that’s not a new toy of Diesel’s?”
“Nope.”