Chapter Six
Swift
Madison at two in the morning looked a hell of a lot different than Madison at two in the afternoon.
During the day, State Street was crowded with students pretending they had somewhere important to be, tourists wandering around with overpriced coffees, and people in dress clothes acting like they were too good for the rest of the city while still needing somewhere to buy lunch.
At night?
It all got stripped down.
The bars emptied.
The sidewalks thinned and the city showed its real face.
I stood at Britta’s living room window with it cracked open just enough to let the cigarette smoke out, watching the last stragglers spill out of the bars down the block.
A group of college kids stumbled down the sidewalk, too loud for the hour, half of them laughing, the other half looking like they were one wrong breath away from puking on someone’s shoes.
A couple peeled off toward the parking garage.
Two girls in heels that looked more like weapons than footwear linked arms and shuffled toward campus, probably headed back to the dorms or one of the off-campus apartments nearby.
Madison was a college town first and everything else second.
From September to May, the city was overrun with kids trying to figure out who they were while getting blackout drunk on cheap liquor and making bad choices.
Summer probably calmed things down some.
But right now, this place still had a pulse.
And I was staring out at it, trying to figure out who in this city thought the Saint’s Outlaws needed to disappear.
We weren’t here to cause trouble. We came to set up shop. Open the rage room. Plant roots. Make money. Build something.
But apparently, existing had pissed somebody off enough to torch a bar and put a bullet in Britta.
We knew the name.
The Ledger.
That was the shadow hanging over all of it. We just didn’t know much more than that.
The names we had managed to dig up sounded like they belonged on the side of expensive law firms or the donor wall at some snobby private school. Men who’d been handed too much money and too much power and decided that made them kings.
Elias Conover.
Hollis Kettler.
Ezra Calhoun.
Just saying them in my head made me want to grind my teeth.
All three of them sounded like they’d been born in loafers and probably still had ten-foot sticks shoved up their asses.
I took a drag from my cigarette and blew the smoke toward the narrow opening in the window.
“I’m not going to get my deposit back if you keep smoking like that.”
I turned so fast I was surprised I didn’t pull something.
Britta stood a few feet away at the end of the hallway, wearing sleep shorts and a too-big T-shirt, hair loose around her shoulders and slightly mussed from bed.
I hadn’t heard her come out.
I didn’t like that. It didn’t matter that it was Britta.
Me not hearing someone move in the apartment was a problem.
“You planning on moving anytime soon?” I asked.
She let out a light laugh and shook her head. “I hope not, but lately things seem to happen whether I want them to or not.”
“That’s life, sugar.” I took another drag and let the smoke out slowly. “Fucking life.” I glanced over at her. “Couldn’t sleep?”
She shook her head and wrapped her arms around her waist, rubbing at her sides like she was trying to warm herself up. “I think I’ve done all the sleeping I can for the moment. My eyes just popped open, and I know there is no way I’m going back to sleep anytime soon.”
I looked at the clock on the cable box. Two-oh-three. “I think two a.m. might be too early to start your day.”
She wandered over to the window and stopped next to me.
Close.
Not touching, but close enough that I was aware of every inch between us.
Close enough that if I moved the wrong way, my arm would brush hers.
She looked out at the street below. “Anything interesting going on out there?” she asked.
“Nope,” I said. “And that’s how I like it.”
She sighed and leaned one shoulder against the wall near the window. “I’ve never really just stopped and watched out my window before,” she said. “I don’t think Madison ever really sleeps, does it?” She looked at me.
I shrugged. “I mean, you’ve got about two hours of quiet between the barflies and the early birds jogging State Street and heading to work.”
That got a tired little smile out of her.
We stood there in silence for a while, just watching.
A guy in a backwards cap tried and failed to walk a straight line across the street.
A girl in a University of Wisconsin sweatshirt sat on the curb, laughing so hard she had tears running down her face while her friend waved down a rideshare.
Somewhere farther off, a siren whined and then faded.
A delivery truck rolled by slower than it should’ve for that hour, rattling over the rough patch of pavement at the corner.
A city like this never really shut down.
It just changed shifts.
Britta tipped her head slightly toward the glass. “Do you think we could go to The Badger Den tomorrow?”
The word no was on the tip of my tongue.
Over the last week and a half, I’d learned something important about Britta.
No didn’t work on her.
Not really.
Tell Britta no, and all you did was make her look at you like you’d personally insulted her ancestors.
“You sure you’re up for it?” I asked instead.
She shrugged, her expression turning a little wry.
“I mean, probably not. But I have to do something other than just lie around, Swift.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
“The bar is only down the street. If I get tired, I can easily find somewhere to sit there, or we can just head back here.” Then she looked at me with a twinkle in her eye that told me she already knew she was wearing me down.
“I mean, I could be wanting to go for a motorcycle ride and kicking you out of my apartment,” she pointed out.
I took another drag off the cigarette and let the thought sit.
She had a point. Not that I was going to tell her that too quickly. “I guess you have a point there, sugar.”
“So we’re going to The Badger Den in the morning?”
I sighed. “How about the afternoon?”
I could see the argument flash in her face, then disappear. She had to know me agreeing at all was a lot. Especially this soon.
“Fine by me,” she said.
That easy answer should’ve worried me more than if she’d argued.
We both went back to watching the street.
A jogger appeared at the far corner, and I almost laughed at the sight of him. Two-fifteen in the morning and some asshole was out there running like the devil was chasing him.
Britta noticed him too.
“See?” she said softly. “You weren’t kidding.”
“Nope. There’s always one.”
She smiled, then her face grew more serious.
“How are you going to find them?”
I looked at her. “The guy who shot you?” I asked.
She nodded. “There are so many people out there. How can you find just one when you know nothing about them?”
“We’ll find them,” I said without hesitation.
Because it wasn’t a maybe.
It wasn’t a line.
It was fact.
One way or another, the Saint’s Outlaws were going to find whoever had done this.
Britta’s gaze stayed on me. “But how? You don’t even have a name or anything.”
We did, actually. We had a few more than that.
Nick and Frank before they either died or vanished off the board.
And the names that kept surfacing every time we tugged on the right thread. “We’ve got a few leads,” I said. “Names.”
She turned more fully toward me. “You have names?”
I nodded once.
“What are they?”
I hesitated. Not because I thought she couldn’t handle hearing them. Britta was already too far in this, whether I liked it or not. I just didn’t know how much farther I wanted her to step.
She saw the hesitation and gave me that look of hers—the one that said she already knew I was debating and thought it was stupid. “I’ve lived here my whole life, Swift,” she said. “I could maybe help.”
Fair.
“Conover,” I said. “Kettler. Calhoun.”
Her eyes bugged out. “Elias Conover, Hollis Kettler, and Ezra Calhoun?”
That surprised the hell out of me. I figured maybe she’d know one, but not all three. “I take it you know them?”
She let out a stunned breath. “You’d have to be dead and dumb to not know those names if you live in Madison.”
Good to know.
“Kettler and Conover both left town, though,” she added. “At least a couple of years ago.”
I nodded.
That lined up with what we’d found.
“What about Calhoun?”
“He was on the city council,” she said. “And is loaded. Hell, all of those names are loaded beyond your imagination.” She folded her arms over herself again and looked back out the window.
“Kettler had a son my age growing up. Once we hit high school, every girl made it her mission to catch his eye because he was so rich.” She wrinkled her nose.
“He was an asshole, but for the amount of money he had, most girls didn’t care. ”
That got my attention in a way I didn’t love. “You think the same way?” I asked before I could stop myself.
She turned and looked at me like I’d just asked if she liked licking the sidewalk. “No,” she said flatly. “Money is nice, but there is no way I would have been able to be with that guy for a gajillion dollars.”
That eased something in me that I had no business feeling. “The son still around town?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I don’t think so. But he’s not really one to hang around State Street and The Badger Den.”
“His loss,” I said. The words were out before I could think better of them.
Britta looked at me. Just looked.
And I had the sudden feeling I’d said more than I meant to.
Her mouth curved slightly, but she didn’t call me on it. Probably because she was smart enough to know pushing me too hard would make me shut right back down.
“You’re sure those three guys are behind all of this?” she asked.
I shrugged. “We’re not really sure of much, sugar. We just know those three names keep popping up wherever we dig.”
“Kettler and Conover left town, though.”
“In this day and age, you don’t need to be in town to make things happen,” I said. “And with all of their bajillion dollars, they can do whatever they want.” I looked back out at the street. “At least they think they can.”
She was quiet for a second before she asked, “If you guys are right, how do you go up against them?”
I took one last drag off the cigarette and stared out at the city like it might offer me an answer if I looked hard enough. “No clue,” I admitted. “But the Saint’s Outlaws always figure it out.” That part I believed in. Always would. “We’ve got our own kind of power backing us.”
Loyalty.
Brothers.
Money enough to make moves when we had to.
Men who didn’t scare easy.
That counted for something.
I crushed the cigarette out in the ashtray on the windowsill and shut the window the rest of the way. The apartment got a little quieter without the crack of city noise sneaking in.
I looked down at Britta.
Her eyes still had that wakeful edge to them, but there was exhaustion underneath it. Heavy. Deep. She’d only been standing there for maybe fifteen minutes, and I could already see the way she was fading.
“I know you say you’re not tired, but you should try to get some sleep,” I told her. “If you’re wanting to go to The Badger Den, you’re going to need all the energy you can get.”
She sighed. “I don’t want to lie in my bed anymore.” Her gaze drifted to the couch. “Want to watch a movie?”
“You gonna fall asleep if we do?” I asked.
She gave me a half-smile. “I mean, I’ll try to stay awake.”
I chuckled and pushed off the window. “I want you to try to sleep, sugar.”
We made our way over to the couch, and she sat on one end while I took the other.
I grabbed one of the throw pillows and dropped it into my lap, then reached back for the blanket draped over the couch.
Britta grabbed the remote and turned on the TV. The screen flashed through menus and apps while she clicked around, muttering under her breath about how she had too many subscriptions and nothing to watch on any of them.
Finally, she landed on Transformers.
I looked over at her. “Really?”
She glanced back at me. “What? Giant alien robots are comforting.”
“Sure they are.”
She tucked her legs under herself automatically, and I shook my head before she could get too settled in. She looked at me. “What?”
I leaned over and took hold of her arm carefully, making sure not to mess with her shoulder. “Lie down, sugar.”
Her eyes searched mine for a second. Not arguing. Just… looking. Then she let me guide her.
Slowly, I eased her over until her head came to rest on the pillow in my lap. She shifted once, getting comfortable, and her hair spilled across my thigh.
Something in my chest tightened. Just enough to remind me that this wasn’t normal.
That none of this should’ve felt as right as it did.
I pulled the blanket over both of us, tucking it lightly around her.
She looked up at me, eyes heavy now, the fight gone out of staying awake. “You know,” she murmured, “this is probably not helping your whole keep-watch thing.”
“I can multitask.”
That got the tiniest smile out of her.
The movie played.
Explosions.
Engines.
People yelling.
The kind of loud nonsense that should’ve kept both of us awake.
But somewhere in the middle of giant robots fighting over Earth, Britta’s breathing evened out. Her body relaxed a little more against me.
Sleep took her fast. I looked down at her for a long moment, one hand resting on the arm of the couch, the other loose near the blanket.
Safe.
She was safe.
That thought should’ve made it easier to stay awake.
Instead, with her warmth against me and the low hum of the TV filling the room, my own eyes started to feel heavy.
I told myself I was just resting them for a second.
That I’d still hear anything.
Still wake up if a floorboard creaked or someone touched the door.
The next thing I knew, the screen was casting early-morning light-blue flashes across the room, the credits were rolling, and both of us had fallen asleep.