Page 91 of Soulless Saint

My vision ebbed with black spots and I felt my stomach hollow and drop out through my toes.

“Ma!”

The sound of the pocket door to dad’s office slipped open, and I slung myself around the wall in the dining room, ready to rain hell on whoever exited when I saw the business end of a familiar Beretta poking through the dark on the other side.

“Hardin?”

“Christ, Ma,” I hissed, lowering my weapon to rush forward and crush her against my chest.

She hammered on my back, but I refused to let her go, my hands still shaking. “What in the hell is going on?”

“Sloane, thank god.”

Her rigid body went soft in my arms as she seemed to realize why we were coming in so hot. She stopped pounding on my back and started rubbing wide circles there instead. “Okay,” she said, giving me a pat. “Okay, calm down. What’s all this about?”

“Is there heat outside?” I heard Zade ask, his gun trained low as he pushed out of the office behind Ma. I let her go, clearing my throat, and she gave my arm a squeeze, nodding to tell me she was all right.

Dad and Kaleb crowded her.

“Boss,” Zade hissed.

Dad planted a kiss on Ma’s forehead. “No. Not exactly.”

He passed the slip of paper from the door to Zade, who hesitantly clicked his safety back on before taking it.

Ma stole it from Zade’s hands before he could have possibly had a chance to read it.

The adrenaline in my veins was quickly turning to fucking sludge, and I fought against the exhaustion making my bones tremble in its wake.

“Where was this?” Ma asked, and I shook my head, fighting to clear the still ever present need to rip someone’s head off. I stared down at what I thought was just a piece of paper but was actually a postcard.

Ma flipped it back and forth in her hands. It was the same picturesque view on one side as last time. The four ridges of the canyon lit up with warm sun. On the flipside the message was a familiar one. Except this time the date had changed. And it was written in blood.

10-08-22

1100

S

Ø

S

“It was pinned to the front door with that,” Dad said, tossing a blood-coated blade on the dinner room table.

Ma fingered the blood they used for ink.

“Whose blood is this, Damien?”

Dad tapped his gun against his head, grimacing, and then sighing. “It’s Jimmy Boy’s,” he admitted.

Ma gasped.

“Me and the boys just finished pulling what was left of him off a billboard out on the Canyon road.”

“Not all of him,” Kaleb said, kicking at the carpet, and I remembered the little gift the Sons had left on our goddamned doorstep.

Ma’s face pinched and she cocked her head at Kaleb.

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