Page 65 of Hawk's Cry

“I served five fucking years.” His face darkens with rage, then, the mask falls again. “I escaped,” he explains nonchalantly, adding with more than a touch of scorn tinged with pride, “No prison can hold me.”

Which means he must be a wanted man, but that doesn’t mean the knowledge will save me. Not unless the police discover where he is and come knocking on the door. I suspect that’s very unlikely. “The Devils won’t give you anything to get me back.” I say the words which I hope are wrong. Will Wizard do whatever this man asks? Am I still important to them? I am to my mom and my dad, but the Satan’s Devils in general? There’s a question mark about that.

“Who says I want anything from them?” He pauses, waiting for me to ask what he’s doing this for. When I don’t oblige, he continues, his voice deepening, and his eyes flare. “I want them to hurt. Just as they hurt me. By taking you, by taking the one of their next generation, I will break them apart.”

If I wasn’t already scared, I’d be terrified now. He’s suggesting I won’t be returning home, and Eli will never meet his baby. My brain can’t compute what he means to do with me. I’m a wife, a soon-to-be mother. How can all of that come crashing down?

When he sees I’m not going to ask the question I’m not prepared to hear the answer to, his tone changes once again. “I told you about my wife and her unborn baby,” he remarks conversationally, as though we were back in that coffee shop again. “Of course, she wasn’t quite as far along as you.”

I’m wondering where he’s going with this. There’s only one reason I can think of. “Satan’s Devils didn’t have anything to do with your wife’s accident.” While not knowing the facts, that’s something I feel deep inside. Devils go after the men causing a problem, they wouldn’t target a woman or child. Unless there had been a mistake, and they’d thought it had been Archangel driving.

But instead of telling me he wants revenge, again, he laughs. “I know they didn’t cause the accident. I know, because I paid the man who did.”

For a moment I forget to breathe. My eyes open wide as they fix on him.

“Yes.” He dips his head down then raises it. “I arranged for my wife and that brat of hers to die.”

It’s at that point the thought solidifies that there’ll be no appealing to this man’s better nature. He clearly doesn’t have one. But still, I ask, “Why? Wasn’t the child yours?”

“Sure.” His unaffected response made in such an off-hand manner demolishes any remaining hope my child and I will get out unscathed. “My wife had grown annoying. I decided I didn’t want to be saddled with a woman I no longer wanted, and a kid I never did.” His eyes blaze with fury. “I’m a fucking careful man, Olivia. I make sure to cover my tracks. I knew the feds thought they were closing in, but they weren’t. I was too fucking clever, always a step or two in front of them.”

“But they caught you in the end.” I can’t stop myself saying, “To be sent down, you must have fucked up.”

Twin patches of red appear on his cheeks. “They couldn’t prove shit on the organised crime, violence, drugs, the money laundering, or the slave trafficking. Do you fucking know, Olivia, what brought me down?”

Of course I don’t. I refrain from making an unnecessary comment.

“I’d covered all my tracks except in one area.” His eyes glaze and seem to focus on something past me. “I ran a lucrative trade, only used trusted men. Men who remained loyal when I was inside, and men who’ve stepped up now I’m back out. Real Americans.” He pauses as though it should mean something to me. It doesn’t, except… Have I heard about them on the news? Maybe, but citizen stuff never really concerned me when I was living on the compound.

When he sees his comment hasn’t meant anything, he continues, “Mutual benefit, of course. I can bring the money in, and, I know where their bodies are buried. It was an inconvenience to them when I was sent down, so they helped me escape. I’m resuming my business, of course, but it’s hard picking up strings which someone else has retied. There are always people who step in when a market isn’t being fulfilled.”

“I don’t understand what you’re talking about. Or why you feel the Satan’s Devils were involved. They wouldn’t have picked up your business. They don’t deal in drugs, or anything else you’ve mentioned.”

“Feds are stupid. It’s easy to give them misinformation, keep them chasing their tails. It was a fucking game I enjoyed playing. I was running rings around them, and others, the Wretched Soulz for example. Stupid fuckers thought I was going into business with them, instead, I stole theirs. Your fucking club didn’t like the fact I was taking women off the streets in Tucson—which included one of their strippers one night.”

I gasp. I remembering hearing about a girl who had gone missing from Satan’s Angels, the strip club the Devils run. She never turned up. I didn’t think anyone knew what had actually happened to her. But if my dad and Drummer had, they’d have done their best to find her. I could easily see how that may have led to them crossing swords with Archangel.

“When I got out, I wanted to know how I fucked up. Learn from your mistakes, isn’t that what they say? I wasn’t sent down for running drugs or dealing in women. You know what got me in the end, Olivia?” He stands and marches across to me, grasping my chin painfully and making me look into his face. “I was sent down for murder in the first degree. For plotting and arranging the death of my wife.”

He lets me go so violently I fall to the side, then right myself, my arms protectively surrounding my stomach.

He’s pacing the room. “Such a simple thing. Pay a man, set her up. But it wasn’t how I normally did business. There was CCTV, licence plate number recognition. The man I hired was tracked down… Somehow all the information was found and was presented to the FBI tied up with a fucking ribbon.” He takes a deep shuddering breath. “My business dealings weren’t even spoken of in court. All they wanted was for me to be put away for whatever reason would suit their purpose and life for premedicated murder certainly achieved that. I was fucking set up, and your MC was at the root of it.”

I could see how Mouse and Wizard could have dug that information up. Seems Archangel, usually cold and determined, failed to apply his normal careful modus operandi to the killing of his wife and child. Passion, maybe? Had she overstepped and he’d arranged it too hastily? But yes, the club has the expertise to follow leads up. I don’t doubt him for a moment. Set up? He’s already admitted he’d done the crime. He just didn’t want to do the time.

“I know nothing about any of this.”

“You don’t need to,” he says, coldly. “Poor innocent kept-in-the-dark, Olivia. Doesn’t mean fuck if you know or not.”

His phone rings. A sadistic smile crosses his face as he walks to the door. I hear him say, “Sure.” Then he listens as his hand turns the doorknob. Just before he pulls the door shut with him on the other side, I hear him say, “You’re just as fucking stupid as your wife is.” Then I don’t hear anything else.

Eli. It sounds like he’s talking to Eli unless he’s stolen another wife away. How did Eli know who to ring? Or has he got Archangel’s number programmed into his phone? But no, he couldn’t. He had to get a new one when he left the club.

Phone. My phone. Where is it? Did I leave it in the café? Has Archangel got it? I can’t see my purse and can’t remember if I had it with me as he helped me out of the shop. That and being pushed into his car is the last thing I remember.

If Eli has my phone, maybe he’ll see I’ve been texting to and meeting with Gabe. My face blushes red, until I remember, I changed my passcode for that exact reason. Though it was totally innocent, I’d felt guilty.

Mouse. Or Wizard. A passcode wouldn’t stop them. Perhaps Eli’s gone to the Devils for help, or my dad anyway. Dad. He’ll be out of his mind with worry. Why, oh why was I so stupid to go out alone?

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