Page 91 of Knox

Earl waved a dismissive hand. “That ain’t a third ball. It’s a hernia. And when have you been looking at my balls, Buzz?”

“When you passed out naked in the parking lot?”

Earl grinned. “Oh yeah. That was a good birthday. You only turn sixty-three once.”

I sat on one of the chairs near the fireplace, drumming my fingers on the armrest anxiously. I kept glancing at Caroline’s hunched back. Tex wasn’t going to flirt with her, but what if the bastard next to her was going to? I saw him come in earlier and drop into the chair. He looked like a trucker trying to drown his exhaustion in whiskey.

If he so much as leaned toward her?—

Shit, what if he’s the Wolverine come to spy?

The door opened, and two bikers swaggered in. I didn’t recognize either of them, but they looked like brawlers. My leg started to bounce. This was fucking nerve racking.

But then they saw Earl and the others at the table and got boisterous greetings.

I blew out a breath. Fuck this. I just want to fuck my woman senseless. Instead, we have to kill her dad today.

No, I corrected myself. It didn’t have to be instead. First we needed to kill her dad. Then I could fuck her senseless, and she would finally be free to live her own life the way she’d always deserved.

Something dark settled in my chest, coiling like a spitting viper.

Walter Bates would die today if it was the last thing I ever did.

The sound of a bike, louder than the others that had driven up, caught my ear. I carefully glanced out the window behind me. My heart jumped. That wasn’t a normal bike. And the guy parking it? Definitely not a regular.

“Showtime,” I muttered, loud enough for Mason to hear.

He was sitting in the other armchair, glowering like he had been for the past hour we’d been lounging around waiting. Not a single cop had come to stop by the Well, of course. The inside guy had gone straight to Bates, who must have bided his time for whatever fucking reason. We could only hope he didn’t figure out what it was—a decoy.

Mason took a big, long swig of his third glass of beer, stood, and smashed the bottle on the shiny wood floor.

Glass exploded everywhere.

The bar went dead silent just as the Wolverine walked in.

I jerked to my feet when Mason pointed an accusing finger at me, looking drunk and vengeful. “What you did can never be forgiven.”

He swung.

Shit!

I ducked.

He swung again. This lash-out wasn’t entirely planned and he moved fast, the prick.

I knocked his arm aside. “Dude!”

Jackson, as planned, intervened. “Knock it off, High Roller!”

Mason whirled on him. “Stop pretending we’re fine, Black Jack! We’re not! We’re fucking falling apart!”

Tex, Abel, and Brody stormed over, also as planned. And then we were acting in our own cheap, alcohol-scented production of Let’s grieve over Gabriel by punching and screaming at our own brothers.

We were all yelling and shoving. Half of it was staged; the other half really wasn’t. It seemed like a few of us still had some shit to work out with one another.

Grant came out of fucking nowhere and grabbed me by the collar, shoving me into the stone fireplace so hard the back of my head bounced off it. I saw stars and my teeth rattled in my skull.

When my vision cleared, Grant’s eyes were red and puffy. Emotion hit me harder than any punch, drowning me in yet another wave of grief and guilt. No matter how many times Caroline was there to pull me out, it always came back.

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