Page 56 of Tangled Threats on the Nomad Highway
“And you’d be right. Not sayin’ I don’t wantto some days, though.” Bottles clinked. “Two sixes enough, youthink?”
“Should be more than plenty. I’m hanging upnow, Gunny.”
“About fuckin’ time. I don’t know how thehell you expect me to carry the beer and climb the stile if you’reinsistent on sticking me on this damn phone.”
Einstein laughed aloud as he disconnectedthe call. It took a minute for his eyes to readjust to thedarkness, but he set to work and quickly transferred a medium-sizedpile of wood and a handful of kindling to the metal ring. One kneeto the ground, he stacked the first few sticks over the top of thearranged kindling, then cursed quietly under his breath.
“Forgot a lighter?” Bane’s voice came fromthe darkness, tone light and teasing. “Happens to me all the time.Not sayin’ I want more brothers smokin’ death sticks, but I’ve surefound it handy when one of ’em is around.”
There was a click, and Einstein watched asthe kindling caught fire, tiny licks of flame dancing along thebottom edges of the pitchy wood.
“Gunny should be here soon.” He averted hisgaze, trying to regain the night vision that had fled at the brightblaze.
“Wanna give me a preview of the topic? Isthis a club business talk or one about the spectacle put on infront of a local diner today?”
“What?” His head snapped around, and hestared at Bane across the tiny fire.
“You really think you could lip-lock Marianlike that and not have it get back to me?” What he could see ofBane’s expression was amused, not angry as he’d expected. “Want mypersonal opinion? I’m glad y’all finally pulled y’all’s heads outof y’all’s asses and stopped dancing around each other. Glad youlet loose of the idea you weren’t allowed to be happy again, afterwhat happened with your wife and kid. I know bringing them up isprobably not what you want or even expect, but they were part ofyou, man. They should never be a forbidden subject. I can’t imagineMarian makin’ you feel that way either.” Bane crouched, poking atthe growing fire with a stick as Einstein stared at him,dumbfounded. “She’s a good woman who had a shit start, and shedeserves someone who’ll go to the mat for her. From what I knowabout you, it seems to me like she found one.”
Bane stood and made his way to one of thecomfortable wooden seats the club’s prospects had crafted out ofgiant logs. Einstein stayed on his knees next to the fire,following Bane with his gaze.A forbidden subject?He didn’tknow how Bane could think that about Einstein’s girls, especiallysince he’d dedicated the past three years of his life to trackingdown the man who’d been the cause of their deaths.
Sure, I don’t talk about them much, butthat’s not because they deserve to be hidden away.
Mostly it was out of self-preservation, atleast at first. Being around couples, some of them with kids aroundMakayla’s age, had hurt like a motherfucker.Survival mode.Was that honest, though? They’d been gone more than a year beforehe’d met Bane.Wasn’t that I wallowed, though.A memorystruck him of Retro standing in his kitchen back in Birmingham,staring at a pile of splintered wood that had been furniture.Dark days, that’s all it was.That had been nearly a yeargone from planting his girls into the ground, though. Einstein washonest with himself, had come to grips with the knowledge that ifRetro hadn’t dragged him kicking and screaming into the daylight,he would have gladly remained in the dark.I’d have stayed thereuntil the dark was all there was.
He thought of Marian’s face following theirfirst kiss, her seated on the squeaky plastic of a bench in a boothmeant for families and lovers.She’s the opposite ofdarkness. Softly yearning, her lips had chased his. Thelove-drunk expression in her eyes when they fluttered open hadcurled gently around his heart, warming him from the insideout.
“Okay, I have feelings for her.” The honestyin his statement literally knocked him sideways, his ass landing inthe packed dirt around the fire ring.No I don’t. It’s just aruse.Bile rose in his throat at the thought, and he knew lyingto himself wouldn’t be possible.She thinks it’s a stunt, alie.Now he wanted to vomit at the idea he was actively takingsomething so good and perverting it for his own end. “Not sure shefeels the same.” That was truth, because she’d only agreed to goalong with the plan after she’d understood what happened to Laurenand Makayla.Will we ever be able to get past this intosomething that’s real on both sides?“I’m going to do what Ican to get her there.”
“Brother.” Gunny’s urgent shout camefrom the darkness. His tone had hair all over Einstein’s bodyraising into gooseflesh. Einstein awkwardly climbed to his feet,aware of Bane doing the same across the flames. “Answer yourfuckin’ phone already.” Heat suffused his voice as he came intoview. “There’s something happened to Marian.”
***
It was hours later and the words were stillcircling his head.
Something happened to Marian.
Luke had first phoned the house, and unableto get an answer, had called Bane’s cell phone. With the deviceleft on the kitchen countertop, that call had also gone tovoicemail, and so Luke had turned to Gunny for help.
Luke and Marian had been at the theater,walking out with the crowd afterwards, when he said his sister hadstumbled. He’d caught at her to try and steady her, but a man wasthere faster. Luke said all he could grab was her arm, because theman already had a hold around her shoulders, keeping her upright asher head nodded. The man hadn’t said anything at all, ignoring Lukeand steering a mumbling Marian to a van parked along the curbnearby. Luke had yelled as he’d yanked at her hand, trying futilelyto pull her from the man’s grip.
Luke had still been screaming and yanking atthe handle as the van door shut in his face and the vehicle pulledaway. Only then did some of the people in the crowd ask what waswrong.
Gunny estimated it had taken less than tenseconds to incapacitate her, probably medically, and then anotherten to abduct her in clear view of more than three dozen people.With everyone’s attention on the shouting boy, the police didn’thave a plate to run, and only the most generic “white panel van” asa description. Luke hadn’t looked at the man, his attention focusedon his sister, so even the club didn’t have a single solid clue tofollow.
Einstein knew, though. He knew if there’dbeen a picture taken of the moment—there were security cameras thatpotentially had a view of the scene, and Myron of the RWMC wasworking that angle right now—he’d see the same face that hadhaunted him for three years.
“Scar.” He leaned his shoulders against theoutside wall of the house, staring into the darkness from the frontporch. There were too many people inside, and he’d escaped out herea while ago, ensuring Bane and Gunny knew where to find him ifthere was a need.
I underestimated him.
Einstein was gutted that he’d been soconfident in his read on Scar’s movements.
Again.
In the hours since the calls had come in,he’d had numerous flashbacks to what had happened before. Lauren’sterror as she sat on the couch next to Scar. Makayla’s fear asshe’d asked what was happening. The horror of their silent and coldbodies lying next to him in a van very similar to the one in whichMarian had been taken.
Retro’s response on the call letting himknow what had happened summed up Einstein’s world. “Jesus fuck, notagain.”
