Page 118 of Blue-Eyed Jacks
He directed the question at me.
“Fuck no.I’m not messy.”I nudged Zoe to stop peeking around me and get her ass fully behind my body as a shield.Kate stood at my side.
“I did it.”
This time, my woman lied convincingly.
Nonno frowned.He turned to the one person who wouldn’t, couldn’t, lie to him.“Bandit?”
He sent me an apologetic glance.“Zoe killed him.”
Nonno’s eyebrows lifted.“Really?”He tried to see around me to get a gander at my baby girl, but I puffed up larger to block his line of sight.
His eyes fixed on me.“A chip off the old block, huh?”He huffed out a humorless laugh.“Just like One-Eyed Jack.”His head shook in disbelief.His motion finally stilled when he fixated on Shock’s body.“How am I going to explain this?”
“Blackmail?”Bandit offered.He pulled a photo from the suitcase he’d been stuffing.Most of the photos were crumpled.A few were blood-stained.That would be a problem if anyone else showed up, mainly the police, but the item in Bandit’s hand was incriminating as hell.Because I recognized the face in it.
One “Tercel Timmy” stared at me from his watery grave.
Nonno took it from Bandit.He studied the photo and the notes written on the back.“Huh.”
That could mean any number of things.And since I was no longer a Destroyer, none of those interpretations meant shit to me.“We’re leaving.”
Nonno had questions.“Jackson?”
We’d made it twosteps.“What?”
Nonno hadn’t taken his eyes off the photo.He started slowly.“I fucked up tonight.”
No shit?But again, not my fucking problem.I tugged Kate’s hand, indicating the gauntlet of bikers at the door.
Had to give her credit, she held her head high and took a step in that direction.
Nonno had to ruin our escape.“I promoted the wrong man because of shit like this haunting me.”He finally lifted his gaze to skewer me with his stare.“And I think you already knew that.”
I did, but there were more important things in my life than fixing Nonno’s shit.But maybe I could use it to my advantage?Zoe’s fingers hooked onto my belt loop.She’s more important.“So?That’s ayouproblem.”I wrapped my arm over Zoe’s shoulder and kept her there all the way out the door and down the street.Both Kate and Zoe remained quiet as I bundled them inside the ugly Subaru.
Meanwhile, Nonno stood in the driveway, monitoring my every move.But he didn’t stop me from driving away.
I headed north, then east, practically retracing the route I’d taken out of Pittsburgh with Kate the very first time.She noticed and reached for my hand as we put miles between us and anything biker-related.A long-ass drive later, we were in Maine.I followed them inside the little house I technically did and didn’t own.
“Wow, this doesn’t look like the same place.”It utterly didn’t.
“I had a landlord who didn’t give a shit what I did with the place.”
Kate was funny.
“Thank God for that.”
Zoe stumbled past us.Even though she slept most of the ride, she still was in that zombie state of exhaustion, and she hadn’t eaten a single thing the whole trip.“I’m going to bed.”
That sounded like a great idea.Except, I didn’t have one here… unless… I tracked her ascent to the split attic above.Then, quietly asked Kate, “One of those rooms is yours right?”
Her shoulders jiggled with silent laughter.Her slow steps toward the stairs invited me forward.“I guess it’s ours now?”
Maybe.If nothing followed me here.“That would be nice.”
She stopped to stare at me.“What are we going to do?”
