Page 183 of Misrule
“Prez…”
“No, fuck, Mort, while you tellin’ my ass to go easy on that bitch, you forgettin’ what she was gonna do to my boy.Twoseparate fuckin’ occasions. You just givin’ that cunt a pass.”
“I’m not,” Mortician insisted, slightly offended. “Kendall got issues, though.”
“Yeah, bein’ alive,” Christopher snapped. “That’s her biggest motherfuckin’ issue.”
“At least admit she have a mental problem.”
“Okay, Mort. Ima admit to that shit. In her mind, she think she better than every-fuckin-body. Mental problem identi-fuckin-fied.”
“You letting your anger blind you.”
“That shit allowin’ me to see quite fuckin’ clearly. If I had a fuckin’ crystal ball, that motherfucker would be fuckin’ red with Kendall blood. That’s how fuckin’ clear knowin’ she gotta die is to me.”
“Outlaw, if Meggie girl find out, what’s going to happen then?”
Christopher turned away from Mort, went to his bike, opened his saddlebag, and pulled out a pint of rum. He uncapped it and finished half the bottle. “I ain’t gonna have Megan if Kendall stay in the fuckin’ picture. Sooner or later, that cunt gonna do something that really get my girl fuckin’ killed. Then what?” He finished the bottle off, then used it to point at his friend. “Ima tell you then what. My fuckin’ life over. I gotta get rid of Kendall, Mort. She ruinin’ my life, Megan life, Johnnie life, fuck, her kids’ lives. She miserable and makin’ every-fuckin-body else fuckin’ miserable.”
“She one of us, Prez. Just like motherfucking Knox. Just like Roxanne. And Bailey. And Meggie. Kendall one of us. She belong to Johnnie.”
Christopher’s life would be so much easier if Kendall was gone, but what would her death do to Johnnie? Especially if Christopher backed her into a suicide. Johnnie might not ever forgive himself.
Mort’s phone dinged and he grabbed it from his pocket. “Look,” he said a moment later, holding the device up. “Bailey made reservations for our second honeymoon at this resort.”
“When Knox first proposed to Roxanne, I told my-fuckin-self that we was gonna keep shit on the right track and just focus on the fuckin’ weddin’. Yet…” His voice trailed off and he shook his head. “Yet—”
“Planning a fucking wedding, or two, is so far off the goddamn radar, we probably won’t ever get it back on track, huh, Prez?” Mort’s expression dropped, and matched the plaintive note in his voice.
Instead of backing off from his plans for Kendall, he’d speed things up. The quicker this was fucking handled, the quicker life would get back to fucking normal.
Using Emily was the right choice. No fucking way would Johnnie be cursed with bad e-fuckin-nuff luck to get two lunatic bitches in a row.
Emily couldn’t ever be as bad as Kendall.
Never.
“Let’s ride, Mort,” Christopher said, pretending the dark feeling chasing him wasn’t warning him to back off.
Pretending the winds of blood and death weren’t moving in, and threatening not only the wedding, but their lives, too.
Chapter Forty-Five
“Val!”
The happy greeting came from Gabe as Knox and Val walked into the tattoo shop Gabe owned. If Knox remembered, Gabe was Bunny’s brother. There were so many branches of family and friends that Knox couldn’t keep them all straight. One segment of their vast tree might break in one place, then pick up with the same father, sister or aunt, in another. Sometimes, he felt as if the entire town of Hortensia were connected to Outlaw in some way.
“What brings you in here?” Gabe asked, hands on hips, a walking pincushion with pierced brows, lips and nose. Big rings pulled his earlobes down in a grotesque display. “Hey, Knox,” he finally decided to greet.
Surprised that Gabe knew him, Knox nodded. “Gabe.”
They’d only run into each other at club functions three or four times, and talked even less than that.
As Val and Gabe caught up on happenings in their lives, Knox looked at the tattoo drawings lining the walls. Some were simple Celtic designs and black ink; others were intricate and colorful. It was a really nice shop, with a receptionist station that they stood around. In the middle of the room, half-walls surrounded an area containing a specialized chair, a sink, and utility cabinets. Amidst an arrangement of red leather couches, benches, and matching club chairs stood black lacquer tables, one overflowing with magazines.
“The reports aren’t ready yet.”
Gabe’s words grabbed Knox’s attention.
