Page 33 of Merciless

Off my look, Ax tells me, “They got a study around the corner.”

He walks to one of the couches and slumps down, taking a load off.

I follow him over and sit on the edge of the one opposite.

Now there’s some calm before the storm descends again, it brings all the shit Charlotte confessed to me boiling to the surface. All that stuff about Kim. About that day. The brutal day when Ax lost his mom to Skinner and Broker.

“There’s something I gotta tell you.”

His eyes shoot to mine and he asks warily, “About Kingmaker?”

“In a way, yeah.”

Since she told me, I been debating on whether I should even tell him. It ain’t just the brutality of it. It’s the fact that it came down to a choice between his mom and his wife. I’ve been worried it might put a wedge between him and my daughter, endanger their marriage.

But I gotta believe Ax is better than that. Him and Roxana have been through too much to let something like this get between them.

And he has a right to know.

With the way things are going, there’s also a major chance of him finding out anyway. I’d rather it come from me, in my way, than from anybody else. If that happened, it could fuck up things between him and me, the club, my daughter.

“Charlotte told me something, something I had no clue about. If I did, I would’ve told you. I know I got my secrets sometimes, but this is different.”

“How? What is it?”

“It’s about your mom.”

He tenses right up.

“About the day she died.”

“The day she was murdered, you mean.”

All right, not off to the greatest start. “Yeah.”

When I take a beat, he presses impatiently, “I’m all ears, Dealer.”

“It weren’t known to me at the time, but Char was doing me a solid and keeping an eye on Roxana while I was off the grid. That day she went to Skinner’s home to have it out with him about my accident and my supposed death, Char was aware. She was the one who alerted Kim to Roxana being in danger inside. Kim didn’t hear nothing. She weren’t even in the house and Skinner’s office was soundproofed. Kim went in because Charlotte alerted her. That’s how Roxana ended up surviving that day.”

He pushes off the couch and turns around, hanging his head.

He don’t say nothing for a long while.

He curses, slamming his fist into the couch.

“I’m sorry, Ax.”

I hear him suck in a calming breath, then he turns around. He’s all steely resolve as he tells me, “First time I found out it was Rox’s life for my mom’s that day, I didn’t handle it well. Almost ruined everything with Rox because of it. But I got past it. I am past it.” He sighs. “My mom’s days were always numbered as Skinner’s wife. Rox’s weren’t, she just needed a chance, a stroke of luck, and my mom gave it to her that day. Charlotte too, apparently.”

“So, you’re good? Considering, I mean?”

“Yeah,” he says, nodding. “I’m good.”

“It ain’t gonna impact you and my baby girl?”

“‘Course not. She’s the love of my life. My wife. The mother of my daughter. Nothing can touch that. Things are the way they are for a reason, Dealer. You feel me?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

“All right then. You can chill out now, stop worrying about it all. We’re good. Glad you told me and I appreciate it.”

Before anything more can be said, Runner comes striding back into the room, a laptop in hand, my SD Card sticking out of it. “Let’s get to work, fuckers.” He sits down beside Ax, placing the laptop on the coffee table and grins at me excitedly. “Let’s find Kingmaker.”

He’s way too overexcited about something so serious.

But at least it means he’s all in, invested.

It’ll help find her faster.

I just hope even that ain’t gonna be too late.

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