Page 146 of Caution to the Wind

“Might I suggest, instead of killing me, we collaborate?” Maxwell offered, his voice choked off by the pressure of his collar pulled tight around his throat and the axe cuttin’ just so into his neck. “I’ve been working toward taking down Kasper for years. I’ve got a stake in taking them down same as you. More than you. All I want in return is a chance to meet Cleo.”

“Abso-fuckin’-lutely not,” I snapped. “After everythin’ she’s been through, she doesn’t need a new father to deal with.”

“I just want to know her,” he said, soft like he was an innocent, like he hadn’t been a part of makin’ her an almost-orphan at twelve years old. “She’d be in charge of how much or how little we interacted.”

I scowled at him, heart beating like a fist on the inside of my rib cage. It killed me, but there was no way I had a right to keep this from my daughter. I wouldn’t lie to her, and she deserved to know where she came from, even if that person was a pile of steamin’ dog shit.

“I’ll tell her about you,” I muttered begrudgingly. “’Cause it’s the right thing to do for Cleo. Not for you. And I’ll do it when the time is right, after all this shit is finally put to bed.”

Maxwell brightened, and it irritated me that he was sittin’ there surrounded by outlaws with his finger in the vice of pliers, and he looked as comfortable as if he was sharin’ a beer with me at the local pub. Then again, a man didn’t become the leader of a criminal syndicate by showin’ fear in the face of adversity.

“So, we’ll work together?” he confirmed, and there was a bloodthirsty hunger there I could recognize.

I wanted to work with White Snake like I wanted a bullet through the head. Fury was still pumpin’ through me, takin’ me as close as I’d ever been to killin’ the true reason for Kate’s tragedy. As far as I was concerned, Maxwell’s negligence was just as much to blame as Kasper’s will to murder her.

I was paralyzed by the internal battle of what was right and what felt right in that moment.

’Til a small hand pressed itself into my back, a heated brand that sank through cloth and flesh straight into bone. Through the fog of hate and fury, Mei’s presence cut like adaosword.

“Axe-Man,” she said, but she said it the way she would say Henning. Like it was made of magic, like it could open doors and move worlds.

Like she had unshakeable faith in me and everythin’ I represented.

Hearin’ it now grounded me unlike anythin’ else could’ve.

“He used Jiang to manipulate me,” Mei murmured. “To keep me from finding the truth and to help him take out the Red Dragons. Everything you’re feeling right now, Kasper deserves to have rained down on him.”

“Doesn’t mean this motherfucker doesn’t deserve some of the same,” I countered.

“You’re right,” Mei said, and her voice was a slitherin’ thing, curlin’ like a snake around my neck to hiss at Maxwell. “So, take what you want from him. White Snake owes you a finger or two for the pain he’s put you through, but when you’re done, wash your hands and let’s work on a plan.”

It was an odd moment to realize Mei Zhen’s ironclad hold over me. But somethin’ like love surged through me at those wicked, cruel words. It was the sensation of bein’ seen at your very worst and not bein’ found wantin’. No, it was the exact opposite. It was bein’ seein’ at your worst, on the precipe of burnin’ down the whole world for selfish reasons, and bein’ encouraged to take your fill.

No one had ever seen the darkness in me andenjoyedit. Not like Mei.

It made that part of me easier to accept, easier to relish when I secretly longed to indulge the sinful side of my nature that called for bloodshed, more than just an eye for an eye. That howled for rough touches and bite marks like stamps of ownership on flesh. That failed at bein’ a soldier and a doctor but thrived at bein’ this outlaw, 1%er biker.

Mei saw it all, the bad and the ugly, and shestillthought I was good.

She always had.

Something fundamental shifted in my rib cage, tectonic plates grindin’ painfully to make room for somethin’ new, a mountain range of her unshakeable belief that spanned the entire length of my spine and made it easier to hold up my world.

Filled with resolve, I grinned at White Snake with all the predatory instinct inside me bared between my sharp teeth. “I think it’s only fair, before we get down to business, that I take payment like Rocky said. What do you think, Maxwell, two fingers or three?”

AXE-MAN

The lake was a sheet of ripplin’black velvet near the shore and shimmerin’ silver under the full bellied moon overhead at its depths where I rowed the small boat holdin’ Mei and the four dead bodies of the Red Dragon triad we’d killed earlier that night.

It was hours later. After I’d taken two of White Snake’s fingers, which he’d stoically endured with the kinda martyred acceptance I recognized all too well. He felt he deserved it, at the very least, for what had happened to Kate and to his daughter as a result. I was glad we were on the same fuckin’ page ’cause there was no way I could move on to strategy without purgin’ some of the violence ragin’ inside me.

After, when I’d washed up and Maxwell’s three-fingered right hand and shot-through wrist was bandaged by Bat, we’d gathered in church to vote on workin’ with the Red Dragons to take down Seven Song.

Not one brother had objected.

The Red Dragons had once caused problems for a rival MC, the Berkserkers, but they’d never done shit to The Fallen. While the Seven Song had helped the Calgary chapter betray me, nearly taken out Curtains when he’d tried to help their hacker, Obsidian Swan, escape her cage, and finally, they’d threatened our entire club if we didn’t act like obedient fuckin’ dogs and haul their product for them.

As Wrath said, they deserved to burn for one transgression, let alone all three.