Page 77 of Caution to the Wind

“You so much as mention my daughter again, I’ll cut out your tongue,” I told Jiang.

A sly smile spread across his face, but he lowered his eyes in deference to my threat. “Of course,Axe-Man. I was merely offering an incentive. You set up this meet with Zeus Garro, I’ll give you the name of the reason your wife was murdered.”

Aware of his gun pressin’ into my gullet, I didn’t make a move for him, and he slipped away from me and the wall, backin’ away down the alley with his hands casually stuffed into his pockets, eyes trained on me.

“As always, it was a pleasure doing business with you,” he called before turnin’ on his heels and disappearin’ around the corner.

“Escort him outta town,” I said without lookin’ back at my brothers.

Without a word, I heard the sound of Nova’s slightly uneven stride headin’ around the side of the buildin’ to get his bike. I knew he’d call in whichever of our brothers was closest to help him tail the Chinese crime boss outta city limits.

Bat didn’t move an inch, but he waited for Jae Pil to head inside before he sauntered up beside me and crossed his arms.

“How is it nightmares never seem to die?”

I snorted, scrubbin’ a hand down my face. “You find the answer to that, let me know. I’ve been tryin’ to kill them for years.”

Bat clamped a hand down on my shoulder, shakin’ it lightly. “Yeah, brother, me too.”

“We don’t need more shit to deal with,” I muttered, feelin’ the weight of my past bearin’ down on not just me, not even just Cleo and Lin, but the club. This group of brothers and their women and children who’d become my home. “We’ve had enough shit to deal with.”

“The shit’ll never stop comin’, man. The life we signed up for? It’s filled with the lowest of lows,” he noted, as always, wiser than any man had a right to be. “But we got the highest of fuckin’ highs along with it, and it’s those we gotta cling to. Go home and hug your daughter. Take tonight to be grateful we came out the other side of a fuckin’ serial killer in our midst with your daughteralive. Tomorrow, we’ll deal with what comes. We always do, and brother, just in case you were thinkin’ of pullin’ your same old martyr shit, we deal with it as a club, you hear me?”

“You’re a pain in the ass, you know that?” I asked to deflect from the fact that his words had found purchase in my chest, puncturin’ somethin’, an abscess, a never-healed wound that made me breathe a little easier.

“Yeah.” He grinned, then sobered, lookin’ over my shoulder at one of his many ghosts. “Now, get gone. Give Cleo a kiss for me.”

I would, not just ’cause I needed to hold my girl every time we’d spent time apart to remind me of what I’d nearly lost, but ’cause Bathadlost someone to The Prophet, his own wife. And every time I looked at my brother, I knew we could have easily been in each other’s place. And every time I felt that guilt of knowin’ my loved one had survived, it helped to know Bat was happy I had that.

“You’ll tell Z?”

Bat laughed. “You think he wasn’t Nova’s first call outta here, you’re wrong.” He laughed again when he pulled his vibratin’ phone from his pocket and showed me Z’s contact info on the screen. “Go, I’ll deal with this for tonight, and tomorrow, we’ll meet at the clubhouse.”

I pulled him into me, pressin’ my forehead to his in a quick gesture of profound thanks, and then turned on my heel to head for my bike.

Even with an escort outta town, I wouldn’t feel easy ’til I saw Cleo home safe with my own eyes.

MEI

“We really haveto do something about your hair, Glory.”

Cleo and I were in the steamy bathroom adjacent to her bedroom on the main floor of the cabin. I’d insisted she take a shower even though she had refused in a way that made it clear she’d been refusing to shower for days. Bea’s low-lidded glance confirmed it. The sweet and sour blonde had to leave to go to a doctor’s appointment––The Fallen’s death dealer had shown up in his terrifying red-headed glory to retrieve her––and I was glad to be alone with my best friend. She was softer with me, that bristling energy she had since the attack lowering to an easier frequency. It made it simpler to manipulate her into the bathroom and sit her on the lip of a glorious free-standing tub before a massive picture window while I adjusted the temperature of the handheld showerhead.

She didn’t even fuss when I stripped her down to her underwear, but then, I didn’t try to relieve her of those before helping her to sit in the tub. I imagined she wouldn’t like to be naked following the assault, and the slight tremble in her lower lip when I forwent their removal spoke volumes.

Her eyes were closed now, her body lax in the cradle of the big tub as I gently worked warm water and a sudsy washcloth over her skin. Sometimes she made a little humming noise, and sometimes she flinched when I passed over the fresh pink of barely healed wounds. There were so many knife marks––eleven––all over her body, in the softest places in a woman’s flesh, like The Prophet was trying to punish her for her womanliness.

When I spoke, she peeked through one lid.

“My hair?” Her hand went up to grab the ends where they should be laying over her shoulder and encountered nothing but air. There was a splash as her hand dropped abruptly back into the water.

My heart clutched at itself, hungry for retribution against a dead man.

“Yeah,” I said casually, reaching over to grab the shampoo and lathering it between my hands before I shifted to straddle the tub behind her back. My bare feet slid against the bottom of the tub, but Cleo grabbed my ankles to steady me and then held on. “What do you think about a cute blue pixie cut? You’re pretty enough to pull it off, and I bet Lin would love to get her hands on you.”

Her nose wrinkled as I started to work my fingers into her scalp. “I don’t think I could pull off crazy-coloured hair.”

“Why not?”