Page 136 of Kings Don't Break

“I was shot, and I was run off a cliff by Madrigal. I don’t know what happened next… ’cept I woke up in their hands. In some border town. They were fixing me up,” he explains, his speech slow and stilted. “They were gonna use me as slave labor. Then something happened. Their leaders were taken out. The whole cartel was up in the air.”

“We took out their kingpin, Javier. His brothers too,” Silver clarifies.

“Some of the guys who had me in their custody struck some kinda deal with somebody else. An American. Guy by the name of Rooker. They sold him me and a couple others. Guess to offload us ’cuz shit was going down.”

“What did Rooker do with you?” I ask.

“He brought us to another dump. Back in Texas. Smuggled us in.”

“Why do I feel like nothing good came of your stay there?” Tito sighs with a solemn shake of his head.

Logan pierces him with a stare that’s lifeless and disturbed. Exhaustion rings his pale blue eyes. The scars etched onto his skin draw more attention to how worn down he is. They speak for themselves.

“It was nothing I would ever wish on anybody,” Logan says after a long pause. “Rooker’s the leader of a cult—the Chosen Saints is what they call themselves.”

“A cult?! Holy sweet fucking Jesus,” Bush swears with a whistle.

Mace takes a step toward his brother, his gaze narrowed in suspicion. “A cult? That’s where you’ve been all this time, Logan?”

His older brother drops his eyes to the ground. More horrors pass before him, like he’s suddenly time traveled. “Me and a few others were their captives. Their… offerings.”

He trails off without explanation, and though he doesn’t explain, he doesn’t need to. Whatever it meant to be an offering in this cult he speaks of, it’s evident it’s nothing anybody would want to be.

I run a hand through my hair and glance over at Mace. He’s caught between the suspicion of his brother suddenly being alive and the confusion of it. He doesn’t know which direction to go in. Neither do I. Neither does Silver or anybody else.

Logan sighs. “I escaped. Finally… after years. I made it out. But they’re still strong—they might be looking for me. Rooker and his minions. Don’t know much about ’em. ’Cept that they’re affiliated with the Rebels. The prez in prison, Rollins.”

I share an ominous look with Bush and Tito.

“You’re saying this cult that took you is affiliated with the Road Rebels?” Silver repeats.

Logan nods and pierces the room with another haunted stare. “I’m going to murder them. Every one of them for what they did… the things they… I’ll die. So long as they do.”

“We’ll get ’em,” Silver says. He turns around to the rest of us. “Right?”

“Always,” Tito adds. “We got you.”

Bush nods while I say, “We’ll take ’em out like we always do.”

Everybody looks to Mace. He hesitates a second, still clinging to his suspicions of his once-dead brother. Then he scrubs a hand over his head and gives a nod.

“Rooker, this fucking cult, what’s left of the Rebels, they’re dead. All of ’em.”

Logan gives no reaction, if he’s even capable of one. “There’s more to it than that. They’ve still got captives.”

“We’ll get ’em out.”

“No,” Logan says. “You don’t understand. They’ve got captives. They’ve got… my wife.”

* * *

Korine waits up for me. She took my truck and drove herself and Sunny home when the meeting with the guys took too long (I shot off a text and told her to do it). I wave off Bush, who’s given me a ride to her apartment, and then head up to find her waiting for me at her dining room table. She jumps up at the sound of my key in the lock and is rushing toward me when the door falls open.

Her arms fly out to yank me into a grateful embrace. Then come the kisses and mutters of how worried she’s been all these hours. I let her work through it ’til we’re drawing back from each other and I’m able to peer into her shiny dark eyes.

“It’s alright,” I say, stroking her cheek. “I’m okay. Everybody’s okay—or as okay as they could be given everything.”

“What happened? Logan?—”