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“What is that?”
“An exchange.”
“Of what?”
“You let Toi go to my boy and I’ll tell you everything.”
“Let my bounty go? Not hardly.”
“Then you can have me instead,” I tell him.
“Marcum! No!” Toi yells, her voice raw with tears.
“I already have you. Perhaps you’ve failed to notice.”
“Agree to my deal and I’ll make sure my men know to let you go—unharmed.”
“Interesting. You sacrifice yourself for the woman?”
“In a heartbeat,” I answer without pause.
“No….” Toi cries again, the sound tortured as if it’s being ripped from her. I have to force myself not to look at her. I can’t do this if I see her.
“Let me get this straight. I let Toi go, you tell me what I want and then I can do whatever I want with you? Then, I leave and there’s not a damn thing your men will do to me.”
“That easy.”
“What’s to stop them from attacking once I no longer have Toi? Perhaps you think I am stupid.”
“I told you—”
“You should stop wasting your breath. From the looks of you, you don’t have much left.”
“Here’s how this is going to go. I will let Drummond hold Toi, ten feet away as a show of good faith. You will kneel at my feet and tell me what I want. I’ll let Toi go when I’m satisfied and there’s a bullet in the back of your head.”
“What’s to keep you from keeping Toi?”
“Nothing, but then you’ll be dead. It will no longer be your concern.”
“One of my men stands with yours. I want someone close to Toi.”
“Very well.”
“Ride.”
“Here, man.”
“You’re in charge of the club now. Pick a man to protect my woman.”
“Marcum, please, don’t do this. Oh God, please don’t do this. I’ll go with you, Alvaro. I’ll go, just please stop this,” Toi is crying, her voice so raw and thick with tears. I’ve still not looked at her.
I can’t.
“Damn it, Marcum. This is suicide you’re wanting me to help with,” Ride growls.
“Pick someone. Don’t have a lot of time,” I tell him, and I mean that literally. I’m feeling dizzy as fuck. I’m bleeding out. It won’t be long before all this is academic. I’ve been close to death before. A man pulled out in front of me in a truck and I piled up my bike on my way back from Miami. I felt death coming for me then, and I feel it now. I have to fight it back. I need Toi safe.
“Ghost,” Ride says and his choice cuts me to the fucking bone. I hate it. It’s who I would have picked. He’ll protect Toi until he dies, I just couldn’t bring myself to name him. It’s one thing to die for Toi, I have no regrets doing that, but giving her to Ghost… That slices me raw.
Ghost walks down to me and takes the bandana from his head, wrapping it around my arm, pulling it so tight.
“This is not going to matter,” I tell him, but I’m hoping it does buy me a little more time before Alvaro finishes the job.
“Miracles can happen. Once I have Toi, Max will shoot the son of a bitch,” he says, but we both know by the time he can get Toi safe, it will be too late.
“Take care of her. I need her happy and living free. I need to know she gets that.”
Ghost stares me down for a minute and nods his head.
“Enough with the talking,” Alvaro interrupts. “I’m growing weary.”
“I was wrong, Marcum. You are the best man for Toi,” Ghost says as he walks away, but it doesn’t matter now.
Nothing does except that Toi is safe.72MarcumI look behind me and see the man pulling Toi a few feet away from Alvaro. There’s another man patting Ghost down, taking his guns and tossing them back toward Alvaro’s car. Ghost tries to take Toi in his arms, but she pushes him away and instead tries to run to me. I should have never looked at her. Ghost catches her at the waist, pulling her back.
Pulling her away from me.
“No! I don’t want this! Marcum don’t do this to me. I don’t want to live without you,” she cries. “I love you!”
My body jerks as I hear Alvaro’s gun ring out again.
I’m going to die, there’s no way around it. I feel it as another bullet tears through my shoulder. I can feel the hot lead carve through muscle and sink into the fucking bone. My body careens forward, my head slamming against the dusty ground. I look up to keep my eyes on Toi.
Death is coming for me now. There’s no escaping it and I know Toi knows it too. I see it in her eyes—that realization that the future we had planned is being ripped away. Her hand goes to her stomach, and I want to scream out at the unfairness of it all. My head begins to swim and I blink to try and clear my vision, but all I can see is what we would have had.
