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“I set him up at your usual spot,” Bruno said.
My usual spot was a slab of concrete in the middle of Souls Chapel, Texas. Deep in the woods that was surrounded by hundreds of acres of nothing.
It was my retreat. My paradise. Other people’s hell.
“You going with me?” I asked, looking around the club and wondering if I should even bother going up to my office.
“No,” he said. “I have a few people to track down for you.”
I nodded once.
“Okay then,” I said as I headed toward my bike. “I’ll just go take care of this now.”
In my early days, I learned a lot from one of my most favorite people—an old Army medic that specialized in getting information out of people that didn’t want to give it.
I’d been at an impressionable age, and he’d taught me that everyone had a breaking point.
It’d taken me years to get to where I was today, able to get things out of people while extending very little effort.
Honestly, this was the fun part of my job. Getting what I wanted, making people realize that I’d do whatever I had to do, even kill them, to get it.
Remounting my bike, I grinned like a motherfucker and headed out, riding like the hounds of hell were at my heels the entire way.
• • •
I arrived at my on-again off-again home away from home in the middle of Souls Chapel, Texas an hour and forty-eight minutes later.
Arriving, I wasn’t surprised to find Laric, the very first man that I’d recruited for this operation, already there.
He was standing at the gate, a dog at his heels, looking at me as if he had no emotions at all.
We both knew that to be a lie.
Laric Mason had spent six years in prison for beating a man to death with his bare hands. Even now, on parole two years later, he was forced to attend bi-annually mandatory anger management classes.
Needless to say, Laric was a fairly angry person.
So, for him to be completely blank was telling.
He did not like this guy that he was guarding in the least.
“How’s it going?” I asked, parking beside his bike.
“It’s going,” he grumbled.
The dog fell into step beside him, and I looked down to see him curling his lip up at me and my closeness.
“New dog?” I asked curiously.
“New dog,” he confirmed. “Just came in last night from the sandbox.”
The sandbox being Afghanistan or Iraq. I wasn’t sure which.
“Anything major wrong with him?” I wondered.
“Hearing loss,” he said. “Some vision loss in his right eye. That’s why he doesn’t like you being on his right. He can’t see you.”
I moved to the opposite side of Laric, and the dog settled down.
“Tell me about our guest,” I ordered.
“Haven’t been able to get shit out of him,” Laric said. “Bruno was out here and told me to try. Guy’s not listening. He knows who you are, though.”
I smiled. “Oh yeah?”
Walking up to the circle where we did all of our business, or I did mine anyway, I started to remove my cuff links.
The guy looked up, spotted me, and immediately blanched.
“J-Joker,” he stuttered, looking at me with eyes full of fear.
I grinned at that.
I went by a lot of names. Lynn. Joker. Black Jack. Bonus. Whatever and whoever I needed to be that day chose my name. And today, apparently, I needed to be the bad guy. Joker it was.
“I see that you’ve met your concierge,” I drawled. “How’s your stay at Hotel Windsor been so far today?”
The little fucker looked at me with trepidation.
“Uh, great,” he lied.
I popped my fingers, then pulled a pair of brass knuckles out of my pocket. “Good.”
CHAPTER 5
Make America drunk again.
-Beer Mug
SIX
“Are you sure it’s okay with everyone that I go?” I asked curiously. “I know that you’re usually okay with it, but I don’t want to overstep.”
“It’s fine, I swear,” she said. “Me and my father’s old partner share it. They’re never here. They’re always working. And you know that you’re always welcome. Always.”
I looked longingly at the trail that would lead to a spring-fed pond, then said, “Okay. Thanks, Wyett.”
Wyett was a friend that’d gone to boarding school with me. She’d grown up in the same area as me, but we’d never met each other until our junior year of high school.
Wyett, like me, grew up privileged. Or as privileged as you could get when you were completely ignored by your family.
Though, where my parent doing the ignoring was my father, the parent doing the ignoring for her was her aunt.
“What’s your story? What will I tell your dad when he inevitably calls?” she asked. “Why are you leaving today?”
I grumbled under my breath. “I just need a break. I’m taking my camping shit, my portable charger, Kindle and my newly downloaded audiobooks and I’m going to disappear for a few days. Don’t expect a phone call from me, either. I’m turning my phone onto airplane mode so the battery lasts a bit longer.”
