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A million dollars? To this piece of scum? But this was what I had come for. I didn’t even know if I had a million dollars—but if I didn’t, then Devon Wilder certainly did. I didn’t know Devon Wilder, but if he didn’t want to give me the money for his brother, there would be hell to pay—from me
. “Fine,” I said to my father. “A million.”
He kept smiling. “Have a nice life, Dani,” he said. “Someone will be in touch about the money.”
And that was how I bought my husband’s life, from my own father, with my newfound money. And how I finally settled my daddy issues so I could get on with things.
I walked out of the prison half an hour later and got into my car—Cavan’s car—in the parking lot. My hands were still shaking, but the sweat had dried cold and uncomfortable on my skin. I pulled off the sweater—I’d probably burn it—and looked at my phone. There was nothing from Cavan. I wondered where he was right now.
I thought about calling him.
I had all of my belongings in the back of the car. I’d checked out of the hotel in Vegas this morning, knowing I would never go back. I’d done what I wanted to do there. The memories were both too good and too bad for me to stay.
I hadn’t thought about where I would go next, but now that I’d left the prison, I realized I knew. I was on a road trip, it seemed, from my past into my future, back into my past again to put things right before I ended up where I needed to be.
I started the car and headed in the direction of L.A. It was time to visit my mother.
Twenty-Five
Cavan
Maybe it would have been noble to have a heart to heart with McMurphy. A conversation, a meeting of the minds. He’d made mistakes; I’d made mistakes. He was a little off his rocker, but he wasn’t an unreasonable man when you spoke his language. We could talk through this, maybe come to an understanding. Besides, he was bigger than me, and I was outnumbered.
I should have thought it through logically.
Instead, I attacked his mean, leathery ass.
I used the element of surprise. McMurphy saw me as a pussy, an ink man who wasn’t a true brother, so he didn’t expect it. I walked out of the bar and up to his bike as he parked. I caught him as he was still swinging his leg over the seat, his helmet still on. I kicked his kneecap hard on his balance leg and sent him sprawling to the pavement.
I had a split second, so I used it. I yanked his helmet off and punched him in the face.
He roared. Really roared, like I’d awoken a dinosaur in Jurassic Park. He scrambled up but I kicked him in the gut and unbalanced him, sending him down again. Then I punched him again.
It hurt. McMurphy had a skull of cement, and I felt the skin on my knuckles split. I struck again, but he dodged and I only glanced his nose, which must have smarted. Then his big hands grabbed me and jerked me down to the pavement with him.
It was all so familiar—here I was, fighting again. Like it was a Friday night at the Black Dog clubhouse, and some biker wanted to trade shots over whatever argument crawled up his ass. Like the guy who had come at me at the soda machine. Maybe someday I’d be done with fighting, just like I’d be done with diners and hotels, but today was not that day. It was either fight or let McMurphy rearrange my face. Besides, this time I was fucking mad.
McMurphy tried to get my throat; I tried to get him in the nuts. I got him a good one in the kidneys, and he cracked my temple with his huge fist. I managed to smack my elbow into his jawbone and snap his teeth together hard. He managed to thump my head into the pavement.
We rolled around like that, both of us intent. We had an audience; I could hear some shouts of surprise, the shuffle of feet. I wasn’t worried about the four bikers who had arrived with McMurphy; they wouldn’t join in. Instead they’d stand and watch, entertained, until either McMurphy signaled them to finish me off or until it looked like I was winning. If either of those happened, they’d gang up on me and turn me into roadkill. But not yet.
It was undignified, it was unplanned, it was maybe even anticlimactic. But it was so fucking satisfying, I didn’t want it any other way. Without Dani to worry about, I was done being nice. Done talking. I realized in this moment that I had spent years—literally years—wanting to punch McMurphy’s face. What he’d done to Dani—that she’d wasted her time and her confidence on him, her trust, even her virginity—just made it worse. I had my opportunity, and I punched him as hard and as often as I fucking could, even when it hurt my hands and I took my shots in return.
It was fucking glorious.
He was bigger than me, but I held my own—maybe because I was angrier, or I had more at stake, or maybe just because I wasn’t hungover as fuck. Which McMurphy was; he smelled like he’d slept in a bed of whiskey and pork rinds. The stench only made me more determined, and I hit him harder.
A heavy motorcycle boot kicked me in the back, and I flinched, losing my grip on McMurphy. The other bikers either had a signal, or they got bored. A hard pair of hands grabbed me and dragged me off McMurphy, and I heard my brother growl, “Hands off, motherfucker.”
Shit. Devon was getting involved.
Blood was running into my left eye, but I managed to get my feet under me so I could try to scramble up. Someone kicked my foot out from under me.
“This is it, McMurphy?” I said, wiping the blood from my eye. The bikers were surrounding me, and McMurphy was sitting up a few feet away. “You can’t beat me one on one, so you call in your buddies?”
“Shut up, Wilder,” McMurphy said.
“You piece of shit,” one of the bikers said, taking a swing at me. I dodged, and then Devon was there, twisting his fist into the biker’s ratty t-shirt. “Back the fuck off,” he said. Anyone who thought Devon was afraid of a few bikers had obviously never grown up with my brother.
