Amara's eyes don't leave my face.
"You're a motorcycle club," I say. "So you're going to help me go get them."
CHAPTER THREE
Rooster
Nobody's said a word in ten seconds, and I've counted every one of them.
Amara's hand is off the truck door.
The wind's back and it's pushing that plastic bag along the fence.
Mila's standing in the road with her chin up and her hand still in the air from the three she counted off, and she's told the president of this charter what Amara needs to do.
Amara looks at her, then she laughs.
It comes out through her nose, one breath, and she puts her hands in her back pockets and rocks up onto her toes and comes back down.
She's smiling now, and the hair on my arms goes up.
"Okay." She rolls her neck. "Let's go through that one more time."
Mila doesn't move.
"You walked onto my ground. Uninvited. Through a gate my prospect had no authority to open." Amara takes three steps and doesn't hurry about it, and stops close enough that she has tolook up. "And then you told me.Toldme. Whatmyclub's going to do."
"Yes."
"Yes." Amara nods. "You know who I am?"
"You're the president."
"Mm." She tips her head. "You know what that means here? Or you know the patch?"
"It means it's your call."
"It means it's my call." Amara pulls one hand out of her pocket and taps two fingers against her own chest. "So let me make one. You want to know what happens to people who come to my gate and give me instructions?"
"You put them back on the road."
"I put them back on the road." She's still smiling. "You got that part right. You walked in here thinking you had leverage, and you played the only card you had inside ninety seconds. Now you're standing on my road in a jacket that isn't warm enough with nothing left in your hand." She lets it sit. "Was that the plan?"
Mila doesn't answer.
"From where I'm standing it looks like you were counting on me being sentimental about a woman who's had a hard time." Amara's voice doesn't move an inch. "I'm not. I've got four of them inside that building right now and every one of them earned their place in it. You haven't earned a glass of fucking water."
I open my mouth.
"Don't." Amara doesn't look at me. "You don't get to talk yet. You're going to want to and you're not going to."
Mila's hand comes down slowly.
She's looking at Amara and she's doing what she's done since the second I put eyes on her, which is nothing.
I used to know every look she had. I don't know this one.
"You're right," Mila says.
