Page 9 of Bram

“My sons seem to think it’s time I start dating, find an old lady.”

“So?”

“What kind of life is this, Edge?” I steepled my fingers. “Fucking late nights with club shit, running guns, might start a pussy house, constantly looking over your shoulder. What woman wants this life?”

Edge laughed big and hearty-like. “Every old lady associated with this club wants this kind of life.” He motioned at the women at the club’s playground for kids. “Not every woman wants a man in a suit, working ten hours a day while her ass struggles at home with three and a half kids, Bram.”

“Julie Sparta,” I said.

“The DA?”

I looked directly at him. “I might have a feeling or two.”

“She makes your dick hard.”

“Of course.” I looked straight ahead. “But there’s something else.”

“What’s that saying, ‘You won’t know until you shoot your shot?’”

I turned. “Not sure we need that kind of connection to the club. Not even sure I can trust her.”

“You’re creating a tragedy without even giving it a chance, brother.” He looked at the empty ice bucket.

“So you think it’s an okay idea?” I shook my head. He was easier to just get laid and not have to worry about the after. There would be an after with Julie. “Even though she’s half my age?

“Younger women like them some older dick, brother. Don’t knock the opportunity.”

“You’re right,” I said and rubbed my chin, thinking about Julie.

Maybe it was time. Maybe Millie would approve. But maybe I needed to find a woman who hated me a little less than Julie did.

five

Bram

We rode out before dawn, the four patches following in a loose diamond, backlit by the rolling red dust. The engines echoed across the flats, nothing but throttle and wind between us and the target. I didn’t let my mind wander. It was too easy to start thinking about all the ways this could go sideways, and worse, the ways it might not.

One thing was on my mind. Julie. I was old enough to be her daddy. The thought made me smile and almost eat a bug. I knew her mother, Sally. Millie and Sally had done some work at the church together. Julie had been much younger then. I immediately washed that thought from my mind. Julie’s real father was nowhere in the picture. There would be no asking him for permission to date his daughter.

We cut off the blacktop twelve miles east, took the service road all the way in. No lights. Just the bounce of shocks over dirt and the heat shimmer even at this hour. The safehouse was exactly what the map promised: a squat bunker of cinder-block, half sunk into the old berm from some mining operation a hundred years gone. Chain link all the way around, topped with razor, the kind you had to buy off a military contractor. Two trucks parked outside, both Fords, both nosed out for a quick launch. Whoever ran the place thought like I did.

I killed my headlight at the last hill and signaled the others in. Sniper rolled up silent, nothing but the crunch of gravel under his boots as he walked perimeter. Kodiak split left, stuck to shadow and cover, eyes doing math the whole way. Rusty took up the tail, shotgun riding low. Trace lagged half a step behind me, knuckles white on the grip of his piece. He itched for it, always did, but the discipline held.

Nobody talked. Nobody needed to. In the yard, a single security light threw a pool of yellow onto the side of the house, just enough to cast shadows but not enough to spot a man coming in from the dark. Perfect.

We staged up at the back corner. I nodded and Sniper moved in first, knife out, gliding up the chain like he was part of it. He clipped the wire and peeled it back with his left hand, never slowing. I went next, boots catching nothing, then Trace, then Kodiak and Rusty holding the tail. We kept tight, low. They’d have seen us if they were looking, but they weren’t.

At the back door, Sniper pressed his palm to the wood, checked the hinge, then turned his head. Three fingers, up. Three inside.

I drew the SIG, held it by my thigh. Sniper eased the door, slow and controlled, let it swing half open. Inside was the sound of a radio, faint but clear, something with guitars and a cheap laugh track underneath. Trace braced up, ready to bust. I put a hand on his shoulder and felt his whole body coil.

Sniper went in low, two quick steps, and I followed. The inside was one long rectangle, old linoleum floor, ugly paneling, a space heater glowing orange by the far wall. Two Scorpions sat at a folding table, backs to us, faces turned to the TV bolted to a cinder block with a length of bicycle chain. The third, a man built like a dockworker, stood with his foot on a chair, rolling a smoke. None of them heard us.

The rest took less than ten seconds. Sniper’s knife flashed and the first man’s throat opened before he could make a sound. Trace hit the second man so hard the chair came up off the floor. The third tried to draw, but I shot him in the leg, then in the chest, before his hand even found the holster.

Kodiak and Rusty swept in, checked the side room and the garage. “Clear,” Kodiak called, voice flat.

The two at the table were dead. The one I shot had enough left to gurgle, then stopped. Trace looked at the bodies, then at me. “You want them moved?”