Page 4 of Diesel’s Desire

Nice. Christ.

Seventeen years ago, I stood in a parking lot with that ring in my pocket and watched Penny drive away in a car packed with everything she owned. Now she might walk into that reception hall in a dress, and I’m supposed to make fucking small talk.

I don’t know if I’ll cross the room and kiss her or give her what some bitter part of me still thinks she deserves for leaving—my hands around that pretty throat, choking the memory of her out of my system.

Might be both. Wouldn’t be the first time those two urges felt exactly the same to me.

Havoc brings the gavel down. Chairs scrape back, and the room breaks into conversations as the others head out. I stay where I am, one hand resting against my cut.

I ought to be wondering whether she’ll come.

Instead, I’m wondering if the ring would fit.

3

DIESEL

The rendezvous point is a gravel turnoff behind an abandoned feed mill, two miles from the county line, where kudzu’s swallowed half the roof and nobody’s bothered to tear the rest down. Cloud cover blots out the moon and stars, which suits us fine. We don’t come here for the view.

I strip off my cut after I kill the engine, folding it into the saddlebag with care, because Riot’s rule is Riot’s rule—no colors on a job like this, nothing that ties a face to a patch if things go sideways. Underneath, I’m wearing a black hoodie, jeans, and boots I don’t care about ruining. My rings stay on. Some habits I won’t break for anybody.

The mask goes on last. Red demon, cheap latex, just another Halloween aisle find. Up close it’s almost funny—the horns are a little crooked, the paint is chipping at one eye—but from a distance, under headlights, it does exactly what it’s supposed to do. Makes you a shape instead of a man.

Havoc’s already got his on when I walk over, leaning against the cage we’re using for transport tonight—an old panel van with county plates that Bone “acquired” through channels I don’t ask about. Behind that horned latex, I can still tell it’s him by the way he holds his shoulders, loose and ready, patient.

“Prospects in position?” I ask.

“Kade’s a half mile north, Wyatt’s south.” He checks his phone, thumb moving fast. “Both in position. Radio silence otherwise. Bullet’s already up on the ridge.”

I nod toward Riot and Trigger, loading gear into the second truck. “They’re running perimeter same as we planned?”

“Yeah.” Havoc tilts his head, making his neck pop. “Ryder and Ace are already at the intercept point. We roll in ten.”

I check the knife at my ankle, the pistol at my back, then start running my thumb along the leather cord at my throat out of habit until I catch myself doing it and force my hand back down to my side.

The ring’s there. Tucked under the hoodie, resting against my sternum where the cut usually keeps it safe against my ribs. I’ve had it there for a week now, and I don’t know why. Or I don’t want to admit it to myself.

Seventeen years, and I still can’t leave the damn thing in a drawer. Now I’ve even escalated to wearing it against my skin.

We roll out in a loose line, headlights off until we’re deep enough into the back roads that nobody’ll notice a van and a truck moving through the dark. County Road 9 curves along the ridge, trees crowding close on either side, and somewhere up ahead, according to Jinx’s tip, a transport van’s running a routine route with fuck-all security, moving confiscated weapons from one evidence locker to another.

Should be easy. I’ve been doing this too long to trust that thought.

Ryder’s voice crackles over the radio when we’re four minutes out. “In position. No traffic either direction.”

“Copy,” Havoc says. “Diesel and I are coming up the rear. Ace, you’re on the doors the second it stops.”

“Already there,” Ace says, and I can hear the grin in it even through static.

The plan’s simple enough. Trigger’s truck—the tow rig—sits half in the ditch a quarter mile up, hazards flashing, hood popped like it broke down in the middle of nowhere. Any driver with half a brain slows down for that, especially on a road this empty, this late. And when they do, Ryder and Ace come out of the treeline before the driver’s even got the window rolled down enough to ask if everybody’s all right.

We’re the last piece—coming up from behind, blocking the retreat, making sure nobody gets clever and tries to reverse their way out of it.

The van’s headlights hit the bend right on schedule, exactly the way Jinx said they would. I feel Havoc go still beside me, watching through the windshield with the same patience he brings to church when everyone else is shouting.

The van slows. It’s a standard box setup, county markings stenciled on the side panel, nothing about it screaming high-value cargo to anybody who doesn’t already know better.

It stops.