AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“And I will, Lincoln. But I also told Burns she was my leverage. This talk is a long time coming, and I’m not going to let her go until we… negotiate.”
Negotiate? “Negotiatewhat?”
“Territory. Terms.” In the moonlight, his pale blue eyes seem to flash. “A truce.”
Thisis why he had Bobby take my wife? Because he still has this ridiculous idea that, with a truce, he could move drugs into the West Side, and I can expand my operations into the East End?
“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.”
“I’m not.”
He better be. “You really think you can call me out here, in the shadows of Springfield, threaten my wife afterkidnappingher, making me wait eight fucking hours to find out you had her… and I’m just going to shake your hand, make a truce, and not hack your head off like I did Skittery?”
For some reason, Damien takes my very reasonable—and absolutely serious—threat as a joke. He doesn’t laugh, though the moonlight reveals his tiny smile as he nudges Ava with his gun.
I growl, but neither one of them reacts… until he says to Ava, “I don’t know, Mrs. Crewes. Do I?”
Ava?
She licks her lips, eyes turned pleasing. “Link, please… listen to him.”
“Ava…”
Her name is like a prayer on my lips. She doesn’t sound frightened—though any civilian with a gun to their headshould—and I found out why when she calls out, “He just wants to talk. He said… he said that, if you agree to a truce, I’m covered. He won’t come after me for what happened to Joey. I don’t have to worry about it anymore, but only if you agree. Please… I think this would be good for us.”
Us…
If I agree, there is no ‘us’.
Okay. I finally get it. Damien has wanted a truce for as long as we’ve been rivals, and his efforts only increased after what happened with Royce and Heather. I shut him down every single time because I couldn’t see how it benefited me.
Now I do. He’s using my wife, just like he said. She’s leverage for him to get what he wants.
And because I’m a sorry sap, I’ll do it because Ava just begged me to.
“Deal,” I spit out. “You got your fucking truce, Damien. You know my word is good.” When it comes to something like this, it has to be otherwise I would never command any respect as the head of a syndicate. To go back on my word… that would be the same as giving him the green light to eradicate the Sinners and take over our territory. “Ava’s my witness. Royce will listen to her. You’re set.”
“What about you, Lincoln?”
That’s pretty simple. Damien gets what he wants. Ava gets what she wants.
And since I’m the one who lost, there’s only one thing that makes sense in my cold, lonely mind.
From the moment I became the Devil, I discovered how easy it was to solve all of my problems with death. Skittery threatened Ava? I went cold and massacred him. Twig thought I’d let her touch him willingly? Dead. Bobby betrayed my wife? Blown away.
I’m about to lose Ava again?
“You don’t need my protection anymore,” I tell her, and I jerk my hand, digging my Sig Sauer into the flesh beneath my chin.
She gasps, and Damien curses under his breath.
I keep my hand where it is.
“Link? What are you… put that gun down!”
I don’t. “I only got to keep you because you needed me to keep the cops coming after you. I did. Then you needed protection from the Libellula Family. I thought I could use that to keep you at my side… but if he’s not gunning for you, what reason do you have to stay?”
“What reason?” Her lovely green eyes glitter with angry tears, pushing against Damien’s arm as though she’s forgotten about the gun to her head. “How about because I love you, you asshole?”
