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Which means, if I can’t stop this, I have to do better. Be prepared, step up as a soldier, and do what I do best — make things safe for her.
But how?
I pour a cup of coffee and stare into the black.
I’ve got guns, training, and killer instinct, but I’ve also got a baby, and now a woman I care about. There’s only so much I can do and so many places I can be at once. Things may be progressing with the club, soon I may have a Twisted Devils cut on my shoulder, even if it’s as a prospect, but I have no idea how much longer Havoc and Mayhem will keep stringing me along, or how dangerous or insane the jobs they give me might become.
I need help.
Fortunately, although I’m an irresponsible, family-less bastard who often prefers to go his own way, it doesn’t mean I don’t have friends. Or, at least, people who like me enough that they’d risk their lives helping me out against an angry drug boss and his trained killers.
I make the easiest call first. It rings once, gives me a message that this number is out of a cell phone service area, and then an angry voice barks, ‘Leave a message.’
Which is what I do. “This is Hunter. I’m in Ironwood Falls, Oregon. It’s an SOS situation. Come when you can.”
The next call is harder.
It rings, then a cheery voice answers. “Hunter, long time. What’s wrong now?”
“How do you know something’s wrong, Diesel?”
“Why else would you call me?” He says. He doesn’t sound put-off by it, just curious.
“To… talk…” I say, hating how forced it sounds. “Fuck it. Yeah, I’ve got a situation.”
“Good, I’m glad you’re not trying to patronize me by putting up a front. I hate that. Tell me what’s up, brother.”
“Well… I’m a dad, now.”
“Holy fuck. What? How much did I fucking miss? Who’s the lucky lady? You have a lot of explaining to do, man.”
My eyes drift to Emily at the words ‘lucky lady,’ and then go back to my coffee. I have to focus, not get wrapped up in distractions, no matter how pleasant.
“The kid’s not mine. And there is no lucky lady.”
“Did you adopt? And no lucky lady… does that mean…?”
“It means my brother’s dead, and the kid is actually my nephew,” I say, keeping my voice down, so as not to wake up Emily. “Both Tyler and Kate are dead. Killed by men who work for some drug boss named Victor Moretti. He and his gang were trying to force Tyler into running product for them or something. I don’t know, I didn’t get a fucking briefing, just walked into my brother’s home to find him and his wife dead, the place on fire, and Charlie screaming his lungs out from his crib. So I’m his dad now. I’m all the kid’s got…”
“Oh fuck, man, what do you need from me? Do you want to talk? I was about to go out and break some guy’s legs for a collection job, but I got time. Busting kneecaps can wait.”
“Talk? You think I called to talk?”
“That is what people do when they call someone, right? Talk to me. Tell me what you’re feeling.”
“Feeling? I haven’t had time to—”
“Damn it, Nick, you can’t just shove this shit down. Your brother fucking died, man, and so did his wife, and you’re now raising a little baby? If I was in your shoes, I’d be so angry, and so, so fucking afraid—”
I cut him off. Not because he isn’t right, because he is — every time I look at Charlie there’s a part of me, buried deep, that screams about how I’m responsible for the smallest, most fragile little life I’ve ever seen, and I have to do everything in my power to shelter it from every danger in the world. The slightest slip-up could snuff him out, and that idea scares the life out of me.
“Diesel, please.”
“Yeah, Nick?”
“Not now. You’re right that I haven’t talked with anyone, but that’s because there hasn’t been any time, not to mention anyone to talk to, either,” I say, which isn’t entirely true. There’s someone I could talk to, and she’s asleep peacefully on my couch. She’d listen, I’m sure, and she might even say something comforting… before she ran for the door because I’m a single-dad raising his dead brother’s son and being hunted by hired killers. Some grand fucking catch I am. No, she can’t find out. “I called because I need someone I can trust to help watch my back. Moretti’s men are after me, and they’re close.”
“You call Tank?”
