“What the fuck do you want?” I snap.

  He laughs in that same bastard way. Like the whole world is his playground. “I want a lot of things.”

  “Don’t play games with me. What the fuck do you want here now?”

  “That’s very nice of you to ask, Wolf. Really, I mean that from the bottom of my heart.”

  A round of laughter tells me that there are at least a dozen out the back as well, maybe more.

  “Don’t play games with me, motherfucker. What the hell do you want? If you think I’m gonna let you take the girl, you’re living in a goddamn dreamland. You can have me again if that’s what you want, you sick bastard. But I’ll kill every single one of you if you try and take the girl.”

  “And how would you manage that? Magic?”

  “I’d find a way!” I slam my fist against the door, causing it to tremble in the frame.

  “I am so scared,” he says, laughing gruffly. “I’m not here for that little slut. Don’t worry. I’ve got plenty of sluts of my own. No, Wolf. I’m here because I need to send a message to your club. They need to know who they’re really dealing with, if they don’t already. So what I did is I took some of the money I’ve—eh—acquired from your businesses and I bought a brand-new fancy camera. The man in the store said it was cutting edge, the latest one on the market. I’m not normally a sucker for a sales pitch, but I couldn’t resist this one.”

  He clears his throat. “Don’t you wanna know what I’m going to do with the camera?”

  I glance at Jasmin, cursing myself again for waving away the backup. Jasmin just stares at me. She has her hands over her belly, both of them clasped there like she’s trying to protect it from a knife.

  “What?” I bark when he doesn’t offer it up.

  “I’m going to record myself beating you to death, Wolf. We’re gonna fight in the old way. The Viking way. You know about that? Or are you as stupid as you look?”

  “Speak sense, bastard.”

  “It’s not complicated, really. My men are going to stand in a circle around us and we’re going to fight to the death. It’ll all be caught on film. I wish I could see the look on old Yates’ face when he sees it. But then again, maybe I don’t. That there is the ugliest bastard I’ve ever seen in my life, and I’ve seen some ugly bastards. Hell, I work with some.”

  More laughter.

  “You expect me to believe that shit? If I walk out there, you’re gonna put a bullet in my head.”

  “Think about it,” Trevor counters. “I could kill you both right now any time I wanted. You’ve been on this side of the door plenty of times. You know how easy it’d be. All I’d have to do is blow this door down and toss a couple of grenades in there. Or just light up the whole building with a heavy machine gun. It wouldn’t even be a challenge. You know that, Wolf.”

  “Yeah, and what happens when I win, hm? What then?”

  “You’re not going to win. And I don’t reckon you’re in any position to set terms.”

  “I’ll need some time to think on it.”

  Trevor laughs, but this time there’s an edge to it. “You don’t really have a choice, Wolf. Go and try the landline if you want. We’ve cut that off, too.”

  I go into the next room, a small office, and pick up the phone. There’s no dial tone. I bite down as I return into the room. Jasmin is standing in the exact same position, her hands over her belly just like she was before. She meets my eyes with so much dread it takes all my self-control not to just throw myself at the door and go crazy.

  “Fuck,” I mutter.

  “You can have three minutes!” Trevor shouts. “Any longer and we start shooting.”

  “You’re dead if you go out there,” Jasmin mutters. “Do you really think he’s going to fight you fairly?”

  “Maybe not,” I admit. I don’t touch her, just stand close. If I touch her, I’ll get soft. That’s a bad thing for an outlaw to be thinking, but it’s also the truth. I care too much about her to hold her at a time like this.

  I need to be hard. I need to be Wolf.

  “But he’s right,” I go on. “They could kill us any time they wanted. I’ve fucked us, Jasmin. I’ve fucked us bad.”

  “Is there any way out of this?” she asks. She presses her hands firmly against her belly. “Think, Mason. All that training has to be for something. All that fighting has to be for something, right?”

  I think on it for about half a minute, which is a damn long time considering we’ve only got three. I nod shortly. “There might be a way out,” I say, heading into the kitchen. I have to push the shelves out of the way first. I find a small blade, no longer than three inches, and slide it into my boot. It is not comfortable, but I haven’t got enough time to make it any better. I take a bigger blade and hide it in my jacket.

  I return to Jasmin. “Stay here,” I tell her.

  “And if it all goes wrong?” she asks. Tears cling to her eyelashes. She wipes them away before they can fall down her cheeks.

  “Hurry up, Wolf!” Trevor barks.

  “Just run,” I murmur, but we both know what that means.

  She throws herself at me, kissing me hard. I kiss her back but I don’t let myself sink into it.

  Then she steps back and slaps me across the face. It’s a hard slap, jolting me awake. “You’re a wolf,” she hisses. “You’re a killer. Go out there and show them. I’m pregnant, Mason. I’m pregnant with your child. If you don’t find a way out of this, your woman and your child die. Do you understand?” She digs her fingernails into my neck. “Do you understand?”

  I shove her away, not hard but not soft either.

  Pregnant. It sinks into me heavily.

  But she’s done the trick. I’ve never wanted to fight harder in my whole life.

  “I understand,” I tell her. “Go and hide in the corner. It’s time to go to war.”

  23

  Mason

  I head outside with a pit in my belly I try to ignore. I’ve got my gun in my hand, but that’s only to distract them. If they see the gun, maybe they won’t think about knives.

  I slam the door behind me and wait for the sound of Jasmin locking it like I told her. She won’t be able to re-bend the pipe like I did, so she’ll just have to barricade it. It’s all a joke, though, because if I lose, she’s dead.

  I try not to think about the baby as I take the first few steps. I can’t see a damn thing except for the lights from their bikes, all crammed into the alleyway.

  All around me, bright beams shine, making me squint. The men stand near their bikes with rifles slung over their shoulders. Trevor wasn’t joking about the camera. It’s a big chunky thing, one of his men holding it on his shoulder.

  He steps forward with a twisted grin on his face, jabbing the air a couple of times. “You might wanna drop the gun, Wolf. Unless you want one of my boys here to fill with you lead. It’s your choice.”

  I toss the gun to the ground. He says it’s my choice, but really there’s no choice at all. It’s either do what he says or die.

  He waves at one of his men. “Search him.”

  A Pagan’s Son walks over to me, pats me down. I hold my arms out, but I keep my eyes on Trevor at all times. He’s got some fight in him. I can tell that right away just from the way he’s looking at me. He’s not scared, not even a little bit. I guess he has no reason to be. If he loses, his men’ll stop me from doing any real damage. Or maybe he knows how to fight.

  Whatever happens, I have to keep Jasmin and the baby safe.

  The baby. Fucking hell, this just got real.

  The Pagan’s Sons chump takes the knife from my jacket and looks back at Trevor. He’s a meth-head-looking motherfucker, all drawn-out and gangly. It takes a lot of self-control not to drive my thumb into his eye as he pats my legs down. Just like I hoped, finding the big knife distracts him from finding the smaller one. He moves his hands over my boots and then in the boots but not down far enough. He stands up, shrugs, and walks over to his boss.

  “You really thought we wouldn’t find that?” Trevor laughs.

  “I was betting on you not searching me,” I mutter, shrugging. “Can you blame me for trying?”

  “I should kill you on the spot for trying that shit.”

  I shrug again. “Maybe you should, but then you’d ruin your home movie. You were right, Trevor, that really is a nice camera. Top of the line.”

  Trevor steps forward, hands raised. “Are you ready, Wolf? I’ve been training for three years.”

  “Excited to show off your skills, eh?”

  He nods. For a second it’s like he’s a little kid at show-and-tell. “Yeah, Wolf. I am. I really am. Your face looks like it’s healing up well. I don’t reckon it will this time, though.”

  “Are we talkin’ or fightin’?” I growl.

  He shakes his head at me like I’m some wild dog. Which is pretty ridiculous considering he looks like something out of a horror movie.

  “Why are you so keen to die, Wolf? Eh? You tired of living your pointless fucking life? You tired of riding around this town pretending that you’re somethin’ big? You know, I almost killed you at the bar that night. When you walked over thinking you were something special. But I’m a smart man, not like you. I had a plan and I didn’t wanna rush it. Look at your club. Your clubhouse has a fucking hole in it. Don’t worry though. I’ll have it repaired when we move in.”

  I raise my fists, cracking my neck from side to side. When the Pagan’s Son searched my boot, he nudged the small blade down my leg. It jabs into my foot. I keep my face calm, showing no indication of it. I just hope I can get my hand down there quickly enough.

  “You don’t know a damn thing about being a club man or a brother,” I say, trying to get him riled up. I need him to lose his cool. When a man loses his cool in a fight, he loses. “You’re just a worm. Your name is right. Deadman. You’re gonna be dead real soon. Your men can watch the movie; sit around laughing about the man they used to think was bad. But really you’re just a soft, scared kid. I can see it in your eyes. No real man needs to cover his fuckin’ head in tattoos to let the world know he’s tough. You’re overcompensating, you prick.”

  He grits his teeth for a second but then spits on the ground and breaks into a smile. “You won’t be talking shit for much longer, so enjoy it.” He takes a few steps forward. His men close in around him, blocking off the sides. They’re just a wall of leather jackets. I hardly see them. I just see Trevor. And Jasmin. Holding her belly to protect our damn kid.

  Our damn kid.

  I roll my head in my shoulders. “Who’s counting us in, Deadman? Or you wanna just start taking chunks out of each other?”

  He waves at the circle in general. “A count of three,” he says. He clearly loves the theatrics of it. I wonder how much he’ll love me bouncing his head off the concrete. I swallow, nervous for the first time in years. Now that I have something worth living for, I don’t want to die. A simple fact, but a sharp one.

  “One,” the group says as a whole.

  “Two,” they growl, louder now.

  “Three!”

  He moves toward me in a low fighter’s stance, fists raised to protect his face and elbows tucked to protect his belly. I skirt around the edge of the circle, watching him closely. I’m waiting for him to jab at me, to leap at me. It’s difficult to know what a man is capable of in a fight until he does something like that.

  But he just keeps circling me, this weird smile on his face. Maybe he’s doing the same, sizing me up. For a long time we just circle each other. The men in the circle don’t boo like they would if this was a paid event, but I can feel their urgency in the air like a smell.

  Finally, he leaps.

  He comes up high with his fist. I duck back … mistake.

  He ducks low at the last second and sends a powerful kick right at my ankle. I just manage to hop out of the way, but then he’s on me with his fists again. They come in a flurry, one to the belly and two to the face. There ain’t much I can do but cover up and try to protect myself.

  Then he overextends, his fist sailing right by my head. I grab onto his wrist and wrench it up. There’s a crack noise and he stumbles back, spitting and growling at the same time.

  “Motherfucker,” he snarls, opening and closing his hand. It isn’t broken, but already the skin is turning a deep shade of purple.

  “Wanna throw in the towel?” I bark in response.

  He dives at me, wrapping his arms around my waist to try and dump me on the ground. I drive my elbow into the back of his head twice, three times. It’s a vicious thing to do, hitting a man in the back of the head. But for Jasmin and the kid—goddamn, the kid—I’d do anything. I hit him until his hands loosen around my waist. Then I flip him around, throwing him to the edge of the circle. The men bristle, some of them looking like they might raise their rifles.

  I need to be smart about this, I reflect, as he bounces up onto his feet.

  He crab-walks toward me, looking like he’s gonna throw another kick. He does, getting his leg up pretty high, almost to my chest. But I see it coming. I grab his ankle and push his leg even further up, forcing him to hop back on one leg. I duck quickly, grab at his other leg. He trips back and lands on the ground with a sickening snap noise.

  I dive on him, letting out all the rage he beat into me back at the warehouse. I think of all the times he lined up a punch for a good full minute, tilting from side to side as though desperate to get the perfect angle. I don’t take as long as he did. I just go crazy on him.

  Which is another damn mistake. He shifts to the side. The momentum of my punch carries me through, right into the concrete. I pull back at the last second, but it’s too late. My fist smashes right into the ground. I’ve hit shit before, walls and beds and desks and shit like that. But never the ground. There’s no give at all. It’s like gravity has just smacked me.

  I let out a roar and jump back up to my feet. I try to clench my fist but something must be really fucked up. It won’t clench.

  Trevor climbs to his feet with a scavenger’s grin on his face. I’m his meal, that grin says. And there’s nothing in the world that’s going to stop him. He runs at me, arms swinging wildly.

  I step aside and stick my leg out. As he falls to the ground, I leap on his back and take the blade from my boot with my good hand. I fumble it at first, making the men all around go for their guns again, probably wondering what the hell I’m doing. But then I slide it out and hold it to his throat. Quickly, I grab him with my fucked-up hand and wrench him to his feet.

  The pain is intense, but the pain of losing Jasmin and that baby would be far worse.

  I hold him close to me so that if they fire, they risk hitting their boss. And I keep the blade pressed closed to his throat.

  “One wrong move and I gut this bastard,” I growl, making sure to keep it lodged right into the fleshy bit of his neck. Otherwise he might try something tricky. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about these Pagan pricks, it’s that they’ve always got a trick up their sleeve.

  “You cheated,” a man with a deep red handlebar mustache growls.

  “I did,” I admit. “Now it’s time for you to disable that fuckin’ jammer.” I give Trevor a shake. He’s dead silent. He’s gone stiff in my arms. Stiff with fear, it seems like. Funny considering he was so keen to pretend he was fearless before. A man finds out who he really is with a knife to his throat. “Now!” I roar, giving him another shake. “You better tell ’em, Trevor.”

  “If you kill me, they’ll kill you and the girl.”

  “Maybe. But you’ll be dead, so what the fuck does it matter to you?”

  “You think I’m scared of death?”

  “Yeah, yeah I fuckin’ do.” I press the blade even deeper into his neck. “Now tell them to disable that shit or things are gonna get real nasty.”

  For a second, I think he’s just going to tell me to kill him. But then his shoulders slump. Like all men, he does fear death when it comes down to it.

  “Disable the jammer,” he says. When the men hesitate, he roars, “Disable the fuckin’ jammer!”

  I wrap my arm around his throat, keeping pressure on the knife. With my fucked-up hand I reach into my pocket and take out my cell phone.

  I have to be careful. One wrong move and everything falls apart.

  I call the boss.

  24

  Jasmin

  “So what happened?” Tiffany asks, her legs folded up underneath her. She sips on her wine slowly. I sip on my flavored water, trying to think how long it’s been since I went nine months without a sip of alcohol. It’ll probably be for the best, but even now, wine o’clock seems oh-so-tempting.

  “They killed him and some of the others,” I whisper, remembering things I overheard at the clubhouse afterward.

  For me, the experience was just sitting in that back room listening to the commotion outside. Every grunt and bumping noise scared the bones out of me. In my mind, Mason was dying over and over again and I couldn’t even see. “They paid some of them off so they wouldn’t come back.”

  I sigh and shrug.

  “But you don’t even care about that,” Tiffany mutters, reading me as she always can.

  I laugh, but there’s no humor in it. It sounds hollow, brittle, like it could just break in half. “I was waiting for hours,” I mutter. “I thought he’d come in and … I don’t know. I’m not saying I expected anything incredible, you know. But something. But it wasn’t even Mason who came in. It was Danny. He just said he was taking me home and that was it.”

  I sip my flavored water and try to convince myself that the grapes are really wine.

  “So what?” Tiffany asks. “You think …” She trails off, eyebrow raised.

  “I think he doesn’t want anything to do with me or the baby,” I admit. “I think he’s had second thoughts. But then I thought he wanted to protect us. I just don’t get it—”