Page 35 of Rough Return

Sedotal nodded and reached out a hand. “Look, I wanted to apologize for the shit with your bike and with Fiona.” Grier took his hand but didn’t buy for a minute that the bastard had an ounce of sincerity in his entire body.

“Yeah. No big deal.” Translated: big deal. Very big deal. But Grier nodded. “Let’s get this thing unloaded. Like I said...”

Sage chuckled. “Stuff to do.”

* * *

The car he’d rented smelled like old men’s cologne and sweat. But he couldn’t very well roll up on the truck on his bike without being recognized. He didn’t even want to power the tinted windows down, but for God’s sake... the smell.

The radio played some quiet talk show where the host listened to callers bitch about their lives. To keep from falling asleep waiting for the truck he imagined how his call would go. “Well, I was living the good life down on a private island in Belize when a girl—my one who got away, or more accurately, my girl I was never allowed to have and had to let go—hauled ass through the front gate like she had the devil on her tail. Beautiful. Red-haired. Rage in her eyes. Threatened my friends and said if I came home, she’d leave them on the island, undisturbed and unharmed. And if you knew my girl, you’d know she meant that if I didn’t come with her, they would be very disturbed and harmed in ways that would require a medical examiner.” So true. Wouldn’t have needed a genius or a psychic to read between those lines. Fiona had arrived with murder on her mind. And it was him or Kye. Kye had a woman, a life. Grier had nothing. The decision was easy.

The host would ask some stupid question about whether or not Fiona was the kind of woman he really wanted if she was so dangerous and had to resort to threats to get him to come home. “Hell, yeah. She’s everything I ever wanted. Passion and beauty. Intelligence. Sass.” He would smile then, picturing her. And boy, did he have some mental memories to choose from. For this, though, he would picture her standing at that gate in Belize, her eyes half-lidded, her hip cocked, and a self-satisfied smile tilting those perfect lips.

He’d go on with the story. Talk about the wedding. Maybe not say it was performed because Max had put a virtual shotgun to his back. And he’d talk about how Fiona, the toughest woman he’d ever met, took the reins at the “company” when her father died.

God, he missed her. More than he would admit to the host. “I accused her of screwing around. And now, I’ve ignored her for… too long.” The host would ask if Grier really believe Fiona had cheated.

Did he? After all the trouble she’s gone to bringing him home, the dangers she’d faced, and every other thing about her—mostly the way she’d responded to him on their one night together—he couldn’t believe she would screw Sedotal or anyone else. “No. She didn’t cheat.”

Saying the words made him question every minute he’d stayed away from her, made his arms ache to hold her, to smell that sweet soft scent of her shampoo as her hair fanned out on the pillow.

As soon as the truck made it to the clubhouse, he was going to drive his rented car straight to Fiona. And speaking of the truck... more than two hours late. Two hours was longer than a flat tire. And someone would have called. He started the car and stared at his phone. No calls, but the app...

He ticked his finger onto the icon and waited for the moving blip to come up. But the little loading wheel continued spinning. No 3G, no 4G, no little half rainbow to tell him he’d connected to some random stranger’s WiFi. Fuck! They could have been calling for the last two hours, and he would’ve never known. He slammed the car into first and laid a strip of rubber on the highway as he took off to find that damned truck.

Less than five miles down the road, two bikes and some of their parts were laid down and scattered along the road. Sage and Sedotal, along the shoulder. He picked them up and sped off. They could get the bikes later. Right now, he needed to find that truck and figure out who the fuck was trying to ruin the Demons’ delivery business.

Sage held his head while his arm bled in little bubbles from elbow to wrist. Road rash hurt like hell and Sage’s left side was full of it. “What happened?”

Sage looked out the windshield, not at Grier as he spoke. “I don’t fucking know. We were riding one in front and one behind, watching like you said, and something... I don’t know, blew out the tires on the truck. It swerved. I almost ran up underneath it.” Sketchy. And just enough detail to satisfy without giving anything away.

Sedotal leaned forward, a gash on his forehead bleeding like he’d been shot. His eyes had that glassy, concussed look, and had it been anyone else, Grier would’ve been concerned. But, far as he cared, Sedotal’s head could explode.

“I saw the truck in my mirror and turned around. Sage was on the ground, I got hit by something. Put me down, too. We got up and gave chase, but we got maybe two miles and they stopped. We chased ourselves into a trap. They had a line stretched across the road waiting for us.”

The truck, a moving van they’d converted, sat on the shoulder another couple of miles down, engulfed in flames. Fucking flames.

Grier couldn’t afford to be at the scene when the cops showed up. He banged the palm of his hand against the curve of the steering wheel three or four times. “Fuck!”

Sedotal leaned back against the seat and closed his eyes. Sage checked his arm then stared at Grier. “This shit never happened when you made the runs with us.” At first, he spoke as if he believed Grier was the reason no one dared try to hit a Demon job. Then, he spoke softer. “Where were you tonight?”

Sage knew Grier had only come home because Fiona threatened him. How he’d found out, Grier had no real idea, but he knew. But he hadn’t questioned Grier’s loyalty to Fiona and the Demons until right now. And it pissed Grier off.

“You think I did this?” Oh wow. It hadn’t occurred to him that Sage would question Grier. Of course, he’d questioned Sage, so it was… fair.

Sage shrugged—not in a confused kind of way, but in the he-didn’t-believe-a-fucking-word-Grier-said kind of way. “It’s just funny that the one night you have mysterious stuff to do, we get hijacked and set on fire. Doesn’t seem to be much of a coincidence.”

Since Sage was Grier’s only real friend since Kye was in Belize, Grier didn’t want to kick his ass, but if Sage went any further down that thorny little path, what choice would he have? “Watch it, man.”

“No big deal. Just tell me where you were. It’s all cleared up then.” His tone, matter-of-fact, made his words sound far less important than Grier found them.

Grier glanced at Sedotal in the mirror. He might have been out of it, or he might have been pretending. Grier couldn’t tell. Neither did he want to tell Sage what he’d been up to. Without proof against them, Grier would look like an asshole for not believing in Sage. It wouldn’t matter so much about Sedotal since everyone already knew Grier hated him, but he couldn’t blame one without the other. Not yet. Plus, no point in tipping them off so that they were more careful next time.

“Out.” He cleared his throat. “With Fiona.”

“With Fiona?”

“Yeah.” Easy lie. And no way Sage would question her about it. “We’re talking a little.” And to make sure, he added, “Fucking a lot.”