by Toni Blake
It was as he pulled Duke’s office door shut behind him, stepping into the hall, that he heard a loud noise from outside, just out the back door a few feet away—like metal scraping on concrete. And any other time, he’d assume there was some logical explanation—but right now, his muscles tensed and he instinctively clicked the Glock’s safety off. Just in case.
Pausing at the door just long enough to feel ready, in one swift motion he turned the lock, opened the door, and aimed the gun outside even while protecting as much of his body as he could with the building.
And—shit. Part of him had expected to see nothing and feel relieved. But instead, right in front of him, not ten feet away, stood Red Thornton pouring gasoline around the bar’s foundation.
Red looked up with a start, and Lucky said, “Don’t move a muscle, Red, or I’ll take you down.”
Red froze, wide-eyed, appearing appropriately scared, and it pleased Lucky in an old, familiar way. That had been the good—even if shameful—part of being in a gang: feeling powerful, invincible, when people feared you. And now that strange, gripping satisfaction permeated Lucky, delivering an even firmer sense of control.
Red dropped the gas can on the gravel beneath him and put up his hands. “Now don’t go shootin’ me, Lucky. This ain’t like it seems.”
Christ, Red was an idiot. First, he’d failed to succeed in burning Lucky’s place down, and now the numbnuts was pouring gas around a building constructed of cinderblock.
And he actually expected Lucky to believe any of this wasn’t like it seemed?
But Lucky used the moment to take in more than just that. Red’s sister’s Camaro sat nearby, trunk open—which explained why he hadn’t seen it out front. And Red looked about as worn out as Lucky felt. So it would be smart to use Red’s exhaustion against him, to get as much information from him as he could before he ended this.
“If you’re gonna tell me you didn’t torch my place last night, save it, asshole. I saw you.” The small lie avoided putting it on Tessa, and besides, this would scare Red more.
And it did—the scraggly-bearded man began to tremble slightly. Then he stuttered a little, but no real words ever came out.
“The only thing that surprises me is to see you doing this in the daylight,” Lucky said, his eyes spewing venom. “I figured a rat like you only came out to do Bill’s dirty work in the dark.”
Red just scowled. “Had to wait all damn night for that girl to leave so Duke would finally turn out the lights and hit the hay,” he muttered.
Good—he was no longer denying it. That would make getting information from him easier. “When’s Bill comin’ for us, Red?” Lucky asked.
To his surprise, in response, Red turned belligerent, even boastful. “Bill ain’t comin’. Not yet anyway. He don’t even know yet.”
Now that Red was getting a little bolder, Lucky concentrated harder on staying alert, keeping the gun trained on him. “He doesn’t know what yet?” And when Red didn’t reply right away, Lucky raised his voice. “I’m pointing a gun at you, you son of a bitch—answer me.”
“All right, all right,” Red said, clearly trying to calm Lucky down. Then he let out a sigh. “Fact is, I was gonna call Wild Bill after I took care of you and Duke, was gonna get back in his good graces that way. I—I was gonna be like . . . a hero.”
Lucky narrowed his gaze on the other man, beginning to get the picture now—finally. “So what you said about no longer being with the club—that was the truth.”
Red nodded, swallowed nervously. “Never did get patched in, and Bill kicked me to the curb about five years ago.”
Lucky simply shook his head. “And you’re just like a little puppy, still tryin’ to get Bill’s attention. God damn—that’s fucking sad, Red. This was bad enough when I figured you were his errand boy, but this makes you even more pathetic than I thought.”
Red defended himself. “Way I see it, it’s you and Duke who’re pathetic, runnin’ the way ya did. Well, looks to me like you can run but ya can’t hide. ’Cause Wild Bill mighta gave up lookin’ for ya, but as soon as he finds out where you are, you’re as good as dead.”
A thick anger gathered in Lucky’s gut, and when he spoke, the words echoed lower, meaner, than before. “You’re forgetting something, you stupid little prick. I’ve got the gun. You’re the only one here who’s as good as dead.”
Red’s eyes changed then, and Lucky realized Red had forgotten his predicament for a minute, too busy trying to be the big man he’d never been—and would never be. Now his voice came out nicer—hell, he even tried for a smile. “You wouldn’t kill me, would ya, Lucky?”
“I’ve killed before,” he reminded him.
And Red blinked nervously. “But listen, like I said, Wild Bill don’t know nothin’ about where you are yet. So we can just let all this go. I won’t call him—I promise.”
Lucky just shook his head. Idiot. “You tried to burn down my house, Red, with me inside it. You’re trying to do the same thing to Duke right now. If you weren’t such a screw-up, we’d both be dead. So if you think you’re walking away from this, you’re wrong.”
That’s when Red’s features contorted in a way that made Lucky think he might cry.
“If you got any prayers to say, now’s the time,” Lucky informed him, then steadied his finger on the trigger, his heart beating a mile an hour.
Red swallowed visibly, and his voice trembled. “Come on now, Lucky—don’t do this. Take mercy on me. I’ll do whatever ya want.” Then Lucky’s eyes were drawn downward as a dark spot spread over the denim between Red’s legs and descended one thigh. Christ, he was pissing himself.
Lucky said nothing. Because it was time to stop talking and do the deed, end this. And it came with the satisfaction of knowing that taking Red out really would be the end—that was all he had to do to bring this to a conclusion, for all of them.
Shoot him now. Squeeze the trigger. Drop him.
It was easy. So easy. One tiny movement of his finger. Just do it.
Red stood before him, gone blessedly quiet, just awaiting his fate, it seemed—so now was the time.
But . . . Jesus Christ. Why wasn’t he pulling the trigger? Why couldn’t he make that last necessary move?
Aw, shit. Was Tessa right? You’re not that guy anymore. You’re not that guy who killed somebody back in California. And he knew that. But he’d thought he could be that guy, one more time, now.
“Come on, man, just do it!” Red yelled suddenly, voice quivering, his whole body shaking.
Damn it. Lucky felt Red deserved to die. And how the hell else could he keep them all safe? Yet his arms felt so heavy suddenly, as if the Glock weighed a hundred pounds. And slowly, his muscles began to give out and the gun drifted slowly lower, until it was aimed at the ground between him and Red.
That’s when Lucky’s focus shifted, just slightly . . . to the old, broken down Monte Carlo sitting among the debris Duke had let build up out back—the car Lucky had lifted Tessa onto that first night they were together. And somehow the brief but powerful memory jolted him, reminded him what he’d come here determined to save and protect. What the hell am I doing, being so weak? Something fierce and new gathered inside him, and he told himself to raise the gun again—just as Red lunged for him.
Lucky pulled the trigger and a shot rang out through the early morning air, but it missed Red completely and the next thing Lucky knew, they were both on the ground, struggling for the Glock. His moment of hesitation had cost him the upper hand.
They rolled in the gravel, fighting, grunting, and Lucky hadn’t felt such a rush of adrenaline since the night Hammer had come after him. He was suddenly battling for his life again and he knew it, and he wasn’t sorry to be risking it for Tessa, Johnny, Duke . . . his only regret was that damn moment of weakness. He used the fresh burst of energy to knee Red in the gut. But when a door opened up above—the one to Duke’s apartment—and Lucky heard Duke say, “Son of a bitch!” somehow Red managed to kick
him in the face, hard.
It knocked him to his back in the gravel and when he opened his eyes, he found Red standing over him, pointing his own gun at him. “Who’s tough now?” Red spat. Then he glanced briefly at Duke, still on the stairs that led from his apartment. “You just stay where you are, Duke, understand?”
“Police! Drop your weapon!”
Lucky lifted his head—to spot Mike standing behind Red, gun drawn. Jesus.
In response, however, Red spun, turning the Glock on Mike, and the two stood face to face, gun to gun. Shit. The last thing in the world Lucky had wanted was to put this on his brother, who—like Duke—had surely never killed anyone, cop or not.
“Drop your weapon, damn it!” Mike demanded.
And now that Red was distracted by Mike, Lucky knew he finally had to end it. With fresh strength and a renewed sense of purpose, he got to his feet, glanced around Duke’s debris, then picked up a steel bar lying in the weeds sprouting up alongside the building. “Red!” he said. “Over here.”
Panicked and jumpy now, Red spun back around, but he didn’t seem to know where to point the gun anymore—there were suddenly too many enemies around him. And Lucky smoothly, firmly pulled back the bar like a baseball bat, ready to defend his brother—when Mike gave one more warning, this time to them both.
“Drop your weapons, for Christ’s sake!” he yelled, and Red fired off a wild shot at Lucky that hit the gravel a few feet away.
And Lucky was just about to swing that steel bar for all he was worth—when another shot rang out, striking Red from behind to knock him a step forward before he slumped to the ground. Mike had shot him.
They all stood silent, watching, until it was clear Red was dead. Then Lucky lifted his gaze to Mike, who said, “You okay?”
Lucky gave a short, concise nod. Then let the bar clang to the ground before turning to look up at Duke, now descending the stairs barefoot in only blue jeans. He came to stand by Lucky as they both peered down at Red Thornton. “I’ll be damned,” Duke muttered. “What the hell happened?”
“Caught him trying to burn your place down,” Lucky said on a sigh.
Duke’s gaze found Lucky’s, his eyes wide with the gravity of the moment. “Shit. Thanks for showing up, man.”
But Lucky just shook his head, dazed by it all. “I almost blew it.” Then he glanced back and forth between his brother and his best friend and told them the truth. “When it came down to it, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t pull the fucking trigger.”
Duke gave him a consoling slap on the back. “It all worked out. Thanks to your brother.”
“Yeah,” Lucky breathed, realizing he owed Mike his life.
And Mike was already busy doing the cop part of this: He’d whipped out his cell phone to call in the shooting, speaking strong and authoritative, as he always did.
But Mike had just killed somebody. For the first—and probably last—time. And Lucky didn’t care how tough his brother was—he knew Mike was in shock, and that as soon as it passed, he’d be torn up inside over this. And that it was something that didn’t go away. And it was all Lucky’s fault.
It was two hours later before things settled down, but after Red’s body was taken away, along with his car, and after all the interviews were conducted and the police reports filed, Lucky and Mike parted ways with Duke and were walking around to the front of the bar toward Mike’s 4x4 pickup. It felt like a different world than when Lucky had first arrived here—most of the stores and restaurants in the strip malls were open for business now, and cars whizzed up and down the straight stretch of highway that ran between them all.
As for the interviews with Mike’s colleagues, Lucky had stuck to the same version of the truth about Red that he’d told after the fire. And he’d claimed he’d come here to talk to Duke about the situation and had only gotten a gun from the safe after hearing a noise out back. The way Lucky saw it, there was still no reason to fill anyone in on their one-time involvement with the Devil’s Assassins. It would only scare people, and more now than ever before, it felt far in the distant past.
“Sure you don’t want to hit the emergency room?” Mike asked.
Lucky had gotten a little beat up—some scratches and cuts—but had declined medical treatment when it was offered. “I got Neosporin and Band-Aids at home that’ll work just fine,” he said. Mainly, he wanted to go home and get some sleep—he’d been up for more than twenty-four hours now and needed to crash, bad.
Mike had offered to drive him home and bring him back for his bike later, and as they climbed in Mike’s truck, Lucky said, “I never heard during the interviews—how’d you know something was going down?”
“Tessa heard you leave and called me, worried,” Mike replied as they slammed their doors shut. “And I just figured your buddy might know where you were—I had no idea what I’d be walking in on.”
And that’s when Lucky saw it—subtle, and fast, but Mike’s expression had gone a little hollow, and then he’d pushed it away just as quickly to put back on his usual sturdy-cop face.
God, Lucky hated this. He should have been strong enough to do it himself. And because he hadn’t, because he’d hesitated, he’d put his brother in the position of having to take a life. And yeah, Mike was a cop, he’d signed up for that—but right now, that didn’t matter. Right now, it felt like it always had when they were kids—like Lucky’s big brother had been looking out for him again.
Lucky continued watching Mike as he started the truck, his jaw set; he sensed Mike’s muscles clenching as he reached for the gearshift.
So Lucky reached out, closed his hand around Mike’s wrist.
When Mike looked up at him, he said, “Thanks for what you did today, bro. I was two seconds from bashing that guy’s head in. But . . . you kept me from killing him, and maybe going to prison before all was said and done. And you kept me from . . .” He stopped, lowered his gaze—this part was harder. His voice softened. “You kept me from feeling that way again, the way I did the last time—you kept me from taking another guy’s life and suffering all the guilt that comes with it.” Pulling in his breath, Lucky raised his eyes back to his brother’s face. “But I’m so damn sorry you have to know how that feels now.”
As Lucky might have predicted, Mike just kept acting tough and invincible. He said simply, “It’s my job.”
Lucky released Mike’s wrist, yet dug a little deeper. “You ever have to do that before?”
And, hand still on the gearshift, unmoving, Mike gave Lucky a look that dropped the cop façade, edging all the way into vulnerability, then shook his head. “Hell, it was only the third time I ever had to draw my gun. First time I ever shot it outside the firing range.” Finally letting go of the shifter, Mike sighed and slumped down in his seat, staring at the steering wheel. “Shit.”
“You don’t have to be strong with me, Mike,” Lucky told him. “I know how hard it is, what you just did. And you did it for me.”
Mike locked his gaze on Lucky and spoke low. “I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”
“I’d do the same for you, too.”
By the time Lucky climbed out of Mike’s truck, he couldn’t wait to hit the bed. Screw the cuts and scrapes—they’d keep ’til after he got some rest.
But as he walked past the yellow tape across his blackened, burnt garage toward the front door, there was one more thing, just one more, that he had to do first. He had to see Tessa.
Their fight last night had been a bad one, but now he could tell her she’d been right—he wasn’t the same guy he’d been in his Devil’s Assassins days. Surely that would make things right between them again. And now that the worst was over, feeling her arms around him seemed all-important. So even as exhausted as he was, every muscle in his body begging for sleep, he started down the hill and—shit, that’s when he noticed her car was gone.
Turning back toward his place, he suffered a strange sense of loneliness just in knowing that talking to her would have to wait—and damn,
that was new: the loner feeling lonely.
He was a few steps from his front door when he saw the piece of paper taped there—a sheet of Tessa’s business stationery—and his chest tightened. Maybe she was sorry, too, that they’d fought. Maybe she was as eager to make up as he was.
Rushing forward, he found a letter scrawled in messy ink—blurred in spots, like maybe she’d been crying when she’d written it. Aw, babe, I wish you were here. I don’t like to make you cry. He hurriedly grabbed down the letter.
Dear Lucky,
I’ve barely slept for thinking about you, about us. What we’ve shared has been amazing—you’ve given me back a sense of joy and confidence I’d thought I’d lost forever. But last night scared me. Not the fire—your reaction.
I still love you, but I can’t be with a man whose response to something is violence. I know you’re doing what you think is right, and best—but it’s made me realize that we’re far more different than I’ve wanted to believe, and that those differences are too big to overcome. I knew the risk I was taking with you from the start, but now I think I was naïve.
We’re still neighbors, and maybe someday we can even be friends again. But I can’t see you anymore, I can’t love you anymore. Please don’t call me, or come to my house—I need you to respect my wishes on this. My heart feels too fragile these days to keep taking chances with it.
I wish you all the best, and please tell Johnny I’m sorry I won’t be around any longer. You’ve got a good kid there, Lucky, and I hope being a father will help you continue to change into the man I know you can be.