Page 37 of Wraith

Hawk makes a sound that’s somewhere between a laugh and a gag. “Jesus Christ. Anticipation? Anticipation for what?”

“We’re going to play around with this bottle.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s going up my ass, what the fuck do you think I meant?”

“Holy fucking shit.”

“Don’t judge what you don’t understand.”

“I understand that you’re sitting here in your underwear with your dick hard talking about anticipation while there’s a fifty-thousand-dollar bounty on a woman’s head and you’re telling us you’ve been too busy getting your freak on to notice.”

The words land like a fist.

Fifty thousand.

For June.

“A bounty?” I keep my voice level. Curious, but not too curious. Just enough interest to sell it. “On who?”

“June Wilder,” Bruiser says. “Your ex. She witnessed the Hernandez hit. She knows too much, and Midnight wants her gone. Fifty grand to whoever brings proof she’s dead.”

Something cold moves through my chest.

“That’s a lot of money,” I say.

“It’s more than money,” Hawk says, and there‘s something sharp in his voice now, something eager. “VP’s thinking about stepping down. Too much heat from the feds. So there’s going to be a vacancy. And whoever handles the June situation...” He trails off, but the implication is clear.

Promotion.

Power.

Everything I wanted when I first got patched into the Sons. Everything I’ve been working toward. The VP spot would put me a step from the presidency, would give me real influence, real control. I could reshape things.

All I have to do is give them June.

She’s in the bathroom. Twenty feet away. Nearly naked and terrified and completely defenseless. I could call out to her. Tell these two where she is. Let them handle it. Collect my fifty grand and my promotion and walk away clean.

The thought sits in my head like a loaded gun.

I feel it. The pull of it. The logic. The simple fucking arithmetic of survival and ambition. This is what I do. This is who I am. I take opportunities when they present themselves, and I don’t apologize for it and I definitely don’t let sentiment get in the way of advancement.

But there’s something else.

Something underneath. Something that’s been building since I walked through her door last night and she clocked me with her phone. Since I made her breakfast. Since she smiled at me over bacon. Since I sat against this radiator and let her cuff me so she could sleep.

I don’t have a name for it, but whatever the fuck it is, it’s warm, and it’s been getting warmer ever since I saw her smile in a way I’ve never seen her smile before.

It’s a feeling that makes the thought of betraying her feel like swallowing glass.

“You seen her?” Hawk asks.

I look at him. At Bruiser. At the guns they’ve holstered and the easy violence in their posture and the complete certainty that I’ll help them because of course I will, because I’m a Son, because loyalty means you do what needs to be done.

“Nope,” I say. “Haven’t seen anyone except my girl.”

Bruiser frowns. “You sure?”