“I lost someone when I took him down.”
“Yeah.” He sure the f**k did. Amber Li-Montgomery. I don’t know Ford’s father-in-law, but I’m the one who did all the digging when Ford was plotting to steal Ashleigh out of his house. So I know how upset Li probably is right now that his golden daughter was gunned down by the son of a ruthless enemy. “Li’s gonna be pissed.”
“Fuck Li,” Tet says. “I loved Amber, Merc. I left her behind so she’d be safe. Her husband was my number one bodyguard. He’s been looking after her for years. Until f**king Tony showed up.” He hesitates, and then exhales some more smoke. He’s really puffing tonight. “I failed my last psych exam.”
Well, that’s my cue. “My mark’s leaving, gotta run.” I end the call and toss the phone on the seat next to me as I watch the girl hanging on her piece-of-shit boyfriend outside the bar. I’m not interested in Tet’s state of mind. Not one bit. You gotta be crazy to do a job like this. And I’ve never pretended to be sane, but I’m really not in the mood to be reminded of it at the moment.
Because if I had just f**ked up a job, caused the death of a major crime boss’ daughter, got a civilian shot, and then used my get-out-of-jail-free card to poison a former FBI agent while he was sitting in jail waiting for trial, leaving sloppy clues all over the f**king place? Clues that practically scream, ‘Yo, it’s Tet. I’m killing people here.’ And they wanted to test me? Evaluate my mental stability?
Yeah, I’d sure as f**k fail that shit too.
I let out a breath and try to forget about Tet. He’s a big boy, not my problem.
I only have one thing on my mind. It’s not Ford’s hit. A hit I owed him because of that job I f**ked up last Christmas.
And it’s not Tet clearing my debt with Ford by killing Tony.
It’s this f**king girl across the street.
Because her father owes me big.
And I’m here to collect.
EPILOGUE
SPENCER
Seven Months Later
It’s a beautiful October day. Well, for a few hours it is. Colorado likes to play with the temperature quite a bit, but sometimes we get lucky and get a seventy-five-degree afternoon that comes out of nowhere.
I take full advantage of this day, lying in my hammock under the buckeye tree behind the shop. What used to be the shop. I tore it down and built a new garage attached to the house so Ronnie doesn’t have to park her minivan outside. Besides, that shop was blocking the view of the tree from the house. And now we can see it and the river from the living room.
The screen door slaps closed and I turn my head to watch Ronnie walk across the grass to where I’m at. She’s waddling these days. Her belly is already big and round even though she’s only five months along.
She smiles at me as she approaches, and then sits her ass down next to mine and lies back with me. We sway a little and I wrap my arms around her. “You love me for my hammock, don’t you.”
She giggles.
I reach down to the ground and pick up a buckeye and hand it to her.
“And your buckeyes,” she says back.
“What should we eat tonight?” I ask her as I kiss her on the head and slip my hand underneath her maternity shirt to rub her belly.
“Hmmmm. Probably hospital food.”
“What?”
“Rook called,” she says as she turns her head to see me. “Ashleigh’s in labor.”
I sit up and scoop her up in my arms. “Holy shit!”
“Calm down, caveman. You’re as bad as Ford. They just left for the hospital, these things typically take a long time.”
I ignore every word as I carry her to the house. “Ford has got to be crazy. He needs support.” I set her down when I get to the porch steps and smack her ass. “Get ready, Bomb. We gotta go.”
She walks off towards the stairs to change or whatever she’s gotta do to be ready to meet Ford’s new baby. I’m new to all this shit, but I love the fact that Ford’s gotta be the guinea pig. Every f**kup he makes, I take notes. Then I avoid that shit at all costs.
Like that dumbass told Ashleigh she should try natural childbirth. Yeah, he had to sleep on our couch for three nights.
I immediately asked Ronnie how soon she could get the drugs to make the process easier for her. She gave me a man massage that night.
I proposed to Ronnie in the hospital while she was still groggy from the drugs they used to surgically repair her artery. Twice my Bombshell was shot at because of me. Twice she lived.
I’m done. I told Ford and Ronin we’re all done. And they had no complaints. We need to quit while we’re ahead, and ahead simply means we’re all still alive.
That’s a win-win-win for everyone.
Ronin proposed to Rook last month at the party Antoine threw for her twenty-first birthday. They moved back to Denver as soon as Shrike Bikes season two filming ended. Ronin is the marketing manager for Chaput Studios and Rook is making a documentary on the inside lives of erotic models. We got picked up for a third season, but Rook says she’s done with the reality show stuff.
I don’t blame her. Even Ronnie has lost interest in that shit. She’s all about babies now. She gave up tattooing. Not because of the blood and not because she did actually have a little nerve damage from the gunshot wound that sometimes interferes with her inking. She gave it up because she started a new business. Edible body art.
This is the brain child of Carson Reed, if you can imagine. I added on to the Shrike Bikes building and gave them their own little studio. She paints people with colored sugar now.