Page 38 of Deadly North

“Yeah, like what?” he challenges, jaw set, eyes wild.

“Well, like for example, the fact that if Gigi hadn’t shot at the guy who broke into her bus tonight, she might be dead. Or at the very least, they would have taken her somewhere we might have never found her.”

That stops Fury in his tracks. “Fuck,” he curses. “That true?”

Gigi grimaces. “Yeah. I was lucky I remembered the gun in a drawer. I fired once and he fled.”

“Was it Blaze?”

“Not sure. There were two of them at least. It was dark, and one of them hit me from behind.”

“Goddamn, the run didn’t stop this shit, then. Why the fuck is this Blaze guy so fixated on Gigi?” Fury pounds his fist against a table. I try not to register the nail that goes through my head as a result. At least his anger isn’t focused on me anymore.

“G, go back to your apartment,” Fury commands. “Mack and me, we got shit to discuss.”

“The hell I will,” she says, her chin jutting.

“Gigi. It’s okay,” I say gently. “We got some club business we need to talk about. We can’t do that with you here.”

Gigi harrumphs, but for once she does as she’s told. When she’s gone, Fury pulls out a pack of smokes and fumbles in his pocket for a lighter. “Fuck. This shit can’t go unanswered.” Fury takes a deep drag of his cigarette. “We gotta talk to Magnus tomorrow about it. This is Scorpions against Bastards now. We target the Scorpions’ operations and apply pressure.”

“Agree. We make life hell for the local chapter. Make it clear it’s because of Blaze. That pussy would never dare to fuck with us without his club behind him.”

“Best case scenario, the Scorpions cut him loose. The Scorpions don’t want to risk war with our club over one piece of shit nomad’s obsession with the sister of a Bastard.” Fury looks grim. “Either way, there’s no way Blaze gets out of this alive.”

At least on this, we’re in agreement.

As for the rest, we’ll deal with it later.

19

GIGI

In my apartment, I wait for Mack and try to sort out everything that has happened over the last few hours.

My mind is a hot mess right now. I half expect my brother to come in and tell me he’s shot Mack, or at the very least beaten him unconscious. Connor has never been known for his easygoing temperament. There’s a reason his road name is Fury.

If it comes to that, Mack will probably just let Connor beat the shit out of him, without even defending himself. My heart wrenches at the thought. I’ve been trying to think of this thing with Mack as just an uncomplicated fling — a way to relieve the sexual tension between us. Even as I’ve been fighting my increasingly strong feelings for him.

But now that Con has found out about us, there’s no way to pretend it’s uncomplicated any longer. Him knowing about Mack and me makes it real in a way I can no longer deny.

I fall asleep waiting for either Connor or Mack to come talk to me, but it doesn’t happen. When I wake up later, I’m alone in bed except for Tedward, and it’s early morning. But it’s not long before a soft knock comes on the door. A second later, Mack enters.

“Hey,” he says. “You sleep okay?”

“Sure.” The word comes out clipped, and I blush. In spite of the situation, I’m feeling a little hurt that Mack didn’t come back to sleep here. Luckily, he doesn’t seem to notice. He sits down next to me and reaches over to pet Ted.

“Look,” he says. “We gotta talk about our fight. A lot of shit might be going down in the next few days, and I might not be around that much. I don’t want to leave on another run with something like that unresolved between us. So we better get it out in the open now. You good with that?”

I nod dumbly, not quite trusting my voice.

“So.” He reaches out and takes my hand. “Can you tell me what I did that set you off?”

Instantly, my anger rises back to the surface. “You don’t remember, do you? What you said to me?”

“Not really,” he says gently. “I’m sorry. Will you just tell me? I can’t do anything about it if I don’t know what the problem is.”

For a second, I am actually speechless. Not because he doesn’t know what he did (which is infuriating), but because Mack is displaying a level of emotional maturity right now that makes my lingering anger feel childish by comparison. He’s supposed to be King Asshole. I’m supposed to be able to rely on him being a detestable dick. Instead, he’s being so calm and reasonable that I want to wring his damn neck.