“Why not?”
“Way I see it, a man keeps something like this from the people who care about him, he must have some reason. Not my place to kick this up to the boss man. Not unless it becomes necessary.”
“I appreciate that.”
“You know what you’re doing?”
“Does anyone?”
“You make contact?”
“Yeah.”
“She try to kill you again?”
“No.”
“Think she’s gonna?”
“No.”
“Alright. Well, this is me saying that I know what’s going on. And I’ll let you handle it your way, but if I sense shit went sideways, this video is finding its way in front of Fallon.”
“I understand. I’m working on this.”
“If you need backup, you know where to find me.”
“I appreciate that. I appreciate all of this,” I told him.
To that, Dezi shrugged. “Who hasn’t nearly gotten themselves killed over a woman?”
He got up, taking the tablet with him.
“The food’s here, by the way.”
With that, he was gone.
Alone, I dropped down on the bed, staring up at the ceiling as I dragged my hands down my face.
“Fuck,” I sighed.
It was bad enough that my brother was suspicious about what I was up to. It was a whole other thing to have someone like Dezi, who I wasn’t particularly close to, know almost as much as I did about the situation.
That said, I did trust Dezi.
He was someone who never played by the rules, so he wouldn’t see it as disloyal to the club that I wasn’t letting everyone in on what was going on.
I needed to go back.
I had to get Carmen to fess up to what she thought I’d done. Then decide where to go from there.
Best case, she was completely mistaken about the whole situation, and the two of us could just move on with our lives.
Worst case, I did do what she thought I did. And I’d have to find some way to understand that anything I’d done in my life was necessary, that I only hurt or killed people who were trying to do the same to me. Unfortunate? Yes. But everyone had a right to fight back when they were provoked.
I folded up and made my way out to the kitchen on aching legs to grab a plate of carbs and fat that I’d more than earned after that run.
A headache was pounding in my temples even after I was hydrated and fed.