“Tell me, Apollonos.Have you figured it out yet?”
“Figured what out?”I ask reluctantly, pissed at myself for letting him goad me.
“That everything that has happened is because of you.What happened to your club in the past, me seeking Birdie out, all of it.It’s because of you.You don’t deserve any of it.It should be me.It should always have been me running the Saint’s Outlaws.”
My body goes rigid.“I’ve been the target the entire time?”I ask in an icy voice.
Hysteria tinges Frankie’s laugh.“Of course, you have.Haven’t you realized it yet?I fucking hate you, big brother.I wanteverythingthat you love.”
“The Steel Slayers?”
“Me,” he quips in a sinister tone.
“You’re Clink, Frankie?”
“Clink was I, and I was Clink,” he says in a riddle I have no fucking clue how to understand.
“The fucking Steel Slayers signed a goddamn peace treaty,” I growl, pacing around the room as my mind works through the puzzle Frankie puts before me.
He laughs that deranged laugh again.“Why wouldn’t they?Clink died five years ago.”
A headache forms behind my eyes from trying to decipher a puzzle I don’t have enough clues to.
I feel dumb as shit right now because there’s something I’m not seeing, not comprehending.So, I shove it to the back until I can call church.
“If it’s me you want, then leave Birdie and my fucking kids alone and come at me.”
Frankie snickers.“Tell you what.Since Iloveyou so much, I’ll make a deal with you.If you meet up with mealoneto fight and you win, I’ll leave your precious little family alone.You won’t win, but if you do, that’s the deal.”
“You want to challenge me to a fight?One-on-one?Alone?How do I know you’ll keep your word?”
“Because I stand on my word.”
I won’t call bullshit out loud.Instead, I put the phone on speaker and put out a call for church in the council chat as I reply to Frankie.
“You have a deal.When and where?”
“You’ll come alone?”
“Sure.I don’t need my club to whoop your ass, Frankie.”
Just to kidnap you and bring you to the Slop ‘N’ Chop for a friendly chat.
Frankie gives me a location in the next city over and a date and time two days from now.The only thing I know about the place he chose is that there is no club affiliation with it, which is good for us.It means the only people we have to worry about is the law enforcement presence.
“Tootles, big brother.I’m looking forward to our visit.”
Psychotic motherfucker.
I’m glad I’m nothing like him.
I stare down at the silent phone as his words come back to me.
My fault.
All of it.
The men we lost through our fight with the Steel Slayers.Losing Birdie.The sexual and physical abuse Birdie went through.The abuse my kids witnessed.Losing out on the first six years of their life.
