In a strange way, Aidan felt little urgency now. The dogs would catch up to their quarry. It was going to happen, it was just a matter of waiting. This trek through the pine trees was merely a way to pass the time.
His thoughts went to his family, his two girls waiting at home for him. Sam’s tear-bright eyes as she’d kissed him goodbye. Lainie squirming in her arms. All he wanted was to go home to them.
But first, the killing.
The voices of the hounds changed. No longer a questing bark, but hard insistence.
Aidan halted, listening, trying to get his bearings.
Michael materialized beside him, startling him. “They have him.”
A thrill moved through him, a flash of heat in his blood.
Ellison had gone to ground, or tried to anyway, in a small rock cave. But it wasn’t deep. When their flashlights hit it, the space was revealed to be no more than a shallow depression in the face of a huge boulder. Ellison was gleaming with sweat, scratched like he’d been in a fight with a wildcat, feet bloody. He held a long pine branch in one hand that he brandished at the dogs. And then his gaze lifted as he was surrounded by a different kind of Dog.
“Bear. Sammie,” Michael called, snapping his fingers. The Blueticks went to him, long tails wagging, proud of a job well done.
“Mr. Ellison,” Ghost greeted. “Fancy meeting you here.”
“Bite my ass, Teague,” the disgraced kingpin said.
“Oh no. I’ll leave that to this big fucking dog we got over here. I just wanted to gloat a little bit.”
“You always had a flair for the dramatic,” Mercy said with a dark laugh. He was as bad as the Dane, reeking of bloodlust, the big monster.
Ghost nodded, gesturing to the whole crew of them with a sweep of his arm. “Take a look, Donnie boy. And understand something.”
“Not sure what good understanding’s going to do at this point,” Walsh said dryly.
“You didn’t make an enemy,” Ghost said. “When you targeted us, our women, our families – you made a whole fleet of enemies. There’s not a man here who wouldn’t run a knife through you.” He grinned, briefly. “But I’m gonna save the honors for my pig-killer.”
Ellison took a deep breath, square jaw trembling, though his eyes remained hard. “You won’t hold onto it forever,” he said. “Knoxville?”
“This monopoly you’ve got on the underground. The MC way of life is backward. It’s dated, and it has a shelf life. Kill me. Fine. But you can’t hold onto your kingdom.”
A sensation like fingertips tickled up the back of Aidan’s neck. A man as proud as Ellison couldn’t go to his grave without blowing a little smoke. But Aidan wondered if a shred of truth colored this particular cloud of vapors.
Ghost smiled, expression ghoulish in the flashlight glow. He lifted a hand, and gestured to Michael.
“Hold,” Michael said, and turned loose of Cassius.
The Dane rushed in…
And Aidan heard the whisper of Michal’s knife leave the sheath.
He didn’t look away, when it happened. His stomach didn’t cramp and his gorge didn’t rise. He thought of Sam. Of Lainie. His girls.
Safe now.
Forty-Seven
Lainie fell asleep slowly as she ate, until her lips went slack and Sam had to pull the bottle away. “Sleepy girl,” she murmured, smiling. She stared at her peaceful face, and again marveled at the perfection of it, the incomparable wonder of life in its earliest, most innocent state. Her heart was full.
But her mind was fuzzy with worry. Aidan had left yesterday morning, and it was three o’clock of the next day. She hadn’t slept, hands groping through the cold sheets for him.
Lainie’s warm breath fanned across her throat and she closed her eyes, sent another prayer skyward. She couldn’t have found Aidan, the real Aidan, at last, only to lose him so soon. Not when she held their baby in her arms. Not when she loved him this much.
A lump forming in her throat, she went to lay Lainie down in her bassinet. She straightened the blankets, her little socks. Pressed a hand to her tight, full belly, just for the maternal joy of it. She stood and turned around–
