“They aren’t mine,” I countered automatically, both shocked that she would think so and warmed that she did.
Another helium-filled laugh. “Well, tell that to the bloke who dropped my Patrick’s balls off in a glass jar last night. Seemed they were bleeding, fucking pissed that we’d not only fucked around on their precious territory but with one of their bitches.”
“I am not one of their bitches,” I repeated the sentiment with a gesture at my string of pearls and white collared dress. “Do I look like a biker’s woman to you?”
“No.” She sucked in a ridiculously deep drag of tobacco and then expelled it in a rush, the smoke obscuring her drawn face. “But clearly my Brett saw something in you to like beyond the prissy girl thing you got going on. And these bikers, they do bad shit for small reasons, but they made this personal.”
“You made it personal when you unwittingly attacked the sister-in-law of The Fallen’s prez.”
She blinked, cupping her sharp elbow under one hand to prop up her cigarette-holding hand. Though she was tired, I could see how she might have been beautiful once, even sharp and powerful. The queen of a criminal empire. It reminded me to be careful. We were outside a church, and she had a lot to lose, but wasn’t that when people act the most rashly?
I imagined what Loulou would do if someone took Zeus or her babies from her, and a cold shudder of fear rolled through me.
“Interesting, that,” she mused, sucking on her cig. “You’re not much to look at but that’s a lot of power for a wee girl. You can use it now to get them off my back.”
I cocked my head to the left, unconsciously adopting Priest’s habit. “Why would I do that?”
Brenda’s lips pursed as if I’d forced her to suck a lemon. “Because you killed my son.”
“You’re deluded if you think I killed him. You did that when you didn’t heed The Fallen’s warning. You might be from out of town, but their reputation should have given you serious pause. Their first warning should have run you out of town. This is on you and your husband.”
“You killed him too,” she continued, her voice almost conversational even though every inch of her tightly knotted form spoke to her tension and angst.
So, I decided, she was straddling the line between denial and bargaining in her grief.
I sighed tiredly, feeling the ache in my ribs and an itch too far inside my casted fingers to scratch. “Listen, if you want to attack me, do it. There are about two hundred churchgoers inside who will hear me as soon as I scream, but if you’re going to, let’s get the show on the road. I’m tired.”
“I’m not going to attack you, silly girl.” Brenda shook her head, then flicked the ash off the end of her cigarette before moving toward me.
I let her because that feeling was back. The glorious growth of something like a dark bloom in my chest breaking through the crust of my soul—searching for the light.
Adrenaline sluiced through me. It tasted of iron on the back of my tongue, of blood.
It reminded me of Priest.
She stopped when our toes touched, my high-heeled patent leather Mary Janes to her pointed toe leather boots. Then she studied me. I felt her gaze in my hair, along the heart-shaped curve of my face, on the glossy I wore across my lips. I felt the weight of it invasively on my skin, touching me where her son only dreamt.
Finally, she bared her teeth at me in a semblance of a smile and grabbed my hand tightly in her free one. Her skin was cold, clammy, and the edges of her nails were yellow from smoking.
“Go to them with a détente,” she said silkily, her previous behaviour only a memory. Now, her criminal regality was in full effect. “If they come for me, tell them my people will stage a full-scale fucking gang war, okay? I have the sense you’re good at running to your big sister to tattle. Do that, and I won’t come for you and yours, mmkay?”
There was a sharp, radiating burn on my hand held tight in hers. My gaze snapped down to watch as she extinguished her cigarette in the middle of the back of my hand.
It took everything in me to keep from flinching, Instead, I settled a cold stare back on her manic face, and said, “This is the third warning, Brenda. I urge you to take it when you didn’t take the others. Get out of town as quickly as you can and don’t ever come back to Entrance. In fact, don’t come back to Canada. That’s all the help you’ll get from me. Even then, they still might hunt you down for what you’ve already done.”