Picnic surveyed the scene, his face calmer than seemed reasonable.

“Max tried to kill Horse,” I told him. “He killed Jeff. I don’t trust any of you. I want an ambulance for Horse and I want you out of here.”

“Babe, I have no idea what went down here,” Picnic said slowly. “But you have to let us help Horse. Put down the gun.”

“No fucking way,” I replied. “Max shot him in the back. I’ll shoot any one of you fucking Reapers who try to touch him. Ambulance. Now.”

“There’s one on the way,” Picnic said. “Bam’s called it in. But if you’re sitting there holding a gun on us when the cops get here, that’s going to make it a lot harder for them to take care of Horse. He’s our brother, we aren’t going to hurt him.”

“Max was his brother too.”

“A bad thing happened here,” Duck said, stepping forward. Something about his voice mesmerized me, and his eyes looked soft and sad. I watched as he crossed the floor and sat in front of me, about three feet from the gun. “Don’t make it worse. We can still control the situation, but not if you get in a shootout with the cops.”

That startled me.

“I don’t want to shoot the cops, I just want to protect Horse,” I said.

“How are they going to know that?” he asked reasonably. I heard sirens in the distance. “You’re running out of time, let us help you through this, okay?”

I wanted to agree and had opened my mouth to tell him when something tackled me from behind. Duck’s hand darted forward at the same instant, wrenching the gun out of my grasp as Ruger rolled me away from Horse’s body. He held me down, hand over my mouth, and leaned his face in close to mine. His expression was intense, almost feral. In the corners of my eyes I saw the guys spring into action, throwing things into a bag, which Bam Bam grabbed before he took off running out the back door of the barn.

“All hell’s gonna break loose when they come in here,” Ruger told me, his tone urgent. “They’re probably going to arrest you, maybe all of us. Keep your mouth shut. I don’t care what happened here and I don’t care who did the shooting. You keep your mouth shut and the only time you open it is to ask for a lawyer. Keep asking for a lawyer ’til you get one, we’ll send him to you. Do not talk, you got me?”

He pulled his hand away from my mouth and I nodded, eyes wide. A single cop came flying through the door and stopped abruptly, obviously shocked at the scene.

“Holy shit!” he yelled, reaching up to grab his radio. “We need backup now. Everyone, hands up where I can see them. Get off that girl, let her go.”

Ruger rolled off me and stood, backing away with his hands raised high. The others followed suit and then I joined them. The lone cop watched us anxiously as EMTs rushed over to Horse, bundling him onto a stretcher and hauling him out the door. More cops arrived, which was the start of a very, very long night.

I asked for a lawyer and eventually I got one, but he couldn’t answer the one question I cared about.

Was Horse still alive?

Horse

He felt detached from his body, almost floating. Pain roared through him. Voices echoed in the background, along with sirens. Then the world went black again.

More voices. Pain, but muted. Horse opened his eyes slowly, taking in a blurry room and a bright white light. A woman stood over him, asking him questions. He tried to answer, telling her his name, but he was so damned tired. He needed to sleep.

“Wake up, asshole. You’re late for church. No excuses.”

Shit. Had he slept in?

Horse opened his eyes, blinking rapidly, trying to focus. Not his room…hospital. Had to be a hospital. It came back to him in a rush—he’d been with Marie and then somebody shot him.

“Did they get Marie?” he demanded, but it came out in a whisper. Fucking pussy, he couldn’t even talk. He hated feeling weak.

“Marie is safe,” Picnic said, stepping into Horse’s line of sight. Horse studied his face to make sure the man wasn’t lying to him. “She’s in jail right now. Our guy’s arranging bail. He says that if the ballistics match her story, they probably won’t charge her with anything. She’d be out already but they’re pissed that she’s stonewalling about why her brother and Max were fighting.”

“Jail?” he asked, confused.

“Marie shot Max,” Picnic said, his face grim. Horse wrinkled his forehead. “Ruger’s in there too. Hands covered in blood so they arrested him. He had to tackle your girl to get the gun away from her. She’d gone all Pulp Fiction on us, ready to defend you by killing all of us if she had to. Crouched over your body like Wonder Woman. Gives me a boner just thinking about it.”

“You’re the asshole. Why would she shoot Max?” Horse asked, every word grating against his sore throat. Had the bullet hit his mouth, for fuck’s sake? Why couldn’t he talk right?

“Max shot you in the back,” Picnic said shortly. “And then he shot Jensen. Marie was probably next—she told our guy that Max was getting ready to finish you off when she took him out. Kid is like a fucking commando, never saw that coming. Shot him seven times.”

“Fuck,” Horse muttered, feeling himself smile. “Damn, that’s amazing. My girl’s a one-woman army.”

“No shit,” Picnic said, shaking his head. “Took care of business, no question about that. Hey, gotta ask you something important.”

“What’s that?”

Picnic leaned over and spoke softly.

“Cops found all kinds of papers,” he said. “No idea what was in them, but Marie told the lawyer they were talking about money transfers. Jensen said it was all set up. Could we be in trouble?”

Horse wrinkled his forehead, trying to think.

“I changed everything after we found out about Jensen,” he said. “New accounts, the whole thing, a lot more than just passwords and shit like that. Shouldn’t have been traceable.”

“Wonder what he was talking about?”

Horse searched his memory, which was way too hard. Must be on drugs, he realized. Something hovered just out of reach, something he knew was important. Then it came to him.

“We’re good,” he said, smiling.

“How’s that?”

“Max was in the office the last time I printed out a list of the overseas account numbers and contact information,” he said. “Told him I was making dupes for the lockbox. Probably left to take a piss or something and he copied them. Bet he thought he’d hit the jackpot.”

“Tell me that isn’t as bad as it sounds, bro.”

Horse tried to shake his head, but it didn’t work.

“They were dummies,” he replied, savoring the moment. “You know I like to fuck with the cops. Couple times a year I update my fake accounts and ledgers, make ’em realistic enough that if we ever get raided they’ll be chasing their tails for months. I never told Jensen, and Max sure as fuck wouldn’t know. Max gave him accounts with about five grand in them. Just enough to trick someone trying to do a test transfer, you know? Little game I like to play, extra insurance…guess it worked out.”

“Jesus Christ… Thank fuck for that,” Picnic said.

“Nope, not Jesus, just a man,” Horse whispered. “Although when women see my dick for the first time, they’ve been known to fall down on their knees and worship me.”

Picnic laughed.

“Yeah, you’re gonna live,” he said. “Ego’s too big to die. Cops’ll want to talk to you at some point. Tell ’em you can’t remember anything beyond being at the party, lawyer says a traumatic head injury can make you forget the hours right before it happened. Yours hit the ground when he shot you. That’ll get you off the hook and drive ’em crazy at the same time. I’m gonna call the nurse now, let them know you’re awake.”

“Wait,” Horse said. “Tell me about the Jacks. I miss anything?”

“Nothing yet,” Picnic replied. “We’ll keep an eye on them, this is just getting started. War’s coming. Doubt your girl’ll be their target though. Not worth their time to range this far out of their territory if they aren’t getting paid.”

Horse heard the room door open, and the sounds of a busy hallway behind it.

“Hey, Picnic, I just went down to grab a drink,” Dancer said as she walked in. Horse managed to open his eyes again and look at her. She froze, eyes wide, then her face exploded in a huge smile as she rushed over to him. She leaned over to give him a hug, pulling back at the last minute with a grimace. Thank god for that, a hug right now and he’d probably need another gallon of whatever painkiller they’d given him. “Horse! I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you woke up. How do you feel? Can he talk?”

“You look like shit,” Horse said. “What’s wrong with you?”

“My brother got shot, you douche,” she said. “I thought you were going to die. Marie saved your life, did he tell you that?”

“Yeah,” Horse said, closing his eyes again. Damn he was tired.

“Fuckin’ pansy,” Picnic said, and Horse heard him laugh, as if from a distance. “Damn woman had to protect him, lazy asshole wouldn’t even get up off the ground. Dripping blood, making a mess…”

Horse opened his mouth to tell him to fuck off, but before the words came he was out again.

Epilogue

Yakima Valley, eastern Washington

Five months later


Marie

I drove past our old elementary school on the way to the church. Jeff and I loved that playground—in the summer Mom would drop us off there before heading in to work a block away. We’d check in with her every couple of hours, feeling very mature. The familiar ache of sorrow and loss hit me, a stealth attack.

I missed him.

Jeff’d been messed up, way more messed up than I’d realized, but that didn’t change that he was my brother or that I’d watched him die right in front of my eyes. At least the nightmares were getting better. For the first few weeks I’d been terrified to sleep because he’d visit me at night, accusing me of killing him while his brains dribbled out his mouth. Thankfully, I hadn’t had one of those nightmares for two months now and most days I didn’t even think of him.

Today wasn’t like other days though.

I pulled into the parking lot and grabbed my dress bag. Mom was going to be pissed—I was supposed to be there almost forty-five minutes ago but I’d been delayed. The church coordinator glared at me as I walked in, grabbing my arm and rushing me downstairs to the bathroom. There I found my mother looking like a dream in an elegant, Grecian-style, peach-colored wedding dress.

“Oh Mama,” I said, feeling tears spring to my eyes. “You look so beautiful. John’s gonna die when he sees you.”

Her face crumpled at the word “die” and I swore under my breath. Mom was fragile these days and I still wasn’t sure how to deal with that. I was used to her being the strong one, because she’d suffered so much and always survived. Now I’d become the strong survivor.

“You need to get dressed,” she said, forcing herself to smile again. Joanie, her longtime beautician, clucked at Mom to sit down so she could finish up her makeup. Her hair was already done, swept up in keeping with the Grecian style, little ribbons woven through it along with fresh flowers.

An hour later we waited in the back of the church. The last of the guests were inside and then John came out to stand at the altar. The music started and I reached over to take Mama’s hand, squeezing it. John’s daughter Carla walked ahead of us carrying white lilies. She was hard to read and I still wasn’t quite sure how she felt about our families being joined. I guess it didn’t matter, because she wanted her dad to be happy and that was enough to make her overlook our oddities. The wedding march started and I took Mama’s hand to give her away.

It should have been Jeff’s job.

I wondered if he could see us from wherever people go after they die. I hoped he knew Mama was finally happy. Then I stopped thinking about Jeff because the stunned, almost worshipful look on John’s face as we came down the aisle filled my heart. I put their hands together, popping up on my toes to kiss first his cheek and then hers. I liked him. I liked him a lot, actually. He adored my mother and the feeling was mutual.

I stepped back and took my spot next to her as maid of honor. The minister started talking and that’s when I let myself look over at Horse for the first time. He stood strong and tall next to John’s grown son, Paulson. They wore matching tuxes, which I’d never imagined Horse would be willing to tolerate. He’d done it with grace though, telling me I’d find a way to pay him back.