Buzz started fidgeting again. “Do you?”

“As long as I’m willing to do what needs to be done and I’m loyal, it won’t matter, right?”

“You’d be loyal to those spic ass**les?”

“As long as they were loyal to me.”

“What the hell? What sort of white supremacist are you?”

“One who’ll fight as hard as necessary to come out on top. Nobody in here’s going to push me around, I can tell you that. Not even my own kind. Least of all my own kind.”

Buzz brooded on that for a few minutes, then said, “What if I talked to Weston? See what he has to say about recruitin’ you for the HF?”

A quick yes would be too suspicious. Virgil had to resist, put up a fight. “Hell, no. Your boys just shanked me.”

Buzz didn’t try to talk him out of his refusal. But he climbed up on his bunk as if he’d finally thought of a solution to his problems, which gave Virgil hope that the pain he was suffering because of that fight in the dining hall wouldn’t be wasted.

Remembering what Peyton had said when she came to visit him in the infirmary, he let himself drift toward sleep. All I know is that I can’t stop thinking about you. Every time I close my eyes you’re there.

No matter how this ended, at least he had that.

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Wallace was still up, looking annoyed as he used her remote to scan through the television stations on her TV. Peyton couldn’t help resenting his presence even more now. Why wasn’t he gone? Or at the motel?

Telling herself to be diplomatic—she or Virgil might need Rick’s support as they navigated the next few weeks—she tried to bear up under the stress of having him around, in addition to what Weston Jager had said in his note, and forced a smile as she walked in.

“Hey, what’s going on?” she asked, her tone friendly.

He dropped the remote and leaned his elbows on his knees. “I’ve been waiting for you. I felt bad I was tied up when you came home earlier. Didn’t mean to chase you off.”

“You didn’t chase me off. How’s it going with your wife?”

“You know how it is with relationships,” he said. “One minute everything’s fine and the next…” He clicked his tongue. “She’s coming up with all these stipulations and demands.”

“Divorces are never easy.”

“She wants to take the kids out of state so she can live near her parents. Can you believe that? They moved to a small town in Wyoming a couple years back and she’s trying to convince me it’ll be the perfect place to raise the girls. It might be perfect for her, because she’ll never have to deal with me, but I’ll never get to see my kids.”

“She doesn’t care about that?”

“She says I’m so busy I don’t see them, anyway. She doesn’t understand the pressure I’m under, never has.”

“It’s hard to understand unless you live it,” she said, but she suspected his tendency to put his own needs, wants and desires first was more to blame than his job. “Just a sec.” She went into the kitchen to set her purse on the counter and plug in her cell phone.

“Give me an update,” he called. “How’d it go with Skinner today?”

“Not as smoothly as I’d hoped. Can I get you a glass of wine?” she called back, but a quick glance in her fridge told her he’d already availed himself of the beer John had left behind when he’d brought dinner. “No, thanks.”

She poured herself a splash of chardonnay and carried it into the living room.

“So?” he said. “What happened?”

“Virgil’s already been shanked,” she announced.

His eyebrows shot up. “That didn’t take long. How badly is he hurt?”

She sat across from him because she couldn’t bear to sit any closer. “He’ll be okay, but the injury required twenty-six stitches.” After kicking off her heels, she tucked her feet underneath her. “Four men jumped him in the dining hall.”

“Four? He’s lucky to be alive. How’d he do?”

“He put three of them in the infirmary. They have to be impressed.” Which was what Virgil was hoping, of course. “Whether or not the damage he inflicted makes them want to kill him or recruit him remains to be seen.”

Wallace whistled. “We’re off to a running start.”

“There’s more.”

He was wearing the clothes he’d had on yesterday, but he’d removed his tie, if he’d ever had it on to begin with, and rolled up his sleeves. “I’m all ears.”

“Weston Jager passed me a message.”

“Weston is…?”

“A high-ranking member of the Hells Fury.”

“Right. I’ve heard you talk about him before.”

“He’s also one of the men who went after Virgil.”

“Any chance you could call him something else?”

“Like…?”

“Skinner or Bennett. Every time you say Virgil, it’s as if…as if you consider him our equal.”

This was what he focused on instead of asking about Weston’s message? “He is our equal! Why do you always have to put him down?”

“Why do you always have to defend him?”

She dropped her feet and scooted to the edge of the couch. “I should never have told you what happened between us. You can’t get past it.”

“I could if you didn’t give away your true feelings every time you mention his name! Was he that good in bed?”

He was amazing, the best, but not because he was so skilled at pleasure. Their night together, before she’d spooked him into throwing up his defenses, was the most honest sex she’d ever had, the first time she’d made love with a man whose soul was as bare as his body. Their night together had meant a lot to her. “You’re making too big a deal out of it,” she muttered. “I am?”

“Yes!”

“Fine. I just—” he pinched the bridge of his nose “—maybe it’s him. I don’t like the way he looks at you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“This morning? At the table? There was so much raw desire coming off him it felt like he was making love to you right there in front of me. And he didn’t care whether or not it bothered me.”

Why would he care how it affected Rick? Wallace thought the whole world revolved around him. What was going on between her and Virgil had nothing to do with anyone else. It didn’t have anything to do with what Virgil was trying to accomplish or what she had dreams of doing, either. It was just…there. Unexpected, inconvenient, frightening in ways, but inescapable.




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