Kings of Chaos (Dirty Broken Savages #1)(94)

“You can, and you will,” I tell her. “I owe you for helping me get this far, and I said I’d take care of you. So here.” I push it toward her again. “Take it and get out of Detroit. Go somewhere you can start over.”

Tears well up in her eyes, and she throws her arms around me. I immediately go stiff with surprise. I don’t like emotions, and displays of gratitude like this are just weird for me. I can feel myself closing off and getting uncomfortable, but I let her hold on for a couple seconds before I gently push her away.

“Look, you helped me out a lot, so it’s fine. I wasn’t going to leave you high and dry. We don’t have to hug it out or anything.”

“Sorry,” Avalon says, wiping her eyes. “I’m just… I’m really grateful.”

“Okay. Well. Good.”

Her hands are shaking when she finally reaches out and takes the money from me, tucking it into an open bag on the bed. Everything else aside, I’m glad that she’s going to be able to get a fresh start. She deserves that, at the very least.

“I guess I won’t see you again, huh?” she murmurs, glancing at me.

I shake my head. “Probably not. Take care of yourself. Maybe try to avoid shitty pimps if you can. None of them will give a fuck about you.”

Avalon nods. “I know. I’ll try. Thank you, River.”

“Sure.”

“You take care, too. If anyone finds out what you did…”

“I can take care of myself. I’ve been doing it for a while. So you don’t need to worry about me. Focus on keeping yourself out of trouble.”

She nods again, glancing at the ugly carpeted floor and then back up at me. “What are you going to do now?”

It’s one of those questions I don’t know how to answer. I’m not trying to have a heart to heart with her, and it’s not like I know. I can feel that emptiness pulling at me, reminding me that for so long, my life revolved around taking these fuckers down. And now my list is complete, leaving me with not much else to do.

But like I said, I’m not trying to get into that with Avalon in this shitty motel.

“Get back to my life,” I say. It’s the best answer I’ve got.

“I’m happy for you,” she tells me with a little watery smile. “You got your revenge. I hope it helps.”

“Yeah,” I mutter. “Me too. Anyway, I’m out of here. You should get moving too.”

“Right. Okay. Thank you again.”

I think about shaking her hand for a second, but then I just turn to leave, ready to be done with all of this. Ready to go home. Dog trots along after me, and we slip out of the motel room and back down to the parking lot.

This time, Dog hops right into the car when I open the door, settling himself on the back seat.

I adjust the rearview mirror and look back at him, a little smile tugging at my lips.

“Well,” I tell him. “This is it. We’re free. Time to go home.”

I crank the car up and get us heading back toward my place. I haven’t seen it in a while, and it’ll be good to sleep in my own bed again. I can do whatever I want again, when I want to, without having people breathing down my neck about it.

It’ll be good.

But as I drive, keeping my focus on the road and trying not to let my thoughts steer to the four men I’m leaving behind, it doesn’t really feel like freedom.





40





KNOX





“SHE JUST LEFT?”

It’s a dumb question, I guess. As soon as I got back to the house, I could tell River wasn’t in it. Her car was gone, the dog was gone, and all the little odds and ends and shit she’d left lying around the house were gone too. Plus, the energy was different. There was something about the air when she was around. Something charged, like anything could pop off, like gasoline just waiting for a match to spark and light a whole fucking inferno.

I got used to that while she was here, and it’s weird having it gone. Having her gone.

“Yeah,” Gage says. “She must’ve. She said she was going to, and all her shit is gone. Her motherfucking dog is gone. So, yes.”

It’s all the same shit I noticed, and I narrow my eyes at him a little.

“And you’re just good with that?”

Gage’s face hardens, his emotions disappearing behind that angry look he usually wears. “Why wouldn’t I be? Our arrangement is over. Ivan is out of the picture, so River is free to do whatever she wants now.”

“She didn’t even say goodbye,” I point out.

He shrugs. “So what? This was never about us being friends or sentimentality or anything. She had a job to do, and she did it. The whole thing actually worked out pretty smoothly. Since River went through that hooker, there’s almost no chance anyone will be able to connect us to Ivan’s disappearance. We were never seen with him.”

“And that’s all that matters?”

He gives me a look. “The problem is taken care of. Now we can refocus on our business and get on with shit. All of us.”

He’s right. The arrangement was that she would leave when the job was done, and the job is done. I’m the one he sent after her in the first place to make sure she couldn’t run away before she took care of St. James. But even knowing that, it still feels wrong. Like there’s something under my skin that’s different from the usual shit. Like when you eat a meal, and at the end you’re still hungry. Unsatisfied.