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“I, ah, yeah, I got it from an independent store.”

“Bullshit. You’re going to lie to my face like that?” I asked, shaking my head.

“Why don’t you get to the point, Crow? You’re costing me money, keeping me from the bar.”

“It was you, wasn’t it? Who fucked with the tapes, so no one would know it was her?”

“Her,” Nyx repeated, stiffening, eyes going worried.

“Yeah, funny thing. Turns out, if you talk to a shithead, and learn who his victim is, you find out who her sister is, then you follow her as she makes her way toward the mountains. Where you find a woman living with chickens and crows and a poison garden. All by herself.”

“What did you do to her?” Nyx asked, shoving both her hands into my chest, sending me back a step.

“Christ, Nyx, come the fuck on,” I said, shaking my head. “You know me better than that.”

“What I know about you is that you’re a good guy. Until you let your demons out to play. And then you’re a bloodthirsty, sadistic monster.”

I didn’t know how she knew that.

As a whole, the club liked to play their cards close to their vests.

Maybe Judge had been talking to Delaney.

Maybe Delaney had spread that shit back to Nyx.

“Whatever demons I might have, they don’t come out and play with women.”

“Not even ones who poison you with belladonna.”

“Not even ones who poison me.”

“Then why visit her at all?”

“To ask some questions, I guess,” I said, shrugging. “And while asking those questions—sometime between assisting the rescue of a crow and heading back home—I opened a jar and smelled a cream that smells exactly like that shit you wear. So, imagine my surprise to realize that not only is a poison expert living in Shady Valley, but she is friends with someone in my circle.”

“Listen, she wants to keep her entire life secret,” Nyx said, shrugging. “It’s not my place to talk about her.”

“Even when she is poisoning people in your bar.”

“Do you really think that shithead deserves your indignation? I know Morgaine well enough to know that she isn’t just some sort of hired assassin or contract killer or whatever the cool kids are calling it these days. She only does this occasionally. And she only does it to dickheads who deserve it.”

“Yeah, that’s the information I got out of her too. And I wouldn’t have needed to, if a so-called friend of the club would have been open with us. I mean, the fuck, Nyx? What do you think Slash is going to have to say about this?”

“Don’t tell him,” Nyx said.

There was an edge to her voice then that I wasn’t sure I’d ever heard before. Something that gave me pause. That made me question if I was actually going to rat her out or not.

And, in our world, in clubs, you didn’t have a choice in that shit. You told your president everything because that was just how it worked. He had to know what was going on, what threats were around, which ghosts from your past could potentially come back to haunt your present.

It kept the club safe.

There was no choice in the matter.

So you knew it had to be a strange, strangled, almost desperate sound to her voice to give me pause, to make me think it over.

Nyx, as a whole, was not someone who got worked up over little shit, who ever sounded desperate or unsure. She was the epitome of confidence and sass and self-possessed.

What was going on there?

Shaking it off, I shrugged.

“About your part? No, I’m not going to tell him that. If I tell him, it trickles down to Judge. From Judge to Delaney. And then she’s in an uncomfortable spot between her best friend and her family. So I’m not going to do that. But I am going to be telling them about Morgaine and the poisons and shit.”

“And I guess I have to understand that,” Nyx said, sighing hard. “But promise me you guys aren’t going to fuck with her? She likes her life out there in the middle of nowhere. And even if we don’t understand it, we should respect it.”

“We aren’t in the business of fucking with anyone’s personal lives,” I assured her. “I can’t guarantee that Slash might not be interested in her… work, but if he approaches her and she says no, he’s not going to press it.”

“Does anyone ever actually say no to Slash, though?” Nyx asked, but it was almost as if she was speaking to herself, not me. “Even if they know they should,” she added.

Admittedly, Slash was a scary guy. The scars, the voice, the general vibe the man gave off. But he had a moral code. He didn’t push people into doing shit. Especially women.

Though, come to think of it, I wasn’t even sure of the last time I saw him with a woman.


Tags: Jessica Gadziala Shady Valley Henchmen Crime