“Shit. You don’t want him dead, do you?” Ryder questioned.
“Why would any woman want to stand by and see people kill each other? He’s a huge, strapping biker. Seems like a waste to just kill him. Surely to God, two grown men can settle their differences without resorting to repeatedly shooting each other.”
Waving one hand dramatically to make her point, she trained her eyes on both of them. “I’m getting real tired of patching you two up. Just make up already.”
“He shot me, twice.” Ryder’s indignant voice was almost funny.
“And you somehow managed to kill his brother.” There was nothing goddamn funny about that.
“I ain’t apologizing for that shit. The bastard raped my sister. He had it coming. I tried to head him off, but he wouldn’t stop. He just kept coming.”
Ace’s head came up. “The little pretty one?”
Ryder kicked his chair violently. “Shut the fuck up. You know I only have the one.”
The dirty man pressed a hand against his leg wound. “I didn’t know he did that. Your sister’s real young.”
Ryder was practically vibrating with anger. “Stop talking about her.”
Banging coffee mugs down on the table, Tiffany looked from one man to the other. “Work it out. I’m going to go take a shower. If you two shoot each other again, I swear I will leave you where you drop.”
As she stalked off, she heard Ace comment, “Feisty one.”
“Don’t talk about her like that. In fact, don’t look at her either.”
“You can’t keep people from looking at other fucking people, dimwit.”
“I’m the motherfucker with the gun,” Ryder argued.
Tiffany shook her head. She was sick and tired of getting caught between the feuding men. As her temples began to throb, she realized she was stressed beyond her breaking point. At this point, they could both kill each other and she’d step right over them and bake cookies.
Ryder glared at the man sitting in front of him. Even if Tiffany could find some compassion in her heart for the man, he sure the hell couldn’t.
“Sorry about your sister, man. I didn’t know.”
“She’s fucking fourteen.”
“Jesus. I can’t believe he did that.”
Ryder wasn’t having any of this bullshit denial. “You’re going to start out by lying to me?”
“All right, I can fuckin’ believe he did it,” Ace amended. “I wish everything was back the way it was before it all went to hell.”
Dropping into a seat across the table, Ryder crammed the gun in his pocket and grabbed his coffee. “You’ve been out of the slammer, what, a week? You attacked a man, shot him twice, stalked him over the state line, and shot him again after threatening to kill a woman. Jesus, it’s like you’re fast tracking yourself to death row.”
Ryder watched as the man wrapped his dirty hands around the warm mug of coffee. “I should have been there for him.”
“You were doing time for the sick son of bitch. How much morebeing therecould you be for your brother?”
Ace stared down into the mug. “I must have failed him for him to not understand how wrong it is to touch a kid.”
“Nobody failed anybody. He had exactly the same fuckin’ parents you did,” Ryder snarled. “He was born fuckin’ as selfish as they come. You ain’t got control over nobody but you, man. The sooner you see that, the sooner you’re gonna get your life back on track.”
“What fuckin’ life?” Ace murmured, sounding defeated.
“You ain’t the only brother ever been locked up for ten years. You went in young. Now you got your whole life ahead of you. Don’t fuckin’ waste it by makin’ me kill your foolish ass.”
Ace huffed. “What the fuck kind of life can I possibly have. I’m and ex-con with a rapist for a fuckin’ brother. People ain’t gonna give me a chance to prove nothin’.”