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“He’s in there. You see him?” Moose’s voice brings me to a stop, and it’s then I realize we’ve reached the house.

My eyes follow his gesture.

I see Irons through a lit living room window. Seated on a couch, one arm around a woman who looks about half his age, but with about as many miles, and the other arm cradling a bottle of something — tequila, knowing Irons — like it’s a baby. Every so often, he pulls a swig and then passes it to his girl.

Each pass of the bottle involves a kiss that, even from the other side of the street, looks sloppy as hell.

“It won’t be long now,” Moose says. “Are you ready, brother?”

“I am.”

“This is your ticket back in. You get Irons out of the way, his seat opens up, and we’ll bring you back into the family. Take the heat off your girl. And get back to the business of making money instead of fighting over some fucking turf we don’t need. You got that gun?”

I take it out. Look it over. Check the ammo. A full clip. Then put it back in my waistband. “It’s all here.”

“It’ll be good to have you back. I’m sick of losing brothers.”

I grunt. Keep my eyes on Irons and his girl.

She’s young. Younger than June. For a moment, I feel a pang in my chest that she’s wrapped up with someone like Irons. She can’t have known what she was in for the first time he coaxed her onto his bike. And now…?

“What about her?” I say into the chill night air.

“You want to leave a witness?” The surprise is audible in Moose’s voice.

“No.”

“Look, Wraith, I get it. This part is a little fucking unsavory. If you can get in there, fire that gun and put a bullet through Irons’ head without the woman — who’s either going to be riding his cock when you break in, or asleep beside him — noticing you, then you can fucking let her live. Hell, if you can pull that shit off, I’ll step aside and make you the fucking president, because the Sons have never had a fucking ninja as a president and it might be just what we need. But unless you can fucking do that, the bitch has to die.”

“I figured.”

This is the price of the life that June and I want. New June, New Wraith. Both willing to take risks, make decisions, and do what needs to be done. She doesn’t see it yet, but this is the way forward for both of us.

She doesn’t see it yet, but she will. I’ll make sure of that.

“It’s time,” Moose says.

It is. Through the window, Irons tosses the empty bottle aside and picks up his girl, in a way that’s both surprisingly gentle, but leaves no doubt about what’s going to happen.

I wait a moment. Let them reach the bedroom. Then wait a moment more.

I want them distracted. I want them too busy, too caught up in each other, to notice until it’s too late.

The moments pass.

“Did I think wrong about you, Wraith? Do you not have the fucking balls to do this?”

“You just watch.”

Moose’s answer is a dark chuckle at my back as I start toward the house. I circle around to the side of the house, testing windows as I go. Each wobbles a little in its setting, but none move, all locked, until I come to the bathroom window that faces out to the house’s little side yard full of hydrangeas, rhododendrons, and maples. The window lifts, opens, and I pull loose the screen to open my entry into the home.

With a grunt and a lift, I’m in, standing on the linoleum floor between the toilet and the bathtub. The second my feet land, I can hear them. The grunts, the moans, the wet slap of skin on skin.

I take out the gun.

The girl screams — a long, stretched yes that scratches fingernails up my spine; she can’t be more than twenty. With a lifetime of mistakes ahead of her. As I look down at the gun in my hands, I want to puke.

But this needs to be done.