Raid disconnected.

Knight threw his phone on his desk and got back to work.

But as he did it, he was uneasy.

* * * * *

Deacon

Deacon should have pulled his gun just to put the fear of God into him when he opened the door to his hotel room, but he didn’t. He didn’t, partly because Raid used his own vehicle because he wasn’t hiding shit and partly because it’d take a fuckuva lot more than a gun trained on him to put the fear of God in Raid Miller.

He closed the door and Raid switched on the light by the chair he was sitting in.

“Fuck, seriously? Drama?” he growled.

“Hear you’re not keepin’ good company, Deacon,” Raid returned.

Deacon crossed his arms on his chest. “Was wonderin’ why you were here. Now I’m wonderin’ when you thought my shit was any business of yours.”

“You’re not messy,” Raid pointed out.

“Money’s better messy,” Deacon replied.

“Since when did you need money?” Raid asked.

“Since I decided to buy an island and move there with my favorite volleyball,” Deacon shot back, watched his friend’s lips twitch, ignored it, and moved into the room, shrugging off his coat and throwing it on the bed.

“You’re off the grid,” Raid said, his voice suddenly low. “Then, hear word you’re not off the grid, you’re fuckin’ vapor. Weeks on end.”

His time with Cassie.

Deacon cut his eyes to him barely turning his head.

Raid knew why.

“What was her name?” he asked quietly.

Deacon looked away, shoving his hands into his pockets, tossing keys and change onto the bureau, saying, “None of your fuckin’ business.”

He’d made a mistake years ago. He let Raid Miller in. He started liking him. He let the guy get to know him. He picked a guy who was not stupid and he got to know Deacon. Now Deacon knew he couldn’t hide shit from Raid Miller.

So he didn’t bother to try.

“What’s her name?” Raid pushed.

Deacon turned and leaned back against the bureau, stretching his legs in front of him, crossed at the ankles, arms crossed on his chest. He gave the man his eyes but said nothing.

“You keep her clean?” Raid asked.

“She’s clean.”

“No one knows about her?”

“No one.”

“She burn you or you burn her?”

“Are you not gettin’ I don’t wanna talk about this?” Deacon asked.

Raid studied him.

Then he remarked, “Man’s burned by a woman, he moves on. He burns a good woman, he kicks his own ass until he finds another woman and learns not to do that shit.”

There was no other woman for him.

Not one.

Deacon said nothing.

“The way you’re kickin’ your ass, Deacon, could get you dead.”

“And that matters how?”

The air in the room went static.

“Are you fuckin’ serious?” Raid demanded to know.

Deacon decided on more silence.

“One of the best men I’ve ever met,” Raid told him and that was good to know. Raid was a good man and it was good to have that back.

He still didn’t reply.

“Hanna likes you,” Raid stated.

“No. Your woman loves you. She loves you so much she can’t see straight. She likes me ’cause you like me. She’d like Hitler if you liked Hitler.”

When he was finished talking, he clenched his jaw, the Hitler reference cutting close to the bone and he’d done it to his damned self.

“You believe that, you’re whacked,” Raid returned.

“Never said I was sane, brother.”

“Who said you couldn’t be happy?” Raid retorted, impatience in his tone.

“I’m poison,” Deacon reminded him.

“She did it to herself.”

“I didn’t see it happening.”

“She did it to herself,” Raid repeated.

“I didn’t protect her.”

“She did it to herself,” Raid said again and Deacon lost it.

Uncrossing his arms and curling his fingers around the edge of the bureau, he leaned toward his friend. “Ass in a sling, brother, hangin’ from her hands on a hook, legs tied wide open, pussy offered, mindlessly takin’ cock. And they were lined up for her, Raiden, lined up to take their turn. All that so she could get her fix.”

Raid flinched, muttering, “Deacon.”

“Charged in there, got her down from that hook, she looked at me, had no clue who I was. No fuckin’ clue. She sold the rings I gave her to buy heroin, but I gave her those rings, man. She walked down the aisle to me cryin’, she was so happy, and she didn’t know me. Tried to get her out of there, got the beating of a lifetime, took it, fought it, nearly died from it. Through that, she wandered back into that fuckin’ hellhole to be strung back up, fucked in the cunt, up her ass, jacked off on, my wife covered in dozens of men’s cum, that shit dripping out of every orifice they could reach, not feelin’ shit but the high or the need for another needle filled with junk. Her husband outside, left in the alley, near dead, and she didn’t give a shit. ”

“That’s it, man, she didn’t give a shit.”

“She was my wife.”

Raid leaned in to his elbows on his knees. “By then, your wife was dead. That piece was nothing and she did it to herself.”

Deacon shook his head. “We’re done talkin’ about this.”

“You said she had good folks. All that was on her.”

“Good folks?” Deacon asked. “Fuck, man, they hid that shit from me. Three stints in rehab before she was twenty. They didn’t say shit. Jeannie sure as fuck didn’t. I put that rock on her finger, they broke the record plannin’ our wedding, tyin’ her to me so I’d take on her shit. And they didn’t clue me in to any of that.”

“And that’s your problem?” Raid asked. “You told me they were decent. That doesn’t say decent, Deacon. That says they’re bullshit liars, just like she was. They knew you were a good man. They tied your hands. You didn’t know what you were dealing with. How could you do shit for her if you didn’t know she had a problem?”

“Money went missing.”

“And to stop it when you noticed that, she was turning tricks before she got in too deep and sold her soul to the devil. Or in her case, her body.”