Page 115 of Existential

Digits stares up at me, remorseless as I literally hold his life in the balance with my hand wrapped around his throat. “You’re dead to me, you hear? Dead to the club. Dead to all of us.”

He snorts a laugh, eyeballing me. “I’m dead anyway, brother. Man up and get it done, yeah?”

“No.” I shake my head, sparing a glance over my shoulder at Dagne who watches with such sincerity it makes my heart ache. “No,” I repeat, looking back to Digits as I let his throat go. “First, I’ll get Jo Jo to expend a little energy removing your ink. And then I’ll get Murphy to take your first two fingers so if you ever try to ride again, you’ll think of us each time you reach for the brake and fail to stop. And then,” I say, pausing to take a deep breath. “Then I call up our friendly foes at the DEA and point them toward where they can not only find the body of their missing agent, but the asshole who killed him, too.”

The blood drains from his face, his cheeks going pallid as my smile grows.

He lost. He played the game, set up the board in his favor, and still got left with no pieces.

“Sucks to be you.”

I give Jo Jo the nod, and then turn to collect Dagne as I leave. She leans into my side, looping her arm around my waist as I guide her to the door. It feels like home.

“You did the right thing,” she says as I let her step out into the sunshine first. “Violence doesn’t always have to be your answer.”

“I know.”

But I also know what’ll happen when he’s tried and convicted, when he goes inside to wait out his turn on the execution table.

He won’t make it that far before somebody else finishes the job I started.

And Dagne never needs to know.