Page 2 of Existential

“You got a point to this?” I snap. I mean, I love the guy, but talk about stating the obvious. Does he think I lie awake at night for fun?

“My point,” he says, pushing his chair out and standing, “is that we need to tread carefully. Every decision leads us down a very different path. The people we’re dealin’ with, the Wingmen, they ain’t as forgivin’ as our petty crime pals.”

“I know.” Everyone thought Carlos was dangerous when the fucker was still alive. Thing is, one madman can be contained. Two can be controlled. But when you have a dozen or more crazy bastards who, although they’re not quite at Carlos’s level of insanity yet, are dangerous in their own right working a dozen separate agendas, it’s kind of like facing down a bullet versus a spray of shrapnel; there’s shit flying at you from all directions. Takes one hell of a man to keep that sort of mess under control. A man like my father was, like King’s becoming, and like I sure as hell ain’t.

Murphy offers me a tight nod in reply to my apparent silence on the matter, and leaves the room, closing the doors behind him. I drag a hand over my face, pulling the snakebite piercings down as I do. My lip snaps back into position with an audible pop as I let go of my beard and look down to where my phone rests in my lap.

One unread message.

I tap in my passcode and swipe through to the simple sentence.

One week.

Yeah, this club’s got more to worry about than a fucking bunch of wannabe gangsters taking over the coke distribution in Texas—one that gets around in a black suit, brandishing a business card bearing three simple letters: D, E, and A.

Donovan motherfucking Jessup.

A.K.A. Satan’s bitch-boy.