Free Burn Down the Night by M. O'Keefe Page A

downstairs if you need me.”
    I wouldn’t. Or if I did, I would pretend otherwise. And we both knew it.
    —
    After Fern left, I ran across the street for some coffee and a few newspapers.
    Back at the condo, I sat down in the recliner in front of the empty TV stand. But it felt weird sitting there with Max in the other room. It felt lonely.
    Lonely never bothered me. Or it never had before.
    But Fern’s words had sent me spinning.
    So I took my papers into the bedroom and sat down on top of the long dresser across from the bed.
    On the back page of
The Tampa Tribune
there was a mention of the Velvet Touch explosion. My heart hammered into the back of my throat, and for a second I couldn’t read the words. I took a deep breath and tried to calm down.
    Two incendiary devices.
    No casualties.
    Breath shuddered in my chest. I hadn’t killed anyone. I’d spent part of the drive imagining that I’d somehow hurt one of the girls. I’d tortured myself with the idea that some drunk guy had left the club and decided to sleep it off in the car before I blew it to pieces.
    But no one got hurt. The relief was delicious.
    Police had three suspects in custody. I blinked at that and reread it. Three suspects—all members of the Skulls Motorcycle Club. The owner of the strip club was claiming it was part of a drug deal gone bad.
    Zo was saying the bombs had been a retaliation by the motorcycle club against him because he would not let them sell drugs in his club.
    There were three pictures of the suspects. I recognized them from that circle of men who’d tried to kill Max.
    I nearly laughed. I nearly whooped with glee. My bombs were being pinned on those assholes and Zo was making it stick. It felt karmically right in a way. Like the universe was taking matters into its own hands.
    I sobered for a moment, trying to imagine what the universe had in store for me.
    Unable to help myself, I glanced at Max, handcuffed to the bed. Perhaps he was the tool the universe was going to use to punish me. Perhaps he was my karma.
    I knew when I’d bought those bombs, when I’d paid that weasel-eyed asshole all of my money for them—that I was signing myself up for punishment. That this kind of action in the world could not stand without response.
    And I had been ready for that response, because I believed that getting Jennifer and the rest of Lagan’s wives free of his filthy grip was worth any damage to my soul.
    It still was.
    So, I was going to get punished. But so were Rabbit and his crew.
    I could live with that. I grabbed my phone and searched the Internet for more information, but still couldn’t find out what had happened to Rabbit.
    Hours later, Max stirred and I jumped off the dresser to the side of the bed. Close, but not too close.
    “Max?”
    “Where am I?” His voice was a desert, sun-baked and cracked.
    “You’re safe.”
    He lifted his head as if to verify, but he could barely get it off the pillow before flopping back down and wincing.
    “Everything…fucking…hurts.”
    “Yeah. I’m sure.” Fern left some serious painkillers and I shook a few out into my hand.
    “I have some medicine,” I said, realizing I was going to have to get closer to the bed to give it to him. I took a half-step forward. His brilliant blue eyes found me in the shadowed room and I stopped.
    Dad had always set traps around the junkyard, trying to manage the worst of the coyotes and raccoons. One year, he caught a wolf. He took me and Jennifer across the yard to the far edge, near the lake where he had the wolf trapped by the leg. It was weak and skinny, its fur dirty. But when it caught our scent it turned and stared at us. It was trapped, its leg bloody and raw, but still…that look it gave us. Totally fucking scary.
    Predatory and desperate. That wolf would have killed us if it had the chance.
    Max looked exactly the same way handcuffed to that bed.
    “You scared?” he asked, like he kind of enjoyed that. He would. Of course, he