The Angels' Share (The Bourbon Kings Book 2) Read Free Page B

himself with nothing between his feet and the Ohio River, as his body went into a free fall, as a sickening burst of fight or flight blasted, too late, through his veins … his mind latched on to a poker game he’d played at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, seven years before.
    Good thing his descent had gone into slow motion.
    There had been ten sitting around the high-stakes table, the buy-in had been twenty-five thousand, and there had been two smokers, eight bourbon drinkers, three with sunglasses on, one with a beard, two wearing baseball caps, and a so-called preacher in an oddly proportioned white silk suit that Elvis might have worn in the eighties—if the King had put up the peanut butter and banana sandwiches and lived long enough to experience the Me Decade’s punk influence.
    More importantly, as it turned out, there had been a former Navy officer two seats over from Lane, and soon enough, as people had dropped out, the pair of them had ended up with nobody between them. The former solider had had no tell to speak of, likely the result of being in far moredeadly situations for a living than a green felt table and a padded stool. He’d also had strange, pale green eyes and a deceptively unassuming presence.
    And it was strange to think that that guy, who Lane had ended up beating with a pair of kings, ace high, would be the last person he thought of.
    Well, second to last.
    Lizzie. Oh, God, he hadn’t expected Lizzie to come and find him out there, and the surprise had caused what was going to be a fatal mistake.
    Oh, God,
Lizzie
—
    Back to the poker player. The guy had talked about his experiences on an aircraft carrier out in the ocean. How they had been trained to jump off heights of thirty, forty, fifty feet above the water. How, if you wanted a shot at living, there was a specific arrangement you needed to get your body into before you hit the surface.
    It was all about the drag coefficient. Which you wanted to get as close to zero as possible.
    Feet first was a bene; ankles crossed was a necessary—with the latter being critical so that your legs couldn’t get snapped open like the wishbone on a Thanksgiving turkey. After that, you wanted one arm in front of your torso, with the hand grabbing the opposite elbow. The other arm you needed running up the middle of your chest, the palm splayed out over your mouth and nose. Head had to be on a level with the top of your spine or you risked concussion or whiplash.
    Go in like a knife.
    Otherwise, water, when hit at a great speed, had more in common with cement than anything you could pour into a glass.
    Displace as little as possible.
    Like a cliff diver.
    And pray that your internal organs somehow slowed down at a rate that was compatible with their anchoring holds on your skeleton. Otherwise, the Navy guy had said, your insides were going to be a pepper jack omelet before it hit the pan, rushing to fill the spaces in your rib cage.
    Lane locked himself in, using every muscle he had to turn himself into thin, strong steel, like that knife blade. The wind, God, the sound ofthe wind in his ears was like the roar of a tornado, and there was no flapping, or at least none that he was aware of. In fact, the falling had a strange sandblasting quality to it, like he was being hit by waves of particles.
    And time stood still.
    He felt like he hung forever in the Neverland between the solid footing he’d had and the watery grave that was going to claim him—just as it had his father.
    “I love you!”
    At least, that was what he meant to say. What came out of his mouth before he hit? No clue.
    The impact was something he felt in his hips, his hips and his knees, as his legs jammed into his torso. And then there was the rush of cold. As pain lit up his motherboard, everything got cold, cold, cold.
    The river claimed his chest and his head like a body bag being zipped up over a corpse, the black envelope closing, locking out fresh air, light, sound.
    Muffled. So