by Huss, JA
“Yeah,” I say, clearing my throat. Fuck, I haven’t thought about the details of that day in a long, long time. “I’m just gonna take some of these with me.”
“Why?”
“Why?” I laugh as I grab the large duffel I use to move guns from place to place. “Because I have no guns in the new shop and shit’s happening, Ford. I’m not sure how the adoption stuff is related to the missing motorcycles, but one thing’s for fucking sure.” I look at him as I stuff some guns in the bag. “It most definitely is, brother. It most definitely is. Jury selection starts today. Ronnie’s apartment is suddenly condemned and she can’t go inside—”
“What?”
“Yeah, some shit about asbestos. But this fancy guy shows up in town, claiming to own that new condo building over on Mason Street. He just happens to own the building she lives in right now too, so he gives her this free condo to live in while her place is cleaned up. Now you have this adoption shit and a dead guy coming out of nowhere. My bikes are missing and someone was trying to make Drake look like the perp. But as soon as we catch on, that shit morphs, right? Suddenly Drake’s coming off squeaky clean because he’s over at my place accusing me of stealing his bikes.” I huff out a breath. “Convenient, right?”
I finish packing up the rifles and then crawl over to the handguns, all laid out in perfect order on the carpet. I pick up the .454 Taurus Raging Bull and weigh it in my hand. Ronnie might be able to shoot it, since we’ve practiced on the big guns a lot when we were first together. But Ronin never shoots. He can point a gun and probably hit his target, I’ve made sure he was trained. But he never practices. He’s a ground fighter. Ford is a rifle man if he needs a gun. Point and spray is how he’ll get the job done if it comes down to it.
“What do you think you’re gonna do with that thing?” Ford asks, as he points to the Raging Bull I’m positioning inside the bag.
“Blow someone’s fucking head off, what the fuck else would I do with it?”
He recoils at the imagery because that’s exactly what I did to the Boulder guy. “I’m pretty sure that little .380 in your jacket will do the trick, Spencer. Don’t get paranoid on me now.”
“Ford, you do your job, I’ll do mine. When you’re in charge of the guns, you can choose the weapons.” I zip up the bag, stand up, and throw it over my shoulder. “I’m ready. You got what you need?”
He nods and waves me out.
We drive back to town in silence. And that’s a good thing.
Because right now the only thing on our minds is the job. Someone—hell, maybe a shitload of someones—is fucking with our lives. I’m not sure if it’s Drake, condo guy, the scum involved in the trial, or one of the many, many people we’ve fucked over in the past. But one thing’s for sure—it’s all related.
And maybe this job wasn’t planned by us. Maybe so far we’ve only been reacting to circumstance. Trying to piece the puzzle together bit by bit.
It doesn’t matter. Because we’re definitely gonna be the ones to finish it.
Chapter Sixteen - Veronica
Guys like Chuck make me happy to be a tattoo artist. I’ve been working on his back piece for almost a year. He drives in from Kansas to get his work done. He’s got at least four more appointments until he’s done and since he can only get away from his job at the feed mill his family owns when production is slow—cows never stop eating, he always tells me—his visits are few and far between.
I finish the last of the shading I’m doing on the tribute to American horror he’s got going on his back. If I didn’t know Chuck, these images would scare the shit out of me. In fact, even though I’m the one who drew and inked the Pennywise, Leatherface, Pinhead, and Jason in his hockey mask on his skin, it still creeps me out.
I wipe down his back and then give him a nudge. “Hey, Chuck. You’re done.” Chuck gives me a snore. How the hell a man can fall asleep when I’m draggin’ a needle across his back is beyond me. But he never has a problem.
Eh, I let him sleep. I don’t have another appointment for a few hours. I leave him there and go back up front, and I’m just turning the corner when the bell above the door jingles.
“Ronnie!” Carson smiles brightly. “I just came by to see how you were.”
“Um…” I pause because he’s lying. Carson is so easy to read, it’s pathetic. Maybe I’m just so used to the accomplished liars all around me, or maybe he’s a terrible liar. But it doesn’t matter. I can see through him. Almost everything he’s ever told me has been a lie. And I’m not sure why he’s lying. He’s never asked me for anything, in fact he really was sincere about trying to help me get my own flower shop. “I’m good,” I say back. And I’m just about to ask him what the hell he wants when the door jingles again and a crowd of people walk in.
Really? It’s fucking Tuesday. No one ever comes in on Tuesday. I’m all alone and I get a crowd of… one, two, three… I count them up until I get to fifteen. Fifteen? Really?
The noise must wake Chuck, because he comes out from the back holding his shirt and rubbing his eyes like he needs to go back to bed pronto. I head behind the counter and ignore the crowd. Sometimes they just come in to look. This group might be here looking.
“What do I owe ya, Ron?” Chuck says.
“That’s seven-fifty this time, Chuck. Should I put you in the book for two months?”
He eyeballs me as he takes his card out of his wallet. “Thought you was quittin’, Ronnie? Your dad told me to switch over to Vic. You saying you’ll do another appointment?”
“Would I leave you hanging?” I flash him a flirty smile but he scowls at me.
“Ya don’t have to. We’re at a good stopping place to switch over.”
I stare at him as I internalize what he just said. It sorta hurts my feelings. I’ve been tattooing this guy for two years and to be honest, the thought of Vic finishing it just ruins my day. “No, I want to finish it, Chuck. Really, I do. It might be creepy, but I’m looking forward to doing Chuckie and Cujo next time.”
He flops my head with his hat and I feel like a little girl again. “Kay, then. I’ll call ya when the feeding season is over.” Which means summer, since cows need to be fed in the winter.
I hand him his receipt and then turn to the nearest college kid waiting for my attention. “How can I help you?”
“We’re the Kappa Gamma Gamma house and we all want to get matching tattoos.” She beams at me like this is the most clever idea ever. “Today,” she adds.
Of course you do.
Carson thrusts a clipboard with a sign-in sheet at the girl. “If you could all put your names on here to make a waiting list, then fill out these forms, we’ll get you all scheduled.”
I just stare at him as the girls saunter off to begin their list. “What?” he asks me as I continue to stare. “I figured you could use the money this group will bring, so hey, might as well make myself useful.”
“Hmmm,” I say. “Why are you here?”
“To help,” he insists. “Don’t you want it?”
We both look out at the girls. Their tattoo will be at least fifty dollars apiece, maybe even seventy-five. That’s a lot of extra money for me, even after the shop takes fifty percent. “I have a scheduled appointment at three and another one at six. Do you think we can fit all these girls in before I need to close?”
“We can try, Bombshell.”
“What?”
“What?”
“What did you just call me?”
Carson actually turns red. “Sorry, that’s just… you just… you’re like one of those… pinup girls, ya know? Sorry.” He makes a break for it and goes to talk to the head girl to see what tattoo they want.
Bombshell, huh.
Suddenly Carson makes a whole lot more sense. I’ve been wondering why he’s been all up in my face these days. Asking me about cars and shit. He’s working for Spencer.
I turn away and walk back to my room. Smiling.
In fact, I laugh. I giggle. I get a
ll sorts of stupid. Because Spencer—I sigh. God, I fucking love that man. He told me to date Carson last week. And I swear, I thought my chest was gonna crack open when he said that to me over the phone. It hurt like a motherfucker.
But Spencer is a sneaky fucking prick. A lovable, adorable, sneaky fucking prick.
I rip the plastic off my chair, then the machine and the cord. In fact, I rip all the fucking plastic off. Even from the flatscreen. I find the remote and turn on the Biker Channel. I haven’t watched it lately, but they run the promos for Shrike Bikes all the time. I’m only in one episode, the very last one, but my face is in at least one promo. I signed a release for it. They’re not paying me, I was a pilot walk-on when Rook’s ex came back and tried to kill her. He ended up shooting me instead, just a flesh wound, thank God. And even though Spencer told me I was never gonna be on his show when we had that big falling out last year, he was wrong. I am on his show.
I have to stop everything I’m doing so I can privately gloat about that.
I want to see that show. I’m suddenly excited. Life is good. My man loves me. He loves me so much, he told me to date someone else. He sent that someone else over to my shop to help me out since I was here all alone.
Carson walks into my room with the clipboard. “OK, fifteen girls. They all want a two-inch butterfly flower thing that looks kinda like this?” He points to a rough drawing on the clipboard paper. “Can you just whip up something like that and put Kappa Gamma Gamma underneath or… wherever. They said they want something a little customized, each one a little different, but the same sort of butterfly and the same lettering. So how much per tattoo?”
“Well, that’s probably a forty-minute tattoo, but I don’t want to rush it, so let’s call it an hour and a hundred bucks, discounted to seventy-five for the group rate. I can do five today, the others will have to come back.”
Carson nods his head as I ramble on, taking notes. Then he goes back out front and sends the first girl back. I don’t get a lot of walk-ins most of the time, and hardly any of them are girls. Most of the girls go to the twins, so it’s a nice change from my regulars. After we discuss the particulars of her design, she chats endlessly with me. And even though I don’t point it out, she squeals when the Biker Channel runs the Shrike promo. She informs me that she saw Spencer Shrike standing in line at Big City Burrito. And she is excited about that.
I smile. He’s very exciting, so I let it pass and don’t even have a moment of jealousy.
The next girl is more nervous and wants a smaller version of the last girl’s tattoo. I adjust, as I always do, and give her exactly what she wants.
As much as I complain about this job, I do sorta love it once I get going. I like making art on people. The blood still makes me sick, but today, even that is muted.
This girl doesn’t talk like the last one, and she’s not even remotely interested in the Biker Channel, so every now and then, between the buzzing of my gun, I hear Carson out front. Chatting people up and quoting prices and hours. The bells on the door never stop jingling.
I finish this girl and have time to move on to the next before my regular appointment comes in.
My day is a blur of excitement. Almost an adrenaline high, like it used to be back when I first started working here my senior year of college. Back when my days with Spencer were always special, always ended with a fuck, a kiss, and the promise of more to come tomorrow.
God, I want to be that girl again. Back when the blood was just annoying. Back when sex was constant and wild. Back to the beginning.
I want to start over.
I need to start over.
Chapter Seventeen - Spencer
Ford is eerily silent as I make our way back towards town from his secret apartment. I catch him blankly staring out the window several times. “You OK, dude?” I finally ask as we get back to College Avenue.
He doesn’t answer. And he doesn’t look OK, either.
When he called and told us he met a girl on the road to LA and was gonna ask her to marry him, we all thought he was crazy. Even Rook. Her, Ronin, and I sat down at my house and thoroughly talked out what it meant if Ford brought home a wife. Because regardless of what we thought about it, no matter how crazy he sounded on that phone that day, if Ford married Ash, then Ash was in. There’s just no two ways about it. We discussed what she should know and when she should know it, and then we called up Ford and laid it all out for him.
Not that he needed our permission, but you know—the girl comes with her own set of problems. We needed to know what we were getting into if he made her part of the Team.
He told me about her family, but he left Rook and Ronin out of it. Ford has never seen Ronin as a friend. They’ve never been close and Ford’s attachment to Rook does not transfer to Ronin.
Yeah, Ronin is part of the Team. But that’s where it ends for Ford. He’s not a sharing kind of guy on his best days with me, so he’s never liked the fact that Ronin got to know shit about him by default.
Ashleigh’s family has their own team going, it seems. Only on a much bigger, bazillion-dollar semi-illegal pharmaceutical business scale.
That sorta changes things. I mean, we’ve got a scam going here. We’ve fucked up a lot of people over the past few years. A lot meaning hundreds. Hundreds of important people are probably wishing they could find some way for all of us to disappear.
So it matters that Ashleigh comes from a crime family. It matters that little Kate has crime on both biological sides, and now her step-side too. Because people like them—people like us—we have long memories. We are a patient bunch. We never forget a favor or a betrayal.
And the only thing that became crystal clear since talking this out with Ford a couple months ago was this—we are small-time compared to the groups we’re up against.
Teeny, tiny, minuscule time.
“Ford,” I try again. “Look, man, I understand this shit’s upsetting, but I need words, OK? I need to know what I’m supposed to do about this. If this is a huge problem, I need to know. We all need to know.” He looks over at me, I catch it out of the corner of my eye, so I meet his gaze. “What? You’re fucking killing me, dude.”
“I know something.”
“OK.”
He’s silent again after that.
“You care to enlighten me?”
“I don’t want Ronin to know. I need him to stay out of it.”
“Ford—”
“And Ashleigh. I don’t want her to know either. I’m just saying, I’ve done something and I don’t want them to know.”
“But you’re gonna tell me?”
“No,” he says. “I just need to get that off my chest. Just in case.”
“You’re… involved in something?”
“Not exactly. But I know something. Something big. Something I probably should’ve shared, but kept to myself.”
“And it’s part of all this shit that’s happening?”
“Possibly. I can’t be certain. So I can’t say anything, just trust me.”
“Do you need me to do anything?”
“No, I just need someone to know—” He stops and looks over at me. “Just in case something goes wrong.”
“Goddammit, Ford. We can’t work like this. We—”
“Exactly,” he interrupts. “We can’t work like this at all anymore. Don’t you see? We’ve got to stop this, Spencer. I can’t be looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life, wondering when someone’s gonna come back to fuck up my family. I need this shit to be over just as much as you do. Just as much as Rook and Ronin do. We need to stop.”
“Well, this isn’t the time to fucking stop, asshole. So I need to know what the hell is going on. I’m not gonna lie to Ronin. We need him.”
Ford sits in silence, typing on his computer, and I swear to God, if I wasn’t driving I’d smash that damn thing.
“Pull over.”
“What?”
He waves his hand at the upcoming street. “Just pull
over there. I need to show you something.”
I turn off into a residential side street and pull over to the side of the road. Ford hands me his laptop and I take it automatically. “What’s this?”
“Just read it.”
I scan the page for a second. “What the fuck?” There’s a picture of Drake Cikes. But that’s not what makes my heart skip a beat.
It’s the guy standing next to him. Davis Cooperson Smyth. Otherwise known as the Boulder asshole I murdered.
“What the fuck is this?”
“Drake. He’s the illegitimate love child of one of Cooperson Smyth’s sex slaves. His only son. Stood to inherit the entire estate. Until…”
It starts to make sense now. “Until we stole it.”
“Exactly. He’s got a motive, but not the skills, Spencer. So he’s not the only one.”
“Where’d you find this?” I ask, looking up at him.
“I used a virus—”
“Fucking Ford! What the fuck? You’re gonna get us busted!”
“Relax, I was careful. I had help from a friend.”
“Who? Because if we’ve got someone else who knows our business, we truly are fucked.”
Ford squints his eyes and gives me a sly grin. “This guy has always known our business. I just never told you before. You think hacking into high-level databases is a solitary effort, Spencer?” He waits for an answer but I have no idea. “Well, it’s not. Merc has had my back since high school. So he’s cool. And besides, you do not want to know what that guy does for a living.”
“So we’re keeping this from Ronin? Why?”
“Just for now, OK?” He stops to see how much of a fight I’ll put up. But seriously, if Ford’s got some secret plan in motion, I have no choice but to go along. “If he starts pressing you for answers or you fuck up and let on that he’s not as well-informed as he used to be—then feed him this info. Tell him about Drake and Ashleigh’s past. That’s our cover.”
“We should not need to cover from Ronin,” I huff.