by Voss, Deja
Unfortunately, I also have morals. I have standards. Fuck this guy. Fuck his inability to keep his force under control. Fuck him for letting his men get away with this shit for as long as they have. These women I work with don’t deserve this. If they’re not going to stand up for themselves, I might as well pave the way.
“In your dreams, Steve,” I say, laughing as I sling my bag over my shoulder and walk off. “Tell old limp noodle if he wants to press charges, so do I.”
“What?” he stammers. “Lena, you don’t want to do this.”
“I don’t want to, but I have to,” I say. “How many complaints have I filed against Roberts alone? How many times have me and the other girls come to you begging to be treated with the same respect as the men on the force? How many times have I got passed up for promotions because I have a set of tits? I’m overqualified for this shit, and I’m definitely not keeping my mouth shut.”
“You’re going to ruin your life, doll,” he says. “Come on now, we can make it work. Just take a few days off. You come back and we’ll pretend like this never happened.”
I pull my cell phone out of my bag and snap a selfie. #fired is the only caption I need. That’ll get people talking. I will gladly ruin my life if it means my sisters in blue at least have a fair chance at better treatment.
“I’m not your doll,” I say. I storm through the station, everyone standing around slack-jawed, in complete silence, trying to pretend like they’re not staring at me. I don’t have words for any of these assholes. I spent my whole life thinking that as long as I worked hard and always tried to do the right thing, I’d end up successful, happy, with a white picket fence and a couple of kids and puppies and a doting husband who was proud of his strong sassy wife.
Instead I’m not married, unemployed, and about to be the poster girl for workplace sexual harassment. #singleforlife would probably be incredibly appropriate. Sheriff Goodwin stays hot on my heels as I make my walk of shame out of the station, into the parking lot, and get in my Jeep.
The clock on the dashboard reminds me it’s time to check in with my stepsister. I hate that I had to leave her back home with Dad, but she wanted to finish school and graduate with her friends, and when I moved here, I was in no position to take on a child. I have a bank account set up for her that my dad doesn’t know exists, and one of my friends from high school who is now a local police officer checks in on her weekly. As long as I can hear her voice every night, I can almost make peace with the fact that she’s still living with that monster.
The phone doesn’t even ring. It just goes straight to a busy tone, and I’m hoping she’s just talking to one of her girlfriends about boys and homework and their upcoming homecoming dance. I need to get her a cell phone next time I visit. Apparently our dad destroyed the last one I got her because he didn’t like her texting all night. I miss getting those texts from her.
I drive to the local dive where me and the girls from the force often meet up after our shift. It’s a quiet place, which is perfect. We don’t have to worry about anything we say getting out to the other half of the force. Zara, the owner, lets us get as drunk as we want, and we can hide our cars in the back parking lot in case we need to call a cab home.
“How’d you beat me here?” I ask Toni, who’s already got a beer waiting for me. She’s got her feet up on the dingy booth, and she shakes her head at me as I sit down across from her.
“I can’t believe you did that,” she says. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed every second of it, but damn, girl.”
I take a long swig from my beer. She seems to be more worried about the outcome of this situation than I am. Right now, the only thing I’m worried about is the fact that I can’t get ahold of my sister.
“I’m going to talk to the press,” I say. “It’s only fair to you guys.”
“Lena, that’s really kind of you. I know you’re coming from a place of wanting to help. I just… well, it’s probably going to make it worse on us.”
“I don’t understand,” I stammer.
“I have two teenage sons to feed,” she says. “I have to put a roof over their head and buy them shoes for basketball. I can’t afford to rock the boat. If it were just me, I’d be all about it, but it’s not. I need this job. I don’t need to spend the next year wrapped up in litigation. I don’t need to be a pariah to any police department in the state. I need to keep my head down and keep my job.”
Empathy or anger—I struggle with the emotion that I’m feeling right now. Part of me wants to jump up from this booth and flip it over, beating on my chest about how she’s keeping women down. The other part of me…
I completely get it. Sometimes it’s not about you, sometimes it’s about what’s best for the ones you care about.
“I need to check on my sister,” I say, standing up and walking towards the bathroom. The line is still busy. I call my friend from the force back home, and he answers on the first ring.
“Can you do a drive-by for me? Nobody is picking up the phone, and I’m worried.”
“Everything is fine,” he says. “I was just over there an hour ago. You alright, beautiful?”
“I guess so,” I sigh. I try to hide the catch in my voice. I’ve known Desmond since high school, and I know he’s always had a thing for me, but he’s not my type at all. I’ve never been attracted to him, and I definitely don’t want to string him along by dumping all my problems on him right now. I feel like I’ve been asking too much having him keep an eye on Josie to begin with. “I think I’m going to come back and visit for a little bit.”
“Because they’re not answering the phone?” he asks. “I bet she’s just chatting with her boyfriend or something.”
“She has a boyfriend?” I stammer.
“I’m just throwing things out there. I have no idea. You don’t need to come home. It’s getting late, anyway. I’ll stop by tomorrow and make sure she calls you. It’s going to be fine, Lena. I’m sure.”
Red flags start going off in my mind. The tone of his voice is different than it usually is. It’s like he’s trying to mask some sort of concern. Why wouldn’t he want me to come home? He’s always been more than happy to see me whenever I came to town.
I need to get home. At this very moment, I have nothing to lose. Maybe just checking in on her and seeing that she’s alright will help me cool down a little bit. Maybe I can just throw her in my Jeep and we can go wherever we want and start all over again. Maybe I’ll hang out back home for a little bit until she graduates high school. I could suck it up and serve on my hometown force for a minute and hopefully put a little space between what happened here in North Carolina.
“There’s our girl!” my friend Carrie whistles as I walk back to the booth. The bar is starting to fill up, and I wave a cloud of cigarette smoke from my face. “Our ballbuster! Man, that was awesome today.”
I shrug and sip my beer. “Well, you guys are going to have to pick up where I left off.”
“You’re leaving us?” she whines. “Things were just starting to get good!”
“I’m pretty sure if I stick around, things are going to get really bad.” I couldn’t let my actions fall back on the other women on the force. Especially not Toni. Hopefully I at least got everyone thinking. “Besides, I could use a trip back home. I haven’t seen my family in over a year.”
“I thought that was on purpose,” she laughs.
As much as I can’t stand my father, I need to make sure Josie is alright. She is getting older. She probably needs a good female role model around. I’m not sure if I can be that, but I can at least make sure she doesn’t end up knocked up and homeless.
“Well, we might as well make the best of tonight,” Toni says, raising her eyebrow. She’s got a tray full of shots in her hand, and I have a feeling I’m going to be hobbling home tonight. These girls have become my family since I moved here, and it’s going to hurt leaving them. It’s not forever, though. I can get Josie and come back here and figure it o
ut from there. She might have to finish high school in a different town, but at least she’ll have a lot of people who love her around her all the time. “To Helena!” She puts a shot in my hand that smells like straight gasoline and I put it to my lips.
“Helena, huh?” a voice behind me says. I feel his breath on my neck, and I’m immediately disgusted. “I’d like to Mount Helena sometime.”
“You better watch out,” Toni says, sneering at him. “She already shot one man in the dick tonight.”
“Yeah, and they took my beanbag gun away. All I have now is my Glock.”
The man backs away slowly and puts his hands in the air, and I try to wait until he’s out of earshot before I start cracking up. We all do.
“Mount Helena.” Carrie shakes her head. “If he wasn’t such a dork, I’d say that’s pretty clever.”
Clever if it wasn’t the millionth time I’ve heard that line in my life. I feel defective because small town southern accents and cheesy pickup lines don’t do anything to get me going. I grew up around thugs and criminals. The kind of men that do it for me are the kind that don’t have to throw game, the kind that can just look at you that type of way and your panties fall off. The kind of men that I’ve been known to put behind bars.
Nobody needs to know that about me, though, even these girls that are plying me with cheap whiskey and chanting “ballbuster” while the rest of the patrons watch with amusement. It’s not like I’ve ever acted on my urges, at least not in real life. What happens when I get home at night and get under my sheets is a totally different story, though.
The front door swings open, and I’m glad I’m not a hair tipsier, because at least I’m sober enough to know that it’s my cue to leave. The crew of bikers in their leather cuts turn everyone’s head as they make their way to the bar. They’re a storm cloud of sexiness, beards, tattoos and dirty denim, and I’m sure the reason I’m staring is different than everyone else’s. I’ve always had kind of a thing for bikers especially. I know when our local biker gang stopped by the trailer when I was growing up, it was because my dad owed them money, but I never feared them. I always dreamed of one of them rescuing me from my shitty life, getting on the back of a bike and riding off into the sunset wrapped around some handsome criminal.
Of course, a biker would never look twice at me, especially not when I was in high school. I might be a lot fitter now, thanks to the police academy, but my friends still teased me and called me minivan mom without the minivan or kids. I’m about as inconspicuous as they come, which is why I’m sure I would get laughed out of here if I even dared to talk to one of these handsome studs. I can always dream, though.
“I’m gonna go,” I say to Carrie and Toni, hugging them tightly. One of the bikers is leaning over the bar, whispering something in the bartender’s ear, and her eyes light up like he just told her the secrets of the universe. It makes me kind of jealous. When they disappear into the back together, I can paint a pretty vivid image in my mind as to what they’re doing, and it makes me hot and disappointed at the same time.
“Aw! Stay and party with us! We’re celebrating you, you know!” Carrie laughs.
“Y’all would be doing the same thing whether I was here or not,” I tease. “I’ll see you guys in a few weeks. I promise I will call you guys as soon as I get home.” We exchange our goodbyes and I make them promise they’ll keep in touch.
On my way out the door, one of the bikers clears his throat and catches my eye. The look on his face is half sneer, half smile, and he licks his lips before taking a long pull from his bottle of beer. I feel myself trying to justify some real bad decision-making, paralyzed in my tracks. What’s stopping me from grabbing him by the beard and pulling him into my Jeep for a night of poor life choices and throwing him away when I’m done?
I take a deep breath as I turn and walk out the door. I’m a cop, after all.
And cops and bikers? Well, unless there’s something shady going on, we don’t need to exist in the same circle. The last thing I need right now is to get caught up in some sort of scandal. Hell, I already am the current scandal of my police department. I can’t let the fact that I want to wrap my legs around his beard and ride him like a Harley come back to haunt me.
‘What harm could it do? You’re leaving tomorrow!’ the little devil on my shoulder teases.
“You’re a cop, aren’t you?” a woman in the parking lot shouts, waving her arms at me. “Can you help me? I locked my keys in the car.”
“Sorry, not my jurisdiction,” I say as I wander off to my Jeep.
Chapter 4
One year ago: Esther
Three days after I was home recovering from my surgery, I finally talk Brooks into going back to work. He has a club to lead, after all, and I don’t want my dipshit older brother thinking this ordeal has my husband in a weak place. He needs to be strong, or at the very least, he needs to put on an angry face and take care of business. That’s all I want from him. Business as usual.
“Hello, my one ovaried wonder,” Olive says as she breezes through my front doorway. My cat, Mr. Gingerbread, leaps off the back of the couch to greet her, showing his overaggressive love for her by rubbing himself all over her legs and mewling loudly. There was a time before she was married that she had the same effect on most men. “I brought you some medicine!”
“Please tell me it’s better than these shits,” I say, tossing her the pill bottle from the coffee table. “All they do is knock me out.”
“I think that’s the goal, Esther. You’re supposed to be taking it easy, you know.” She circles the couch and shakes her head at me. “Why are you dressed?”
“You want me to take off my clothes,” I tease, raising my eyebrows.
“I’m just wondering why someone who is on bed rest for a week is dressed nicer than I am. Make-up, too? I thought we were going to smoke blunts and watch scary movies. I got a babysitter and everything.”
“Oh we still are, Ollie,” I say, pushing myself up from the couch with a groan. I’m a little tender, and my scar is ugly as hell, but sitting still is proving to be futile, especially with my ‘shit that needs done before I die’ list swirling around in my brain. “But first, you’re going to drive me down to the ranch so I can get some stuff out of my desk.”
“What kind of stuff?” she asks. “Let me go get it for you.”
As much as she’s my best friend in the world, and I trust her with my own life, I do not trust her with my business. I trust nobody with my business. That’s mine and mine alone. She probably wouldn’t even know what she was looking at, but I can’t take the risk. Nobody can know what I’m up to, especially not the guys in the club. This isn’t their problem, and I don’t want our perfectly healthy men getting hurt trying to clean up my mess. I have a lot less to lose than any of them do. Hell, I am already down one body part.
“It’s okay,” I say. “I don’t really remember where I put it anyway.” I know exactly where that notebook is. “Just drive me over there. We’ll only be five minutes, then it’s back to the couch.”
It’s my first opportunity to get out of the house without Brooks knowing. The first time he hasn’t been up my ass since my surgery. I realize he’s struggling with the implications, but him wallowing isn’t healthy for the club. As president, he needs to be on top of his game, even if I am sick. If I die, he doesn’t have the luxury of just falling apart. I need to put him in the position to do that while I still am of sound mind and semi-functional body.
“Fine,” she says as I use her shoulder to prop me up while I slide on my sneakers, “but I’m not taking the heat for this if we get busted.”
“Ollie, there’s nothing you could do to make anyone mad around here. You’re like the golden child.” She really is way too nice to be hanging around the likes of me. Any of us for that matter. I almost feel bad that I’m using her to go on my covert mission. Almost.
It won’t take us long. All I need is my green notebook. The one where I keep a list of eve
ryone who owes me money at the Gingerbread Ranch. I don’t like starting tabs, but sometimes it proves very lucrative, especially if it gives me a little leverage over the law enforcement around here. If I’m going to die, though, I’m going to need these puppies paid. I don’t have a life insurance policy, but I do have a lot of people wandering around that owe me a lot of money. I want to make sure that Brooks is taken care of. I want to make sure my club is taken care of. My nieces and nephews and everyone I love.
It’s time for me to start tying up loose ends.
I grab the cane that my doctor suggested I use when I do my daily walks, and Olive cracks up.
“I know you’re a pimp and all, but that just is too fucking much,” she laughs.
“Think the girls will like it?” I giggle. “All I need is a hat with a feather.”
Chapter 5
Present Day: Brooks
I don’t have to tell the guys at the clubhouse to tone it down when we arrive with Josie. Apparently word travels faster than I do, and everyone is pretty quiet, keeping to themselves as they sip their beers and give me the side eye. I’d gotten used to that look. Ever since Esther died, nobody looks at me face on, and I know they do a good deal of whispering behind my back. Tonight, even the club sluts are fully clothed. It’s like everyone is trying to put on appearances for the kid, trying their best not to look like a bunch of degenerate bikers.
“How many more people do you have on your hit list, Brooks?” Trixie asks. I can hear the concern in her voice, even though she’s trying her best to play it off as interest. Josie is sitting at the end of the bar by herself, shoving tuna sandwiches in her mouth like it’s the first thing she’s eaten in a month.
“Hopefully not many more,” Heat laughs. “Otherwise the whorehouse is going to end up being an orphanage.”
“Don’t even joke about that,” I say to our elderly chaplain. Nobody needs to get the wrong idea here. I didn’t kidnap this girl with those kinds of intentions. That’s just insane. I kidnapped her because my dead wife told me to.