A Risky Prospect (River Reapers Motorcycle Club Book 2)

by Elizabeth Barone

  "It was self-defense." His eyes burn into mine. "Self-defense," he repeats.

  "It's still murder." I hold my hands out in front of me. They're clean, they smell like Dove, but they're completely different. These hands are an extension of me. "Anyway," I continue, "Finn feels guilty for what his brother did. Somehow I don't think he's going to have a problem with . . . this." I flick my gaze toward the bedroom. I still can't see, not with Cliff standing in front of me.

  But I can imagine.

  "I don't know." Cliff tips his head back, hands tugging at his hair. "Can we really trust him? That's his brother, regardless of how he feels about what happened."

  "He'll help. I know he will. You should leave, just in case."

  He cups my shoulders again. "I already told you: I'm not going anywhere. I meant that." He works his fingers into the knots that have formed in my muscles. "We'll figure it out."

  A knock echoes through the house—the front door.

  My eyes snap to his.

  "I think it's the guys," he whispers. Ushering me away from the bedroom, he draws a gun.

  As we pass the guest room, I pause. "I'm right behind you," I whisper. I duck into the room and grope around the floor until I find my gun. I grip the handle, the cool metal a comfort on my skin.

  When I emerge back into the hall, Cliff is halfway down the stairs. I follow him, my hands shaking with every thump of my heart. I can't imagine who could be knocking at the door. A concerned neighbor would just call the police.

  Unless it is the police.

  I mentally retrace the evening to see if I made too much noise. I don't remember.

  Cliff rounds the bottom of the stairs and heads toward the front door, his feet light on the hardwood floor. He stands to the side of the door, angling this way and that to see through the blinds without moving them.

  A phone vibrates, making me jump.

  "It's mine," he whispers. With one hand pointing the gun at the door, he reaches into the pocket of his cut. "Donny?" he says in a low, hoarse voice.

  Donny says something on the other line. Cliff's worried glance toward me tells me all I need to know.

  Whoever's on the other side of that door is not on our side.

  Cliff hangs up and nods toward the kitchen. I stalk through the dark behind him. He crouches down by the fridge. I kneel next to him.

  "Donny and Stixx took the van," he whispers, so low and slow, I strain to make out his words. "They drove past. There are cops out front."

  I squeeze my eyes shut. "Shit."

  "Donny can create a distraction, but you know Naugy. Plenty of cops. There's no guarantee these guys'll take the bait."

  I take a deep, shuddering breath. "I have to call Finn."

  In the dim light, I see him nod. "Do it. Quick."

  I creep back to the stairs, phone already pressed to my ear. As it rings, I sneak back up.

  "Officer Byrne," he answers.

  "It's Olivia," I whisper, easing up another step.

  "Olivia? Is everything all right?"

  "More or less." I reach the midpoint. "I need you to call off the checkup at Greg's."

  "What checkup?" he asks, wary.

  "Please," I beg. "You told me if I ever need anything, to call you. Please."

  Knuckles pound at the front door. "Police," a deep voice booms.

  "Olivia, are you at my brother's house?" Finn hisses.

  "Please," I ask again.

  "Is my—sIs he alive?"

  "Finn," I snap. "We don't have time for this. If those cops come inside, I'm telling them about your involvement in the Figueroa case."

  He blows out a long breath. "Fine."

  A second later, the line goes dead.

  I sink, my knees rubber. I cling to the railing, but my fingers slip. I sit down hard. That's two felonies I've committed.

  All in one night.

  The pounding on the front door stops. A moment later, Cliff comes to the foot of the stairs.

  "They're gone," he says.

  I lean my head against the wall. "I did not think this through."

  "He didn't give you much of a choice," he says, bitter.

  "If I had half a brain, I would've made 'Cami' call or FaceTime me. I should've known." I cross my arms on my knees and put my head down.

  "Cami?" he asks.

  With my head still buried, I tell him about the emergency text.

  "How could you have known?" The stairs creak under Cliff's weight. A second later, I feel the step I'm sitting on shift as he sits beside me. I lift my head. He puts an arm around me, drawing me close.

  "Why am I such a psycho magnet?" I mutter.

  "I hope that doesn't include me."

  My lips part and my mind fumbles for a response. "No" is what I should say, but this night has flipped me upside down. Thankfully, his phone rings again.

  "Yeah," he answers. "See you in five." Hanging up, he turns back to me. "Cops are gone. The guys are coming around back." He stands and holds his hands out to me. "Come on."

  I let him take my hands, so warm around my cold fingers. He helps me up, bearing my weight as if it were nothing.

  Someday, I might be able to shed everything weighing me down.

  If we can get through this night.

  57

  Cliff

  I open the back door and motion Donny and Stixx inside, tipping my chin at them as they pass.

  Donny stands in the center of the kitchen, appraising Olivia. "Is he dead?"

  She lifts her chin. "Very."

  "Good." Giving her a one-armed hug, he kisses her temple.

  Even though I know the gesture is platonic—brotherly, even—my stomach clenches. I want to be the one holding her, kissing away the memories of this night.

  But she won't let me.

  I'm working on accepting that. I am. I'll keep my promise no matter what, no matter how much the knife in my ribs twists, prodding at my heart with its hot tip. When I look at Olivia, all I see is the future I never thought I could have.

  And I won't.

  It's a huge disappointment, one that'll take some time getting used to. But I will.

  "We're down two rapists this week," Donny says, rubbing his hands together. "If that's our regular quota, we're doing great."

  Stixx nods, snickering.

  Olivia gives him a long sideway glance.

  But I know Stixx's story from the table—something she isn't privy to as a Prospect. Before I knew, Stixx creeped me out a little. Still does. Just in a different way.

  "I don't know what you two did to get rid of our friends, but it worked," Donny continues.

  "Oh, just a little extortion," Olivia mutters.

  "You're coming along nicely, Prospect." Stixx turns to Donny. "Tell them the plan." He leans on the balls of his feet, his grin ghoulish in the dim light.

  Donny claps Stixx's shoulder. "Stixx still doesn't think the river's good enough for the dead rockstar." He eyes Olivia's dripping hair. "And my guess is there's enough DNA in here to send both of you straight to the pen. So—"

  "We're gonna burn this fucker down," Stixx finishes for him.

  Olivia and I exchange glances.

  "Don't you think it'll be a little suspicious if the house the cops tried to check up on suddenly goes up in flames?" I ask.

  Stixx shrugs. "Dead Red up there was a smoker. Shit happens."

  "You two leave the staging to me," Donny says, his face hardening into his businesslike Enforcer mask.

  "And leave the burning to me. It's time to add another X."

  Someday I'm going to ask him where the other X came from. Then I'm gonna ask Ravage where Stixx came from. "What do you want us to do?" I ask instead.

  "You two"—Donny forks his fingers, pointing at us—"get on those bikes and get the fuck outta here." He shakes his head. "No doubt those cops will remember there were two motorcycles parked out front. If they didn't already run your plates."

  Olivia sinks her teeth into her lower lip. "Fuck."r />
  "Yeah, that's why you leave this shit to the table," Donny says. He doesn't sound annoyed, though.

  "I'm gonna have to call Finn again," she mutters. "He'll make that part go away."

  "We'll have to vote on it," I say.

  She shoots me a sharp look.

  I sigh. "That's how shit works, Olivia."

  "He's right," Donny agrees. "You wanna be in this club, you gotta play by our rules. We'll take it to the table. For now, out." He turns away from both of us, effectively dismissing us.

  "Come on," I tell her. I put my hand at the small of her back and escort her to the back door. I open it, gesturing for her to go first.

  She steps into the dark, hands shoved into the pocket of my hoodie. Her hoodie. Our hoodie?

  The hoodie.

  As soon as I fall into step beside her, I light two cigarettes and hand her one—our old ritual. "You all right?" I ask, keeping my voice low.

  "I'm better now," she admits. "He's actually dead to me. I don't have to worry about running into him anymore. I don't have to wonder when it'll end. It's over." She takes a long drag, then blows out a stream of smoke into the starry sky.

  We walk in silence for a moment, her words hanging in the air. When she says nothing else, I realize she needs me to press. "But?"

  She sighs. "Part of me is still under him."

  I stop walking. "I'm not even gonna pretend to know how you feel." I steel my nerves. "There's something you need to know."

  She takes in a sharp breath and stops, too. "Cliff, don't."

  I hold up my hands, palms out. "Not that." I swallow. "You've been carrying this around since before we met. I don't think you realize that you survived. You made it through everything he put you through, everything he did to you. And every day, you keep surviving, even with that hell replaying in your head." I touch her temple. "You survived, Olivia."

  She nods. "I know. For the most part. You know, for someone who took all kinds of classes about helping children through this kind of thing, it never occurred to me that I probably need therapy." Ducking her head, she lowers her voice to a whisper. "Bear with me, Cliff." She presses her forehead against my chest.

  I drop my cigarette and wrap my arms around her. "Don't worry about me. Just do what you've gotta do." I bow my head. Inhaling the scent of her damp hair, I kiss the top of her head. She wraps her arms around my waist.

  We stand in the street like that for another moment. Then I let go. "Let's go home."

  58

  Olivia

  I don't want to be alone, so Cliff follows me to Lucy's. It's late enough that my sister should be sleeping, but when I unlock her front door and we step inside, she appears at the top of the stairs. I glance at Cliff behind me. He gives me an encouraging nod.

  So I sit at my sister's table and, with Cliff by my side and a bottle of vodka in front of me, I tell Lucy almost everything. I tell her how Greg filled me with lies, coercing or all out forcing me into doing what he wanted. I tell her about Cami, and how I know that she left him.

  While I tell her, she sits with her hands cupping her belly, tears sliding down her cheeks.

  After I finish, she gets up and hugs me tight. "I could kill him," she whispers in my ear.

  "He's dead to me," I whisper back.

  At some point, Cliff slips out. I fall asleep in Lucy's bed while she strokes my hair and promises she'll help me find a good trauma-certified therapist. I don't dream of anything. The upper level of Greg's house burns, reducing him to ashes. The fire department rules it an accident. The town runs a PSA for safely putting out cigarettes.

  Cami stays gone.

  * * *

  The next few weeks fly by. I start therapy, three times a week with a woman named Eva. At first, I don't want to talk about Greg. Talking about it isn't painful—it makes me physically ill. Slowly, I become more comfortable with her. I find my voice. I tell my story.

  I just don't tell her the ending I wrote for myself.

  When I tell her the alternate ending, she sits up straighter. "Do you feel like that robs you of closure?" she asks.

  "Nah. I already said everything I needed to say to his face."

  Because Eva likes to dig into everything, we talk about everything. Especially Bree and Mercy. Apparently, being taken from your neglectful mother is a trauma in and of itself.

  "You've been moving from trauma to trauma," she says, "without ever really processing it."

  So I do the work. It's grueling. I practice a lot of avoidance, sometimes threatening to skip appointments until Lucy or Cliff force me to go.

  "I feel like this is helping," I tell Eva one evening. "The flashbacks are happening less. They're even less intense. But they still come."

  "They might always come. They'll knock you down sometimes, too."

  I frown. "Gee, that's inspiring."

  "You know what to do with them now, Olivia," she says. "You've got all the tools you need so you can keep fighting. Except this time, you're properly equipped."

  Over the weeks, I graduate: from three times a week to twice a week, then once a week.

  Eventually, we get around to Cliff.

  "He's not trauma," I hedge when she asks me about him at the beginning of a session. "I don't need to talk about him."

  She tips her head slightly. "Why not?"

  "Because some people come into your life for a season. They serve a purpose for you, and then you move on."

  "And what was Cliff's purpose in your life?" she asks.

  I lick my dry lips. "He reminded me that I'm alive, that I can feel things. For more than one night, even."

  "What kind of things?"

  I narrow my eyes at her. "I meant alive. Cared for. Whatever. He makes me happy—made me happy."

  A ghost of a smile touches her lips. "We'll come back to him."

  There's nothing to come back to. Cliff finally moved out of the club house, and I moved in with Lucy. I haven't been to his place. I don't trust myself alone with him. I've hurt him enough. If he's ever going to move on, he doesn't need me in his space.

  We run into each other at Lucy's and at work, and we're both friendly enough. But I see the hurt in his eyes, feel the pang in my own chest. He's even invited me over a few times for pizza and beer with Esther and Donny, but I always say no.

  "Don't you think he wouldn't ask if he didn't want you part of his life?" Eva asks. "Like it or not, you're going to be around each other."

  "So why torture him any more than necessary?" I uncross my legs and re-cross them in the opposite direction, tugging the hoodie down into place. After that night, it came home with me again. I tried giving it back—again—but he wouldn't take it.

  "Do you mean torture yourself?" Eva smiles gently.

  I blink in response.

  "It's okay if you have feelings for him."

  Licking my lips, I put both feet flat on the floor. "I don't. I mean, I care about him. He's one of the best people I've ever met. He's . . ." I shrug. "He's my cousin. Ish."

  She purses her lips. A moment later, she resumes her questions, switching topics. "How are things with your adoptive parents?"

  "Strained. They know Mercy's out, that I'm upset they never told me where he was. Honestly," I say with a shrug, "they never felt like my parents. I love them, because they gave me a safe place and they gave me Lucy. But . . ." I pull my lips to the side, thinking. "I never completely connected with them, and I can't forgive them for ignoring what happened to Lucy."

  Eva waits.

  "My adoptive father's brother" I say, lip curling, "sexually abused Lucy for years. Years, and they did nothing. They had a feeling something fucked up was happening, yet they didn't stop him. Cliff did."

  "He did?" She flips through her notes.

  "He did twenty years for murder," I say. "He killed for Lucy. He'd kill for me." I look down at the patterned carpet, bright swirls of brown, red, and orange that sort of look like leaves. "Yet he knows who I am, and he respects that. He lets me do w
hat I need to do."

  She nods. "Sounds like a good friend."

  I frown at the word. "He's not my friend . . ."

  "Then what is he?"

  I blow curls out of my face. "He's, I don't know, mine." I cross my legs again, shake my foot.

  "You've made excellent progress, Olivia," she says, glancing at her watch. "How do you feel about graduating again? To every other week?"

  "Sure." I put my hands inside the pocket of the hoodie. Even though it's July and hot as balls outside, Eva's office is always cold.

  "You should be really proud of yourself," she tells me. "Not everyone with PTSD progresses like this. Do you remember what I told you when you first started?"

  I think about it. "Something about transforming after PTSD." I twirl my finger in the air, trying to remember the term.

  "Post-traumatic growth," she reminds me. "I told you I had a feeling you might experience something like that. And I think you have. You've transcended what was done to you and grown quite a bit. You're a strong person, Olivia. There's no reason why you shouldn't be happy in life."

  "Thanks," I say, the only thing I can think of. I take the appointment card she writes for me and tuck it into my phone case. Then I stand and head out of her office. Before I go back outside, I take the hoodie off, tying it around my waist. Then I stride out into the sunlit evening, her words replaying in my head.

  I am happy—that's what I should've said. I have a great job that lets me help people. I have another job that lets me get bikers drunk. Any day now, I'm going to be an aunt—which is really fucking weird, but also kind of cool. I don't have flashbacks all the time anymore. Actually, most of the time I don't even think about Greg or Mercy or Bree—until I walk into Eva's office.

  As I ride through downtown Naugatuck, I tell myself these things as if I were still standing in her office, telling her.

  I am happy.

  Yet.

  She's right that I'm trying to spare myself just as much as I'm trying to spare Cliff. Because on the nights he stops by Lucy's to check in on her and Bunny, I get the sense that he's also checking on me. His eyes always linger on me just a beat too long. Lately, instead of hurt, I see pride in them. It's like he can see how well I'm doing just by the way I look.