I came directly here from the hospital. My prez is standing next to his own motorcycle, having a smoke.
“He’s fine,” I say. “Grumpy as all fuck, but he’ll live.” Grabbing my own pack, I fish out a cigarette and light one up to keep him company. “How’s Dos Santos?”
“Chaco had a little run-in with the law, he tells me,” Axel grunts, referring to the head of the Dos Santos cartel. “Local cops came sniffing around, looking for evidence of criminal activity. Luckily Chaco’s men managed to move the product to another location before the law arrived to check things out. But Chaco’s sayin’ they’re gonna need to lay low for a bit until the heat’s off them.”
The Dos Santos cartel is our main supplier of drug shipments from the south. Our relationship with them is crucial to keeping the pipeline open to the north, toward our charter club of the Lords of Carnage in Tanner Springs. Angel, the prez of the main charter, is looking to expand our business, but we can’t do that unless we have a steady and reliable supply of product.
If Dos Santos loses its grip on their territory, that puts all our plans in jeopardy. I know Axel is thinking the same thing.
“That ain’t good.” I take a drag on my smoke. “We gonna have a problem gettin’ shipments from them?”
“Chaco assures me we won’t,” Axel mutters, but he looks dubious.
“He have any idea how the cops got tipped off?”
“He said he didn’t. But I dunno. The fuckin’ turf wars between the cartels have been heating up down there. Seem unlikely the cops found out by themselves. Chaco’s been running that part of the pipeline for a while now, and he’s careful.” Axel blows out a breath. “We can’t rule out the possibility that one of the other groups is tryin’ to destroy the Dos Santos cartel by feeding info to the law about them.”
I nod. “Or that the local cops are in cahoots with one of them.”
“Yeah.” Axel’s face is stony. “Let’s not get too worried yet, but we gotta keep our eyes open on this.”
We finish our smokes and head inside. It’s late afternoon, and after the last couple hours, I’m in the mood for a beer. There’s no bartender behind the bar right now, so I go back and grab myself a bottle, then sink onto a stool and take a long swig. Axel, still looking preoccupied, gives me a quick chin lift and heads into the back.
The clubhouse is pretty deserted. In an hour or two, things will start to heat up, as they usually do. But for now, the only other brothers here are Rogue and Yoda, who are playing pool at the table in the center of the room.
Silently, I watch them play and give each other shit as my mind wanders back to the hospital. I’m still thinking about the little kid, her mom, and that asshole boyfriend of hers. At the time, I didn’t think too much further than getting the boyfriend out of the room so he wouldn’t be agitating Paisley. But now, as I sit and nurse my beer, I start to get a bad feeling about that whole situation.
The mom’s boyfriend’s name is Mickey, Paisley said. I haven’t seen him around town, but he looks like a lowlife, for sure. I should have stuck around at the hospital a little longer, tried to find out more about the guy. What his last name is, what his story is. If he lives with the mom and the kid. And if so, where.
“Hey, Yoda,” I call out.
Over at the pool table, he takes his shot, then lifts his head and turns toward me. “Yeah.”
“Need you to get some intel on a guy in town.”
“Okay. What’s the name?”
“All I got is his first name. Mickey. Had a run-in with him earlier at the hospital. His girlfriend’s kid is in the room across the hall. The guy’s a real piece of shit.”
“That ain’t a lot to go on.” Yoda leans his pool cue against the table and comes over to talk to me. “You got anything else?”
“I can describe him to you.” I give him the guy’s approximate height, weight, his hair and eye color. “He’s got tattoos on his fingers. The four card suits on his left, and that EWMN thing on the right.” I suppress a snort. Evil, wicked, mean and nasty, my ass. “Except the pinky of his right hand is gone, so it’s just WMN.”
“Good eye. Anything else?”
“Not about him specifically. Like I said, it’s his girlfriend’s kid who’s in the room across the hall from Bear. Kid’s name’s Paisley. I think they’re stayin’ at one of the motels in town, but I don’t know which one.”
Yoda thinks for a moment. “I can find out the kid’s last name, since she’d be registered at the hospital. There ain’t that many motels in Ironwood. I can check around and figure out where they’re at. Shouldn’t be too hard from there to find out who this Mickey guy is.”
I nod. “Good. I wanna know who he runs with. I wanna keep an eye on this son of a bitch. He gives me a bad feeling.”
There’s no way this guy’s any danger to me, or my club. I can tell just by lookin’ at him he’s too small-time for that. But I don’t like that he’s around Paisley and her mom.
“Sure thing,” Yoda agrees. “I’m goin’ over to see Bear in a bit anyway. I’ll do some snooping around at the hospital while I’m there. I’ll chat up one of the nurses or somethin’ if I have to.”
I snort. Yoda’s an ugly-ass motherfucker, but damned if he doesn’t know how to charm the pants off of women. I don’t know how the hell he does it.
“Thanks, brother.” I clap him on the back. “Let me know what you find out.”
“Will do.”
“Hey, princess,” Rogue calls to Yoda from across the room. “You ever gonna finish this game?”
“You want that cue up your ass, motherfucker?” Yoda tosses back easily.
I turn back to my beer, listening with half an ear. The clack of the billiard balls fades into the background as I wonder what Yoda will discover for me.
I’m pretty sure that Mickey dude ain’t gonna turn out to be a pillar of the goddamn community. Whatever bullshit he’s involved in, I hope it doesn’t end up hurting Paisley.
My mind replays the scene of Paisley’s mom rushing down the hallway to see her daughter. She seemed to care about the kid, at least. Although if Paisley was telling the truth, it’s kind of fucked up that her mom left a seven year-old all alone in their motel room with an asshole like Mickey.
I frown and shake my head, taking a swig of my beer. Even though Mal and I got that piece of garbage out of Paisley’s room earlier, that ain’t no guarantee he won’t be back. At least the hot social worker seems like she was trying to keep the kid safe. Though in my experience, social workers end up doin’ more harm than good a lot of the time.
I let out a breath and shake my head at the memory of her. She sure as hell ain’t like any other social worker I’ve ever seen. For one thing, she carries herself like she comes from money. For another, she’s sexy as all get-out. A real stunner. The flash in those amber-green eyes of hers as she argued with me back there? Hell, it went straight to my dick.
I wouldn’t mind sparring with her some more. In the bedroom, that is.
Something tells me if I could get her to loosen up, she’d be one hell of a ride.
Now that’s a challenge I wouldn’t mind taking on.
I’m fighting to keep my cock from going to full mast when I hear the scrape of a stool beside me. I turn to see Gage lift his chin as he sits down next to me at the bar.
“Whaddya know, brother?” he asks.
“Not much. Just sittin’ here waitin’ for the party to start,” I smirk. “You wanna grab a bottle of Jack and start it ourselves?”
Gage grimaces. “Can’t, brother,” he mutters regretfully. “I gotta get home in a bit. I gotta go to a fuckin’ school play, if you can believe that shit.”
I laugh out loud. “What the fuck? You’re shittin’ me.”
“I wish I was,” he grunts. “They’re puttin’ on The Wizard of goddamn Oz over at Bailey and Addi’s school.” Gage shakes his head slowly. “Twenty third graders, doin’ a full-blown musical. Jesus. Addi’s playin’ the cowardly lion. Fuck
in’ shoot me now.”
“I’m tempted, man,” I joke. “Someone needs to put you out of your misery.”
Gage lowers the cigarette and blows out a puff of smoke. “You got that right,” he half-chuckles. “Anyway, tonight’s opening night, and Bailey says Addi is shittin’ a brick. So, I gotta go tell her she’s the next Meryl Streep afterwards.”
Gage makes a big show out of being disgusted at the whole thing. But I know better. Ever since he met that hot elementary school teacher Bailey, he’s turned into a consummate family man. Gage is fuckin’ gone over that woman. And over Bailey’s kid Addi, too. It doesn’t take a genius to see that Gage loves that little girl like she’s his own.
So, even though I’m pretty sure spending two hours in a folding chair watching little kids run around and pretend they’re in the Wonderful Land of Oz ain’t exactly his idea of a great time, I also know he wouldn’t miss that shit for the world.
As I listen to Gage put on an award-winning performance of his own about how much he’s gonna hate the whole thing, I suppress a grin. Whoever would’ve thought that Gage, of all people, would get lassoed by a chick with a kid? All I can say is, Bailey must have a golden pussy to have roped him so completely.
But even so, I have to admit she’s an okay chick. She loves Gage to the ends of the goddamn earth, that much is obvious. And as far as I can tell, the feeling’s mutual.
Yeah, the thing between Gage and Bailey is real. It’s solid.
And in my experience, that’s rare as shit.
Which is why I’ve avoided gettin’ involved with women like the plague. From what I’ve seen, most of the time it just ain’t worth the hassle. Hell, pussy’s easy enough to come by. No reason to get all desperate and hand your balls over in a paper bag. Even if, like I said, Gage seems happier than he’s ever been.
Gage is one of the lucky ones. The rest of us aren’t likely to be the same.
Gage takes off for home. I grab another beer, and a bunch of brothers and a few club girls start streaming in. The music gets cranked, and I see beginnings of a party that will probably go late into the night.
For some reason, I find my thoughts turning to the hot social worker chick again more than once as the liquor starts to flow.
Laney. That’s what the uptight nurse called her.
I look at my phone and check the time. Visiting hours are over by now.
I wonder how Paisley’s doing. And if Mickey ever came back.
Almost without thinking about it, I decide I’m gonna go over to the hospital tomorrow morning, and check on the situation.
Just in case.
4
Laney
Work gets pretty busy after my run-in with the biker. I get called away to talk to the family of a patient who’s transitioning to hospice care for stage four cancer. Then after that, I help with planning a move to a drug treatment facility for a patient who was brought in after an overdose.
For a few hours, the little girl with the concussion and the broken arm moves to the back of my mind.
But as I’m leaving the hospital later — at least an hour after I was supposed to be off the clock — Paisley’s pale little face comes back to me. I meant to check back at her room before I left, but I’m already in my car and halfway home before I remember.
The truth is, I’m worried about the girl. The fact that she was unsupervised when her accident happened concerns me. Her mom did seem embarrassed about it — though she claims the boyfriend was home, just not paying attention. In the end, I’m not sure what to think about the whole thing.
The mom — who gave her name as Bethany Hawn — reacted with shock when we told her Paisley had been lugging a load of laundry down the stairs when she fell. “I told you never to leave the room when we’re gone!” she hissed at the little girl, before catching herself and looking at me guiltily. As though she could sense that her fitness as a mother might be on the line here.
“I know,” Paisley mumbled back, staring down at the bedspread. “But Mickey was there. And Callista said I smelled.”
“Who’s…” Bethany started, then went silent. Swallowing, her voice shook a little when she continued. “I’m sorry, baby,” she half-whispered. “Money’s a little tight right now.” She leaned forward and gathered the little girl in her arms. Paisley visibly relaxed, sinking into her with the ultimate trust of a child toward a loving parent.
Then Bethany turned to me. Her eyes were red-rimmed and wide.
“I’m not a bad mother, I swear,” she pleaded.
In her eyes was a fear I know only too well. I’ve seen it before. On the faces of the poor, who know that their actions are scrutinized more closely by people like me than others with more money. Rich people have more cash to throw at their problems, and to dress up their faults and their mistakes.
Everything tells me that this mother loves her child. And that the child loves her. I don’t see abuse or neglect there. Just struggle against a world that gave them the short end of the stick. I’ve been wrong before, but I’ve seen enough to at least partially trust my gut.
However, I’m worried that’s not the whole story.
In talking with Doctor Methaney, the doctor who examined Paisley, he told me he noticed a bruise forming on Paisley’s upper arm, consistent with being grabbed roughly. He said it looked like a larger size hand. And that, of course, makes me think of one thing.
The boyfriend.
I know I need to talk to Paisley’s mom about this. But I also want to try as hard as I can to make sure she trusts me first.
Paisley’s safe in the hospital for now, I reason as I pull up in front of the tiny house I rent on the north side of town. I’ll go talk to Bethany some more tomorrow.
The sun is just starting to set as I emerge from my car. Keys in hand, I’m walking toward my front door when my phone buzzes in my purse. I reach inside and glance at the screen.
It’s my own mother. What a coincidence.
Groaning, I purse my lips and decide to answer it. If I don’t, it’s just prolonging the inevitable — and probably earning myself a passive-aggressive voice message in the process.
“Hi, Mom!” I say brightly. “What’s up?”
There’s a short pause. “Well, I’m fine, Delaney, thank you for asking. How are you?”
Ugh. And so it begins. “I’m sorry, Mom,” I say, gritting my teeth. “How are you?”
“As I said, I’m fine.” God, she can pack so much judgment into just a few words. It really is a talent.
“I’m glad to hear it,” I reply, trying as hard as I can not to be snippy back to her. “I’m doing well, also.”
There’s a pregnant silence on the line for a few seconds. I open my mouth to try to fill it, but then the stubborn part of me takes control. If I ask her why she’s calling again, we’ll just be back at square one. I know that sometimes with my mom, there’s just no winning. This already feels like one of these times. So, my basic strategy is to just try not to play the game at all.
“Your father’s fine, too, by the way,” she finally sniffs.
“I’m so glad to hear it!” I enthuse, refusing to rise to the bait. By now, I’m at my front stoop. Instead of going inside my house right away, I decide to sit down on the top step. “Tell me more. What have you two been up to?”
Grudgingly, she launches into a narrative that’s still tinged with an as though you care tone. But if there’s one thing my mother loves doing, it’s talking about herself, so I know this is the quickest way to defuse her temper. Sure enough, within a couple of minutes she’s caught up in some story of how their friends the Meads are splitting up after twenty-nine years of marriage, and isn’t that just terrible. (Of course, the barely-suppressed cattiness in my mom’s voice tells me that she is thoroughly enjoying the scandal — after all, marital strife is great fodder for society gossip among the wealthy.)
“I do have a wonderful bit of news,” she finally says, switching gears.
Aha. This must be th
e main reason she’s calling. “What’s that?” I ask.
“Lindsay is engaged!”
“Oh, that’s nice,” I murmur. “Who to?”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Delaney,” my mother huffs. “To Nick, of course. We’re just all so happy. Of course, your father is over the moon.”
Yeah. He would be. Robert Harris, Nick’s father, is my dad’s biggest donor. The Harris family of Louisville is one of the richest in the state. Marriage to their only son is a fantastic alliance for a senator’s daughter. My younger sister couldn’t possibly have made a better match, as far as my parents are concerned.
Even though Nick Harris is a self-important, moneyed asshole who doesn’t give two shits about her, beyond the fact that she’s arm candy and a senator’s daughter.
And this, of course, is the subtle dig, and the real reason my mother is calling — unsaid, but coming through as clear as a bell.
My sister is fulfilling her destiny as the daughter of a prominent politician. She fully embraces her trophy wife future of shopping trips, charity balls, personal trainers, and spa dates.
I, on the other hand, insist on slumming it as a soon-to-be-old maid social worker out in the middle of nowhere, southern Ohio.
My mother chatters on blissfully about how Nick proposed (a ring brought on a silver platter at dessert at the most expensive restaurant in town, how original), how Lindsay has already booked the wedding venue, and who will do their engagement photos. There’s a mention of Lindsay’s maid of honor, as well.
Which is when I realize that Lindsay herself hasn’t called me about any of this.
I’m guessing I will not be asked to be one of the bridesmaids. I should probably feel bad about that, but instead, I feel an immediate sense of relief. The only thing I can imagine more uncomfortable than attending this high-profile wedding is having to stand in front of the five-hundred or so guests that will no doubt be there during the ceremony, enduring their scrutiny and their whispered comments about the still single older sister. All while wearing an uncomfortable, frou frou dress that I’ll need assistance to take on and off.
Iron Will: Lords of Carnage: Ironwood MC Page 3