“Gotta be a story in there.” Leaning his elbows against the curve of the bar, Watcher dangled his hot mug from the fingertips of one hand, reaching for a stirring straw with the other. Twisting his neck, he called, “Crema, Lizetta. Leche para mi café, por favor.”
One of the women sweeping paused to flash him a quick glance, anxiety flooding her features. She ducked her head and mumbled, “Si, señor.”
“Lizetta,” his tone was scolding, but he pursed his lips in a tease, smiling at her.
“Si, Watcher.”
“Gracias, señorita.”
“Why’s that shit matter to you? Caught it the other day, too, you making them call you by name. What’s the deal?” Fury waited to ask until after the girl had walked away, headed into the back where supplies were kept.
“She’s one of the girls we’ve rescued. Got her free about a year ago. It took her three months to speak.” Watcher glanced around the room. “These women? They’re all rescued slaves.”
“Jesus,” Fury muttered, his eyes following the same path. “How many have you freed?”
“Nearly a thousand.” Watcher took the creamer containers from the young girl, careful not to touch her. “Gracias.” She nodded and went back to sweeping. “Since we started keeping count.” He dumped in several tiny buckets of white liquid, stirring slowly, watching the color seep into the darkness inside the mug. “And it matters because they had to call their customers by title. I don’t want to be on the same level with those animals, ever. In any way. So I insist they call me by name.”
“No doubt,” Fury muttered, sipping his coffee again before returning to their previous topic. “Did a stint in the navy, didn’t like it. Bullshit everywhere I looked. Guys with family got the cush, guys like me got the short end. Did my two, didn’t re-up. Drifted a while. Found a bar, worked there. Liked it. Liked not seein’ the same people every day, but seein’ some people enough so you got to know ‘em. Regulars. One of those regulars was in a club. Talked a game.” Fury laughed, his teeth glinting white in his red beard. “Big game. Good game. Totally a game. Turned out to be a pansy ass RC more than anything. Fuckers would meet at the local burger joint to ride. Hang out on the corner like punks for hours waitin’ on a brother to decide to roll. I didn’t know any better, so I took it as gospel. Put that shit on a vest, got my ass on a bike. Lucky for me the one I liked was American iron, yeah?”
Watcher prompted him to continue, knowing there had to be more to the story. “Don’t sound like the worst thing. Working and riding.”
“One of the boys got crossways with a half-assed real club in the area.” Fury shook his head, beard brushing his chest as he looked down for a moment. “Started wreckin’ us up. We had four guys get put in ICU. One after the other. Bam. Bam. Bam. Writing on the wall. My options were to take it”—he cut his gaze to Watcher—“or take ‘em down.”
“Door number two?” Watcher guessed, and Fury nodded.
Then he laughed and shook his head. “Actually, I picked curtain number three.” Shaking his head, Watcher opened his mouth to ask what it meant, but Fury talked over him. “Took a meet. I’d spent two months working up the ranks. Didn’t take long, these guys were serious pussies. Threaten real pain and they’d offer up their officer patch. So I climbed way up the fuckin’ pole wearin’ the president patch and set a meet. Took that meet. Walked in outnumbered in a way you wouldn’t expect I’d be comin’ back out.” Fury paused, pulling in a breath. “You’d be wrong. Walked out, but without a patch on my back. All the men who walked out, did the same, both sides.” He laughed. “I had a plan.”
“I bet you did,” Watcher muttered, staring at Fury. The story was fascinating because here sat a man like him. Family. One who had come from the same background, joined the military but had a different experience. Got into club life, but also had a very different experience. Yet they found themselves at the same crossroads, Fury having gotten there slightly sooner than Watcher’s decision. Rebel Wayfarers MC.
“Plan was to take the elimination of two rivals to Diamante, secure a place deep inside. I wanted inner circle, not biding my time and building support. I wanted it all.” Fury shook his head, laughing. “Stupid punk.”
“What happened?” Watcher lifted his mug and drank, making a face. His coffee was nearly cold, forgotten as he’d gotten caught up in the story.
“Diamante schooled my ass. They weren’t opposed to having less competition, but they were not excited about having an unpatched rag of a baby rider comin’ in thinkin’ he was gonna be throwing his weight around.” Fury set his empty mug down, waving off one of the girls who moved their way, likely to refill it. “Schooled my ass good. Took me a month to walk without limpin’.” He tipped his head, hair falling over his face, blue eyes pinning Watcher to the stool. “Took me two days to deal my own version of shit back to them.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah, was some callin’ to the Lord that day. Not from me, though. End of the day, I was king of the rock. Kept the position by force, making sure to move as often as I needed to keep my footing secure. Wound up back home, Cynthiana.” His gaze dropped to the bar as he poked the coffee cup with one finger, turning it to and fro. “Mom and Dad weren’t pleased to see me. Can’t say I blame ‘em.” He cut his eyes back to Watcher, then back to the bar. “Heard you went back for Mom’s funeral.”
“I did.” Watcher waited, sensing Fury wanted to ask a question, but instead he changed topics.
“You know Duck’s woman is from Cunthiana?” As he used the mockery of the town’s name that some locals used, Fury snorted. “Talked to her last night, was all I could do to keep that word off my lips.” He reached out, picked his mug up and set it on the inner rail of the bar, seeming to want to keep his hands busy. “You remember how Tabby died?”
That was straight out of left field, and Watcher lurched, unable to hide his physical response to the question. “What the fuck?”
“Sorry, man. I got blurtitis today. I mean you remember there were questions about the accident? I know you thought she might have…you know.” Fury seemed uncomfortable with this line of conversation, and Watcher didn’t blame him. In only a few breaths his cousin had stripped away years of veneer from Watcher’s grief, leaving him raw.
“Killed herself? Yeah, I know all about that.” Watcher didn’t try to hide his anger, not until he saw several of the girls look up with fear on their faces. Fuck. He moderated his tone to continue. “Of course I know; she was my baby sister.”
“What if she didn’t?” Fury whispered this, and Watcher leaned back, reeling from another blow because this was what he’d wanted for the longest time. She’d beat it back. Bethy’s voice was a ghost in his head, making him glance around because for a moment it sounded as if she were in the room. She was supposed to be here in town, that he knew, part of some show at the rodeo grounds involving Mason’s boy, Chase. Beat it back.
“What if she didn’t, Watch? Brenda’s folks were killed in an accident a few years before Tabby. She talked about it last night, so I looked it up. Didn’t like what I found, so I dug a little deeper. Didn’t like the next layer, so I put Myron on it, because Mason’s hot to know all about Duck’s woman anyway.” With one look at Watcher’s face, he shook his head. “Didn’t say squat about you. Not a word, brother. Not you, and not Tabby. That’s yours, not theirs.”
Fury continued, his gaze intense. “What Myron found? Sixteen accidents. Exactly the same MO. Exactly. Sheriffs didn’t put it together because those two wrecks happened on both sides of the county line. So we had one group looking at Tabby’s and another lookin’ at Brenda’s. Man rescued Brenda, brother. Walked down the mountainside and dragged a cryin’ six-year-old out of the car. Rescued her and took her to the hospital. Took his time to write down her shit and pin it to her fuckin’ coat.” Fury tapped one fingertip against the wood of the bar. “It’s too big a coincidence, brother. So I had Myron look deeper. Sixteen wrecks, all the same way. All within ten miles of
each other. There’s a place on the shoulder of the mountain where three counties come together. That’s some sick motherfucker’s playground. I’d bet my life on it.”
“I grew up with Tabby. She was closer to me than my own kin, Mikey. No way she’d have done that to you, to Darrie.” Face resolutely tipped down, gaze on his finger still tapping on the bar, Fury muttered his next words, and Watcher wondered at the anguish hidden behind them. “Wouldn’t a done it to me, man.” They were quiet a moment, then Fury said, “Tore a hole in my chest the day we put her in the ground. Then to find out about what old man Mason did to Bethy. I…that shit…I can’t even imagine someone doing that to a woman, let alone a little girl. And Tabby had come back from it, Mikey. She had. Loved that fuckin’ truck. Loved you, and Darrie, the girl couldn’t wait to see you your next leave. She’d talk about it all the time.”
The corners of his eyes crinkled, and Watcher knew he was smiling, staring down, seeing something far different from the scarred surface in front of him. “She made me promise I’d call every Sunday. Just in case you boys had written. So every Sunday she’d wait, and then read me every word y’all wrote. Tell me all the stories. She loved you, man. Tabby wouldn’t a done that to you.”
Lifting his head, Fury stared at Watcher. “I never believed. Couldn’t.” It scored deep, and Watcher didn’t try to hide the pain. “Nothing against you, brother. You didn’t have a chance to really learn the woman she was becoming. Shit forced you down the road you had to take. Shit that brought you two closer in ways no one could predict. But it also forced you apart. You never got…she was your Tabby, and that’s what you saw. No wrongness there. But she was growing up. So smart, she coulda done anything, Mikey. But I knew she’d a never done that. So I never stopped looking. Even from where I found myself, I looked as I could. Couldn’t go back home, not with how things were between my old man and old man Mason. I never wanted to know if he’d been part of anything up the mountain, but I have my suspicions. Oh yeah, I got those. Spent my life trying to put those in my rearview. Jumpin’ jobs and clubs. Takin’ what I needed. Didn’t much give a shit about anything, being as I couldn’t turn back time and change what mattered.” Fury shrugged. “So I kept hoppin’.”
Watcher carefully settled the mug holding his cold coffee on the bar’s surface, trying to still the trembling in his hands. All this was too much, too fast. Impossible to process, and dragging up emotions and anger he’d thought long buried. “So why’d you pull up stakes this last time? Why Rebels?”
“You met Mason?” Fury snorted. “Man’s a force. Climb on his barge in the middle of the river, or drown in his wake. I like breathin’, brother. He’s about to decimate Diamante, and they know it, running scared. But in their blind running, they’re tearing shit up you would not believe. Running Russian and Chinese gals out of Kentucky. Trying to force me into their business and I wasn’t having anything to do with it. Shooter gobbled that cock right up, through.” He cut his eyes to Watcher. “Heard about Utah.” Watcher jerked his chin up. “No, brother. I heard about Utah.”
Watcher pulled in a slow breath because it sounded as if Fury had critical information he’d withheld. Information that wound up with Bethy put in harm’s way. “You wanna be careful what you say next, brother.”
“You honestly think I’d have let Bethy walk into that shit? No fuckin’ way. No way. Man, I didn’t hear who, didn’t even hear Mason’s name mentioned, but Shooter wasn’t quiet about what kind of holding facility someone was putting together up there. What he was quiet about was who it was and, brother, that bothered me.” Shaking his head, he looked up the bar. “Too early for a shot?”
Wordlessly, Watcher slid off his stool and walked behind the bar. He turned to face Fury, holding his hand out over the liquor bottles, and taking one small, slow step at a time, walked backwards until Fury nodded. Watcher settled his hand on a bottle and looked to see a cheap whiskey in his grip. Shifting up a shelf from rotgut, he pulled a different brand, catching Fury’s humorless grin. Grabbing a highball glass from the shelf, he queried, “Ice?” With Fury’s headshake in response, Watcher tipped the bottle over the glass, counting out about six shots. He moved back towards Fury to exchange the brimming glass for the empty coffee mug. He studied the man as he picked it up, hands steady as a rock, throat moving as he gulped at the contents.
“He was quiet about it, and I looked into it. Didn’t like what I found. You knew Judge.” This wasn’t a question, but Watcher nodded anyway because Fury seemed to be waiting for something. “Got Judge good and drunk one night. The boy couldn’t keep his mouth from running at that point. His granddad ain’t dead. Justice Morgan joined forces with Deacon, both of them hating Mason, but I didn’t know that then. Didn’t have any inklin’ they’d scoop up Bethany. I think Judge got lucky with surveillance because Mason had gone down to visit and someone saw. You know who Deacon is.” He paused, and Watcher nodded because he’d known that man a long time.
Watcher interjected, “Told Mason more than once it was a mistake to leave him breathin’.” He leaned a hip against the cooler under the bar, hearing the muffled clink of his gun against the metal, adjusting automatically so it didn’t dig into the small of his back. “He never shoulda let that man walk outta his clubhouse.”
“Agreed.” Fury nodded. “But he did, and now he’s got this shit to deal with. Deacon hates him worse than anything I’ve ever seen. All this, because Mason bested him and tore the club outta his hands. But more because Mason’s made a success of it. He didn’t falter and fall, didn’t disappear into the woodwork. Not Mason. He’s made quite the splash, sitting at tables with worldwide clubs who come to him. That’s something Deacon wanted and never managed.”
“Couldn’t keep his nose off the line,” Watcher muttered, and Fury nodded again.
“Still can’t. He’s coked up most of the time. The new normal. Makes him unpredictable, though.” Fury lifted the glass and slugged back another mouthful of liquor. “Mix him with Morgan, and it’s a volatile concoction. Not something I’d want close to me or mine. But sometimes it’s better to be close to the target so you can at least see the hit comin’.”
He lifted the glass, draining the last of the whiskey. “And that brings us to today. I saw a club I wanted to be part of, worked my way into a position where I could bring value with me, and then made it happen.” He slid the bottom of the glass against the bar top. “Simple as that.”
“Ain’t nothing simple anymore, brother,” Watcher muttered, reaching to gather his mug and the empty glass, setting them in the sink under the countertop.
“Agreed.” Fury stood, stretching. “Storytime’s over, old man.” He reached out, gripping Watcher’s shoulder. “And I have a protection detail to get on with.”
“That why you’re here?” Watcher had wondered and thought it likely the reason, but hadn’t asked yesterday.
“Yeah. Prince is coming in.” Watcher tilted his head in a silent question, and Fury burst out laughing. “Sorry. Talkin’ about Mason’s boy, Chase. Chase is flying in today. Mica’s gonna be here. Her sister’s already here. She’s like extended family. Mason is coming down without Willa, but Bethany is supposed to be here, too. Prince, princess, king, and whatever the fuck you wanna call Bethy. All of that and a piss poor detail of Duck and me.”
“Explains the call I got from Slate last night,” Watcher said with a grin. “I’ve got a dozen of my guys headed to the rodeo grounds right now, looking for Duck’s woman to get instructions on what’s needed. I’m thinkin’ you’d have better info than Brenda would.”
“Agreed.” It was Fury’s turn to grin. “Send ‘em my way. You got my cell, go ahead and pass that shit out, brother.”
Watcher’s head was bent to his phone when Fury spoke next, and Watcher didn’t look up, not wanting to see the emotion on his cousin’s face. “Sorry as fuck about Darrie, Mikey. I wasn’t in a position to offer condolences at the time, but I heard about the run you made and what happened. You lo
st him to a good cause. Glad as hell you found Juanita.” Unable to speak, Watcher nodded, eyes fixed on the screen of his phone. The door leading outside opened, light flooded the room and then disappeared, taking Fury with it.
Escalation
Heart racing, Watcher leaned the bike into the corner, knee out, balancing the machine even as it fishtailed on gravel near the edge of the road. His destination was around the next curve, and he wasn’t slowing down until he saw his girl was okay. Sitting up, he punched down through two gears and sped into the gas station parking lot, eyes fixed on the grouping of bikes and men on the far side of the building. Braking hard, he skidded to a stop, had the kickstand down and was off the motorcycle before the growl of his engine left the air.
“Where is she?” He couldn’t help barking the question at the men. Spider tipped his head, indicating the bathroom door at the back corner of the building. Five running steps and he was there, closed fist pounding on the metal, hearing the racket echoing off the warehouse next door. They were on the edge of an industrial complex and for the next few miles, the road boasted huge building after building, half of them empty as jobs moved overseas.
“Mela, open the fuck up. It’s Papa.” Like she wouldn’t know who it is. But she hadn’t called him. She’d called Juanita and asked for a ride. Tried to lie about what happened, and no way was he going to let her do that. Not my Mela. His brave girl, always pushing the envelope. Strong, so fucking strong. “Mela—”
That was all he got out before the door lurched open, pushing against his hand still hammering and then Mela was in his arms, burrowing into his chest, her arms wrapped around his waist and she was shaking. Shaking so hard her hair was moving. “Shhhhh. Honey. I got you.” The door slammed into the frame, causing her to jerk and pull away, her head lifting in fright. Jesus, she’s so scared. “Got you, baby girl. Got you.”
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