Tainted Romance

by Steele, Carter

  “Brock, please…”

  But he just kissed me on the forehead.

  “Good luck,” he said, his eyes heavy and hurt.

  Without another word, he walked quickly out of the coffee shop, his head down and his hands in his pockets. I sat there numb, hearing but not listening to the motorcycle take off. It was a sound that I knew I’d hear again and again, livign in this small town, but it was a sound that would never come for me. It—

  And then, just like that, the sound of a motorcycle approaching the shop picked back up. I looked ahead, morbidly curious to see what Brock was coming back for. What had he changed his mind about?

  But I let out a sigh of sadness when I did not see Brock, but rather, a man with multiple tattoos and a bald head approaching. He looked at me briefly, nodded, and then turned his attention to Nikki to order a drink. He wasn’t wearing the clothes of the Savage Kings or anything else; he looked to just be a recreational biker.

  I sat in that chair for a few more minutes, trying my best to digest what had just happened. I guessed this really was goodbye. Brock could have told me the truth about a decade ago, but even that chance, even as adults, had not prompted him to confess what was on his mind.

  If that was the case, then there was nothing that I could do.

  I felt my phone buzz. Brock had sent me one last message.

  “Just let me know when you get home, please.”

  It felt like an odd request, but then again, he had mentioned that those who were close to the club were at risk of getting hurt. Maybe there was something to that. I just liked the text, letting the blue thumbs up appear next to it, and closed my phone out. When I did respond, I would only say “I’m home” and then I wouldn’t say anything else.

  At that point, I’d take care of myself.

  I wasn’t as helpless as Brock thought, anyways. I knew how to use a gun, I knew some Krav Maga, and I had good alertness. I never went anywhere with headphones on, and I never let myself get distracted by men.

  I stood up, put my phone in my purse, and headed to my car. I drove home in silence, turning the radio down. It didn’t feel appropriate to be listening to anything upbeat right now.

  I got home with the sun just starting to dip below the horizon. I reached for my keys and went to unlock the apartment when, to my surprise, the door opened without me needing to unlock it.

  “What?” I said, a nervous feeling growing in my stomach.

  I always, always locked the door. It had become a habit after I’d had some textbooks stolen at UCLA. I may have forgotten to lock it when I went to get gas, but I never would have forgotten it in a case like this.

  I stepped inside, shut the door behind me, and made my way to the bedroom, nervous I’d find someone—

  “Hello, Heather.”

  What the fuck?

  “Uncle Rick?”

  My uncle, sporting three scratches on his left cheek, smiled at me. It was the last thing I saw before I momentarily felt a hard whack on my head and then fell to the ground, unconscious.

  5

  Brock

  “I guess that’s all there is to it.”

  I muttered that line to myself repeatedly all the way from City Brewing Coffee to the clubhouse. I said it as if I was trying to convince myself of its veracity. It was like I needed to believe it, but I couldn’t bring myself to do so.

  Would it really have been much of a surprise to tell her that her uncle, Rick Richards, was also Vulture, the president of the Anarchists and one of the men I hated the most in this world? Would she have believed me if I stated that Vulture had killed my father? Would it have bothered her if I told her I broke up with her so that her uncle would continue to think of her as a normal Richards girl and not someone dating the son of his most hated enemy?

  I only needed to think of the words to realize that yes, she would have thought it was ridiculous and stupid. Heather had never said an ill word of anyone in her family when we were kids. Though she was certainly a much nicer person than I was or most women I knew, it wasn’t like she had never said a bad word about anyone. She’d had her moments when she had critiqued classmates or friends.

  And yet, there was never a bad word about anyone in her family.

  So, yeah. It wasn’t a question of truth versus protection. I actually hadn’t hid much from her.

  It was a question of Vulture versus Brock. The boyfriend, or the uncle? Future love, or current family?

  I knew that I was pretty important to her. But I also knew that part of Heather’s appeal was how close she was to her family.

  I pulled up to the shop, muttering to myself about how that’s all there was to it. I still couldn’t stop saying the phrase, because I still couldn’t believe that it was over. I still couldn’t believe how stupidly rigid I’d been.

  But then again, Heather had also been pretty inflexible with all things considered. She hadn’t budged an inch on her side. So, I guess it worked out. If we were going to argue over that, who knew what else we were bound to argue over as time went by?

  I parked my bike, weakly put the kickstand down, and walked over to Parker, Landon, Tyus, and two prospects playing poker. Landon saw me first, nodding to me.

  “Sup, bro,” he said.

  I just snorted and looked at the game.

  “Who’s winning?” I said, half-interested.

  “Fucking prospect over there,” Parker said. “Asshole apparently used to play a lot in Vegas. Motherfucker think he gon’ take money from me.”

  “Easy, Parker,” I said, but Parker just burst out laughing when he saw the fear on the prospect’s face.

  “Hey, it ain’t nothin’ but a game, right?” Parker said. “I’ll find a way to get that cash back somehow. Winners, after all, gotta buy the alcohol.”

  The poor prospect again looked like he was about to shit himself, much to the delight of Parker. I just gave a quiet chuckle at the scene.

  “Sit ya ass down and play with us,” Parker said. “Help ya forget your women troubles or whatever the hell has gotten up your snatch.”

  “Why did I make you sergeant in arms again?” I said with a slight smirk.

  “Because ya know the rest of these boys are too pussy to do it. Sit down and play.”

  I nodded, pulling out a twenty dollar bill, throwing it in the pot, and collected my chips. I played a few hands in complete silence, letting Parker’s taunts of the prospects fill the air. I noticed Landon looking my way a few times, aware that I was not being my normal self, but if I was going to be somewhat closed off to Heather, there was no chance in hell I was going to say a word to Landon about any of this.

  Finally, I got involved with a hand with Parker and we got to the river. I had a flush, but the board was paired with two jacks, meaning Parker could have potentially have had a full house for a better hand. I bet, but he raised me.

  “But,” he said. “Instead of raisin’ ya sorry ass money, I’mma raise ya something else.”

  “OK,” I said. “Can’t wait to hear this one.”

  “Ya gotta tell us what the hell ya mopin’ about,” Parker said. “Where the fuck did the cool, collected Brock go? What’s this PMS-ing version of him doin’ here?”

  “And if I call and you lose?” I said.

  “Then you get double chips in front of me.”

  “Seems like an uneven trade,” I said with a laugh.

  But Parker was done laughing. He adopted his poker face, folding his arms, staring straight at the ground, and giving no indication either way about the strength of his hand. I was by no means a poker expert, but I knew enough and I knew Parker’s game well enough to know that it was about a 50-50 proposition that he had the full house.

  Fuck it. Might be good to talk about it. If you can’t trust these boys…

  “Call.”

  “And call with your weak-ass flush and tell the story!” Parker said with a laugh, turning over two jacks. Not only did he have a full house, he had four of a kind; only a straight
flush or a royal flush would have beaten him here. “C’mon, Brock, spill the goddamn beans. What’s goin’ on?”

  I rolled my eyes. I suppose I could tell a quick version of the story.

  “That woman you saw last week was a girl I dated in high school, sort of your classic high school sweetheart,” I said. “Well, we hooked up. It was awesome. But then she got weird. Said it wouldn’t work out. Said I wasn’t telling her enough. So I saw her today to try and reach a truce, and well, it didn’t work out.”

  “What in the fuck did you not tell her?” Parker asked.

  “Club business.”

  “Like?”

  Well, not only was there no reason not to tell Parker and the rest of the Kings before me the truth, there were actually plenty of reasons in favor of explaining what was going on.

  “Her uncle is Vulture.”

  “Shit on a fuckin’ shingle,” Parker gasped.

  “Seriously?” Landon asked.

  “And you dated this girl in high school?” Parker said. “Right around the time that your father—”

  “Yes,” I said, cutting him off. “I didn’t know that Vulture had murdered my father then. I just knew my father had been killed wrecking his motorcycle, and for a while, I believed that. Then I heard, no, he hadn’t been killed in an accident, the Anarchists had set him up, specifically Vulture. Then I realized that Vulture was Heather’s uncle.”

  “Shit,” Parker said.

  Even that story had found a way to shut the loquacious Texan up. I let the facts settle for a few seconds as I shuffled the cards and dealt them out.

  “As soon as I found that out, I cut Heather out of my life. But not for my sake. For her’s.”

  Landon arched an eyebrow at me that I ignored as I continued.

  “I loved that girl. Probably still… anyways, I knew though that if Vulture ever found out we were dating or if Heather ever found out that he killed my father, it would get ugly. I didn’t want her to get hurt. I knew that if I were dating her, she’d wind up in the middle of it. So, like a ghost, I just vanished.”

  “And she probably hated your fuckin’ guts for it,” Parker said. “But ya know what, bro? I’da done the same fuckin’ thing. Although ya probably an idiot for bringin’ her back into ya life.”

  “Yeah… yeah.”

  “So you saw her today?” Landon asked. “Are you going to see her again?”

  “No,” I said, remembering what I’d last texted her. “I just wanted her to text me when she got home. Which…”

  I pulled out my phone and checked. No, she had not texted me.

  “She hasn’t.”

  “No surprise there,” Parker said. “Ya moved on, ya move on. This whole hangin’ by a thread thing ain’t gonna do nothin’ but cause ya more heartache and more meeting fights. Just forget that… that girl ever existed and move forward with the club.”

  It was in Parker’s best interest not to say what he was about to about Heather being a whore or a slut or a bitch, because I probably would have upended the table right there to make the point.

  “Should we take the game inside?” the winning prospect said. “It’s getting dark, and—”

  “Boy, shut the hell up,” Parker said. “This ain’t your conversation to interrupt.”

  “Sorry, sorry.”

  “Don’t tell me sorry, tell me—”

  “Hey!” I interrupted as I felt my phone buzz in my pocket. “Everyone shut the fuck up.”

  I pulled out my phone. Heather—Heather?—was calling.

  “I gotta answer this.”

  I looked at my cards, saw a four and a ten, and mucked it.

  “Hello?”

  “Brock!”

  Heather’s voice sounded panicked. I immediately stood up from the table, practically jumping up.

  “Heather? What’s going on?”

  “Brock, come help, please, help, help, I’m at—”

  But I heard muffled screaming on the other side of the line.

  “Heather!”

  The other Kings looked at me, worry etched on their face. I paid no attention to them. A moment later, someone else came on the line.

  “I did not know that you and my niece were a thing.”

  Vulture. You motherfucker.

  “It makes my job much easier, though. It’s hard to pick at targets when you don’t know who you assholes are with, but when it’s your own family, why, it’s pathetically easy.”

  “What the fuck do you want?” I growled.

  “The same thing I’ve wanted since the day I killed your father,” Vulture said. “For all of you to leave Romara and let us take the town. It’s a goldmine of opportunity, Brock. You and your silly ethics—”

  “I don’t give a fuck what you have to say, Vulture. We’re not leaving and—”

  I heard a gunshot go off on the other line.

  “No!” I shouted.

  “Don’t worry, Heather is still very much alive. Do you really think I’d murder my own family to prove a point to you?”

  Yes.

  “No, I am not going to kill my niece. However, we must all make hard choices in moments like these, and we must allow for terrible things if we want good things to happen. So, this is the deal. You must come to me unarmed. You must agree to leave Romara forever. And then, I will make sure nothing happens to the love of your life.”

  “You sick fuck—”

  “Ten minutes, Mr. King.”

  The line went dead.

  “The fuck?” Landon said.

  “We’re rolling out to the base of the Anarchists. Now.”

  “Ya sure—” Parker said.

  “Yes,” I said. “Our future depends on it.”

  6

  Heather

  “I have a fucking bone to pick with you.”

  “Sir?”

  The first thing that came back when I came to consciousness wasn’t my sight. It was my hearing. I heard my uncle’s voice, along with that of a man I did not recognize.

  “I told you to knock her out, not kill her. She is my niece, you idiot.”

  “Sir, I just wanted to make it quick, and—”

  I heard a gunshot go off. I couldn’t help but wince, even knowing full well that it would give away the fact that I had woken up. Half a second later, I heard a body slump to the ground.

  “Fucking stupid minion,” my uncle’s voice muttered. “Take him away. Burn his body and make sure that no one ever sees trace of his existence.”

  I then heard my uncle approaching me. Figuring there was no longer any need to play being out, I opened my eyes. I was in a damp, drab room that looked like something resembling a mental institution. I was on a bed with white sheets and a white pillow. I sat up, felt lightheaded, and fell back down as my uncle pulled up a chair next to me.

  “Hi, Heather,” he said. “Apologies for bringing you in this way. But we had to ensure that there would be full compliance without resistance.”

  I didn’t say a word to him. This was not Uncle Rick that I knew. The Uncle Rick I knew was a little aggressive, sure, and he was a little more blue-collar than the rest of my family, but he wasn’t a murderer. He wasn’t someone who dragged his own family members into someplace that they would never go normally. He wasn’t a monster.

  But, apparently, I didn’t know my uncle nearly as well as I had thought.

  “My friend Marco figured it out,” he said, as if I had asked such a question. “He suspected from seeing you two together before that you might have been something. But just a few hours ago, when he saw Brock leaving the coffee shop looking like his dog had just died and then saw you looking the same way, the truth was evident to me. Both of you like each other. And therefore, you can be used as leverage against Brock.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” I said. “What the hell is going on?”

  “Oh, don’t play dumb with me,” Rick said, groaning. “You act like you have no idea, but…”

  He paused as he seemed to con
sider what I’d said more carefully. He also seemed to evaluate me much more closely, trying to decide if I was serious.

  “You really don’t have any idea, do you?” he said with a chuckle. “I guess Brock thought he could keep you safe. It’s too bad, really. He could have if you two hadn’t come together just now.”

  Does he… does he not know we were a thing in high school? Should probably keep it that way if so.

  “You see, the Kings have been in this area for a very, very long time,” Rick said. “And I’m a businessman at heart. I look for arbitrage opportunities, for spots where market inefficiencies exist. And I have to say, for a town that so allows so much to go on with a blind eye, the Kings really don’t do much to take advantage of it. But they’re quite protective of keeping their inefficiencies like so.

  “See, they believe in having some moral or ethical code. It’s silly. It’s stupid. They’ll kill, rape, and plunder, all to get what they want. How can you say you have a code when you engage in such sultry activities? And the sheriff, don’t even fucking get me started on him. He’s as blind as a goddamn bat! All of this is to say that I see an opportunity, but I need to get rid of the Kings.

  “I started by killing Brock’s father. The rest of the Kings rallied around him and his brother, though, and trying to land a strike was difficult. On top of that, the Kings had more numbers and more resources. We had to bide our time and lay low.”

  He doesn’t know of our past. He’d probably kill me if he did now.

  “But opportunity started to form in the past couple of months. We found out the location of where they stored their gun reserves. We sensed that they were having trouble keeping members as more and more people are leaving Romara for the bigger streets of Los Angeles and San Francisco—after all, what better example is there of this than you?”

  I scowled, but that only made my uncle laugh.

  “And now, we have the best opportunity yet. We know the Kings themselves won’t crack or surrender when we come after them. But if we come after the people they care about…”

  “So I’m just bait,” I said with a snarl. “That’s what I’m reduced to?”