It was a huge no-no among social workers. Whether or not he realized how unprofessional they’d been, she wasn’t about to get kicked out of her job because he was clueless. Deciding to keep her answers as short as possible, she turned to face Abby and said, “He really shouldn’t have bothered you to check up on me.”
“I’m a social worker, too, Ava. I know all about not getting involved with a client, but if Puck asked us to do this, that means something. I would never do anything to compromise Puck’s well-being and happiness. Not only do I respect him as a person and a brother, but I’m very close to his sister.”
Damn him. “He really shouldn’t have made you go out of your way to visit me,” Ava repeated.
“There’s no way I would do anything to harm Puck or someone he cared about. You have nothing to worry about,” Abby promised in a firm tone.
Ava puffed out a breath of exasperation. “Like you, the work I do is incredibly meaningful to me, and I wouldn’t jeopardize it for anything.” Lie, lie, lie. But she was doing it to keep Sasha’s killer locked up. Still, she was fuming over the fact that Puck had cavalierly suggested to one of his brothers that there was something going on between them. There was no one to blame but herself, but she’d expected more discretion from him.
“You don’t have anything to worry about. Puck didn’t realize. He’s a simple guy, in many ways. Doesn’t have a dishonest bone in his body. Can’t manipulate, pretend, or hide his feelings to save his life. He wouldn’t have asked me to come here if he didn’t trust me implicitly. I want to make that clear. He must’ve been pretty worked up about you to reach out to Loki from jail. Let’s just say, Loki’s not the easiest brother to approach. But Puck did it because he guessed that it wouldn’t alarm you if I showed up on your doorstep. He’s a worrier with the people he cares about. Sammi happens to be one of my closest friends, and I’ve seen how he treats her. This is not unusual, coming from him.”
“I don’t see or hear a peep from him in eight years, and after a few sessions, he has someone checking up on me?” She shook her head in disbelief. “I’m a grown woman. I’ve lived on my own for years.”
“Welcome to my life, sister. You may be repeating that phrase a lot in the future, because that’s what it’s like to be with a man like Puck or Loki. They’re…protective.” Abby canted her head to the side, an expression of curiosity lining her face. “So you knew Puck eight years ago?”
Ava rolled her eyes.
The other woman threw up her hands. “Sorry, I’m prying, I know. We’re just dying to know who captured that man’s attention. I mean, Loki told me he’s never had an old lady—that’s our term for a wife.”
“Yes, I know. My father’s in the Renegades, so I’m familiar with the lifestyle.”
“There you go. Well, he’s never even had a girlfriend. His life had been Sammi, the club, making money, the club, Sammi, and on and on. I don’t know why your relationship ended, but he’s clearly smitten with you now.”
“That man’s no choir boy,” she huffed out. “He’s the reason our relationship ended, so don’t get your hopes up.” Ava realized she was speaking bluntly, but she didn’t want to lead her on. She liked Abby, and God knows, it was time to expand her social circle now that her mother’s cancer was in remission. But there was nothing between her and Puck besides sex and Kingpin. Her heart throbbed with a jolt of pain. Shut up heart, I’m not listening.
“Oh.” Abby’s shoulders slumped.
The teakettle whistled, and Ava hurried to turn off the stove. Carefully, she poured the scalding water over the tea leaves. Taking her favorite green owl-shaped timer, she turned it to the number of minutes the tea needed to steep.
Resting her hip against the counter, she expanded on her earlier statement. “I don’t want you to be disappointed, but Puck broke it off between us years ago. We might’ve been each other’s first loves, but we were young and immature. Puck wants to rekindle our relationship, but I’m not interested. I refuse to put myself at the mercy of his whims.”
“Whims?” A soft peal of laughter chimed through the cozy kitchen. “He’s not exactly known for being whimsical. Granted, from what I’ve heard, he didn’t take on any leadership roles in the club until recently, but he isn’t a man who acts on impulse.”
“You’d be surprised,” Ava muttered with a slight grimace. Oh, he’s acted on impulse more than once. Like breaking up with me or fucking me on the desk of my office. I’d say that’s the definition of impulsive. “We’re working together at the moment, but I don’t expect to see him after he’s released or transferred to another facility.”
Ava opened her fridge and pulled out a carton. “Milk?” she asked.
Abby nodded, and Ava filled a small white porcelain pitcher. The timer went off. She returned to the teapot and deposited the tea leaves in a compost bin underneath her sink. Placing the teapot, cups, saucers, spoons, and a small matching porcelain sugar bowl on a wooden tray, she brought it to the table and set the items around the table.
Despite the firm stance she’d taken, a warm gooey feeling settled in her belly at the proof of Puck’s concern for her. He’d been worried enough to collect call his friend and convince him to show up at her door with his fiancée. It was a perfect example and a bittersweet reminder of what it was like to be part of Puck’s life. How careful and solicitous he was with the ones he loved.
Between pitching in to raise Kat and taking care of her mother, Ava was the bedrock of her small family. It hadn’t occurred to her to call her mom or Kat, and certainly not her father, to let them know she was sick. She would’ve only mentioned it if there was an obligation she couldn’t meet or she was at death’s door. Otherwise, she wouldn’t want to be a bother. She was the exact opposite of that to Puck.
Sitting down across from Abby, she served the tea. Ava stared into her teacup, stirring her spoon in slow circles when Abby interrupted her musings. “If you’re not interested in Puck, you should get out there. Go out, flirt, date.”
With a small smile, she asked, “How do you know I don’t already have a boyfriend?”
“Do you? Because I don’t see Puck going after another man’s woman.”
“No,” Ava replied, shaking her head. “I don’t have the time, what with my job and the responsibilities I have with my family. Then there’s the fact that the bar and club scenes aren’t really my thing anymore.”
“You always seem a little…sad. I don’t mean to pry…” Abby trailed off.
“It’s okay. You’re a social worker. I understand the impulse of caring about people and wanting to help them live their best lives. Perhaps I am a little melancholic. In my late teens and early twenties, I partied hard. In fact, Puck and I partied together. Then life barged in and he broke up with me. Now, I have serious family responsibilities on top of my own career goals. I worry about my clients, and you know how that can bleed into your private life. Sometimes it’s hard to leave everything at work at the end of the day. Doesn’t help that I’m feeling under the weather.”
“Well, you should come out with me and my friends. You should meet Sammi. You know her, right?”
“Sure, I know Sammi,” Ava replied with a sad, wistful smile. Her heart leaped in her chest. They’d had begun a little tentative friendship of their own before Puck ended things. Ava had become something of a loner after Sasha’s death and getting clean. Although she’d love to hang out with Abby and reconnect with Sammi, she couldn’t. Once Kingpin was taken care of and Puck was out of jail, they’d part and go their separate ways.
“I bet she’d love to see you again.”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea. Once Puck is out of my life, it wouldn’t do to see him around.” She swallowed around the lump in her throat. “He’ll be with other women. That would be hard for me. One small mercy about our breakup was that, once it was over, we never crossed paths.” Except for when he showed up at Sasha’s funeral.
“I suppose so,” Abby agreed reluctantly. She too
k a sip of her tea and then inquired, “Do you need anything? Like I said, I have a mini pharmacy in the truck.”
“I could do with more Tylenol. I’m experiencing residual aches and pains from the fever.”
Abby’s face brightened. “Sure! Let me go get it.”
Ava followed her to the door as she rushed to the truck and fiddled with some bags while talking to Loki. He followed Abby as she returned with a plastic bag filled with stuff. Greeting him, Ava ushered them inside. As Abby described what was in the bag, Loki inspected Ava from head to toe. Wearing only a nightgown and robe, she suddenly felt nervous. Shifting from foot to foot, she retied the belt of her robe around her waist.
Abby slapped Loki’s arm. “Stop staring! You’re making her nervous.”
“Jealous that I’m checking out another woman?” Loki teased as he looped his arm around Abby’s middle, hauled her against his side, and rubbed her small baby bump. Planting a kiss on the crown of her head, he looked down at her with so much affection that Ava felt a tinge of envy.
Abby chuckled. “Hardly.”
Breaking free of his hold, she gave Ava a quick hug before she could protest about being sick, and then they were both out of her house with waves of goodbye.
Ava closed the door behind the adoring couple. Stillness, tinged with emptiness, permeated her cozy little sanctuary. No matter how comfy her home was, it couldn’t make up for the absence of a loved mate.
Chapter Eleven
Puck may not have been able to see Ava, but his thoughts never strayed far from her. Being cut off from his family, his brothers, his bike, and his home was unnerving. He didn’t have any of his belongings. There was no privacy. Noise and chatter all the fucking time. Tack on mind-numbing boredom, and stir-crazy didn’t begin to describe what he felt like. His trial date hadn’t been set, so Puck had a chunk of time on his hands. It was the thought of losing his jury trial that had him shuddering in his oversized jumper. If he was convicted, he was looking at a minimum of five years in a federal penitentiary. He could plead down to second-degree assault, but then he was guaranteed to serve over a year. What a fucking mess.
Ava was his oasis of sanity. It offset the powder keg of stress he lived with every day. At times, he had to go back to the basics, like focusing on her sultry vanilla scent. Instead of being in an enclosed musty room stinking of sour body odor, he was transported to a beach in the Florida Keys.
The following day, Puck called Loki and found out she was home with a cold but, otherwise, doing well. Pride swelled his chest when he heard how she took the Tylenol because she’d run out. See, what’d I tell you? he wanted to shout out to the universe. Loki complimented him on how fine his woman was, and then ribbed him until Puck got sick of it and simply hung up on his ass.
Feeling more at peace after his call, he set out to do the job he’d promised Ava. Puck played cards, but it took a while to get in on a game with Kingpin’s crew. There was one man, a kid really, who either worked for the drug dealer or was related to him. Little shit was named Jiggins. High half the time, the kid was a weak link, and Puck’s way in.
Hanging around the card tables, Puck got subbed in on a card game of spades with Kingpin, Jiggins, and another guy named Poison, of all things. Jiggins must’ve sucked ass if Puck was teamed up with him.
“Ace high, no bags,” Jiggins called out as he gave Puck a wink. What in the fuck that meant, Puck had no idea. It didn’t take long to find out Kingpin had a little side hustle, managing the gambling at the card tables and taking sports bets. Enterprising man.
To gamble, the inmates used bags of chips and sodas from the commissary, a store inside the jail, where inmates purchased stuff, like snacks and hygiene products. From his dilated eyes, it was evident Jiggins was coming off a high, which meant this was gonna be a wash of a game. He ground down on his back teeth. Puck hated losing, for any reason, but it was a necessary evil to get an in with this crew.
Kingpin scratched his closely shaved head as he dealt the cards. On the other side of thirty, he had a square jaw and heavy jowls. Skinny guy with a paunch, generic tribal tats covered his biceps and neck, poking up from beneath his collar. Puck knew exactly the type of dealer he was. The chummy kind, who pretended to use alongside his customers but cut his product with God knows what behind their back. All in all, he was a viper and a coward. But, first and foremost, he was an opportunist. Being a hustler himself, that was something Puck could exploit.
Picking up his cards, Puck considered them as Jiggins bid his tricks. They went around until each player bid. The game played itself out, and Kingpin won the round with a ten of spades, the highest card. Jiggins was the next to deal.
Grabbing the deck of cards, he shuffled a few times and asked Puck, “Whatcha in for, dude? Me, I’m in for possession.” It was a common question among inmates, as an icebreaker but also to get a pulse on the kind of man they were dealing with.
“Pistol-whipped a guy,” he replied as he picked up his cards. “Owed me five Gs. Couldn’t let that stand.” The assault was true, the reason behind it was not, but he didn’t much care if they believed him. He sure as hell didn’t believe every damn thing an inmate told him.
“Five Gs is a lot of dough,” commiserated Poison.
“Fuck yeah, it is. If you don’t got the money, then you gotta pay up another way, know what I mean? I’m not from a bitch-ass club.”
“I heard the Squad went clean,” Kingpin murmured, studying his cards intently.
So the fucker kept tabs on other criminal enterprises in the city. The Squad had been one of the main cigarette smugglers in the region for years, until recently.
“There’s clean, and then there’s clean. President’s old lady is a lawyer, so we had to clean up the image, know what I mean? But a brother’s gotta do what a brother’s gotta a do to survive, feel me?”
“True dat,” piped up Jiggins.
“You’ve got to survive,” Kingpin repeated.
What the fuck does that mean? What kind of cryptic shit is that?
“Survival’s the name of the game, yo,” Puck stated, watching Kingpin from the corner of his eye. Kingpin lifted his gaze from his cards and carefully studied Puck. Tapping his cards against the table, he refocused his attention and played his hand. Puck had to give it to him; he was a cool motherfucker.
“Amen,” supplied Jiggins.
Each man called out his tricks and they settled down to playing their hands in silence. Puck wasn’t surprised when Kingpin won game after game.
“With the luck I’m having, if I’m gonna keep playing cards, I’m gonna need cash,” Puck muttered, loud enough for Jiggins to hear, but not the rest of the men milling around their table.
Jiggins’s gaze shot to Puck’s face. “Yeah?”
“Always ready to make money moves,” replied Puck. “My brothers take care of commissary, but they’re not generous enough to pay the bills pilin’ up while I’m laid up in here. And playing cards? Let’s just say, I can’t be owing people.”
“That you can’t,” Jiggins agreed.
“Yeah, already had one fight and got thrown in the hole. Not lookin’ for a repeat.”
“There might be somethin’ for you to do. Always lookin’ for hard-workin’ men who know the score.”
“That would be me, but I ain’t lookin’ to add time to what I already have,” Puck warned. It was the God’s honest truth.
Jiggins chuckled low. “No worries, brah. The COs don’t give a fuck what we do as long as we don’t riot. It’s fucking Walmart on Black Friday up in here. I’ll talk to Kingpin and see what you can do. Gonna be real small in the beginning. Test you out to see if you do what you’re told.”
“I can be trusted,” intoned Puck. Jiggins shouldn’t be running his mouth, but that wasn’t his problem.
“Like I said, I’ll talk to my cousin. It’s for him to decide.”
So Puck was right that the little shit was related to Kingpin. Nothing else made as much sense. Satisfied wi
th having set the wheels in motion, Puck got up from the table once the game was done and paid his loss. Chips and soda were a small price to pay for entry into Kingpin’s circle.
Chapter Twelve
“You did what?” Ava stared at Puck in horror as they faced each other in her office. The instant the door closed and locked, they were sealed in their own world. Outside of an emergency that required him to get back in his unit for head count, no one would interrupt them during a counseling session. Besides, Puck had an ear out for anything happening outside her door.
Grinding the heels of her hands into her eye sockets, she asked, “What in God’s name were you thinking? I said find out what he’s doing, not get involved. You could get caught, and then you’ll have serious drug charges on top of whatever else you have. The stakes are too high. You have to abort this plan.”
“They’re sneaking drugs in through the mail, glued to paper or the paper itself is soaked in heroin, ecstasy, and fentanyl. Not just letters, either. Shit like cards, Bible verses, funeral notices. Kingpin even joked about getting a Harry Potter coloring book or, as he called it, a Heroin Potter book through the mail.”
Her gaze lifted to the poster illustrating the cycle of addiction on the wall facing her.
“What?” she breathed out in disbelief. “My God, it’s worse than I imagined.”
“Yeah, much worse. The jail is drowning in drugs. It’s coming in through every fucking crack in the walls. Besides the visitors and a few corrupt COs, which I haven’t yet been able to identify, it’s being thrown over the wall in tennis balls and dead pigeons. Jiggins told me of drones dropping shit in the yard, for God’s sake. But the majority is coming through the mail. If you wanna take him down, focus on the mail ’cause that can be traced back to him and his source on the outside. You could catch both ends.”
Ava covered her eyes. “I don’t want to do this. I don’t even know where to start.”
Puck's Property: A Bad Boy Biker Romance (The Demon Squad MC Book 5) Page 9