He dipped his chin, tasting acid on his tongue, turned away, finished going down the steps and back to his car.
His driver was waiting at the open door for him.
He folded his body into the back.
His driver shut him in.
He tossed the briefcase on the seat between him and his man and faced forward, his expression stony, refusing to look out his window as his driver set them moving.
He detested being back in his old neighborhood and because of this, for years, he’d not returned.
The squalor. The ridiculous peasants laughing and cooking and celebrating Cinco de Mayo and meticulously planning their daughters’ quinceañeras and doggedly trudging to church on Sundays to worship a God who long-since had forgotten they existed.
They might have wanted more, but the white man would never allow that, and they were too stupid to know that if they really wanted it, they’d have to take it.
He’d wanted more.
And he’d taken it.
But he knew that Mamá Nana was wise.
And she was right.
He had few emotions, so he had no idea how to be humble.
He would have to learn before he lost everything.
Hawk Delgado had that stupid snatch he’d taught a lesson in her ludicrous red room.
With Delgado’s protection, even Benito could not find her to silence her.
Yes, he’d have to learn to be humble.
Or he’d lose everything.
Sixx
When the black Mercedes was out of sight, Sixx moved from the shadows, up the steps, and leaned against the turquoise pole.
“Have I said how much I like your outfit?” Mamá Nana asked.
“Not yet,” Sixx replied, not looking down at the close-fitting black net sweater over the skintight black cami that topped skinny camo pants and glossy ankle boots with their narrowed square toe and chunky, three-and-a-half-inch heel.
“It confuses them when you care about what you wear,” she declared. “It makes them underestimate you. Like our minds are so frail, it’d overtax us to see to our appearance, put together an attractive outfit, and be able to recite that two plus two equals four.”
Sixx really liked this woman.
So she smiled.
“His mother,” Mamá Nana said quietly. “Una santa. His father, un cabrón. Though he was simply useless. Their boy was just born bad.”
Sixx knew little about Benito Valenzuela.
But she was catching up.
And from what she was learning, the woman couldn’t be more right.
“I need to know where those bones are, Mamá Nana,” she told her.
“This, I will tell you. If our agreement stands.”
Sixx nodded. “I’ll give them to that Club.”
Mamá Nana nodded back. “I will send mis hijos with you. They will be heavy. Soiled. It would be a shame if you ruined that outfit.”
Sixx shook her head. “I have some men who’ll help me.”
“You can trust them, mi loba,” she said softly. “And they will guide your way. Not to mention, these bones are considered treasure. They’ll be guarded.”
Sixx thought of D and Mad, but also Molly and their upcoming ceremony.
She couldn’t go to them.
Though, Carlo was in town, and him being in town was the reason Sixx was in town and standing right there with Mamá Nana.
Last, but most important, she thought of Stellan and her promise to be careful, not take any unnecessary risks, and get home safe to him.
“I’d appreciate the help of your boys,” she decided. “But just so they know, Carlo will be backup.”
“Carlo, such a good boy,” she murmured.
Sixx almost laughed.
She didn’t, but she did file that away to give Carlo shit about later.
Mamá Nana lifted a hand with two fingers extended.
Within seconds, two men showed on the porch.
Yes.
Sixx really liked this woman.
“It will frustrate him greatly, not having that treasure to bargain with,” Mamá Nana noted.
From what Sixx knew, she was not wrong.
“And weaken him tremendously,” Mamá Nana continued.
It would do that too.
Though, before he even got to the point of bargaining, Sixx was going to strip him of anything he could conceivably bargain with.
And not just bagging those bones.
The woman’s voice was vibrating when she said, “He should not have hurt those girls.”
She’d been waiting for this opportunity.
Sixx was glad she was the one to give it to her.
“No, he should not,” she agreed.
It took a moment before she straightened her back in her rocking chair but kept on rocking.
“When you return to Denver, you must come see me,” Mamá Nana invited. “I’ll make my albóndigas soup. You’ll like it.”
“I’m here.”
“It was nice to meet you, Sixx.”
Sixx moved to her, bent and touched her cheek to the woman’s, saying in her ear, “You too.”
She moved away and gave the woman a wink, which made Mamá Nana explode with laughter.
Sixx looked to the men.
Then she walked down the steps with them following.
Rebel
Two thirty-seven that morning . . .
I woke when the bed moved because Rush joined me in it.
It did not surprise me he shifted in right behind me. He was a spooner. He could pull off a spoon all night.
It was awesome.
His arm slid around me as I murmured a drowsy, “Hey.”
The surprise came when he turned me around to face him.
Okay, maybe he wanted to get busy.
I’d been dead asleep.
I still was totally down with that.
“Hey,” he replied.
Any sleepiness I had evaporated, and not because we were about to get busy.
Because I felt his hold and I heard his tone and I knew something had happened.
I pressed my hand against his bare chest and whispered, “Is everything okay?”
“Rebel, baby, a witness came forward.”
I held myself tense because he didn’t go on and that could mean anything.
“And the guy who gave his alibi retracted it.” His hold on me grew taut. “Wayne Benson killed Diane. They picked him up. He’s confessed.”
I lay there, in Rush’s hold, feeling his warm skin against my hand, the beat of his heart, and stared through the dark at his shadowy face I could not really see.
“A witness came forward?” I whispered.
“Don’t know much about that. But yeah.”
“Why didn’t they come forward before?”
“Sorry, sweetheart, I don’t know about that either.”
I fell silent.
“You okay?” Rush asked.
“I don’t . . .” I pulled in a breath. “Rush, I don’t know what to feel.”
“Relief?” he suggested.
“Yes, of course, but . . .” I trailed off.
“Baby,” he murmured, his other arm digging under me so he could wrap me up in both and hold me close. “Some part a’ you thought, if you knew who did it, if it was handled, it’d make it right.”
“Yeah,” I muttered.
“And it didn’t make it right.”
“No.”
He stroked my back with one hand and played with the ends of my hair with the other.
I ducked my head and rested it against his collarbone.
“They’re leavin’ it until the morning to tell her parents. If you want, I’ll take you to them so you can be with them when they hear.”
My forehead rolled against his skin when I nodded and said, “I want.”
“Done,” he replied softly.
Of course it was “done.”
That was Rush.
I was guessing, with
this guy, even if he had a million irons in the fire, he’d be there for me.
“Maybe it’ll help Paul start healing,” I suggested.
“Maybe.” He didn’t sound like he held a lot of hope for that.
Truth be told, as sad as it was, I didn’t either.
“I was wrong about it being Lannigan,” I mumbled.
“Yeah,” he said.
“All that, getting into porn, putting myself in danger, and in the end, I didn’t do dick to help Diane.”
His fingers at the ends of my hair slid up and tangled in it fully. “Babe. Stop. Just stop. You did what you had to do. That’s it. No one got hurt. It’s done. Move on.”
I took in a shaky breath.
“And if you didn’t do it,” he said softly, “I wouldn’t have found you.”
I closed my eyes and melted into him.
“Yeah,” I replied.
“Things have a way of workin’ out as they should.”
I pressed even closer and whispered, “Yeah.”
“Though, again, I think it’s pertinent to add that isn’t permission to get involved in jacked-up shit,” he finished.
I opened my eyes and through a smile I said, “Permission?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Don’t tick me off when you’re being so sweet.”
“Right.”
I kept pressing close.
His arms gave me a squeeze.
We both fell silent and this lasted for some time.
Rush broke it.
“You gotta let go, babe,” he whispered, “just do it, yeah?”
“I think I’ve cried all the tears I’m gonna cry for Diane.”
“Okay, sweetheart,” he murmured, sifting his fingers through my hair, going back, doing it again.
That felt insanely nice.
I didn’t say anything more. Rush didn’t say anything more.
I didn’t fall asleep. Rush didn’t fall asleep.
I sensed even with news that was good, something wasn’t right.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
He didn’t make me push for it.
“Enemy of the Club knew this guy and the man thought something was screwy with Benson. Went after him. He’s the reason they found the witness.”
“An enemy of the Club?”
“Yeah. He did something seriously fucked up. Bought some significant displeasure from the brothers. We took care of that then he took care of that.”
“He took care of what?”
“Went all in, risking his ass to make amends.”
“Oh,” I mumbled.
“You’re mine. Means you’re Chaos. Getting this guy is good for you. Means he did us a good turn.”
“Oh,” I mumbled again, though I did it feeling warm and fuzzy he was considering me “his” and that I was “Chaos.”
“I liked hating his ass better.”
“No one is all good or all bad, Rush,” I said quietly.
“Says Rebel Stapleton, protector of just about anyone who crosses her path,” he returned. “Though just to say, my guess is Wayne Benson is total filth.”
I could not argue that.
He fell silent.
“You want—?” I started to offer.
“Fuckin’ kills me to say,” he cut me off. “But I’m worn out. I’ll go at you in the morning.”
He hadn’t had a lot of sleep.
“Need to take care of you better,” I muttered.
He kissed the top of my head. “You take care of me fine.”
“I’ll make breakfast in the morning.”
“You keep promising to cook, this has yet to happen.”
“I kill in the kitchen,” I bragged. “I’ll make my egg and bacon sandwiches on cheesy buttermilk biscuits. We tell D I’m making them, he’ll be his normal half-asleep, and he’ll still get in his rental to go get the ingredients if we don’t have them.”
“Sounds perfect.”
I smiled, pressed close, brushed his skin with my lips, then turned in his hold so he was spooning me.
He gave me some weight at the back, tucked my hips tighter into curve of his and buried his face in my hair.
Oh so totally awesome with the spoon.
I was almost back to sleep, Rush’s breath had evened, when a low, ragged groan split the air.
Diesel.
My eyes popped open. “You have got to be kidding me.”
Rush’s arm got tight and he chuckled into my hair.
“I’m gonna kill them,” I announced.
“Just chill.”
“You need your sleep.”
Rush said nothing. There was silence. No bed pounding. No grunting.
Okay, maybe D was just making really loud sleep noises.
“Yeah, bud, that’s it. Love that draw. Suck me,” Diesel could be heard encouraging.
“For fuck’s sake,” I snapped, lifting up my head, seizing my pillow, dropping my head to the mattress and slamming the pillow over me.
Rush’s body rocked into mine with his laughter.
My “Men!” was muted too.
Rush’s body kept rocking into mine.
Whatever.
The pillow worked.
And around about the time Rush relaxed into me, I fell asleep.
Chew
Four forty- five that morning . . .
Dragging the bags up the stairs, Chew checked the numbers on the doors as he went down the outside walkway until he saw fourteen.
He used the key with the big, diamond-shaped, plastic medallion that had the same number imprinted on it, let himself in, dragging the bags behind him.
He closed the door.
Locked it.
Went to the curtains hanging at the front window.
He slapped them closed.
Only then did he feel his way to the light on the nightstand and turn it on.
He went back to the three plastic bags, heaved them across the room and up on the bed.
Then he stood there, staring down at them, feeling his whole body shaking.
How?
How did they know?
How did they find him?
Going home after his work of the night, feeling good, feeling fucking awesome he hadn’t lost his touch.
A little time staking shit out. A little more time watching.
Two liquor stores and a convenience store.
This time, he didn’t leave them dead since they didn’t even see the tire iron before it slammed into the backs of their skulls.
They’d have headaches when they woke up, and Chew had some mild concern that last guy was bleeding more than he should.
But whatever.
He got their cash bags.
Their daily takes.
And thank fuck he kept his stash in his car. If he didn’t, now he’d be screwed.
Fuck.
How had the cops found him? All over his safe house when he got home. Lights flashing. That fucking do-good fuckwad Mitch Lawson and that fucking asshole ex-DEA fuck Brock Lucas standing at the front of his safe house chatting.
Tack’s friends.
Tack’s buddies.
Chew did not give one single fuck those men were at Tack’s side when they took the house where Tack’s old lady was inside, stuck to shit, bleeding out.
They were fucking cops.
Tack was an outlaw.
What the fuck?
More importantly . . .
How had they fucking fuck fucking found him?
He stared at the bags.
Grew still.
“Digger,” he whispered.
The only motherfucker alive, now that Harrietta and Cammy were dead, who knew where his safe house was.
He turned, about ready to grab the TV and throw it across the room.
Instead he skulked to it, snatched up the remote, turned that fucker on low so if he had neighbors in this shithole, he didn’t wake them so they’d complain.
He found a local channel
, turned back to the bed and yanked open the bags.
One bag: fives, tens, twenties, some fifties, a few hundreds, even some ones.
One hundred and seventy-seven thousand dollars and some change.
What was left from his score from the glory days of Chaos.
The second bag: Cammy’s jewelry Valenzuela gave her, same thing from Harrietta not given to her by Benito but by her ex (not that there was much of that), Harrietta’s grandmother’s silver, Chew’s dad’s watch, the Rolex one of Chaos’s whores stole from a john that Chew claimed as his, and three guns, a .38, a .22 and a 9mm.
Third bag: the envelope with his take from the whores last night (thirty-two hundred measly dollars and some jewelry that wouldn’t bring much), the three cash bags from tonight (seventeen thousand and some change) and fucking seven fucking pairs of Cammy’s designer shoes and five designer handbags, which Benito bought her.
He’d been reduced to shoes and handbags.
But fuck, those bastards were worth a mint.
He’d have to find a fence. One who wouldn’t dial the cops or Chaos the minute he got a whiff of Chew.
Which meant he’d have to leave town for a while.
His take from Digger was out. He knew that sick asshole had whacked Chantilly. Now the cops knew, so he couldn’t blackmail his ass.
Chantilly. Total waste. Even high and used to shit, that bitch was tight.
And since they caught his ass, Chew couldn’t go and steal his bike.
His bike.
Chew’s bike was at his safe house.
The motherfucking cops would seize his bike.
Chew sat on the edge of the bed, his face falling in his hands.
“Jesus, shit, my baby,” he whispered.
It was then he thought of his other babies.
His tarantulas.
All eighteen of them.
He felt his throat get thick.
What would they do with his babies?
What if those pig cops opened the door, and they got out? They’d been born in captivity. He’d had some of them for fifteen, twenty years.
Without him, how would they eat?
“Early this morning, Denver police arrested Wayne Benson . . .”
His head shot up and his eyes went to the TV.
“ . . . a suspect in the murder of Diane Ragowski, a twenty-eight-year-old Denver resident, found murdered in her home last January.”
Denver resident.
Unh-hunh.
Porn fucking snatch.
Guess your sins got washed away, some asshole ends you.
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