by ANDREA SMITH
When I returned to my room, Slate was zipping the fly on his jeans up.
“So, I guess you’re taking off,” I said, picking my panties up off of the floor.
“Aren’t you going to make me some breakfast, babe?”
I gave him my best ‘Are you kidding me’ look. He chuckled, pleased that he’d managed to get a reaction of some sort to lighten the mood.
“Sure,” I said, pulling up a pair of sweat pants and turning to go out towards the kitchen.
I felt his hand on my arm as he pulled me back and turned me around to face him.
“I was just teasing, Sammie. How about I take us out to breakfast, huh?” His thumbs were brushing each side of my face. His eyes were filled with something unfamiliar to me.
“Can I shower first?”
“Of course you can. Make it quick.”
Thirty minutes later, Slate and I were headed out into the country, Slate behind the wheel of my Mercedes testing its horsepower.
“Where did you park your truck?” I asked.
“That’s top secret information, little lady,” he said with a wink. “I can’t divulge information pertaining to my covert activities.”
I rolled my eyes, shaking my head. I guess I was seeing the ‘playful’ Slate now. I wondered how many different personas he possessed.
“Where are we going for breakfast, Michigan?”
“No, smart-ass, we’re not going to Michigan. We’re going to one of my favorite places. Sit back and relax.”
My stomach growled loudly enough that Slate heard it.
“Whoa, it sounds like someone’s definitely hungry.”
“Yeah, Grant and I are both ravenous.”
“Grant?”
“Uh huh, that’s the name I’ve picked out for the baby.”
“Grant Slater,” he said, considering it for a moment. “I actually like that.”
“Don’t get too attached to it,” I advised him. “More than likely it’s going to change.”
Slate had no clue how I was about naming babies. Since this one would likely be my last, I expected it’d be even worse than with Lindsey and the host of names I’d given her prior to her birth.
I recognized where we were now. It was the same restaurant that Slate had taken me to for chili.
“Katy’s has breakfast?”
“The best,” he replied, pulling my car into a parking space. It was definitely more crowded this time than it was when we last visited.
Slate was even a gentleman, opening the car door for me and helping me out.
The aroma of freshly brewed coffee, bacon, and eggs greeted us as we walked through the door. Within moments, Katy had spotted us. She hurried over with a big grin on her face. I recalled that she had said Slate was one of her favorite customers. There was no hiding that fact at the moment.
She came up to him, planting a big kiss on his cheek.
“Where in the world have you been keeping yourself, handsome? It’s been forever.”
Slate actually looked like he was going to blush at the attention she was giving him.
“You remember Sunny?” he asked.
“Of course I do. How are you, Sunny?”
Before I had an opportunity to answer, Slate interrupted.
“Actually, she lied about her name. Her real name’s Samantha. I call her Sammie.”
I felt myself blush with embarrassment. Why the hell did he feel the need to share all of that with the restaurant owner?
I glowered at Slate, and then turned my attention back to Katy, who was watching me with amused eyes. Her gaze lowered to my growing baby bump. She was smiling, as if she was pleased with my condition.
“Sammie,” Slate continued, with a smile of his own, “I’d like for you to meet my mom, Katherine Slater. You can call her ‘Katy’.”
chapter 47
~ SLATE ~
What a fucking few crazy days had gone by. So much had happened…most of it good, from my perspective.
We’d made the bust. It had all gone down well, for the most part. I was livid that the rat bastard had slipped through the cracks. No one knew that better now than Agent Hatfield. He was given a written disciplinary action that would go into his permanent personnel file. Mistakes like that should never happen, not on my watch.
The bottom line was that Hatfield should’ve known better. He and I had both served together in the Army and had gone through Green Beret training together. Hell, we were on the same survival training for twenty-one days in the Mojave Desert. If you can’t trust and assess the abilities of your lifeline partner in that situation, who could you depend upon? He’d gotten lax. He’d clearly fucked up. As his superior officer, I had to do what I did. Personal feelings couldn’t enter into my decision. That’s just how it was.
Then, of course, there was the issue of Sammie. How in the hell could I not let my personal feelings interfere with my best judgment?
Fuck! I was trained better than this - what the hell? She was under my skin in a big, big way. I’d let her distract me. I’d carried on with her even after I knew that she had no Intel to offer me. She had no value, for all intents and purposes in this investigation, as far as I knew.
What a fucking idiot I was for not being clued into the fact that she was “Mr. Big’s” fucking wife? Oh yeah, don’t think for a minute the title of “Mr. Big” that was given to him by the Outlaws, hadn’t stuck in my craw once I knew who he was to Sammie. It had nothing to do with the size of one’s dick. It was the fact that the title “Mr. Big” in and of itself denoted power. There was no way in fuck that this dude had more power than me. Period.
I thought about last night, the night I’d spent with Sammie all alone in that fucking huge house of hers. She was under my skin. There was no way that I couldn’t think about the way she looked, the way she felt, the way she kissed and touched me, the way it felt to be buried deeply inside of her and hear her moan and feel her writhe beneath me. It hadn’t been a line of shit whatsoever when I’d told her my cock was made for her pussy. It was the God’s honest truth. I’d never ever had that before with a chick.
But then, the inevitable happened, the talk of love: ‘I need you Slate; I love you Slate.’ Christ, how in the hell was I supposed to deal with that? I’d never, ever told a chick that I loved her. Why? That was simple. I never, ever wanted to give them the pain that was associated with love.
My mind drifted back to when I was growing up, it was just me and my little sister. My dad did his share of partying and drinking. I was too young to understand the full ramifications of it. I figured that was just what dads did. I remembered him coming home drunk. Mom had made dinner. We’d eaten and then were sent to our rooms once he hit the door.
Mom would warm his dinner up and take it out to him, setting it in front of him at the dining room table. She would always wait and eat with him. She said it was important for a husband and wife to spend quality time together.
Laney and I’d be upstairs in our room. We only lived in a two bedroom duplex in Virginia. We had bunk beds, I remember.
Laney was younger, so she had the bottom bunk. She would lay there on her bunk and play with her stuffed animals, talking to them as if they were real. Pretty soon, the raised voice of my father could be heard. Laney would roll over onto her stomach and put her pillow over her head and start humming some nursery rhyme.
Not me. I’d strain to listen to what my old man had to say. It wasn’t pretty.
“What kind of goddamn shit is this you’re giving me to eat, Katy? It tastes like dried out dog shit!”
“I’m sorry,” my mother would say patiently. “It was better when it was freshly made, Clint. I didn’t know you were going to be so late in getting home. It’s just a bit dried out.”
Then the sounds of skin smacking skin could be heard, along with my father’s chastisement that my mother should’ve had fucking sense enough to know how to keep a meal from
tasting like dried out dog shit. The whole time, my mother would be apologizing. The slapping just continued, followed by my mother’s crying and begging for him to stop.
I remember several times running downstairs and hollering at my old man, telling him to leave my mom alone. He had laughed, calling me a good for nothing little shit-stain and backhanded me so hard that I had flown against the wall. My mother would try her best to protect me…standing in front of me to take the blows he delivered.
The following day, she had come upstairs after he’d left for work. Her eyes were blackened and she cried, begging me not to interfere anymore.
“Mom,” I had said to her, “I need to protect you from him. I don’t want him to hurt you anymore.”
“Eric,” she had said in a solemn voice, “don’t you see, son? You’re not big or strong enough to protect me. All you’re doing is making him angrier, and then he beats me harder when you interfere. Please son, I’m begging you to leave it alone.”
At the end, I promised her that I’d quit interfering.
So after that, whenever it would happen I’d lay on the lower bunk with Laney and hum along with her as we tried our best to block out the sounds of my father and what he was doing to our mom.
Afterwards, my father would try to make up with my mom. He’d tell her that he did what he did because he ‘loved’ her and wanted her to be the best wife that she could be. He explained that if he didn’t ‘love’ her, he wouldn’t care that she didn’t know how to cook properly or how to keep her man happy. He claimed it was all for love that he disciplined her. It felt sick to me. I wanted no part of love if that was what it entailed.
I thought about this morning when Sammie told me that she loved me. It came as no surprise. I was instinctual that way. I’d known for a while that she loved me. It was the greatest feeling in the world. I wanted to tell her that I felt the same way, and that I had for some time. I couldn’t, though. It was an area that I had no experience with, other than with my own folks. I was scared that by saying it to her, I might become my old man.
My mother had suffered through years of his abuse. It had pissed me off so many times that she took it. She claimed my dad was ill; he wasn’t in his right mind when he was drunk. I know, by today’s terms, my mother was an ‘enabler.’ She loved the man despite everything. She didn’t realize how much her ‘love’ for him had destroyed Laney.
When my mother wrote to me in 2003, while I was stationed in Iraq, that my father was terminally ill, all I felt was relief. When he died a few weeks later, I felt nothing at all.
My mother’s life had finally become bearable for her, once he was gone. She had picked up the pieces, opened her restaurant and was doing well until, once again, she had to face despair with the death of Laney.
That one was difficult for both of us. Laney had claimed that she was in love with a biker from a rival group of the Mongols out of Manassas, Virginia a few years back. He was abusive and criminally involved like the others. Laney had become hooked on opiates.
My mom and I had reached out to her. We’d helped her to get clean. She’d been clean for six months when she wanted to do something to help the others like her.
She took it upon herself to become acquainted with some bikers from the Mongols. She wanted to provide me with information to help bust the drug ring that was fairly strong in the area. I was with the FBI by this time. I told her to leave it to us, we had agents that could easily infiltrate the club. I happened to be one of them.
That was the start of my undercover work with the FBI. I’d led the investigation two and a half years ago that had successfully sent Jake Rosiga (Milwaukee Jake) the National President of the Outlaws Motorcycle Club to prison for the next twenty years.
Through my infiltration of the east coast based club, the Mongols, I was able to connect with the club members of both the Outlaws as well as another rival club called the Pagans. In 2010, it came to a head at the Easyrider Bike Expo in Charlotte, N.C. There was a show of force, so to speak, with the Pagans and Outlaws joining forces to invade territory in Rock Hill, South Carolina that was traditionally ‘Hells Angels’ turf.
It had resulted in violent friction between the Outlaws and Hells Angels. Laney had been in the thick of it. She’d been found in a remote ravine outside of Rock Hill. Her throat had been slit.
Ultimately the investigation had led (through members ratting out other members) to the OMC club activities in Fort Wayne and Indianapolis. This thing was much bigger than anyone had initially imagined.
There was a multi-state network of bikers, rival or not, that still dedicated their efforts for the bottom dollar, as long as they got something out of it. My anonymous sources pointed to an OMC member in Indiana as being responsible for Laney’s murder. I was fairly certain it was Slash.
During the subsequent investigation, starting in the fall and lasting through spring in Indianapolis, I’d met Diamond, a.k.a., Sunny, a.k.a., Sammie. She had blown my world apart…first reminding me of the innocence my sister had once possessed, then totally mesmerizing me with her sexiness and naivety - it was a potent mix, to be sure.
I thought back to the night I sat across the table from Diamond having a private drink. Despite all of the make-up she’d piled on, I saw her black eye. I was enraged as the memories came flooding back from my childhood that someone would’ve done that to her. Then I was disgusted that she would tolerate it; just the way I’d been disgusted with my own mother for tolerating it all of those years.
Laney and I had talked about it shortly before she died. She told me that, because I had no tolerance for those kinds of things, I expected everyone else to feel the same. She pointed out that I had unrealistic expectations where people were concerned. She suggested that I work on being a bit more flexible and compassionate.
I’d thought about that conversation after the night I saw Diamond with the black eye. It stuck with me. I was fascinated with her from the start. I ignored those little voices that had served as my barrier for many years and never allowed myself to get too close to a woman. I preferred keeping things superficial and carnal. I didn’t want it that way with Sammie. I wanted more. I wanted it all.
chapter 48
I couldn’t wait to fill Becky in on my meeting Slate’s mother. Katy was so bubbly and friendly. I’d liked her the first time I’d met her, before I even knew she was Slate’s mom. I was touched that Slate wanted me to meet her. She, of course, had been de-briefed on my condition. She was tickled at the prospect of becoming a grandmother. She called ‘dibs’ on the name ‘Nana.’
Becky had squealed with excitement when I filled her in.
“That’s just too precious, Sam. I guess there’s something to be said for today’s youth.” She cracked herself up with that one.
“Nice Bec, real nice. I already feel like a ‘bloated’ cougar, thanks for reinforcing it.”
“You know that I’m just teasing. After all, what are nine or ten years, right? By the way, maybe he has already turned twenty-seven. Have you asked him what his birth date is?”
“No, we haven’t had that much time to talk, if you catch my drift.”
“Like I said,” she replied with a heavy sigh, “there’s much to be said for today’s youth, but I think now you’re just bragging.”
“Hey, I have a lot of catching up to do at my ripe old age. If I’d known what I’d been missing, I would’ve pulled my head out of the sand much sooner.”
“Speaking on that subject, have you heard anything at all about Jack?”
“Nope, last I heard, Donovan said that they had ‘operatives’ in Mexico looking for him and Susan. Of course, he also said that it’s an entirely different ballgame south of the border. If you want to disappear, apparently Mexico is the perfect place for that.”
“So, what about this Susan? Have they connected her to any specific crimes?”
“Not yet, but the forensic audit’s still going on. Accordi
ng to Daddy, they should be finished by the end of this week and turn the findings over to the authorities.”
“Unbelievable,” she sighed. “You know I was never a fan of Jack’s whatsoever, but Lord, a half a million dollars wouldn’t be enough to make me drop off the face of the earth forever, you know?”
“Well, I actually don’t think his grand plan was to disappear. I think he thought he could get by with it without raising any red flags. A half mil is just two year’s salary for him. Granted, it’ll go much further in Mexico than it would here, but he ran because he knew the jig was up. Plus, we don’t know how much cash Susan had stashed, if she was involved as well.”
“That’s true,” Becky replied. “Knowing Jack, he’ll probably invest his money in some drug cartel in Mexico and continue his life of crime. How’s Lindsey?”
“Staying with Mom and Dad for a few days. She’s in shock, I think. She’s going back to work tomorrow. She’s going to need the money for her living expenses at Cornell.”
“Wow, things sure have done a one-eighty from a year ago, haven’t they?”
“You ain’t a woofin’,” I replied with a laugh.
“Careful Sam, you’re showing your age!”
“Bite me, Becky.”
Slate made his appearance later in the evening as I was making dinner. He spent an hour scoping out the security system that had been installed. He was impressed with the outside cameras that could be monitored from my new laptop. Slate sat down with me and went over it step-by-step, explaining it to me as if I were a two year old.
“Slate,” I whined, “The guy from the security company already showed me this stuff. I know all about how it works.”
“Oh really?” he said, cocking an eyebrow at me. “Well then, let’s test it out, shall we?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I’m going outside. It’s dark now, I’m in dark clothes. You lock all of the exterior doors and then check the panel to make sure all windows are secured and let’s see if I can get in, okay?”