While we’d shopped, I’d asked her about Kayla. The girls had been tight back in high school. I’d smelled the grief coming off her as soon as I asked, though, and she’d told me, “Kayla stayed wild after I calmed my ass down. She went to a lot of parties without me during high school, and I worried about her. Her grades weren’t great so she went to a community college, and she fucked up and got pregnant less than a year after we graduated. She’d had two kids by the time I got my undergraduate degree, by different fathers.” She shook her head and turned her back to me as she finished with, “She died of a drug overdose almost two years ago. They didn’t know for sure whether it was accidental or on purpose, but for her dad’s sake, they labeled it accidental.”
She turned back to me, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. “Her parents are raising her kids. Two sons. I took them Christmas presents, and I was asked not to come back. I think seeing me, the biker’s daughter who didn’t fuck her life up, when the cop’s daughter did, is just too painful for them.”
I felt unexpected emotion, and I pulled her to me in a hug, in part so she wouldn’t see my face. I’d gotten to know Kayla while I’d driven them around, and I’d known from the beginning the cop’s daughter was more likely to get them in trouble than the biker’s daughter, but for her to have… fuck. “I’m sorry, Princess. I know how close the two of you were.”
She let me hold her a few seconds longer than I expected before pulling away stoically as she went back to rifling through the shirts on a rack. “We grew apart a little, after I decided to concentrate on school more and partying less. She was still my best friend, though, and I worried about her.” She shook her head. “My parents raised me to not give a fuck about what society thought about me. Her parents raised her to give lots of fucks.”
She’d shrugged and changed the conversation, and I let her.
I took her home, saw her safely into her apartment, and drove to the compound to get my bike and ride out with Duke.
I knocked on Teresa’s door while Duke went into the office to straighten up and put the beer into my office fridge.
We’d warned her this morning we’d need to talk to her again, and given her a window of time to be sure she was around. I’d also let her know it would be in my office, with no sex required. Still, she was crying when she opened the door, and started apologizing immediately.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Bash, Sir. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I know you’re being nice and giving me a wonderful opportunity — I just can’t seem to help myself.” She came out, pulled the door closed, and started walking towards the office while bawling.
I looked at the sky a few seconds, decided not to say anything, and followed her.
Duke hugged her when she walked in, sat with her, talked to her, and calmed her down. I heard Randall’s truck, and walked outside to greet him.
“She freaked when we told her we’d have to notify the local Alpha. As soon as she realizes what you are, she’ll probably lose it.”
He nodded, and we walked in together.
Randall squatted in front of her and held his hand out. She looked at his hand, and then into his eyes.
“It’s okay. I won’t hurt you.”
She shook her head, refusing, and he said, “I’m sorry, Teresa, but if you’re in my territory under these circumstances, you and I both know I have to.”
She braced as if she were about to be shocked, and put her hand into his.
Ten seconds later, her eyes flew open and she met his gaze. “It doesn’t hurt!”
“Of course not. I have no reason to make it painful. I can make it feel good, or I can make it hurt. Unless you prefer pain, or have done something to deserve my wrath, I have no reason to be cruel.”
He put her hand back on her leg, stood, looked down at her a few seconds, and then took another seat. “I’m sorry you were treated the way you were by your former Alpha. If I bring you into my Pack, it’ll sever the final strands of the tie to him. I don’t expect you to trust me right away, but you’re welcome to run with us on the next full moon so you can get to know us.”
Her fear had abated, but not enough for her to respond, and she stared at the hand he’d touched, silent. He sighed, touched her knee, saw her flinch, and he pulled it away.
“If you agree to join the Pack, we can take care of you, keep you safe, and help you get on your feet.”
She didn’t move, didn’t acknowledge his words, and he sighed again as he leaned forward, his hands on his knees. “I know what job the RTMC has offered you. I can get you into a shelter, arrange for you to do housecleaning work, if you’d like another alternative. No strings to the pack.”
She looked at Randall, then to Duke. “Yes, we’re brothers,” Randall told her. “He’s president of the RTMC, I’m the Pack Alpha. Lone and Pack wolves don’t usually get along, but we’ve worked towards peace, here.”
She looked at me. “I know where I stand with you. I’d like to keep to our deal.”
Randall stood and walked towards the door, turning to tell her, “My third in command is a woman named Cora. I’ll send her by to check on you in a few days. If you need me before then, let Bash or Duke know.”
He looked at me, then his brother, and nodded for us to come outside. I punched the app on my phone so I could see the local camera feeds, turned the one in my office on, and followed them out. I’d keep an eye on her as I talked to them, make sure she didn’t snoop. I didn’t think she was a Trojan horse, but it wouldn’t hurt to make sure.
“I don’t want her going to Bran,” Randall told us as soon as we hit the parking area.
Duke looked to me, letting me know it was my division, my call.
“We aren’t running a charity here, Randall. You want to take her on, be responsible for her, we’ll hand her over right now. Otherwise, we’ll do whatever makes sense, and Bran’s finder’s fees can be substantial for this kind of girl.” And while Bran might enjoy hurting her, he’d also take care of her, and require she better herself while she belonged to him — usually either by going to college or a trade school, which he’d pay for.
Randall sighed. “She’ll do fine hooking. She’s been passed around her old Pack since she was a preteen. I saw glimpses in her head and it wasn’t pretty. I’d like to get her out of the life, but my hands are tied with her still having a thread to her old Alpha and not wanting to give me her oath.”
“Any chance he’ll follow the thread here?”
“If he flies around the country looking for her? Yeah. If he stays a thousand miles away? No.”
“If he shows up, can we count on your backing?”
He nodded. “I won’t send her back to him. The Pack here will take your side.”
We said our goodbyes, and Duke stopped in the lobby to talk to Slick while I went back into my office. Teresa had stayed seated while we were out, and I sat in a chair close to her. “You need a hooker name. Teresa won’t get it. You kind of look like a Bambi. That work for you?”
She nodded, and I asked, “Where did Teresa come from?”
“It’s my middle name?”
“Then you need another daytime name, too. Something no one from your former home will associate with you in any way. How about Gail?”
“Yeah. Okay.”
I nodded. “Bambi at work, Gail everywhere else. Stick with Robinson for a last name. It’s common, but it isn’t Smith or Jones.” She didn’t argue, so I kept going. “Slick’s gonna give you an orientation. Pay attention — you’ll start working the glory hole this evening. I have some things to handle, but I’ll be back later and I’ll check in on you.”
I left her with Slick, and Duke and I rode out together. Time to deal with the prospect.
Brain had lined an underground bay at the bike shop with plastic, and we’d told Sullivan to hang around at the compound in case we needed him.
Duke and I went to the bike shop, stripped down to nothing in another room, donned a Tyvek clean suit, and went into the plasti
c-lined room before texting Brain to bring Sullivan over. The clean suit wasn’t technically necessary — we could change to wolf and back to human and lose any DNA on us, but it’s damned hard to get blood evidence out of a leather vest. If we couldn’t wear our cuts, the Tyvek suit was the next best way to scare the hell out of our victim.
When the prospect came in the room I grabbed him, put him on his knees in the center of the floor, and zip-tied his arms behind him and then his ankles together.
I smelled terror coming off him, and didn’t say a word as I stepped to the edge of the room and leaned against a plastic lined wall. Brain, Dozer, Gonzo, and Tiny were going to suit up and come in, too.
“What’s going on, guys?” Sullivan asked, trying hard not to look as terrified as he was.
“Keep your mouth shut until we ask questions,” I told him, my emotions on lockdown.
Sullivan was sufficiently terrified when the rest of the guys walked in wearing clean suits as well, and when I pulled a gun and settled it at his temple, he pissed himself.
“Tell us about your dad,” I ordered, my voice cold. This was my show, for now at least. I held the gun, I asked the questions.
Bud had used me as his assassin when he needed to make someone disappear, and his bad guy when someone just needed torturing — and it looked like Duke was going to follow in his footsteps. I didn’t mind killing people who needed to die, though, so it was fine with me. I knew the MC wouldn’t hang me out to dry, and we were always careful to make sure I wouldn’t end up with another murder charge.
“He used to come to the house, take stuff. He’d go through Mom’s purse and take her cash, look through closets and drawers and find her stash of money.” His eyes darted around the room, trying to find someone who looked sympathetic, but I knew everyone’s eyes were ice cold.
Sullivan’s terror permeated the room, and his voice went even higher pitched and faster when he continued. “If she’d managed to buy another TV since he’d last come, he’d take it, too. She always let him, said he’d hurt us if she protested. She’d stash our money in a bunch of places, and he never found it all, but when he made a trip through the house we struggled to buy food for a while.”
I didn’t respond, and he took a breath and continued a little slower. “Eventually, she found work in Chattanooga, off the books so he couldn’t find us. She moved us up here and things got better.”
“Do you and your dad get along?”
He shook his head. “I’m assuming ya’ll have figured out who he is. I’m here because I idolized you guys after you beat the hell out of him. I’m not here to hurt the MC.”
“Why weren’t you honest with us upfront?”
“I was afraid you’d turn me away if you knew.”
“Now that you’ve been around us, spent time with us, you still want in?” Brain asked this one, his chopped voice revealing exactly how pissed he was.
I smelled Sullivan’s conflict, knew the answer would be a lie, but then was surprised when he spoke truth. “Just kill me and get it over with. You aren’t the men I thought you were.”
I looked to Duke in question. I thought it was time to put the gun away, but he got the final call. He nodded, and I slid it into my holster.
“You thought we were a gang of vigilantes, selflessly fighting crime?” I asked.
“Not selflessly, but yeah, I thought you were vigilantes. You saved that woman’s life, rescued her from my dad and his cronies, but then ya’ll treat women just as bad.”
My hand itched to lash out and punch him, but I kept it at my side as I told him, “The women in our clubhouse are here because they wanna be. No one is raped. Gangbanged, sure, but if they tell us to stop, we will.”
He looked up at me, his eyes reproachful, accusing. “You hurt Kat bad with your belt, while Gonzo held her arms down.”
“She agreed to accept it. She could’ve walked out at any time before it started, or even partway through — when we let go of her to take a break, she chose to stay for the rest.”
He shook his head, suddenly braver, now that the gun wasn’t pointed at his head. Idiot didn’t know I could kill him with one punch to the face. “She’s too naïve to know better. She wants to be accepted so bad she’ll do whatever ya’ll say.”
“Still her choice. You can’t live with that, you don’t need to be in the club.”
He slumped forward, his arms still behind him but his head bowed as he stared at the floor.
“If I’d come in to harm the club, would you’ve really killed me?”
“Dangerous question, Sullivan. You sure you want to know the answer?”
He shook his head. “No. What do I need to say? I withdraw my intention to join the MC? Will that work?”
“Not exactly,” I told him. I looked to Brain and he tossed pictures of Sullivan’s mom and sister on the floor — surveillance photos of them doing things the general public would never see.
I gave him a few seconds to look at the photos and understand the threat before telling him, “You’ve learned things about us while you’ve been here. You talk about any of it and your mom and sister will pay for it.”
Duke cut Sullivan’s hands free and took his vest off him before instructing, “You don’t come into our territory, much less onto RTMC property. You don’t talk to LEO or any of our enemies, whether the conversation is about us or not. You know we have eyes everywhere, and don’t think we won’t make you disappear if we think for an instant you’re a threat.”
Chapter Four
Angelica
“I’m glad you’re feeling better,” I told Thomas, hedging his question. “I know we need to talk, but I have some things I need to take care of today, now that I can finally come home. Tell you what, let me see how much I get done — if I can free up my evening I’ll let you know, and we can have something delivered to eat, or maybe I can fix burgers.”
I stepped out of my door, closing it behind me as I put my arm around his waist, low so my hand touched his hip at the side and wasn’t close to his ribs. He looked as if the walk over had worn him out. “I’ll walk you back. Come on.”
He let me walk him halfway, and then stopped and turned to me. “I can make it the rest of the way. I’ll look forward to your call.”
He walked slowly, but seemed okay, so I went home.
Something had been off. Really off. His scent seemed duplicitous, and when he dismissed me in the parking lot I got the feeling he realized the pathetic act wasn’t going to get him in my apartment, so he gave it up. His ribs and chest were hurting, but still, the other scents had overridden the pain.
Sighing, I called Brain and asked him if there was a way we could safely talk over the phone, or whether I needed to meet him somewhere. My dad had taught me to never talk about anything important over the phone, but I’d seen Bash doing so, and I assumed Brain had figured something out.
“Give me a few minutes and I’ll email you a file. Open it on your laptop and you’ll see me in the contacts. It’s an encrypted program I wrote just for us, with a choice of voice only, or voice and video. Give me a call when you get it up and running. The next time you’re in the clubhouse, give me your phone and I’ll put an app on it to do the same thing.”
The program installed in a few minutes, and Brain’s contact was second in the list, just below Duke’s and above Bash’s.
“Talk to me,” he said with a smile when his face popped onto my screen.
“Something is off with Thomas. He knocked on my door, pretty much demanding to come in and talk. I let him know he’d have to wait, but… shit, Brain. Something’s rotten. I need to talk to him, and I know you understand why, but I think he’s up to something and I don’t want to talk to him alone.”
“You’re afraid of him?”
“Not physically, but I’m afraid he’ll… I don’t know, twist my words, maybe?”
“Okay. I have something to take care of and then I’ll come to your apartment in a cage, so I don’t alert him ther
e’s a Harley in the parking lot. I’ll fix things up for you so we have our own record of what’s said, and I’ll be listening in, and talking in your ear.”
I was taking a nap when he called later — Bash hadn’t let me get much sleep the night before, though I wasn’t complaining. At all.
“I’m going to park a few blocks away, just to be safe. I’ll be there in ten minutes. Unlock your door so I can just come straight in.” It took me a few seconds to wake up enough to understand what he was saying.
I’d washed my face and drunk some ice water by the time he arrived, and managed to wake up. He’d brought a picture frame with a photo of my dad and me in it, and a phone charger. He set the picture down, looked at his phone, and adjusted the frame so the hidden camera in it gave him a view of the living room and part of the dining area and kitchen. He plugged the phone charger into another outlet so he had the kitchen and dining areas from another angle. He showed me the charger had two cameras — one in the part that plugged into the wall, and another in the tip, so he could get two views from it.
“I’ll leave you the charger, in case we need to do this another time. It only works when it’s plugged in, so you can put it away and not worry about me snooping on you, but if you’re ever here and need someone recorded, you can plug it in and it’ll automatically phone home and send audio and video to the control room, where it’ll be saved. Today, it’ll just be me seeing it, but in the future, whoever’s in the control room will see.”
He fiddled around with a few more things on his phone, and said, “Legally, only one person being recorded has to know they’re being recorded, and you know, so we’re good. If he asks if you’re recording the conversation, don’t lie. Tell him he made you feel uncomfortable when he came over earlier, and you asked me for help.” He tilted his phone towards me, showed me the views he had, and I nodded.
“Bring up some of the kinky stuff ya’ll did, see how he reacts. If he keeps moving you away from the subject, odds are he’s recording, as well. Salt your conversation with lots of stuff he won’t want other people to know. The rules are different for him when it comes to recording your conversation. He can for personal reasons, but he won’t be able to use it in court unless he has a warrant, and I can’t imagine he does. Still, it would be really good if you don’t incriminate us.”
Bash, Volume II Page 3