by Blair Grey
But I didn’t want to talk about all of that.
I shrugged. “My parents died when I was a lot younger,” I told Holly, surprised at how easily the words came. I didn’t usually talk about my past with anyone, but I guess because she’d been so open about her past, I felt the need to tell her about mine. “And like I said, I didn’t have any siblings.”
“But you said that you sort of have family in the city, didn’t you?” Holly asked. “Like, distant relatives or something?”
“Not quite,” I told her. “I guess they’re just my friends, but they might as well be my brothers. If that makes any sense.”
“Of course it does,” Holly said warmly. She looked like she wanted to ask something else, but whatever it was, she stayed quiet.
I supposed I should just be glad that she hadn’t asked me what my job was. For some reason, I didn’t feel like lying to her. That was kind of silly since it wasn’t like we were in a relationship. And I wasn’t looking to get into a relationship with her. She might be attractive and sweet, but I definitely had enough stuff on my plate right now without adding a girlfriend to the mix.
And if Ray was about to make me leader of Red Eyes, I definitely couldn’t have a girlfriend. I could only imagine what would happen if I did.
Because after thinking about it for the whole afternoon, I suddenly realized that the biggest problem of Ray making me leader wouldn’t be Braxton’s response or my own personal misgivings about having the position. No, it was that once word got out that the leader of the most powerful MC in New Mexico had handed over the reins, especially once everyone found out that he had handed over the reins to a twenty-four-year-old kid, there were going to be challengers.
I thought back to when the Unknowns were trying to take over. And I knew that they weren’t even the most vicious of the opponents that we might face. They had trashed our clubhouse and stolen our businesses, but things had never really gotten violent.
Not like when Landon and Braxton went to Florida to help out the Red Eyes chapter there, and Landon ended up getting shot. People had ended up dead in that altercation, and I wasn’t sure I was ready to have blood on my hands.
I didn’t think I’d ever be ready to have blood on my hands.
I couldn’t drag Holly into something like that. She was too pure. Too innocent. And if other MCs came after me, I knew there were some who would be cruel enough to go after her to get to me. I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t start a relationship with her.
I probably shouldn’t even be here with her right now.
Abruptly, I stood up. “I have some things that I need to do tonight,” I told her.
I could see the look of disappointment on Holly’s face, clear as day despite the dim lighting of the bar. “All right,” she said. She looked down at her drink for a moment and then looked back up at me, cocking her head to the side. “Do I get to see you again? I had fun tonight.”
She looked so hopeful that I had no choice except to say yes. “I’ll call you,” I promised her.
“I’m going to hold you to that,” she said, and I could tell that it was meant to be a joke, but I could also tell that she didn’t think that she was really going to see me again. I left the bar feeling horrible. If only things weren’t so complicated right now.
10
Holly
On Sunday morning, I woke up early. For a while, I lay in bed, thinking back to the previous night. Things with Grant had started out so good. He’d looked hungry when I first walked into the bar. Like he couldn’t wait to have me. And I’d been prepared to be the one walking out of there first, the one keeping him on the line. But instead, things had suddenly taken a turn and he’d abruptly gotten up and walked out of there.
What’s worse was, we had agreed that he would be the one to call me, but I wasn’t sure that that was going to happen.
Reasons seduction should not be part of my job: I’m apparently terrible at it, I thought.
I didn’t know what had gone wrong. The conversation about our families had really been flowing, and I hadn’t asked about his friends when he brought them up, figuring that he probably meant the other guys in Red Eyes when he was talking about brotherhood. I hadn’t asked what he did for a living. I didn’t let him know that I was a cop.
But something must really have Red Eyes in turmoil right now, because I could tell that his attention hadn’t been entirely focused on me over the course of the night. And I had to wonder if maybe they knew that they were all under surveillance.
I wanted to call Ryan and get his thoughts on it, but at the same time, I wasn’t ready to admit that I had failed at getting Grant to take me home with him. I’d give it a little time, continue to trail him. Maybe I could find out something even if he didn’t want to have sex with me.
It would be a bit more difficult to trail him now, though. Because now that he had gotten a good look at me, I would have to be especially careful to make sure that he didn’t notice me following him.
I could hear Vera moving around downstairs, and finally, I pulled myself out of bed and went down to join her in the kitchen.
“Good morning,” she said from the stove where she already had eggs sizzling away.
“Morning.” I sighed, hopping up on one of the barstools.
“Uh-oh,” Vera said. “Something to do with work? Your date didn’t go the way you wanted?” She could always tell my mood, even from something as simple as a “good morning.” I appreciated that, even though sometimes her needling drove me insane.
“Yeah, the date got messed up at the end,” I told her. “I don’t know what I did wrong.”
“Are you going to tell me who it was that you had to go on a date with?” Vera asked. “I know you said it was a work thing, but I hope you at least have enough sense to not be dating, like, your captain or someone."
I shook my head. “You probably don’t want to hear about this one.”
“How am I going to help you brainstorm ideas for what to do next then?” Vera said matter-of-factly. She turned toward me, putting her hands on her hips. “You know, I wish you hadn’t chosen the police force. I wish you had picked a job that was a little less dangerous. But I know that this is what you want to do with your life, and I have to respect that. I’m always going to support you, no matter what.”
“I know,” I said. “And I really appreciate that.” I paused, trying to decide how much to tell her. She was going to be worried about me either way. I supposed she might as well have all the facts. “Our current target is the Red Eyes motorcycle club,” I told Vera.
Vera groaned. “Don’t tell me your date was with one of them last night.”
“It was,” I admitted. “Ryan’s really focused on taking them down. We know that they’re taking money from the local businesses. Dues for protection from the MC. But Ryan’s sure that they’re also peddling drugs. I think he’s partly trying to make a name for himself by going after them, but either way, yeah. He’s got me trailing this one guy Grant. He thinks that if I can get close to Grant, I can get the information that we need to take down the whole club.”
Vera shook her head. “Look, I’m all for cleaning up the streets. I just wish that it could be someone else doing the job instead of you.” She paused. “But I take it the date didn’t go so well? You didn’t get the information that you wanted?”
“Not even close.” I sighed. “We started out just talking about our families, and I don’t know if I upset him or what, but the next thing I knew, he was getting up and leaving. I don’t even know if he’s going to want to see me again.”
“I’m sure he will,” Vera said soothingly. She frowned as she stirred the scrambled eggs. “You know, I don’t really ever picture biker guys having families. I know that’s silly because, of course, they have to come from somewhere. But I just can’t picture it.”
“Well, this guy, Grant, doesn’t have any family outside his club. I don’t think,” I told Vera. “He’s an orphan. And I guess I
thought maybe we’d bond over the fact that we had both lost our parents, but it seems to have driven us further apart. That’s the only thing that I can think.”
“God, that’s terrible,” Vera said, shaking her head. “It’s sad to see a person without a family. He must have had a hard childhood.” She paused and shrugged. “If anything, I’m sure he just didn’t like thinking about it,” she said. “You know how I am when you bring up Mom and Dad. It’s just hard to talk about those things. Especially with strangers.”
“I guess so,” I said, and I felt suddenly terrible for having kept us on the subject of family for so long the night before. We had already touched on the fact that he didn’t have any family in the area, and yet, I had still seen fit to bring it up again. I should have figured out something else to talk about. It was no wonder that he had left.
“You’ll just have to call him and ask him out another time,” Vera said. “I can help you get ready again. We’ll put you in that dress that you refused to wear last night.”
I rolled my eyes. “Vera, it’s a work thing,” I reminded her. “I’m not wearing anything that I can’t run in. The heels were bad enough last night. I would have had to run barefoot if he’d figured out anything weird was going on.”
“I just don’t understand why you can’t go on a real date sometime,” Vera groaned. “You know, one where you don’t have to worry about running away from criminals midway through it.”
I laughed. “But then I’d have to move out of here,” I told her. “Have my own space. You don’t want that, do you?”
“No.” Vera sighed. “But I do wish you’d focus on something other than your career sometimes. You’re a really pretty girl, you know.”
I grinned at her and grabbed the plate that she held out to me. “And so are you, but I don’t see you going on dates either,” I reminded her.
Whatever she was going to say, it was cut off by my phone ringing. I rolled my eyes when I saw that it was Ryan. “Sunday morning before ten a.m.,” I muttered. But I answered the phone. “Hello?”
“Holly,” Ryan said pleasantly. “I was hoping you’d have an update for me.”
I frowned. He hadn’t known that I was going on a date with Grant the previous night. He wasn’t spying on me, was he? But Ryan continued, “Did you find out why Grant was at the hospital yesterday?”
Of course that would be what he was wondering about. “I don’t know who is in the hospital, but I think it’s something to do with Red Eyes business,” I told Ryan slowly. “When he left, he was with Cameron, the Red Eyes treasurer. The two of them got lunch together on Friday, too.”
“Interesting,” Ryan said, sounding thoughtful. “I thought that Grant and Braxton were working together on most of the projects that Grant was involved in. But if he’s working with Cameron now, that might mean something.”
“Maybe Braxton is the one in the hospital?” I ventured.
“No, he’s been spotted around the clubhouse,” Ryan said. He paused. “See if you can find out more for me. How are you doing with getting closer to Grant?”
“We went on a date last night. We got drinks,” I told him. I didn’t tell him about the abrupt end to the evening. Better that he thought things were going well, at least for now. I would have to find a way to get back in with Grant if he didn’t choose to call me on his own.
“Did you get any information from him?” Ryan asked sharply.
“We didn’t talk about Red Eyes at all, if that’s what you’re asking,” I said, again fighting the urge to roll my eyes. What, did he think Grant was going to just blab about the MC to the first person he got drinks with? The more I got to know him, the more I realized he didn’t seem like a particularly stupid guy. It was part of why I hadn’t asked him what he did. I could tell that he would probably just lie to me if I asked outright. We just weren’t to that stage yet.
I didn’t know why Ryan was so impatient. What did he really think I was going to uncover?
“These guys are dangerous, York,” Ryan said, and I could hear a hint of frustration to his tone. “The sooner we can get them off our streets, the better. The last thing we need is a full-blown gang war here in Las Cruces, but it’s only a matter of time before that happens if we let them keep running the show. We need to make sure they know who’s in charge around here.”
“I know,” I said.
“Keep up the good work,” Ryan said, hanging up the phone.
I shook my head. Vera was eyeing me. “Was that your boss?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “I guess he thinks I should have made more progress than I have.” I rolled my eyes to show her exactly what I thought about that.
Vera grimaced. “What’s the next step?”
“Right now, I don’t think there’s anything I can do except wait for him to call me back,” I said.
But there was more that I could be doing, and I knew it. I was starting to know Grant’s patterns. I could arrange to run into him again. Or I could call him and ask him out again. It might look desperate, but if I played my cards right, I was sure I could get him interested.
The truth of the matter was I didn’t want to pressure Grant. He seemed like a pretty good guy, not like the terrible criminal that Ryan made him out to be. I didn’t see any hurry to take him down. A gang war here in Las Cruces? I doubted it would come to that.
No, if Grant was upset about something that I had said the night before, I would let him have his space. I would let him come to me. I had to trust that he would. If not, I would keep following him and hope to learn something that way. The other guys, the ones watching Ray’s house, were probably the ones who would end up getting the information that we needed to take down the whole club. I couldn’t let Ryan or my hope for career advancement force me to take down an innocent man, and from what I’d seen so far, I couldn’t believe that Grant was as guilty as Ryan wanted me to think he was.
11
Grant
Even though I knew Ray wouldn’t be coming to Monday’s normal meeting, I figured I should show up at the clubhouse. Braxton and the recruits still didn’t know about Ray’s hospitalization, and if I didn’t want them to realize that I did know, I needed to be there, and I needed to act just as surprised as they were when Ray didn’t show up.
I knew Ray had to have some sort of plan in place, though. He couldn’t just not show up. That would make people suspicious. Braxton would probably assume that some other club was trying to move into Las Cruces and that something had happened to his father. He would be enraged at that, and he would go after anyone that he thought might have any sort of ties to his father’s disappearance without thinking things through logically.
That could be disastrous, both for Braxton himself and for the future of the club.
To be honest, though, the clubhouse was the last place I wanted to be. I spent the whole weekend thinking about what Ray had said about making me leader, and the more I thought about it, the more positive I was that I didn’t have what it took. It wasn’t like I could back out of the club now, though. Ray seemed to have made up his mind, and I couldn’t desert him. He’d helped me out when I’d needed him. Now, it was my turn to return the favor.
If he made me leader, so be it. I would keep the position for as short a time as possible, making sure that there was someone else to take my place. It might not be what Ray wanted, or what he thought he wanted anyway, but it might be the best that I could give him. Surely if Ray was looking for a leader for the club who had his heart in the right place, I was disqualified by the fact that I just plain didn’t want to be leader, right?
I wasn’t the one who Ray had apparently asked to take over the Monday meeting, though. Instead, it was Cameron who got up in front of everyone. “Where’s Ray?” Braxton asked in surprise. “I didn’t see his bike out front.”
It made me feel terrible, the fact that Braxton was even wondering. I didn’t know what it felt like to have your father go suddenly missing, but I had the feeling tha
t if I were in Braxton’s shoes, I would have wanted to know that my dad was in the hospital. Even if the prognosis wasn’t terminal yet.
But I had promised both Cameron and Ray that I wasn’t going to tell anyone about the hospitalization, and I needed to keep my mouth shut.
Cameron shrugged at Braxton. “Ray’s not going to be here today. He’s out of town at the moment, talking with someone in one of the other chapters of the MC.”
“Huh,” Braxton said. He settled back on the couch, and I could tell that he believed the lie. It was strange that Ray hadn’t told anyone about the trip before disappearing, but the lie, I supposed, was plausible enough that everyone could believe it.
Cameron ran through the meeting agenda quickly, noting the continued presence of the recruits that had stuck around and praising them on everything they’d done that week. I could practically see their confidence growing in front of my eyes. Maybe they weren’t all hopeless after all.
The meeting was over pretty quickly, though. Braxton was on the phone before he was even out the front door, and I wondered if he was calling Ray. I wondered if Ray would answer, and if he would lie to his son. It was none of my business, really. Except for how it was, since for some reason Ray had chosen to let me know about his illness when his own sons and daughter didn’t know.
“Ray’s doing pretty good,” Cameron said in an undertone, leading me back into Ray’s office and shutting the door behind us, even though we were the only people left in the clubhouse. “He’s going to be out of the hospital in a few days, but he’s going to have to stay on oxygen.”
“We’ll find a way to cover for him. Until Ray is ready,” I said, even though covering for Ray made me feel pretty terrible, all things considered. Braxton was the closest thing I had to a friend in the MC, and I hated the fact that I was basically lying to him.