by Blair Grey
“He’s not going to hurt me, Vera,” I said impatiently. “I trust him. And anyway, it was just a work thing. I need to get close to him so I can figure out what he’s hiding. So that I can get the information that I need from him. We’re going to take Red Eyes down.”
“If that’s true, then I want you to look me straight in the eyes and tell me that he’s going to be the first person you bring down,” Vera said tightly.
I couldn’t meet her gaze, and she made a noise of disgust.
“That police department of yours isn’t even going to protect you, do you realize that?” she asked. “They’re already failing you. They should never have asked you to do this in the first place.”
Even though I agreed with her there, there were other things about her argument that bothered me.
“Why do you always assume that I need someone to protect me?” I snapped. “What if I actually can look out for myself? It’s not like I went into this thinking that Grant was just a nice guy. I know what to look out for. Better than you could ever know. And I know how to protect myself. Better than you could imagine.”
Vera looked taken aback, and to be honest, I felt pretty horrible for fighting with her. I never did that. For our whole lives, I’d taken whatever it was that she’d said to me, and I’d rolled with it. I hadn’t wanted to rock the boat.
But now, I just felt defensive. Now, I wanted her to lay off.
She showed no signs of doing that, though. “This is just like you,” she said, unhappiness dripping from her words. “You always go off and do the things that you want to do and leave the rest of us here to pick up the pieces. When are you ever going to grow up and realize that your actions have consequences?”
“I realize that my actions have consequences,” I snapped.
“Do you?” Vera asked. “So what you’re saying is that you didn’t realize that there would be any problem with your sleeping with him?”
I grimaced. Of course I had known that this wasn’t the best thing to do, but I hadn’t been able to help myself. I didn’t know why. He just affected me in a way that I had never known before. But Vera didn’t seem to understand that. Had she ever been in love before?
Not that I was in love with Grant. Infatuated with him, maybe. But not in love.
My phone rang, and I was glad to cut Vera off. “I have to answer this,” I said harshly when I saw Ryan’s name on the screen. Even though I didn’t exactly want to talk to him either.
I bounded up the stairs to my room, shutting the door behind me, knowing that I needed that physical barrier between Vera and me. Even still, I almost expected her to come barging into my bedroom telling me that we weren’t finished with this conversation yet. That she still had more that she wanted to say to me.
I didn’t want to hear any of it.
“Hello?” I said, hoping Ryan couldn’t hear how agitated I was.
“York,” he said in a crisp tone, and I breathed a quiet sigh of relief. He sounded utterly normal. Like this was just a routine call. Like he didn’t know what I had been up to the previous night. “I was hoping you could meet me at the safe house. You’ve been on this case for a while now, and even though we chatted the other day, I think it’s time that I formally checked in with you.”
Not exactly the message that I’d been hoping to hear, but not a terrible one either. “What time?” I asked.
“As soon as you can be here,” Ryan said, leading me to believe that he was already there waiting for me. That was convenient at least. That meant I could leave Vera’s accusatory words behind and tell her that I was on my way to work. It wouldn’t be a lie.
“I’ll be there,” I said immediately.
“Good,” Ryan said. “I want to hear about your progress with Grant.”
I headed for the door as soon as we hung up.
“Seriously?” Vera asked in the hallway, folding her arms across her chest. “You’re not even going to talk to me?” When I was still silent, she made a face. “Was that him? The guy? What was his name, Grant? Are you going to meet him now?”
“No,” I said, keeping my words short. “I’m going to meet my boss and talk to him. Because this is a work thing.”
“Bullshit,” Vera said, rolling her eyes. “You think I can’t tell when you’re actually interested in someone?”
I didn’t answer that. Instead, I just headed out the door, shutting it carefully behind me.
When I got to the safe house, Ryan was there waiting for me. “Something’s going on with Red Eyes,” he said. “I’m sure of it.” He paused. “Have you figured out who is in the hospital?”
I didn’t know what to say to him. Could I tell him that it was Ray? Did I actually believe that it was Ray?
Before I could say anything, Ryan was continuing, though, “It’s Ray Thompson. I had some of the other guys follow him as their lead, and they confirmed it. He’s not out of the country on business; he’s in the hospital.”
“Do you know why?” I asked, trying to feign surprise. But I could tell that Ryan wasn’t buying it. He shook his head. “No one seems to know what it is, but he’s in there, all right.”
I remembered what Grant had said, about how his adoptive father was getting out of the hospital the next day. Should I tell Ryan about that?
Of course, I should tell him. It was my job to tell him. This was the whole reason that he had me trailing Grant. To lead him to the big fish. To give him information about Red Eyes that he needed to know. But at the same time, to tell him would be to betray Grant’s trust.
It was the same thing that I had been wrestling with ever since Grant and I had had sex the previous night. I didn’t want to view this as a work assignment. I was having a hard time viewing Grant as the bad guy. But he was the bad guy. That was undeniable.
I had to tell Ryan that he was getting out tomorrow. This could change things.
“What?” Ryan suddenly snapped, clearly seeing right through me. “What’s going on?”
“Ray’s in the hospital now. I was going to tell you that.” It was a lie, but he didn’t need to know that. Not when I followed up the information with: “But he’s getting out of the hospital tomorrow. Grant is going to be there to pick him up. And probably Cameron as well; he was there visiting Ray the first time that Grant went over there.”
Ryan stared at me for a long moment, surprise clearly written on his face. “You’re sure about this?” he asked.
I nodded, trying not to feel like I had just betrayed Grant’s trust. Grant hadn’t told me that I needed to keep it silent after all. He hadn’t really told me anything.
I might have my secrets, but he had his as well. The more worried I got about betraying his trust, the more absurd it really seemed. My job was supposed to be learning Grant’s secrets. And it wasn’t like he was hiding anything. He told me everything that I ever wanted to know about him. What’s more, he was the bad guy here. I was just trying to do my job. But he was playing me.
I wondered, wildly, if he knew who I was. If that was why he was so interested in me. Maybe he knew I was with the police force and he was just trying to feed me lies.
But I couldn’t even believe that for a second. No, I knew he was just trying to protect the guys that he considered to be his family. I had to respect that.
Ryan was pacing now, though. “Ray Thompson, getting out of the hospital tomorrow,” he said. “And just Grant and Cameron there to help him?”
“I don’t know about that,” I said. “I never said it would be just Grant and Cameron. I’m just thinking that they’ll both be there.”
“It seems odd, doesn’t it?” Ryan continued. “That Braxton hasn’t been there at all? That he doesn’t seem to care about his father’s health?”
“Maybe he thought that would be too much of a red flag?” I suggested. “They have to know that we’re surveilling them. After all, the white vans aren’t exactly subtle. Maybe they’ve realized, and maybe this whole thing is just an attempt to get us where they w
ant us, when they want us there.”
I was grasping at straws. And Ryan could tell it.
He shook his head, looking at me in disbelief. “You don’t like this guy, do you?” he asked.
“Of course not,” I snapped, bristling with indignation. “What makes you think that?”
“I just remember how upset you were when I said that we were going to keep going after them,” Ryan said. “How sure you were that Grant wasn’t going to be an issue for us.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “If you think I should take you off this assignment, you need to let me know. Right now.”
“Don’t take me off the assignment,” I said, even though I wished I could take advantage of that offer. There couldn’t be any dishonor in taking an offer like that, could there? Maybe if I just explained that I was compromised, that would be the end of it. Maybe it didn’t have to be the end of my career.
But I knew that if I told Ryan that I had slept with Grant, it would be the end of my career. Even if in the end it turned out that Grant hadn’t done anything wrong, Ryan would find some reason to hold him accountable. He would see some reason to find me at fault. That would be the end of my undercover work.
I couldn’t do that. So instead, I ducked my head, silent about what I was feeling. “I know I said the wrong things before, but I didn’t mean them to come out that way. I just didn’t have enough experience,” I said. Even that might land me in trouble. Admitting that I had fucked up, that I didn’t know what I was doing. But Ryan smiled graciously at me, as though I had just handed him the ticket out.
“We’ll need to have extra surveillance on the hospital tomorrow,” Ryan mused. “Who knows which of the Red Eyes members could be there, helping out with Ray? And who knows what they might let slip? There must be certain plans in place.” He paused. “I want to know what’s going on with Ray. I want to know what’s wrong with him. You’re sure that Grant hasn’t given you any warning?”
I shook my head. “No warning,” I said. “I don’t know what’s wrong with him.”
I wanted to ask more questions, but I quickly realized they were the kinds of questions that Ryan wouldn’t know the answer to. How could this affect Red Eyes? Was this what Grant had been so stressed about lately? The type of thing that had caused him to get up in the middle of having drinks with me and walk out?
If so, why? Why was he so worried about me because Ray was in the hospital? It didn’t make any sense to me, not yet. But Ryan wouldn’t know the answers to those questions, I didn’t think, and I couldn’t exactly ask Grant. Not without admitting that I was following him and that I was trying to learn everything about him. Not without admitting that Ryan had told me more information about Ray than Grant had ever admitted to.
“Well, I’m glad you told me that he’s getting out tomorrow,” Ryan said, even though I could tell that he knew that there was something more to it. “If Grant tells you anything else about him, I know you’ll tell me.”
It was a subtle dig, but one that had my blood boiling nonetheless. I felt guilty enough that I hadn’t immediately asked Grant the questions that I should have asked him. I felt immediately guilty that I hadn’t known that it was Ray in the hospital, even though Grant had so much as told me so himself.
I felt guilty that I had slept with Grant the night before, that I had yelled at Vera when she was only concerned for me, and that I wasn’t giving this job my full attention.
Or rather, I was giving it too much attention. I shouldn’t be thinking about Grant like this. Like I had feelings for him. I should be thinking of him as a terrible guy, as a killer, as someone that I should never so much as talk to. Maybe I had finally cracked.
I hadn’t expected that to happen so soon once I became a member of the police force. But lying there in Grant’s arms that morning, before he realized that I was awake, had felt so incredibly right. In ways that I couldn’t even explain.
I had to admit that it felt like I had done something wrong. I shouldn’t have told Ryan about Ray’s release from the hospital. I still couldn’t shake the feeling that these guys weren’t the bad guys. That they hadn’t done all the terrible things that Ryan was trying to convince us that they had done.
But what did I know really?
I nodded at Ryan, knowing that I needed to get out of there. “I’ll keep working on him,” I said. “I’ll tell you when I find out anything more.”
I hurried out of the safe house, leaving him behind me. But even as I did it, I knew that I hadn’t absolved myself of all guilt. I wished that I could tell Grant what I was up to, that I had fucked up, but I knew that that wasn’t an option either.
At this point, if I tried to tell him, he was going to look at me like I was even worse. He was going to look at me like I had betrayed him. Because I wasn’t from Montana, and I wasn’t a history major. I wasn’t anything like that. I was from Las Cruces, I had known about Red Eyes before I could even walk, and I had gone to the police academy because I wanted to help people.
Because I wanted to put people like Grant behind bars.
But I was rapidly realizing that people like Grant weren’t the problem. I still didn’t believe that he had done anything wrong. Maybe Ray had, sure. He had been leader of Red Eyes for a long time. Maybe he had killed someone. Maybe Braxton had, even. But I couldn’t believe that Grant was. I still clung to that image that I’d had of him, from back when I had first met him. Believing that I was lost and leading me to the library. All because he “wasn’t good at giving directions.”
He wasn’t the bad guy. I was sure of that. And I didn’t like the idea that Ryan was going to have the hospital under surveillance tomorrow. I didn’t want to believe that something that I had said would put Grant in a bad place. But at the same time, I didn’t know how much damage I had done. And that made me sick with worry.
Vera shouldn’t be worried about my relationship because she was worried about Grant and me. She should be worried because I clearly couldn’t keep my loved ones safe.
I felt a sick feeling in the pit of my gut, remembering how good Grant had been to me the night before. The day before. He had picked up on my unhappiness and tried to show me the best that Las Cruces had to offer. The best that he had to offer. And I appreciated that. Even though it made things all the more difficult.
I had to be there the next day. Just to make sure that Ryan didn’t do anything terrible with the information that I had given him. But at the same time, I wasn’t sure that I could be there. If something terrible happened, I would be no help at all. I didn’t know how to be.
19
Grant
I met Cameron at the diner before heading to the hospital to take Ray home. “We have to be discreet,” Cameron said when I met him, indicating the van that he had rented. “We don’t know what the police are planning. And if they found out that Ray, of all people, was in the hospital? I don’t even know what they would do.”
I stared at him in surprise. “You can’t possibly think that they would come after Ray,” I said. “Or that they would come after Red Eyes just because they thought that Ray was in the hospital?”
“I don’t even know what they would do,” Cameron said grimly. “I’d like to think that they wouldn’t attack us now, just because we were vulnerable. Hell, I’d like to think that they wouldn’t attack us at all, not since they know that we’re just cycling money back into the economy. Back into their hands.”
He paused. “But I think that’s the same as Ray not thinking that Lex and the Unknowns were after us, all because he hoped that they weren’t. Or not hoped…” Cameron trailed off, but I could fill in the blanks.
If the police were after us now, we were screwed. I was the guy that would have to make everything safe again. Ray had told me that I was potentially the next leader of the MC. And I wasn’t ready to take on that responsibility just yet. No, better that the police didn’t know anything. Better that we were disguised in stupid white vans.
The more I thought about thos
e vans, the more I was sure that I had seen them around. Everywhere. It wasn’t like there was anything stealthy about them. They could have been out there in plain view, and I just might have overlooked them.
I didn’t like to think that. But then again, I had a bad feeling about all of this.
Ray had not yet made me leader of Red Eyes, but somehow, I already felt that I had let him down. And the crux of those feelings was Red Eyes. I felt as though somehow, everyone had known what I was up to. Like someone knew about Ray. I didn’t know where those feelings stemmed from, but this just didn’t feel right. And Cameron didn’t seem to understand that.
But this wasn’t my responsibility. I hadn’t told anyone.
Except Holly. I realized that in passing, I had told her about Ray. About the fact that I was getting him out of there that day. But it was just in passing. I hadn’t mentioned Ray by name, I didn’t think, and I hadn’t told her that there was anything wrong with him. She couldn’t know who I was here to get, and she definitely couldn’t trace me back to Ray. She didn’t know that he had cancer.
She couldn’t realize that I was part of Red Eyes. I hadn’t told her about any of that. She thought that I was just some guy she had met at the diner. Our date together had been so perfect. So free from thinking about the MC. She couldn’t know I was here to get Ray from the hospital.
The more I justified it to myself, the worse I felt.
I felt like I must have betrayed him. And Cameron and Red Eyes and Braxton. It felt like I had betrayed all of them. But that was ridiculous. I hadn’t. I hadn’t told anyone about this. I had been so worried that Braxton would find out about his father’s cancer that I hadn’t even told Holly about it. No one could know. Not from me.
I hoped. But the more I hoped about it, the more worried I got.