by Blair Grey
“Are you the only one here?” Cameron asked, his eyes darting around.
“As far as I know,” I said. “What’s going on? You’re freaking me out.”
“I have some big news,” Cameron told me. “Braxton’s found out who the guys were who burned Candy to the ground. The arsonists. It turns out that they are with the police, just like Ray suspected. They’re members of an undercover unit.”
“Shit,” I swore. “How many of them are there?”
“We don’t know for sure yet,” Cameron said grimly. “Braxton’s still trying to gather information about them.”
“But why would they want to burn down a business in the first place?” I asked.
“They’re trying to get information from the local business owners,” Cameron said with a quick shrug. “I guess they think that this is a good way to get the message across. And since they’re considered to be somewhat elite in terms of police operations, being undercover agents, they’re pretty much outside of the law.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I said. “How can they be outside the law?”
Cameron rolled his eyes. “Because there are ten thousand levels of corruption in the local police force,” he reminded me. It was no surprise to me, any of this. I guess the good guy inside of me had just hoped that Ray was wrong about it. That the police hadn’t been somehow involved. That even though we hadn’t found any evidence to the contrary, it really was the Unknowns behind this, coming back to reclaim their pride.
I’d rather have gang-on-gang violence for years than find out that our own police force was made up of the kinds of guys who would burn down a local business just to try to get a little information about us.
“So what’s our next move if Braxton knows who the arsonists are?” I asked. “How do we go about fighting them? Do we just take them out somehow, one by one?”
“We’re still trying to figure out that part of the plan,” Cameron said. “Obviously, we don’t want to do anything that they can trace back to us, because that would be a suicide mission right there, but we can’t let this go unanswered.” He shrugged. “The first step is to get all the information that we can about the unit. Braxton’s working on that with his contacts. We should have a list of all the members by tomorrow.”
Before I could respond, the door swung open, and Ray came in. He was looking better than he had in a while. A little more color in his cheeks. I liked to think that that meant his medications were working. That maybe the cancer was clearing up and that he’d be around for many, many more years.
I had a feeling that it was naive for me to think that way. That I was asking too much. But I had to hope, right?
Ray nodded at Cameron and me. “Grant, you’re just the person that I was hoping to see,” he said. He glanced at Cameron. “Could you give us some privacy?” he asked. “I want to speak to Grant alone.”
“Sure thing, boss,” Cameron said, heading for the door immediately, not even questioning the fact that Ray might want to talk to me alone. I had to wonder if he knew about Ray’s plans for me. If he supported them.
“How are things going with the recruits?” Ray asked, taking a seat in one of the chairs opposite me. It was strange to be having this conversation in the middle of the common room. Usually, we had our one-on-one talks in his office. I didn’t think I had ever seen Ray sit in the common room before. During our weekly club meetings, he was always standing, and otherwise, he didn’t seem to be in there very much. He preferred to do his club socializing away from the headquarters. I think he felt like it gave him more of a boss-like feel when he was there in headquarters.
“Things are going good,” I said to answer his question. “They all seem to be getting the hang of things now. I don’t think we have to worry about them. I don’t think any of them are rats, still. They’ve hardly asked a single question about our operations, the whole lot of them. They’re not asking about the things that I’m asking them to do, let alone asking deeper questions about our organization or anything like that.”
“That’s good to hear,” Ray said. “And I’ve noticed that they’re making progress. You’re doing a good job with them.” He paused, clearing his throat. “I don’t want to pressure you, but I was wondering if you had given any more thought to the idea of taking over the MC.”
I blinked at him. What was I supposed to say to that? I couldn’t tell him that I hadn’t given it any more thought, because I definitely had. I couldn’t tell him that I needed more time to think about it, because to be honest, I really didn’t. I knew exactly what I felt. I felt like I didn’t want to take over as leader. As though I wasn’t even sure that I wanted to be a part of the MC anymore, or at least, not in the future.
I wanted to be a father. And I didn’t want to put my future family in jeopardy. That’s what it really came down to.
It was the same thing that it had always come back to. I just didn’t have what it took to be part of the MC. I didn’t have the mettle. And I was okay with that. Being part of the group had been nice–I liked all the guys and I didn’t want to let them down. I wanted to do my best. But at the same time, I was starting to picture having a family now. Holly was just the first part of that idea. I couldn’t bear the thought of her getting hurt, even if she wasn’t really my girlfriend and definitely wasn’t my wife.
Surprisingly enough, Ray seemed to know exactly what I was thinking. “I know you never wanted to be a part of this,” he said quietly. “I know that you were under pressure to join, right from the start. But I do like the way that you’ve grown since you’ve been part of Red Eyes. And I think that you’re best suited to keeping the MC alive.” He paused. “You know, it’s not all about violence and the things that you hate.”
“I know,” I said honestly. “I watched you with Linda. You had a heart. You look out for the business owners. I have to admit, I haven’t always seen that in the things that we do. But it’s good to know that sometimes, there’s a time and place for that. Even if you’re part of the most powerful MC in New Mexico.”
Ray chuckled, and even though he looked better than he had in a while, that wheezing cough of his sounded even worse than it had just a couple days before. I wished I could ask him what the doctors had really told him: how long we really had.
From the way he was asking me about being the next leader of the MC, I had the worrying feeling that there wasn’t much time left.
As much as I didn’t want to be leader of the MC, as much as I was pretty sure I wanted out, there was another part of me that still insisted that I couldn’t just turn my back on my brothers. That if Ray wanted me to be the next leader of the club, I had to accept. It was just an interim thing until we could find someone better.
But that could take years, and there was a selfish part of me that didn’t want to wait that long.
Ray stood up, nodding at me. “I know it’s a tough decision to make,” he said. “But I want you to keep in mind that we don’t have much time to decide. Keep thinking about it. Keep your mind open to the idea. That’s all I’m asking you to do.”
“All right,” I said, hating how weak my voice sounded. Couldn’t Ray hear that I was all wrong for the job? “I’ll keep thinking about it.”
If Ray’s smile was anything to go by, he was overjoyed to hear that.
32
Holly
Ryan called me into the undercover house again on Thursday, the day after my fishing trip with Grant. At first, I wondered if that meant that he’d had someone following me, that someone had seen us getting busy on the lakeshore. But then I realized that it probably meant, instead, that he was getting impatient for information and that he hoped I would have some for him. He’d been on this crusade for too long now, in his mind, to have achieved so little progress.
Or worst-case scenario, he had found out about the meeting between Grant, Ray, and the business owner after the fact and he wanted to know why I hadn’t given him information about that sooner. Whatever it was, it was something t
hat I shouldn’t be totally worried about.
I hoped.
When I got to the house, Ryan was there with one of the other undercover officers. “And if those business owners still don’t give you information, you know what to do,” Ryan was saying as I walked in. “They’ve already seen it happen to one place. It won’t be long before we get one of them to crack.” He shook his head. “I don’t know how the fuck this motorcycle club manages to command so much loyalty anyway, when all I can see that they’re doing is stealing money from the poor and peddling drugs.”
I barely resisted the urge to roll my eyes or to point out that we still didn’t know that Red Eyes had anything to do with the drug trade. And if Grant was anything to go by, I definitely doubted it.
I let it slide for now, though. I had a bigger problem with Ryan’s words, but I waited until the other officer was out of the building before I addressed it.
“If they won’t give you information, ‘you know what to do?’” I echoed incredulously.
Ryan rolled his eyes. “Come on, York. You know that there are certain methods that we use to get a community to talk. But there’s a reason I haven’t given you a task that involves your carrying out any of them.”
“But just by being part of this unit, I’m part of all of that. Everything that you do,” I said disgustedly. I had to know. “Are you the ones who burned down that one business over on Anderson? Candy?” Grant seemed to think that he was, and now, I thought so as well, even though I had to hope that that wasn’t what had really happened. That we had somehow both come to the wrong conclusions.
But Ryan just shrugged. “I had to do what I had to do,” he said. “Now, do you have any information for me?”
“Wait, back up a minute,” I said, shaking my head. “Are you seriously trying to tell me that what you had to do was burn down a business to get the information that you need about Red Eyes? Because as far as I can tell, you didn’t get any information, and now you’re out trying to use the same scare tactics on other businesses until you finally find someone who’s willing to talk. Is that correct?”
“York,” Ryan snapped. “We’re close to getting the information that we need. If you want to get this done, you need to man up.”
I stared at him for a long moment, feeling everything inside of me breaking at what he had just said. At what he had basically confessed to. I hadn’t joined the police force because I wanted to help out with burning down the businesses of innocent shopkeepers. I had joined the police force because I wanted to help people.
I hadn’t joined the police force to start a vendetta against people who, sure, might actually be doing bad things but who were mostly decent enough individuals. There were serious problems out there on our streets. Since when had a witch hunt, going after the easiest targets and treating them as guilty until proven innocent, become the noble thing to do? We didn’t have a shred of evidence about the sorts of things that Ryan told us these guys were up to. There was nothing to prove that they had murdered anyone or that they had any ties to drugs.
I just couldn’t believe that this was what my career had turned out to be. Leaving aside the fact that I had been asked to seduce a target to get his secrets out of him, everything else was wrong as well.
I shook my head at Ryan. “I didn’t get into this to ruin the lives of innocent shopkeepers,” I said slowly.
“They’re not innocent if they’re colluding with Red Eyes,” Ryan snapped.
“They are innocent if the only reason that they’re paying dues to Red Eyes is because they need protection from people like you,” I snapped. As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I knew that I should probably take them back. But I didn’t want to. It wasn’t like I had said anything that wasn’t true. I honestly believed that the business owners stood more of a chance being protected by Red Eyes than by the local police.
And that thought sickened me. I hadn’t joined up to do anything like this. “I don’t want to be part of this anymore,” I said, folding my arms across my chest.
Ryan stared at me for a long moment, like he thought I might be bluffing. Like he thought I might change my mind. But when it became obvious that I wasn’t going to, he shrugged. “Fine. Then I think it’s best that you gather your things and get out of here.”
Just like that. As though he had never wanted me there in the first place. As though they didn’t need me.
And maybe that was true. Maybe I had never fit into this unit. Maybe I shouldn’t have this job in the first place.
Maybe Vera had been right. I should have just done something else with my life. I should have been a beautician or worked in retail or something. Anything else. Clearly, I wasn’t cut out for this life. I had to get out of there or I was going to be sick. The only thing that I could think about was that I had somehow been in with the criminals the entire time.
They were the ones who needed to be stopped. Not Red Eyes. They were the ones who were a danger to the local businesses and the community.
I had just walked away from the only career that I had ever wanted. From everything that I had worked so hard and trained so hard for. I had put myself through grueling years at the academy, all so that I could be proud to be part of the force. Now, I was walking away from it all.
It wasn’t just because of Grant, although he was part of it. If I hadn’t started this thing with him, I might not have realized that he and the rest of Red Eyes were far more innocent than Ryan was leading me to believe.
Someone else might have just followed Ryan blindly, helping to put the entire MC behind bars, even Ray. But as for me, I knew where my sense of justice lay. It wasn’t Ryan who needed my help. It was the motorcycle club. I only hoped that I hadn’t screwed things up already with Grant, by lying to him this whole time.
There had to be some way that I could explain. That there was some way that I could make things right.
The one benefit of the fact that I could now tell Grant about my being a police officer was that I could talk to him about all of this. I wanted to tell him about the corruption, about how he didn’t even know the half of it. I wanted to tell him about quitting my job. I wanted to tell him who had been responsible for burning down Candy.
I felt so strangely numb when I thought about work now, and I needed to think through all of this.
Maybe I could get Grant to take me fishing again. Or maybe he could take my mind off it in other ways. All I knew was that I wanted to see him, first and foremost. When I called him, though, it went straight to voicemail, and I remembered what he had said about how he would be busy this week trying to help Linda.
I knew all of the information that he needed, but of course, he didn’t know that. The thought of having to wait until the weekend to hear from him depressed me, but I forced myself to hang up the phone and head home. At least I had Vera to talk to. She might not be the person I really wanted to tell that I had fucked up my whole career over, but she’d at least listen to what I had to say.
33
Grant
On Friday, all the core members met at the clubhouse to hear the information that Braxton had gotten about this undercover unit with the police force. Cameron grinned as he looked around at the group. “Remember when there used to be more of us?” he said jokingly. Before Will and Marcus had gotten married, before Landon had moved to Florida. Now, it was just Ray, Cameron, Braxton, and me.
“There’ll be more soon,” Ray reminded him. “Some of the recruits will graduate into the core group soon, I think. Grant has been doing a good job with training all of them.” He nodded at me and then looked around at all of us. “The police have been starting to overstep their boundaries. What they’re doing isn’t safe for the people of Las Cruces anymore. And that’s where we come in. Those businesses look to us for protection. And it’s not just protection from other MCs. They want protection from anyone who stands to harm them.”
“Like the police are currently doing,” Braxton spat.
“Like
the police are currently doing,” Ray agreed.
“Do we know for sure that they were responsible for burning down Linda’s business?” I asked.
“We know for sure,” Ray said grimly. “They’ve apparently been harassing other businesses as well. Anywhere that they know has ties to us. Fortunately, they don’t seem to have too much information on that. They’ve even tried to mess with businesses who have no idea who we are.”
“So in short, they’re acting like their own MC,” Braxton said.
“Pretty much,” Cameron said. “Only they’re doing things that most MCs wouldn’t even dream of doing, like burning businesses to the ground.”
He was right. We might have to take a tough line with some of our businesses in order to get them to pay, but we would never go so far as to burn a business to the ground just to get money or information out of them. I knew that there were other MCs who had fewer scruples than we did. MCs that would go a lot further, especially if they were trying to take over territory. Hell, that was part of why I had thought that this might be the Unknowns at first.
But it was still a pretty extreme way to handle things. I couldn’t believe that they were getting away with it. I guess that when you’re the police, the rules are different, though.
“We have the names and faces of every undercover cop in the unit,” Ray continued. “And it’s time to let them know that they can’t get away with this kind of behavior anymore.” He smirked. “I wish it were as simple as planting drugs on them and calling up the sheriff, but unfortunately, I don’t think that plan is going to work out with these guys, so we’ll have to brainstorm ways to take them down, even if we have to do it one by one.”
He laid down a photo of the first guy. “This is Ryan. He’s their leader. He’s been a corrupt cop for years now. Multiple disciplinary meetings as well. He’s pretty radical, and I bet that he’s the one behind most of the violence that we’re seeing from them at the moment.”