by Blair Grey
He paused. “The thing is, we’re going to have to tread lightly with this one. As much as I’d like to wipe him off the face of the earth, there are rumors that he has ties to the mafia in New York, and we don’t know how they would react if we take him down. The last thing we need is to attract the attention of the mafia. Not only for the sake of the other Red Eyes chapters, but also for our own skins. Don’t be fooled into thinking that just because they’re on the other side of the country, it doesn’t mean that they’ll have no way of getting to us.”
Ray looked around at each of us, staring deep into our eyes like he was trying to impress the severity of what he was saying into each of us. We all nodded at him.
Inwardly, I was shocked. Jesus, the mafia? It would have been so much easier if it was just the Unknowns out for our blood and territory again. We had proven that we could defeat them once, and we would prove it again, in spite of Ray’s ailing health.
Even if it had been another MC that we had never come up against before, I felt sure that we would be able to take them on, but the mafia was a whole different type of fighting. Where we lived by a code of honor that meant you didn’t do sneaky things when attacking other MCs, or at least mostly, the mafia was all about the underhanded dealings and deaths. You had to watch your back around them in the way that you didn’t usually need to with a rival MC. Oh, you didn’t want to get stupid around another MC either, but they were more likely to kill you with their fists than with poison or a random bullet to the back of your head.
I thought again about the fact that Ray apparently wanted me to take over the MC when he could no longer run it. If we were up against guys with ties to the mafia, there was no way in hell that I was qualified for the job. But then again, neither was Braxton. Cameron might be better suited for that, though. He was good about thinking things through before he acted. His logic just might save him.
Ray lay down another couple of photos of guys in the undercover unit, telling us everything that he had been able to find out about them. “There’s, of course, more of them,” he finally said, handing out a sheet with each of their faces on it. “But those are the main guys, the ones who we really need to look out for. Of course, we also don’t know where they’re congregating or what they’re planning to do once they find out enough information about us or any of that.”
Again, he looked around the circle at each of us. “So I suppose the next step for us is to formulate a plan. Figure out a way to track these guys down and take them out in such a way that they don’t even know what hit them. I don’t expect you to have anything right away. I don’t want you to have anything right away. Let’s think about it, see what everyone can come up with, and then we’ll decide the best course of action. Have a look over those briefs, see if there’s anything that jumps out at you. I’ll let you know when we should meet again.”
The other alarming thing that I realized as Ray was wrapping up the meeting was how exhausted he looked. The meeting hadn’t gone on for that long, but even this seemed like it was enough to wear Ray out. That must mean that he wasn’t doing as good as I had hoped. That maybe I really would need to make that decision sooner rather than later.
I took my brief and headed out to my bike. I didn’t even glance at it before I swung onto the machine. But as I went to fold it up so I could put it in my pocket, I realized that I recognized one of the faces.
Holly York. There she was, staring out at me, bottom row, two from the right.
What the fuck? I didn’t say it out loud, still conscious that the other guys were somewhere there nearby, getting onto their bikes as well. I couldn’t let them know that I knew Holly.
But I had been the one giving away information to the rat all along, I realized. I wondered how she had played me so easily. I wondered how she had had the guts to do it.
I felt a sinking feeling in my gut, like the rug had been ripped out from under me. Holly had been the one thing leading me to believe that people weren’t all terrible. That there might be some good in this world. That maybe I could have the future that I had always wanted. That I could have children and whatever else I wanted.
But it appeared that all of that had been a lie.
I didn’t know what to do about Holly, but I at least I knew that I couldn’t let this get out. I couldn’t let the other guys in the club know that I knew her. I definitely couldn’t let Ray know that I knew her or that she was the one who had just happened to show up to help me the night I’d been helping Linda after her building had burned down.
God, how could I have been so stupid? All the signs had been there all along. I should have put two and two together and realized that this wasn’t just a coincidence.
As angry as I was, though, there was still a part of me that had liked Holly. A part of me that had envisioned a family with her sometime in the future. And that part of me was having a harder time with all of this. That part of me couldn’t help feeling like if she called me right now, I’d meet up with her anyway. Just to hear what the real story was. Just to hear if she was really from Montana and if Vera really was her sister and if everything that she had told me was a lie.
I was sure it was a lie. She was an undercover cop after all. But it just felt like I had touched a very real side of her. Maybe I only felt like that because she had been playing me all along.
34
Holly
On Friday, I was shocked to find that Grant was the one tailing me. He pulled up behind me as I drove up to my house. I glanced at my phone, but he hadn’t tried to call. I wondered how he had happened to find me as I drove back from doing the grocery shopping, a peace offering for Vera after I’d spent the previous night crying on her shoulder.
Me doing the grocery shopping had also meant that I was free to grab all the junk food that I wanted, without having to give Vera a list. I loved Vera’s cooking, but when I was wallowing, I just really wanted frozen burritos and cherry cheesecake.
Not that I was wallowing. Vera said that I was wallowing. But really, I was just waiting for the confrontation with Grant, which would be inevitable now. I had to tell him that I was an undercover cop who had been assigned to him. There was no reason not to come clean now. It wasn’t like it would jeopardize my job, not now that I was fired. And the guilt was beginning to eat me alive.
I needed to tell him the truth.
So it was a relief to see him pull up behind me. At least, until I saw the angry look on his face. “What’s wrong?” I asked immediately, wondering what I had done to warrant that look. Or had Vera maybe done something? Called him up after the other day and told him never to come near me again?
I didn’t think she would do that, but I couldn’t imagine what had Grant so worked up right now.
I tried reaching for him as he got close, needing to fold myself into the warmth of his arms. This whole thing felt like a nightmare, one that I had been unable to pull myself out of. I needed him. But Grant sidestepped my reaching arms, folding his own arms across his chest to dissuade me from trying again.
“Are you an undercover cop?” he snapped before I could say anything.
It felt like my entire world was shattering. Somehow, he had found out. Had Ryan told him? One last attempt to ruin my life? Or maybe the new cop who was assigned to him had been too obvious, and Grant had put two and two together?
I hurried to explain. “Please, you have to believe me, I never wanted to hurt you,” I said. “In fact, I—”
But Grant didn’t let me finish. “Are you or are you not?” he asked again.
I ducked my head. The truth was that I wasn’t, not anymore, but I knew that wasn’t what he was asking. I nodded my head, almost fearing his response. For a long moment, he was silent. I finally risked a glance up, hoping that he was just trying to process it. That maybe I could reason with him.
But when I looked up, I could tell how pissed he was. No, there would be no reasoning with him. I was sure of that. I had truly fucked up, and there was no way to mak
e things right, even though I hadn’t realized how terrible the unit was until later on.
I knew that didn’t make things right anyway. Just because I hadn’t realized how terrible the unit was, it didn’t make it right for me to try to seduce Grant, to sleep with him, all so that I could try to get information out of him. There was no world in which that was a moral thing to do, even if he was a criminal.
Add in the fact that I had fallen in love with him as well, and here we were. I swallowed hard, feeling sick to my stomach.
“So what, everything we had was just a job?” Grant asked bitterly. “I was your target, and you were just using me to try to get information? What did you tell your boss? Did you give him a list of all the businesses that you knew were loyal to Red Eyes? Are you the reason Linda’s business burned down?”
I could see the accusation in his eyes, and the truth was that I was, and that just made everything worse. I tried again to explain, but he cut me off before I could even get a word out.
“I cared about you!” he said, and I could hear the raw pain in his voice. I had hurt him, and I hated it. What’s more, with the way that he said it, it was like he didn’t realize that I liked him equally as much. Like he thought it had all been an act.
I wasn’t that good at acting; didn’t he realize that? If I had been, maybe I would have been able to stay in character. Maybe I wouldn’t have found myself seduced by him. Maybe I wouldn’t have these terribly overwhelming feelings for him.
“I trusted you,” Grant said. He shook his head. “But never again. I never want to see you again. Do you hear me? I can’t make any promises for what I will or won’t do if you get in my way.”
I felt a shiver run down my spine, and I glanced toward the house, hoping beyond hope that I wouldn’t see Vera’s face peeping out. It seemed that she was right all along. That just because I wanted Grant to be a good guy, it didn’t mean that he actually was. When it came down to his survival, he didn’t care who he had to hurt to make sure that nothing happened to him. If that meant hurting me, then so be it.
At that moment, I actually trusted that he might hurt me if he needed to. I realized that he really was part of Red Eyes, as much as I wanted to deny it.
I felt like I could crumple to the sidewalk at any point. My tears were flowing freely by now, but he didn’t seem to care at all.
“Your unit is in trouble,” Grant snapped, a parting shot. “I shouldn’t even be telling you that, but why don’t you go ahead and pass on the word to your boss, Ryan? We know exactly who’s been threatening our local businesses, and we’re not going to stand by and let you fuckers get away with it.”
That was what really did it: getting lumped in with Ryan by someone like Grant. I had never deserved Grant in the first place. All along, he’d been too good for me, rather than the other way around. I was crying, and Grant was turning away from me, heading back to his car.
I wanted to run after him, to tell him to wait, to try to explain. But I could tell that he wasn’t going to listen to me.
I had fucked it all up. I never should have lied to him.
I stumbled up the front walk, forgetting all about the groceries, and barely made it inside before I sank down to the ground. Vera was there in an instant. “Hey, are you—? Jeez, what happened?” Vera asked, switching questions midway through, clearly able to tell that I wasn’t doing okay.
I shook my head, huddling into a ball and wrapping my arms around myself. “I fucked up,” I whispered.
“What did you fuck up?” Vera asked sharply.
I looked up at her with tears streaming down my cheeks. “I lost the only thing that matters,” I said.
35
Grant
I knew that I shouldn’t be following Braxton’s lead on something like this, but there was a limit to how much time I was willing to sit around and do nothing. And when nobody had been able to come up with a solid plan for the whole weekend, it was starting to eat at me.
Especially since I hadn’t seen Holly for the whole weekend. That, of course, had been by design. I really meant it when I said that I never wanted to see her again. It had been difficult to see her crying like that, but I knew that I had done the right thing in distancing myself from her. I didn’t even know who the hell she was. But the more digging I did, the more disgusted I became. According to the information that Ray had handed out, she hadn’t just moved here from Montana after all. She had done her early police work in California, but she was from Las Cruces to begin with. I had to wonder how much of the rest of it were lies.
I didn’t even want to talk to her about it, though. Who knew if she would even tell me the truth?
I headed over to Braxton’s house on Monday because I needed to do something. Because sitting around thinking about Holly was getting me nowhere. I couldn’t help it. I almost wanted to go back and confront her again. But I had said enough ugly things that last time, and I knew it was better that I pretend I had never known her in the first place.
“I don’t care about his mob connections,” Braxton said when I arrived. “I want to put that fucker’s ass in the dirt.”
There was no question of who he meant. Ryan. He was the one behind all of this. He wasn’t only the one behind Candy burning down, but also the one behind Holly’s job of espionage. And as much as I did worry about Ryan’s potential mob connections, there was only so much that a man could take.
Usually, I’d be the voice of reason, but right now, I couldn’t agree more. I wanted to murder Ryan and dump his body in a goddamned lake. Maybe that would be enough to get that stupid unit to realize that they weren’t master puppeteers, manipulating the community at will. We could only hope so.
“So what’s the plan?” I asked Braxton, and I could see from the gleeful look on his face that he was glad to have me on board.
“I have the guy’s address,” he said. “And I was thinking that maybe we should pay him a visit.”
“You know, I think that you’re exactly right,” I said. “Let’s go.”
In the back of my mind, I knew that this was the wrong way to be going about it. I knew that Ray would never sanction something like this. Hell, Cameron wouldn’t even like the idea of this. But I had all this restless energy from the weekend, all these thoughts about Holly coursing through me, and I needed to do something with it. So I went along with him.
The ride over to Ryan’s place was quiet. Terse. We were both preparing for the fight ahead of us.
Again, I found myself thinking about Holly. Apparently, this guy had been her boss. What did she think of him? Did she request to work with him? Did she agree with him?
Did she know about his potential ties to the mafia? Did she have potential ties to the mafia?
When we got to Ryan’s house, we busted down the door. Ryan was waiting for us, standing there in the hallway with his gun out. His lips pulled back into a sarcastic grin. “Ah, Red Eyes goons. I was wondering when you’d show up,” he said. He looked down at the door on the ground. “You could have knocked, you know. That would have been the polite thing to do.” His eyes narrowed. “But I guess criminals don’t know the first thing about politeness, do they?”
Braxton spit at his feet. “Assholes like you don’t deserve politeness,” he said.
Ryan laughed.
I wanted more information. “Why are you doing this?” I asked him. “What do the police stand to gain by burning down local businesses? This can’t be all in the name of cleaning up the streets.”
Ryan snorted derisively. “It isn’t,” he said. “Haven’t you figured it out yet? You’re supposed to be the smart one. Or is that Cameron?” He shrugged like it didn’t matter to him one way or the other. “The mob has been watching Red Eyes. For quite some time now, actually. And they’ve seen what you’ve been doing and the way that you’re growing. Not just here but all across the board.”
“And what, they’re scared?” Braxton taunted, and I almost wanted to elbow him and remind him that taunting
a clearly-unstable lunatic holding a gun was maybe not the smartest thing to do.
Ryan just laughed again, though. “Oh no, they’re not scared. But they have decided that it’s probably better to be rid of you. You’re a nuisance, and you could draw the police’s eye in a way that the mob wouldn’t like very much. They want to get rid of you, and it all starts with me.”
“A fake police officer with a grudge?” Again, Braxton. I gave him a dirty look, but Ryan still wasn’t done talking about his special mission.
“Well, they needed someone who could take you out without it looking like it was another MC out to get you,” Ryan said. “You know as well as I do that when the Unknowns came after you guys, it was easy enough to get the sheriff to clean them up. But the sheriff would never do that with me. He trusts me. When I told him that I was going to clean you lot off the face of the earth, he gave me permission to do whatever I needed to do.”
Permission that had clearly gone to his head, but I didn’t say that out loud and, thankfully, neither did Braxton.
“We’re going to kill you. Then what happens?” Braxton said.
Ryan snorted. “You’re going to kill me?” he echoed. “That is not going to happen.” He paused. “No, I’m going to get you put behind bars, and then I’m going to get paid for services rendered. I’m also going to become one of the most powerful men in town. I could have any job I wanted after that.”
I was starting to realize a lot of who Ryan really was. Sleazy didn’t even begin to cover it. He was a total con man. And somehow, Holly had been working for him.
But right now, I couldn’t help thinking that we needed to get out of there. We didn’t have a gun, and even though we outnumbered Ryan, it would be easy enough for him to take us out. Even though I was sure that he was mostly a con man, I also felt pretty sure that he had trained with the police at least at some point in his life. He probably knew how to use that gun and knew how to use it well. Especially if he had ties with the mob.