by Layla Wolfe
Toby was already running while taking off his helmet. For a guy who didn’t pack a piece, he was certainly making a big act of bravery. But he ran down the side path of the house, presumably to check on the greenhouses.
Lytton went straight for the house.
The front door was wide the fuck open, too. Lytton took the front steps four at a time, bounding like an antelope into the foyer while whipping his Glock from his waistband.
Living room was clear. So was the kitchen, dining room, family room. One strange thing Lytton didn’t pause long enough to really ponder was a bloody hammer on the kitchen table. It looked just tossed there, a dark red streak of already-dried blood giving it away. In the family room, after clicking through a few screens on one of the laptops, Lytton saw that the entire security system had been turned off right after eleven AM, after he had gone down the mountain with Toby.
Who the fuck. Although calling the cops would be anyone’s first logical response, Lytton had to stuff that impulse down. He was dealing with the MC world now, and he’d done some pretty fucking illegal things too the past couple of weeks. This must’ve been The Bare Bones’ natural response to having their weed truck jacked and parked in the alley behind their shop decorated like a Halloween shindig. Could be the Ochoa’s response, too, for missing a driver.
Lytton knew he was playing with fire. Retaliation was the name of the game with those motorcycle clubs. He had assumed his security system was foolproof, but something had fucked up big time.
He was sneaking down the hallway soundlessly like an ATF agent in a crime show when he heard another car come up the front drive burning rubber and brake with a squeal of tires.
Madison Illuminati and another old lady came tromping into the foyer, bellowing at the top of their lungs, so the jig was up anyway. Lytton joined them in screaming, “June! June, where are you?”
The blonde with the four-inch black roots didn’t wait for any response, though. She stomped right over to Lytton and took a handful of his shirt in her first. She snarled, “You fucking lowdown traitor. I heard what you did, disowning your own fucking brother. Now you’ve joined with The Cutlasses and look what fucking happens! We could’ve told you those fucking Cutlasses weren’t to be trusted. This is all on your head if anything has happened to June.”
Of course Lytton didn’t hurt women, so he wasn’t sure what to do with this muscular tigress bullying him. She was definitely wasting time, though, so he wrenched his shirt out of her claw and shouted, “Shut the fuck up, woman! June could be anywhere around here and we’re here making enough noise to keep the wolves awake!”
“He’s right, Brunhilda,” said Madison, who had her phone in her hand. She put her finger to her lips, listening. “Ssh.”
They all heard it at the same time. June’s phone announcing “Call from Madison!” and muffled whimpering, coming from his play room here on the ground floor.
Lytton reached the room in what seemed like four long strides.
Once inside the room, though, he went all limp. His hand that had gripped the pistol as though it were life itself suddenly went dead, dangling at his side.
A badly beaten June dangled from one of his fucking suspension cuffs. She resembled the most battered piece of meat hanging from a fucking hook, what was left after a boxer finished pummeling it.
Lytton fell to his knees beside her, easily unbuckling the suspension cuff while Madison collapsed on the other side of her sister. Madison was a nurse, he recalled, as she lifted June’s wrist to feel for a pulse.
“Holy fuck,” swore Brunhilda, now in a hushed tone. “Whoever the fuck did this is in for a world of hurt.”
Lytton didn’t want to let June’s arm down too swiftly. If she’d been hanging in that one position with her weight bearing on it, drifting in and out of consciousness, she could very well have dislocated the shoulder. He never kept anyone in the suspension cuffs, which were designed to bear weight, longer than thirty minutes. If the shutoff timer on the security system was correct, she’d been hanging like this for twenty-four hours. Her hand was frighteningly cold and clammy, but that was probably understandable.
“She’s alive,” whispered Madison, “but unconscious. Slow pulse, maybe fifty. Get me paper towels, bathroom towels, anything.”
Lytton said, “There are rolls of toilet paper in that closet.”
Lytton had been in many fights in high school. He’d participated in backyard Brazilian jiu-jitsu matches where blood was a common occurrence. Even then, no one had been beaten nearly this bad. June’s nose looked crooked, both her eyes were severely blackened.
“June, June,” he crooned. “June, wake up. We want her awake, right?”
Madison handed Lytton a wad of toilet paper. “Clean her up so we can see what’s going on. Sure, awake is a good sign.” She busied herself pressing on June’s fingernails, then rubbing her knuckles against June’s sternum. There was no response from June, and Lytton sopped up the blood that had pooled in the pit of her throat, the blood that had rolled down between her breasts, the blood around her mouth. He saw she apparently had all of her teeth, although a couple might be wobbly.
“Get a container of water. Some of this blood has dried.”
“Sure,” said Brunhilda. “Should we call 911?”
Madison glared at Lytton, who by now was almost as bloody as June. “No, thanks to this horse’s ass.” Brunhilda had left the room, so Madison continued muttering at Lytton. “You fly off the handle and disown your own blood brother based on something you don’t even know the details of. To add insult to injury you hook up with our mortal enemies—mortal enemies, Lytton! What the fuck were you thinking?”
Lytton was starting to get pissed now too. “To be honest, Madison, I was thinking of revenge. Put yourself in my shoes. I just discovered who my real father was, but whoops, it’s too late, he’s already fucking dead—at the hands of my brother.”
Having mostly wiped June’s face clean, Madison stuffed little wads of toilet paper into her nostrils. “Her nose is broken. She needs a plastic surgeon. I can get her into my hospital and keep it hush-hush but we’ll have to get her down the mountain in Brunhilda’s cage. She needs this tooth splinted, too. Listen, Lytton. You don’t know the fucking story, and why should you? We just met you. Why would we tell you our innermost secrets?”
Before Lytton could protest, Madison continued on, determined to come clean. She sat on the other side of her bloody, unconscious sister, accepting the pot of water that Brunhilda handed her. She used a bathroom towel dipped in water to clean more blood from June’s neck, and Lytton did the same. “There’s no way to tiptoe around it, so I’ll just say it. Your father was molesting me. He did it once when I was young, and I ran. When I hooked back up with Ford later, after I was a nurse, it continued for another week. I thought I was trying to help my brother Speed.”
“Molesting ain’t the word for it,” said Brunhilda angrily.
“Yeah, well, there was another scumbag, Cropper’s sergeant-at-arms, involved in it, too.”
“Don’t displace the guilt, honey,” said Brunhilda.
Lytton fell into a guilt-riddled reverie. He was already thinking of backing off from his association with The Cutlasses. All the air had gone out of his sails once he’d planted those bottles. Seeing Turk engaged in a vulnerable and dangerous act, well, it sort of humanized him. There was no reason for Lytton to ruin Turk’s livelihood. Their natural competition would mean that Turk’s customers would come to Lytton’s dispensary. Who wouldn’t opt for organic over pesticide-laden medicine?
So he was already thinking of calling Saul’s inspection off and allowing A Joint Effort to receive their shipment of crap weed from Sinaloa. No one would ever know the difference. Who cared if it genuinely was sprayed with DDT and paraquat? That was The Bare Bones’ fault for not testing every batch.
Now, hearing Madison’s story, a sea change swept through Lytton. Somehow, his association with The Cutlasses had caused this to happen
to his old lady. Either the Ochoas had busted in here and figured out how to turn off his security system, or…
“Madison. You’d tell me if a Bare Boner had anything to do with this.”
Anger flashed in her eyes. “A Bare Boner would never have anything to do with this, Lytton! You may have betrayed us, but you’re still blood. Why would any Boner take anything out on a woman? And my sister? Never! Now, let’s get her into Brunhilda’s back seat.”
June came to as they were trying to arrange her in the back seat of the cage. It wrenched Lytton’s heart to see her do the drunk Indian thing, the “where am I?” while looking around herself.
“Oh, God,” Lytton cried in a strangled voice, and wrapped his arms around her tighter than he should have.
“Be careful,” Madison said sternly.
Lytton found himself uttering nonsensical words as he fluttered his palm over her bashed face. “Precious, my only, my love, I love you.”
It was as though the sun came out from behind a cloud when June looked him right in the eye. Through her bruises, seemingly every capillary in her eyeballs busted, she seemed to see him clearly. “Oh, Lytton. I love you so much.”
Brunhilda wasn’t in the mood for sap. “June! Who did this to you?”
Madison waved Brunhilda away. “There’s time for that later. Just get in the driver’s seat. What’s up with Toby? I didn’t know he was here with you.”
Lytton craned his neck to see out the cage’s rear window. Toby was stumbling down the side path from where he’d originally disappeared, only now he was more loose-limbed, more zombie-like. Slowly, Lytton got out of the cage and stood straight. Toby held something out to him. A pair of glasses?
“Helium,” Toby croaked.
Yes, those were Helium Head’s glasses. What about him? “Toby? Where is Helium Head?”
Toby lifted an arm that flapped like a broken bird’s wing. “Helium…he’s dead…in the veg room…”
Now the women fell silent. They didn’t know Helium Head, of course, but they must’ve realized this entire murderous spree extended far wider than anyone had thought. They looked around themselves, as though a serial killer might still be lurking behind a pine tree.
It was Lytton who first snapped into action. “Well, we know which vehicle the murderer is driving. Helium Head’s Prius. I can put a BOLO out on that with my buddies at the station.”
“We don’t use cops,” Madison sneered. “Our club is our BOLO.”
Lytton was barely paying attention. “June? What’s that?”
June had squeaked a few syllables. Lytton flung himself onto the seat next to her like an eager dog to hear what she had to say. They had wrapped someone’s down jacket around her, and he grabbed the lapels now. “What’d you say, my love?”
Her answer was as inevitable as dawn. “Iso. Look for Iso. He handcuffed me, beat me, left me for dead. Get that motherfucker. Take him down. He’s pissed at you ‘cause you shot him in the foot.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
LYTTON
It was amazing the organization that went into the operation.
Once June was safely in the hands of the doctors at Madison’s hospital, Lytton sprung into his new action plan. He had a lot of crow to eat¸ he knew, and a lot of maneuvering and extrication tactics to get himself and others out of the mess that had been created. He had Madison call Ford. She told him to be at A Joint Effort at two o’clock with his top officers. She wouldn’t do it until Lytton promised he was on their side.
“I forgive Ford,” he said, point-blank. They were in the ER waiting room while doctors worked on June. She had a broken nose and her jaw needed wiring. Brunhilda and a few other old ladies milled around shooting Lytton darts from their eyes, and Toby was draped in a chair lifelessly, completely in shock at seeing Helium Head’s body that was beaten to death with a hammer. Crybaby sat blankly next to him, this time not crying. “I understand now why he did what he did. That would be something that’d be impossible to get over, and I guess I had to’ve been there to really feel the impact of Cropper’s actions. Madison, I was lashing out, reacting because I’d just discovered Cropper even was my father.”
“I do understand. You were in turmoil. Now you just have to figure out how to undo all the damage you’ve done with The Cutlasses.”
“I can prove to Ford I’m on his side. I have knowledge of some shit that’s going to go down at A Joint Effort at three this afternoon. Not only will I prevent that shit from happening but I will help nail the perpetrators and The Bare Bones will once again be safe from all rivals.”
Madison was understandably skeptical. “Well. Never ride faster than your guardian angel can fly.”
“Listen, June has changed me,” Lytton insisted. “I was a hard, callous, worldly asshole, riddled with demons. But you know what? June’s innocence, her purity, her cheerful and positive outlook on life, that’s all gotten underneath my skin. Did you know I made her my old lady two days ago? I did. I know it’s a feeble-ass leather cuff she’s wearing, but I’m getting her a collar studded with real diamonds before this is done. Seeing her beaten within an inch of her life was a game changer, Madison. I know how Ford felt now. I know that a brother will do anything to protect his old lady. Anything,” he echoed.
Madison softened. “I believe you love her,” she said grudgingly. “I’m sure at first you just wanted to use her to get back at Ford, but I saw how you acted up in your playroom. That wasn’t fake. You were truly terrified to death for her safety. As a nurse, I’ve seen hundreds of incidents like that. You’d be surprised how some close family members honestly could care less whether their ‘loved ones’ expire or not. It’s really disheartening. I’m not as cheerful and optimistic as June because of what I’ve seen.”
“So will you do it? I have lots of apologies to make, and to Turk too.”
Eventually Madison caved when she realized time was running out. As a good old lady, she didn’t ask what was going down at three, but she got Ford and his brothers to drop what they were doing and agree to meet him. It was difficult for Lytton to get Toby to agree to come. He’d seen enough in the past couple of days. But Lytton needed him to repair whatever damage his Assassin’s Creed virus had done to the computer.
“Besides,” Toby moped now as they inched their way toward A Joint Effort’s storefront, “when August sees me, he’s going to rip me a new interface, to say the least. My game brought down his entire computer system.”
Ford reached for A Joint Effort’s front door. There being no windows, he couldn’t peek inside and assay the situation. “Oh, you don’t know that. For all you know, you just gave him a righteous game to play. We don’t know that the virus worked.”
“My best friend is dead,” Toby whined, “and we can’t even take his body to the morgue because we’re afraid of cops.”
“I thought I was your best friend.” Lytton wanted to tell Toby to buck up, or something equally as asinine, but the truth was, they were pretty fucked.
Just how fucked was evident when they entered the store. Even the security guard was glaring at them with folded arms, not bothering to ask them for their medical cards. He sure did lock the door behind them in a hurry, though, and Lytton had to face a wall of leather-clad bikers.
He could do it. He’d already dealt with the worst—Iso’s near-murder of June Shellmound. He had confronted these bastards—his potential brothers—before, at the airplane hangar when he’d told Ford in no uncertain terms he was dead to him. Now, the giant pizza-faced cholo, Tuzigoot, looked him up and down, his jaw working as he ground his teeth. The ink-covered stud Ziggy actually wore some brass knuckles that he cracked. Faux Pas, June’s brother Speed, August, the limping guy from the archery range, Duji, Wild Man, Gollywow, they all stood in a line facing Lytton down as though in a very unfair western.
Turk Blackburn, who couldn’t possibly have known what Lytton had witnessed yesterday by the Dumpster, seemed the most pissed. His beautiful eyes that looked rimmed with
smoky eyeliner narrowed at Lytton, and he looked about to spit. It was evident to everyone by now that Lytton had gotten into bed with The Cutlasses. Lytton had a hand in the jacking of the Staples truck and the theft of the weed. Now Lytton was presenting evidence that his business manager, Tobiah Weingarten, had been the cybercriminal behind the Assassin’s Creed virus.
Lytton stepped in front of Toby protectively and held up his hands, but that husky nerd August beat him to it. August pointed at Tobiah. “That’s him!” he cried. He may as well have been shouting, “J’accuse!” because every single Bare Boner took a step forward as one unit. Ziggy punched his own palm, others cracked their knuckles, brass or otherwise. Others fluttered their hands over the pieces stuck into their pants as though they played little bells, itching to pull a trigger.
Lytton was quick to react. “Hold on! I’m not here to give up my man. I’m here to form an alliance.”
Toby stepped out from behind him. “It’s okay, Lyt. I can take my lumps. I’ve already seen my best friend pummeled into strawberry jam with a fucking hammer. This has already been the worst day of my life. Do your best, men.”
Why did Toby keep going on about how Helium Head was his “best friend”? Lytton shoved Toby aside again. “We’ve both lost people to these lowdown cretins, The Cutlasses. Namely, Isosceles Weaver just buried my lead hydraulic engineer with a fucking hammer in my own greenhouse, and he tried his damnedest to put my old lady into the ground. She’s fighting for her life at Mercy General right now. He killed the Ochoa truck driver for no good reason, so no. I want to see Weaver go down. And I’ve got some ideas how to do it.”
Ford took one more step toward Lytton and sneered down his nose at him. “First thing’s first, brother.” He made a lightning-quick uppercut to Lytton’s jaw that so took him by surprise, he nearly flew out of his Nikes.
Of course, it was to be expected that Ford might hit him. Lytton deserved it. It was just a formality that needed to be gotten out of the way before they could do business together.