Wicked Kind of Love

by Nicole Snow

  He looked at me. I couldn't bring myself to smile back, too shocked to do much of anything but stare. After a few seconds, his grin melted. He cocked his head.

  “You busy tonight? I'd love to get some dinner and catch up. It's been way too long, cuz.”

  “I'll let mom know you're back in town. We'll set something up.”

  He raised a hand. “Nah. I mean, I'd love to see Aunt Mavis again. But I was thinking you and I could catch up by ourselves tonight, cousin-to-cousin. I'm sure you've got some crazy fucking stories about being an RN you can't tell in front of your mom.”

  I nodded, forcing an uneasy smile. Something about the way he was looking at me said this was more than just a family talk.

  A dozen possibilities flooded my head. Did he know about my role in the Devils? Jesus, did he have some super secret info he was going to lay on me, a warning about getting out before the Feds descended and tore the club apart?

  I knew one thing: if there was something going on and I tried to shrug him off, he wouldn't go out of his way to do me any favors. We were virtual strangers, all shared DNA aside. If I didn't cooperate and he wanted to put the squeeze on the MC, then I'd get caught in government claws just as easy.

  I had to find out what he wanted.

  “How about coming by my place at eight or after? I'm only working a half-shift today, but I've got an early one tomorrow...”

  “I'll be there.” He winked.

  “Oh! Do you need the address?”

  He tapped the phone resting on the stand in his car. “Already got it, cuz. Rental off Ellway street, right?”

  I didn't want to admit it bothered me that this man had my house number down, and probably a whole lot more. This was no time or place to lay out my cards, especially when he was only showing me one of his.

  “Awesome! Say, why don't you serve up some of that pomegranate lemonade you used to make when we were kids? I haven't had any of that shit for years. Bet it tastes great with a splash of vodka.”

  “I'll see what I can do...”

  “See you at eight!” Mark put his car into drive and began to roll, taking flight down the lonely street.

  His exhaust kicked up the crisp autumn leaves near the gutter, showering me in dead brown confetti. I hadn't realized how tightly I was pinching Moose's poor medicine bag until I looked down. My knuckles were bone white.

  I'd wanted something to take my mind off running into Tank at the clubhouse.

  Don't just be careful what you wish for. Fear it, and fear yourself too.

  Whatever business Mark had in mind, it promised to turn some lives upside down. I just hoped it wouldn't be mine.

  Later, I was mixing the sickly sweet crap he asked for with vodka, trying to forget the run to the clubhouse. Tank was watching me the whole time while I passed along Moose's medication.

  So, it was true. Everything Saffron said about him turning into a real bar fly and drinking himself stupid wasn't just something she'd made up to try to get us talking.

  When I noticed him through the open door, the brightness in his eyes was gone. The strong, kind redwood of a man I thought I knew looked more like a soggy log. But the longer he stared, the more that spark returned, even if it was desperate and weak.

  I almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

  Maybe he regretted what he'd said to me. Hell, I didn't know.

  Regrets didn't erase what happened. Any man who had his dick in someone else while pulling my strings wasn't the man for me. And I vowed I'd never become a whore for any man to pump and dump, including badass bullshitters who could probably do far more evil things with their tongues besides twist them up in lies.

  I was done with him. I had to be. Anything less and I'd be crawling back to a cheater and a drunk.

  My little meeting with cousin Mark was about to show me how badly my life was fucked. I just knew it. Still, it wasn't so crashed to pieces I was going to go running to him.

  The doorbell rang just as I dumped the vodka into the pomegranate lemonade and gave it a good stir. I licked the spoon. It was tart, stupefyingly sweet. A bitter aftertaste crawled on my tongue when the sugar faded.

  I shrugged. It would do. I hoped he sucked it down and got enough alcohol in his system to forget about any confrontations tonight.

  The doorbell chimed again. I quick stepped through the house, pinching my arm to force on the biggest smile I could manage.

  “Cousin!” False enthusiasm rankled my ears. “Come on in...”

  Mark greeted me and followed me into the kitchen for the pitcher and some glasses. I guided him to the cool porch. If anything got too wild, then at least we were outside, where I could yell and put an end to this.

  My cousin watched me drain the huge glass while he sipped at his gingerly. Damn, not much of a drinker after all, or at least not tonight...

  “So tell me, cuz, how do you like working at the hospital?”

  “It's a good gig. Gets a little stressful at times when the work really piles up. It's almost flu season, and they're telling us this year will bring in a lot of cases. Mostly old people and kids. Guess I'll be pulling double duty close to the holidays or I'd invite you back if you're heading home for Christmas.”

  He smiled. “I understand. How about the pay? Medical school must be expensive, yeah? I was reading an article the other day about how many poor bastards are up to their necks in student loans.”

  He clasped his hands and leaned forward. Those bright green Galena eyes were always a fearsome thing when they zeroed in on their target. I hoped I'd given Tank a look he'd never forget.

  “Uh, I'm doing okay,” I croaked. “Things were a little rough for awhile. I'd like to have a nicer place than this with a roof that's not five years overdue for a re-shingling. Lazy slum landlords, you know.”

  “Sure. One thing I'm not so sure about is how a girl like you paid off fifty four thousand in debt on a fifty one thousand annual salary. Pre-tax.”

  Holy shit. My heart plummeted, and the delicious buzz starting in my head from the vodka became a claustrophobic haze.

  “What're you talking about?” I had to ask, had to stall, had to collect my wits.

  He's got balls. Is this really happening?

  “Got your credit report before I rolled into town,” Mark continued. “It took a few favors with other bureaus, but you'd be amazed how easily personal data flows through the pipeline anymore. Listen, cuz, I hope you're planning to report that income on next year's tax return. The pitbulls at the IRS make most agents in my department look like poodles.”

  His smile was back, nastier and knowing. Slowly, he unfolded his hands, reaching for the lemonade and taking a long sip. He was waiting.

  I realized I'd already made the worst mistake: having this asshole anywhere on my property without a lawyer. Well, I wasn't going to take his creepy BS laying down.

  “Mark, what you're asking me is none of your fucking business. What did you really come here to talk about?” I was seething. The vodka gave me liquid courage, even if it fed the fire braising my stomach.

  “I wanna know why you've fallen in with a really bad crowd, girl. What kind of man would I be to let his little cousin hang with thugs and terrorists? It's one thing to bring shame on the family. Quite another if you end up behind bars for ten years with some serious fucking felonies under your belt.”

  “You know about the Devils.” I gripped the sides of my chair, trying to keep still. I wasn't sure which urge was worse – jumping up and running away, or raking my nails across his stupid fucking face.

  The green eyes weren't familiar and comforting anymore. They were monstrous.

  “Of course. That's why I'm here. Did you really think I came to Bumfuck, Montana just to reminisce about old times?” He turned his nose up. “I'm a very busy man.”

  “Busybody asshole, you mean,” I muttered.

  “Careful!” Mark held up a finger, his face wrinkling in a sneer. “I'm not the one making fat stacks with killers. And before y
ou try to deny it, Emma, let me assure you the ATF has everything. Your business partners are like a plague creeping West. That piddly salary they pay you is nothing compared to the fifty million the club rakes in running drugs and guns up to Canada. You ought to ask for a raise.”

  I rolled my eyes. He'd showed his hand, and it didn't scare me. Not when he was just spouting crap with no teeth.

  The bite will come, I thought. I just didn't know how.

  My mind was reeling. The venom coursing through my veins stirred red hot anger. Was this what he wanted? Blind rage to make me screw up and let something juicy slip?

  “Yeah, asshole?” I tried to say it calmly. “If you're so sure about them, then why don't you have the whole club in jail already?”

  “We need some hard evidence. The men you work for are very good at covering their tracks. Plenty of contacts and corruption in the local police means they can kill, deal, and sew terror without paying for it. How else do you think they've gotten away with the insane body count they've racked up?”

  I gritted my teeth. “You don't understand. They've never killed an innocent person to my knowledge. Only thugs who deserve it.”

  I thought about Maverick's old lady June, and Saffron too. Any of those girls would've spat in my cousin's face if they didn't gouge out his eyes first. The MC saved their lives.

  They've proven themselves to me too, despite my early doubts and the souring with Tank. Before, I was pissed digesting his words, but now I was getting irate.

  Jerking up, I knocked the tall glass to the floor. It fell with a loud thud, nearly shattering on the spot. Mark got up, walked over, and picked it up, studying the gaping crack in the side.

  “Hm. Butterfingers.” He raised his eyebrows, turning it over in his hands before he sat it on the banister just an inch from my hand. “Who knew you'd grow up to be such a clumsy, stupid bitch?”

  I gasped. He kept coming, and I stepped back, running out of space after a few more steps. He must've seen me balling up a fist. He was cornering me, forcing me against the wooden enclosure around my porch.

  I didn't care who the hell he was: cousin, ATF Special Agent, asshole! The way he moved his hand in his jacket, pushing the fabric aside, on the other hand...

  My eyes landed on the gun in the holster near his hip. He tapped it with his pointer finger, deliberate and dangerous. Fear joined the anger bristling in my blood.

  “Don't make me call for backup or do something really fucking crazy, cuz. I don't want anybody here getting hurt. That's the point of all this. I'm trying to help you help your stupid self.”

  “Help me what? What do you want?”

  “Your cooperation.” His face was like stone, frigid and merciless. “I could've taken this shit into my own hands and raided their clubhouse while you were there. Could've hauled you off to prison and blocked Aunt Mavis' calls while she screamed at me to bail your ass out. But that would've been the hard way. I'm offering you a chance to keep yourself out of this, and your momma too. All in exchange for getting me what I need to nail the Devils to the wall.”

  “I'm not doing shit for you! Even if I wanted to, do you think these guys will beat down my door to spill their guts about all the dirty things they've done? It's a brotherhood, cousin. What they say stays with them, and nobody else. If you weren't so fucking stupid and judgmental, you'd know that. You'd know they're brothers...”

  He nodded briskly. “Stupid, huh? Yeah, I must be quite a retard to have your whole history in my file. That transaction report about your big bad loans? Just the beginning. I'm going to get that evidence one way or another, cuz. If you don't help me out, then one of those fuckers will slip up or kill somebody out in the open before they can bury the evidence. It's just a matter of time.”

  My breaths were coming slower, shallower, ragged. Despite the cool, crisp autumn air, I couldn't get enough oxygen with him so close, smothering everything. I reached out, no longer thinking about the gun, and pushed against his chest as hard as I could.

  “Get the fuck away from me!”

  Surprised, he stumbled backward. When he steadied himself, he started to laugh. Jesus, was this really the same boy who used to giggle while me and my other cousins played hide and seek? What the hell happened?

  “Just keep fucking with me, Emma. I'll make sure you exchange those baby blue scrubs for some bright orange. You know the women's prisons out here are horseshit. Nothing but junkies and girls who chopped off their hubbies dicks after taking one too many busted lips. Hope you're staying single. Because by the time you come out, chewed up and fucked, no sane man'll ever want anything to do with you.”

  I shook my head. If only a nod or a few tears would open up a hole and make him disappear. I pinched my eyes closed and saw scarlet red. When I opened them again, he was closer, looming over me, one hand on the banister next to me.

  “I'll give you tonight to do some real hard thinking. We'll see if you can make a smart choice for once in your shitty life. If I have to put you behind bars with your nasty fucking bosses, I will, and I'll tell Aunt Mavis exactly why well before the trial. Think it over.”

  I couldn't help it. I broke down and started to cry. There was nothing worse – nothing – than imagining my mother's heartbreak when she found out I was working for a motorcycle gang. I was supposed to be the good daughter, the well educated nurse who'd gone to college and came out a pro, not reduced to working retail or stripping like my sister Katie.

  Wherever the hell she was. Mom sent her packing when she found out sis was doing drugs and working at the old Grizzlies' strip club, the Dirty Diamond. I was grateful she was gone. At least asshole Mark went after me to poach bikers, and not my little sis.

  “Think hard, Emma,” he said again, gradually moving away. “Give me a call when you've made up your mind. Oh, and don't get any bright ideas about tipping off your friends. The penalties for interfering with a federal investigation on a domestic terror group are brutal, I'm told. Hope you wisen up and help me serve some justice.”

  He pulled a business card out of his wallet and stuck it in a crack on the old banister. Then he began to go, walking toward his car in the distant shadows.

  “I don't care what you want, asshole!” I yelled after him. “Don't come near me again. I'll come to you.”

  Would I? He'd made his threats perfectly clear.

  One thing was certain: any man who showed up to torment family was capable of anything.

  I stood on the porch, waiting for him to go. I was so focused on watching him get into his car I didn't see the huge shadow stepping out until it was too late.

  Tank was the worst person in the world I could've seen just then, and the bastard also picked the worst possible time. My heart thumped against my ribs and I went off, trying to escape him with a warning, sick to death at all my nightmares rampaging onto my doorstep.

  When that didn't work, I beamed hot death and laid into him. I told him all the sick, fucked up, poisonous things I'd wanted to say since I found out he was fucking a whore. I was absolutely done being torn up and abused by other assholes.

  Tank, the club, cousin Mark...

  The last one had his claws in me from the very start. He didn't wait to lay in, using me without any disguises.

  Damned if I was going to let anybody else shred me on my way to disgrace or prison or God only knew what. I turned around, and told the asshole squeezing my arm exactly what would happen. I seized the one thing I could control and let him have it, forecasting the whole miserable future, the one that would never, ever include him.

  I am not your girlfriend. I'm not your co-worker. I'm not even your friend. And I'll sure as hell never be your old lady.

  The words echoed in my head long after he gave me that look like I'd just shot him in the chest.

  Good. Now he understood what he did to me, exactly why I never wanted to see his stupid cheating face around here again.

  He took off, leaving me alone. I crashed to the ground, slumping with my han
ds on my face. My practical side wondered if I was going to have a stroke.

  Outside, his motorcycle blasted to life, tearing through the darkness like a thundering wraith.

  “Fuck!”

  I was alone. So totally screwed and alone, facing a doomsday decision that meant the end of the life I knew no matter where it lead.

  Play along. Play stupid. Play him.

  The words were rolling around in my head when I cracked my eyes open. I couldn't have slept more than two hours the whole night, and now I had a full shift ahead at the hospital.

  I was sore, every muscle ringing with pain. None of it worse than the heartache Tank's visit left behind.

  Shaking, I reached for my phone near the bed. The water bottle was next. I stared at my phone while I pumped cool nourishment into my system, fighting the hangover pounding in my temples. My stomach growled.

  Burning. Empty. Pissed off.

  I ran for the bathroom. Every nurse knows that nausea when it hits with no return. Jamming my fingers down my throat, I leaned over the toilet and let loose, spilling bile.

  I let go of everything and collapsed when it was over. Strange that becoming emptier made me feel better.

  My stomach had a couple minutes to rest, and then I sipped more water. Nothing about the shit to come was going to be easy.

  Just like this hangover, I had to force the pain out faster, anything to get it over with. There was no point in prolonging the inevitable. I wasn't a tattle by nature, and I wasn't going to become one now.

  I couldn't rat out the club, but I couldn't let Mark come down like a soulless avalanche. I reached for the phone, squeezing the card he'd given me in my free hand as I punched in the number. It went straight to voicemail.

  “Mark? It's Emma. You're a bastard...but I'll do it. I'll try to get you whatever you need. But I want proof you're granting full immunity.” I paused and swallowed bitterness. “And I need you to take your shit after we're done and get the hell out. Call me. I'll be working six to three today.”