by Jade Kuzma
“You’re talking to one,” he said. “A pledge, anyway.”
“You’re a pledge… Okay… That’s good enough. You need to talk to everybody else in the club.”
“What’s this all about?”
“Did you hear about Amy’s Bakery? Did you hear about the fire?”
“I sure did.”
He looked down and shook his head. He couldn’t hide the disappointment in his voice.
“I loved that place,” he said. “Those donuts were better than anything I’ve ever had in this town.”
“You know they caught the man responsible, right?”
“Responsible? I thought the place blew up on its own.”
“No. It was a man named Graham. He made it look like it blew up on its own but he was behind it.”
“I hope they fry that motherfucker—”
“Look,” I said as I put my hands up. “They caught him and he’s behind bars. You don’t need to worry about him anymore.”
The bald man kept glaring at me with his arms crossed.
“What the fuck does this have to do with anything?”
“I was there when they caught him. I was in his room. I saw the buildings he was targeting. It wasn’t just Amy’s Bakery. He targeted spots that belonged to the Reapers and the Cobras.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you need to tell your club. Tell them that there was a guy out there who was trying to blow up your property, including this facility.”
“There was a guy who was trying to blow up our shit. You just said he’s behind bars.”
“Right…”
How the hell do I explain this?
He was getting more impatient as he waited for an explanation. I couldn’t tell him that I had a gut feeling about it. That wouldn’t make any sense. The guy already looked like he wanted to squeeze my neck off of my head.
“He wasn’t alone,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“There’s no way a guy like him could have tried an operation like this all by himself. That’s way too many explosives. And he was so sloppy that he got caught. Look…”
I took a step toward the Cobra with my hands in the air, trying to look as harmless as possible.
“…Just talk to your club,” I said. “Tell them to be on the lookout for anything suspicious. Tell them to watch their backs.”
“We’re always watching our backs.”
“…I guess you’ve got a point.”
I looked back at the storage facility and realized there wasn’t much more I could do.
“All right,” I said. “That’s it.”
I started walking away when he called out to me.
“Hey!”
“What?” I said as I turned around.
“How do I know this isn’t some trick? How do I know you’re not just trying to spook our club and have us on edge? With the feds in town, you know shit is already getting serious.”
“…You don’t know. You just have to take my word.”
“I’ll never take the word of a Reaper. The only club that matters is this patch right here.”
He tapped the patch on his kutte proudly. I sighed as I started walking away, knowing there wasn’t much more I could do.
I wasn’t any closer to getting any leads and I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off.
I felt the Cobra’s eyes on me as I started walking away. I kept moving until I eventually got back to my bike. Even from so far away, the Cobra still stood there with his arms crossed and his eyes locked on me. I revved my engine to get ready to leave.
“Asshole,” I muttered to myself.
I didn’t have much else planned for the evening. The only thing left for me to do was head back to the clubhouse.
And then there was Gina.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone. I sent her a message.
“What’s up? Busy?”
She responded a few seconds later.
“Not really. Just finishing with Lydia. You?”
“I don’t got shit planned tonight. You feel like hanging out?”
“I’ll be ready and waiting at my apartment. :)”
I smiled at the thought of it. I was just about to tuck my phone away when a picture followed. It was a selfie of Gina with her shirt and bra raised. Seeing her topless made me forget about everything else that was on my mind.
I couldn’t fucking wait.
I started to drive off when I noticed something strange. I looked out into the parking lot of the facility in the distance. There was another car there. A red pickup truck. And there was someone inside of it.
“What the…”
I narrowed my eyes, trying to see the person inside. Even though I was so far away, I swore that they were looking back at me.
Without warning, the truck started. It backed out of the parking lot and immediately started driving down the street.
“Shit.”
I revved my engine and peeled off down the street. That’s when I heard it.
Boom.
I’d been in war zones I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemies. But nothing was as loud as the sudden explosion behind me.
I nearly fell off my bike as I slammed on the brakes. I turned around and saw the facility up in flames.
“Holy shit…”
My eyes wide and my mouth half-open, I shook my head as I regained my senses. I looked down the street and saw the pickup truck continuing to disappear down the road. But I knew I couldn’t follow him.
I raced back to the facility parking lot. The warehouse was a giant ball of fire.
I saw the Cobra I was just talking to lying on the ground. The blast must have knocked him unconscious and sent him flying.
“Come on… You’re all right…”
I turned him over onto his back and checked his pulse. It was still there. He was barely breathing but his eyes were closed.
“Freeze! Don’t move!”
I was so distracted by trying to deal with the Cobra, I didn’t hear the police sirens.
I looked up and saw a cop pointing his gun at me.
“Keep your hands where I can see ‘em! Now!”
His eyes widened the same as mine when we both recognized each other.
“Dorian? Dorian, what the fuck are you doing here?”
“Sheriff Sutton…”
I tried to search for an explanation for the old cop. But what the hell was I going to say to him?
I saw a pickup truck and the next thing I knew, the whole warehouse exploded. That shit sounded unbelievable when I said it in my head. There was no way Sutton was going to believe me.
“I can explain,” I said as I put my hands up. “It wasn’t me.”
“What are you doing here, Dorian?”
“It wasn’t me. It was… Shit, it was a guy in a pickup truck.”
“A pickup truck?”
“Yes! A red pickup truck!”
“Did you get his plates?”
“He was too far away.”
Sutton put his gun back in his holster and rested his hands on his hips.
“I’m gonna have to take you in for questioning,” he said.
“You can’t. If you take me in for questioning, you know Agent Lieberman will do everything she can to paint me as guilty. Plus the Cobras will want to get their hands on me.”
“Then what are you suggesting?”
“Let me go. I’ll find the man responsible for this.”
I pleaded with him. Shit, if the other members saw me trying to bargain with a cop, they would have laughed at me. But this was the one time I had to work with him.
“You’ve gotta trust me,” I said. “I can find the guy who did this shit.”
Sutton sighed as he looked down at the Cobra lying on the floor. He grabbed the radio on his shoulder and started speaking into it.
“This is Sheriff Sutton. I’m at the storage facility on Broadway. I need an ambulance. Now.”
Sutton stopped paying attention to me long enough for me to get to my bike. The sound of sirens filled the air as they approached the facility.
I wouldn’t have much time until everybody started looking for me. The Cobras were out for me. The cops were out for me. My own club would wanna wring my neck for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
With the black smoke billowing into the air, I realized there was only one person I could turn to.
Chapter 17
GINA
I held up the lipstick to my face and stared at the mirror. I hesitated for a moment before putting it back down on my dresser.
“Just a little bit…”
I was so used to putting my makeup on that I thought it was strange that I was thinking twice about it. If this were high school, I would have made sure to put it on before seeing Dorian.
Now… All I could do was smile at my reflection.
I wasn’t in high school anymore. Dorian wasn’t the popular jock that everybody had their eyes on. Now, he was only the man I was sleeping with. I didn’t know if it meant anything but I knew for sure all of the fantasies I had about him when I was younger were just that.
I straightened my top to get it right. Just enough cleavage to get him looking but more than enough to force him to use his use imagination.
“Who am I kidding? He’s gonna see all of it anyway…”
A pair of comfortable jeans completed the ensemble. Now all I had to do was wait for him to show up.
Just as soon as I stepped into my living room there was a knock at my door.
“Just a second,” I sang.
I walked to the door and opened it without looking through the peephole. The smile left my face as soon as I saw the man in uniform standing there.
“Ben?” I said. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Ben Rose was probably the youngest guy on the police force. You could tell just by looking at him. His hair was always combed neatly like it was made of plastic. His face didn’t have any blemishes. He looked like some kind of doll. Lydia and I always joked about how he looked just like a schoolboy, especially in his police uniform.
“Hello, Gina. Do you mind if I talk to you for a second?”
“What’s this all about?”
Ben stopped by the bakery all the time like most of the cops in town. I’d seen his face enough to know that right now was different. The serious look he had wasn’t a joke.
“May I come in?” he asked.
“I…”
Before I could finish, I saw a woman walking up just behind him. She was a stern-looking woman. I knew she was a professional just from the way she walked, so upright and stiff like there was a stick up her ass. The dark pantsuit she wore along with the badge on her hip told me this was even more serious than I thought.
“Hello Miss Newman,” she said. “My name is Jane Lieberman. I’m with a special task force. Officer Rose and I need to speak to you.”
What the hell is going on?
My heart started pumping hard in my chest. The hard-nosed brunette stared at me like she was trying to burn a hole through me. It wasn’t like I could turn them away.
“Yeah… Sure…”
I sighed as I took a step back and let them into my apartment.
“Have a seat, Miss Newman.”
I moved toward my couch. Ben took a seat on the couch across from me while Jane remained standing with her arms crossed.
It had only been a few seconds but I was already waiting for them to leave.
“What’s going on?” I said.
“What’s your relationship to Dorian Sullivan?” Jane asked.
“He’s… He’s just a friend,” I said with a shrug.
“Just a friend?”
“That’s right.”
“How close are you to him?”
She said it so bluntly that I thought she was joking. I turned to Ben to make sure I’d heard her right but he sheepishly nodded to me.
“Just answer the question,” Ben said. “It’s okay.”
“He’s just a friend,” I said. “Just like I said.”
“Just a friend?” Jane asked.
“What business is it to you what my relationship with him is? Do you wanna know if I’m sleeping with him? Is that what you want—”
“It’s all right,” Ben said to calm me down.
I didn’t realize that I’d suddenly got worked up. I sighed a deep breath and shook my head to regain my composure.
“I apologize,” Jane said. “We’re looking for him and we know that you may be involved with him. You’re a person of interest. You understand that, right?”
I already had questions about how they knew that I was involved with Dorian. But that wasn’t the first thing I wanted to know.
“Why are you looking for him?” I asked. “Did something happen?”
“There was an explosion,” Ben said. “In the middle of town. A storage facility. Did you hear it?”
“Yeah… I heard it but I didn’t think anything about it.”
“The warehouse belongs to the Winter Cobras,” Jane explained. “We managed to review the security footage moments before the explosion.”
“And?” I said.
“And Dorian Sullivan was seen in the vicinity.”
“So? That doesn’t mean he was responsible for it. It could have been anybody.”
“Sullivan was the last person the footage caught before the cameras went up in flames with the rest of the warehouse.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
I knew Dorian. There was no way he was responsible for this. But it was clear that Jane had her mind made up already.
“When’s the last time you spoke to him?” she asked.
“Earlier today.”
“Did he tell you what he was doing—”
“Look,” I said. “Dorian caught the guy responsible for setting fire to Amy’s bakery. Now you’re accusing him of blowing up a warehouse because it belongs to another club? You’re gonna need some better evidence than that.”
I’d already made up my mind.
“He’s innocent,” I continued. “There’s no way Dorian is responsible.”
“Miss Newman—”
“There’s no way, okay? If you two don’t have anything else to say to me, then I suggest you leave. There’s nothing left for you here.”
Ben was more than willing to leave my apartment.
“Thanks, Gina,” he said as he got up from his seat.
He headed toward the exit while Jane kept staring at me.
“I’m not saying he’s guilty,” she said. “But he is a suspect. Do the right thing and contact us next time you see him.”
Jane let herself out. I didn’t move even after they were both gone. I just sat there in disbelief about what I’d heard.
My phone vibrating in my pocket broke me out of my trance. I pulled it out and read the message from Dorian.
“Are you okay?”
Seeing the text made me sigh in relief.
“I’m fine,” I responded. “Where are you?”
As soon as I sent my text, there was a knock at my door. I opened it as quickly as I could. Dorian hurried inside and I locked it shut. I wrapped my arms around him and squeezed him tight. I couldn’t help but notice the smell of ash on him.
I finally leaned back and noticed some of the soot on his face.
“They’re looking for you,” I whispered. “That special agent lady—”
“Lieberman. I know. If she’s looking for me, this shit is serious.”
Dorian moved over to my window and cautiously looked through the blinds.
“Dorian, what’s going on? That explosion. They’re saying you’re the one responsible for it.”
“Do you think I’m responsible?”
“No, of course not. But everybody in town heard it. Shit, I didn’t want to think you were near it but I had a bad feeling that you were there…”
�
��I saw him.”
“W-what?” I stuttered.
Dorian rushed up to me and put his hands on my arms.
“I saw the guy who did it,” I said. “He was in a red pickup truck.”
“Who was it?”
“I don’t know. But I know whoever it was in that truck was responsible for what happened. The only other people in the area were me and some Cobra pledge.”
I looked away from Dorian and shook my head. It was all getting so crazy that I wasn’t sure how to wrap my head around it.
“I just have to find that guy,” he said. “Once I find that guy then I can turn him in and things will be…”
I stopped listening to Dorian. It was so insane to think it had gotten to this point.
“Gina?”
He released me from his grip. I turned my back to him and sighed. There was nothing I could do to shake the weight suddenly on my shoulders.
“Gina, what’s wrong?”
“It’s always something with club members,” I sighed. “I should have learned my lesson when Lydia got involved with Brash…”
“What are you saying?”
I slowly turned around and looked at Dorian. I stared into his eyes and I didn’t see what I used to see.
He wasn’t the hot stud from high school. He was the homecoming king or the star quarterback. But he wasn’t the heroic firefighter or Black Reaper either.
All I could see now was a man with so much going on. So much that I wasn’t sure I wanted to deal with any of it.
“I’ve been through enough bullshit and drama,” I said. “I don’t know if I can do this.”
Dorian sighed and looked away from me. He nodded softly. I could see the hurt in his eyes that told me he understood.
“The cops are looking for me,” he said. “Sutton let me go because I told him I would find the man responsible. Lieberman’s on my case, too. There’s no telling what the Cobras will do to me if they find me first.”
“Shoot first, ask questions later.”
“That’s right. Garnet probably isn’t too happy after he told me to stay away. And the boys at the fire station… They’re not exactly gonna welcome me with open arms, especially with me being suspended and all…”
I didn’t want to look at him. I knew what he was gonna say but I didn’t want to hear it.
“Everybody I know in Ivory is gone,” he said. “This isn’t high school. You’re the only person I’ve got left.”