Beard Up

by Lani Lynn Vale

  Not on my street, he didn’t. It was possible that he had some in town, but that was unlikely, too. This was Dixie Warden territory. Nobody fucked up in their territory and lived to tell about it.

  And despite Mina’s husband being dead, she still belonged to the MC and always would.

  Doubly so, if you thought about me being a part of the Dixie Wardens in two different lives.

  He finally turned, and I got a load of his eyes.

  They were harder, a little less scared of me this time, and I didn’t like that. Didn’t like that he thought he didn’t need to fear me any longer.

  “I had questions,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest. “Why would a man be so adamant that some other man move out of the neighborhood so a woman didn’t get pursued by him, unless that man had some sort of attachment to said woman?”

  I didn’t like where this line of questioning was headed.

  Not even a little bit.

  “I started doing some digging,” he grinned. “I’ve had a month to really think hard about this, and I think I figured it out.”

  I knew he knew who I was before he said what he said next.

  “See, I was a lowly soldier on the Morrison’s totem pole when their son died,” he continued, staring at my face to see if I was reacting to what he was saying.

  But I wouldn’t give him that.

  Not in a million years.

  “Their son was about your size, less muscle, though, and had these fucked up green eyes…kind of like yours,” he grinned. “But he was a cop, so I stayed the fuck away from him when I saw him in town. Always turned the other way. I always wondered how the hell a couple like the Morrisons could allow their son to be a LEO—a law enforcement officer—when they did what they did. But I didn’t say anything, because if I had, they’d see me as using my brain and thinking independently from what they wanted. So, I chose to keep my trap shut…then, one day, their beloved son dies.”

  His smile was lazy. As if he had all the time in the world to form what he was saying into a nice pretty package and wrap it up with a fucking bow on top.

  “Well, he doesn’t die. Not really. Because I’m there when they bring him back. He’s fucked up, but I don’t really care about staying away from him anymore. He’s too sick. Too fucking weak to hurt me or my operations now. So I do my job, guard him and the other men that the Morrisons are—erm—using, and go home at night to my side jobs.”

  “Your women?” I ask. “The wives that you marry and then kill?”

  He smiled pleasantly.

  I wanted to beat the shit out of his face.

  “Yes, as a matter of fact. Them,” he grins. “But that’s neither here nor there. Fast forward a year after the Morrisons’ son dies, and I’m a little higher on the totem pole. I do my jobs, get pats on the back by the big guys, and then go home.” He crosses his arm over his chest, not caring at all that Mina’s directly behind him.

  Within hearing distance if she only opened the door. Me, I felt exposed. I’d never been in her neighborhood like this during daylight hours. Never allowed myself to be seen so openly.

  To be seen was to allow my parents that much more of a leg up, and for right now, they didn’t yet know that their precious baby boy wasn’t dead by their handler’s hand.

  Yet being the operative word.

  “But a little shy of a year, their son dies by his guard’s hand, and then his guard goes and shoots himself because he fears what his employer might do when they find out that their prized weapon has been killed for not following orders—even though his orders were to detain, but never kill, if necessary,” he paused. “But you, you look so much like their son—their new son—that I did some more digging. I’ve gone over my surveillance, and that night wasn’t the first night I’d seen you. I’d seen you fifty-two other times, on one single camera.”

  My stomach clenched.

  “And I have this nifty face recognition software that has this special ability to focus on the eyes…eyes that look so much like their son’s that I want to shout it from the rooftops that their sweet baby boy isn’t dead after all…and guess who that man is…it’s you.”

  I shook my head. “You have no clue who I am, and I’m not their kid.”

  My body locked, and I stared with no expression at all betraying my thoughts.

  He didn’t say anything, so I kept going.

  “You have no fucking clue who you’re dealing with,” I told him bluntly.

  He shrugged, as if he didn’t have a care in the world. “You let me have her, and I’ll think about not telling them.”

  I ignored his words.

  “Go home or I’ll drop you like the piece of shit that you are right here in the middle of her yard.”

  He grinned.

  But he got in his car and drove away.

  I watched him go, and then looked across the road at Lynn who was standing there, watching the entire altercation from his front porch.

  He gestured with his head for me to follow him and then disappeared inside of his house.

  Giving one last glance at Mina’s front door, which was still shut tight along with every curtain pulled, I walked across the road. Straight into a nightmare.

  ***

  “Listen,” my boss, the head of the FBI in our region, growled. “This is big. I realize that you want to keep her safe, but…”

  “It’s my kid and my wife,” I said bluntly. “Would you allow your wife and kid to fall into the hands of a serial killer? A man who we both know is beyond fucked up in the head? He’s been working with my parents. He fuckin’ knew who I was, or thinks he knows, so he went to them because he’s a spiteful little asshole and wanted his candy that I took away from him. This could be dangerous for them.”

  My boss, a fucking chameleon if I’d ever seen one, was tall, muscular, and built like a runner. That was the only thing I could ever tell about him at any one given time. Sometimes he appeared old to me, while to others he appeared to be the same age. It was like he changed from day-to-day, and I had a feeling that it had a lot to do with what he did for the FBI as well as his other hobbies, not that I knew what those were. He was one of the smartest men I knew, and I’d follow him into hell if he asked me to…which was what he was asking me to do.

  “The only way I see this working out is if you decide to stop pussyfooting around, nab this guy, and get him to testify against your parents. That’s the fastest way out of this. But, for that to happen, you need to let him hang around for a bit. Two birds, one stone. You let him hang, but watch his every move, and wait for him to mole himself deeper into the organization, let him think his threat worked, then bust his ass. He’ll plead a deal, and we’ll get the information on your parents…information that we desperately need.” He paused. “We’ve been working this case for six years now, and although we are closer to nailing them, we’re not close enough to shut the operation down any time soon. They’re too careful. Too high profile to kill…just think about that.”

  And that was how I ended up being at a bar in the middle of Chinatown, thinking about what Lynn had said.

  He was right, of course. Though I didn’t want to admit it, he was so right that it hurt.

  I had to let this happen. I had to allow this man, this piece of shit that I knew was embedded in deep with my parents, get closer to Mina and my child. But in doing that, I’d hopefully be able to nail my parents down once I gave Josh the boot. Then maybe, just maybe, I’d get to have my life back. I’d get to have my wife and kid. I’d get to move back home and be happy again.

  Maybe…

  ***

  Mina

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuckity. Fuck. Fuck.

  That was about all my brain could process as I watched Josh stroll up the front walk of my yard as if he owned the place.

  I quickly backpedaled from the door as if a serpent were readying to strike.

  I looked behind me at Sienna, who was playing quietly
on her iPad, and then looked back at the door.

  “Sienna, honey,” I called out. “Go to your room and shut the door please. Someone’s here.”

  She looked up at me, comprehension in her eyes, and then nodded dutifully.

  That was my girl. Always following my orders no matter how much she didn’t want to.

  Though, I had a feeling that had a lot more to do with the fact that she was so much like her dad—a dutiful soldier who was willing to do anything for the greater good. If she were like me, she’d question absolutely everything and rebel against any sort of authority that was imposed over her.

  Sienna’s bedroom door closed just as I heard the first knock.

  I didn’t answer it.

  I couldn’t and wouldn’t answer it.

  Or, at least, I wouldn’t have had he not given me any other option.

  When it came to the safety of your child, you’d do absolutely everything in your power to protect them. Even date the crazy guy who was blackmailing you with everything you held dear.

  Chapter 9

  Don’t tell me you miss me. Tell me you’re outside with cupcakes.

  -Actions speak louder than words

  Ghost

  “I need to borrow your wife.”

  Jessie James stared at me like I’d grown a second head.

  “For what?”

  Ellen started to snicker from her perch on the counter. She had her child, Lydia, in her arms, snuggled up to her chest.

  My heart started to race as I saw the tiny outfit that she was wearing.

  My own daughter had that exact same outfit on the day she’d come home from the hospital. I remembered that day so clearly that it was embedded in the forefront of my brain. Fuck.

  ***

  Her entire body fit into my two hands.

  She was small. So fuckin’ small.

  “She’s so tiny,” I murmured softly. “She looks like a fuckin’ doll.”

  I clenched my thighs together and laid her down in the middle of them. She fit perfectly, her tiny baby feet scrunched up close to her body.

  One of them moved and jabbed me in the belly, and I idly wondered if that was what my wife felt when the baby moved inside of her.

  My hands looked like mammoths when I reached one finger forward and slowly stroked it down my little girl’s cheek.

  She turned her head, rooting for something I didn’t have, and I smiled.

  “She’s hungry,” I said, looking up at my wife, who was staring at me with so much love in her eyes that I suddenly found it hard to breathe.

  “She just ate,” my wife corrected. “That’s a reflex. It’s to help the baby know what to do when she’s born. She does it automatically when her cheek is stimulated.”

  I grinned.

  “Good to know, Nurse,” I told her playfully.

  She beamed at me.

  “I can’t believe the timing.” She shook her head. “I walked out of that test, and my water broke on the front lawn.”

  She shook her head worriedly.

  “None of your teachers had anything to say about it,” I told her. “And they gave me your grades, no hassle.”

  She widened her eyes at me.

  “Did you show them a picture of the baby?” she questioned.

  I nodded. “I did. They thought she was beautiful.”

  “Now all I have to do is pass the boards, and we’re golden,” she was so excited.

  “I have my first police academy day next Monday. Do you think they’ll care if I bring my baby with me?” I teased. “Because I’m pretty sure this little thing isn’t leaving my sight.”

  She snorted. “Yeah, I’m sure we can find you some tactical baby holder that you can slip on during your hand-to-hand training.”

  Her hair was everywhere, some of it still plastered to her neck from where she’d sweated during the whole fun part of pushing our little girl out, but I’d never seen her look more beautiful than I did right then.

  She rolled her eyes, and I wanted to kiss her.

  “Do you like her outfit?” I asked. “It was the first outfit on top that looked like it matched.”

  She stared down at it, then a grin teased up the corners of her lips.

  “I love it,” she said. “I got it from one of the girls in nursing school and didn’t think that I’d ever get a chance to put it on her because it was a preemie.”

  “Who knew babies came this small and were still healthy?” I questioned my wife.

  “A lot more than you’d think,” she admitted. “Though, ours was a little smaller than most healthy babies. She was four pounds, fifteen ounces. They also expect her to lose some of that over the next week while we establish a nursing routine.”

  I laid my hand over our baby’s chest, felt the rise and fall of her breaths and wondered if life had ever been any more perfect.

  The hot pink flowers on the blue sleeper were adorable against my girl’s lightly tanned skin.

  She had a head full of hair as thick as her mother’s, well, mine too but I prefer to think about her looking like my beautiful wife. There wasn’t a single thing about her that I would change.

  “I love you, Sienna.”

  That was when my woman started to cry.

  I didn’t move from where I was sitting with Sienna in my lap, but I offered her my hand, and we stayed like that for a while, studying our baby’s perfect features.

  Not once did I think that one day, I wouldn’t have this anymore.

  Because if I had, I would’ve cherished it just a little bit more.

  ***

  “You okay, man?”

  I turned to find Jessie staring at me with worry clouding his eyes.

  “My daughter had that same outfit,” I cleared my throat, trying to get the catch in my voice to go the fuck away.

  Jessie looked at his daughter, and his eyes softened. “We got it at the Goodwill,” he murmured. “We couldn’t find any clothes to fit her at any of our department stores.”

  I looked away and changed the subject.

  “Anyway, I need to borrow Ellen,” I repeated my earlier problem. “How much do you know about my old life, Jessie?”

  Jessie shrugged. “Not much, to be honest. I know what you told everyone the night Naomi was hurt. That you had a wife and a kid, but they think you’re dead.”

  I nodded.

  “Here’s the rest of the story.”

  I gave it to him in clinical terms, explaining my life over the last years since my death, not leaving out a single detail. Why? Because this man was going to give me his wife, and I wanted him to know exactly what he was getting into if he agreed to Ellen helping me.

  And, unsurprisingly, Jessie nodded his agreement.

  “What made her say yes to him?” he asked. “That doesn’t sound like something someone like her would do.”

  I gritted my teeth.

  “He threatened to have Sienna taken away from her due to negligence on her part,” I said.

  “How do you know?” Ellen asked.

  “Camera feed,” I answered. “We have her house under surveillance. Everything he says or does when he’s over there will be recorded. Not to mention that, when we go to the game today, and I sit close to her, I’ll hear their entire conversation because of the wire I’ll be wearing.”

  Jessie nodded as if he understood.

  “Good luck getting her to shut up during that game, though.” Jessie grinned. “She hates baseball.”

  ***

  “I don’t hate baseball,” Ellen said two hours later. “I just highly dislike boring stuff. But if the game is good, then I should be fine.”

  They were losing by twelve runs at the end of the fourth inning.

  Ellen, surprisingly, wasn’t anywhere near as annoying as Jessie made her out to be, though.

  She was cute in a little sister kind of way, and the feeling made a pang of misery roll through me.

&
nbsp; I hadn’t just left my daughter and wife. I’d also left behind my sister.

  Though, she was doing a hell of a lot better now that she was out of my parents’ lives.

  After a time, my sister had finally seen the light. Though, I hated how she’d seen the light when it came to my parents.

  Audrey had been walking to her car after work when she’d been assaulted, and later raped, by a man in the parking lot. At the time, everyone had thought it was a random act of violence, but after doing some digging around, I found out that it had not been random, but it did have to do with my parents.

  That hadn’t been the rapist’s cover story. He’d deliberately made her think that it had something to do with a member of the MC’s wife when, in reality, that had just been a seed that was planted to steer the blame away from him.

  Audrey had been treated like the prodigal child by my parents. She was their cover. She was essential to keeping up their appearance of ‘normal.’ And they’d have done anything, absolutely anything, including having their only daughter get raped, to protect themselves from getting burned when the fire got too hot.

  When my parents were being investigated too closely by the FBI, as well as local police, to get the attention shifted away from them, they set one of their own soldiers on my sister and had him rough her up. They didn’t care how he did it, but the soldier decided to take it a little further than just ‘roughing her up.’

  He had done some digging and had found out that one of Audrey’s co-workers, a club member’s wife, was having trouble at the time. He’d used her as cover for what he’d done, deflecting what his true intentions were.

  My parents hadn’t cared. It hadn’t bothered them at all. It actually had worked in their favor, and it even got the local police to back off of them long enough for them to establish some boundaries between them.

  Meanwhile, my sister couldn’t even go out of her house without having a panic attack.

  Which was why I’d moved her a little closer to me. Though she didn’t know it was me behind it nor did she know she was closer to me. All she knew was that she was offered a damn good job two towns over from my new home in Mooresville, Alabama. She loved it here, and the small town offered her the security that she needed to move on with her life.