by J. L. Drake
“Hard not to be.” He seemed to settle and become Brick again.
It wasn’t the only attempt my father made to ensure I was a man. There were many times I’d woken up to find some random chick in my bedroom or my living room. After a while, I just gave in. It was easier.
We both sat for a bit to let the details of my jacked-up childhood sink in. I knew Brick’s was anything but perfect, but it was far from my nightmare.
“You think Tess is all right?”
Her name did odd things to my head. My sense of control was lost when she wasn’t near. It seriously fucked with my demons.
Brick ran a hand through his hair and dropped his head as reality came crashing down around us. He stayed silent, both of us mulling through our thoughts, wondering if she and Gus were alive.
“Did Tess tell you why she disappeared on me for those six years?”
I didn’t answer, which gave him all he needed to know.
“Did it involve Clark?”
Again, I remained quiet, it wasn’t my secret to tell.
“I knew I should have killed him years ago.”
I agreed with that one. “She didn’t want you to know.” I rolled my head to look at him, and his jaw ticked as he processed the little bit he knew. “I don’t share what I want to handle myself, but you are the one I trust.”
Brick gave a quick nod, careful to hold back his emotion, which I was thankful for.
After about five minutes, he dropped his head. “I need to get out of here.”
“We will. Just need to find another angle.”
***
Tess
“What happened?” Morgan pointed at my bandaged leg but kept his eyes on the road. We were in a huge pickup truck he’d borrowed. He explained a bike wasn’t smart, as we needed to blend with the rest of the traffic. Really, I knew Trigger would flip if I rode on another man’s bike, regardless of the situation.
“When I was swimming, something snagged my leg.” I shrugged. “Nothing that won’t heal in time.”
“Anything else?”
“Not really, nothin’ physical, anyway.” I really didn’t want any sort of pity that should be saved for Gus. “Is Trigger okay in jail?”
Morgan smirked. “Trigger pretty much runs that prison at this point. Motorcycle clubs have a lot of pull in there. Once he dealt with Rail’s problem, they let him be.”
“What happened to Rail?”
“Ha!” Morgan covered his mouth with his arm. “Rail is prime meat in jail, which is why he got to bunk with Brick.” He laughed again. “I feel for Trig. Rail can be a handful in those situations.”
“You’ve been in jail with Rail?” Now I was curious.
“A few times. He’s the worst to share a cell with. He’s a sleep talker. We did as little time as we could, and obviously, we always got out.”
“How did you?” My stomach twisted with hope.
“There’s always someone who will take the fall. You just need to figure out who. However, we don’t have much time. Once the judge pronounces sentence, it could take months to get things overturned.”
My nose scrunched at the thought, and the word months sent a chill through me. I pushed it aside and focused on the other part that kind of bothered me. “So, you’d put away innocent people?”
“None of us are innocent, Tess. The sooner you see that, the better off you’ll be.”
I shifted so my head rested against the glass. “I think we can find another way.”
Morgan glanced at me sideways. “If you can, I’ll buy you a bike myself.”
I smiled a little. “Is that a challenge, Captain?” I couldn’t help but let him know I knew the truth about his name.
“I believe it is, Tiger.” He dismissed my acknowledgment.
We stayed quiet for the rest of the ride, both of us running through multiple options to get the guys out. It wasn’t until we hit the driveway of the club that I felt safe again. I was home. I hopped out of the truck and hurried inside.
“Holy shit!” Minnie squealed from behind the bar as she raced over and nearly picked me right up off the floor. “How? Oh, my God! How are you here?”
“Gus,” I whispered. When I heard Fin race into the room, I didn’t have time to think before…
“Tess!” His little voice jumped to a high pitch as he ran as fast as he could and leapt into my arms. “Yes!” His head buried into my neck. “You’re here!”
“Oh, Fin!” I ate up every moment that little boy gave me. I hugged him for me, and I triple hugged him for Gus. “I missed you so much!”
He sniffed and tightened his grip around my neck. “Never leave me again!”
“I’m sorry, little guy. I won’t.” I was hit from behind, and a pair of small arms wrapped around my stomach.
“You’re back!”
“Hey, Denton,” I purred as I held onto his hands. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” he said, squeezing me a little tighter. “You bring Dad home?”
I wanted to cry, sob like a child and scream at the world that it wasn’t fair for me to be here and not him.
“He, ah…” I cleared the emotion that clogged my throat. The last thing these boys needed was to see me break down. “He had to stay back and handle a few things for Uncle Trigger. But he sends me with hugs!”
They didn’t say anything. I thought they knew the truth, but they didn’t show their fear. Instead, they told me they were hungry. Good, something I could actually do for them.
“Nice to see you back, Tess.” Big Joe gave me a friendly slap on the shoulder as I whisked through the bar. “You all good?”
“I feel like I need an I’m good sign,” I joked as I walked backward.
“It would help.” He winked. “Happy, though.”
“Thanks.”
After I got the boys fed and had a much-needed shower, I pulled my laptop free and blew the dust off the top. The curser blinked at me as my head spun with a million different what-ifs. The big one was “what if Trigger doesn’t get released?” Could I really be me without him? I pushed that dark thought out of my head and clicked on the USB drive I had saved in my Drop Box.
“Please work.” I clicked on the Skeleton Key file, and a million different numbers came up.
0111
0112
0113
“Shit.” I didn’t know what they meant. The others I had viewed earlier had been videos, but this was the only one that had only numbers.
“What do you mean?” I muttered to myself as I started to copy and paste it into a Word document to show Morgan later. Then a box popped up for a password.
I stopped and thought. Click by click I tried to recall what Jace had said.
Green Bay
Green Day
Green Way
Each time, it turned red, indicating I was incorrect. Shit. I closed my eyes and tried to recall what he’d said by using Savi’s technique.
I’m there in the rain, Jace is a foot away from my face. His lips are moving, but I can’t hear him.
Stop. Back up. What could I pull from that memory? The smell of rain, the wind battering my hair into knots, and Jace speaking.
Come on!
Jace’s lips are moving, but where’s the sound? Come on, dammit!
Bend.
That’s it!
Green Bend!
It took me two tries to type the words in the tiny box, but the moment I hit enter, everything came to a standstill.
“Holy shit.” I slammed the laptop closed and raced out of my room.
“Do you need anything, Tess?” Cooper called out from the pool table.
“No, thanks!” I waved him off as I went down the hallway and stopped at the door at the end.
I carefully knocked twice before I heard Morgan say, “What?”
I pushed open the door and held up my laptop. “I found something.”
At the excitement in my voice, his feet hit the floor with a thud. “What?”
“Th
e night Jace helped me escape, he talked to me about a file called Skeleton Key. I had seen it before, but it was just a series of numbers that didn’t seem to mean anything. But watch.” I opened my laptop and swiveled it in front of him. “When you try to view anything, this password protection box pops up. I thought it was just so no one could change the numbers, but when you type in the password he gave me,” I slowly typed the words Green Bend, “the whole screen flickered to video links.”
“Videos of what?”
I clicked on the third one down, and Morgan shifted to sit closer to me on the bed.
“Well, I’ll be the devil’s bitch. Officer Doyle?”
“Him and the city councilman’s seventeen-year-old daughter.”
“Wow.” He rubbed his head and watched me exit the nasty video. He pointed to one that was highlighted in red. “What’s that one?”
“The ace in our pocket, even without the rest.” I clicked on the link and waited for his reaction. Judge Rothweiler in bed with another man.
“Fuck me, that’s…” He stood and paced the room. “Well, that explains why they were all after you. You hold the skeleton key to the whole fucking city’s secrets.” He shook his head and whispered more to himself. “How were you not killed?”
“Because I had no clue! If Jace hadn’t told me about this, I wouldn’t have known. I think they saw that after a while. Plus, look,” I tapped another file, “I don’t know much about the law, but I would think a video of the prosecuting attorney visiting his nanny at home for a few hours a week between ten p.m. and one a.m. would help us out some. No?”
“Holy fuck, Tess!” He blew out the breath he was holding. “This is huge.”
He suddenly took both hands and clamped down on my shoulders, “Tess, we need to play this carefully.” He stood and quietly closed his door. “You want Trigger to get out, right?”
“Of course.”
“Then you can’t mention a lick of this to anyone.”
“I promise.”
“You can’t just go in with this and demand their freedom. We will be squashed or killed before we could ever use it.”
“Okay, so how?”
“We use our assets.”
“Which are?”
“Your friends.”
Okay…
Morgan’s eyes flashed with something dark, but before I could ask what it was, he grabbed his phone and started to scroll through his contacts. “Shit, okay, let’s do this.” He pressed dial.
***
We were in the corner of Bubba Gump’s restaurant. Morgan wanted a place to meet where we wouldn’t stand out. I failed to mention that Morgan alone stood out loudly most anywhere, but whatever. We needed to focus.
“He’s late.” Morgan strangled the neck of his beer. “Is he normally late?”
“I trust him, and most of all, Trigger trusts him, therefore you should.” My voice failed to match my words. Truth be told, I was scared shitless if this backfired. What if we poked the devil from behind a little too hard? And I didn’t mean just Allen. I meant all the shit we could unleash on the high and mighty of West LA.
“Light post, by the door,” I quietly said to Morgan as I nodded with my chin at Mike, who had a phone to his ear. He was in jeans and an Under Armour shirt with a hat pulled down to hide his eyes. At first glance, he appeared to be like any other man, perhaps here to have dinner with his family, but he was really here to help us deliver the first blow.
“Jesus Christ,” Mike rubbed his bottom lip, “the magnitude of information embedded on this flash drive is unbelievable.” He leaned back and covered his face with his hand.
“I know this is a lot to ask, Mike, but I have no one else to turn to.” I glanced at Morgan before I took a seat across the table from him. I really needed to make my case here.
“You protect the good from the bad, and this is what we’re doing here. Well, in a way, we are. Things are not only black and white, but black and white and gray. We’re dealing with high-placed political people, here, people who are well-respected in the community, but they are the ones in the wrong. I know there will be consequences.” I reached out and rested my hand on his arm. “We both know if Trigger committed those murders he would’ve owned up to it, but we know he didn’t do it. I know he doesn’t have the best track record, but he does not deserve to be in prison for life for murders he didn’t commit. Nor do Brick or Rail. Please, Mike, please help me get them back.”
“It’s not safe, Tess. This is seriously dangerous shit.”
I gave him a dark smirk. “Do I look like I play it safe?”
He chuckled softly. “I think you need to meet Lexi.”
“I’ve heard great things about her.” I grinned and knew he was in.
“Okay, tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.”
The door to Bubba Gump’s opened, and in walked an overweight, badly dressed Judge Rothweiler.
“Fuck me, I hate that man. He’s put me away twice.” A gleam in Morgan’s eye told me he was more than ready to do this. “Now, this is gonna’ be fun.”
“Judge Rothweiler.” I waved him over and kicked out a chair as a way of telling him to sit the fuck down.
“I was told my wife was here.” He looked around, confused, then eyed Morgan. “Why do I know you?”
“That’s not important right now.” I opened the laptop and pointed it toward the wall. “But this is.”
The judged leaned around to get a better view. I wished we had recorded his expression. His neck turned bright red, the corners of his mouth dropped, and the veins in his neck bulged.
“Where did you get this?”
“I rather like this movie,” I muttered.
“Agreed. Although that just looks painful,” Morgan grunted.
The judge pounded his fist on the table, which made the silverware clink loudly. “Where the hell did you get this?”
“Hush, Judge, you don’t want to draw attention to yourself right now. Do you want your wife and kids to see this?” Morgan sipped his beer. “How is Becky these days?”
Judge Rothweiler jammed a finger in his face. “You even breathe a word about this to her, and I will make sure you are behind bars for the rest of your life.”
“Empty promises,” he sighed.
“What do you want?” The judge glared at me. “You’re a stupid little girl, thinking you can take me down. You are in for a major reality check—”
“Am I?” I clicked on another link of him and his secretary, Greg. He slammed the laptop closed and took a deep breath. His skin had turned a pasty color. “We have a lot more on here, Judge, including the district attorney and her obsession with the chief of police.” I glanced at Morgan. “I’m sure the chief’s wife would love to know who was over for dinner while she was at cards with her girlfriends.”
“Shit,” the Judge rubbed the sweat from above his lip. “If this gets unleashed to the media, it would bring total chaos to this city. I was supposed to be meeting my wife for an early dinner.” He seemed a million miles away.
“And I just want my family back.”
He shook his head as if to clear it. “Family?” He let out a belly laugh. “You mean those tattooed monsters.”
I stood and leaned over the table so I was inches from his sweaty, fat face. “We’re all monsters inside, now, aren’t we, Judge?”
“You can’t blackmail me. I don’t work that way!”
Morgan chuckled, which turned into a cough. We knew the judge had done many favors for many people, so he was living yet another lie. I started to grow impatient.
“Release the following three men, and I’ll shelve this. You don’t, and the messenger outside your wife’s office will hand deliver it to her for us. Your Greg is kind of handsome at that angle, don’t you think?” I enlarged the picture a little. “I think your wife might disagree, though.” I showed him a photo on my phone of Dell holding a package outside her office. “Your choice, Judge.”
“No,” he whispered.
/>
“Once that is done, we will move on to Greg’s wife and teenaged kids.”
“You’d be ruining whole families,” he sputtered.
“That’s rich, coming from you.”
“You are a monster!”
I grinned proudly. “You have no idea.” I handed him a paper with the list of the guys’ names and the name of the prison. “You have until six o’clock tonight to release them.”
“I can’t pull that off.” He opened the paperwork. “Oh, no way! No one would ever let that happen.”
“No?” I questioned then turned to Morgan. “Jessica gets out of school soon, doesn’t she? That private school in Vegas?”
“Yes, and she usually leaves by the east side gate.”
“Okay!” He held out his arms to make us stop. “Okay! Don’t do anything to her. I’ll handle it.”
“Wise choice.” I slid my laptop off the table. “Oh, Judge?” I waited for his pale face to turn to me. “This better be handled quietly.”
Morgan and I walked out, leaving him to come to terms with the enormity of what we had on him. Mike gave me a nod to make sure I was okay, so I smiled and waved that everything was fine. He would stay and make sure the judge didn’t make any unnecessary calls.
Morgan jumped in the driver’s seat and drum-rolled the steering wheel.
“Whoo!” he shouted. “Fuck me, I wish Trigger was here to see you! Damn, girl, you are all kinds of badass!”
“Thanks.” I swallowed hard, as I was just realizing the extent of the power we held. Badass or not, it was fucking scary as hell.
“Chick or not, you should be patched in!”
***
Allen
Ring!
Ring!
Ring!
“Who the hell is calling me?” I felt around my bed and under the sheets, until I couldn’t take it anymore and ripped the charger from the wall and finally felt the weight of the ringing contraption.
“What?”
“Mr. Vineyard,” his voice purred through the phone like a lion circling its prey, “is that any way to answer your phone?
Shit.
“Been a rough night, Mac. What can I do for you?” I flipped on the light above my bed.