They parked in front of the house when they reached the farm, and Ghost got his first good look at Roman.
He looked terrible, thin and bedraggled. Back at Halloween, he’d been as fit and muscular as Ghost – well, almost, he’d never been the boxer that Ghost was – but now he seemed almost gaunt, a scarecrow draped in filthy clothes. And he smelled. Like spilled beer, and BO, and cigarettes.
He patted his jeans pocket. “You got a smoke?” he asked Ghost. “I smoked my last one at the school.”
Ghost gave him one, and his lighter. He was pissed to see him again, to see the trouble he’d brought with him, but he found he couldn’t hate him, not when he looked so pitiful. “What’s going on, Roman?” he asked, with less heat than he’d intended to use.
Maggie leaned against the side of her car, arms folded, not even pretending not to listen. They were a team now; she knew what he knew, and damn club etiquette.
“Why are you here, Roman?” Ghost asked.
Roman took short, hard puffs on the cigarette, working it down to the filter and flicking it away.
Ghost walked over to ground it out with his boot. “Tryin’ to set my field on fire?”
“Okay, it’s bad,” Roman said on a gusty sigh.
“What is?” Maggie asked.
“The whole underworld’s gone crazy. The Ryders. The Gonzales brothers. Every dealer within two-hundred miles. All of ‘em want Duane’s head on a pike.”
“I haven’t heard that.”
“Because you don’t hear shit that Duane doesn’t want you to! Don’t you get it? The club’s not plugged in. It’s out of the loop.”
Ghost frowned. He didn’t doubt for a second that Duane was withholding intel from the rest of the club – he spent long hours locked away in his office, poring over ledgers, snapping them shut when anyone poked their head in the door. Couple that with Roman’s shaking hands and stained shirt and wild eyes, and it was a very believable story. But Ghost hated to let Roman think he was so easily swayed.
“How would you know that?”
Roman took a shaky breath and reached to push his hair off his face; when he did, his sleeve bunched up and Ghost caught a glimpse of raw, abraded skin at his wrist. Rope burn. “The Ryders kinda, uh, well, they found me.”
“Shit.”
Maggie swallowed with an audible gulp. “They turned you loose?”
“I, uh…” He flicked a sideways grin that was more of a grimace. “The girl they had looking after me, bringing me food and stuff, took a shine to me. I flirted a little bit. Got her to untie one of my hands.” He shrugged.
“So they’re looking for you,” Ghost said.
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Why’d they keep you alive in the first place?”
“Thought they could work something out with Duane, I guess.”
“Jesus.” Ghost was exhausted, suddenly. “This is a goddamn soap opera.”
“Ghost–” Roman started.
“Shut up. I’m thinking.”
“This kind of thing won’t go away until the Dogs prove they’re the dominant entity around here,” Maggie said, reasonable, calm. He’d turned her into a regular little outlaw.
“Yeah. You stay here,” he said to Roman. “I gotta set some stuff up. This is ending. I’m ending it.”
~*~
“What do you want me to do?” James asked.
Act like the goddamn VP you are, Ghost thought. He said, “I want you to come to a parlay with me. The heads of all the crime families in the area. We’re gonna have a real sit-down with them, and you’re gonna act as Lean Dogs president.”
James set his glass of sweet tea down slowly, shooting Ghost a raised-brow look. His voice was infuriatingly calm. “I’d like to remind you that we already have a president.”
Stella’s was packed with its usual lunch crowd, and no one was paying them any attention. Still, Ghost lowered his voice another notch. “And I’d like to remind you that he’s a piece of shit. This town’s a powder keg right now.” One growing hotter every day beneath the surface. The laughing, chatting café patrons around them had no idea. One day they’d wake to the news that a gunfight had erupted in one of their neighborhoods, and they’d wonder where this “new” criminal element came from – when it had been growing quietly in the shadows all along.
“This is Knoxville, James, not Oakland. I don’t want this turning into some kinda California gang city. We need to get a handle on this now, and we can’t do that with Duane.”
James was expressionless, spearing pasta with his fork. “What do you propose we do about him, then?”
Ghost took a deep, unsteady breath. “Vote him out. Take his patches.”
“You don’t sound too sure about that.”
“Oh trust me, I am.”
James chewed, eyes steady on Ghost’s face. When he swallowed, he said, “I don’t know if the boys will take your word for it.”
“No, but they’ll take yours. Just like they accept it if you make me your VP.”
“That’s what I’m doing, then?”
“Yeah. That’s what you’re doing.”
~*~
“I don’t think that’s necessary.”
“I think it is,” Ghost said, more viciously than he’d intended. He was buzzing with nerves, and more concerned about Mags and Aidan than he should have been – he acknowledged that, but it didn’t mean he could change the way he felt.
Maggie sat down on the edge of the bed, beside the arsenal he’d laid out and was methodically strapping to his person. “I’m armed. And dangerous now,” she teased. “We’ll be okay here.”
He settled his .45 into his shoulder holster. “You just don’t wanna spend all night with Bonita, huh?”
She groaned. “Not really.”
“There’s safety in numbers, babe. I don’t want to take any chances. And it’s only one night.”
Her smile was tight. “Yeah.”
“It’ll be fine.”
“Yeah.” She didn’t sound convinced.
“Just to be sure…”
She leaned down and scrunched up the leg of her jeans, flashing her new harness boots…and the knife tucked inside the left one.
“Gun too?” he asked.
It rested on the comforter beside her hip. She patted it. “Gun too.”
He guessed that would have to be good enough.
~*~
It was a cool night, but the air held faint stirrings of spring, the scent of frost replaced by hints of growing grass and pear tree buds. Bonita had screens on the windows in her living room, so she’d cracked the sashes open a few inches to let the freshness in. She didn’t seem at all nervous about a possible security breach, so Maggie decided not to worry about it.
“Does this sort of thing happen a lot?” Maggie asked the room at large.
Bonita, Nell, and Jackie were all tucked comfortably into the wingback chairs around the artfully rustic plank table arranged in the dining area of the large room. They were playing poker, which Maggie didn’t fully understand yet, a pitcher of margaritas and tall blue glasses spread among them. Aidan was watching TV, looking bored and sleepy. Maggie could relate.
“Nah,” Nell said. “Things’ve been pretty quiet around here lately.”
“You showed up just in time for things to get crazy,” Jackie said, with what may or may not have been a pointed look.
Ugh, screw her. Maggie refused to be blamed for the club’s problems. The Lean Dogs were afflicted with a cancer that had been growing slowly but surely, undetected for years, everyone content to live in uproarious debauchery until it all fell down around their ears.
Idiots.
There was a slight chance she was turning into her mother.
The timer dinged in the kitchen.
“Cookies,” Bonita said with relish.
Maggie was the first one out of her chair, grateful to escape their curious/accusatory gazes a moment. “I’ll get them.”
“Gracias, ch
ica.”
Maggie breathed a sigh of relief as she headed around the corner, toward the droning buzzer.
Bonita’s kitchen had a certain Texas flair: bold travertine floors, Mexican tile countertops, walls a deep gold and hung with festive décor. All the appliances were state of the art, including the big six-burner stove…
In front of which stood Duane Teague. Aiming a gun toward her.
~*~
Ghost wanted to throw up. He didn’t, and he thought that was what counted. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, letting it blow out across his dry lips. His heart pounded in his throat, his wrists, his ears, his temples, a tight band of pressure around his head.
Fifteen steps away, inside the designated warehouse, their parlay waited.
Or it might have devolved into a trap at this point; he wouldn’t know until he walked in.
“Second thoughts?” James asked.
Ghost took a deep breath and glanced out across the riverfront, the water glittering like cold jewels in the moonlight. His breath misted, pluming like smoke, but soon the nights would be warm and muggy, the pale glow of the sodium lights alive with moths, the air heavy with the algae tang of the Tennessee River.
He knew the sights and smells and changes of this city better than he knew the lines of his own tattoos. It was a part of his blood. It was his; he felt this in a gut-deep flash of knowledge. Knoxville belonged to him, to his Dogs. No one was going to turn it into a lawless nightmare, not even his own uncle.
“No,” he said, and meant it. “No second thoughts. I’m ready.”
James nodded and they headed inside.
Collier was waiting at the door – the only brother Ghost had trusted with this mission – gun held in a deceptively loose grip. “We ready?” he asked as they approached.
“Yep,” Ghost said, pretending his voice wasn’t tight. He could be as sure as he wanted, but the nerves were still skittering through him, raising unwilling goosebumps down his arms and back.
He thought about Maggie, the last thing she’d said to him when he dropped her off with Bonita and the girls. “You’re gonna be great.” Like he was a kid she was sending off to school to give a presentation. An athlete headed to an important game. Almost silly and shallow on the face of it – great. But it was confident, too. A simple statement for what was, in her eyes, a simple truth: she had every confidence that he would, in fact, do great.
The notion warmed him.
Collier led the way through the propped open door, taking point. Ghost and James walked side-by-side, as equals.
Everyone else was already there: three reps from each of the outlaw organizations in the city. Though “organization” was being generous with some of them.
There were the Ryders, the Gonzales brothers, Molly Love and two reps from her crew. There were faces Ghost didn’t recognize, their expressions uncertain. With a jolt, he realized the Dogs were the celebrities among this crowd, and that they would have to live up to the hype.
“Good evening,” James greeted. He came to stand at the head of the loose circle of outlaws, hands hanging casually at his sides. “I think you all know me.” There were indistinct murmurs among the crowd. “This is my vice president, Ghost. I believe you know him also.”
“Vice president?” one of the Gonzales boys said. “I thought you was the VP, James?”
“Yes, well, the club’s in the midst of a realignment…”
And the meeting started.
~*~
Maggie swallowed, or tried to; her throat wouldn’t work. “Hi, Duane,” she whispered.
“Hi, sweetheart.” His voice was pleasant, light. Completely at odds with the gun pointed at her face. “Sorry to interrupt girls’ night, but I’m gonna need you to come with me.”
She took a deep, shaky breath, heart pounding just beneath her skin. Her thoughts raced: could she run? Would he shoot? Her gun was in her purse in the other room; she hadn’t anticipated using it in the house like this. What did Duane have planned for her? Rape? Murder? He wouldn’t really…would he?
“No,” she said.
He took two long strides around the kitchen island, jamming the gun into her face, smile never faltering. “If you don’t come with me,” he said, pleasant and up-tempo, “and one of those bitches comes in here, I’ll blow her goddamn brains out.”
“Duane…”
His free hand shot out and grabbed hold of her arm, a hard, punishing grip. “Right now. Don’t make a sound.”
Ghost would have told her to fight, she thought. But Aidan was in the next room, and more than any of the women, she wanted to protect him. She couldn’t forgive herself if anything happened to that sweet boy.
“Okay,” she said, following as he manipulated her toward the back door. “Okay, okay.”
She’d always thought of herself as someone who would resist capture, too independent to go along with anyone’s demands like this. But the cold gun barrel pressed between her shoulder blades quieted all her resistance. She marched out the door and into the dark yard ahead of him, trembling.
“Duane,” she tried as they walked around the side of the house. “I don’t know what you–”
“No, you don’t know,” he said. “You don’t know shit. But you’re gonna learn. Bitch.”
“Duane.” She was panting, her heartrate soaring now, a high staccato beat in her ears. “Please.”
He smacked her once, across the back of the head. “Shut up.”
The slap rang through her like the toll of a bell, an echo inside her skull. She staggered a step, and he grabbed at her arm to force her forward, toward the truck parked at the curb in front of the house.
She wasn’t going to go quietly after all, she decided.
Maggie ducked and twisted at the same time, sliding out of his grip so she faced him. He was shocked – eyes suddenly wide – and that bought her a fraction of a second.
She bolted. Toward the street, where the neighbors could see her if she screamed and put up a fuss. She was no athlete, but she pushed herself as fast as her lungs and legs would allow, arms pumping, lungs screaming, thundering across the lawn.
Duane tackled her.
His weight knocked her down and crushed her into the grass, forcing all the air out of her lungs.
“No!” she gasped, squirming. “No, please!...”
Pain blossomed at the back of her head, and then everything was black.
~*~
When Maggie was five, she had a pink and white dollhouse shaped like a castle, with dolls dressed up as a prince and princess. Her mother came to sit on the edge of her bed and picked up the prince doll, smoothing his gold cloth epaulettes.
“One day,” Denise said, “you’ll meet a prince of your very own. He’ll be handsome, and rich, and he’ll buy you your very own castle.”
What she’d meant was that Maggie would meet a smooth-voiced, blond Southern boy with a law degree who could buy her an antebellum mansion and all the Jimmy Choos she could ever want.
What Maggie had found instead was a biker prince, dark-haired and dark-eyed, broke, dressed in leather, offering her an outlaw empire…and nothing but a promise of a better future.
He had dragons to slay, too. That was her first thought when she groaned and blinked herself awake: Duane was a dragon. Greedy, violent, unpredictable, and so, so dangerous.
She cracked her eyes to find a dimly lit room. Hard concrete floor beneath her, corrugated steel walls around her. Her head was pounding, a steady bass thump in time with her pulse, but she could smell fresh-cut wood, the crisp scent of newly soldered metal.
She blinked through a film of tears and grit and realized she was in the garage. Ghost’s brand-new, almost-finished garage.
Don’t panic, don’t panic, don’t panic.
She sucked in a low, quiet breath. Wherever Duane was, she didn’t want him to hear that she was awake.
Sensations filtered into her awareness. The bitter coldness of the floor and the air, and the steel
wall at her back. She was seated, slumped back against the metal. Her left hand was caught in some sort of binding – she turned her head and saw police-issue handcuffs chaining her to a length of exposed water pipe. She felt the lump coming up on the back of her head where Duane had hit her. Felt myriad bruises on her arms and legs and torso; he’d manhandled her into the truck, and into the garage.
With her right hand, she felt along the floor, found nothing but cold concrete. Nothing within reach, but at least she had a hand free.
And she still had the knife in her boot. She felt the sheath digging into her ankle; he hadn’t patted her down. His first mistake.
She froze when she heard footfalls, shutting her eyes and slumping back down. She listened, breath catching in her throat, as Duane walked to stand in front of her.
He kicked her boot. “I know you’re awake.”
She opened her eyes and looked up at him. His handsomeness was overshadowed by the harsh tube bulbs overhead, the way they carved out all his lines and wrinkles and gray hairs. He looked old and tired, less like Ghost and more like the worn-out biker he was, something skeletal about his cheekbones and temples, the too-harsh cut of his jaw and the dark bags beneath his eyes. He didn’t appear confident and in-control, but nervous, on-edge and feral.
He wasn’t a president, in that moment, but a king with a price on his head.
“He thinks he’s real smart, doesn’t he?” he asked.
She had to wet her lips and clear her throat before she could force out the words. “Who?”
“My nephew. He thinks he’s got it all figured out. Get rid of me, take the crown for himself. Build whatever the fuck he wants.”
“Duane,” she said, carefully, “I don’t know what you’re–”
He kicked her foot again, harder this time. “Don’t lie to me. This is all your idea anyway. That boy was a good little soldier until you came along.”
She decided it was better to keep quiet.
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