And then, before she can say anything else, I close the door behind me.
31
Ember
The only thing that stops me from running after Striker when he storms out is that I’m mad as hell at him for basically accusing me of not caring about Wren.
I spend the rest of the evening fuming at him. I lie awake in bed that night remembering what he told me about his brother Richie, and how he basically lost him to the system he railed at during our fight. By the next morning, I’m running on next to no sleep, and I’m still careening back and forth between self-righteous anger and guilty uncertainty. I know what I told Striker is realistic. But I also know it’s not morally right.
I get ready for work in a haze. I give Bert his pain pill, make sure he’s gone out in the backyard to do his business, and settle him back in on his downstairs doggy bed. I’m relieved to see he seems to be doing better and getting around okay, despite his broken leg and the dreaded cone of shame he has to wear. Still, he’s whining a lot this morning, and keeps peering up at me with reproachful eyes.
“What is it, B?” I ask him sadly. “Do you miss Striker?”
At the name, he immediately starts panting hopefully and thumping his tail.
“Me, too, buddy,” I sigh, pulling him into a hug. “Me, too.”
Glancing out living room window before I leave, I don’t notice anyone guarding the house. But when I pull my car out of the driveway, sure enough, a Lord on a Harley pulls out behind me. I recognize him as Bullet, whom I met at the poker run. He must see me glancing at him in my rearview mirror, because he gives me a wave of acknowledgment. I wave back. After my house being broken into the other night, it’s reassuring to have the MC guarding me. Even though it’s not the Lord I wish it was.
At work, I have trouble concentrating. Besides the fact that Striker’s mad at me, I’m still ruminating about the uncertainty of Tank’s custody case. Not to mention I’m a little unnerved at the idea of working on Cady’s divorce case, since my house was just ransacked and my dog injured. I decide to take a deep breath, put that whole damn mess to the side for a while, and work on other projects today.
One of my other cases involves drawing up a prenup for a woman who’s getting married for the second time. She just came into a rather sizable inheritance after the death of her last living parent. The inheritance includes the family property, which is a house on several acres. The woman plans to divide the land up into several parcels to sell, and the particulars of her case remind me of the plot of land that Mark plans to sell from his uncle’s estate.
Idly, I wonder whether he has paid the property taxes yet, and whether he’ll be updating me soon. Maybe I should nudge him about that, since we didn’t part on the best of terms at the gala.
Out of curiosity, I decide to log into our joint investment account to check whether he’s taken the five-thousand dollars out yet. I pull up the website and enter the user name and password. The account loads.
I blink in confusion at the screen.
That can’t be right.
The balance says… thirty-four cents.
Thirty-four cents.
I click on the link for the transaction history.
Oh…
Oh my God.
Mark took the entire thing. Close to fifty thousand dollars.
Poised above the keyboard, my hands start to tremble. I pull them into my lap, feeling dizzy. Blood starts to rush in my ears as I stand, shakily cross the room, and open the door.
“Margot,” I hear myself say. “Do you and Mark have a family member — a great uncle — who recently passed away? Harold? Henry?”
“Uncle Harold?” Margot returns my gaze quizzically. “We did have a great uncle with that name, yeah, but he’s been dead for a while. God, over ten years ago, at least. His funeral was when I was in college.”
Her words reach me as though through gauze. “Okay. Thanks,” I mumble, shutting the door again. I make it to a chair, fall into it, and try to calm my racing heart.
Fletcher Hadley called Mark a miracle worker at the gala. Said he couldn’t believe how much money Mark was making for him.
Maybe miracle isn’t the word for it.
Mark can’t be making as much as Fletcher said if he’s stealing from our joint account.
My fingers are still icy as I reach for my cell phone — so much so that I have trouble hitting the button for Mark’s number.
“What have you done?” I demand as soon as his voice mail picks up. “Mark, if you are avoiding me, I swear to God… You told me you needed five-thousand dollars! How dare you drain our account without asking me!” Mustering my most threatening self, I take a deep breath. “Mark, I know you’re doing something shady. I don’t know what it is, but I am not going to let you drag me down with you. Fletcher Hadley told me you’ve been making him money hand over fist, and that you’ve been doing the same for all his friends. You need to call me ASAP and tell me exactly what is going on, and come clean to him about anything less than one-hundred percent above-board that you’re doing. Or I’ll go to him myself.”
I press the button to end the call, then drop the phone on the desk and cover my face in my hands.
Is it possible I’m making too much of this? Is it possible there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for what Mark has done?
No. There’s no explanation. Mark said five-thousand. Not fifty. There’s no way I would have agreed to that, and he knows it.
And then, I remember what I said to Cady the day she came to my office with Wren.
Divorce is a process of telling yourself that whatever your spouse’s faults are, there are some things they would never stoop to.
And then finding out they would.
32
Striker
Three days.
Three days of a bender that has me waking up in places I’ve never seen before.
Three days of my phone blowing up with messages from Tank, demanding to know where the fuck I am.
Three days without a single message from Ember.
Not that she should be calling me. I’m the one who walked out on her.
She’s still got round the clock surveillance on her. She’s safe. I made sure of that.
I haven’t called her either. I wouldn’t know what to say if I did.
It ain’t that I don’t wanna talk to her. God knows I do. Somehow it took walking away from her to realize that I’d gotten used to being around her twenty-four seven. More than used to her. Dependent on her presence. Addicted.
When guarding her was my job, I could tell myself that’s all I was doing there. My job.
Now I know better.
I’m done being pissed at her for being part of the system that took my brother away from me. Hell, even that night I realized I was being an ass, blaming her for shit that had nothing to do with her.
Now, more than anything, I’m pissed at myself.
For thinking I had a chance with her.
For thinking I wouldn’t fuck it up, like I fuck up everything else in my goddamn life.
I barely pull out of the spiral I’m in for long enough to show up at the fight Rudy booked for me.
I show up for my fight with Cruz Lopez, a.k.a. The Crucifier half in the bag from a mid-afternoon eye-opener and a liquid dinner. I’m still sober enough to fight, but not quite drunk enough not to care that I’m supposed to lose.
As much of an animal as Lopez is in the ring, it’s a mistake to show up anything but sober. He ain’t gonna pull any punches, even though he knows he’s already won the fight before he starts. Rudy gives me the side-eye as I pass by him on the way toward the ring. He grabs me by the arm, an angry challenge in his eye.
“Shit, man, you been drinkin’?” he hisses.
I yank away from him. “What do you care?” I snarl. “I’m a warm body. That’s all I am for these fights anyway.”
Faceless men clap me on the back and say encouraging words as I wait for the announcer to call C
ruz and me into the ring. I know that half of them — the smart half — have money on Lopez, so their well-wishes are fake as shit. It’s never bugged me before to throw a fight — hell, the money’s green either way — but tonight, I’m starting to get a sick feeling in my stomach that doesn’t have anything to do with the drink.
I keep thinking back to what Ember said the night I told her about this fight. How she figured out I was letting myself get beat up in the ring for a reason that has nothing to do with money.
Her words come back to me again.
“Maybe, instead of letting yourself get beat up for cash, you should do what you can to solve whatever it is that’s making you fight in the first place.”
I can’t go back and rewrite the past. Cady and Wren are okay, thank God, but I can’t go back in time and undo putting them in danger.
I can’t do anything about losing my brother Richie. He doesn’t want to know me anymore.
Then I went and walked out on Ember, and I can’t undo that, either.
I probably lost her, too. If I ever had her in the first place.
Fuckin’ losing. Seems like it’s all I know how to do.
The bell rings. The announcer calls my name.
I step into the ring, still thinking about Ember. How she saw right through me.
I don’t want to lose her. I don’t want to lose anything else.
I can’t lose any more of myself.
And that starts now.
“Goddamnit!” Rudy is shouting over the din as people lose their goddamn minds. “What the fuck did you just do, Striker?”
“Careful,” I shout back from the other side of the ropes, and spit out a mouthful of blood. “You don’t look very happy. People are gonna think maybe you didn’t want me to win the fight.”
I step over Cruz’s unconscious form and out of the ring. Strangers jostle me, yelling my name and either insulting me or congratulating me in at least three different languages. I push past them all, Rudy still trailing after me, until finally we’re at the back of the crowd and the noise eases up enough for us to hear each other.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he howls. “You demolished that guy! Crucifier’s handlers are gonna come after both of us for this!”
I shrug. “I fought. I won. That’s the point of a fight.”
“You piece of shit,” he seethes. “You know how much money you lost me? You don’t deliver, you don’t get paid, you son of a bitch.”
I reach up a finger, jab it into his chest. “Our deal was half of the take.”
“Half of the take ain’t shit, thanks to you!”
“Give me my money, Rudy.”
Snarling to himself, he pulls out a wad of cash, peels off a bunch of bills, and thrusts them at me. Just eyeballing them, it’s less than half of what I was supposed to walk away with. Rudy narrows his eyes at me, like he’s daring me to argue.
“Thanks.”
“You fuckin’ screwed me, Rossi. You burned a bridge here, you know that?”
“Fuck it. I’m done anyway. No more fights. Delete my goddamn number, or next time I’ll burn down more than a bridge.”
I reach out and shove him hard in the chest. Rudy stumbles back and I brush past him, heading right to the makeshift bar in the back where a tall motherfucker with some serious acne scars is pouring drinks. I bark at him to hand me a bottle of whatever will get me drunk fastest, and a glass. I move off to the side and pour my first shot, reasoning that when I can’t stand any longer, that’s when I’ll be drunk enough to stop.
I’m well on my way when a hand clamps down hard on my shoulder. Spinning toward it, I pull back a fist and get ready to punch its owner in the face.
“Jesus, Strike, cool down!” Tank’s voice pierces through the fog in my brain right before I let loose. Tank steps to one side. I pull the punch just in time.
“Fuck, man, you gotta warn a motherfucker.” I turn back to my glass. “What’re you doing here?”
“I’ve been tryin’ to get hold of you,” he growls. “I assume you know that. Since you weren’t answering your goddamn phone, I went by your place, but you weren’t there. I took a shot you’d be here.”
Glancing over, I give him a slow golf clap. Tank rolls his eyes.
“Son of a bitch,” he mutters. “Look at you. You’re a fucking mess. How long you been here?”
I hold up the half-empty bottle. “This long.”
“Jesus. Let’s get you home.”
“Nah.” I shake the bottle at him. The liquid inside sloshes. “Come on, have a drink with me. Plenty to go around, brother!”
I blame the booze for dulling my reflexes when Tank’s hand darts out and grabs the bottle from me.
“Come on, you dumb shit. I gotta talk to you, and I ain’t about to do it here.”
“What about?”
“I’ll tell you on the way. Come on, you’re in no shape to drive.”
“What about my car?”
“I’ll get one of the Lords to bring it back to your place. Gimme the keys.”
I’d be fighting Tank harder on this, but he’s right, I can’t drive like this. I hand my keys to him. When we’re outside, he opens up the passenger door and sticks them under the mat, then pulls out his cell and punches out a text.
“Come on, dumbass,” he rumbles at me when he’s done.
“That sweet talkin’ will get you nowhere,” I crack.
He flips me the bird as I follow him to his truck.
On the way to my place, he tells me that a group of the Lords are doing a run out to North Carolina to confront Cady’s ex. “We’re gonna squeeze him, get him to admit he or his people trashed Ember’s place.” In the dim light, I see his jaw flex. “We’re not gonna leave until he’s convinced it’s in his best interest to let Cady walk away and stay away from her and everyone she knows, permanently.”
“Okay.” I nod, and it shoots a spear of pain through my head. I wince. “I’ll be there.”
“You ain’t in any shape to go,” he scowls. “You’re drinkin’ like this every night, you’ll be too hung over to function.”
“I’ll be fine. You forget, I’ve trained for this,” I joke.
Tank shoots me an angry look but doesn’t answer. He’s silent the rest of the way back to my place. I try for a few jokes, but he doesn’t take the bait on any of them. He doesn’t say another damn word, in fact, until we’re in my living room — me on the couch, him sitting in on the coffee table.
It doesn’t escape me that we’re both sitting exactly where we were the day he asked me to be Ember’s protection.
“You want a drink?” I crack, even though I know I’m pushing it.
“No. I do not want a goddamn drink. I told you to lay off that shit, Strike. You gave me your word you’d stand by me during all this custody bullshit. And look at your sorry fuckin’ ass.” He shakes his head, disgusted.
“What the fuck? I am standing by you,” I fire back, pulling out my smokes. “I got Ember covered, Tank. At least one of the Lords are on her all the time. She’s safe, brother.”
Tank says nothing.
Then:
“The paternity test came back.”
I stop with a cigarette halfway to my mouth and wait for him to finish.
Except one look at Tank tells me what he’s going to say.
“I’m not the father.”
“Fuck,” I hiss. I lower the cigarette. “Jesus. Shit, brother. I feel like hell about that.”
“Yeah? Then act like it!” he snaps.
“Whoa, what?” I sputter. “What the hell do you mean? I told you —”
“Goddamnit! This ain’t about Ember. Jesus!” His face is a snarl of anger, but behind that there’s nothing but pain. “You’ve been AWOL for three goddamn days. Three days, Striker, do you read me? I don’t have time right now to be worrying about whether you’re dead in a goddamn ditch somewhere.”
Tank jumps to his feet and locks eyes with me.
“If you wan
na help me, pull yourself together,” he bites out. “Otherwise, get the fuck out of the way.”
Before I can respond, Tank slams out the door. A couple seconds later, his engine revs and the tires squeal as he pulls away.
Fuck. Me.
Before the fight, I told myself I wasn’t gonna let him down anymore.
“Goddamnit! Fuck!” I yell, kicking out with my boot at the coffee table. It goes crashing across the room, into the wall, where one of the legs splinters off and goes flying. I grab an empty glass and throw that against the wall, too, and then fly up off the couch and into the kitchen for something to finish what I started back at the fights. A bottle of Mad Dog, some tequila, and the dregs of some Jäger are all I find, so I grab the MD and get to work on it, in the dark sitting on the kitchen floor with my back propped up against the cabinet.
Eventually I’m lying down instead of sitting, but I keep drinking. The room gets hazy and starts to spin. Before I pass out, I realize three things I hope I remember in the morning.
First, I gotta get my life right if I ever want to be with Ember again.
Second, Tank’s right. He’s my best friend. I can’t fuckin’ let him down again.
And third, there may be one thing I can do to make shit better for him.
I’ve been thinking about it for a while. It’s a long shot. But I need to finally follow through on it.
33
Striker
Turns out I lied to Tank about being okay for the run. The morning we leave, my head is pounding like a jackhammer when I wake up.
I eat a bunch of aspirin like candy, suck down a ton of coffee and water, and do what I can to push the hangover away before I have to spend six hours riding in a formation of loud-ass Harleys. By the time I get to the clubhouse, my headache isn’t quite as bad, but I’m still gonna be hurting for this trip.
I must look as bad as I feel, because my prez, Angel, notices it right away. “You tie one on last night, brother?” he asks. “Wasn’t sure you were gonna make it.”
STRIKER: Lords of Carnage MC Page 21