Secondhand Smoke (Dartmoor Book 4)

by Lauren Gilley

“This is where they bag it,” Mercy said, without necessity.

  “It’s not Fish’s,” Aidan said, running a gloved finger along the edge of a brick.

  “They used our stash to bridge the gap until they could move their own shit in,” Mercy said with disgust. “Damn, look at the amount. Everybody in Knoxville’s gonna be hooked.”

  “What are we doing with it?” Aidan asked.

  “Taking it with us.”

  They packed up every last fleck of powder into the empty cardboard boxes stacked beneath the table, and hauled it out to the van, Carter and Tango coming to lend a hand.

  Mercy halted in the living room, glanced over at their captives. “Let’s bring one back with us,” he said, calmly, almost casually.

  Aidan turned away as he heard the duct tape peeling loose.

  ~*~

  “Got a shitload of coke, boss,” Candy said from the other end of the line.

  “Good,” Ghost said. “Take it all back.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He disconnected the call and slid his phone away, mounted the stairs to the Gannon & Gannon construction site trailer with Phillip coming along behind him.

  Fox was already at the door and had the lock picked; he sent it swinging inward with a push of his fingertips and swept inside, gun and flashlight raised.

  “Clear,” the Englishman said as Ghost crossed the threshold.

  He clicked on his own light and swept the beam across the desk, file cabinets, break table.

  “You think there’s anything on paper?” Phillip asked.

  “Nah, it’ll all be in his email and on his hard drive,” Ghost said. He held his flashlight in his teeth as he crouched down to disconnect the modem.

  Phillip picked up the flat screen monitor. “That makes our job easier, then.”

  Fox was over dicking around in front of a shelf.

  “Charlie, come on,” Phillip said.

  “Yeah. Sure.” He plucked something up and joined them.

  “What was that?” Ghost asked.

  “Picture of the man’s family.” The flashlight painted eerie shadows above his eyes. “Never know when that might come in handy.”

  ~*~

  Sam heard the bikes approaching and it sent a foreign thrill through her. It sounded so different, all of them in symphony like that. Like an invading army.

  “You feel it in your gut,” Maggie said beside her, startling her. She hadn’t heard the biker queen come up to stand beside her at the bar.

  Sam turned to her and nodded, a hand ghosting over her belly on impulse. “Yeah,” she said, smiling. “It’s a good feeling, actually.”

  “Hmm. I always thought so.”

  It was dark now, night inky beyond the windows, the jack-o-lanterns crackling brightly, inside and out. Everyone else heard the bikes too, and Sam watched the low ripples of excitement move through the room, sweeping away doubt and worry.

  Their boys were back; there was no need to worry anymore. Time to party.

  “It might get kinda crazy tonight,” Maggie warned, her smile almost a smirk.

  Sam drained the last of her wine. “I can handle that.”

  Twenty

  Bare-knuckle boxing, Sam decided, had to count as “kind of crazy.” Though maybe not in this crowd.

  It had started out friendly enough, RJ and Dublin giving each other shit until they’d finally decided to duke it out and see if the “old man” was really too “decrepit” to hold his own against “the younger crowd.” They’d traded jabs that were more like jokes, laughing, a crowd slowly building up around them in the parking lot.

  But the atmosphere was intoxicating out here. The heady scents of cooked meat and scorched pumpkin, the acrid tang of wood smoke. The beer flowed and the lights danced primitively, exhaled breath pluming, stars twirling overhead. A wild, feral sort of night, chased with cold, colored with whatever heathen victory they’d brought in off the road. Sam could taste the violence at the back of her throat, and she leaned sideways against Aidan as they sat on the picnic table, fingers lacing tight with his, his laughter vibrating through her palm.

  Several matches had been fought already, and now, she knew, came the one they’d all been waiting for. The showstopper.

  Mercy versus his brother, Colin.

  Something shifted the moment the two of them stepped forward. A cheer went up; sharp whispers ran around their spectator circle. And there was something in the eyes of both men that sent a shiver up Sam’s back.

  “This isn’t a friendly sparring match,” she said to Aidan.

  “Nah,” was all he said.

  Mercy shrugged out of his cut and hoodie and turned to hand them to Ava, leaning in to kiss her, fast, hard, bringing up color in her cheeks as she hugged his clothes to her chest. In the midst of cheers and catcalls from his brothers, he peeled off his wifebeater and entrusted that to Ava, too.

  Sam had never seen him naked from the waist up, and it was a little bit of a shock. He was a beast. It was one thing to see his height and breadth of shoulder and assume what was under his clothes, quite another to see it in the firelight. He wasn’t chiseled from gym time like Aidan and Tango, but lean and sculpted with naturally cultivated muscle, broader and sturdier than she’d guessed.

  He had tattoos: his black dog, something geometric and foreign to her, the portrait of Ava’s teenage face on his right bicep. And something irregular just over his heart.

  Hair pulled back tight in a bun, he turned from his old lady with wicked intent in his dark eyes, drawing a bead on the brother he couldn’t bring himself to love.

  “Impressed?” Aidan asked, voice wry.

  “Yes, but not in the way you’re thinking. He doesn’t appeal to me that way.” It was more a fascination, like studying a predator up close in the field.

  “Hmph,” Aidan said, and sounded satisfied.

  Colin had stripped down too, also muscular, also impressive.

  They approached one another, circled, massive hands curled into fists.

  Sam knew who would win before the first punch was thrown.

  Colin was big.

  Mercy was bigger.

  But it wasn’t just that. It was the unchecked emotion in Mercy, something animal that simmered beneath his skin. Intangible. Deadly.

  “Whoop his ass, Swamp Thing!” Candyman shouted through cupped hands, laughing.

  “Hey!” Colin shouted back, scowling. Candy was his VP; no doubt he expected some semblance of chapter loyalty.

  Mercy let Colin make the first move. A quick lunge, a jab, a dodge.

  Mercy waited, smile dark, patient in a creepy way.

  And then he moved, and Sam wanted to close her eyes, the assault was so brutal and so absent of brotherly affection.

  Finally, Walsh stepped in with one of his sharp whistles. “Alright, boys, alright. We don’t want anyone leaving this party in a box.”

  Mercy went back to Ava, and she caught his sweaty face in her hands, pulled him down and kissed his forehead, face shining with a love that defied all logic. Colin collapsed onto a bench and Jinx attended to the big split in his eyebrow.

  Mercy was the clear victor, and not just in a fight sense.

  Maybe it’ll be over now, Sam thought.

  But then someone said, “Boss let’s see you get in there.”

  “Yeah,” someone else said, “I wanna see the legend at work.”

  The legend being…?

  Ghost. They were talking about Ghost.

  Aidan tensed beside her.

  The president shrugged off his cut and, in his t-shirt, stepped to the center of the makeshift circle. He aimed a finger at Aidan. “Come down here, son, and let’s see if you remember what you’ve been taught.”

  “No,” Sam whispered. But it was too late.

  ~*~

  Aidan ground his teeth together as he came to stand in front of his dad. Ghost grinned at him, a fast, dark smile without a trace of humor.

  “You rusty?”

  “
You old?” Aidan shot back.

  Ghost’s smile deepened.

  This had nothing to do with practice or friendly competition. This was the father still pissed at the son’s lack of responsibility and wanting to disgrace him, publicly, as a lesson in dominance. It was something Aidan didn’t want to fall for. But he’d had two shots of Jack and his blood was roaring. He’d helped to raid a house tonight, and he knew a captive was strapped to a chair in the bike shop, awaiting Mercy’s interrogation.

  He knew his life was shit, and he was sick of it.

  He ripped off cut and shirt, and turned, tossed them to Sam. Her beautiful face was tense with worry, but she caught his clothes and balled them up against her stomach. Be careful, she mouthed.

  Right.

  He turned back to Ghost. That’s who he was now – Ghost, and not Dad. Aidan brought his arms up, fists loosely curled, ready as he’d ever be. Ghost had taught him to box, but Ghost was –

  The president lunged, faster and tighter than expected, getting right in Aidan’s space with total control.

  –an army boxing champ.

  Aidan deflected a jab, danced, evaded. Ghost kept coming, never letting him collect himself, pressing him relentlessly back until he was spinning to keep inside the manmade ring.

  Ghost dropped his shoulder, an opening. Aidan snapped out a hard right. No, not an opening. A trap.

  Ghost grabbed his arm and wrapped his own around it, pulled him in close, his whiskey breath hot across Aidan’s face.

  “Does your girlfriend know you have a kid on the way?”

  It was a vicious whisper, designed to incite him.

  It did the trick.

  Gritting his teeth against the pain in his bad shoulder, Aidan wrenched free and caught one lucky blow to his old man’s jaw.

  A collective “oooh” went through the crowd.

  Ghost’s head snapped back, expression comic with shock for one perfect moment, the firelight flashing in his eyes. In that moment, he looked old, lined, and exhausted.

  Aidan charged…and the punch caught him full in the face.

  He went down like an empty sack, not even able to brace his fall before he hit the concrete. He saw stars, little birds, all those old cartoon clichés. And then his eyes cleared and Ghost stood above him, framed in Christmas lights, face unreadable. He offered a hand down, to help him up.

  Aidan rolled onto his stomach and forced himself up on his hands and knees, reeling.

  “I ought to slap the shit out of you,” he heard Maggie say, and heard her boot heels clip toward him. She was talking to Ghost, he knew. Then, to him: “Baby, are you okay?”

  He couldn’t talk just yet, still wrestling with the sense that his face had caved in.

  “He’s alright,” Ghost said, voice gruff with irritation.

  And then Sam was there, her hands against his shoulders. “Aidan.”

  He managed to get to his feet, and he went with her, not a backward glance for his father and president.

  ~*~

  Sam found a clean washcloth in the en suite bathroom of Aidan’s favorite dorm and wet it with cold water under the tap. “I take it your dad has boxing experience,” she said dryly, walking back into the room.

  Aidan sat on the end of the bed, forearms braced on his thighs, staring at the orange carpet. He lifted his head as she settled on her knees in front of him. “He boxed in the army,” he explained. “He never got to see active battle – a shame, he would have liked shooting people – so he got stir crazy on base. Took up boxing.”

  “He’s got the personality for it.” With great care, she reached up to press the cool cloth to his face. His eye was swollen and probably going to black; bruises were coming up faintly along his cheekbone. “It’s a miracle he didn’t break your orbital,” she said, and felt her lips press together in anger.

  Aidan flinched beneath her touch, but didn’t pull back.

  “Hold that there,” she said gently. “I’ll go wet another one.”

  As she stood, he said, “You don’t like my dad.” Not a question.

  “No, I can’t say I do.” It felt good to say it aloud. “He’s more of a warden than a father.”

  He grinned, but it was faint. “That’s dear old Dad for ya.”

  “Why is he like that?”

  “He’s just a hardass.” Aidan shrugged. “He’s old school. He thinks he’s perfect. I dunno.” Another shrug, and a deep sadness, pressing little lines around his mouth. His fingers tightened where they clamped the cloth to his face. “He’s good at a lot of things, but being a dad isn’t one of them.”

  “That’s his mistake, then. And a big one at that.”

  Aidan didn’t respond, so she fetched another cold cloth and came back, kneeling down in front of him once more.

  “Is he trying to groom you for president?” she asked, curiosity getting the best of her.

  “No idea.”

  “Is that what you want? To lead?”

  “Honestly…” His eyes tracked over her face. “Not anymore, no. I used to. I thought for a long time that I needed to be president. Follow in his footsteps, you know?” he said, wistfully.

  She nodded.

  “But I’m not like him, I don’t guess. And he’s a good president, which would make me a bad one, if I ever tried.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “I don’t care about it like I used to. Who the hell wants to be in charge of things? I’ve got a job, I’ve got a place to crash, I’ve got the club…” His eyes bored into hers.

  She gave him a soft smile. “You have me.”

  “And that’s the best thing of all.”

  Her chest squeezed. “Aidan, why didn’t you ever let anybody see how sweet you are when we were kids?”

  “You don’t know? Sweet’s the kiss of death in high school. Sweet’ll get you killed, baby.”

  She laughed. “I survived somehow.”

  “Yeah, but you’re a girl. Girl’s are supposed to be sweet.”

  “Okay, clearly, you don’t know anything about girls.”

  He gave her one of his cocky, ladykiller grins, and she was glad to see it after his bout of sad introspection. “I know some things. The things that count.” He waggled his eyebrows.

  Sam set the damp cloth up on the bed with deliberate slowness, settling on both knees between his open legs. “You know what?” She reached for his belt buckle. “I know a few things too.”

  His laugh was low and expectant as he leaned back on both hands to give her better access, injured face forgotten. “Teacher gonna give me a lesson?”

  Her fingers shook a little with anticipation and uncertainty as she worked open his fly, but one glance at his hungry face soothed all her nerves. No, she wasn’t a pro at this, but she didn’t think that was going to make a bit of difference. All that counted in the moment was how much they both wanted it.

  “Yeah,” she said, not recognizing her own voice. “Sit up and take notes like a good boy.”

  ~*~

  He needed to fuck, and there was no delicate way to phrase it. Fighting like that worked in his veins like a drug, and tweaked his nerves until he was no longer his own master, but just a monster running on impulse. He needed his old lady on her stomach, hands twisted up in the sheets, and he needed her now.

  But now wasn’t an option, so he was going to have to settle for a cig and a little torture instead.

  Mercy finished tying off his black butcher apron and lit the fresh Marlboro dangling off his lip. The first drag helped. A little.

  He stood in the bike shop office, the garage bay beyond already prepped with plastic by Harry and Littlejohn, his toolkit set out and waiting for him. Their captive was duct taped securely to a chair, also covered in plastic.

  Beside him, Fox stood with Walsh’s usual clipboard, having offered to cover for his brother. “Spend time with your old lady, mate,” he’d said, clapping Walsh on the back. “I haven’t gotten to watch the beast work in a long time.”
/>   Then there was Colin, looking beat-up and sullen.

  “Cheer up, bro,” Mercy told him, grinning, “you’re about to have an induction.”

  “The club for people who kiss your ass?”

  “Hey, Fox kisses no one’s ass.”

  “True,” the Englishman said.

  “Your induction into man-work, junior. Why the hell do you think Candy wanted you in Amarillo? To get stuff off the tall shelves?”

  Colin’s frown deepened, and something flickered in his eyes, a fast snatch of something Mercy might have missed had he not been paying attention.

  “What?” he asked.

  Fox said, “Our Col here has designs on Jenny.”

  Mercy didn’t know whether he ought to laugh or punch the guy again. “Jenny Snow?” he asked with a disbelieving fake smile. “Really?”

  “I think she might have designs on him, too,” Fox continued.

  “Well damn. I’ll be.”

  Colin shifted uncomfortably.

  “Grab your apron,” Mercy said, pointing toward the clear plastic number he’d laid out. “And step into my laboratory.”

  ~*~

  “Howdy, Miss Jasmine.”

  Jazz knew that voice, with its heavy Texas accent. She knew it, and had found such pleasure in it – in the man that came with it, big and blonde and insatiable. But now, it crawled up the back of her neck like a chill, and left her shivering inside.

  She never would have expected this of herself, but it was happening, ever since that night that Aidan had tried to strangle her. He’d apologized, sure, and she’d moved on…but she could find no appeal in her normal sexual exploits. She went cold and frightened just at the thought.

  She pinned a frozen smile to her face and turned to face the Texas VP. “Mr. Candyman,” she returned. “How’ve you been?” Ordinarily, she would have passed her hands up his rock hard chest as she delivered her line. But now she kept her arms stiff at her sides.

  His grin was truly dazzling, as was the way he braced a tan forearm on the doorframe above her head and leaned in, pinning her against the kitchen jamb. “A whole lot better now that I’ve laid eyes on you, darlin’. What’re you supposed to be anyway?” His eyes traveled down her body, and his finger touched the little hollow in her throat, trailed downward.