Secondhand Smoke (Dartmoor Book 4)

by Lauren Gilley

  “You fucking asshole! This is on your head,” Ian roared. “I told you to turn him loose. I told you! You owed me that, after what I did for your fucking club, and all I wanted in return was Kevin’s freedom. None of this would be happening if you’d given him to me!” He breathed through his mouth, teeth bared. “I will burn your club to the ground for this.”

  With a dramatic spin, long black coat flaring around him like a cape, he stormed for the door, Bruce struggling to keep up with his long legs.

  In his wake, Ghost dropped his face in his hands.

  Aidan stared at his father, the man angry and helpless as he sat hunched over all that useless paperwork. His president, his leader…and right now, part of the problem. He made a lightning-fast decision; he chased after Ian.

  Out in the parking lot, Bruce was holding open the rear door of the black Jag and Ian was folding his considerable lean height down onto the red leather seat.

  “Ian. Hold up.”

  Bruce glanced at his master, curious.

  Ian gave Aidan a cold stare, eyes flicking down and then back up the length of him, then nodded stiffly. Bruce stepped back, giving them at least a sense of privacy.

  Aidan braced a hand on top of the car. “How’d you know Kev was MIA?”

  His expression was insulted. But he obliged. “One of my informants turned up dead. Ellison thought to kill him, but not to swipe the memory stick from his pocket. He photographed Kev’s capture.” His lashes flickered at the end, a tremor of fear registering in the sharp angles of his jaw. This was not merely a case of a kingpin throwing his weight around. He was distraught.

  Aidan leaned closer. “Listen, Ellison wants more than just his coke back; he wants to humiliate us. He’s asking for five-hundred-grand and we don’t have it.”

  Ian nodded, stared at the seat back in front of him, still breathing hard. “Done. I can go straight to the bank.” His gaze slid to Aidan, tightening. “Though I can think of much better things to buy with my money than a motorcycle club.”

  A chill rippled across his skin. “You wanna leave Kev with Ellison?”

  “Do you?” Ian challenged. “Because if I do this, you understand that I will own you, yes? No more owing, no more favors. The Tennessee chapter of the Lean Dogs will belong to me.”

  “You’re really gonna use this to your own goddamn advantage?”

  Ian made an impatient sound. “The thing you need to understand about the truly successful, Aidan – they never miss an opportunity. Never,” he said, vehemently. “Do you want the money or not?”

  There was no choice to be made here. The club wasn’t a club without a brotherhood, and he was going to take care of his brother, by God.

  “Yeah. Go get it.”

  ~*~

  The sunrise filled the condensation on the window with round pearls of light, like the glass was on fire. Aidan stared mindlessly at it and lit a fresh cigarette, let it smolder between his fingers as he took another swallow of coffee. The others had never returned to the common room; asleep, he guessed.

  “Yeah. I understand,” Ghost said quietly into his cellphone, and then hung up with a beep.

  Through the bright glaze of moisture on the window, Aidan saw the black Jag return. “Dad,” he said, turning on his bar stool so he faced his father.

  Ghost’s face was weary and lined. “What?”

  “Something you tell me over and over again. That I need to get my priorities straight.”

  “Yeah? You do.”

  “So do you. A half a mil’s about to walk through the door, and I think you ought to take it.”

  Ghost frowned. “What?”

  This time when Ian entered, it was with his usual poise and grace. He had a bit of a Dracula thing going on with his black coat and harsh-featured white face.

  “I’m not in the mood for more of your shit, princess,” Ghost said. “Get out of my clubhouse.”

  Silent, Ian accepted a slim black briefcase from Bruce and set it on the desk. “Call Ellison.” He had control of his emotions this time. “Tell him you have the money.”

  Ghost looked at the case but didn’t move to touch it. He shot a betrayed glance toward Aidan before fixing his gaze on the Englishman. “Yeah? And then what? Tell him you’re my puppet master?”

  “If I’m not mistaken,” Ian said, “you need five-hundred-thousand dollars. There it is. We can work out the particulars of my ownership later.”

  Ghost smiled, the expression almost deranged. “Take your goddamn money and get out of my sight.”

  “Dad,” Aidan said, “this is our only option, and you know it. Take the money.”

  “Yeah? Take the money?” He rounded on Aidan with a snarl. “And hand over this club to him? You’re so fucking stupid sometimes I can’t even believe you’re mine.”

  “How can you keep us a club if you let us all get tortured to death one by one?” Aidan shot back.

  Ian cleared his throat. “Will you be accepting the money?”

  “No,” Ghost said.

  “Very well then.” The case was collected. “I’ll see you in hell, gentlemen,” Ian said, and left.

  “That’s it then?” Aidan asked when they were alone again. “You’re just going to let them keep Kev. You really are.” The disbelief grew and grew as the words left his mouth. “You’re going to let him get cut apart, piece by piece. When you know it will break him. Even if they don’t kill him, he’ll never recover from this. Never.”

  A moment hung heavy between them, bursting with dark memories of the night they’d stormed The Cuckoo’s Nest, Mercy sending bouncers flying as they fought their way to the stage. Tango had just been a heap of bones at that point, eyes glassy from the heroin, and Ghost had pulled him gently down off the dais and carried him out.

  “Hate me all you want,” Aidan urged. “Kick me out, take my patches, shoot me in the head if that’s what’ll make you feel better. But don’t do this to Kev.” His tone became pleading. “He doesn’t deserve this.”

  A beat. Two. Three…

  “A president,” Ghost said heavily, “must always consider the greater good of his men. And he must accept that there will be casualties–”

  Aidan didn’t wait to hear the rest. He left the clubhouse at a fast walk, and was jogging by the time he reached the parking lot, sprinting before he reached his bike. He didn’t know where he was going, only that he needed to be gone.

  ~*~

  The silence was a mockery of the chaos inside his head. His pulse throbbed in his temples, an accusation on every beat. He kept seeing Kev’s face, when he was sixteen and strung out, a skinny little abused thing, crying in his arms as he carried him out of that godforsaken club. Ghost had made a promise to him then, that he would never let anything of the sort happen to him again. “You’re safe now,” he’d told him. “You’re with your brothers.”

  And now he was at the mercy of a man who would think nothing of exploiting his weaknesses.

  Ghost pushed up from the table and stalked out of the clubhouse, across the parking lot, through the cold bright dawn to the central office where Maggie’s parked CTS signaled her presence. The door was shut, because of the change of season, and when he entered, he was hit with the dry warmth of her space heater’s output.

  His wife sat behind the desk in a thick cream sweater, her hair the color of the sunrise outside. “Hi, baby,” she greeted.

  “Hand me the wastebasket.”

  Frowning with curiosity, she did so.

  And he threw up in it. It was nothing but coffee and bile, but his stomach wouldn’t stop grabbing. Finally it died to dry heaves, and then stopped. Exhausted from the effort, Ghost set the can aside and sank down against the door, until his ass hit the floor. He stretched his legs out and…sat. Just sat, and let it all course over him.

  His throat was raw from retching, and it hurt to speak. “I promised that boy. I promised him, Mags, that I wouldn’t let anything like that happen to him again…”

  She got to
her feet and came to him, sank down beside him and put her arms around his shoulders. Her cheek was warm and smooth where she pressed her face to his. She smelled clean and feminine, her hair silky down the back of his neck.

  “What can we do to get the money?” Her voice was firm and clear. His strong gorgeous girl, ready to do battle.

  “I dunno, baby.” All he wanted to do was shut his eyes and fall asleep with his head on her shoulder. “I really don’t.”

  ~*~

  Carter was sorting through the laundry baskets in the living room when Aidan arrived back at the apartment. It felt like noon, but was only nine, and Carter was just getting up, hair damp from the shower, shirtless and sporting nail-shaped crescents all down his back. Jazz had spent the night last night, and Aidan was glad he hadn’t been around to listen to them going at it through the paper-thin walls.

  “What’s the status?” Carter asked as soon as Aidan walked through the door. His face was tight with worry. “Any news?”

  “The status is that my old man’s a stupid stubborn heartless fuckhead,” Aidan said. “So fuck him.”

  Carter stared at him, completely shocked.

  “I’m gonna get Kev out myself, but I’m gonna need some help. This is totally off the books. A personal thing. The club isn’t gonnna be behind us. So I get it if–”

  “I’m in,” Carter said. “One-hundred-percent.”

  Aidan nodded. “Good.” They were going to need more than a two-man rescue crew, but it was a start.

  Thirty-One

  Time lost all relevance. It seemed like weeks had passed since Kev had said, “Whitney, shut your eyes. Turn away.” And then it had started, whatever it was they were doing to him. She hadn’t wanted to close her eyes; she’d wanted to be there for him, a bracing force in any way she could be, even if that meant witnessing his abuse. He had saved her; the least she could do was be there for him.

  The two guards had gone into his cell and the first had hit him so hard across the face he’d gone down to his knees. They’d laughed. They’d torn at his clothes. One had taken him by the throat. And that was when she’d turned away. Because she’d seen Kev’s face, how completely dead it was, and she’d wanted to be sick.

  She’d clamped her eyes shut and then covered her ears with her hands. She’d leaned against the back wall of her cell as tremors overtook her body and she listened to the muffled grunts, smacks, and curses. She tried to make sense of what he’d said to them – something about a nest? – but it was meaningless to her. She knew two things: those men had been set to rape her. Kev had drawn them off.

  She knew time passed because another guard brought her a tray of food...and something else. A broom handle that he passed across the bars. Back and forth, an oversized xylophone sound echoing against the concrete. And then he’d gone into Kev’s cell with the others.

  Finally it was quiet. The cell door slammed and then silence followed. Gripped with fear, heart pounding in her throat, Whitney lowered her hands and crawled toward the connecting bars.

  Kev lay on his back, shirtless, holding the torn and stained shirt to a bloody split lip. His torso was pale, dotted here and there with tattoos, and she could see the shadows of forming bruises against the fair skin. His jeans hung low on his skinny hips, the waistband of his Calvin Kleins dotted with blood. His fair hair was plastered down to his head with sweat. His eyes rolled toward her, glassy and unfocused.

  A sob left her lips before she could stop it. Her vision clouded over with tears. “Oh my God. Oh my…Oh, what did they do to you? I’m so sorry, I–”

  He pulled the shirt away, mouth swollen and messy with blood, and tried to smile at her. “Shh, sweetheart. It’s alright. Better me than you. I can take it. I’ve had worse.”

  She couldn’t remember ever wanting to get her hands on someone so badly. She wanted to wipe the blood from him. Help him to sit up. Mop the sweat off his forehead. “I’m so sorry,” she repeated, feeling helpless. “What can I do? How can I help you?”

  “You don’t have any vodka, do you?” He tried to laugh and it was a terrible sound. He took a deep breath and winced. “Maybe you could…can you talk for a little bit? I don’t care what about. Just…say things. I like your voice.”

  She dashed at her eyes, willed herself to calm, folded her legs up beneath her. “Okay. Okay.” God, what did you say to someone who’d taken a beating for you? How could she comfort him with her words alone?

  But she had to try. “Well…okay, how about this. It’s kind of silly, but I always wanted to be a professional artist when I grew up.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. I like oil pastels. They’re my favorites. I love them because they’re both forgiving, and totally merciless…” Perhaps “merciless” wasn’t the best word choice, given the situation, but she was warming to her topic, falling into the colorful world of her portfolio at home and gaining strength in her voice. “I did a piece recently from a photo I took on vacation…”

  Kev’s eyes shut, and he seemed to doze as she rambled.

  ~*~

  A sound woke her. Whitney startled awake and realized she’d fallen asleep against the bars, and that the lights above them had been halved, creating the dim impression of nighttime. Panic flooded her and she glanced around wildly.

  Kev still lay on his back on the other side of the bars, shivering in his sleep as the cold concrete leached the heat from his skin. It was his cell door opening that had snapped her from sleep. The door slid back with a grating sound and three men in black stepped into the cell. More thugs. They brought the stink of liquor with them. Drunk thugs.

  “Kev,” Whitney whispered, urgently. “Kev, wake up.”

  One of the thugs kicked him and he lurched up to a sitting position with a groan.

  “Rise and shine, queer-ass,” the kicker said with a dark laugh. “I don’t believe what the boys have been saying about you. Let’s see if it’s true.”

  Kev tried to say something, clutching at his head.

  He was grabbed under the arms by the other two guards, lifted, and then laid out flat on his stomach. Sound of something rapping against the bars, the floor. The broom handle again.

  She didn’t shut her eyes this time.

  Thirty-Two

  The Teague kitchen was redolent of herbs and roasting meat. The oven light was on and through the window, Aidan could see the chicken thighs, no doubt slathered with butter and dusted with parsley. For the first time in his life, Maggie’s cooking wasn’t a distraction.

  He and Carter stood shoulder-to-shoulder in Maggie’s kitchen, watching as Mags and Ava put together side dishes and a salad. The boys were in a playpen over against the wall. Ghost wasn’t home yet.

  “So what you’re saying,” Maggie said, pausing as she sliced zucchini, “is that you don’t want us to share this with our husbands.”

  “And I tell Mercy everything,” Ava said.

  Mother and daughter stared them down, formidable as any firing squad.

  “Yeah,” Aidan said, “that’s what I’m saying. I don’t wanna talk to Ghost and Mercy’s old ladies right now. I want to speak with Maggie and Ava. ‘Cause they’re the smartest chicks I know.”

  Sam notwithstanding.

  The women shared a look, then turned back to him after some silent communication. “You need an accomplice for a super-secret rescue mission,” Maggie said. “I know who I’d pick.”

  “Me too,” Ava said. “Though I do wish you’d let Merc help you. He loves Tango and he’d do this off the record, without Dad’s approval.”

  Aidan dipped his head in acquiescence. “I appreciate that, yeah. But this needs to be a slim operation.”

  Ava shrugged. Together, she and Maggie said, “Fox.”

  “Fox?”

  “He’s Walsh without the allegiance,” Maggie said.

  “And a slippery trigger finger,” Ava added. “I bet you money he’d get on board and keep his mouth shut.”

  “He’s still in town?” M
aggie asked.

  “Yeah, but…”

  “Then Godspeed, Aidan Teague,” his stepmother said with a grin. “Godspeed.”

  ~*~

  Bell Bar was full of its usual crowd: part-committed drinkers, part-college kids, mostly regular joes. At the Dogs’ usual high top table, Fox helped himself to more Michelob from the pitcher and said, “So let me get this straight, chaps. You want me to go against your president’s wishes and help you form a rescue party?”

  Walsh’s younger brother had that same cool, blue-eyed severity, expressions bland to the point of harsh, manner disinterested in the extreme.

  “Yeah,” Aidan said. “Help us, and don’t say anything to anybody.”

  This could go so poorly, it wasn’t even funny.

  Fox studied his pint glass, swiping a finger up the side of it. “What’s in it for me?”

  “You get to kill people. Probably.” Aidan said.

  The Englishman thought about it a long moment. Then nodded. “Always a good reason. I’m in.”

  ~*~

  Aidan and Carter took stools at the table and beer was traded for a round of Fireball.

  “God, I hate that shit,” Fox said, setting his glass aside with a grimace.

  Carter choked on his. That cinnamon was an unwelcome kick at the end. “Then why’d you order it?”

  “Clears my head.” The Englishman pushed a hand through his dark hair. “Okay. So.” His shrewd eyes moved between them. “We’re going to do this intelligently, boys, which means doing it my way. We need a where” –he started ticking the points off on his fingers– “we need a when, and we need a how. Supplies,” he continued, “alibis, a location, a plan of attack, and a way in. Which means we need intel.” He lifted his brows. “Ideas?”

  Aidan nodded grimly. “You got anything against working with one of your own?”