by Raven Dark
“Max.” His voice is death. “Sandra, what happened?”
I reach into the car and show him the photos.
“Fuck.” One look at them, and he gives them to Vicious and Badger, both of whom are behind him and cursing when they see the images.
“He called me,” I tell Gar now. “He said I had two hours to give him what he wants. He said he’s at the Rusty Stool. Gar, he might have my family. He—”
“All right. It’s all right, we’ll figure this out.” He squeezes my nape. “Get on the bike. Let Anne drive your car.” He nods to Anne, who’s already getting off Vicious’ bike.
Vicious reaches in and takes the keys out of the ignition as if he thinks I’m going to protest and try to drive myself. He tosses them to Anne.
She catches the keys and comes around the car, climbing in and shutting the door.
Listless and terrified, I sit on the bike behind Gar, and he pulls my arms around his waist, squeezing my hand. I’m too shell-shocked to protest or worry about what he’s done, in fact, some part of me badly needs his closeness, so I press my cheek to his back and hold on tight.
Once we’re back at the clubhouse and Anne pulls the car to a stop, I see her gather up my bags and bring them in while Gar steers me inside with Vicious and Badger bringing up the rear.
“Sandra.” Barbie meets me by the couches and puts her hand on my shoulder. “Listen, I didn’t—”
“Barbie.” Gar rumbles. “Later.”
Clearly thinking my tearstained face is because I found her in my man’s lap, she drops her arms and lets Badger pull her off to the side. I miss whatever they say, because Gar takes all my focus, sitting me down on one of the couches. He squats in front of me and Anne sits on the couch at my side, rubbing my arm, comforting me.
“All right, Sandra, tell me everything he said.” Gar’s taken my hands in his.
I lick my lips, trying to think through my racing thoughts. The warmth and strength of his hands grounds me, giving me focus. “When he called me, he said my family was “fine”. Then he said to come to the Rusty Stool alone. That I had two hours to give him what’s his. He said…um…if he saw the cops or you guys, my whole family would end up at the bottom of Tanner Lake.”
Gar’s jaw goes hard enough to cut steel, his eyes blazing with protective anger. “Did he say he actually had your family?”
I shake my head. “That’s the thing, I don’t know if he has them, or he’s just waiting to take them if I don’t do what he wants. When we went to my house, they weren’t home. I assumed they were at my brother’s football game, but he might have already taken them.”
The thought of what Sinclair might be doing to them now makes my stomach roil.
Gar runs his hand through his hair. “All right. Where’s your phone?”
I fish it out and hand it to him.
Gar turns to Badger, who’s talking with Barbie a few feet away. “Badger.” He tosses my phone to him. “Can you pull Max’s call off of that? See where he called from?”
“Sure. Let me work my magic. What’s your phone’s pass code, Sandra?”
I give it to him.
“Perfect. Be right back.” He smiles and disappears down a set of steps near the back of the clubhouse, into what must be the basement.
“Wait, can he do what you said, with my phone?” I give Gar and Anne a baffled look.
“Oh, yeah. That shit’s easy for him.” Gar squeezes my knee. “And as far as your fam, we can check on them easily enough. Where is your brother’s game?”
“Penman Stadium. He plays for the Golden Hawks, the college team. The game started at one, so if that’s where they went, they should still be there… But Gar, the stadium is over an hour away, and it’s huge.”
Gar takes out his own phone. “What’s your brother’s name? What position does he play?”
“Kyle. Quarterback. Gar, how—?”
He holds up his hand for me to wait and gives me a reassuring nod as he steps a few feet away and makes a call.
“Anne.” I shake my head at her. “We don’t have time for this. If anything happens to them, I’ll die.”
“I know. I know. Listen, just watch the men work. You’ll see.”
“But—”
“Sandra.” Gar is squatting in front of me again. I look at him, feeling like my nerves are shot. “Your fam’s all fine.”
“How do you know?”
“We have friends at Penman. I put in a call to one of them. As we speak, Kyle is in the middle of scoring a touchdown, and your parents are cheering loud enough to wake the dead.”
Relief floods me while I try to wrap my head around what Gar just did, around the reach this club must have.
“That’s unbelievable. Thank you.” I squeeze his hand. “But what about when the game ends? Sinclair might have someone waiting there to nab them.”
“We won’t let that happen, sweetheart. Grizzle’s kid plays on the same team, so there’s a couple of the guys from the club there now. I already have them ready to follow your family out. Don’t worry,” he adds when I open my mouth to argue. “Your parents and brother will never know they’re there, but they will have a couple of our guys on them from now until we catch Sinclair. No one’s getting near them.”
A slow smile of gratitude spreads across my face while my throat tightens with love for him. Love that doesn’t seem to care what he might have done with Barbie. I look at Anne, stunned.
“See?” Anne rubs my arm. “This is what the club does. It’s what they did for my mom and I when we got held up by those robbers last year. It’s what they did for Gar and Cal’s mother, and now it’s what they’ll do for you.”
Gar nods when I look at him, still stunned. “I told you, we take care of our own, sweetheart.”
I’m about to tell him how impressed I am when Badger comes back upstairs and hands me my phone. He’s already telling Gar a bunch of mumbo jumbo that sounds like high tech hacker stuff. Something about triangulating a signal, among other things.
“He isn’t at the Rusty Stool now,” Badger says, obviously referring to Sinclair. “He was calling from a hotel on the other side of the state.”
“So he’s nowhere near the Stool.” Gar lets out something between a hiss and a growl. “Which means if Sandra had showed up there, a couple of his guys would have probably grabbed her and carted her off to him.”
Dizzying nausea washes over me at the thought. I put my head between my knees. If Sinclair’s men had gotten a hold of me, I probably would have ended up trussed in the back of a van and tossed at Sinclair’s feet, ready to be gutted like a fish. I swallow bile.
Gar puts his arms around me, holding me close and drawing me against his chest. I squeeze him tight and he rocks me gently.
“I don’t understand what he wants.” My voice comes out too high. “I have nothing of his! Nothing!”
“I know, baby. I know.” He rubs my back. “We’ll get to the bottom of this. For now, you and your family are safe, so we’ve got time to figure this out and come up with a plan to put him in the ground.”
“But how do we do that?”
He stands and pulls me to my feet. “Come on. Let’s take your stuff upstairs and we’ll talk it over. I want to go over everything he said and did, no matter how small it may seem.”
I sniffle and nod, wiping my eyes. I know there’s something else he’ll want to talk about, but whatever’s going on with him and Barbie is the last thing I want to deal with right now.
I give Anne a hug and go over to the chair where I left my things, picking them up.
True to form, I’ve left my book bag open, and I’m so out of it that I pick it up from the bottom end. The whole thing spills out onto the floor.
“Really?” I snap, my last nerve broken. “I don’t have time for this shit right now.” I go on my knees and start gathering up the books and makeup that have slid across the floor.
Gar helps me, sweeping the stuff inside the bag. He doesn’t bat an e
ye when he finds a couple of tampons on the floor, just drops them in. “Jesus, woman, you got half of Ohio in there, or what?” he teases. I stand and see him sweep his hand under the chair. He pulls out a leather wallet and gives it a curious look.
“Interesting choice of accessory.” He flashes it with a smile.
I take it slowly from him. It’s a new looking black leather wallet, obviously a man’s, and nothing a girly girl like me would ever have. “That’s…not…mine…” I say slowly.
I snap open the wallet and look at the credit card folder inside. It’s a very thick folder, one of those see-through booklets, and it’s filled with platinum and gold credit cards.
The front one is clearly visible. As soon as I see the name, my fingers go numb and the blood drains from my cheeks. “Shit.”
“What is it?” Gar asks.
I hand him the wallet. “Sinclair,” I say thickly. “It’s Max Sinclair’s wallet.”
Gar scrunches his brows at the cards, his face a mask of anger as he flips through them. He shakes his head at me, holding the leather pouch up. “He chased you down and now he’s threatening to kill your family because you stole his fucking wallet? That doesn’t make sense.”
“Well, I know that, but…” I close my eyes. “I don’t know how I ended up with it, but it’s the only thing of his I could have. Is there any money in it?”
He rifles through the wallet. “No, nothing. Except for the shitload of cards, it’s empty.”
“Well, maybe he thinks you took his money.” But Anne shrugs, her expression echoing my thoughts—it isn’t likely. She’d been talking with Vicious near us, and until then I’d not even registered that they were still there.
“No, that wouldn’t make sense.” Vicious stands up. “Max is fucking loaded. Even if there were ten thousand dollars in there, he wouldn’t go through this much trouble to get it back.”
“Wait.” I grab Gar’s arm. “Gar, the videos. Remember at the wedding he said, “Did you watch the videos?’”
“Videos?” Badger comes over from the bar where he’d clearly been listening in and looks between us. “Gar, let me see that thing.”
He takes the wallet and empties it onto a chair, then sticks his finger inside a hole in the lining. He pulls out a thumb-sized memory card.
“Ah ha.” Badger holds the card up. “I bet you all a thousand dollars there’s some juicy ass shit on here, and that’s what he’s after.”
“Can you see what’s on it?” Gar demands as he strokes my hair.
“What am I, an amateur?” Badger gives a mock-affronted look. Then he hurries for the downstairs. “Give me a sec.”
“Well, whatever’s on that thing,” Gar says, “obviously, it’s illegal shit if he’s willing to kill for it.”
“But how the hell did I end up with it?” I run my hands through my hair and look at all of them.
“Someone must have put it in your bag,” Gar growls.
“But why? Were they trying to set me up?”
“Or did someone just steal it for the money, take the cash, and put the wallet in there to get rid of it?” Anne suggests.
“Either one is possible,” Vicious says.
Before we can discuss any further, Badger returns with a laptop, sits in the chair with the computer on his lap, and opens it. He turns it on, inserts the memory card, and his fingers fly over the keys. The four of us go behind his chair and watch the screen while he works.
“It’s a good bet he’s got a million security locks to get through,” Badger says, cracking his knuckles. “But I’ll get it. It might take me a bit, though, so sit tight.”
I put my head back, but force myself to be patient. The club has gone over and above for me already.
A few key strokes later and Badger sits back. “Shit. He’s got a hell of an encryption on here. Guys, this is going to take a while.”
“How long?” Gar bites out.
“Hour? Five? No way to tell.” When Gar rumbles in frustration, Badger grabs his arm. “Chill, man. I’ll get it, but go bang your babes or something. If you all are breathing down my neck, it’ll take longer. I need to focus, all right?”
Vicious snorts and hugs Anne like it’s the best idea he’s ever heard. He captures her lips in a passionate kiss.
Gar claps Badger’s shoulder. Then he takes my hand. “All right, sweetheart. There’s shit all we can do for now, so… Upstairs with you. We need to talk.”
I heave a sigh, my muscles clenching.
It had to happen sooner or later.
10
Friends in Dirty Places
Once we’re upstairs, Gar guides me into his bedroom. His room is like the rest of the clubhouse, masculine, all wood paneling and dark wood accents. A king-sized bed dominates the space, and my stomach clenches when I think of Barbie in here with him.
Gar locks the door and I turn to face him, wishing I was anywhere else. Wishing there could be an explanation that makes sense.
“There isn’t anything you can say, Gar.” I cross my arms and look at my feet. “Whatever your excuse is, I don’t want to hear it.”
“Well, you’re going to listen, sweetheart, so sit down.” He crosses his much bigger arms and nods to his bed.
I sigh and lower myself onto the mattress. “Fine. Let’s hear it. Let’s hear why you had another woman in your—”
“If you would shut up for five seconds, I’d explain.” He flicks his eyes to the ceiling. “After what you told me about your asswipe ex, I get that you’re hardwired to mistrust a guy, sweetheart. You saw what you thought you saw, and you jumped to conclusions.”
“Jumped to conclusions?” I snap, leaping to my feet. “This is a joke, right? This is where you tell me a gorgeous woman just happened to fall into your lap?”
“Sit down, Sandra.” His eyes blaze.
“And what was that Cal said as I was leaving? You were just having fun?”
“Sandra, sit down.”
“How much fun were you having with her?” I snap. “I caught you, Gar. I—”
“Sit,” Gar bites out between clenched teeth.
I sit, but glare at him defiantly.
He takes a seat beside me. “As a matter of fact, Barbie did fall into my lap.”
“Seriously? That’s the best you can come up with, you—”
Gar seizes my chin between his fingers. “Shut. Up. Sandra.”
Anger rages through me, but I know there’s no way I’m going to win this. I’m just going to have to sit here and listen to whatever lame excuse is coming, aren’t I? I clench my teeth and avert my eyes.
He takes his hand away slowly. “When you came in, Barbie was singing that stupid ice song or whatever it is—”
“Let It Go,” I bite out.
“Excuse me?”
I scoff, realizing what he thinks. “It’s the song. It’s called “Let It Go.’”
“Oh. Yeah, that. We were horsing around. The guys were teasing her. Cal was being stupid. He was calling her a princess and whirling her around. She got dizzy and fell into my lap, right as you walked in.”
His words register slowly through my sluggish brain.
So, they really were just having fun, like Cal said. Innocent fun.
My own stupidity hits me like a wave. I let out a long, sad breath.
“If you don’t believe me, you can ask him. Ask Barbie, and anyone else who was there.”
I shake my head, unable to look at him. Shame rolls through me. “I don’t have to. I believe you,” I whisper. “Gar, I’m sorry. God, I’m so stupid.”
He shakes his head. “No. Not stupid. Mistrusting.”
I can see the hurt in his eyes, and it kills me. He pushes up from the bed and paces to the window, his huge arms crossed. The rippling muscles on them make the thick lines of his gorgeous tattoos stand out in the late afternoon sunlight.
It hits me what I’ve done, and what I will now likely lose. “I know. I really am sorry. I should have trusted you. I should have ask
ed. Should have let you explain. Gar, if you never want to see me again, I get it.”
He pins me with a glare. “Oh, no. You’re not getting rid of me that easily. We’re talking this out. But it pisses me the hell off that you didn’t bother to ask what was going on. You didn’t trust me enough to let me explain.”
The word trust falls from his lips like an anvil, and somehow I know I’ve done more damage than merely accusing him of infidelity. My mistrust and doubts carry an impact I can feel in the air, even though I don’t fully understand it.
I nod at my knees and draw another breath. “What can I do? How do I make this…right?”
He lets out a derisive sound. I go to him at the window and drop my shoulders.
“Gar, I don’t want to lose you. Words are not enough, I know that. Tell me what to do.”
He sighs. “Sweetheart, there’s a much larger issue here. I get why you reacted the way you did. I can live with it. But you didn’t just stomp off. You left. You were headed off to face Sinclair alone.”
“Gar, I had no choice. I though he had my family. He said if I didn’t come alone, he’d kill them.”
“I know. I understand that. But if you hadn’t taken off the way you did, you wouldn’t have found those photos, and you wouldn’t have almost been kidnapped by his fucktard goons. I had one rule, Sandra. One rule.” He puts his face very close to mine. “What did I tell you earlier today?”
The look on his face isn’t anger, like I expect. It’s hurt, but it’s not for what I accused him of. A tightness forms in my gut. “You said not to leave without your permission, but—”
“You disobeyed me.”
Indignation roars up and I roll my eyes. “Gar! I was upset. I thought you were cheating on me, and I panicked.”
“Yes, you did. Sandra, I set the rule for you to stay here to keep you safe. I get why you ran off without talking to me, and I get why you were going to deal with him on your own, as stupid as that was. But you wouldn’t have had to do that if you hadn’t defied me and run off. What did I tell you would happen if you left?”
I give him a confused look, thinking back, unsure what he’s talking about at first. Then I remember. He said he’d…