Temper: Road Roses MC

by Ada Stone

  And killing someone?

  No, never. Chris was a screw up in a lot of ways as a kid, but he had been evolving. Changing. He’d been getting his life together, hadn’t he? He wasn’t the same black sheep child he had been after mom’s death. He’d “gone straight,” as dad liked to say. He was working in construction now, paying his bills—well, most of them; I’d helped him out a time or two—following through with plans. That didn’t sound like the type of man who would get into trouble like this, did it?

  No. I decided that Alexei had to be wrong. Why wouldn’t he lie? Clearly he was a murdering hit man. Was lying such a stretch from that?

  There was a weird, mutating thing in my stomach that told me not to be so quick to absolve Chris nor to condemn Alexei. It reminded me that there were secrets flying around and lies, too. How did I really know that my brother was as squeaky clean as I thought?

  Because I know that Alexei isn’t, I countered, but it still wasn’t enough. I felt uneasy about the whole thing, but in the end I knew I had to get ahold of my brother.

  Whatever he’d done, he didn’t deserve to die. I had to protect him in whatever way I could.

  I quickly grabbed my phone, getting ready to dial my brother. There was a good chance he wouldn’t pick up. I’d tried to get a hold of him on and off for the last few years that I’d been in the city, and he only ever picked up a handful of times. He never called me back. Even so, I was hopeful that, given the circumstances, he might actually put a little more importance behind getting a hold of me.

  When I glanced at the screen, I saw that I had missed several calls from Tyler. Irritation flooded me; couldn’t he just give me some space?

  Instantly, I felt horrible for it. He was doing everything he could to make my life easier, and while I knew for certain that I didn’t love him back, he did care about me a lot and was willing to put his own life aside for the sake of making mine easier.

  Not that he wouldn’t get what he wanted, too.

  I frowned. It was getting harder to figure out what was going on in peoples’ heads these days. Ignoring the missed calls, I went to my brother’s number and dialed. It rang a half a dozen times and I was sure that, just like every other time, he wouldn’t pick up. Thus my surprise when there was a click, then a quick, “Hello? Hello? Susanna?”

  “Chris?” I asked in surprise. I really hadn’t thought he’d answer.

  I heard him sigh in relief. “Thank god. What’s going on?”

  I didn’t ask him about the “thank god” thing. Was he just really happy to hear from me or was he worried it was someone else calling? “I needed to talk to you about…about what happened this morning.” I bit my lip, uncertain how much was okay to talk about over the phone. It seemed paranoid on my part, but couldn’t people track phones and listen in on conversations? I didn’t really think that Alexei would have the opportunity to do that to my phone, but I had been unconscious around him on more than one occasion. I blushed as I thought about what most of those occasions had been the result of.

  “We shouldn’t be talking about it on the phone.” Chris’s voice seemed hesitant and not particularly happy.

  I shook my head, though of course he couldn’t see that. “I know, but it’s important.”

  There was a pause, then he asked, “What is it?”

  “The man who’s after you—” I almost said Alexei’s name, but wasn’t sure that I wanted to yet. Was that good or bad? “—he’s been here.”

  “What?” Chris’s voice was incredulous and more than a little shocked, though there wasn’t necessarily the anger I’d been expecting. Not that it mattered, I just thought that as his sister, he’d be a little bit more concerned about my safety. Instead, however, he just asked, “You didn’t tell him anything, right? I mean, you didn’t tell him anything about me or that I’d been there, did you?”

  I frowned, but didn’t bother saying that he was a bad brother for not being even a little bit concerned about my safety in all of this. Instead, I said, “Of course not! I would never do that. But…he definitely knows I’m your sister. And I don’t know if he knows you were here or not, but he’s come looking.” And looking for other things, but I didn’t mention that. Chris didn’t need to know that I had had sex with Alexei, nor that I was carrying his baby. That seemed like it would cause too many complications.

  He made a strangled, frustrated sound and I imagined him pacing, running his hands through his blond hair. Finally, he cursed and said, “Alright. You’re going to have to get out of there. Go into hiding. For your own protection.”

  I softened at that, feeling guilty for assuming that he didn’t care about me. He was my brother, of course he cared about my safety. But then I thought about it. “Hiding? Why? Why can’t you just talk this out or go to the police or—”

  Before I could even finish, he jumped on me. “No police!”

  I paused, letting a still silence settle over us. No police. A stone sank low in my gut, whispering to me that Alexei had been right. Chris did do something bad. But maybe he didn’t kill anyone. Maybe Alexei was lying and it was only money that he took. I wanted to believe that so bad, but why would Alexei lie about only one part of it and not the other?

  “Chris, you need to tell me what’s going on.” My voice came out as little more than a tiny whisper, barely even making the trip through the phone to the other end.

  There was a pause, then Chris said, “Okay, I…I’m in a little bit of trouble.”

  “Trouble?” I repeated.

  “Yeah. I did something kind of stupid. Okay, really stupid. But it’ll all work out. I just need a little time and this whole thing will blow over.”

  I had the feeling that wasn’t true. This didn’t seem like the type of thing that would just blow over. In fact, it was beginning to sound like the kind of thing that was going to haunt my family for the rest of our lives. Biting my lip, I forced myself to ask the questions I was dreading. “What happened, Chris? What did you do?”

  “Susanna, don’t worry about it.”

  “Don’t tell me not to worry about it! This is serious! Someone wants you dead! You need to—” But before I could tell my brother just what it was that he needed to do, the line went dead. There was a click and a moment later I heard a dial tone. My brother had just hung up on me, leaving me worried and more confused than ever.

  He’d told me to go into hiding, but I didn’t even know how to start to do something like that! Where would I go? What would I live off of? And what about the baby?

  My gut told me that things were wrong. So wrong that I wasn’t sure they could be fixed. I knew that, whatever my brother had done, the only options were going to the police or trying to reason with Alexei. I thought of Alexei and his tall, masculine form. Of his bulging muscles and his sharp, piercing eyes. The kind of eyes you could get lost in. He was a solid man and I knew he was the kind of person who was used to getting his way.

  No, reasoning with him about this was out of the question. He had his sights set on Chris, and I didn’t think there was any way to get him to back down now.

  And Chris wouldn’t go to the police. I was left with no options—at least, no good ones. And that wasn’t even including what the hell I was supposed to do about the baby! How could I go on the run while I was pregnant? And when Alexei found out that I’d left, would he come after me? Would he be furious, dangerous even?

  I didn’t think so, but how could I know for sure? He was a hit man and he was after my brother. I could be the collateral damage that he just didn’t care about in the end.

  Exhausted, terrified, and not knowing what to do, I crawled back into bed and put my head down on the pillow. Grabbing the covers, I yanked them up over my head, wishing that I could just for a moment shut the rest of the world out.

  What was I going to do?

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Alexei

  My search for Christopher wasn’t going so well. I had called Dominic already, but he hadn’t seen anyt
hing since that night. In fact, he explained that the cops had stopped by and asked all sorts of questions. They’d canvased the place for witnesses, trying to ID the shooter, but no one was talking. That wasn’t a surprise either. Dominic had managed to shoo most of the people who were still in the bar when I was about to tag Christopher. Those who had lingered—like those women in the bathroom for instance—had been too drunk to really even remember what had happened, much less anything about me.

  I was in the clear as far as the commotion was concerned, but that didn’t really do me any good beyond making sure I could still move freely. But then, that had never been an issue either. I had contacts in the police department who would have made that little problem disappear long before any court date or arraignment was ever set.

  Still, I was grateful that Dominic was putting in the time and effort. It made my job easier.

  I was disappointed that he didn’t have more, though.

  “What about the partner?” I asked him as we spoke over the phone. I was back at my apartment, getting showered and dressed—taking care of the hardness that had grown beneath my pants after my little encounter with Susanna—as I spoke to him, trying to dig up some leads.

  He made a sound in his throat, like maybe he didn’t care for all this crap. Really, he probably didn’t. Dominic was one of those guys who, while in deep with people like Vinny, really just wanted to be left alone. He dealt with Vinny—and me by extension—because he had to, because this was Vinny’s city, or this section of it was anyway, and he understood that to do anything successfully, you had to have some connection with Vinny. It wasn’t that Dominic disliked the older man, but he just didn’t have a taste for some of the more illicit activities he dealt with.

  And me? Well, we had a complicated relationship in which he acknowledged that what I did was a necessary evil. We were tentative friends, both of us acknowledging that despite our differences, we enjoyed the basic company of the other.

  “I don’t know what happened to the little shit,” Dominic admitted. “He must have slipped out while I was still trying to get people out the door. Then the damn alarm went off.” Dominic didn’t sound too pleased with that. “Anyway. By the time I got to that table, no one was sitting at it.”

  That was disappointing. I had really hoped that Dominic would have something on the partner so that I could put more effort into finding him. I thought Vinny might have some info, but all he could say was that they’d allowed Christopher to bring in some other guys to help with the work. In the end, those other guys either didn’t show or didn’t hang around for the heist. Only this one man showed up, an accomplice to Christopher’s foolish crime. Vinny didn’t have a name yet; I was hoping Dominic did.

  “So you don’t have anything?” I tried not to sound annoyed, but I probably did anyway. I hoped vaguely that Dominic wouldn’t take it personally. It was easier to deal with people when they weren’t angry with you.

  There was a pause, then Dominic said, “Well, I might have something. It’s not a lot, but—”

  “What is it?” Hope grew suddenly in my chest. All I needed was a name, a number, a fucking car color. Just something to go on.

  “Well, that asshole was flirting with one of my girls.” Dominic called all of his waitresses his ‘girls.’ Although maybe it was one of those insulting things for women of this day and age, I could never tell myself, he meant it affectionately. He hired the prettiest damn women he could find, young and flirty, because he wanted the customers to like them. But he wouldn’t let a single finger touch them if they didn’t want it. Dominic was fiercely protective to the point where he’d started fights and kicked people out without answer or explanation. I appreciated that about him myself. “He was a little prick and I warned the girl off, but you know the rules. If they want it, it’s on them.” I could almost hear him shrug.

  “And?” I prompted.

  “Didn’t really think anything of it,” he admitted thoughtfully. “Figured she just wanted a better tip, that she was flirting and he wouldn’t take her seriously anyway, you know? Most of the guys come here knowing that the girls don’t really want them.”

  I nodded impatiently as I grabbed a shirt out of my closet—a black button- down, silky to the touch. He couldn’t see me, for which I was glad. I didn’t want to explain why I was so on edge these days. “What’re you getting at, Dom?”

  “I’m trying to say that he slipped her a napkin. She normally doesn’t keep shit like that, but for whatever reason she snuck it in her apron and forgot about it. Pulled it out today before her shift started.”

  “And what was on that napkin?”

  “A name and a number.”

  ***

  That little napkin was a proverbial jackpot. From what I understood from Dominic, he’d had to wrestle it away from his girl after the fact. It wasn’t that she probably really wanted it, but rather the fact that he was insisting she give it up that had her so annoyed. Dominic was sort of like an overbearing father sometimes to his girls, and every so often they rebelled against him for it.

  He won out, though, and if I had to guess, I would say that he told her a slice of the truth about the guy: that he was into some bad shit and that he was probably going to die very soon.

  When I got there—because I didn’t just want the napkin, I wanted to talk to the girl, too—I greeted Dominic and asked his permission to talk to her. Apparently, her name was Leanne. He was hesitant, but gave the okay. I knew he’d be watching like a hawk, but it didn’t bother me. I wasn’t going to do anything unsavory to the girl; I just wanted answers.

  “You mind if I ask you a few things about the other night?”

  She eyed me suspiciously. “You a cop?”

  I almost laughed at her, but held it back just barely. Instead, I offered a smile that was probably a little wolfish. She shrank back just slightly into her seat. “No, I’m not. Though I am trying to make sure certain…bad guys stay off the streets. Think you can help?”

  She thought about it. “Will I have to testify or something? Do crazy stuff for the police? Get involved?”

  I shook my head. Clearly, Leanne had had some unfortunate dealings with the police before, because she looked pretty nervous at first. At my answer, however, she seemed to relax slightly. “I just want to know what he said to you.”

  “Okay,” she said, still hesitant, but not seeming near as nervous as when I first approached her. “Well, I was their waitress—there were two guys at the table. They were kind of rowdy, celebrating something.”

  “Do you know what?”

  She lifted her petite shoulders in a shrug, pushing her breasts together so that they looked like they might pop out of her shirt at any moment. She was cute, if a little young—I’d be surprised if she was actually twenty-one, if I was being honest—and almost reminded me of Susanna. She had an almost wholesome look about her, though it was destroyed by the heavy eyeliner and mascara. “Something about a windfall, you know? Lots of money coming in. That was how that guy was trying to pick me up.”

  “By telling you they were rich?” I prompted.

  She nodded. “Yeah, like I’d believe that. Do I look like I was born yesterday?”

  Not quite, but almost. I didn’t tell her that however. “You didn’t buy it?”

  “No way.” She shook her head. “They looked like total shmucks. Old jeans, dirty shirts. Looked like they were in construction or something. But they had enough to pay, so I made a point to be nice.” She shrugged again.

  “What were their names?”

  “I don’t know about the blond guy—blondes aren’t really my thing—but the brunette said his name was Jason. I never got a last name.”

  Jason. Well, it wasn’t a lot to go on, but it was something. I could check it against other people Christopher was known to have worked with over the years. Maybe something would come up. And if that number was real, it would be a big help.

  I smiled warmly at the girl. “Thank you, Leanne. That w
as very helpful.” I got up to leave, then paused, considering her. She did remind me of Susanna. I frowned. “Do yourself a favor, Leanne. If you see that guy again, stay away from him. He’s trouble.”

  She shuddered and I remembered that Dominic had already told her much the same. Without saying a word of protest, she nodded. I got the napkin with the name and number form Dominic, then thanked him and left. Hopefully, I would finally get somewhere with all of this.