by JA Huss
I feel very little guilt about actually taking that asshole’s life. Especially now that we know that motherfucker was as dirty as they come. He really was directly tied to all the human trafficking shit Rook was involved in back in Chicago. Even if we did manufacture most of that story she told the police to cover our asses and take most of that particular branch of the crime ring down, these people deserved to take the fall.
And call me God for making that decision. Call me self-righteous. Or morally superior, or smug. I don’t care. I am.
I am better than those assholes we took out. My whole team is better than those assholes we took out.
So no, I’m not gonna feel guilty about killing that motherfucker. It was me or him.
I chose me.
And once we cross-checked the names of those guilty of buying and selling sex slaves out of Rook’s unassuming suburban Chicago barn and found him on it, I felt even more sanctimonious.
It happened and I live with the consequences. But guilt isn’t one of those consequences.
Looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life is.
And Ronin’s. And Ford’s. And now Ashleigh and Rook are included in this group too.
Sure, I fucked up. Given the choice, I’d choose to not have to kill people. So yeah, we fucked up.
And now that shit has come back into town to remind us. Give us a little homecoming queen wave from atop a parade-day float. ‘Hello, boys,’ that shit says. ‘Remember me?’
Hell fucking yeah, I remember.
Three and a half years ago
Ford and Ronin flank me as we get out of the van and walk up the driveway. They are calm. Not me. I’m a fucking mess of nerves. I feel funny. Not like how we usually feel before a job, all amped up on the adrenaline of knowing we are about to commit a crime that will net us millions of dollars of untraceable digital money.
No. That’s not how I feel at all.
I feel… wrong. “I feel wrong,” I say out loud for the twentieth time.
“Just relax,” Ronin whispers. “The father’s out of town on business, the mother’s up in Idaho Springs at some spa day thing. And Jennifer’s in class and work after. She told me all this yesterday.”
I know this. Ronin has said it over and over this morning, but I have this sick, sick feeling.
The beeps of the security alarm jolt me out of my unease and bring me back to what the fuck we’re actually doing.
We’re wearing work clothes for one. With the power company’s logo on them. Our white work truck has a large magnetic logo on the side as well.
But even this is wrong. There are no teams of three in the power company. Not all in the same truck. It’s a sloppy cover that I didn’t think about until we got in the truck an hour ago. But now that it’s popped into my mind, I can’t stop thinking about it.
This is not what we normally do. We do not break into homes to rob people. We access bank accounts. We steal our money virtually. We cut our teeth on the stupid kiddie con scams we pulled out on the 16th Street Mall back in high school. And we knew that first drug dealer we took out over Mardee. But other than that, we’ve never even seen any of the marks in person.
“I want to abort,” I say. But no one even hears me as the alarm beeps again when Ford disengages it.
A few seconds the door clicks open. Ford ushers us through, then closes it behind him.
Too late to go back now. At the very least we have to find the security room and get rid of the footage. That’s about the only thing Ford could do virtually. Troll security company databases trying to find out which one monitors this house.
But it turns out none of them do. Sure, there’s three signs in the front yard declaring they have a service with each one. But Ford looked good and hard until he finally concluded they have a private system. Which means all the footage is on site.
The house is impressive. Ford’s loaded, so I’m used to old money. And Ronin’s family owns Chaput Studios, a massive industrial building, so I know big time. But this house in the Boulder hills is something else altogether.
Old money says refined taste. Working money says nothing but the best as long as it’s practical. New money says opulence.
This place screams extravagance.
“Jennifer mentioned once that his office was near the billiard room.”
“Where the fuck is the billiard room?” I ask. “Next to the candlestick in the library? Do they have a Mrs. Plum here too?”
“Shut up, it’s probably in the basement. That’s where we have our game room,” Ford snaps.
“And it’s Professor Plum,” Ronin adds, as he warily looks around for the basement entrance.
Ford finds it first. It’s not behind a door like most normal houses would have it. No. It’s a full-on grand staircase that has a slight spiral to it. The banisters are highly polished wood, and the stairs are soft carpet.
At least that muffles the sound of our boots as we descend.
“Ah,” Ford says as we turn left at the bottom. “I knew this bastard would have on-site security.” He points to a room that has a plethora of flatscreen monitors. We pass by those. “I’ll come back on the way out and fuck it all up.”
Yeah, I feel so much better now, knowing we’re definitely on camera as we approached the house.
Ford finds the office and he and Ronin get to work on the accounts. I watch the hallway and try to shake off my unease. Ronin usually doesn’t do this stuff, but he’s the one who knows the girl who lives here. She’s the reason we’re doing this. We pick and choose our victims carefully. Only scumbags get the Team treatment. And according to his daughter, this guy has been molesting her since she was a little girl. Ronin said the girl, Jennifer, didn’t share explicit details, but he got the impression it was graphic. She was drunk one night, Ronin was working his player magic, just trying to get laid, I’m sure. And this chick started spouting off some serious shit about her daddy.
Ronin let her talk until she passed out and then left. He said she pretended nothing happened that night, just passed it off as being out of her mind drunk—
The cocking of a shotgun blows my thoughts out of my mind and the stench of whiskey permeates the room.
All three of us whirl around and come face to face with the pedophile.
“In the corner,” he spits, saliva dripping out of his mouth, his feet shuffling along the carpet as he approaches me.
He’s wasted.
I put up my hands and back away, moving closer to Ford and Ronin. “We’re from the power company—”
The thundering boom of the shotgun makes all three of us react. My hand goes to my gun, Ford and Ronin duck as part of the ceiling comes down on top of them, and then in the next moment, the drunk and I are face to face. His shotgun pointed at my chest, my 9mm pointed right at his head.
We squeeze at the same time. He flies backward from the kick, and I duck as the plaster crumbles off the wall behind me. This shit happens so fast I can’t even register that I just blew the guy’s brains out.
I slump against the wall, then slide down. The next thing I know, Ronin and Ford are standing next to me. “Ronin, you wipe everything down. Spencer, you go to the security room and locate anything that looks like a hard drive. I’ve got the money transferring now, I’ll be in in two minutes. We’re out in five.”
Ronin and I just look at Ford, struck dumb.
“I’m not talking to myself, move your fucking asses.”
Ronin goes into the adjoined office bathroom and grabs a towel, then starts wiping things down. We all have gloves on, but we came in here to get codes to steal money. We did not come prepared to clean up after a murder.
Murder.
“Move!” Ford yells in my face. “You can think about how bad you fucked up later. But right now we need to complete the job.”
I walk out without looking at the dead guy on the floor. But I don’t need to. Because the hole in his head and his brains splattered all over the beige carpet are etched in my
memory forever.
I’m not even sure what happens after that. We do get the footage, and the money transfers all complete. We get back into the car and we’re back at Chaput Studios before I snap back out of it. I don’t even know how we got here.
I look over at Ronin. He’s sitting in the middle between me and Ford, his expression as blank and empty as I feel.
I’m the official driver in all jobs but right now, Ford is behind the wheel. And I’ve never been so happy that he’s the cold, emotionless asshole he’s always been.
He’s always said the detached getaway is his signature move.
And I guess he was right.
“You ready?” Ford asks as I realize I’m sitting in front of the rifles in his FoCo apartment, just staring off into space. “I’m done and I’d like to get back to Ashleigh and Kate.”
“Yeah,” I say, clearing my throat. Fuck, I haven’t thought about the details of that day in a long, long time. “I’m just gonna take some of these with me.”
“Why?”
“Why?” I laugh as I grab the large duffel I use to move guns from place to place. “Because I have no guns in the new shop and shit’s happening, Ford. I’m not sure how the adoption stuff is related to the missing motorcycles, but one thing’s for fucking sure.” I look at him as I stuff some guns in the bag. “It most definitely is, brother. It most definitely is. Jury selection starts today. Ronnie’s apartment is suddenly condemned and she can’t go inside—”
“What?”
“Yeah, some shit about asbestos. But this fancy guy shows up in town, claiming to own that new condo building over on Mason Street. He just happens to own the building she lives in right now too, so he gives her this free condo to live in while her place is cleaned up. Now you have this adoption shit and a dead guy coming out of nowhere. My bikes are missing and someone was trying to make Drake look like the perp. But as soon as we catch on, that shit morphs, right? Suddenly Drake’s coming off squeaky clean because he’s over at my place accusing me of stealing his bikes.” I huff out a breath. “Convenient, right?”
I finish packing up the rifles and then crawl over to the handguns, all laid out in perfect order on the carpet. I pick up the .454 Taurus Raging Bull and weigh it in my hand. Ronnie might be able to shoot it, since we’ve practiced on the big guns a lot when we were first together. But Ronin never shoots. He can point a gun and probably hit his target, I’ve made sure he was trained. But he never practices. He’s a ground fighter. Ford is a rifle man if he needs a gun. Point and spray is how he’ll get the job done if it comes down to it.
“What do you think you’re gonna do with that thing?” Ford asks, as he points to the Raging Bull I’m positioning inside the bag.
“Blow someone’s fucking head off, what the fuck else would I do with it?”
He recoils at the imagery because that’s exactly what I did to the Boulder guy. “I’m pretty sure that little .380 in your jacket will do the trick, Spencer. Don’t get paranoid on me now.”
“Ford, you do your job, I’ll do mine. When you’re in charge of the guns, you can choose the weapons.” I zip up the bag, stand up, and throw it over my shoulder. “I’m ready. You got what you need?”
He nods and waves me out.
We drive back to town in silence. And that’s a good thing.
Because right now the only thing on our minds is the job. Someone—hell, maybe a shitload of someones—is fucking with our lives. I’m not sure if it’s Drake, condo guy, the scum involved in the trial, or one of the many, many people we’ve fucked over in the past. But one thing’s for sure—it’s all related.
And maybe this job wasn’t planned by us. Maybe so far we’ve only been reacting to circumstance. Trying to piece the puzzle together bit by bit.
It doesn’t matter. Because we’re definitely gonna be the ones to finish it.
Chapter Sixteen
VERONICA
Guys like Chuck make me happy to be a tattoo artist. I’ve been working on his back piece for almost a year. He drives in from Kansas to get his work done. He’s got at least four more appointments until he’s done and since he can only get away from his job at the feed mill his family owns when production is slow—cows never stop eating, he always tells me—his visits are few and far between.
I finish the last of the shading I’m doing on the tribute to American horror he’s got going on his back. If I didn’t know Chuck, these images would scare the shit out of me. In fact, even though I’m the one who drew and inked the Pennywise, Leatherface, Pinhead, and Jason in his hockey mask on his skin, it still creeps me out.
I wipe down his back and then give him a nudge. “Hey, Chuck. You’re done.” Chuck gives me a snore. How the hell a man can fall asleep when I’m draggin’ a needle across his back is beyond me. But he never has a problem.
Eh, I let him sleep. I don’t have another appointment for a few hours. I leave him there and go back up front, and I’m just turning the corner when the bell above the door jingles.
“Ronnie!” Carson smiles brightly. “I just came by to see how you were.”
“Um…” I pause because he’s lying. Carson is so easy to read, it’s pathetic. Maybe I’m just so used to the accomplished liars all around me, or maybe he’s a terrible liar. But it doesn’t matter. I can see through him. Almost everything he’s ever told me has been a lie. And I’m not sure why he’s lying. He’s never asked me for anything, in fact he really was sincere about trying to help me get my own flower shop. “I’m good,” I say back. And I’m just about to ask him what the hell he wants when the door jingles again and a crowd of people walk in.
Really? It’s fucking Tuesday. No one ever comes in on Tuesday. I’m all alone and I get a crowd of… one, two, three… I count them up until I get to fifteen. Fifteen? Really?
The noise must wake Chuck, because he comes out from the back holding his shirt and rubbing his eyes like he needs to go back to bed pronto. I head behind the counter and ignore the crowd. Sometimes they just come in to look. This group might be here looking.
“What do I owe ya, Ron?” Chuck says.
“That’s seven-fifty this time, Chuck. Should I put you in the book for two months?”
He eyeballs me as he takes his card out of his wallet. “Thought you was quittin’, Ronnie? Your dad told me to switch over to Vic. You saying you’ll do another appointment?”
“Would I leave you hanging?” I flash him a flirty smile but he scowls at me.
“Ya don’t have to. We’re at a good stopping place to switch over.”
I stare at him as I internalize what he just said. It sorta hurts my feelings. I’ve been tattooing this guy for two years and to be honest, the thought of Vic finishing it just ruins my day. “No, I want to finish it, Chuck. Really, I do. It might be creepy, but I’m looking forward to doing Chuckie and Cujo next time.”
He flops my head with his hat and I feel like a little girl again. “Kay, then. I’ll call ya when the feeding season is over.” Which means summer, since cows need to be fed in the winter.
I hand him his receipt and then turn to the nearest college kid waiting for my attention. “How can I help you?”
“We’re the Kappa Gamma Gamma house and we all want to get matching tattoos.” She beams at me like this is the most clever idea ever. “Today,” she adds.
Of course you do.
Carson thrusts a clipboard with a sign-in sheet at the girl. “If you could all put your names on here to make a waiting list, then fill out these forms, we’ll get you all scheduled.”
I just stare at him as the girls saunter off to begin their list. “What?” he asks me as I continue to stare. “I figured you could use the money this group will bring, so hey, might as well make myself useful.”
“Hmmm,” I say. “Why are you here?”
“To help,” he insists. “Don’t you want it?”
We both look out at the girls. Their tattoo will be at least fifty dollars apiece, maybe even seventy-five. That’
s a lot of extra money for me, even after the shop takes fifty percent. “I have a scheduled appointment at three and another one at six. Do you think we can fit all these girls in before I need to close?”
“We can try, Bombshell.”
“What?”
“What?”
“What did you just call me?”
Carson actually turns red. “Sorry, that’s just… you just… you’re like one of those… pinup girls, ya know? Sorry.” He makes a break for it and goes to talk to the head girl to see what tattoo they want.
Bombshell, huh.
Suddenly Carson makes a whole lot more sense. I’ve been wondering why he’s been all up in my face these days. Asking me about cars and shit. He’s working for Spencer.
I turn away and walk back to my room. Smiling.
In fact, I laugh. I giggle. I get all sorts of stupid. Because Spencer—I sigh. God, I fucking love that man. He told me to date Carson last week. And I swear, I thought my chest was gonna crack open when he said that to me over the phone. It hurt like a motherfucker.
But Spencer is a sneaky fucking prick. A lovable, adorable, sneaky fucking prick.
I rip the plastic off my chair, then the machine and the cord. In fact, I rip all the fucking plastic off. Even from the flatscreen. I find the remote and turn on the Biker Channel. I haven’t watched it lately, but they run the promos for Shrike Bikes all the time. I’m only in one episode, the very last one, but my face is in at least one promo. I signed a release for it. They’re not paying me, I was a pilot walk-on when Rook’s ex came back and tried to kill her. He ended up shooting me instead, just a flesh wound, thank God. And even though Spencer told me I was never gonna be on his show when we had that big falling out last year, he was wrong. I am on his show.