by Lana Grayson
I missed the call from Anathema.
I never should have answered the first time they called me seven years ago.
But then I was young, naïve, and looking for trouble. I flexed my muscles by opening my blouse one button at a time, and it built me an empire. But everything I did, made, had, and lost was because of them. Anathema. The men who ruined whatever they touched.
Including the moments they didn’t deserve to destroy.
The feelings I never should have felt.
The only bond I ever had with a man not built on money or an exchange of power.
I didn’t owe those sons of bitches anything.
…And yet I owed them everything. At least that was the lie I told myself. A way to make the decision easier when I spread my legs only to kick Luke from my bed.
I showered—efficient and cold. Just enough to chill the warmth from my core and hide the dampness on my cheeks.
He saw me cry.
Didn’t make a difference. I deserved to cry. He deserved to see it. If he wanted my heart as bad as he said he did, then he’d suffer the tears too.
I dressed in jeans and a corset—not practical for war but enough of a show to perk up the injured men. I pulled my hair into a ponytail and grabbed a second set of keys. I hardly ever drove the Honda, but it was a good, reliable car. It blended in when I didn’t want to be seen and kept me out of trouble.
Most days.
Times like this I didn’t know who followed me more—Luke or ATF.
The penthouse garage opened to the street and let in all the rif-raff. I debated switching my keys for pepper spray, but I respected Agent Greene’s badge more than a cut.
“Ms. Hart.” She leaned against her car, risking dirt on her cream pantsuit. “So glad you’re safe at home. It’s been a busy, busy night.”
“I wouldn’t know.” I shrugged, regretting it as I pain didn’t know I had ripped through my shoulder.
“Haven’t heard anything?”
My ears still rang from the gunfire and concussion. She was lucky I could hear her. “Just woke up.”
She checked her phone. “Little late in the day to be sleeping?”
“My profession affords me a bit of flexibility with my hours.”
“Hopefully you’re not that sound a sleeper. We’ve had a lot of reports come out in the past few hours. I was wondering if you’d be willing to…enlighten us on the events of the night.”
I clutched my keys. It was no coincidence she parked behind my car. “Sorry. I have plans.”
“Heading to Sorceress? Or maybe Pixie to reconvene?”
“Not sure that’s any of your concern.”
She smiled. “It is now. Lyn, I like you, and I want to help.”
“I can handle myself.”
“That bruise says otherwise,” Agent Greene winked. “Nice and dark…should be noticeable from the whole stage. Then again, no one’s looking at that cheek.”
I had no patience for this. “What do you want?”
“I was hoping you could answer a few questions.”
“If wishes were horses, Agent.”
“I’m not asking, Ms. Hart.”
I snorted. “What? Are you arresting me?”
“There’s been reports of violence and gunfire all night. First a man from Temple MC was found dead on a bridge—must have crashed when the bullet sliced through his neck.”
“These things happen.”
She nodded. “More often than they should. Most of the murders tonight occurred in your club.”
Murders.
My stomach pitted.
Rose and Keep were alive. Luke. What about the others? Gold? Scotch?
Thorne.
“Then you know how busy I am,” I said. “I should go see what’s happened.”
“I need you to come with me, Ms. Hart.”
I perked an eyebrow. “Am I being detained?”
“Yes.”
Fuck. “Why?”
“Murders at your establishment? We also found some heroin amid the blood and bullets.”
Goddamn Keep. I shrugged. “You can talk to my lawyer.”
“Come with me, Ms. Hart. Just a formality. I’m sure the prosecutor can’t make anything stick. I’ll even drive.”
Like I had a choice.
It never failed. I meant to keep Sorceress separate from Anathema, but we were always one line of coke or ripped pair of panties away from belonging to the MC. My business was dangerous enough without involving Anathema. This time, it went too far.
Another day, another murder, another implication.
Agent Greene delivered me to their local office, far from Pixie and the men who needed me.
Or at least needed to check on me.
Or hoped I wouldn’t squeal.
And I should have talked.
A nice rack and sweet ass weren’t my only dangerous assets. I knew names, dates, where bodies had been buried, and what men weren’t quite dead. I saw enough of Anathema’s dirty work. A loaded gun couldn’t have taken them down quicker.
But I wasn’t a traitor.
The interrogation room was little more than a whitewashed office with a single desk. Agent Greene lost her jacket and, to my surprise, had decent arms. She must’ve worked out, or at least cared about her appearance in more ways than straightening her hair to death as she grew out her bangs. She wasn’t unattractive, but she humped her badge a little too much.
No one looked good hiding behind false confidence.
Unless it was me.
“Are you comfortable?” Agent Greene offered me water. The plastic cup slid across the table. “You don’t mind if I record this conversation, do you?”
“You should ask my lawyer.”
“Let’s not go down that road just yet.” She handed me her voice recorder. “You hold onto it. Whenever you want, press the record button.”
I should have broken the damn thing. “You said there was a murder. Who died?”
“You scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours.”
I’d scratch her damn eyes out. These men were my friends.
“If you want me to cooperate, you’ll tell me who died,” I said.
“It wasn’t Thorne, if you’re afraid of any sort of retaliation for speaking to me.”
A relief and burden. I didn’t want to lose one of my oldest and most trusted friends, but I didn’t want to face the president once he learned the whole truth about ATF.
I held Agent Greene’s gaze, surprisingly sharp and aggressive for someone who only wanted a friendly chat. “I don’t fear Thorne. I’m not associated with him or Anathema.”
“And yet anytime there’s an issue in the city between the clubs, you are caught in the middle.”
“Just lucky that way.”
“Luckier than most. Caleb Jones was killed early this morning.”
God. Scotch.
My heart crushed.
He was the last of the gray generation, and the only one of them whoever treated anybody with any respect. He was there for the founding of Anathema. He survived the split.
Hell, he was Rose’s godfather.
He was dead.
I swore. “Are you sure?”
Agent Greene dropped a picture in front of me. I believed her without seeing evidence of the bloody corpse. The second picture rested beneath the first. I flipped over Scotch’s last picture and studied the bastard beneath him.
“Bounty too, huh?” This one I wouldn’t mourn. “Hell just got a little hotter.”
“Did you happen to see anything last night?” Agent Greene asked.
“Everything I looked at.”
“Did you see these men get murdered?”
I could this be honest with this one. “No.”
“Do you know what happened last night?”
“Nothing that was planned,” I said.
“You’re pretty roughed up.”
I preferred when Luke called me beautiful, but he was so hard up for
me he looked past the bruises to get what I hid in my thong.
I never should have let him leave, the first time or the last.
“I’m fine.” I didn’t touch the throbbing bruise. “A hazard of the job.”
“Seems like you need a new job. Or new friends.”
I agreed. “So it would seem.”
“Plenty of new people to meet in County.”
“Orange isn’t my color.”
Agent Greene smirked. “Don’t say that. A girl like you can make anything work to her advantage.”
I had enough, and my head pounded from the stress and fatigue. “If you’re gonna charge me with something, do it. Get my lawyer down here and talk with him. Otherwise? You’re going to let me go because you have no reason to detain me.”
“I hoped you’d be cooperative with our investigation.”
“Why?”
Agent Greene was proud of herself, and that cocky little attitude would’ve earned a slap to her mouth and ass in my club.
“You could be a primary witness,” she said. “But, if you saw nothing, we’ll have no choice but to base our federal investigation within Sorceress. Being that it was a homicide, this investigation might last a considerably long time. Enough time to sway the city commission and concerned citizens of Cherrywood Valley to petition against its reopening.”
“Reopening?”
“Lyn, unless you’re willing to cooperate and give us information we need, Sorceress will be held under federal jurisdiction while our forensics team gets the information to piece together what actually happened.” She leaned across the table, lowering her voice. “And, just between us girls, due to funding issues and shortages of staff, our labs are backed up. It might be some time before we get our answers.”
She should have hit me. I took a punch better than I faced reality.
I had been harassed by the Feds before, but nothing this extreme, nothing that would have endangered my club. I could handle renovations after the fight. My insurance would cover it, but that’s why daddies gave their little girls trust funds.
Still, my dancers needed to be paid. They also had to find a safe place to work.
This was a nightmare.
Agent Greene folded her hands. “I’m a reasonable woman. I’ll take any information I can get.” Her eyebrows arched. “Any.”
“I told you. I don’t know anything.”
She took the recorder. The tape popped out. She set it apart from the equipment.
“Tell me what you know about Blade Darnell.”
This shit again? I shook my head. “Hell of a lot of questions about a dead man.”
“Were you helping him?”
“I never helped that man a day in my life.”
“Who killed him?” She didn’t like that I shrugged. “Who was he with before he died? What did he say to them?”
I gave her nothing. Her words clipped a little harder.
“Why did Anathema want him dead? What reason did they have?”
“Believe me,” I said. “You’re a lucky woman for never meeting Blade. Every girl in the world is better off now that he’s dead.”
“Not all of them.”
Enough of this. “I don’t know if you’re trying to start trouble or if you just want a promotion, but Blade isn’t the way to get it.”
“I have my reasons for investigating that prick.” Agent Greene’s voice shifted. A little less professional and a lot more…street. “If you can help me, talk.”
“Conducting your own investigation?”
“You could say that.”
Interesting. Blade made more enemies than we realized. Not that I was surprised, but usually a biker drug muler wasn’t the center of a case for an agent looking to advance her career.
“You give me any and all information you have about Blade, and I’ll make sure my team is in and out of Sorceress,” she said. “Quick and painless. I’ll get you any protection you need.”
Unless she was talking about a Kevlar vest, she couldn’t offer me anything that’s save my ass. Betraying Anathema was the stupidest thing I could do. I got away with a lot of shit, but breathing a word about Blade would give this princess cement shoes instead of glass slippers.
“I told you. I don’t know anything.”
Agent Greene swore. Frustrated.
A little less composed than usual.
“Fine. I’m done with you. But other agents might want a word. Be a doll and hang around here.”
“You can’t hold me.”
“I can’t. But the prosecutor can. Get comfortable, Lyn. You may be here for a while.”
***
Legally, the state of California could only detain me for forty-eight hours without a prosecutor’s charge.
They let me go after thirty-six.
No phone calls. No meals. I guzzled my water, napped on the couch, and kept my mouth shut. They had nothing on me, of course. Everything in my club was clean.
Or had been.
The pictures they showed told another story. Glass and bullets. Broken tables and chairs. Destroyed walls and scorched carpets.
Bloodstains.
Agent Greene offered her card as she delivered me to my penthouse. She asked about Blade again. That smug bitch was one wrong word away from getting delivered to Anathema so they could conduct their own goddamned investigation.
I slammed the car door and watched as she drove away. Undoubtedly I’d be under surveillance.
I couldn’t muster the energy to give a fuck. I was tired, hungry, and needed to talk to Thorne. I looked and felt like hell. I sacrificed a shower to hurry to Pixie. The prospects let my car inside the lot, but the gates locked shut behind me. More cars than usual were parked in the rear.
The women were still here.
That didn’t bode well.
A prospect tripped over his own tongue as he escorted me into the bar. I didn’t need his drool or his gun, but his presence tickled the hair on my neck.
The men were assembled. Their women and children huddled inside the bar.
I entered, earning a relieved hug from Annie. She held Gold’s baby on her hip and pretended to talk to me about Silver’s cute pudgy cheeks.
“The officers are meeting now,” she whispered. “They’ve been talking for a couple hours. Doesn’t look good. Where have you been?”
“I got hung up.”
“You okay?”
“Better than Scotch. Where’s Rose?”
Annie pointed to the bar. Rose crashed onto the counter, asleep on her folded arms.
“Thorne is deciding what to do with Keep,” Annie said.
This wasn’t good. Of course Thorne would get upset with the damn junkie. He wasn’t going to let another Darnell die, but he’d never forgive the bastard for putting Rose in danger.
I surveyed the others. The men were exhausted, the women panicked. Most had food or a soft drink before them. Rose had tended to them with picnic lunches and snacks saved from Anathema’s stock-piled reserves. She did well, even if I’d hoped she’d never have to play queen during a war.
A half-hour passed while I cleaned with Annie, letting Rose sleep at the bar. We needed more bottled water, and Annie worried she hadn’t packed enough of Silver’s diapers. That was a good job for me. I didn’t trust sending Rose to the store. I could get in and out without harassment from The Coup.
At least, that’s how it worked in the past.
Things had changed.
I hated war. I hated these moments. The waiting. The irritation. How everybody’s lives were ruined because the men took up arms over the tiniest of offenses.
Murders were worse than insults.
Scotch was dead. Bounty was dead. And the retribution would be fierce.
Keep shouted before the rest of the men appeared. Rose tumbled out of her chair as Keep pitched his cut over the bar. The leather crashed into the bottles and stacked glasses before the mirror. Most shattered.
“This is bullshit!”
“What’s going on?” Rose leapt away as Keep overturned a bar stool. The women gasped. Gold’s baby cried. Rose steadied Keep with a cautious hand to his shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
“Ask your goddamned president.” Keep held his arms out. “I’m not fit to be around you. Probably can’t talk to you either. I’m a danger.”
He was. Even Rose couldn’t argue that. Thorne stared with waning patience.
“Sit your ass down,” he said. “Before you hurt someone. Again.”
Keep didn’t take his advice. “I didn’t flip the fucking truck on purpose. You think I’d intentionally hurt my little sister? You think I wasn’t trying to get her to safety? Like you fucking told me to do?”
“Christ, you did nothing but endanger her. First you fucked up, told The Coup Blade isn’t her father. Then you drive that truck while you were high as a mother-fucking kite, flipped it, and nearly killed her.” Thorne didn’t let him look away. “If it wasn’t for Rose stealing another goddamned bike, neither of you would have made it out of the desert.”
Keep grunted. “So stripping me of my patch is gonna teach me a lesson? How else you gonna fuck me over? Ain’t got the balls to do what you did to Brew.”
Pixie silenced.
Rose knew when the fuse lit. She tugged Keep far from Thorne. It didn’t help.
I never knew Thorne to take an officer’s position. I didn’t blame him, but Keep was so far beyond rational nothing would fix his addiction but a hole in the head instead of his veins.
He forced his way to the door. He wasn’t sober enough to ride his bike.
No one would convince him otherwise.
Rose faced Thorne with a bravery very few people possessed who weren’t dressed in leather. “The club is all Keep has. What did you do?”
“We voted. He still in, but we can’t trust him. Not if he’s that strung-out.”
“But this is his life.”
“Sweetheart, it almost ended yours. It’s done.”
I intervened before another Darnell lost their temper. Thorne wasn’t as happy to see me as Rose.
“Quite the theatrical moment,” I said. “I leave you guys alone for one day—”
Thorne broke first, running a hand through his hair. “Jesus Christ, Lyn. I had two guys out searching the damn city for you. We thought something happened.”