He sighed and rubbed a hand down his face. “I’m not. Please, just…praise is…it’s complicated.”
Because his horrible Miss Carla had praised him. Told him he was pretty. Had given him to men as a plaything.
Whitney set her sketchpad aside and stood, crossed the small distance between them. When Kev tipped his head back to look up at her, blue eyes full of pain and question, she took his face in her small hands, traced the hard lines of his cheekbones with her thumbs. “I won’t say those things if you really don’t want me to,” she assured. “But don’t let her keep taking things from you. Don’t hate beautiful things because of her.”
“Well, I don’t hate you,” he said with a weak smile.
Whitney tried to laugh, and realized her eyes were filling with tears.
“C’mere.” Kev pulled her down so she was bent at the waist, their arms around one another, faces pressed into throats and tears fought with little sniffles.
“I do think you’re beautiful,” she said into the tender skin behind his ear, squeezing his shoulders. “And that’s yours, you own it: it’s your body. It’s your beauty.”
“She never woulda wanted me if I was ugly,” he whispered.
“Oh, baby.” She rubbed soothing circles between his shoulder blades. “Don’t try to make sense of monsters. She did it because she’s evil, plain and simple.”
Kev took a deep, shuddering breath, and eased her back, hands on her waist. His eyes were wet, but he held the tears back. “Whit, will you do something for me, please?”
She smoothed his hair. “Of course.”
“Will you…will you call me Tango?”
~*~
It came to him suddenly, a flash of inspiration. An epiphany, maybe. He was born Kev. Kev had been captured. Kev had been weak and hadn’t been able to escape from Carla’s clutches. And then Kev had become Loverboy, the dancer, the sex slave, the weak, weak heroin-addicted boy who’d allowed himself to be recaptured.
But Tango was a Lean Dog. Tango had a family, had friends, had people who loved him.
He swallowed, looking up at the surprise that rippled across Whitney’s face. “I know that’s what I told you to call me when we met. But I…I don’t want to be Kev anymore. Kev was a lifetime ago.”
“Tango.” A slow smile broke across her face, her eyes shiny. “Okay. I can do that.”
It wasn’t much – it wasn’t anything – but it felt like another of those steps. The careful trudging steps toward a livable life.
Thirty
It was five o’clock four days before Christmas when Fox sauntered into the clubhouse common room sporting several days’ worth of beard and a smug look. “Well, I found the place.”
Five minutes later, once all of them were gathered around the table in the chapel, he lit a smoke and expanded: “Bitch has gotten sneaky since you boys last had a run-in with her.” The longer he talked, the more American his London accent began to sound. “The club runs for about week, and then they pack up shop and move it, which tells me she’s spooked about a raid, ‘cause what a bitch to move all those dancers and all that gear every time. Not to mention expensive; rumors I heard were that she’s got a gentleman friend helping her foot the bill.”
“And they say romance is dead,” Mercy said with a snort.
Fox cut a tight, feral grin.
“Where is she right now and how long is she gonna be there?” Ghost asked.
“Warehouse downriver, bottom floor, no windows, guards at both doors. They’ll be there for another night, and then they’re gonna ghost.”
“Tango,” Ghost said, turning to him, and Tango realized he was dangerously close to spacing out, his heartbeat high and erratic in his ears, his palms sweating where they lay limp on his thighs. “You think she’ll be keeping her boys somewhere offsite?”
Forcing his mouth to work, he said, “No. They’d quit doing that when I was…the second time. They’ll be locked up somewhere onsite.”
“Okay, that simplifies things.” Ghost sent him a tight, grateful smile before turning back to the group. “Foxy, you got any suggestions while we’re making plans?”
The Englishman stubbed out his cigarette and lit another, the only sign that all of this was agitating him. “If we go in while the action’s hot, we’ve got the element of surprise, sure, and we’ve also got half the boys out on the floor, makes ‘em easier to get hold of. But we’ve also got customers to deal with. If we wait until they start packing things away and getting ready to move, we’ve got them in disarray, but they’re also mobile and ready to roll out. Chance someone will slip away.”
“Yeah, but that’s where Officer Bitchface can make himself useful,” Ghost said.
Fox sighed dreamily. “I always forget you have your very own pet policeman.”
Tango couldn’t help it; his mind drifted. Participating in the planning sent him spiraling back through time, felt too much like disobeying. There were triggers buried deep within the folds of his brain, kneejerk desires to be good, to please, to keep his head down and not do anything to upset Miss Carla or her goons. She’d starved him and slapped him for giving her the wrong answers. What would she do if he tried to disassemble her precious club once and for all?
He pushed his chair back when he realized he was hyperventilating, muttered a hasty “excuse me,” and fled. He ducked into the first dorm, not bothering to shut the door behind him, and sagged down onto the bed, head between his knees, fighting his own lungs. He felt like he had asthma, suddenly.
It was less than a minute before Aidan joined him, coming to sit beside him on the end of the bed without hesitation. “Hey,” he said, and that one word managed to sound supportive. He nudged Tango’s shoulder with his own and waited.
Tango blew out a long, shaky breath. “It’s stupid.”
“What is?”
“Shit.” He breathed a sound that didn’t quite become a laugh. “It’s stupid that we’re in there talking about the thing I’ve wanted most in my life, and all I can think about is the fact that I’m disappointing her. That she’s gonna be so angry.”
She didn’t need clarification.
Aidan laid an arm across his shoulders and pulled him in tight, close enough for Tango to smell the cigarettes and cheap cologne on his collar. “You get that it’s normal for you to feel like that, yeah? That it’s just your head playing tricks?”
Tango managed to nod. “Doesn’t mean it isn’t stupid.”
“Nope.” Aidan jostled him back and forth, gently. “We’re gonna do this for real this time, man. And if you can’t do it, then don’t worry about it. We’re doing this because we love you, and we want you to get better. You don’t have to come at all.”
Except that he did. Even if his mind was in tatters afterward, he had to be there. He had to see it with his own eyes.
~*~
Tango’s face, bloodless and blank with anxiety, convinced Aidan to follow him home.
“You don’t have to,” Tango said, and made a show of rolling his eyes – but he looked grateful.
“Nah, it’s cool. Besides, I gotta see this Christmas tree I’ve heard so much about.”
Tango groaned, but again, there was something brighter beneath.
Thick gray clouds tumbled across the sky on the way to the apartment, more snow threatening to join the dirty dregs that still lingered in shady patches and concrete gutters. It felt and smelled like Christmas in every way that counted, all the cliché aesthetics across town and in all of their homes. And they were planning battle and murder. How festive.
For Aidan’s part, he couldn’t wait to get this all over with. He felt helpless, watching his best friend battle demons that lived in his mind, that Aidan couldn’t fight with his fists on Tango’s behalf. Tango had come so far in such a short time: from the bathroom floor to admitting as much in church. But the fear and insecurity couldn’t start to abate until Carla was dealt with once and for all. Aidan just wanted to skip ahead, spare Tango the trauma of seeing the woman again
. But he would never deny his friend’s need to see it through himself. He knew how that worked; you couldn’t let something go until you’d turned it loose with your own bloody fingers.
Mercy’s old apartment above the bakery, so cold and dim after Tango first moved in, was warm, full of buttery light, and rich with the scents of a home-cooked dinner.
He noticed the tree straight off, because it took up way too much space in the corner where a lamp used to be, and also because it was trimmed in colored lights and an eclectic mix of new and homemade ornaments. Aidan knew Whitney was a painter, and spotted some hand-painted stars, trees, and wreaths on thick craft paper. It was like a child’s attempt at a tree, an explosion of color, light, and festive effort, and it plucked at Aidan’s heartstrings in an unexpected way. They were just two kids trying to figure it all out, all the way down to the paper chains in the fir boughs.
Whitney was in the kitchen, dicing a large white onion, looking every inch the happy wife. “Hi,” she greeted them brightly. “Aidan, are you staying for dinner?” she asked as Tango pressed a fast kiss to her cheek and then headed for the fridge. “I made plenty.”
“Nah, I can’t stay long.” Just here to make sure you guys aren’t falling apart. “Thanks, man,” he said when Tango put a beer in his hand.
“How are Sam and Lainie?” Whitney asked.
“They’re good.” Lainie was growing like crazy, and Sam was worrying about Tango more than her job allowed, if her That’s fine and string of concerned emojis she’d texted back to his earlier message about swinging by Tango’s were anything to go by. “She wants to have you guys over for dinner sometime, maybe after Christmas.”
“That would be fun. Just have her let me know what I need to bring.”
“’Kay.”
“Be right back,” Tango said, and headed for the bathroom.
The second the bathroom door was shut, Whitney laid down her knife and met Aidan’s gaze with one so direct he actually backed up a step, shocked by it. In a quiet voice, she said, “You guys are going after Miss Carla, aren’t you?”
He had no idea what Tango had told her, and knew he shouldn’t give her any intel, but he had a feeling she knew a fair bit by this point. He nodded.
She took a deep breath. “I don’t know if he’ll be able to go through with it, even though he wants to. Aidan, please, promise me: if Tango can’t do it, the rest of you need to do it for him. Kill that woman.”
When he stared at her, surprised as all hell and trying to figure out where this core of solid steel had come from, she said, “I’m serious.”
He swallowed and got his tongue working. “Yeah, so are we. We’ll do it. Don’t worry on that front.”
She exhaled and nodded, reaching for the knife again. “Good. Thank you.”
It was the first time, Aidan realized, the girl had ever called Kev “Tango.”
~*~
“There’s a life drawing course at the college that starts in January,” Whitney told him later that night when she was sketching him again. “Not really a college course, but an evening one that anyone can sign up for.” She flicked a questioning glance up over the top of her sketchpad, and he wasn’t fooled by her; he knew she wasn’t just checking another line, but wondering what he thought about that.
“That’s great. You should sign up,” he said, immediately. Then: “Not that I mind modeling,” with a self-deprecating smile. “But you’re good enough to be in classes. In art shows,” he pressed, because he wasn’t going to let that go anytime soon.
“Yeah, well.” Her eyes dropped to the paper again, pencil moving. “Maybe this could be a first step toward something like that.”
“That’s what you want, isn’t it?” he asked, growing less certain. “To be a full-time artist?”
The pencil stilled; she glanced toward the window. “It’s the dream. You know, like we talked about. Who knows if it’s possible, but I don’t want to work in customer service the rest of my life. I’m…” Her eyes darted over, bright and careful as he thought his own must be. “I’m starting to think about the future.”
The future. Powerful words. It was something he couldn’t see, and hadn’t ever spent any time pondering. But now he had Whitney in his life, and she was thinking about the future. And…and he wanted to think about it with her.
Thirty-One
The day of the raid dawned gray and freezing, a few brave snowflakes drifting down to melt against the pavement. Ghost watched the snow flit against the kitchen window as he nursed a hot mug of half-coffee, half-whiskey. He would need to be sharp later, but right now, queasy and old-feeling, heaped with responsibility, he needed the bracing warmth and courage of the alcohol.
Maggie came into the room, almost silent, her favorite terrycloth robe cinched around her waist. He’d bought her a half-dozen slinky, black, clinging robes over the years, but she always swore this was the comfiest. She wore it in winter…and when there was trouble brewing and she needed its plush texture to give her a little emotional boost. It was her only concession toward any stress that befell the club.
She dropped a hand on his shoulder as she passed, let it linger there a moment, then went to pour herself a cup of coffee. Ghost heard the screw-cap come off the Jack as she doctored it. Then she joined him at the table, her usual place across from him.
Her hair was wild and snarled from sleep; it looked like she’d finger-combed it on her way down the hall. Without makeup, and in the pale wash of early morning light, Ghost saw the little lines streaking back from the corners of her eyes, the fatigue in the grooves around her mouth. He would never tell her he noticed the little physical signs of her aging – he valued the safety of his balls too much – but he always took the time to notice them in moments like these. She’d been with him all this time; she was the one who’d stayed. He loved those little lines for the reminder. And she was still the most gorgeous damn woman he’d ever laid eyes on.
Maggie took a bracing sip and said, “Well.”
“Yeah.”
“Tonight’s the night.”
“Mmhmm.”
“You think he’s ready?”
Ghost sighed and took a long swallow of whiskey-laced coffee. “Not in the slightest. But he says he needs to do it, and I think maybe he’s right.”
“Catharsis.”
“Something like that.”
The snow came down a little heavier, larger flakes swirling amongst the tiny specks beyond the window.
“You’ve always done right by him,” Maggie said. “You’ve been a good dad.”
He snorted. “I haven’t even been a good dad for my own kids. Let alone Kev.”
She hummed a disagreeing note. “You do have that overbearing cliché down pat.” When he shot her a look, she flashed him a small, brief smile. “But what I mean is: you did something no one else could do, from the beginning, something he couldn’t even do for himself. You accepted him.”
“That doesn’t feel like enough.”
“Trust me, baby. That’s the most important thing.”
~*~
“It’s snowing,” Ava informed him when he stepped out of the shower. She stood in front of their bedroom window, the curtains pushed back, Camille propped up on her shoulder for a good post-feeding burp.
Wearing nothing but a towel around his waist, Mercy joined her at the window, looking through the panes over the top of her head. White flakes drifted down from the heavens like spilled powder sugar. “Huh.”
Ava glanced back at him over her free shoulder. “Is that going to make things difficult tonight?”
“Possibly.” He shrugged. He was in that state pre-mission where he felt invincible and pre-ordained. When a slow leak of adrenaline buzzed through his veins and left him breathless with anticipation. He knew it wasn’t like that for the others, that they got nervous rather than excited. But he couldn’t help what he was; he’d made his peace with these kinds of reactions a long time ago.
“Hey,” she said, and h
e really looked down at her upturned face, searching for the fear in it. She only looked determined. “How’s Tango doing with all this?”
Another time, another club, another old lady, it would have been sinful for Mercy to confide so much in his wife. The women of the club weren’t supposed to know all the things she knew, for their own safety, and for the club’s. But Mercy couldn’t look at it that way: that she was his little woman and should be treated as such. She’d killed men. She knew the triggers for all the landmines in his head. She’d been born holding his leash. He would keep nothing secret from her; they were partners, fifty-fifty. And he had it on good authority his president had the same arrangement with his own old lady, so…
“He’s rattled,” he said, because that was the truth. “That bitch has still got some kinda hold over him, and it’s turning him inside out.”
“Bitches will do that,” she said with a sigh.
“This one’s bad, fillette. Worse than my mom.”
Her brows lifted. “Jesus.”
Camille finally burped, a fussy little grunt, and Ava lowered her back into her arms, bouncing her a little.
“I think he needs it, though,” Mercy continued. “Not everybody gets a chance to kill their demons; when the opportunity comes along, you gotta take it.”
“Your professional opinion?” she asked with a little smirk.
“You might say I’ve got some experience in that department.”
~*~
Aidan slept like shit and finally gave in to the tremor in his hand around seven, pouring himself a liberal tumbler of whiskey and settling into the living room recliner with it. It was snowing, he could see, the parking lot below slowly growing whiter and whiter as the minutes ticked by.
He didn’t hear Sam come in, and jumped when he felt her hand in his hair. He settled, though, breathing out a deep sigh as she stepped around the chair and into view. “Hey.”
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