Crush
Page 26
He’s a dead man.
Daniel redirects his gun to Leo, who takes a step back from me and moves to point his own at Daniel. It worked last time, so I try again. Pulling the gun from the back of my jeans and clicking the safety off, I direct it at Daniel. I distract him just enough for his eyes to slide to mine, ignoring Leo’s movements.
Just moments ago I wanted this man dead, but now that I know Leo’s going to do it for me, I feel a small amount of pity for him. Daniel closes his eyes and drops the gun on the porch. I force the words from my mouth, though they come quietly.
“I’m sorry.”
Leo’s bullet shoots from the gun and wedges itself in Daniels chest. He tumbles backward, nearly falling over a metal folding chair in his path. Once he’s down, he doesn’t move. Leo steps in front of me, turns the knob on the front door, and swings it open before redirecting his gun to clear the room. He tugs me inside after him and continues to lead us farther into the house.
“Don’t pity him.”
“I don’t,” I say, “I haven’t forgotten his betrayal. It just sucks knowing another person has died because they were lied to.”
The fear that crept up on me as Daniel had his gun directed at my brain doesn’t dissipate. I’m eighteen. I’m not trained for this, nor do I want to be. For the first time since Jeremy back down from my father, I consider that maybe it was a good thing. Because now, having nearly died a few times at the hands of different men, I want nothing more than to get the hell away from this life. I want to go to school, and I want to see the world—or at least other parts of California. I want to be a teenager, not a murderer. I guess I’m not cut out to be an old lady after all.
“Where is he?” Leo asks.
“I don’t know. There’s no basement, no attic, and no torture chamber.”
“Okay then, I guess we’re going to wing it.”
Leo leads us out of the living area—it’s smaller than I remember—to the kitchen and then around to Ian’s bedroom. I try to recall the layout of the house and think where they would stash somebody they wanted to keep control of. Every room has a window, including the bathroom. The cabin has only one bedroom and no extra spaces like an office or anything. Decades before I was born, Jim’s dad, Rage, built this place as a getaway for him and his wife, Sylvia. I force myself to remember the story Ruby told me about the cabin, thinking it might be somehow significant.
Rage and Sylvia had a place in town where they raised Jim until the day a social worker showed up at the house with a three-month-old baby claiming Jim was the father. According to Ruby, Jim was barely nineteen and hadn’t yet started prospecting for the club. He was more interested in racing his bike in the undeveloped dirt track behind the high school and drinking himself stupid than he was in doing something to better himself. Ruby said Sylvia had told her once that Jim didn’t want under his father’s thumb any more than he already was. So Rage had this house built small enough to avoid people making themselves at home. The only indulgence Sylvia had asked for was her closet—she wanted a closet the size of a small bedroom.
“The closet!” I say loudly, and without thinking, I reach up to smack Leo’s arm. He ignores my enthusiasm and strides across Ian’s bedroom to the closed door.
“Michael?” Leo says with a shout.
From the other side of the door, muffled curse words sound. Leo moves to stand in front of me and swings the door open, keeping his gun drawn and ready just in case. When Leo’s stance relaxes, he steps into the closet and allows me to see what he’s dealing with. Michael is gagged and bound to a metal folding chair. His face has been pounded, and he’s struggling against his restraints. “Hold still.”
Leo pulls out a knife from his pants pocket and cuts away Michael’s binds. When he’s freed, he stands awkwardly, favoring his left foot over his right. I suppose it’s not his face that got the brunt of it. Michael pulls the gag from his mouth and sucks in a desperate breath before saying, “About fucking time.”
Feet fall against the hardwood floors, sounding like a herd of charging buffalo. Leo reaches his arm out and shoves me behind him, drawing his gun at the open door. The first person through the door is Dad and then Uncle Jim, followed by Jeremy. Jeremy has another handgun, but the others all have what I think are AR-15s. They’re large and require two hands, too big to operate on a daily basis. Heavy firepower, that’s for sure.
“Let her go, or you get a bullet in your fucking skull, Scavo!” Dad shouts. His face is a dark red, and I can see veins popping out from over here. Michael stands on the other side of Leo and raises his arms in the air.
“She’s not a prisoner,” Leo says. “It seems you raised a woman skilled in hostile negotiations.”
“What the fuck did he just say?” Jeremy shouts.
Christ, this isn’t good, and it’s only going to get worse. Deep breath, Cheyenne. You can do this. I’ve made my proverbial bed, and now I can lie in it. Grounded. For the rest of my life. I really have to start thinking things through before acting. Dad doesn’t even like me to sneak his beer let alone make deals on behalf of his club. Shit, even he’s not allowed to do that.
I sidestep Leo, gun in hand, and turn my back to the club. I couldn’t see everybody who’s crowded in and behind the doorway, but I know it’s a mass. More than there were earlier, I’m sure.
“Give me the gun,” I say to Leo. “I gave you my word that I wouldn’t let them kill you.” To show him that I’m serious, I empty Jeremy’s gun of its bullets and toss them one direction and the gun the other, onto Ian’s bed.
“I give you my gun, I’m a dead man,” Leo says.
“You can’t show them you’re not a threat if you have the ability to hurt me,” I reply. “I’m going to need your knife, too.”
Michael finally speaks up and says, “She came willingly,” to the club and then to Leo, “Trust her.” When he finally hands over his piece and knife, I toss the knife on the floor, keeping the gun in my hand, and then turn to my dad.
“Leo could have killed me, but he didn’t. He just wants answers like we all do. I promised him you’d hear him out and we could see about a cease fire.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Uncle Jim says. Anger floods his expression, and he stomps forward, repositioning himself with his gun still on Leo. Dad moves to the side, allowing more men into the room. Behind Dad, Jeremy flanks Uncle Jim, followed by Wyatt and Bear, all inside the cramped space with their AR15s in hand.
“He saved my life,” I say again and move to stand in front of him.
“You can trust him,” Michael says with a nod to Uncle Jim. Something flashes in Jim’s eyes, and he lowers his weapon.
“I came here for answers, not a war,” Leo says. “All I ask is that you hear me out. I have some intel you’re going to need if you plan on making it out of this thing whole.”
But we’re not whole. We keep losing men, and women keep getting hurt, and everybody is afraid to go on living their lives. The rest of them can’t really leave because they are the club and have nothing outside of it. Some were born to it and some purposefully tied themselves to it. Maybe they can’t go, but I can. I can go to school and live my life. I can experience independence and see what life is like outside of this small town. Because I want experiences that don’t include guns, and death, and so much fear.
“Stand down,” Uncle Jim says. “Find a place to put the new guy.”
“Playing hostage wasn’t part of the deal,” Leo says.
I shrug my shoulders and sigh. “You didn’t barter for your choice in accommodations.”
It takes several minutes for all the men to lower their weapons.
Dad charges forward and knocks Michael out of the way, then shoves Leo into the open closet we just got Michael out of. Slamming the door shut, he says, “Fuck. Jim, I’m running out of places to put all the WOPs you keep adopting.”
“Blame your negotiations team for that,” Jim says and approaches Michael. His eyes slide to mine, and he smirks.
I can’t tell if it’s a “Ruby is going to beat you” smirk or a “well done” smirk. He directs Michael into the living room with his pointer finger.
When I have Dad’s word that Leo won’t be harmed, I cross the room and rush into Jeremy’s arms. He sighs deeply and crushes me against his body. To my surprise, all the tears I thought I would cry dry up, and the urge to freak out disappears.
“I can’t stand to ever see you in danger again,” Jeremy says.
“I know.” He didn’t say it, but I know he’s thinking it. “I can’t stay.”
“No, you can’t. Not until this is over,” he whispers against my forehead.
“Don’t tell me this is goodbye.” I can’t bear it if he breaks up with me. I know I have to go to school, because not getting to is all I could think about when I was certain I was a dead girl. “I don’t want to lose you.”
“You’re not losing me, but I need to focus on my job here. The best way I can do that is if I know you’re safe.”
“Yeah,” I say, my voice breaking. I shudder and take a deep, controlled breath, refusing to cry.
CHAPTER 26
January
3 months to Mancuso’s downfall
The blue-gray sky fogs over as the afternoon clouds roll in. Damn it. Dad always accuses the city of being foggy and hard to drive in. Honestly, I think he just hates every place that’s not home. It’s not like Fort Bragg is all that sunny and hot either. Oh well, he’s just gonna have to deal, and hopefully he doesn’t bitch too much.
Sometimes I miss him a lot. If I’m being honest with myself, I miss him all the time, though when he’s more annoying, it’s not so bad being three hours away. Still, it’s been almost a year since I started school here, and while I love the program and the city, it’s not home. I guess you never know what you have until it’s gone.
I stretch my legs out and eye the worn wooden slats beneath my feet. Even after a year, this place still doesn’t feel like home. I like the room Dad got set up for me in a rental house that Forsaken’s San Francisco charter owns. I am lucky to room with only two other people—an impressive feat in the city this clogged and expensive. Unfortunately, one of those people is a bear of a man who stands over six foot five and weighs, I’m guessing, at least three hundred pounds. He goes by the name Ratchet, and he loves to talk about all the San Francisco charter’s history. Ratchet is the sergeant at arms for the SF charter, and he does his job well. Of course, Ratchet doesn’t babysit me for free. No, every time Dad comes down, he has a new bag for my burly buddy that’s filled with some of the club’s finest weed. All in all, it’s a system that seems to work for both men. And Ratchet isn’t so bad. We’re definitely not hanging out and painting each other’s toenails, but this was the deal. I wanted to go to school, and with all the danger surrounding the club, the only way I could go was if I was under club protection. And there’s no place safer than in a house they own.
My other housemate isn’t really a Lost Girl, but she is certainly on her way to being one. She helps out around the club and does a lot of favors for the guys. She’s pretty nice and never brings anybody home, which I appreciate. At the end of the day, though, it doesn’t matter how nice any of these people are. They’re not my family, and it gets a little lonely here, especially because he isn’t with me.
I wish things were different and I could live with my classmates near campus rather than in this rental across the city in the Sunset District. But I don’t dare say that to Dad. As it is, he already likes to remind me how lucky I am to be able to go to school in the city on his dime, and the apartments near school are well above reasonable in his opinion. Plus, the whole warring-outlaw-empires thing kind of kills that fantasy.
Though Forsaken has made progress in recent months—creating an alliance with Leo Scavo and letting him and Michael work with the club to take down Tony and the rest of the Armani-wearing baddies—nothing is really settled yet. Dad says Carlo and Emilio have been quiet, which is never a good thing, so he’s extra paranoid these days, being calmed little by the inside information Michael and Leo have provided.
After everything that happened at Ian’s house with Rig and Daniel, Jeremy and I haven’t talk too much. It breaks my heart because I think I love him more with every passing day, despite our distance, than I did the night I agreed to marry him. When he and I do talk, the conversations are short and we stick to pleasantries. At the end he always says, “You’re still my girl, right?” Just before I hang up, I say, “Always.” And every single time I end up in tears because even though he says the words faithfully, they sound hollow and do little to mend my broken heart. He says I haven’t lost him, but it certainly feels like I have. With that void in my life, I need Dad and Holly now more than ever.
Even Grandma has stepped up her game and brought her new boyfriend down to meet me. Only I already knew the guy. I try really hard to block out images of Grandma and Old Man Hill making out like teenagers. Unfortunately, that which has been seen cannot be unseen. And I appreciate my vision too much to splash bleach in my eyeballs.
It’s just a few more minutes of sitting and waiting. I’m bundled up in my Forsaken hoodie, enjoying the sounds of the city, sleepy as it may be around here. The familiar growl of Dad’s bike sounds down the road, and I jump up from my seat and rush down the flight of stairs that brings me to the sidewalk. Excitement overtakes me—I might get a shopping trip out of this. Dad makes the trip down twice a month, and at least one of those is with Holly. His last trip down, he didn’t bring her, so this time she will be coming with him.
My heart falls when he comes into view, rolling down the street alone on his bike. Holly’s not with him, and that worries me. It’s not like I keep track of which time she comes and which time she doesn’t come, but she has consistently visited at least once a month. The times she doesn’t come with Dad are normally because he’s doing something for the club they don’t want her to have to see. But her not being here right now makes me nervous, freaking me out that maybe he finally screwed up their relationship. And just when I was convinced she was so stupid in love that there was nothing he could do to mess it up.
When he pulls into the short driveway that ends at the single-car garage that’s barely bigger than a queen-size bed, he cuts the bike off quickly, removes his helmet, and strides to me with a big grin on his face. I’m starting to think maybe he smoked a little too much before he left Fort Bragg, because there are very few things in this earth that can make Sterling Grady smile that wide when he sober. He envelops me in a tight hug, even lifting me off the ground like he used to when I was little. Yep, definitely high.
“How stoned are you, old man?” I love that he’s happy to see me, but I can’t help but question his strangely upbeat mood.
“Not very,” he says. “I’m just happy to see you.”
“I’m happy to see you, too, so don’t take this the wrong way—where the hell is my Holly?” I pull back and give him a disappointed pout.
“Decided it was best she stay behind this time,” Dad says. Asshole.
“Why would you go and do something stupid like that?”
“I needed to talk to you alone,” he says. With everything ugly that’s happened with the club lately and all the turmoil and grief, I can’t imagine he has good news to share. He seems to be pretty upbeat, but his wanting to talk to me alone is troublesome. The whole situation is making me paranoid. If he tells me Jeremy is hurt or isn’t being patched in, I’m going to lose my shit. I’ll be back home faster than he will, he can bet on that.
“Because…” he says. Draping an arm over my shoulder, he leads me up the stairs and sits in one of the two wooden chairs on the front porch. I take the other, trying to give him the opportunity to explain himself before I get upset. It takes longer than I think it should for him to give me a reasonable explanation for his poor behavior, but when he does, I instantly regret being a jerk. “I could never ask a woman to marry me without first asking for your blessing.”
“You say no, I won’t do it, kid. I gotta know you’re good with this.”
“It’s always been me, you, and Grandma,” I say thoughtfully. Even before Holly, something felt like it was missing in our family. Now that we have her, I know she’s the piece that was missing.
“Yeah, a lot of shit is changing. Club’s lost people—we’ve lost people.” His voice is so low it’s barely audible. “She’s pregnant. Due in June.”
My breath hitches, trying to make sense of each bomb he’s dropping. I search my heart for a clear thought but can’t find one. I love Holly, I love Dad, and I’m sure I’ll love the baby, too. But a very large, selfish part of me is suddenly terrified that a biological child she gets to raise is going to matter more to her than I do. And I’m so far away…
“That’s awesome,” I say, forcing myself to push through my own petty concerns. Dad notices the slight unease in my voice and raises his eyebrows.
“June? How long have you known?” I ask. The idea of being left out of this monumental event upsets me. I was just home for Christmas a few weeks ago. If she’s due in June, Holly has to be like four months along now. She would have known over Christmas. She would have known at Nic’s voting-in party, which I fucking attended back in December. She might have even fucking known at Thanksgiving. What the fuck?
“A while now, but there was some spotting and a chance she wouldn’t make it. Holly didn’t want to tell you about her until we knew she was going to be okay,” he says. A soft smile takes over his entire face.