Tied Down

by Vanessa Waltz

  My dad shifts through the crowd and notices us. Smiles. He heads toward us and touches my shoulder. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

  I roll away from Bastien. “Sure.”

  He pulls me from the men talking in the living room and brings me into the kitchen, which is deserted. An uncharacteristically serious look falls on his face.

  “This is a long shot, but I wanted to ask you if you’ve seen Adrián.”

  “No. Bastien told me he was missing, but the last time I saw him was at the party.”

  Dad nods. “It’s just that your husband has a history with Adrián, and I’m worried he took it too far, and something bad happened. He checked in with me on the third.”

  Fuck.

  Now’s the part where I’m supposed to come clean. Confess I know he’s dead, but I can’t do that without getting Bastien killed.

  I won’t allow that to happen. “Let me look at my calendar.” I open my phone and pretend to scroll through dates. “Says I had a hair appointment. I’m sure Bastien was with me that night, and I don’t know. I have a hard time imagining Bastien hurting someone.”

  Dad smiles. “He broke Adrián’s jaw.”

  “Only because of the filth he was saying. Bastien doesn’t go out looking for fights.”

  He thumbs his lip. “True.”

  “Isn’t Johnny going to take over soon?”

  “He has bigger problems than one of my made guys disappearing,” he sighs. “His mother wants retribution, but we haven’t found his body—don’t even know if he’s dead.”

  “God.”

  “I’m sorry, hon. I shouldn’t be talking to you about this.”

  “C-can I do anything to help?”

  “God, no. Stay out of it, Eva. You just got married. Enjoy it.”

  He drums his fingertips on the counter and leaves the kitchen. I seize an empty glass to hold something, my hands wrapping around it like a vise.

  This is a secret I’ll have to keep buried my whole life.

  I clutch the drink until my fingers stop shaking and rejoin the others in the dining room. The girls seated at the table smile at me.

  Glass shatters. I glance at the mess. Did they drop something? Pieces lie in splinters over the floor, among them a dark, thin object. It’s beeping. What the—

  A blast fills the room, so deafening I’m thrown backward, my eyes blinded by a flash so white it burns the backs of my eyeballs. My elbows crash into tiles and searing pain jars up my arm, but I barely register it. The screaming. The throttles of bikes. Someone, shouting my name.

  I struggle to my knees, still blind. Another vicious blast crashes through the windows. The sound is narrower. Gunshots.

  I duck, covering my head as more fire through. I grope my way toward the center, hoping to find cover there. Bodies flatten on the ground—I feel a head, hair, a patch of wetness. The grain of the wood swims into focus. I jerk down with every gunshot, and then I spot the underside of the table. I shove it forward, grimacing at the crash of plates as it drops in front of us. I take someone’s hand; it’s full of rings. She squeezes me back. Slowly the world bleeds through the white.

  A gun fires behind me. I clap my hands over my ears and scream. The men in the house return fire, and then another volley of shots smashes into the dining room table. They thud into the wood, trapped by Madison’s taste in extremely thick furniture. My eyelids blink tears over the film rapidly coming into view. Women cower on the floor, shrieking, except Dani. She lies still, clutching her arm with a wide-eyed, paralyzed look. Blood spirals down her bicep. I crawl to her. Place my hand over hers. “Were you shot?”

  She can’t answer me. I lift her fingers. A nasty gash slices through the side of her arm. Looks painful, but she’ll live.

  On my knees, I search for help. “Dad!”

  He’s there, crouching behind the kitchen island. White-faced with fury, he screams instructions to his men. “Stop returning fire and run after them.”

  “Help!”

  Bastien turns his head at the noise and sprints toward me.

  Vito watches him go, outraged. “Bastien—get outside! GET OUTSIDE! THEY’RE GETTING AWAY!”

  The roar of bikes throttles down the street as Bastien ignores my father and slides to my knees. He grabs my face, searches for any sign of injury. “Are you hurt?”

  “What the fuck is going on?”

  He shakes my shoulders. “Answer me.”

  “I don’t know—I think I’m fine.” Bastien pats me down, looking stricken. When he’s satisfied I don’t have a gaping hole in my body, he holds me against his chest. So tight I can’t breathe.

  He shakes. “I would’ve lost my shit if anything happened to you.”

  Fuck. Dani. “She’s hurt.”

  “What?”

  A man rushes to Dani’s side and grasps her pale arm. He smoothes the hair from her brow and whispers something in her ear. I recognize him as Louis.

  He faces me. “I’ll take her to the hospital.” Then he hoists her in his arms and carries a shell-shocked Dani out of the dining room.

  Bastien tries to pull me away and fear kicks into my heart like a hoof to the chest. “Stop! There might be more!” And I can’t leave yet—I need to find Madison. Where the hell is she?

  Chaos litters the ground. I expect a limp arm. Bright pools of blood. I see nothing but shattered china, bits of plaster, and food dumped on the floor.

  He yanks me to a crouching position. “Eva, let’s get out of here!”

  “No!”

  I stumble upright, practically climbing into his shirt as he guides me through cracked glass and broken tiles to my father, bent at the waist and wheezing.

  One word slips from his lips. “Go.”

  I twist in his arms, but Bastien’s motivated by a rage I’ve never seen before. His eyes blaze like two furnaces. “I’ll have to leave you with Louis. You’ll be safe at the hospital.”

  “You’re not fucking leaving me.” I clutch his shirt, digging my nails into his flesh. “What the fuck just happened?”

  He pries my fists from his clothes. “We’re at war. Goddamn it, I knew something like this would happen.”

  “Bastien, you will not be a part of this. You’re fucking not.” My insides shatter at the determined look on his face. “No, please, no.”

  “I have to help. There’s no way out of this.”

  “You will be a father! How dare you leave me!” No, he’s going to run after those gangsters and get himself killed just like Marc. “Please. Bastien, I’m begging you.”

  Midway between dragging me to the car waiting at the curb, he stops. “Took you long enough to warm up to me.”

  “Stop it! I don’t want you dead!”

  “If I get myself shot, will that give me more points?”

  “Don’t fucking joke,” I sputter between sobs. “You’ll get hurt, and you’re not even one of—”

  He cuts my scream with a bruising kiss and catches my wrists battering his chest. I don’t want him to go. God, I can’t stand it if he’s hurt.

  He breaks from my lips. A choked sob echoes from my throat. “Bastien, please. Don’t run out on me.” My heart’s splitting open with images of him in a black suit, eyes closed, hands held over his heart. “I can’t take it!”

  He holds me tight. “I love you. I know you don’t feel the same, but I thought you should know.”

  Warmth flows through those words. I feel it expanding my chest like hot air.

  I don’t love him. Right?

  Louis lays on the horn, and Bastien waves at him. He gives me a smile, probably the last one I’ll ever see. “I’ll come back—I promise.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Sébastien

  Fuck the law. I’ll kill them all.

  Pure octane runs in my blood as I climb into my car. Tires scream on asphalt as I leave the driveway. A woman screams from the house. Neighbors sprint across the lawn, crying at the broken windows and bullet holes. A man in Bermuda shorts gap
es at the wide-open door. “Madison?”

  She could be dead. There wasn’t enough time to look. With each passing second, the rumble of motorcycles fades. Those soon to be killed assholes are getting away.

  I gun the engine, blowing through stop signs. A bike throttles to the left. I follow the sound, weaving around parked cars. A woman walks onto the street. I lay on the horn. She jumps out of the way. I don’t know where to make the next turn. The road fills with smoke as I wrench the car right—total guess. Suspects in car chases almost always choose right-hand turns. The car squeals onto a residential street, and chrome winks at me.

  The fucker’s there.

  A red bandana wrapped around a man’s head flaps in the air. Leather vest. Crimson tailpipe. He’s Legion.

  A black Saturn follows—probably Henri. He tries to box in the bike, but the asshole climbs the sidewalk. Pedestrians leap away, screaming. Braking, he turns onto the street and guns the throttle. I white knuckle the goddamn steering wheel, waiting for an opening. The biker speeds past parked cars, trying to squeeze through a gap between them and Henri, who veers left. The Saturn crashes into an Audi. Alarms screech as his car scrapes a huge dent. The biker weaves through. I follow, near enough to make out a skull tattoo on his lower back. He looks over his shoulder. Sees me. I see the, “Fuck,” bursting from his lips, and then my bumper taps his bike.

  It makes a powerful left turn and chrome smashes into steel. His leathered body slams into my fender. His mouth opens in a scream that’s drowned by the loud, grinding shriek. My seat jumps a foot in the air. The wheels roll over the bike. I slam the brakes and glance in the rearview mirror. A wreck of twisted metal lies on the pavement, the rider five feet away, facedown. Smoke rises from the asphalt as the car grinds to a complete halt. I open the door and step outside.

  A red streak on the baking cement leads to the biker, his leathers intact but his skin not so much. I slip the gun from my hip as I pass the carnage of his wreck.

  I shouldn’t walk in his blood, but I don’t care about being cautious. Sense flew out the window when bullets blew a chunk of that table. It was way too close to Eva’s head. This time I don’t let myself become disembodied. I want to glory in this asshole’s suffering. His mangled arms should fill me with horror, and showing my gun to the bystanders huddled on the lawn is reckless. They turn their backs and run. High-pitched screams echo down the street.

  I stop when I reach the biker. He rolls on his back. Instead of a face, it’s a pulpy mass. Doesn’t seem real. Resembles a hideous mask more than anything else. A shriek blasts out of that misshapen hole. It’d be a mercy to kill him, but that thought belongs to another man who doesn’t exist anymore. My wife’s face keeps flashing through my mind, and I place my boot over his throat. Just a little bit of pressure. He claws at my foot with shredded hands.

  A man sprints in my direction. I freeze for a second before realizing it’s Henri. He probably abandoned his car. Out of breath, he jogs to my side. “Fuck. He is done.”

  I ease my foot off the biker. “Who are you?”

  “Bastien, he can’t talk, and we gotta go.” He points at a house, where white faces press against its windows. “Too many witnesses.”

  The biker tries to haul himself upright. I sink my foot into his ribs. Nothing comes out of him but a wet gurgle. I grab his leather vest, lift his fat ass as I search his eyes for why. Why my wife?

  I could do the same to him. Every asshole has people. I’ll shatter the bones in his body until he tells me their names. I drag him toward my trunk, and a pair of sirens stab my ears. Once it was a welcome sound.

  Fuck.

  Henri grabs my shoulder. “Are you fucking deaf? Let him go!”

  I’m no good to Eva if I’m in a cell. Five or six cars. The switchboard must be lighting up with calls.

  I have to leave.

  His head makes a sickening thud as I drop his body on the pavement. The sight of him drowning in his blood isn’t enough. I want more. The red patch on his leathers fills me with rage. This was how they reinvented themselves: a drive-by of a fucking baby shower.

  I grab my gun. Aim it at his torso. Fire.

  Gore explodes from his chest as bullets pierce his body, which doesn’t move as I fire round after round. I wanted him to suffer—but the asshole is already dead.

  I killed another man.

  This time it feels good.

  Saul wears one of his loud suits. A brown blazer and a stark yellow button-up with a cornflower blue tie. He insisted on meeting me at the mall, of all places. Sounded scared on the phone and he looks it. His eyes dart away, refusing to meet my gaze as he sucks on his lemonade drink, occasionally casting a mournful glance at his untouched glazed cinnamon bun.

  He doesn’t want to be here. Neither do I.

  “Did you think I’d kill you—is that why we’re in a mall?”

  He gives me a sour look. “I don’t want any part of whatever the hell this is.”

  Now I’m curious. I lean across the Formica table, dropping my voice. “You found something.”

  Looking sick, he reaches inside his blazer and pulls out several glossy photos. “I was nervous as hell printing these.”

  He places the photo in front of me carefully and doesn’t let go. His fingers curl around the paper as though he’ll rip it out of my hands.

  Detective Carter stands next to Captain Ritter in what looks like an abandoned building or an unfinished basement. Saul flips the stack of photos. In the following photo, Carter and Ritter have walked forward a step, and three burly men enter the frame. Leather vests cover their chests, the red patches recognizable even from this distance.

  Ritter and the Legion MC? “Holy shit.”

  “You haven’t seen them all yet.”

  Saul unveils the last picture, of the detective handing over a shrink-wrapped brick to the vice president of Legion MC.

  Could be drugs, but I’m willing to bet my arm it’s money. Ritter and Carter are paying off the MC—why? “Damn. This is great, Saul.”

  These photos would destroy them. They’re perfect—just what I need.

  Saul yanks them out of my grip and stacks them on the table, looking around him wildly. “No offense, but I don’t want any part of a blackmail campaign.”

  “It’s not what you think. I’m not after them for money.”

  “I don’t care,” he says, laughing. “This is a little too hot for my liking.”

  “What are you saying?”

  Saul tucks the photos into his blazer. “Now—I know I promised you photographic evidence—so I’ll pay you a refund. Unfortunately, the ex-wife has me by the balls with these alimony payments and I can only give you half right now.”

  I rise from the table. “You don’t want to rip me off.”

  Saul falls from his chair in his haste to stand. “Look, buddy. You never told me I was dealing with bikers. I don’t screw around with patched members. Find another PI willing to risk his life for you—I sure as hell won’t.”

  “Give me those photos, or you’ll die.” I grab his jacket when he backs away, pulling him close. “It doesn’t matter to me that we’re standing in a crowded mall. I need those prints.”

  Panicked, he searches for help at the mostly indifferent shoppers. “I’m calling your bluff, Mr. Trout.”

  I force my lips into a smile and flatten my palm against his chest. My heart pounds as I finger the gun holstered to my hip. Saul makes a frightened squeak. “Let’s think about this. You’re looking at ten years minimum for blowing me away in a shopping mall.”

  “Maybe I don’t kill you here,” I tell him. “But there will be a day—maybe tomorrow, a year from now, who knows—when you’ve forgotten all about me, and you think you’re safe. You’ll be walking down the block with your future ex-wife without a care in the world. And that’s when you’ll hear it. A pop. The sound of your life blowing away.”

  He flinches. “Jesus.”

  I reach inside his jacket and yank the stack of p
hotos from him. “I paid you to do a job and forget my name. So long as you keep your end of the deal, you’ll be fine.”

  Saul stumbles from me. “The hell I will! If they knock on my door, you better believe I’m not taking a bat to my damn kneecaps to save your ass.”

  “I’m impressed by your commitment to customer privacy. Don’t you guarantee that on your website?”

  “Not when Legion MC comes knocking.” He marches to the table with the cinnamon roll and slumps in his seat. He runs fingers through his hair, which falls limp on his head.

  I don’t want to beat his ass. Getting arrested in the mall would cut my plan short, and there’s Eva I need to think about. My wife and baby need me.

  The chair scrapes the floor as I sit. “How often do they meet?”

  Irritated, he bites into his roll. “Every other Thursday.”

  “Is there always an exchange?”

  “No.” He throws the bun into the paper tray. “Sometimes they just chat.”

  He’s killing me. “About what?”

  “You think I got close enough to eavesdrop? Hell no. My vibe of those meetings is that those two cops seemed nervous. Lots of pacing before the bikers show up.”

  Must have Ritter in some kind of bind. This is bad. “I need to know what they talk about.”

  He throws me a look of disgust. “Hey, if you want to spy on them, be my guest.”

  The wheels in my head turn. Ritter and Carter have a relationship with the Legion MC, an enemy of the Romanos. Could they be colluding with them? What if the whole undercover operation was rogue?

  My mouth goes dry. What if they wanted to use me for intel on the Romanos? They plucked the first rookie they saw to work for them. Told me I was helping bring down the Romanos. Wouldn’t be a lie if the information was fed straight to the Legion MC.

  Oh my God.

  A sourness hits my stomach like curdling milk. There’s no hope for me getting out of this. None. Ritter probably deleted my file months ago. There may be some at the station who remember my face, but Carter and Ritter never intended for me to make it out alive. The MC wants revenge and needed someone on the inside to do the job. When I refused, they opened fire on Madison’s house.