The next morning, I should have gone back to school in time for my first class, but my heart just wasn’t in it. I needed time to think. I texted Josh and he told me I could have the car for the day, so I left it at Smoke’s place and rode with him to the clubhouse. I knew he had a meeting there that morning (Smoke called it “church”), and afterwards, I was hoping we could spend the day together. I was craving some normal “relationship” time (and, truth be told, I was hoping most of it would be spent in bed).
I hung out on one of the couches as I waited, reading a magazine left by one of the other women. Roxy was there, but Rosie wasn’t, and a few women I hadn’t spoken to much were hanging around, too (Roxy called them “club whores” but I couldn’t quite bring myself to call them that, even just in my head). One or two of them spoke to me, but the rest eyed me with suspicion or downright hostility. I assumed that my being with the V.P. of the club made a few of the wannabes jealous, since getting hooked up with a club member was what they were there for in the first place. Mentally, I shrugged my shoulders. Well, if I was here to stay, they would just have to get used to me. Right now, it wasn’t anything I needed to spend time worrying about. I had enough on my mind as it was.
Smoke and the other members had disappeared into the large meeting room they called the chapel. They were behind the closed doors for almost an hour, and I got a little restless waiting for them to be done. When the doors finally opened, I was standing over in a corner, chatting with Roxy. The club members filed out one by one, Smoke emerging last, with Ram. The two of them came toward us, serious expressions on both their faces. “We got a situation,” Ram said to Roxy. “We got some business we gotta go take care of.”
“Alliance?” Roxy asked.
“Yeah,” Ram affirmed.
Roxy’s expression grew somber. “You be careful, baby. This shit is getting out of control.”
“We got it handled,” Ram replied smoothly. Turning to Smoke, he said, “We leave in twenty.”
Smoke nodded. He looked at me and said, “Why don’t you and I go back to the castle? We’ll have a little privacy there.”
“What’s the…?” I looked at him with a confused expression.
“The castle. It’s a little apartment through there.” He nodded to a door along the far wall I had never noticed before. “It’s there for club members to use from time to time, if they want to sleep here.”
Or fuck in privacy, I thought. I followed him back through the door. Inside was a surprisingly cozy, but sparse, room with a queen bed and a few other pieces of furniture. Smoke drew me into his arms for a kiss, but I stopped him. “Where are you guys going?”
Smoke looked irritated. “We gotta go deal with this thing with the Alliance. They stole some H we had stashed for the Aztecs, and we gotta go take it back, and teach them a lesson.”
“Heroin?” I asked in disbelief. He had told me yesterday that the Perdidos sometimes dealt with harder drugs, but having it told to me so bluntly made it much more real. “Are you really okay with that?”
“Not really,” he said flatly. “But I got no choice. The club voted. I was in the minority. End of story.”
“‘End of story?’” My voice rose as I spoke. “I thought you said you chose the club because you wanted freedom. Is that really freedom? You’re not chained behind a desk every day, but you are chained to the club. You don’t have a choice but to do what the club votes to do.”
“I do have a choice,” Smoke retorted angrily. “I made my choice, when I joined this MC. That’s my freedom. That freedom may come with a price, but any choice involves sacrifice, and risk. Especially the choice to be free.”
“That’s bullshit,” I said bluntly.
Smoke’s eyes flashed. “What do you know about it? When have you ever made a choice to do something that wasn’t exactly what society expected you to do? Your life has been full of safe choices, doing what you’re supposed to, never questioning it. What do you know about risk?”
“It’s not fair to throw that at me,” I retorted. “No, I haven’t lived the same life as you, but didn’t you just follow expectations, too, in a way? You’re following in your father’s footsteps. You’re not any more free of your past and your background than I am.” At Smoke’s surprised expression, I continued. “Roxy told me about your mom and dad. She also told me that if I was going to be with you, I needed to decide whether I was in or out. That I needed to not put you in the position your mom put your dad in. And I’m trying to figure all of it out, Smoke. But this is all really new for me. And I need to work through what I think about it all.”
Smoke frowned angrily. “Rox had no business sharing that with you,” he growled.
“Maybe not,” I conceded. “But she did. And she did it out of love and concern for you. So I think she was right to. I understand that if we are going to be together, I have to accept the club, and everything that comes with it,” I continued gently. “But please, give me some time to figure out whether I can do that.”
“Doesn’t sound like you can,” he said coldly, “if you’re gonna question the club’s votes when you don’t like them.”
“It’s not about the club’s votes. It’s about figuring out whether I can accept a life where my man is always in danger,” I answered.
“I’m not always in danger,” Smoke scoffed.
“Often enough,” I challenged.
Smoke pushed himself up off the bed angrily and began pacing back and forth across the room. “Look,” he finally said, running his hand through his hair. “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, fear gripping me.
“Flame, I…” he stopped pacing for a moment and looked at me, seeming to search for words. “I always told myself I could never have an old lady who was a civilian. My mom… she was so fucking angry with my dad, my whole childhood. She never got over hating him for leaving us. And then, when I decided I wanted to get to know my dad’s old life, his club, his friends… she turned on me. It was like I was dead to her, from one day to the next.”
Smoke’s eyes were shot through with pain as he spoke. “I don’t want to live with that kind of anger. I just don’t… I don’t think this life is for you.” He turned abruptly away from me then, and I could almost see the distance widening between us.
Immediately, I stood and went to him. “Baby,” I said, my voice soft. “Please, let me decide for myself whether it’s for me or not.”
Smoke opened his mouth to answer, but just then, a knock came at the door. “Smoke?” Bullet’s voice came from the other side. “We’re moving out.”
“Just a second!” Smoke yelled back. He looked at me, regret tinged with sadness in his eyes. “I gotta go,” he said. He kissed me lightly on the forehead and sighed. He went to the door and I followed him out into the clubhouse, where the other men were standing in a group.
“Is there a problem?” Ram asked Smoke as he joined the group. Ram’s eyes flicked toward me as he spoke.
“No problem,” Smoke replied firmly. “Let’s go.”
Ram nodded once in response. “We ride,” he announced simply. The men all turned as one and walked away together as the women watched. Smoke looked back at me one last time, his eyes troubled, and then turned and followed the others out.
Roxy came up behind me. “You two have a fight?” she asked.
“Something like that.”
She shook her head. “You aren’t helping him stay safe when you’re distracting him just before he goes to do club business, Flame. Remember what I said. You have to decide whether you’re all in or all out.”
All in or all out. No in between. I stared at the empty space where Smoke had stood just seconds before. I didn’t know if I could handle a lifetime of this.
☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼
We waited. That’s what old ladies do, apparently. We waited for our men, and tried to distract ourselves and tell ourselves they’d be safe. Hours passed with no word. Roxy genera
lly seemed to take these things in stride, but even she looked like the wait was wearing on her. Finally, darkness fell, and I just didn’t want to be at the clubhouse anymore. I decided to go back to Smoke’s place and wait for him there instead. After explaining to Rosie and Roxy where I’d be and asking them to call me if the men showed up at the Black Dog, I got in Josh’s car and headed to Smoke’s house to get some rest.
When I got to Smoke’s place, though, I began to wonder if I’d made a mistake. Being around the collective anxiety of the others at the clubhouse had added to my own nerves, but being alone gave me no outside distractions from my thoughts. My mind kept returning to what Smoke had told me about the Perdidos’ problems with their rival gangs. I thought back to the standoff between the Aztecs, the Perdidos and the Iron Alliance, and how some of the Aztecs had been killed. Smoke had said that some of the Aztecs thought it was the Perdidos who killed them. He thought that the vice president of the Aztecs was likely vying for control of the club and working with the Iron Alliance to turn the Aztec club against the Perdidos.
My mind whirled with questions as I contemplated all of this. Maybe Smoke was right, I thought to myself wryly. Maybe it was easier not to know anything. The small amount of knowledge he had given me certainly hadn’t helped to calm my fears any. I spent the evening wandering back and forth through the empty house, my ears on high alert for the sound of his engine or the ringing of my phone. Finally, I decided with a sigh to just get ready for bed and try to read until I was tired enough to fall asleep.
I had curled up with a mystery paperback and had just managed to force my mind into the story when a soft thump at the back door startled me. Smoke never used the back door himself, so I was instantly alert and on guard. My adrenaline spiked in a heartbeat, and I willed myself to breathe and focus. Sliding over silently toward Smoke’s side of the bed, I carefully opened the drawer to his nightstand and pulled out the gun he had shown me. Gripping it in my trembling hands, I slipped the gun under the covers, my finger on the trigger. I tried to decide whether to creep out of bed to investigate the noise, but I didn’t have time. Suddenly, the back door burst open with a loud crack. It was instant chaos in the house, as three large Latino men in cuts I had never seen crashed into the hallway, guns drawn. I screamed involuntarily, and the largest of the three men turned toward me and moved into the room. He pointed his gun at my head and fixed an expression of fury on me. “Where the fuck is Smoke?” he demanded.
“I don’t know!” I cried, cowering back. This was the second time since I had met Smoke that a gun was being pointed at my face. My blood turned to ice as I contemplated the cold, shiny object that could end my life in a heartbeat. This man was twice as big as Liana, infinitely stronger and more ruthless. And I was sure that, unlike Liana, he had a plan.
“Answer me!” the man roared. I screamed again and sank back against the pillows. “I don’t know! I swear!” I cried. “I haven’t seen or heard from him since this morning!”
The man looked at me for a moment, and I knew he was considering whether to believe me or kill me. “You better be telling me the truth,” he gritted, his eyes like black marbles. “If I find out you’re lying to me, I will fucking kill you, do you understand?”
I nodded. “I swear, I have no idea.” As I spoke, my eyes went to the patches on his cut. I read the words “Aztecs” and “V. President,” and I realized I was face to face with the man Smoke had said was trying to turn the Aztecs against the Perdidos for control of his club. I knew then, without a shadow of a doubt, that he had come here to kill the man I loved. I was outnumbered, outgunned. I had nothing to help me stall for time but the ability to pretend I could be useful.
“I…” I began. “I can try to call him to find out where he is,” I said to the man earnestly. Maybe, like when Liana had threatened me, I could get a call to Smoke, and send him a message somehow. I had to try, anyway.
The man’s eyes momentarily flickered to my cell phone sitting on the nightstand. I could see he was considering it. “You show me the number before you call it, so I know you’re not fucking with me, and then you put it on speaker phone, so I can hear everything he says. You ask him where he is, and if he asks you anything, you say nothing’s wrong, you’re just worried. You try anything, you try to warn him at all, and I will kill you here and now, you understand me?”
My heart sank as I realized that not only would my plan not work, but it might give these men all the information they needed to kill Smoke. Slowly, I began to reach for the phone when the front door flew open with a crash. “Flame!” Smoke’s voice yelled from the doorway. The V.P. of the Aztecs turned his head momentarily in the direction of the sound, taking his eyes off me for a split second.
And that’s when I shot him.
☼
When Smoke and I walked into the clubhouse the next day, a smattering of applause and whistles greeted us. Rosie ran up to us and threw her arms around me, hugging me so hard that I couldn’t breathe for a second. “I never knew you were such a badass, girl!” she whispered in my ear. “I’m so glad you guys are okay!”
I sure didn’t feel like a badass. The events of last night still felt more like a bad dream than a reality. I had killed a man in self-defense (and ruined Smoke’s bedspread with a bullet hole in the process). I was still waiting for the remorse at what I’d done to kick in, but so far, all I felt about it was numb. Down deep inside, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Aztec V.P. would have killed me if I hadn’t shot him at the very second that I did. His original target was Smoke, and I was only useful to him as long as he thought I could give him information that would help get Smoke in his crosshairs. Once Smoke had arrived at the house last night, my only usefulness to the Aztecs would have been as someone to torture and kill right in front of Smoke’s eyes, before the Aztec V.P. turned the gun on Smoke himself.
I wouldn’t know just how lucky we had been until afterward, when Smoke told me how he had figured out that Aztecs were in the house. When he and the Perdidos got back to the clubhouse from their run to teach the Alliance a lesson, Roxy told Smoke I’d gone home to wait. Since it was late, Smoke decided not to risk waking me by calling, so he had driven home in the darkness to surprise me, suspecting nothing. Luckily, the Aztecs had not done a very good job of hiding their bikes, and Smoke had become suspicious when he saw three choppers parked a little more than a block from the house. He had dumped his bike in some bushes and approached on foot, only to see a male shadow through the window of the living room. He had called a couple of the Sons for backup, and then gone in, heedless of his own safety.
Smoke’s unexpected entry into the house managed to surprise the other two Aztecs sufficiently that he was able to shoot one and subdue the other before they had time to react. When the other Perdidos arrived, they had wrapped up the body and delivered it and the two accomplices back to their club president, telling them what had happened. Though it had been a huge risk, the club’s decision to go to the Aztecs with the truth seemed to have resolved the potential war between the Aztecs and the Perdidos that the Iron Alliance had been trying to trigger. What’s more, the Aztec V.P.’s assault on me ended up being a big factor in their reconciliation with the Perdidos. Apparently, trying to kill another V.P.’s old lady had discredited the dead Aztec V.P. in the eyes of the remaining Aztec club members. The end result was that the whole episode convinced them that the Perdidos had not been responsible for the deaths of the Aztec club members in the ambush the week before.
As for what had happened to the two other Aztecs who had been with their V.P. when he broke into Smoke’s house, I decided not to ask. When Smoke came to me in the bedroom, he hurriedly led me through the hall to his guest room away from the Aztec V.P.’s body. As he did, he was careful to shield my eyes from the living room, and he stayed with me in the guest room until some of the other Perdidos could arrive. When I emerged from the room later, the V.P.’s body had been removed, and the other two Aztecs were gone. I could guess f
or myself what their probable fate had been, and I was sure it hadn’t been pretty.
What we didn’t find out until a few days afterward was that Liana was the one who had given the Iron Alliance the address of where Smoke lived. After the Perdidos had warned her to stay away from Smoke and the club, she had set her sights on revenge. She went to the Iron Alliance not long after and told them she had some useful privileged information about the Perdidos. Smoke speculated that she had been hoping she could become the old lady of someone from the Alliance, and thought that the information she had about Smoke’s personal life would give her a way in.
“She won’t be killed now, will she?” I asked him. Even though she had threatened to kill me once, and indirectly almost gotten me killed a second time, the idea that she could face death for wanting revenge over being dumped horrified me.
“No, but she better not ever show her face around here again,” Smoke said through gritted teeth. “I’ve never hit a woman, but she’s given me a couple of real good reasons to make an exception.”
As for Smoke and me, the incident did the opposite of what you might imagine it would have done. Instead of sending me screaming in the opposite direction of Smoke and the club, having my life put at immediate risk woke me up to something basic and vital. I wanted to live – very much – but I wanted to live, and love, fully and without fear. I realized that most of my doubts about Smoke and me centered on worries about what might happen, what could happen. I had been creating scenarios to be afraid of that didn’t exist anywhere but in my own head. The future had yet to be written, I realized, and I was the one holding the pen. As long as I lived my life in fear of abstract what ifs, I would never be happy – no matter what decisions I made. So, I resolved to choose my freedom: freedom from fear.
Los Perdidos: The Novel (Sons of Glory Motorcycle Club Romance) Page 11