by Hazel Parker
“We can’t go driving around Brooklyn in broad daylight as if we’re the U.S. invading Iraq. The NYPD doesn’t put Manhattan on a lockdown state for a single murderer, and we’re not going to do the same here. But all resources need to be focused on that as much as possible. We’ll keep the shop open after today as a front, but even then, if someone has downtime, they need to be contributing to the cause. It goes without saying that once we have information, we’re going to strike. Got it?”
“Yes,” everyone said.
“Good,” I said. “Then let’s roll out. Uncle, Fitz—you two are the smartest ones here. Start researching online for anything you can about the Bloodhounds or Damon Wicker. There’s nothing you can search for that is irrelevant. If Damon has a Facebook page where he’s photographed somewhere, it might mean that he likes that spot. If he is in a random photo at a restaurant, then maybe it means he likes it there. We also need everyone to start keeping an eye out—even if they aren’t club members.”
I thought of Carrie for a second, thinking of relying on her, at Southern Comfort, to keep an eye out for a sociopath like this. A part of me, the part that saw her as an angel to be adored, feared that was giving her too much responsibility in the face of too much danger.
But the club side of me knew that we needed help however we could get it.
“For the rest of us, let’s start walking and patrolling the streets and see what we can find. It goes without saying to keep your weapons on you. Let’s reconvene before nightfall, as that’s when they’re most likely to strike. If we go out individually at night, we’ll be sitting ducks. If you see something, don’t be a hero. We’ll win this fight through numbers. Understood?”
Everyone again nodded.
“Then let’s go,” I said. “Let’s fucking kill this asshole.”
And, I pray to God, let’s make sure we don’t lose anyone else in the process.
Chapter 12: Carrie
The morning made no sense, and that was causing a lot of pain.
Seeing Lane just walk out the door in a hurry, even with his reassurances that he would see me again, left me feeling used and manipulated. I didn’t have time to ask him about those feelings, and the fact that he kept sounding terrified about what had actually happened with the club left me feeling like I couldn’t say anything to him for the rest of the day. I waited on him to reach back out to me, but he wasn’t doing it.
What was going on? Was it always going to be this way? Was he always going to put the club first?
These were questions that I felt I didn’t need to be asking this early. We had only had one real serious date and one night of sex; even if it was one of the best dates I had ever had and some of the best sex I had ever had, it was still early to be having questions about “always” or “going to.” I just kept telling myself to be grounded, although I guess in some ways, it was good to have the problem of being so satisfied that I wanted to look ahead.
I just wished that Lane had gone into anything that didn’t involve violence. But, then again, maybe that drive to help others could have taken a very dark turn if I had never helped him with his bullying incident. Maybe he was always destined to be in a violent world, and my work had ensured he used his violence for good.
It was a weird thought to have, but it had been a weird twelve hours. I wasn’t exactly in a frame of mind to be thinking clearly.
Mondays required me to be at the shop instead of Caroline, so about an hour and a half before the place opened, I got myself dressed. I knew Sam would be there, but there was no telling if our other employees would make it. I tried to put myself in a positive frame of mind as I entered the building. Even if this morning had gone poorly, there was no denying Sunday had been nothing short of unbelievable, and the restaurant had picked up sales recently.
I nodded to Sam as I walked in, headed to the back, and started running the reports from the prior couple of weeks. We had, indeed, seen an uptick in sales. So much so, in fact, that we had made…
Enough to pay our electricity and rent and half of our employees.
“Shit,” I muttered.
I ran the numbers twice. Had I missed something? Maybe there was some calculation I had missed along the way. Maybe I had failed to account for a day or two’s worth of sales. Margins were always tight in this industry.
As it turned out, I had missed something.
I had counted one of the days twice. We were in even more trouble than I could have predicted.
I’d told myself if it came to this: I would have to sell the store and head back to Georgia. But to officially commit to doing that…to actually say I was in on that…
I walked out to the front in a daze, with Sam dutifully wiping all the tables and cleaning the counters so that our customers would have a great experience. The ones who would come would have that. It was so bad that, even if we had a repeat of the Savage Saints all coming in, we still would barely break even.
I had basically made the mistake of trying to sell low-margin items in one of the most expensive cities in the world. I could have done things to fix the short term, sure; I could have jacked up prices or run promotions or fired my employees, but they were all band-aid treatments. They would be curing the problem, not the disease.
“You alright?” Sam said, looking at me with concern in his eyes.
I should be.
But I’m anything but.
“Yeah, sorry, long night,” I said with a weary smile, which was somewhat true. “Listen, go ahead and deal with the first half-hour. I need to speak to Carolina about some things, and then I’ll get out to help you for the lunch rush. OK? If you need anything, just let me know.”
Sam nodded enthusiastically. I didn’t know how he had the energy and excitement about the store still; maybe it paid to be blissfully unaware of the larger forces at play. A part of me certainly wished I could go back to those days when I didn’t know any better and believed I could make this kind of store work out here; at least then, even if I didn’t have any money, I would still have the drive to try something bold.
I went to my office, shut the door, put my feet on the desk, and just stared at the blank screen as if it would suddenly give me some answers. But that was the rub, wasn’t it? The moments when one needed answers most were when they never came. I was trying to avoid calling Caroline without having some plan, but I had nothing.
Eventually, I just decided to call her.
“Carrie?” she said.
She sounds hungover as hell. Good Lord.
“Hey, is this a bad time?”
“No,” she said with a cough. “I just partied a little hard last night.”
On a Sunday? We really are of two different worlds.
“Listen, I hate to bring more bad news, but I just ran the numbers; even with the spike recently, we’re going to have to get some serious help. In theory…”
I hesitated for a second. I knew what I was about to say was, at best, naively optimistic, but the dream of owning a restaurant couldn’t die that easily for me.
“We could get some money, increase our focus on the locals, and just try and survive the next couple of months.”
“In theory, sure,” Caroline said, and even with her voice as groggy and scratchy as it was, I knew I wasn’t getting a good answer out of her. “But Carrie, in practice, this restaurant has just killed my vibe, you know? I want to celebrate life and have fun, not be chained down to a business that isn’t working.”
No one’s chaining you down. You chose to join me from the start.
But I’m not even mad at you. If anything, I’m jealous that you can so easily want to move on. The moment of truth is here, and you feel relieved, not disappointed.
“I take it there’s not going to be anything that changes your mind.”
“At this point, Carrie, I don’t think so. I think if we had higher-end meals, sure, but this isn’t how it works. I want to live life, and right now, we’re juggling coming in all the time because our
employees can’t stay committed and come and go with far too much ease.”
I looked one more time at the numbers as she rambled, hoping to find something, anything that I could use to get her to change her mind. The odds were most certainly not in my favor. And, alas, neither was the math.
“Alright,” I said. “Look, we can’t just close the shop on the spot. We’ll have to go through paperwork and all that other nonsense. I’m going to pay out everyone through the end of this week, but we’ll have our final day on Friday, and then we’ll shut down.”
“Good.”
Good? That’s your response? I can understand moving on, but…good? Good?
“I’ll keep coming by this week to help as need be. Otherwise, let’s meet Thursday night.”
“Sounds good, talk to you later.”
I hung up before she could say anything else. It was all just a little too depressing, most especially the fact that I seemed to be the only one to think it was depressing. Even someone like Sam would easily find another job; suffice to say, he was one of the few employees I had that I was happy to give a positive recommendation to.
I trudged out to the entrance to let Sam know of the decision.
“It’s not lunch rush yet,” he said with a smile.
“I know,” I said. “But I figured I should get out here and enjoy it as much as I can.”
Something like recognition passed over Sam’s face, although he looked like he didn’t want to recognize it.
“I just got off the phone with Caroline,” I said. “Sam, you should know—”
The door swung open.
“Hi, welcome…”
And then my voice cut off when I saw who it was.
Damon.
He had his hands in his pockets, his eyes steeled on me, and the same clothing he’d had last time. I swore, looking at him, that I saw dried blood on his cut, but I tried to make myself believe that it was just tomato splotches. Unlikely, but the likely reality was not something that I particularly cared to think about.
“Carrie, Carrie, Carrie,” he said, holding his hands out wide.
“Hi, can I help you?”
“Help me?” he said with a chuckle way too lighthearted for how the room was. I stole a glance at Sam, who seemed to pick up enough on what was happening to pull his phone out. I couldn’t see what he was doing, but I was pretty sure the way his screen turned white he was ready to call 9-1-1 in an instant. “I mean, besides some delicious, fatty food, no, I’m afraid you can’t help me.”
He put his elbows on the glass of my food display and leaned forward. Even with the counter providing us space of a few feet, he still towered over me; it felt like he barely needed to reach over to grab me and choke me if he wanted to.
“But I am quite sure that I can help you, Miss Carrie.”
Ugh. No, no you cannot.
“And what makes you say that, sir?” I said, pretending not to know his name.
But the wicked smile that he flashed at me told me he knew I was full of it. He’d seen me see him on the bike; he knew even if that hadn’t happened, a customer like him wasn’t someone that was easily forgotten.
But he didn’t call me out on it. It was almost like he took a perverse joy in knowing I was uncomfortable with the situation and liked to also pretend that nothing was amiss, knowing he could thrive in it much more than I could.
“I’m a man of connections, money, and influence,” Damon began. “Believe it or not, I am friends with several politicians in the area. In fact, one Kyle Stone is someone who all but bows before me.”
Kyle Stone. Why does that name sound vaguely familiar?
“However, you and I both know that we are all only as good as the company that we keep,” he said. “And I would guess that by the company that you keep, you’re not someone who would ever think to ask for help.”
I bit my lip. We weren’t yet at 9-1-1 level yet; in fact, that would cause more harm than good. But we were accelerating our path there.
“But, luckily for you, I can see when someone needs help but may simply be afraid to ask for it. A Southern belle like yourself has likely either figured things out on her own at every step of the way or has had her parents step in to help. But either way, you don’t believe in asking for help from strangers. It’s either you or family or nothing. But that’s not how most things work. I’m willing to give you and Southern Comfort ten grand to survive until the next cycle.”
I gulped and shook. This couldn’t be real, right? This was like doing a deal with the devil. There had to be a trap of some kind, a trick.
“And before you or your little employee here say you’re not hurting, don’t take me for a fool. I’ve seen the restaurant industry. I know when a store is struggling and when it is thriving. And you, Miss Carrie, are most certainly struggling.”
“Listen, I appreciate the offer, I do, but—”
“But what?” Damon said chuckling. “Are you too proud to take it? Are you really going to sit here and tell me that you don’t need the money? Are you going to tell me that you don’t need someone like me, someone who can keep your business afloat?”
I basically had two options. Continue to pout and look like an idiot, living in denial of the fact that the restaurant was in critical condition. Or give in to his desires and ask for more information. It’s not a commitment if you just let him talk. But you had better be careful, Carrie.
“What is it that you want in return?” I said.
“Ahh, now you’ve got a little bit of sense,” Damon said, flashing a grin that seemed like it was nothing but purely malicious and evil. “You keep doing what you’re doing at the restaurant. I’ve seen the crowds that come here. Some unsavory folks, sure, but it’s not exactly like a restaurant is going to outright refuse to serve someone because they’re unsavory.”
He seemed to delight in the word “unsavory” as if his tongue derived pleasure every time he spoke it. It made me look in Sam’s direction. He hadn’t pushed the button to call for help yet, but…
“What I need from you, Carrie, is to make sure that you spend your time around people who will inspire you and encourage you to run the business in as best a way as possible for the bottom line,” he said. “I have seen the people that you associate with. I have seen who, shall we say, you ride with.”
Fuck! Why does he have to remind me of that?
“They are people who are just not conducive to you running an effective business, Carrie. They will drag you down. You will lose the ability to think around these people. They will get you into bad habits, and we don’t want that for you, now do we?”
I had struggled to speak back but introducing Lane to this was inexcusable. Whether or not he knew Lane as an MC club member or just a man was irrelevant to me.
“I am an independent and grown-up woman, Damon, and I will hang out with whoever I damn well please,” I said. “If that is the condition of your investment, then there will be no deal. You can forget it.”
Damon recoiled for a second, and as he did, the look on his face was one that terrified me. I wasn’t looking at a man so much as I was looking at a demon. The scowl on his face and the glare of anger was something straight out of hell.
And unlike most people who tried to quickly recalibrate such looks and make it seem like they weren’t so bad, Damon instead accentuated the look.
“You’re making a grave mistake,” he growled. “I would encourage you to change your mind, Carrie. This will be the only time I make a second offer.”
“And this will not be the only time I say no. No.”
I looked at Sam, who nodded back to me. He was ready. I looked back at Damon.
“Very well then,” he said, suddenly going back to the creepy but not quite as evil look as he had had before. “If you chose to flounder, then flounder. I have no interest in food, I’m afraid. You have done a remarkable job of destroying my appetite before it even picked up.”
I shrugged. I was done speaking to Damon. If
he had something productive to say, then I would hear him out.
Otherwise, I would wait until he left.
“You enjoy your day,” he said, his tone suggesting he very much did not want me to enjoy my day.
It wasn’t until Damon disappeared from view that both Sam and I audibly gasped in relief.
“What a creepy dude,” Sam said. “I thought he was going to try something.”
“I did too,” I said.
Unfortunately, he had done something. He had made it such that I was now a little fearful for the future of the restaurant, and I didn’t mean because money was tight.
Rather, I meant that a guy like him, rejected like so, was bound to come back into my life with a wrath and fury that would spell trouble not just for my store, but for me. Someone like him, who didn’t mind creeping on me while I was Lane and who didn’t seem to mind showing his ugliest side before me, was someone that was a real threat.
I needed to text Lane about this, but I also knew the second that I did, we’d have to talk about another reality that was seemingly unchangeable because of my refusal of Damon’s offer.
I wasn’t going to be in New York City much longer. And because of that, we’d be ending the brief romance that we had.
Just thinking about that was enough to cause significant pain.
“If he comes back, yell for me,” I said. “I need to go take care of a few things in the back.”
Mostly, I just meant my mind. Things were pretty down right now.
Chapter 13: Niner
I sat on my bike late Monday night—or rather, at this point, Tuesday morning. Brooklyn, as much as it could, had gone to sleep. The few people roaming the streets were likely doing so for illegal reasons, and every single business in sight had closed for the night.
That was just as well. If we came across the Bloodhounds, things were going to get bad and ugly really fast. The fewer things we had to worry about, the better—and by things, I meant civilians. If it sounded like war, that’s because I saw it as such.