THE DEVIL’S BRIDE

by April Lust

  Guys like Skull really made the streets more dangerous than they needed to be. The rest of us just provided services and goods. Skull offered up game changers. His prowess in the weapons game hit us on two fronts. Not only did our supplier go under, but our security business took a pretty serious hit. We had some clients who were extremely loyal because they preferred our clean-up service to anyone else they’d ever used, but most people went with the guy who had the biggest guns. We couldn’t blame them.

  “Yeah, you’re right, Liam. His guys have the equipment to see and hear us even in the dead of night when we’re not making a single noise.”

  I saw a few worried looks.

  “Guys, don’t sweat it. If anything goes wrong, we just do what we do. We kill everyone,” I added with a hearty laugh.

  That got their spirits up.

  “I mean, really, what good is this sort of thing if it doesn’t lead to a fight? And we know that if it turns into a fight, we’ve got them. They may have better weapons, but they don’t have the balls,” I said.

  One of the things we were known for was our ability to fight. The Storm’s Angels MC had been built on bar and street fights. We used to go into bars just to start fights until we got so big that it was beginning to undermine the rest of our business.

  “Well, are we ready?” I asked everyone.

  They all threw their fists in the air.

  “Everyone got a weapon?” I asked.

  I watched as the senior members all pulled their assault rifles around to the front. Liam also pulled a shiny silver revolver out of his waistband. Sometimes, I thought he should have been an outlaw in the Old West, not on the city streets of urban America.

  “Then let’s go,” I told them.

  Of course, they ran off yelling, howling, and whistling to get the other members riled up and ready to launch an all-out attack on our biggest rival.

  “Alec,” I snapped as he walked past me with his gun in the air.

  “Yes, sir?” He stopped dead in his tracks and turned with a frightened look in his eyes.

  “You’re staying back. We need someone to watch HQ while we’re out,” I told him.

  He let out a sigh that was equal parts relief and disappointment. He was obviously relieved that I wasn’t scolding him for letting Clara out of his sight, and he was understandably disappointed that I wasn’t letting him tag along.

  “It’s an important job, brother. I need you come through for me. Don’t drop the ball on this one, got it?”

  “Got it.”

  “All right. Close the bay doors behind us after we leave. Lock this place down while we’re gone.”

  “I don’t get to keep anyone here with me?” he asked.

  I looked at Mick, and he shrugged.

  “Up to you, boss,” he said.

  “Yeah, grab three guys to stay back with you. Stay armed. Stay vigilant. It’s possible Skull knows we’re on the way, and if he decides to pull anything, you need to be able to buy enough time to let us know.” I looked right into his young, scared eyes. Sometimes I wondered what I had been thinking by making him a senior member, but he had the muscle and weapons know-how that we needed. He didn’t have any common sense whatsoever, but if you told him to hit it or shoot it, it was handled with precision.

  Mick and I walked to our bikes in the noise of everyone gunning their engines. We watched as Alec grabbed a few guys, stopping them from riding out and convincing them to stay with him. It really humorous. They looked at us for confirmation that he wasn’t just losing his mind, and we simply nodded to let them know it was legit.

  We pulled out of HQ and into the afternoon light. This was the kind of business that was usually handled at night. We hoped that handling it in the afternoon, in broad fucking daylight, would give us a bit of an advantage over Skull and his goons.

  Chapter 14

  Clara

  After listening to Skull’s voicemails, all of which just amounted to being worried about my well-being and wanting to hear from me to make sure I was all right, I decided it was time to take action. Since Mason wouldn’t listen to me about not going after Skull, since he wanted to lie to my face and tell me they just wanted to talk to him, I decided it was time to call my boss and let him know what was going on.

  After my conversation with Mason earlier, it had become clear to me that all he was trying to do with the sex and the caring relationship act was to get information out of me. All he really wanted was the same thing he’d wanted since day one—to know my boss. Well, he might have had a name, and he might have known Skull’s reputation, but he was about to find out firsthand who Skull was.

  I tapped Skull’s number on my screen and stepped outside. He answered after a few rings.

  “Clara?” His smooth voice sounded cautious, like he didn’t expect it to be me.

  “It’s me,” I told him.

  “Oh, good. How are you?” he asked with concern in his voice. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine, but there’s something I need to tell you,” I started.

  “Where are you?” he asked, ignoring me.

  “I’m at Mason Crawley’s apartment,” I answered.

  “You’re where?” he snapped.

  “Look, when the drug thing turned out to be a trap, I decided to try to get some intel for you. I figured you could use some eyes and ears on the inside, okay? So, I’m fucking inside. I’m as inside as it gets.”

  “Good girl,” he said slowly, letting the words roll gently off his tongue. “What do you have for me?”

  I froze. I was about to stab Mason in the back bigtime, like Julius Caesar big. I couldn’t deny that we were both working to build trust, but I couldn’t deny that we were both abusing that trust at the same time. We were on opposite sides of a conflict, and we were both trying to reach out to each other while maintaining our integrity and our responsibilities to other people.

  “Clara?” he said. “Clara, what do you have for me?”

  “He’s coming to kill you,” I told him.

  Skull laughed so hard I had to pull the phone away from my ear, and I could still hear him clearly.

  “Oh, that’s rich,” he said. “How does he know where I am?” he asked. “Did you tell him? Are you playing double agent over there, Clara?”

  “No,” I told him as ice crept into my veins. The last thing I needed to do was to get on both of their bad sides. If I got on Skull’s bad side, that would have been bad. At least with Mason, I was pretty sure I could fuck my way back into his good graces.

  “Are you sure? I know you,” he said, and the accusation in his tone chilled me even more. His voice told me there had been other times when I’d flirted with his anger, and I hadn’t known about it. He hadn’t said anything then, but it was all about to come down on me now.

  “What does that mean?” I asked. If he had something to say, now was as good a time as any to let it out.

  “Nothing, Clara,” he said dismissively. “You can just get a little too involved sometimes with the job is all I meant. What do you know?”

  “Look, I found out today that he’s had his men looking for you. I’ve been doing what I can to keep him away from the MC, but they’ve been looking for you anyway, without him there,” I explained. “I think he’s been sneaking away from me at times to talk to them, so there’s no telling what else is going on.”

  “Do they know you were working for me?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I answered, and closed my eyes, hoping he wouldn’t ask how they found out.

  “Did you tell them?” he asked.

  Shit! What was I supposed to say? I ran back over everything that had happened so far, trying to find some other way to answer the question. I couldn’t tell him the truth. If he knew I had told Mason, I was dead, especially if he found out I had told him after having sex with him.

  “No,” I finally said. “Someone called them a few days ago and told them you had sold some of the stolen heroin.”

  “What? How woul
d they have known?” he asked loudly in my ear.

  “I don’t know. Don’t ask me, I don’t use the shit, but apparently this guy’s a loyal customer or something. I didn’t go with them. I think they figured it out when the guy described you to them.” I hadn’t talked to Mason about what their guy said. I was just making up the story as I went along, filling in the details just enough to get his suspicion off of me.

  “I bet I know who it was, too,” Skull said with a thoughtful tone. He probably did have someone in mind, and knowing him, it was probably the same guy Mason and Mick had gone to talk to.

  “You’re probably right. Look, they’ve been careful to make sure I don’t get too much intel, so I can only tell you so much. I don’t know where they think you are, so you might not even be in danger, but they’re on their way somewhere to find you, and I’m pretty sure Mason is going to kill you.”

  “Thanks for the heads up, Clara,” he said, and I heard that fatherly tone I’d been needing to hear from him since this whole thing started.

  “No problem, Skull. It’s the least I can do,” I told him.

  “It’s more than you realize. Are you safe? Are you okay?” he asked.

  I thought about his question. I’d felt safer than ever while I was at Mason’s apartment with him. I felt like there was nothing to worry about, but as I was giving up his plans to Skull, I realized I was probably putting myself in danger.

  “I’m safe for now,” I said, “but if they show up wherever they’re going, and you’re not there, Mason is going to know I ratted him out to you. I’m not going to be safe then.”

  “No, you won’t be. Let me ask you this, are you ready to come home, Clara?”

  “I am.” I sighed, realizing that no matter how safe or comfortable I felt sleeping against Mason’s magnificent body, I wasn’t truly at home. Under Skull’s protection, and with him looking after me, that was the only time I was truly at home.

  “Well, do you want me to send someone to pick you up?” he asked me. As I listened to the way he talked to me, like a father talking to his daughter, I was reminded of all the things he’d done for me over the years. He’d been there for me the way a father would have been. He’d looked after me like I was his own and not just his employee.

  Before I could answer, there was something I needed to know.

  “Mason thinks you were behind the guys who attacked me in the park the other day,” I said carefully, uncertain on how to approach the topic.

  “You were attacked?” he asked. He sounded shocked. “Was that why you weren’t there when I showed up? I didn’t know what had happened to you.”

  “Yeah, when I showed up, there were three guys in black suits waiting for me, with another in the car. Only the driver and one other made it out. Mason and a few guys from the MC showed up to handle it. They shot two of them dead, and caught the third one in the leg. The driver never got out of the car,” I told him.

  “I hope you know I would never do anything like that, Clara, but let him think what he wants. It won’t matter anymore after today. I’m sending someone to pick you up,” he said.

  “But I haven’t told you where the apartment building is,” I protested.

  “You think I can’t figure out where Mason Crawley lives?” he asked, laughing. “Have you forgotten who I am so quickly, Clara? Of course I know where you are. I’ll have someone around back in about an hour,” he told me. “Be there.”

  The line disconnected.

  The knife was planted firmly in Mason’s back now, and in an hour’s time, I knew I was going to give it a pretty good twist by leaving the apartment with Skull.

  “What are you doing, Clara?” I asked myself. The thing was I didn’t know anymore. My loyalty was split between two men.

  I grabbed a glass from the cupboard, filled it with ice, and took the whiskey bottle from Mason’s liquor cabinet. I needed a drink to steady my nerves before I sealed my fate with Mason. The whiskey burned all the way down, burning the edge off of my decision. I thought about pouring another glass. I unscrewed the cap and tilted the bottle over.

  “No,” I said aloud to the bottle. “One’s enough.”

  Something in Skull’s voice hit me. He’d been too calm, too confident in himself. He already knew where I was before I called. He already knew I was okay. He knew why I hadn’t shown up at the park. But there was no way he could have been behind the attack, unless he was the driver. Or, unless he sent those men to get me.

  If it hadn’t been Skull, I didn’t know who else it could have been. No one else could have known where I was going and when I would have been there.

  I had an hour. If I called Mason to tell him Skull was on to him, I would out myself as a spy, a double agent as Skull had put it. If I didn’t call him, he would find out when he showed up to an empty hideout. At the same time, I would have the opportunity to address my issues with Skull if I didn’t call Mason.

  I’d locked myself into place on this job. I left myself no choice but to let Skull give Mason the slip so I could get to Skull and find out what the fuck was going on. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed Mason had been right about the attack at the park. Skull had led me right to it. He’d probably even sent the guys himself.

  My blood was boiling.

  I searched Mason’s apartment for a spare gun. I didn’t like guns, and never carried one. I’d never felt the need. My body was usually all I needed to get out of just about any situation. Between the martial arts training Skull had provided and sex, men were pretty helpless against me, but I was talking about going up against Skull now. I needed a weapon besides my fists and ass. He would have expected one, and he wouldn’t fall for the other.

  I found a small pistol in one of the kitchen drawers, the first one I opened. It really didn’t surprise me to find one that fast in Mason’s apartment. There were probably guns hidden everywhere. He’d been an underground arms dealer at one point, before Skull took that business from him, so it only made sense that he would have been prepared for any incident.

  I checked to make sure the gun was loaded. It wouldn’t have done me any good empty. I shoved it in the waist of my jeans and grabbed my backpack from the bedroom floor. I looked around again before walking out. I knew I was leaving my clothes here, but they were the clothes Mason had purchased for me. They didn’t need to come with me. I didn’t want the constant reminder of what I might have been leaving behind.

  I also wasn’t completely convinced I wasn’t coming back.

  I closed the door behind me and took the elevator down to the ground floor. The building was so quiet, like everyone knew something I didn’t. I didn’t see another person until I stepped out back.

  There was a ratty, homeless-looking man hanging out by the dumpster. I fished out a ten-dollar bill and handed it to him.

  “Thanks,” he said, stuffing it into one of his filthy pockets.

  “It’s not free,” I told him. “I need a witness. Hide where you can keep an eye on me. Someone’s coming to get me, and you might have to tell someone later who it was. Think you can do that for me?”

  “That’s all?”

  “That’s all.”

  “Yeah, I can do that,” he said, and he wandered into the mess of boxes and newspapers on the other side of the dumpster, disappearing into the garbage.

  Chapter 15

  I waited in the afternoon light with Mason’s whiskey sitting in my stomach and flowing through my veins. Suspicion brewed in the back of my mind. I was suspicious of both of the men in my life, and it was starting to get old already. I looked up and down the alley between the apartment building and the parking garage.

  I felt like I should have gone with Mason. I should have forced his hand. It was the only way I knew I could ensure neither one of them would fuck me over. It would have been a good way to make sure I didn’t screw either one of them over, too.

  Of course, I could screw both of them over right now, I thought. I looked around at the buildings
surrounding me. Everything was so close right here. I could almost touch the concrete walls of the parking deck from the back door of the apartment building. The next building over stood just as close, leaving enough room for one-way traffic down the alleyways.

  I could have taken a page out of my homeless friend’s playbook and just disappeared right then and there. I could have ditched my phone in the dumpster, stopped at the nearest ATM to grab enough cash to get me up the road, and just walked off into the dying light. It wasn’t an idea that occurred to me often, but there were times when I fantasized about ditching my current life and going off to find something new. At times like this, when I was faced with a no-win situation, when I suspected I was going to get screwed either way I went, it just seemed easier to walk away.