Fire & Dark (The Night Horde SoCal Book 3)

by Susan Fanetti

  Pilar had parked on the street because the driveway was full of Hugo’s truck and their grandmother’s old Corolla. The garage had never been a place they’d kept cars. Their grandmother had a lifetime packed away in there—boxes and furniture and who knew what. All of their mother’s things were there. Every last knickknack. Even her toiletries from the bathroom.

  When Pilar and Hugo’s mother had been killed, they’d been living in a rickety two-bedroom apartment. But it had been filled with expensive crap, especially electronics. Pilar had been just old enough to begin to understand why—to wonder no longer why there were holes in the walls and cockroaches in the cupboards when the living room was a sea of leather furniture and sleek black boxes.

  By eleven, she’d figured it out.

  She understood what was happening when her stepfather, Little Jay, would sit in that living room with his buddies, all speaking in low murmurs, while their mother, Olivia, stayed back with them in their shared room and read them stories.

  Or she thought she’d understood. Little Jay was like her father had been. A man who always had a gun under his shirt. A man people were afraid of. Then, as a child, she’d been proud. She’d thought fear and respect were the same thing. She’d thought they lived like they did because Little Jay and his crew stayed in their home neighborhood, even when they could afford more. They stayed with their people, didn’t abandon them. She’d thought it made them Great Men instead of Bad Guys.

  Neither her father nor Little Jay had been bad fathers. They had usually been gentle with Pilar and Hugo, even indulgent. And Pilar’s memories of her mother were all good—a sweet, pretty woman who dished out hugs and kisses freely, who kept the best house she could under the circumstances, who made delicious food and chatted freely with the neighbors. Who fought for her children and protected them fiercely.

  Her own father had been shot down in the street the day of her fourth birthday party. By the time she was five, she had a stepfather and a baby brother. She’d been too young at the time to wonder at that timing. By the time she was eleven, she hadn’t remembered enough of her life before Little Jay to wonder about how he’d come to be in her life.

  By the time she was old enough to reflect on it, her mother, father, and stepfather were all in the ground, and it no longer mattered. So she locked the question away.

  Little Jay and Olivia had been killed much like Pilar’s father had been—a drive-by. Two others had been killed, both Assassins.

  Renata had her apartment and theirs packed, and they had moved, in what had seemed then like a matter of mere days. She’d left Little Jay’s things behind and had taken every single thing that had been their mother’s. Almost all of it was still in the boxes she’d packed in that rush. The gold crucifix Pilar wore was the only thing of her mother’s she had, though she supposed she could dig through the garage and rebuild her mother’s life entirely.

  Now, her arms laden with shopping bags, Pilar walked alongside the cars in the driveway and went in the side door of the house. Her grandmother didn’t like people coming in through the front and traipsing the outside inside through her living room. She was the kind of woman who left the plastic covers on her lampshades. The living room was for ‘company’—which she never had.

  They’d all done their living in the kitchen and the little ‘family room’ in the back, which was really just an enclosed porch with a window air conditioning unit.

  “Hola, Nana. I went to the market.” Pilar stepped into the kitchen and set the bags on the white-tile counter. As she started unpacking groceries, her grandmother came in from the family room.

  “Gracias, mija. Did you get the plantains?”

  “Yep. They were on special, so I got a whole bunch. If that’s too much, I’ll take some home with me. Oh, and the deli had that fruit salad Hugo likes, so I got that, too.” When Hugo didn’t come into the room, to help or even to say hello, Pilar called out, “Hugo! Come on!”

  Putting a carton of milk in the refrigerator, her grandmother said, “He’s not here, Pilar.”

  “What?” It had been almost three weeks since he’d been beaten, so he was healed. But he’d been milking it, lazing around, lapping up their grandmother’s nursing. Hiding from the Assassins.

  “He said he had a line on a job.”

  “But his truck’s in the driveway. And it’s five o’clock in the afternoon. And Friday.”

  “A friend picked him up. I didn’t recognize the car. Maybe it’s night work?”

  “Nana…” The only kind of ‘friends’ Hugo had were the kind that brought trouble.

  “I know, mija. But what can I do with him? Lock him away? He’s a grown man.”

  “Maybe if you’d treat him like a grown man, and quit wiping his ass for him all the damn time, he’d act like a grown man.”

  Her grandmother slammed the fridge door. “I do the best I can. I know his troubles are my fault. I didn’t get your mother out of that place after your abuelo died, and she got taken in by that gang. And I lost her. I got you and Hugo away as fast as I could, but it costs a lot to live here. I had to work so much. I couldn’t be in two places at once!”

  Pilar pulled her agitated abuela into her arms. “Shh, Nana. It’s okay. You did good. You took care of us. We both always felt your love. You don’t have to try to make up for doing the best you could to keep us safe. But you’re right. Hugo is a man. He should be, anyway. Maybe it’s time to let him go. Maybe he needs to know we won’t fix his fuckups for him anymore before he’ll try to fix them himself.”

  Her grandmother sniffed and relaxed on Pilar’s shoulder. “Don’t swear, mija.”

  “Sorry.”

  “I love him. I love you both.” She stepped away from Pilar and went back to unpacking groceries. “I can’t sit back and let him suffer. I just can’t.”

  Sighing, Pilar pulled the plantains out of the bag and set them in the wide, shallow bowl her grandmother kept for fruit. “I know, Nana. I know.”

  A thought occurred to her as she was packing the empty bags together. “What did the car look like?”

  “You know I don’t know from cars. It was an old sporty one. Like from that old show with the talking car.” She waved her hand. “Long before your time. But it had a bird on the hood. A painting of a big bird.”

  “A Trans Am?” She took her phone out and found a picture online. “Like this?”

  “Si. But black, and the wheels were gold.”

  She knew the car. She’d seen it parked outside the High Life the night they’d found Hugo. She’d driven by that place a couple of times since and had seen the driver get into it once. It was Sam’s—Raul Esposito’s main thug. “Fuck.”

  “Don’t swear, mija.”

  “Sorry, Nana.” She didn’t say more, and her grandmother didn’t ask—in fact, she seemed to have made a firm decision not to ask. Pilar didn’t know what to do with the information that Hugo had gone off with a high-ranking Assassin, or whether to do anything at all.

  Let him go. Let him make his mistakes and clean up after himself. Their grandmother couldn’t, but did that mean that Pilar couldn’t, either?

  So she kept her mouth shut and let her grandmother have her denial.

  ~oOo~

  It was Friday night, and Pilar was off on Saturday, but she was in a foul mood and shrugged off Moore’s call to join them at The Deck. She hadn’t been there since the last night she’d seen Connor, and she was fairly certain she wouldn’t be going back.

  Fuck, she could not stop thinking about that guy. Talking to her grandmother earlier, realizing that Hugo was falling back in with the Assassins in some way, apparently voluntarily, had everything about the night they’d found him spinning around in her head. The way Connor had helped, and pulled his club into it, too, simply because she’d said she needed help. The way he’d shielded her and stayed with her until he was sure she was safe.

  The way they’d fucked that night. How comfortable she’d felt sleeping with him.

&nb
sp; Those thoughts pulled into a frenzy all the others that were normally floating around in there already, and she could barely be still.

  There was something between them. And she’d missed the window.

  Fuck, she was lonely. Fuck.

  Then she thought, You know what? No. Why am I not going for what I want?

  She had no good answer. If Connor wanted to be done with her, he was going to have to make it a lot more clear than ‘See you around.’

  It was after nine on Friday night. Without bothering to change, without even bothering to brush her hair, Pilar grabbed her keys and went out. She walked past the Element and opened the garage.

  Where she was going, she wanted to ride.

  ~oOo~

  Night Horde parties were well known. Every Friday night. They partied other nights, too, maybe even most nights, but on Fridays, they opened their doors. It wasn’t totally open, you ostensibly had to have been invited, but it wasn’t like anyone was checking a list at the door.

  Pilar backed her bike in at the end of a line of bikes on Mariposa Avenue. These were guest bikes, she knew; the Horde parked in the side lot, which was fenced with eight-foot-high chain link.

  People—the men mostly heavyset and heavily bearded, and the women mostly busty and in bedazzled black, everybody inked—milled about on the sidewalk outside the front door to the clubhouse. Music thudded heavily against the walls—Stevie Ray Vaughn.

  She was noticed, but other than some cordial nods in her direction, which she returned, no one interacted with her. She opened the door, and the music poured into the air. Then she stepped into the Horde clubhouse.

  It wasn’t her first time, of course. Connor had brought her into this room when he was arranging to help her. But then, it had been almost empty. Now, it was packed to the rafters with people. Weed and cigarette smoke filled the air. It wasn’t even ten o’clock yet, but people were well on their way to blind drunk. They were laughing, playing pool, or pinball, or in various stages of getting busy. No wonder Connor hadn’t thought twice about fucking her in the parking lot. There was a lot of nakedness going on around her, and nobody but the people involved even seemed to notice. Except her.

  She stopped looking at that and started looking for Connor.

  He was standing at the end of the bar, and a little redhead was rubbing all over him, wearing shiny red booty shorts and a miniscule silver lamé halter top. She was unbuttoning his shirt. He smiled down at her, that fucking melty smile, then he turned his head and put a cigarette to his lips.

  Pilar hadn’t known he smoked. She wasn’t a fan, but she could deal. What she couldn’t deal with, however, was the little redhead, who now had his shirt completely open and was scratching long, red talons over his nipples.

  When his hand went to Red’s ass and he bent down to kiss her, Pilar…well, she lost her shit. A little. She had no right to, but that hardly mattered.

  Clearing the remaining distance in about four strides, she grabbed Red by the shoulder and yanked her back. “Sorry, chica. Connor’s got plans tonight.”

  But Red wasn’t one of Connor’s little teeny-boppers. She was young, but she wasn’t naïve—she had the cold look of a chick who’d seen some shit. She turned on Pilar, hauling off and punching her right in the eye. “Fuck off, bitch!”

  Pilar hadn’t expected that, and it hurt. But she could throw a punch, too—which she did, right into Red’s bare belly. Pilar felt the chick’s navel jewelry dig into her knuckles. Red doubled over, coughing.

  The room’s attention was pulling to the scene, and Pilar could sense that Red had friends, girls heading into the fray. She could fight, but not if she was heavily outnumbered. And some of the guys looked excited, like they couldn’t wait to see a bitch brawl.

  But then Connor grabbed her, hooking his arm across her chest and pulling her back against him, and he caught Red’s hand as it swung again.

  “Okay, ladies. I’m flattered. But enough. Tina, I’ll catch you later.”

  ‘Tina’ looked furious, but she didn’t challenge Connor at all. In fact, she forced the anger from her face and put a smile on instead. “Okay, Connor. Whenever you want me.”

  Pilar scoffed and side-eyed the bitch. What a whore. With a venomous look at Pilar, Tina sashayed off, and a couple of girls rushed up to check on her.

  Connor leaned down and put his mouth near her ear. “I don’t know what the fuck you’re doing here, or what your problem is, but you’re coming with me right now or I’m gonna let Tina and the girls have what they want with you.”

  His voice sounded different from what she knew of it—heavier, thick with threat. But she’d come in here like every cliché of a jealous woman rolled into one, and she’d started it all. Plus, she did want to be alone with him; it was why she was even here.

  She nodded. “Okay, yeah.”

  He moved his arm, turning her and hooking his huge hand over the back of her neck. Then he led her through the room and down a hallway. At the end of the hall, he stopped in front of one of the several doors that lined both sides, and he unlocked it.

  “Get in.”

  She went in, and he closed—and locked—the door behind them. Then he hit a switch, and the overhead light, which was part of a ceiling fan, came on.

  They were in a bedroom. His bedroom, she assumed. It was obviously not for public use—there were personal items everywhere, and the bed had the kind of linens that people had for themselves—tan with brown and blue stripes. Not basic motel linens. It was a small room, not especially messy, but obviously lived in.

  “You live here?”

  “I’m asking the questions. Sit.” He indicated an elderly armchair in the corner of the room. She took the seat, and he sat on the bed. “What the fuck, Cordero?”

  When she’d left the house, she’d been operating on instinct, want, and loneliness. She had no plan, no intention beyond being with him. There might have been the fantasy of walking in and finding him alone, and just going straight up to him and kissing him, him wrapping her up in his arms and kissing her back.

  Yeah, that would have been best case.

  But while she’d been unable to want anybody else—which, she was sure, wasn’t helping her on the loneliness front—he obviously had no problem getting his knob polished. Seeing him getting pawed at, and enjoying it, had made her nuts.

  Nuts enough to want to break somebody’s face. Which Connor had done to Moore.

  Of course, she had reason to be jealous. He did not.

  Except that they both had the same reason to be jealous. There was something between them. Something real.

  The problem was that she was the only one willing to admit it.

  So that was her plan. Get him to admit it, or make herself accept that he simply would not. Start something with him or move on. That was the plan.

  She’d waited too long to answer his angry question. He huffed and asked another. “Are you in trouble?”

  Oh, yes. She definitely was. But that wasn’t what he’d meant. “No. I wanted to see you.”

  He chuckled sarcastically and looked away. “Well, you did that. Made a fucking entrance, too. Why?”

  “Same reason you beat the shit out of Moore.”

  His head swiveled back, and he looked at her with narrowed eyes. “You fight Tina before? Need a rematch?”

  “Fuck, Connor. Please let’s just be straight with each other. We are not kids. Can’t we just be honest?”

  He crossed his arms over his chest, his shirt still open from Tina’s seduction, and for a second Pilar was distracted by the sight. God, he was gorgeous. He was also angry; his breast heaved with it. “I’ve been nothing but. I told you what I wanted. I thought you wanted it, too. I’m not the one who fucked up a good thing.”

  “You’re fucking it up right now.” All at once, Pilar was just too weary. She felt self-conscious and exposed, rejected and awkward. She’d nearly started a brawl over this guy, and he wasn’t even strong enough to admit that he felt
something for her. It had been stupid to come here.

  And anyway, she had her answer. He wouldn’t admit it. So it was time to move on.

  She stood. “Okay, Connor. You win. I’m sorry I barged in and interrupted your night. I’m gonna go. I’m sure Tina’s motor’s still revving.”

  He said nothing. She crossed the small room and went to the door. It took her a second to turn the lock. By the time she was opening the door, he was right behind her. He slammed his hand on the flat wood and forced the door shut.