Price of Angels (Dartmoor Book 2)

by Lauren Gilley

  “Yes.”

  The big man stood, turning to go up the steps. “I’ll send Holly down.”

  “Mercy.”

  He paused, glanced back over his shoulder.

  “I’m sorry about what happened. I never meant for Ava to get hurt.”

  No response. Mercy went up the steps and disappeared inside.

  Holly came out a moment later, and her face crumpled when she saw him standing at the foot of the stairs. She came down to him in an unsteady rush, and his arms were open for her when she launched against him, twining her arms around his neck, pressing her face into his shoulder.

  He hugged her hard, and whispered into her hair, “I’ll make it right. I promise I will.”

  **

  It was a long time before she stopped shaking. Even hours later, as she carried trays to tables, she saw the occasional tremor in her fingers. She had three near-accidents with full drinks, nearly sending them into customers’ laps.

  “Sit down for a second,” Michael ordered gruffly as she passed his table. “You look like you’re gonna fall down.”

  “I’m fine.” But she eased down on the edge of the seat opposite him and let her tray rest against her knee. “The anxiety takes a long time to go away,” she explained.

  He frowned at her. He’d had no interest in his dinner, and at this point had shoved the plate to the side. His glass was empty, and she pushed to her feet to get him another.

  “Just sit, damn it.”

  “I can’t. We have a full house tonight. I’ve gotta check on three tables, and you need a refill anyway.”

  “Coffee, not whiskey this time,” he said.

  She froze, hand resting on the table. “Why?”

  “Because I’m going hunting and I want to be good and awake.”

  Not hunting for wild boar, she knew. “Michael, you shouldn’t–”

  “Do what I said I’d do? No. I shouldn’t. I shoulda already done it.”

  She started to argue with him, and decided she’d get nowhere, judging by the harsh set of his jaw. “Coffee, coming right up,” she muttered, and headed off to the kitchen.

  She made her rounds, and then went back to Michael’s booth. He made an unmistakable gesture for her to sit, which she resisted.

  “Have some of this.” He tried to give the mug back to her after she set it down.

  “I can’t be seen drinking a customer’s coffee.”

  At another time, she would have laughed herself breathless looking at the dark scowl that marred his face. “I’m not a customer.”

  “Then what are you?”

  “You know damn well.”

  With a sigh, she sat down across from him.

  He shoved the coffee closer.

  With a consenting eye roll, she took a quick swallow, and set it firmly back on his side of the table. “Happy?”

  No response.

  It was one of those silences that felt like an opening, and she caved forward, bracing her elbows on the table. “I can’t believe that happened today,” she groaned in a quiet voice.

  “Your psycho fucked up family is trying to take you back? I can believe it.”

  “I can’t believe I let them get near Ava.”

  Michael gave her a steady look. “You didn’t.”

  “What do you call it then?” she challenged, anger rising against despair, the two winding together into one ugly plait. “I should never have been at her house. I should never have exposed her–”

  “You didn’t expose her to anything.”

  “I exposed her to me!” Her hands fell down onto the table and curled into fists. “To me, Michael, and I knew better.”

  He made a disgruntled sound in the back of his throat. “Will you just calm down? You didn’t do anything wrong. And after tonight, it won’t matter anymore.”

  “You found them?”

  “Working on it.”

  “They won’t go back to the house, you know. You can’t find them sitting at home waiting on you.”

  “I know that,” he snapped. “Stop, okay? Don’t worry about it. This is my problem.”

  She pressed her lips together against a protest. His problem. He’d taken it on as such, pulling the mantle fully onto his shoulders, trying to leave hers bare and light. Did he even know the kind of wonder and love that inspired in her?

  “Be careful,” she said. “No man who believes he has God on his side makes impatient mistakes. Abraham and Jacob are dangerous.”

  “So am I.”

  She felt a faint smile tugging at her lips. “I know that. Thank God.”

  She swung her legs to the side, gathering herself to get up – the bar was swarming with patrons, people on their feet and shuffling back and forth to the pay phones, the rest rooms, the jukebox; she had to get back to her customers. She pulled up short, though, when she saw two men standing at the end of their table. Amid the intensity of their conversation, and the noise of the bar, neither of them had heard anyone approach. And there they were, like a matched pair, in their straight-leg jeans and dirty Carhartt jackets.

  Abraham and Jacob.

  Holly opened her mouth but could produce no sound. She had no breath; there was no air in her lungs or moisture on her tongue. She couldn’t look at Michael for a reaction, because her eyes refused to swerve away from her father’s face.

  Abraham didn’t smile; somehow, it would have been easier if he had. With grave seriousness, he said, “Hello, Holly.”

  Jacob, always the less tactful of the two, said, “Is this what you’ve done? Thrown in with one of these bikers?” He turned a sneering glance on Michael. “Ain’t you the one that’s s’posed to come kiss us in our sleep? Won’t your boss like to hear where your hands have been.” He laughed, seeming delighted by the prospect.

  “It’s time to come home, girl,” Abraham said. “You had your fun, and now you’ll have to pray for the Lord’s forgiveness for the sins you’ve committed.”

  He reached toward her.

  Holly heard the soft whisper of Michael pulling the knife out of his boot and risked her first glance at him. He didn’t appear to have moved, but one hand was in his lap, and she knew the knife was in it.

  Abraham had heard the sound too, and he was frozen, his hand hovering a few inches from her.

  “Hol,” Michael said in a low, even tone. “You sit right there, sweetheart. Don’t move.”

  The Jessup brothers sensed what was about to happen the heartbeat before it did. They leapt back, and Michael was right after them, flying from his seat, making a reach for Jacob with one hand while he brought the knife up with the other.

  Jacob had the barest head-start, though, and dodged the blade, shoving his brother sideways into a table as they both fled for the door.

  The table tipped sideways, its contents sliding to the floor. Beer fountained in a tall golden plume. French fries scattered everywhere. Patrons yelled and shouted, and all eyes went to the trio hammering across the boards to the door: the two men in front of the one with the wicked length of knife.

  In the chaos, Holly lurched to her feet and took off after them.

  Outside, the street was clogged with evening traffic, the streetlamps burning bright smears against the dark sky. Abraham and Jacob had dodged between cars and were on the opposite side of the road, jogging down the sidewalk toward the ruined Buick she recognized all too well.

  Michael was still on her side of the street, passing headlights sliding down the knife as he looked for an opening. One wasn’t coming, though, and he leaned forward at the waist, prepared to make a run for it.

  “Michael, no!” Holly grabbed at the back of his cut and he tried to shrug her off, changing course, heading up this sidewalk instead, to run parallel of them.

  “Michael!” She latched on with both hands, trying in vain to pull him back. “You can’t catch them now, let them go!”

  He spun to face her, and his eyes were wild and white-rimmed.

  “Wait,” she pleaded. “They’re
trying to get you off-balance. They knew we’d both be there and they came in on purpose. Don’t chase after them right now. Wait. Please.”

  She curled her hands around his forearms, and felt the tension in them beneath his jacket sleeves. “Michael.”

  His swallowed, his throat working, and seemed to collect himself. He glanced down at her, opened his mouth to speak –

  And his phone rang.

  He couldn’t take her with him to the clubhouse. They were there. Michael stood for a long moment, blindly watching the traffic, trying to decide where it was safe to leave her. The loft, he finally decided. Two flights up and secured behind heavy locks. Rapunzel wouldn’t have been safer there.

  He left her sitting on the side of her bed, his gun in her hands. “Don’t leave for any reason,” he told her. She was shaking, but she nodded. He had no time to console her; Ghost was waiting for him.

  The Jessup brothers were sitting in the common room when he walked in. Relaxed, comfortable, they were on one of the sofas, beers in their hands. Walsh and Tango were with them, and their calm was a deceptive mask. Walsh had one hand resting on his thigh as he sat in a recliner opposite the brothers, within close reach of the gun at his waistband.

  Michael wasn’t prepared for the hot blast of rage, the way seeing them was a physical burning sensation inside him.

  He ought to kill them right now. He could, he reflected, and probably neither Walsh nor Tango would interfere. He could cross to the couch in two long strides and take Walsh’s gun from him. But, no – he didn’t want to shoot them. He wanted their blood on his hands. He wanted to feel their skin give as the blade passed through it. He wanted to slaughter them like hogs.

  Walsh’s gaze flicked up to his face, expression a subtle warning, like he could read Michael’s intent. “Ghost’s waiting for you in the chapel.”

  The Jessup brothers were watching him, and their bold appraisal was a mockery. They knew he didn’t have leave to do anything to them here. They knew they were safe for the moment.

  “Okay,” he said, and headed that way, each step more difficult than the last. He couldn’t recall a time when self-control had ever been a problem. Maybe that was why it was being so thoroughly tested now.

  The doors to the chapel stood open at the end of the hall, and Ghost waited for him in his chair at the head of the table. “Sit,” he instructed, and Michael closed the doors and did so.

  This room had a stale smell. The old, heavy, ornate furniture was polished weekly, and the scent of the wax blended with the musk of the wall paneling, and the accumulated cigarette smoke that never truly dissipated, only found crevices to cling to.

  In his usual seat, at the right hand of the president, Michael had a view of the tension in Ghost’s face, the tightening of all the fine lines in the skin around his eyes. There was an ageless quality to the man; he seemed both older and younger than his fifty years. He was so much better-suited for the role as president than his predecessor had been that Ernest James was a laughingstock by comparison. Michael had longed for the day that James would finally step down and Ghost would take the throne.

  This was the first time he wished he was sitting beside James instead, because there were no traces of gentleness or understanding in Ghost’s harsh face.

  He took a breath and, staring at the table before them, said, “How long have you been banging Jessup’s daughter?”

  It was more direct than Michael had expected. The question was vulgar in his ears; his brain recoiled from it.

  “She’s been working at Bell Bar since August. She always sits and talks to me.”

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  Michael frowned. “Since before Christmas.”

  Ghost slanted him a quick, narrow glance. “Did you know who she was?”

  “Not at first. But then she told me.”

  “When?”

  “Right around the time you let them start selling for you.”

  “Christ. You didn’t think you ought to mention it?”

  “It wasn’t anybody’s business.”

  “It’s the club’s business,” Ghost said, voice undercut with a violent anger. “We’ve got fifteen of Jasmine’s friends walking around here with their tits out, but no, you had to go after that bastard’s daughter. Do you understand the difficult position this puts me in?”

  “No,” Michael said, and meant it. He met Ghost’s glare with a level one of his own. “Tell them to fuck off.”

  Ghost twitched a non-smile. “They’ve already called their boss. Now Shaman wants a meeting, and I wasn’t ready for that yet.”

  When Michael didn’t respond, Ghost continued: “I need more time to put together some intel on this guy. I don’t want to walk into a sitdown blind. And the Jessups are saying they can put the pin back in the grenade, and things can go back to normal. For a price.”

  Michael stiffened. “What price?”

  “I hand over the girl, and they keep on quietly selling.”

  “You can’t do that,” Michael said, without missing a beat.

  Ghost sighed. “I don’t want to do it. But I don’t see what choice I’ve got.”

  “Have the meeting with Shaman. I’ll be with you. Walsh will come with us. The whole club can come.”

  “And what do the Jessups do in the meantime? Throw more bricks through my daughter’s window?” His eyes flashed, murderous like Mercy’s had been earlier.

  “Holly won’t go near Ava again. It won’t happen–”

  “The safety of my family isn’t up for discussion.”

  “What about the safety of mine?” Michael growled before he could catch himself. “If Holly goes back to them, they’ll kill her. And after what they’ll do to her before that, she’ll be glad for it.”

  Ghost frowned. “I know these guys are assholes–”

  “You don’t know anything about them. There’s not a word for what they are. What they’ve done to Holly…No. No. I won’t let her go back with them. I would never do that to her.”

  Ghost studied him a long, unreadable moment. “What sort of story did that girl spin for you?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “She cried on your shoulder, didn’t she? Fed you a sob story. What did she want from you?”

  Michael ground his molars together.

  “Considering you chased them out of Bell Bar wielding a knife, I’m gonna take a wild swing and say she wanted you to kill them, didn’t she? A few tears, a couple of doe-eyed looks, and you bought all of it, didn’t you?” He pulled a disgusted face. “I thought you were smarter than this.”

  Michael felt the press of heat beneath his skin, knew his face was flushed. “It wasn’t a story,” he said tightly.

  “How would you know? A girl from out of town – you don’t know anything about her. All you have to go on is her word. Have you knocked her up yet?”

  Michael couldn’t form a question, could only stare.

  “Have you been using rubbers? For all you know, she’s trying to get pregnant to trap you.”

  “She wouldn’t–”

  “Play the damsel when she’s really helping her father manipulate us? Think again. Remember Ava’s little boyfriend? Remember the Carpathians trying to find a weak link? That’s how people bring down clubs: they rip them apart from the inside out.

  “Jessup starts selling for us, meanwhile, his daughter’s spinning tales for you, fucking with your head, pulling you away from us, and then there’s an opening. There’s a weak flank, and Shaman’s got a way to get to us.”

  Michael’s breathing had picked up, a shallow rushing through his mouth. “You don’t even know that Shaman wants to ‘get to us.’ ”

  “So what? We sit on our hands and wait around to find out?”

  “We-”

  “The girl is going back to her father,” Ghost said, tone final. “Wherever she is, go and get her, and bring her back here.”

  “They raped her,” Michael said, feeling as helpless as he had at ag
e nine, when he’d stood beside Caesar and clutched his collar and listened to his mother’s final screams. “Her father, and her uncle. They beat her, they…” He trailed off, hands wrapping tight around the arms of his chair, his body shaking. Nothing he said mattered. Nothing he wanted was important.

  For one quick twitch, Ghost’s face softened. He heaved a deep sigh. “You like her. Hell, maybe you love her. And I don’t want to make this decision. But this is about all of us. Everyone who leans on this club. I can’t put all of us at risk for one girl. That’s what a president does – makes the hard call.”

  Michael stared at the old, deep scratches in the table. His head was throbbing, the blood pounding in his temples and ears.

  “The son-in-law,” Ghost said. “You killed him?”

  Numbly, he nodded.

  “Well, he was a fucked up little weirdo.” Another sigh. “Michael, go get her. We’ll wait here.”

  Holly had done nothing but pace since Michael left. To the center window, to the sofa, to the fridge, and then back again, an irregular triangle. She was shocked to realize she hadn’t worn a layer of varnish off the floorboards.

  When someone knocked on the door, she leapt, banging her shin on the leg of the chair, hissing between her teeth as the bright spot of pain swelled and grew hot and damp; she’d broken the skin.

  “Michael?” she called as she limped to the door.

  “It’s me.”

  She threw the locks in a hurry and ushered him in, re-engaging all of them the moment he was clear of the threshold. Her supercharged anxiety was lessened just by the quick brush of his sleeve as he came through the door, and she took her first deep breath since his departure. Turning, letting the door hold her weight behind her, she started to ask him what had happened…and frowned instead, when she saw him standing in the middle of her loft with a bowed head and a tense hand clamped to the back of his neck.

  “What?” she asked, starting toward him.

  His eyes snapped up to hers, and the sharpness in them froze her cold.

  She halted mid-stride, arms going around her middle on instinct. “Michael, what?”

  “Everything you told me – about where you come from and what they did to you. All that. It’s true?”