He was angry – I could tell that much by his expression. I half expected him to hit me. Or throw me off his porch. Or curse me out, at the very least.
Instead, he just shook his head.
“Go home, Fiona,” he said, and started to close the door.
I jammed my foot inside before he could shut it.
“That’s it?!” I shouted. “That’s all you’ve got to fucking say?!”
“What do you want from me?” he asked wearily.
“Oh, I don’t know – why don’t you keep bitching about how you’re so much better than me because I lied to you, and how much you hate me because I took everything from you!”
“I’m not better than you, Fiona,” he said quietly. “I’ve done way worse things than what you did last night, and for a lot shittier reasons. And you’re right – it wasn’t your fault I lost everything; it was mine. Lou outplayed me and outsmarted me, just like you said.”
I pulled my foot out of the door. I was shocked out of my mind. I hadn’t expected this.
“I don’t hate you, either,” he continued. “I understand why you did it, and I can’t fault you for that.”
My eyes welled up with tears.
“Jack…” I whispered tenderly.
Whether he meant to or not, he’d set me up perfectly for the knock-out punch.
“But I was in love with you,” he said. “I trusted you… and you hurt me worse than anybody else in my entire fucking life.”
All the air went out of my lungs, and the jagged pieces of my heart broke into smaller ones.
“Go back to LA, Fiona,” he said. “And don’t come back here again.”
He shut the door in my face.
The deadbolt locking was the loneliest, most final sound I’d ever heard.
10
I sat in my car and cried in his driveway for a good five minutes, it hurt so bad. All my pride had gone out the window; I didn’t care if he saw me. All I could feel was the pain.
I finally pulled myself together, drove out of his neighborhood, and headed out of town.
But I had to stop twice more on the side of the road – once to cry again, and once to make a phone call.
Eddie Deacon’s voice answered on the other end of the line. “I thought I might be hearing from you.”
“I want what you took from my motel room,” I snarled. “And I want the information you promised me.”
“You’re leaving town?”
“What do you expect me to do after last night?”
There was a pause. “Meet me at the Mariposa Way exit – it’s about 30 miles south of Richards. Take a right – there’s a dirt road half a mile off the interstate with a bunch of huge boulders. I’ll be behind those.”
Then he hung up.
11
Eddie had described the spot perfectly: a desert path surrounded by a dozen ten-foot-high boulders, perfectly sheltered from prying eyes and passing traffic on the highway.
When I drove my car up the sandy road, the undercover DEA agent was standing next to his bike in the shadow of one of the rocks.
I got out of my car.
“You alright?” he asked.
“Yeah, fucking great,” I snapped.
He ignored my tone and looked at my face and arms, checking for bruises. “Did he hurt you?”
“You were there. You saw what happened.”
“I meant Jack, not Lou.”
You mean, other than breaking my heart into a thousand pieces?
“He didn’t touch me,” I said dully.
Eddie nodded as though reassured. Then, because he didn’t really have anything else to say, he followed up with, “Tough break last night.”
I laughed bitterly. “‘Tough break?’ Is that what the DEA calls having somebody put a gun to your head and nearly killing you?”
“It happens when you’re undercover.”
“You put me in that situation.”
“You were undercover before I ever got to you, Fiona. And it was your own shit that got you in trouble last night, not working for me.”
Fucker.
He was right, and I hated him for it.
“How did Lou find out?” I asked angrily.
“I have no idea.”
Because I was pissed and I had no other outlet for my emotions, I went after Eddie. “Thanks for all your help, by the way,” I said sarcastically.
“I couldn’t break cover unless it was absolutely necessary.”
“Really. When would it have become absolutely necessary? After my brains were all over the wall?”
“I knew he wasn’t going to kill you,” Eddie said.
“Oh, you did, huh? Wish I was psychic.”
“It was a power play to get Jack out of the way. That much was obvious from the get-go. Lou just used you to do it.”
Ouch.
The invisible knife in my gut twisted just a little bit more.
“The only question,” Eddie said coolly, “was if you were going to dime me out. And you didn’t.”
Not because of any loyalty I feel to YOU, I thought, but I was smart enough not to say it.
Instead I said, “Yeah, I didn’t – so I want what you promised me.”
He reached into his motorcycle’s saddlebag, pulled out my scrapbook, and handed it over.
Tears sprung to my eyes as I opened the cover and saw Ali again – alive and happy, untouched by tragedy.
I took a deep breath. “That’s nice, but you know what I mean.”
“The original agreement was quid pro quo. You only get information if you provide me with something on Jack Pollari.”
I stared at him in shock. “You son of a bitch – after everything you put me through – ”
“You put yourself through,” he interrupted.
“ – you’re going to hold out on me?!”
“That was the deal.”
“Fuck your deal! I almost got killed!”
“So be thankful you walked away with your life.”
“This is all your fault! None of this would have happened if you hadn’t – ”
“Bullshit. I didn’t have anything to do with Lou finding out about you. Anything that happened last night happened because of you, not me.”
His smug certainty enraged me.
“You don’t know that!” I shouted.
“Of course I do. If Lou had found out about me, I’d be dead. And you know it.”
It was a good point, and impossible to refute. So I just kept talking and tried to find another point on the way. “If you hadn’t broken into my motel room, and blackmailed me – ”
“Then you’d be sexually assaulted and probably dead. Or have you forgotten about the guy Lou sent to ‘question’ you?”
He was talking about Roach, the loathsome rapist that Lou had sent after me. Eddie had knocked him out, and then his DEA buddies had thrown Roach into a car and driven him off to God knows where.
Shit.
No matter how much of an overbearing, thuggish, blackmailing federal asshole he’d been to me, he was right: I’d probably be in a shallow desert grave right now if Eddie hadn’t been there that night.
“What happened to him?” I asked, trying to keep away from how much I did or didn’t owe Eddie for saving me from Roach.
“Let’s just say he’s safe from getting into any mischief at the moment.”
“At your super-secret CIA black site where you waterboard people?”
“I’d get things done a whole lot faster if that were the case,” he said drily.
“Tell me what you know about Ali’s murder,” I pleaded with him.
“Not until you give me something on Jack.”
“There’s nothing to give you!”
“Maybe in a week or two, when he gets over it – ”
“He’s not going to get over it. He’s never going to get over it.”
“Then I guess you’re fucked.”
He turned his back on me and walked over to his motorcycl
e.
“You’re a soulless son of a bitch, you know that?” I said, wishing with all my might that he would spontaneously combust there on the spot.
“No, I just have a job to do. And I can’t go being a bleeding heart for everybody who wants something from me.”
“You should help me. We want the same thing!”
“No we don’t,” he said as he got on the motorcycle. “I want to put a bunch of criminals in jail, because that’s where they belong. You’d let the criminals go free, just as long as you get your revenge.”
“I want to see whoever killed her in jail,” I protested angrily.
Eddie scoffed. “Is that why you’re carrying around a .38?”
“That’s for protection.”
“Yeah, well, that worked out real well, didn’t it?”
“Fuck you!” I yelled. “I hope Lou does find out about you, and I hope he puts a bullet in the back of your head!”
I felt ashamed of myself as soon as I said it – but Eddie just smirked. “There she is – the real Fiona Christensen.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean it.”
“Yes you did. But I don’t blame you.” He started the bike. “If you get something useful on Jack, call me. You’ve got the number.”
With that, he roared down the dusty road back toward the highway, leaving me alone in the noonday sun.
12
I drove the two hours back to LA in silence. No radio, just the sound of the road under my wheels and the hum of the other cars around mine. There was no need for anything to distract me – my mind was already swimming with everything that Jack, Kade, and Eddie had said to me.
If you care about me at all, don’t fuck me on this.
Every single goddamn thing I just said, I would have told you two hours ago before you destroyed my life.
When you make a decision like you did, there are consequences. I would have made the same decision, and I’d live with those consequences. You should, too.
You’re a bigger asshole than I thought.
I’m sorry about your cousin. But she made her choices, and they led to that back alley. You made your choices, too, so quit crying and acting like you didn’t know what you were doing.
Be thankful you walked away with your life.
I want to put a bunch of criminals in jail, because that’s where they belong. You’d let the criminals go free, just as long as you get your revenge.
I was in love with you. I trusted you… and you hurt me worse than anybody else in my entire fucking life.
Then I guess you’re fucked.
I guess I was.
My grand crusade to find my cousin’s murderer was finished, and I had utterly, completely failed. Not only that, but I had left a massive swath of destruction in my wake while the bad guys went free. Now all that was left was to try to forget everything that had happened over the last seven days.
I figured I would probably try to spend the rest of my life forgetting.
I also had to cobble back together a life for myself. The difficulty was, I had nothing left to go back to. At least, I had no place to live; I had let my apartment’s month-to-month lease go when I made my decision to leave LA.
I had a couple of friends I could crash with for a few weeks while I got my bearings… but there was one person I had to go see before anyone else.
I parked my car in front of Sid’s crappy office in Hollywood and walked through the front door. It was the same ramshackle mess I remembered so fondly: worn linoleum, dark wood paneling, and furniture that looked like it belonged in a Goodwill store.
Sid was behind his desk in the corner, pecking away at his ancient computer keyboard one key at a time. When he heard the bell ring on the door, he looked up at me from behind his thick, coke-bottle-bottom glasses.
“Uh oh,” he said. “Trouble just walked in.”
I smiled. It was what he’d always said when I came to work every morning.
“What’s up, kid? Back so soon? You get yer man?”
“No,” I said with a sigh. “Far from it.”
“Take a load off and tell me about it.”
I sat down in the chair opposite his desk and told him the story: how I had gotten close to the leader of the Midnight Riders, then betrayed his trust – and how much I hated myself for doing it. How the biker gang’s villainous VP had found out who I was, and nearly killed me. How an undercover DEA agent had blackmailed me, then left me with nothing once my true identity was discovered.
After I finished, Sid shook his head. “Sorry to hear it, kid. That’s some tough fuckin’ breaks.”
I slumped down in my chair. I didn’t cry – I’d never cried in front of Sid, and I wasn’t about to start – but the full weight of my despair crashed down on me like a pallet of cement blocks. “I feel like such a failure.”
“Aaah, don’t sweat it. You know what they say: if at first you don’t succeed, fuck it.”
I laughed – my first genuine laugh since the horrors of last night. It felt good. “Yeah, well, that’s about the only option I have left.”
“So,” he said casually, “you lookin’ for a job? ‘Cause I had this PI workin’ for me – nothin’ to write home about, but she was okay. Anyway, she walked out on me last week and I ain’t hired anybody to take her place yet.”
I smiled gratefully. “Thanks, Sid.”
“Don’t sweat it. We’ll start you off at minimum wage till I see what you’re made of.”
I glared at him, and he chuckled.
“Gotcha,” he said, then went back to being genuine. “You need anything, you just let me know.”
“If I could crash on the sofa in the back room for a couple of nights, that would be great. “You know, I didn’t mean that ‘anything’ part literally. That was just to make you feel better.”
“It’s just until I get a new apartment.”
“When’s that gonna be?”
“A couple of days.”
“Is that a ‘couple of days’ couple of days, or is that woman time?”
“‘Woman time’?”
“Like when my ex-wife was putting on makeup and shit and told me she’d be ready to go in five minutes.”
“It’s a couple of days, you chauvinist pig.”
“Oink oink. Guilty as charged.”
“Never mind, I’ll crash on somebody else’s sofa.”
“No, no,” he grumped, “you can stay here.”
“Thanks.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll take it outta yer paycheck.”
“Sid – ”
“Just think of it as rent. Cheaper than a hotel.”
“Sid – ”
“It’s incentive, it’ll light a fire under yer ass. I ain’t a landlord, you know.”
“SID – ”
“I’m joking. Jesus.” He went back to his computer and muttered under his breath, “Give ‘em a mile and they take an inch.”
Ah, home. Like nothing had changed at all.
Except every single thing that had meant something to me… and I could never get it back.
13
Jack
I basically went off the deep end for a few days.
I spent most of the time in a booze-fueled haze. Just like I knew it would, the pain came roaring up out of me.
Pain at not having her there, and rage at what she did to me.
To be honest, there was a lot more of the first part than the second. I spent a lot of time thinking about her body… her breasts… that look of shock she always gave me when I first slid inside her… the way she sounded when she came.
The way she tasted when I kissed her. The way her waist felt in my hands when I held her.
The smell of her hair… the gleam in her eyes when she smiled…
Fuck.
I couldn’t get her out of my head.
Wasn’t even sure if I wanted to.
I couldn’t decide if I hated her or still loved her. It changed from minute to m
inute. I remembered what Kade had said: If somebody gunned you down in a back alley, I know I’d fuck over every last person in the world to find out who did it so I could kill them.
How could I begrudge her that?
Only problem was, I’d paid the price. It was me she’d fucked over.
That made it a hell of a lot harder to stomach.
So I’d go back into my cycle of hating her and lusting after her. I’d imagine myself fucking her, kissing her, holding her… wanting her.
And then I’d usually go pour myself another drink.
There was other pain, too. My hatred of Lou, for one. My wounded pride. The knowledge that I was no longer in charge of the Midnight Riders.
But none of it really compared to wanting to have her there with me, and knowing she was gone forever.
It was a tough fucking couple of days. I was barely functional. Most of it was just me going back and forth to the liquor cabinet. Kade would drop by every once in a while just to make sure I wasn’t dead, then leave me to my squalor.
But round about the third day, when I woke up drunk at dawn, I figured it might be a good idea to get back out in the world and make sure I didn’t destroy my life before Lou got a chance to.
After I sweated out most of the alcohol, followed by a cold shower and a pot of black coffee, I went into the body shop around 2 o’clock.
Only half the bays had anything in them – which was not how it normally was. We were usually packed with routine maintenance jobs. The really elaborate paint and body work was backed up for weeks.
My guys were working, but they seemed listless. Distracted. And that was the few who were there – half of the mechanics scheduled weren’t even in the shop.
I noticed the absent ones were all members of the Midnight Riders.
When I walked onto the lot, Jimmy gave me a somber nod – but Antonio and Sam looked away, as though embarrassed.
They knew.
Kade was in the office, shuffling through some papers and writing down some notes. He looked up when I walked in.
Midnight Obsession: A Midnight Riders Motorcycle Club Romance Part 4 Page 3