by Nicole James
“I’m not hungry.”
“Then I’ll make you some coffee.”
Blood watched Mama Ray lead AJ away and felt Mooch’s presence at his side. He turned his head and met his gaze.
“She gonna make it?” Mooch asked.
Blood nodded. “She’ll be fine. You hear anything yet?”
“Nope. Still waitin’.”
“They gone?” Blood asked, referring to the cops.
“Yup. Didn’t find anything but a couple of baseball bats and a five star security system. They ain’t got shit.”
“We need to pass the word around. Everybody stays straight and on alert. They’ll be watchin’ us for a long time.”
Mooch agreed. “You got that right. Fucking hell.”
They moved to the bar to wait for a call while they texted every member.
***
It was four hours later when the club’s attorney finally walked in the door. Blood, Mooch, and now AJ were all sitting together at the bar. Blood twisted when he heard the door open. He’d seen the Mercedes turn in on the security monitor above the bar.
Luckily, AJ hadn’t noticed it; she stared in a daze at the empty coffee cup in front of her. She’d been quiet for the last hour, deep in thoughts of her own. Blood supposed that was better than crying.
Mooch stood, finishing off his drink. Blood stood, too, his eyes connecting with the attorney and lifting his chin toward the stairs.
The attorney nodded and followed him and Mooch up.
They moved down the hall, pausing at the door where the club’s meetings were held. Blood didn’t need to unlock it; the police had kicked the door, splintering the lock. He paused in the doorway as the others walked in. His gaze was drawn down the hall as he saw AJ approaching. He stopped her at the door. “This is club business, babe. Sorry.”
“I need to know, Blood,” she pleaded.
“Let her in,” Mooch ordered.
Blood’s eyes connected with his. The man was his VP, and so he made the decisions with Undertaker unavailable, but still. “You sure?”
Mooch nodded. “He’d want her to know.”
Blood stepped aside, letting her pass, then closed the door and moved to the table where the club’s attorney, Carl Richardson, was opening his briefcase.
“How is he?” AJ asked without preamble.
Richardson’s eyes swept over her and then looked to Mooch for permission to tell her.
Mooch nodded.
Richardson turned back. “He’s fine. A little pissed off, but fine.”
“Lay it out for us,” Mooch ordered. “What do they have?”
“Talked to the DA. They think they’ve got this one locked up tight.”
“How? He didn’t do it.” Blood insisted.
“They’ve got his prints on the gas can found at the scene.”
“That could be a setup,” Mooch argued.
The attorney’s eyes swung to him, nodding. “Yeah, but they’ve got him on surveillance video. You want to explain that one?”
Mooch shook his head. “Gotta be someone else. Can’t be Undertaker. He didn’t do it.”
“And you know that for a fact?”
“He said so, and that’s good enough for me.” Mooch took a step toward him.
The man lifted his hands. “Okay. I hear you.”
“You got access to the surveillance?” Blood asked.
He nodded.
Mooch lifted his chin. “Let us see it, then.”
The man removed his laptop from his briefcase, opened it, and pulled up a copy of the footage. Mooch and Blood leaned over his shoulders, watching it with AJ squeezing in, too.
There he was, plain as day, walking in and out of the building. The timestamp on the footage read 6:45 a.m.
“Fucking hell,” Blood bit out. “That can’t be real.”
AJ took a step back, her mouth falling open. “Oh, my God.”
“AJ—” Blood turned to her, but her eyes were on the shot of Undertaker, where the attorney had frozen the tape. It showed him coming out of the building, his face plain as day.
“It doesn’t make sense,” she whispered. “He was with me. How can he be on this tape?”
“There’s something else at work here. Undertaker didn’t do this, but someone is going to a whole lot of trouble to make it look like he did it.”
AJ shook her head over and over. “This can’t be happening. It can’t be happening.”
“Babe, pull it together.” Blood dipped his head toward hers. The last thing he needed was her falling apart again. “When’s the last time you ate something?”
“I couldn’t eat if I wanted to.”
“There’s nothing we can do until the bail hearing tomorrow. Why don’t you call one of your girlfriends; go stay with one of them. You need someone with you tonight.”
She stared up at him with glassy eyes. “Tell me he didn’t have anything to do with this, Blood.”
“He didn’t have anything to do with this, AJ. I promise you. And we’ll get to the bottom of this, but you need to get some rest.”
“I love him, Blood, and I’m terrified of losing him.”
“You’re not going to lose him. Come here.” He pulled her into his arms and rubbed the back of her neck, his eyes going over her head to Mooch, but the man didn’t look like he knew any better than Blood how to reassure her.
She whispered against his chest, “He can’t go back to prison, Blood. I’m afraid he may not survive it this time.”
“He’s not going back to prison. You can’t let yourself think that way. Now go get some rest.”
“Promise you’ll call me immediately if you hear something?”
“I promise.”
She reluctantly picked up her bag. “Thank you.”
“Go.”
When she walked off, Mooch stepped over to him. “She okay?”
“Yeah. It’s gonna take more than Undertaker going to jail to end that relationship. Seems like she’s determined to stand by him.”
Mooch nodded. “She sees the good in him. Undertaker needs someone like that—someone who’s going to stand by him and love him no matter what.”
“Yeah, he does, and it’s been a long time comin’,” Blood replied, his eyes watching her walk away.
***
Undertaker shuffled in his shackles back to lockup. His bond had been denied. That wasn’t a shock to him. Richardson had argued strongly for bail, but there was no way the judge was letting him out; they both knew that.
The cuffs on his hands were attached to a chain around his waist, and another chain was shackled to his ankles. He shuffled in a line with three other defendants who’d also had their bail denied; one was brought up on charges of rape and two on murder. Apparently it had been a busy night in the parish.
Undertaker took in the feel of the heavy weight on his wrists, the feel of the cold metal, and the sound of the chains. It all took him back to Angola. He remembered every detail of his arrival on the white prison bus, his first look at the place; hell, he could even smell the damn onion fields and feel the hot sun broiling down on him.
As he shuffled along he was forced to face his biggest fear—going back to that fucking place, a place he’d sworn to never return. But the eager district attorney, who’d looked across the courtroom at him and smirked, would see to it, making sure he received the maximum sentence.
He felt everything slipping through his fingers; he was losing it all in the blink of an eye. He saw the love he had for AJ being torn away, just like it had with Angie. It was all happening again; history was repeating itself in a cruel and spiteful cycle, and he felt helpless to stop it. He knew he was being set up, but that didn’t matter; he could still go down for this.
He didn’t want to give up hope, but he felt it leaving him, being sucked out of him like the air before a storm. He was going back to prison.
He shook his head silently.
No, his worst fear now was losing everything he’d found�
�finally found after all these years—when AJ had strutted into his clubhouse. It was as if fate had tempted him, shown him a flash of what heaven could be and then viciously torn it all away just as quickly.
He kept walking, shuffling along in the line, his head down, his body starting to sweat. And when he was finally back in lockup, he put his head in his hands and let himself descend into the depths of the deepest depression he’d ever felt. He saw himself holding a boulder and sinking to the bottom of the darkest ocean, the light above him fading away, and with it, any shred of a chance he’d ever had with AJ.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
AJ had gone to Bella’s house upon the insistence of her girlfriends. So much had happened to her in such a brief period of time, and they rallied around her now. She was so thankful for these girls; they were her lifelines in a storm.
They sat out on Bella’s screened-in porch and watched the sunset. Bella had made them a pitcher of margaritas, and she was trying so hard to help her friend cheer up—all the girls were.
She’d passed on the alcohol, choosing lemonade instead.
They’d hugged and let her rail against the injustice of it all, against the bad luck that befell her at seemingly every turn, first with Gregg, and now with Derek.
Would life never stop fucking with her? Bella had yelled at the heavens on her behalf.
AJ tried to smile, but it was hard. She was worried about the arsons, but now she was more worried about Derek. She knew he didn’t do this, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t still in trouble up to his neck. Lots of innocent people went to prison; she heard stories about it all the time.
When her girlfriends saw him at the hospital for the first time, saw the boots, the vest, the tattoos, and realized he was a biker, their concern for her skyrocketed. He said all the right things, yes, but that didn’t make him a knight in shining armor in their eyes. Nope.
When first they had encouraged this new man in her life and her decision to finally date again, now they discouraged her and hesitated about her involvement. They tried to convince her that the police were most likely correct in their accusations, and she was lucky to be rid of him.
She knew they only had her best interests at heart, but she couldn’t bear to hear it all. Still, she tried to change their mind, tried to explain to them the man she saw, insisting he was innocent.
“If only you could have seen the way he was with Holly—so gentle and caring. And what he did for Shelby—making her feel safe testifying in court. And me—he closed a nightclub down just to have a quiet dinner with me. He’s not the man you’re dismissing him as.”
They all got quiet, but she saw the looks they exchanged.
“I don’t know when I’m going to see him again. And it hurts. It hurts so much.” She started crying, and the girls soon surrounded her in a group hug.
“It’s going to be all right. You have to believe that,” Amy whispered.
“I know. I know.” AJ wiped her eyes.
“We all need to cheer up.” Bella went to refill the empty pitcher, and AJ excused herself to use the restroom. Making her way down the hall, she ducked inside and took out her cell phone.
Her hand moved over the screen, and she put it to her ear. It only rang twice before Blood answered.
“Yeah, babe?”
He must have recognized her number by now; she’d called him enough times.
“Have you heard anything?”
She heard him blow out a slow breath. He had heard, but it must be bad news if he was hesitant to tell her.
“They denied bail.”
“What? Why?” She felt her heart sinking. She wanted Undertaker home, dammit. She needed him. She couldn’t stand to think of him behind bars.
“They have strong evidence against him. That and who he is, his position in the club, no way he was getting bail. The DA made sure of it.”
She bit her lip. “Blood, I’ve been thinking about that gas can.”
“Yeah, me too.”
“I remembered something. When we were riding the other day, Undertaker said he saw that ex-con—the one we’d seen before.”
“And?”
“He recognized the girl with him. I remember Undertaker mentioning that it was odd because he’d helped her fill her tank one afternoon on the side of the road.”
“The gas can! That’s how they got his prints.”
“Then they’re the ones who set the fire!” Her heart soared with the hope that everything could be explained.
“Yeah, probably, but can we prove it?”
At Blood’s reminder that in the justice system it was all about what could be proved, her heart sank again. “I need him, Blood. I need him out of there.”
“I know you do, babe. We’re working on it. Let me see what I can dig up on that ex-con. Maybe we can find something that connects him to the fire.”
“All right. But please, Blood, will you take me to see him tomorrow?”
“I’ll call you. I’ve got to go.”
He disconnected, and she stared down at her phone. Her wallpaper popped back up on the screen, and she smiled down at the photo of her and Undertaker, the two of them so happy, then she remembered that other shot he’d taken, the one he threatened to change her wallpaper to. She scrolled through her pictures until she found it, the one with her in his bed with just a sheet yanked up to her breasts, him cuddled next to her grinning at the camera.
She smiled. It was a good shot. And then she noticed the timestamp on it. 6:45 a.m. the day of the fire—the exact time of the video surveillance footage. This was it! This could prove he was innocent!
And then her smile faded as she studied herself in that picture. She’d have to show that to the attorney, the DA, the judge, maybe even others, and it put her in the bed of the president of the Evil Dead MC.
If this leaked to the media, it would destroy her reputation, her career, possibly even her charity—everything she’d worked so hard for years to achieve. She’d lose it all. Her hand dropped to cover her lower belly. But she had much more to lose now than her career. She didn’t care if she had to give up her career, she’d have Undertaker—Undertaker and his baby—and in the end, that was all that mattered.
She walked back out to the porch.
Her friends were sitting in the wicker furniture, their glasses refilled.
“Bella made another batch, honey. We poured you one,” Kelsey said.
“No thanks.”
Amy immediately noticed her expression. “What is it?”
She bit her lip. “I just realized I might have something that could free Derek.”
They all exchanged a look that said this wasn’t really good news in their opinion.
Bella sat forward. “What is it?”
AJ hesitated a moment, knowing how they felt about the relationship and a little shy to show her friends the picture. She also wondered if it would be harder or easier to show it to complete strangers.
Opening her phone, she pulled up the shot and turned the screen so they could see. They all leaned forward to look at it. Amy was the first to respond.
“Are you insane? Your career will be ruined if that’s exposed in the media!”
Kelsey was a little gentle in her appeal. “Sweetheart, you’re in bed with an MC member.”
“Not just a member, but the goddamn president.” Bella always told it like it was.
“It’ll be all over the news, honey,” Kelsey continued.
Amy stared into her eyes. “AJ, you’ll never work again. Who’s going to want to bring their kid to you for counseling? What court is going to want your testimony in another domestic abuse case after this? Your years of expertise will be worth nothing.”
“And for a biker?” Bella asked. “Is it worth throwing away your life for him?”
She dipped her head, her voice shaking as she murmured, “But I love him…”
Her friends surrounded her in an embrace.
“Oh, honey. You have to let him go, sure
ly you can see that.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The clubhouse was quiet, so the sound of the front door opening drew attention. Blood glanced up from where he stood by a table, going over the evidence they had on Undertaker, to see AJ approaching.
“Can I talk to you, Blood?”
“Not now, babe.” He turned back to Bug and growled, “I’m trying to figure out how they got him on the surveillance tape when he didn’t do it. How the hell is this possible?”
Bug hadn’t seen the tape yet and sat down to study it. He rewound and looked at it several times. “Wait. What time did they say this fire started?”
“Early morning sometime. Fire Department got the call just after seven. Why?”
“Let me pull up the map of the address. Hang on.” Once he had the map up, he studied the location. “Which door is the camera aimed at?”
“Side door. Left side.” Blood pointed at the street image pulled up on the laptop. “There, that one.”
Bug shook his head. “If this footage is from the camera on that door, then this video is bullshit. There’s no way. Not if the fire started in the morning.”
“What are you talking about?” Blood leaned down, looking at the computer screen. “How can you tell?”
“Look at the map. The business faces east. Here’s the entrance they say the camera is at, right? It’s on the south side of the building.”
“Yeah. So?”
“So if the sun is rising, the light would be coming from the east, lighting up that side of him and casting the shadow on the west side. It’s the opposite in this video. See?” Bug pulled up the video again. “Look where his shadow is. This is him going in and out of the business when the sun is setting, not rising.”
Blood straightened, staring at the screen. “What the fuck? So someone switched the tapes?”
Bug shrugged. “Easy enough to re-label them or obtain it and edit this in. This is just a small piece of the digital recording, so I can’t tell without having the whole thing, but yeah, that’s what happened.”
“Who the hell would go to all this trouble to set him up for this?”