Fragmented

by Stephanie Tyler

  “Danny.” Her voice was barely a whisper, but as if he’d heard her, Danny turned to face her direction. There was only a wall of glass between them, but having Jem’s arm circle around her, she realized she had more power on her side than ever.

  “What the fuck’s he doing here, Ethan?” Jem demanded.

  “I have no idea.” Ethan sounded just as angry. “But I’ll find out.”

  “He’s not coming near you, Drea,” Jem promised her, and she believed him.

  She was safe. And Danny was dangerous enough to warrant the need for safety. She didn’t need to see his record to know that. She never had needed to, not from the first day she’d spotted him when she was a freshman and he still a sophomore at seventeen because he barely went to class.

  He only kept coming to school after that because of her. At least that was what he’d told her.

  Now his hair was longer than she’d seen in a while and pulled back in a ponytail at the nape of his neck. She could practically feel the dark eyes that had seemed more protective than venomous when she was fifteen and sixteen and seventeen.

  He wasn’t as tall as Jem and had a lot of tattoos, not as artful as Gunner’s and definitely MC based, with lots of naked women, skulls and knives through hearts.

  She knew her name was in a heart over his own. She recalled the day he got it and showed it to her, saying, “Always mine, Drea,” which was what the tattoo actually said.

  “At sixteen that was the most romantic thing anyone was going to do for me,” she told Jem, shifting her gaze from Danny to Jem over her shoulder as she relayed that information, unable to stop it from spilling out of her, as though she needed to parse it, to justify it … to purge it.

  “I can understand that.” He paused, looked down at her. “What do you think is the most romantic thing now?”

  She gave him a small smile. “I’ll let you know when it happens.”

  “Yeah, you will.”

  *

  An hour later, with Ethan’s reassurances that Danny had only been there for his weekly checkin, Drea walked through a narrow hallway and into the interrogation room where Danny had been.

  She’d had to leave Jem behind for this part. She was nervous, kept feeling as though Danny would pop out from around every corner. But Ethan was capable—she could tell that just by his bearing—and Jem had assured her that all she needed to do was tell her side of the story and she was done.

  They both knew nothing in life was that simple, but she allowed herself to pretend it would be. And in that quiet room, with the metal table and the two-way glass, she sat across from two FBI agents, a man and a woman, and told her story. Ethan was next to her, looking between her and the agents, missing nothing, and his presence allowed her to focus simply on telling the truth.

  The female agent had introduced herself, but Drea didn’t catch her name. It didn’t matter. When she was asked, “Were you born into the MC lifestyle?” it was easy enough to begin.

  Ethan had mentioned that the FBI was interested in “people like her,” women who knew the MC culture in a way that even agents going undercover would never know. It would take an undercover agent years to gain an MC’s trust, and MCs like the Outlaw Angels typically did not take in outsiders as members. It was an insular crew, one that kept breeding into its own.

  “I was introduced to the concept of the MC when I was still in high school. I met Danny when I was in the ninth grade, and we quickly became inseparable. When I was a freshman in high school, his family—his father—let me stay at their house. I moved out of mine, into his, and I never looked back. I went from one kind of hell to another, but for a little while it was fine.”

  “When did things change?” the male agent asked her.

  She took a deep breath, looked to Ethan, who nodded his assurance. “It took a couple of years for me to truly see how bad things were. I kept my head down, got good grades and helped Danny’s father around the house. I didn’t get involved in club business. Even Danny was too young for that at the time … or so I’d thought.”

  “When did you realize you’d been wrong?” the female agent asked.

  Drea fought a laugh. Twenty-twenty hindsight was a wonderful thing. She was sure these agents thought she was an idiot, one of those women whose head was turned by a hot guy who made a lot of promises.

  She’d never been that person. She’d been a survivor. And that hadn’t changed. “Looking back, I think he’d always been involved in MC business. But he kept me out of it. He knew I’d gone through hell at home, and he said he’d been trying to protect me.”

  “When did he tell you this?”

  “When I confronted him about his involvement.”

  She’d been eighteen, and he was so damned enmeshed in the OA by that point there was no getting out, for either of them. The thing was, Danny had never wanted to.

  The MC culture was one Drea was all too familiar with. TV and movies got it partially correct, although they severely romanticized it. Maybe some of that televised stuff happened with the MCs that weren’t connected to the one percenter clubs, those that regularly killed and maimed their enemies, and any innocents who happened to be in the way.

  “Can you tell us what your experiences have been in regards to the violence of the OA?” the female agent asked, and she almost sounded bored.

  “It’s like they have no conscience,” Drea started. “If the OA were partying in a bar that was on MC territory and some young girls walked in, thinking they could just flirt with the men in leather and then leave …” Drea shook her head, tightened her arms around herself as the chill of memories swept her. “I was sixteen when I first realized how fucked up these men were. I didn’t know what was going to happen to those girls. I still don’t actually know what did, but I tried to turn them around, to get them to leave, when I heard the men talking about what their plans were.”

  Even now she could hear the words gang bang and pool table and the men’s cruel laughter echoing in her head. Danny had slapped her when she tried to tell the young girls to leave. And then he’d dragged her out of there and he hit her again, so hard she’d passed out. When she woke again, it was morning. “I can only guess what happened to those girls. I looked in the paper for news. I couldn’t go to the police station, because Danny always had the guys tailing me. But there was no way those girls escaped that night. There were twenty MC members there. For all I knew Danny went back.”

  She looked up at the feds—they were trying their best to be impassive, but it was obvious that at least the female agent was moved by her story. They’d asked for more background, how and why she’d gotten mixed up with a man like Danny. She explained that she’d been a mix of young, vulnerable and stupid.

  She was pretty certain they kept repeating the same questions in different ways to trip her up, but thankfully, her past was once again branded to her brain. “I thought I loved him.”

  “But you went away, to the Army. You left him,” the female agent pointed out. “And then you went back to him.”

  “No,” Drea said sharply. “I never went back to him. He came after me, followed me through my internship, through three hospitals. Whenever I’d transfer, he’d find me, make sure the local chapter of the OA found me, spoke to me, made it clear that I was to help them when they were sick or hurt whenever they needed or else they’d drag me back to Danny.”

  “So you gave away medical help—help that tied you to various crimes in order to keep from going back to Danny,” the male agent said.

  “Yes.” She flattened her hands on the scarred metal table and thought about all the men she’d stitched up, all the bullets she’d taken out of their skin … All the women she’d helped who’d been bruised and beaten, just as she’d been. “I told Danny that I wouldn’t use any supplies from the hospital, that I wouldn’t take any drugs from there, and he agreed. He asked me what I would need to stock up a clinic for the MC and he provided everything.”

  “So there’s no truth to the
fact that you stole oxycodone and the like from the hospital you worked for?” the female agent asked.

  “No—that’s what Danny always had to hang over my head. He told me that if I tried to leave him, he’d steal the drugs from the hospital himself and blame me. I already had ties to the MC, so it wouldn’t be a far stretch to make law enforcement believe him.” She smiled sardonically at both agents. “Although I wanted to believe law enforcement was smarter than that, I also knew what it was capable of, and what he was proposing was really small potatoes. He’d do it in a heartbeat and my life would be over.” She paused. “And there are no doctors or nurses who could’ve caught me stealing. That’s a fairy tale. But I can guarantee Danny threatened the hell out of them to say anything he wanted. I can’t blame them for wanting to save themselves. And I also do know things about various MC presidents. I was quiet. I listened to everything, especially after Danny started hitting me, because a part of me always knew that one day it would be him or me. And it’s not going to be me. Not this time.”

  She finally took a breath, hating to have to look up, because she didn’t want to see if there was any pity on anyone’s face, including Ethan’s. But there was, on all their faces. Ethan must’ve known her story already, as did the FBI with their official-looking folders, some labeled CPS—CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES—but knowing it and having her repeat it out loud were two different things.

  *

  The agents asked her to remain in the interrogation room for a little while, once they’d finished their round of questioning. Overall, it had taken a little over two hours.

  Drea was exhausted, and she didn’t want to agree. She looked to Ethan for help in telling them no, but the female agent saw her agitation and smoothed it over with “We’d like to look over what we’ve got—we might need some clarifications. We’d hate to have you come back.”

  Yes, Drea would absolutely hate that too, so finally she nodded her agreement.

  “I’m going to go with them, Drea. You’re okay here for a bit?” Ethan asked.

  “I hope so.”

  “The door will be locked,” he assured her, and the male agent nodded his assent.

  When they left, with a loud click that echoed in the small room, she felt claustrophobic almost immediately … and once again, like a prisoner.

  God, she hoped what she’d done here today was enough to get the CIA and whoever else off Jem’s back, and off the others’ backs as well. Even though they felt as though they owed her, she felt as if she owed them just as much.

  She sat back, drumming her fingers on the table. Then she stood and stretched her legs. She’d finally started to get her stamina back, the thing that had gotten her through the Army and med school and never-ending rotations.

  It seemed that they’d come in handy with S8 as well.

  The door opened and she glanced over at it nervously, hoping the agents and Ethan were coming back in to tell her everything was fine and that she could go.

  But it wasn’t the agents. Or Ethan.

  It was Danny. And he was looking at her with such anger as he shut the door with a solid click behind him.

  Her mind reeled. What the hell was going on? Why had he been let in here with her, unsupervised, when she’d been promised that wouldn’t happen?

  It didn’t matter. It was happening.

  She backed up, putting the table—distance and metal—between them. She also dragged the heavy metal chair with her, holding it in front of her like some kind of crazy lion tamer.

  Danny always made her feel crazy. Out of control. And since he liked taking control, she’d figured that she was the one with the problem. That she’d needed Danny.

  She hadn’t. He’d been the worst possible person for her. And he still was.

  “Are you thinking about hitting me, Drea baby?”

  “Don’t,” was all she could manage. Her throat was tight with anger and anxiety. “Don’t call me that.”

  Don’t invoke any memories of the small number of good times we’d had together.

  “Come on, baby. Don’t be like that,” he crooned.

  “Are you kidding me? You made my life a living hell.” She’d gone into the military to escape his hold, although she’d told him it was for med school.

  He hadn’t wanted her to go to medical school or the military. He’d wanted to keep her close and under his control. And even though she had escaped, he’d ultimately won, ensuring that she was tied to him through the OA. Forever.

  And as if to punctuate that fact, she’d just spilled her guts about all that, about her involvement, and in return, they let the man who’d hurt her in to see her.

  “I know they’re forcing you to testify against me. That you’d never do that on purpose.” He smiled, but even with his voice low and calm, there was a coldness behind his eyes, one she’d remembered seeing for the first time after he slapped her.

  And he was giving her an out, an easy way for her to say, Yes, they forced me to tell lies about you.

  Instead she forced out, “I told the truth, Danny. About how you used me. Held me hostage to your club and then attempted to frame me. I told the truth, that I have nothing to do with the drugs your MC runs. I don’t get you drugs. I’m forced to help your OA members if they’re hurt under threat of death.”

  “Then why not disappear into witness protection?” he asked with a small shrug.

  “I’d lose my medical career.” And she’d fought too hard for it.

  “You’d lose all the money you were making. The drug money you accused me of earning? It’s in your accounts. It paid off your loans.”

  “Two years,” she said weakly. He’d done that, damn him. She’d only taken out a few loans to pay for extras once she got out of the Army. She’d needed everything. And she’d been forced to give most of her salary to Danny when she was in the Army. He’d told her that she hadn’t needed it anyway, and she’d gladly given it over in exchange for him—and the OA—leaving her alone.

  The loans were the only way for her to gain her independence. And now they’d come back to haunt her. And to possibly send her to jail, if she was reading this situation correctly.

  “Right. Two years of loans. And then your house. Your car. All paid for. And you’re working in clinics, so for you to have that kind of money is … odd, wouldn’t you say, Doc?” His voice was still a low, graveled pitch. Once she’d thought it was sexy. Now it just made her gag.

  “Fuck you,” she spat. “You’re a drug runner—you and your fucking gang.”

  His face hardened and the pretense dropped. She saw it clearly, but his back was to the door and the two-way mirror. Still, he advanced toward her. She swore she heard a commotion somewhere outside the interrogation room. Was that wishful thinking on her part?

  She waited a beat, chair slightly off the floor, because someone would come to save her.

  He got closer.

  No one came for her.

  She picked the heavy chair up off the floor at waist height and swung it down against his legs. That took him down, a surprised howl of pain echoing in the tiny room. He was grabbing for the legs of the chair then, and she yanked it from his grasp. She had the advantage of being upright, so she brought the chair down on him.

  But Danny was a brawler. He rolled, curled protectively to cover his head. She heard the crack as the chair whacked him good on his back before he got under the table where she couldn’t reach him.

  She’d been screaming the entire time, trying to get anyone to hear her. To rescue her. And then the door opened, and she thought her nightmare was over.

  The door swung open and a police officer came in, gun drawn, shouting. She put the chair down and sagged, grateful to have been saved.

  Until she realized he was pointing the gun at her, and that this nightmare was about as far from over as it could get. Instinctively, she put her hands in the air, figuring she would explain, tell them to look at the footage of her and Danny’s interaction. But Danny was being helped
up by another officer. And the officer seemed concerned. About Danny.

  Meanwhile, her arms were jacked up behind her, handcuffs placed on them with a click that echoed in her ears long after they were secured. She opened her mouth to tell him, tell someone, “This is a mistake—you don’t understand,” but nothing came out.

  Danny turned to look at her before he was escorted out of the room. The smirk on his face told the story. This had to have been planned. And the FBI agents had let it happen.

  So had Ethan.

  But before they could lead her away, Ethan was in the room, the same male agent who’d been interviewing her running in behind him.

  “What the fuck was that?” Ethan demanded, turning on the agent, fast enough to make him stumble backward.

  “She’s violent,” the agent pointed out. “The crew she hangs out with is violent.”

  “Right. And the OA? Kittens,” Ethan ground out. “She’s coming with me. We had a deal.”

  “Not for her to attack our witness.”

  “He wasn’t going to be your witness. She was going to be,” Ethan said.

  “Danny’s got more to back him up than Drea does,” the agent said. “He’s got specifics. And if he’s making everything up about her, it’s still not enough to leave her loose and possibly ruin our RICO cases by turning Danny in to other MCs for revenge. She needs to stay in custody with us.”

  “Not our agreement,” Ethan said through clenched teeth.

  “I agreed to drop the charges. I’ll honor that. But she’s too much of a wild card to be allowed out of our sight.”

  Drea tugged against the police officer’s grip and was rewarded by a harder hold on her biceps. The handcuffs were digging into her wrists. Numbly, she let herself be led past Ethan and through the hallways she’d walked through freely only hours before.

  Chapter Twenty-three