by Paula Cox
Kimmy smiles and darts off, leaving us alone again. Finally, I break the ice. “What’s the special and how do you know I’d like it?”
“I don’t care if you like it or not. It’s what I ordered us.”
“Woah. Someone can’t handle a bit of criticism, can he?” I cross my arms in front of my chest and lean back into the high-back wooden chair. Mack does the opposite, coming forwards towards me, leaning on the table.
“I order the special because you always want to eat what the chefs are eating. You order off the menu and it’s the same stuff they cook all day and all night long. They mess up and over season or forget the lemon. When you force someone to move out of their comfort zone, you have more… control.”
“Control? That’s a strange word for a guy like you to use. I thought you motorcycle club guys were all about chaos.”
“That’s not how I run my club. I know everything that’s going on at all times. I have my hands in every aspect of the club. That’s how your little predicament got back to me. I could have sent some of my enforcers to come deal with you and make sure no one outed you on your way home, but I prefer to trust only myself.” A busboy clearly listening in on the conversation pours water from a silver pitcher. Another waiter follows behind with a bottle of red to open for us. Mack shoos both of them away with a wave of his hand while he takes an eager bite out of a steaming bun.
“So, then how do you know you can trust me?” I ask, testing the water. “Maybe I’m making this whole tattoo thing up to trap you.”
“You’re not. I can tell. Call it a little secret weapon of mine. My dad taught me how to read a man’s tells. And when I walked through those doors, you were genuinely terrified of what my man had told you about that tattoo you’d done. If you were lying, you wouldn’t have had those shaking hands or have bitten a hole in those lips of yours.”
My hand shoots up to my mouth and shyly feels at the deep impression my teeth have left upon my lips. Apparently, I was done playing the role of the strong lady part. He saw right through me. It almost feels like he’s violating me. “Okay. Then tell me how you know about these tattoos.”
“It’s the Knights. They’re the old enemy of my crew. Their club is much older than mine, but we were the new guard. A war of sorts started up. We heard about them targeting tattoo artists, but we didn’t believe it until we saw it in person. Nothing that’s dinner talk, mind you.”
I take a long gulp of the water before asking him, “So, then what’s the next step? You can’t spend all night with me, and I eventually have to go back to work at the shop. I’m taking over for my boss soon, so I need to be there for him to train me.”
Mack raises his hand to stop me. “That’s not going to happen, Anna. You may be scared, but you’re totally underestimating these guys and the lengths they’ll go to make sure you end up in a body bag. And when they find out that their guy was kicked out of the shop by one of my guys… there’s something bigger than you coming.”
I sit in stony silence, my head shaking timidly. I don’t want to believe him, but what other option do I have here? My whole life flashes before my eyes like in the movies. There’s my mom holding me underneath a Christmas tree, my first kiss with Greg Lawson at homecoming, meeting my ex-boyfriend, moving back home to be with my mom… There should be more chapters in that story, but even Mack doesn’t sound optimistic about my chances.
“Then what do I need to do?”
“You need to follow my orders. Tonight, you’re going to go home to your mother’s. I’ll have a couple of my guys stake out in front of your home, but don’t tell your mom what’s up. You don’t know them. They don’t know you.”
I burst out laughing. “You don’t know my mom, Mack. That isn’t going to work. She’s practically neighborhood watch. She’d call the cops so fast on your guys if she saw them waiting out on the street all night.” It wouldn’t be the first time she reported in a suspicious person. Her anxiety only got worse when she found out what had happened to me after the breakup. Even now, I imagine her sitting by the window, a baseball bat in one hand and her phone in the other, as she waits for me to come home.
“She won’t be able to do anything. I know the cops. They won’t bother them as long as I tell them not to.” Mack is right. He has to have control over everything… “Then tomorrow, I’ll pick you up myself in the morning and bring you back to my headquarters. We can start business then.”
“Business?” I ask as a waiter comes to our table with food.
Mack waits for the waiter to lift the lids of a steaming seafood pasta dish. It’s loaded with fresh shrimp, mussels, and clams. The sauce streams around the noodles while cajun seasoning floats at the top. I want nothing more but to dig into this, but I have a feeling I won’t have much of an appetite soon.
“Yeah. You think my services are going to come for free? If I’m helping you out, I want something in return.” He barely looks up at me from his plate. “I need a front for a legit business. While I got the cops on my side, the feds are something else. My detective buddies tell me that they’re going to raid my shops soon unless I’ve got something legal going on in them.”
“So what does that have to do with me? I know nothing about running your line of business.”
“That’s the point, Anna. I don’t want you to run my ‘business.’ I want you to run your tattoo shop out of the front of my warehouse. I actually already have the license for a tattoo parlor from last year when I first thought about it, but I couldn’t find a guy to risk his ass to do it. Now it seems I’ve found my girl…”
“You mean, your ass? How stupid do you think I am? Tattooing is my life, my passion! If I get in trouble with the law or arrested for working for you, I’d rather those guys come find me and murder me! Plus, what about Crazy 8’s and taking over for my boss? I’ve been waiting for this day since I started interning with him!”
“Woah. Slow down. You really don’t know how to control your emotions, do you?” He puts down his fork with a small clang and takes an agonizing long sip of his wine. “For one, we’re not going to get caught. Your business isn’t the only one moving into my warehouses. Kimmy is opening up an extension of this restaurant next door to where the parlor is. You’ll be neighbors, and I can guarantee you that you’ll be bringing in top clients—not those fleabags you probably ink up now.”
“Two,” he continues as I bore a hole into the center of his forehead, “I will pay for everything—the equipment, your advertising, signs, licenses, whatever you need. I’ll even cover your rent. You won’t owe me a dime. All the profits are yours. If everything goes great after a few months, you can hire on a staff and never come back. You don’t need Crazy 8’s when you’re in business with a guy like me.”
He says it like it’s a dream come true, but I can’t think of anything more dangerous than being associated with him and his club. Oh wait, yeah I can. I’m forgetting that while I’m at this awkward business meeting, I’m currently being hunted down by some men with a streak of killing tattoo artists! Could tonight get any worse for me? Can I just rewind my life back to this morning when I had no idea what a mark looked like or who this Mack guy was?
Finally, I take a bite of the pasta. It’s as perfect to taste as it looks. I chew slowly, trying to savor it, knowing that what I’m about to say next isn’t going to get me much more peace than this moment. After a swig of the wine for some courage, I stand and say as politely and surely as I possibly can, “My answer is no.”
Without looking back, I walk past Kimmy, who I thank quickly for the meal, and past the busboys still smoking their cheap cigarettes, and out towards the street where the cabs are waiting.
CHAPTER 4
I don’t look back after I give the cab driver my address. I just can’t stand to see another motorcycle chasing me down. I have to get to my mom’s. There, I know I’m safe. No one can find me there. No one with a half-finished tattoo can hunt me down and kill me. And Mack can’t force me into some stra
nge business idea he thought up in two seconds.
A light is on in one of the second floor windows. I can see the round figure of my mom brushing her wispy blonde hair and laying out tomorrow’s clothes. She should be in bed by now. It’s way past midnight, far too late for someone whose usual bedtime is about nine o’clock. But I know her. She would never fall asleep unless she knew I was safe in bed. I grit my teeth as I try not to think about the verbal lashing I’m about to get for not calling and checking in. I’m also going to have to quickly explain why I spent all my tip money on the cab ride home.
“Mom!” I call as I slip in through the unlocked door. I hate that she forgets. Out here in the middle of nowhere, there isn’t very much to worry about—the errant wildlife or occasional gusty wind is way more threatening here than any would-be thieves or criminals. But the city girl in me wants to remind her just how dangerous it can be to leave it open, especially when her live-in daughter currently has an unbalanced, potentially psychotic stalker after her.
“I’m upstairs, honey! Come on and talk to me up here.” She almost sings it in her soft, sweet lilt. I’m still surprised at how defiantly positive and full of light she is. It couldn’t have been easy raising me as a single mom. My dad—one hell of a piece of work, if I do say so myself—didn’t want a damn thing to do with me when he found out she was pregnant. She had tried to do it right; she’d married her high school sweetheart—probably way too early—but the marriage wasn’t happy, and while she’d never admit to it, I’m pretty sure he roughed her up pretty good. And, winner that he was, he split about five seconds after the little plus sign appeared on her pregnancy test.
My grandparents weren’t exactly a supportive bunch, either. They never approved of her getting married in the first place, and now she was pregnant, too—and at only seventeen. They were stupidly proud, and this was apparently like a slap in their faces. Assholes.
So, the pictures leading up the stairs are of just us two. There’s one of me at Christmas time standing by a tiny tree with just a few presents under it. I still remember that holiday where she spent all night working at the lawyer’s office she was temping for. It became a full-time job soon after. There’s another picture somewhere up here of us at her college graduation. I’m beaming in that one, with my arm draped around her neck.
In between the pictures are pieces of my artwork. She kept everything, every single doodle that I have ever done. There’s finger painting from when I was a baby and cartoon pictures of my best friend Roxy and I playing with our imaginary dogs. But my favorite is this one sketch she kept from a teacher who showed it to her as proof that I was “distracted” and a “terrible student.” My mom walked out of that meeting with the picture clutched in her hands, then promptly went to the art store, bought a frame, and hung it at the foot of the stairway for everyone to see. “Never take shit from anyone who tries to break you down,” I remember her saying—mainly because it was about the only time I ever heard her swear.
She’s standing right next to that sketch when I get upstairs, a red housecoat wrapped around her body as she taps her foot gently on the hardwood floors. “Why didn’t you call me?” she demands, softly but firmly. “Do you have any idea how worried I’ve been? I tried to call the shop, but the phones went to a voicemail. And you weren’t picking up.”
I stutter for a moment as I try to think of some excuse. I absolutely hate lying to her. She didn’t deserve it, but she also didn’t need to know that I was getting messed up in some stuff I shouldn’t be. I calmly try to explain, but it all ends up rolling out of me. “I had dinner with a friend,” I start, “but I lost my car keys, and my phone was inside. I’ll call the car company tomorrow and have them open the doors. No big deal, Mom. I’m sorry I kept you up.”
“It’s okay. I just want to make sure you come home alive and well. With everything that’s going on… well, you know.” There’s a tinge of disappointment in her pale blue eyes. She’s seen a lot as well—boyfriends that have left her, husband that dropped her like a fly, parents who were never around. I know that watching me go through the same thing with Riley had broken her hope that I would get out of the cycle, too.
“Go to bed,” I insist. “I know you’ve got work in the morning, and you shouldn’t be waiting up for me. I’m just going to use the house phone to call Roxy. She started her new job the other day, and I haven’t gotten the chance to see how she is.” This isn’t a lie. It’s been on my list of to-do’s now for a few days, but I’ve been too swamped to think about it. Plus, Roxy was the perfect person to talk about Max with.
“Tell her to come over soon,” she says, almost purring. “I’ll make a cake or something to celebrate. I haven’t seen Roxy in ages.” My mom smiles wistfully and heads back to her room. As I’m about halfway down the stairs, she adds, “I’m taking my sleep med. You know the drill, honey. Wake me up if there’s a fire or a hot man at our door, okay?”
She has said this to me every single night since I was a kid, but it still makes me laugh. The med she takes knocks her out almost instantly, and she sleeps like death. I’ve been tempted to take one a few times myself after watching her shut out the world with a pill and a glass of water, only to awake the next day to an alarm and a new morning. Tonight, especially, I could use one.
The house goes silent just a few minutes later, leaving only the hum from the TV my mom leaves on in her bedroom buzzing slightly audibly. I grab an amber bottle of cold beer from the fridge and practically collapse onto the faded blue couch. With a deep breath, I dial up Roxy, hoping that she’ll still be awake. The other line rings over and over again. It’s only when I’m about to hang up that I hear the peppy, perky voice of my best friend greet me. “Well, well, howdy there, stranger,” the voice on the other end says. “You finally returning a girl’s call? I think I’ve left you at least a hundred voicemails by now.”
“Two,” I respond dryly, “You’ve left me two.”
“Uh, no. Try three. Check your phone again. I called you like fifteen minutes ago, but it went straight to voicemail. Honestly, I was starting to get just a smidge worried. It’s just not like you to go AWOL, especially now that—”
I cut her off quickly. I don’t even want to hear Riley’s name right now. “Yeah, I know. I’m sorry. I should have called you sooner but things at the shop, well, they got… busy.”
“Oh, please,” she retorts shortly. “C’mon. Crazy 8’s is never busy.” Roxy is, if anything, honest to a fault. She won’t give you an inch if you try.
“Yeah, but tonight, it was… crazy. But before I tell you about me, tell me about you. How is Mason Enterprises and Labs? Are you doing all these mad science experiments yet? Have they let you resurrect the dead?” Believe it or not, but my bestie is some kind of super genius chemist. She managed to get her chemical engineering degree from an Ivy League school—one with actual ivies lining the walls of her dorm building. She’s still working on her doctorate, but during the day, she managed to land herself a job at one of the most prestigious labs in the country. At least, that’s what she says. Half the time, I can’t understand a word she’s saying about her line of work.
“Not yet, but I’m working on a project involving weapons. Top secret stuff. Government contracts and all. It feels all very James Bond-ish. I’m not sure if I really like the idea, but it’s paying for my tuition. I can’t complain.”
“And… what about the guy situation? Anyone worthy of your geeky lust?” For a science nerd, Roxy was one in a million. Red hair, green eyes, great body; she made herself a diamond among the rest of the girls she works with. The men practically fall over her, especially when they learn she’s into Star Wars and all that other nerd stuff.
“No one just yet. But you know me, I’m not into the smart ones. I’d rather pick up a guy at your shop than date some guy and his test tube.” She deflects quickly, not letting me argue. “Tell me about your crazy day. You sound like you could use a drink… or five.”
She’s right
. My eyelids are practically drooping as my head spins in its own fog. I make the split second decision to tell Roxy the whole story from beginning to end, starting with that tattoo. “I’ve worked with motorcycle club guys before, Rox, and I’ve never, ever seen anything like it. It’s just a circle with some lines. What the hell kind of mark is that?”
“Well, you know with pirates, it’s just a black dot on your hand or something. Maybe they want simplistic so you don’t suspect them.”
“I just can’t believe I haven’t heard of this before. Mack told me about this war or something between two motorcycle clubs. A big thing like that with deaths and all should be in the news. But I don’t remember anything like that.”
“I don’t either, but you said it yourself that he had detectives in his pocket. They could cover up stuff like this if they wanted to, make those deaths look like accidents or unsolved murders. And guys like that, it’s not like anyone is really out looking for them.”