Pushing her gently away, he sat up. “I’m good at it.”
“Breaking the law? Killing people?”
He flinched. “Being a soldier.”
“You’re good at stunts, too. And racing.”
“I needed more than a job. I needed a life. A family. The one I wanted was gone. The club gave me a family when I needed one.” The sharp tone in those words told Lorraine that they’d arrived at the danger, and she’d brought them there, to her fault. But maybe it was no bad thing, because it had also led her to her real question.
“But are you happy in that family?”
Abruptly, he stood and walked away, to the farthest edge of this little garden nook. Naked, with his scarred back to her, he stood and stared at some point beyond them.
When it appeared that he wasn’t going to answer, Lorraine, still sitting where he’d left her, asked, “Roe?”
He didn’t respond, so she stood and went to him. She wrapped her arms around his waist and laid her head on his back. At her touch, he relaxed a little.
“Roe,” she said again.
“I don’t know,” he answered at last, his voice so low she heard it most clearly with the ear that was pressed to his back, as the words rolled inside him.
After a few seconds, he said it again: “I don’t know.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
In addition to Rainy’s Volvo and Cameron’s Stingray, there was another car parked in her driveway when Ronin pulled up. Although it was unfamiliar, he knew whose it was. He’d have suspected even if he hadn’t known who else would be at Rainy’s this night. The car was a Bentley.
Her ex. And, Ronin, supposed—hoped—also his wife.
He dismounted and left his helmet on the bike. Carrying his pack, stuffed full tonight, he went around the stone wall and up the steps to Rainy’s glowing glass house.
Hearing conversation coming from the pool patio, he didn’t bother going inside, just walked around and into the little party.
Cameron’s twenty-fifth birthday. His family celebration of it, at least. A big party for young people was planned for the weekend.
His arrival hadn’t been noticed, so Ronin took a beat and surveyed the scene. Cameron and Mac were in the pool, playing around. Two people Ronin didn’t recognize, an older man and a young woman, sat together sipping drinks. That would be the ex, then. And his much-too-young wife.
Colored lights illuminated the little bar, and a long table had been set out with snacks. Rainy wasn’t to be seen, and Ronin contemplated backing out and going in through the front door after all, figuring she was in the kitchen.
But then Mac saw him and called out, “Roe! You’re here!” and she and Cameron moved through the water to the side of the pool. As they got out, Douglas Archer stood, and all three converged on Ronin, two in dripping bathing suits and one in pressed slacks and a button-down shirt.
He stood there with his backpack over his shoulder and continued contemplating the option of backing away. Which was ridiculous. Instead, he took a step forward and smiled at his son.
He opened his mouth to say ‘Happy birthday,’ but before the words could form, Archer had stepped ahead and crossed in front of Cameron, putting himself between son and real father. His mouth spread in the kind of smile Ronin thought of as ‘plastic,’ he held out his hand and boomed in an unnecessarily loud voice, “Douglas Archer. You must be Ronin.”
If the guy had been an actual peacock, he could not have made a more obvious display. Ronin stared at the offered hand, visibly smooth and manicured, a soft hand, a hand that had never known real work, and weighed the pros and cons of ignoring it.
But that was the wrong move. Archer had shown his figurative hand as well as his literal one, and Ronin understood that he—the man who’d had twenty years to know and love and raise Cameron, to cement a relationship with him—felt threatened. By Ronin, who’d known for about three months that his flesh-and-blood son had even existed.
Ronin liked that. It was petty, but no less true for that. So he kept a smile on his face and shook Cameron’s ‘dad’s’ hand. Firmly.
Then he turned to his son and smiled for real. “Happy birthday, Cam.” With those words, it fully struck him: he was with his son for his birthday. On this day twenty-five years before, he’d become a father.
He reached back in his memory and thought about where he’d been, what he’d been doing on that day. Not in Iraq yet; the war hadn’t started, but everybody knew it was coming. Units like his, ready for deployment, had been in a holding pattern, doing busy work, keeping their training sharp.
He’d still been stateside. Not until this very moment had Ronin done the math and realized that he hadn’t even been in the fucking war yet when his son was born.
If he’d been alone, he might have let himself react to the punch in the heart he’d just taken. But he was not. So he swallowed and let it move through him.
That all happened in the space between his greeting and his son’s acknowledgement of it.
“Thanks, Roe,” Cameron said, and they shared a handshake—much more sincere than his with Archer.
“I…uh…got you something. Should I wait?” He wasn’t practiced in the etiquette of this kind of party.
“Lorraine likes to do gifts with the cake,” Archer cut in. Ronin resisted the urge to glare and reminded himself that every time that overly groomed dandy fanned his tail feathers, he exposed the truth that Ronin did belong here. And here, in Rainy’s house, Ronin thought his own belonging was more privileged than her ex-husband’s.
So he ignored Archer and let Cameron answer.
“When I was a kid, that drove me crazy—there’d be a big table full of wrapped gifts, and she’d make me wait forever before I could open them.” He smiled. “I try to be a grownup about it now. You can set it aside for later.”
At that, Mac stepped up and held out her hand. “Is it in your backpack? I’ll take that for you.”
He pulled back. “It’s not—there’s more…” He had a change of clothes in there, too. He didn’t need anybody rooting through his personal stuff.
She smiled and pulled on his pack until he let go. “I’ll just set it aside. I won’t snoop.” Lifting up on her tiptoes, she kissed his cheek and then sauntered away, her wet bikini still trailing drips behind her.
Ronin and Mac had met when Cameron had brought her out to ride with them one day. She was tiny and cute, with long, dark hair and big blue eyes. Too pretty for a name like Mac, but she didn’t like her full name, McKenna, and Ronin was maybe the last person on Earth who’d resist calling someone by the name they preferred.
He liked her. He read people well, and his read on her was genuine. And she loved his son.
Rainy finally appeared just then, coming through the patio doors with a tray of food on her hand. “Roe! I didn’t hear you ride up.” She shot him a look that said she was sorry, and that was an apology he’d accept. He gave her a nod to say so.
She set the tray down and came right to him, making a display of her own by throwing her arms around his neck and pulling him down until she could lay a serious kiss on him. Chuckling, he kissed her back, his arms snug around her waist.
When she stepped back, he was hard, and she had a mischievous glint in her eyes. Archer had walked away, back to his wife—to whom Ronin hadn’t yet been introduced.
Ronin glanced at Cameron, who wore a bemused smirk. When their eyes met, Cameron rolled his and shrugged. “So…this should be fun, huh?”
Reaching out, Ronin dropped his hand on his son’s shoulder and squeezed. “I’m glad I’m here.”
“Me, too. You want something to eat?”
~oOo~
Archer’s wife’s name was Summer; Cameron finally introduced them. She looked younger than either Cameron or Mac. Archer was obviously older than Ronin by a decade. But to each his own; Archer’s interest in the leggy blonde had made Lorraine free, so Ronin wasn’t going to judge. Much.
The evening wasn’t as
awkward as Ronin’s arrival had suggested it would be. With Cameron and Mac, both lively talkers, at the center of things, and with good food and drink, it was pleasant. Ronin would have sat back, as usual, and watched, but Mac kept drawing him into the conversation, so he joined in with a word or two here and there.
Archer made a face every time Ronin did.
Gift time was the most uncomfortable for Ronin. He’d lived alone for a very long time. The Horde just threw money in a pot when it was time to give a gift, and if money wasn’t good enough, then Bibi went shopping with the pot. And he hadn’t asked Rainy for help; he’d wanted his first gift to his only child to be something truly from him.
But Archer and Summer gave him a Rolex watch, and Rainy gave him race car driving lessons, and Ronin felt uneasy. His gift was nothing so elaborate. Moreover, he hadn’t wrapped it. When it was time, he simply stood, got his pack, and pulled it out.
An armored motorcycle jacket. He held it out to Cameron, who smiled broadly and turned his back, as if waiting for Ronin to help him put it on. So he did. Over his swim trunks.
“This is awesome! Thank you!”
Ronin shrugged. “Way you take these turns out here, I thought you needed something more substantial.”
“Says the guy who rides in a shirt and a kutte.”
“I’m not still on my permit.”
“Touché. Thank you.” Cameron stroked the leather. “It’s badass.”
“Yeah,” Mac added. “You look seriously hot in it, too.”
At that, Cameron turned to Ronin and gave him a lecherous thumbs-up. Ronin laughed.
It was a pretty good night.
~oOo~
The next morning, before sunrise, while Rainy slept peacefully, Ronin eased himself from her bed, careful to leave her undisturbed. He wrote a note, just a few words, and left it tented on the table next to the bed. After a lingering look at her calm beauty, staving off his strong desire to touch her, he grabbed his pack and clothes and left the room, dressing out in her office loft.
Outside, he walked his bike to the bottom of her long drive so he wouldn’t wake her when he fired the engine up.
And then he headed east.
He hadn’t told her that he’d needed to leave early, and he certainly hadn’t told her why. He’d wanted Cameron’s birthday to be as good as possible, unsullied by him and his violent life. If it had been his last time with his son, then it had been a good one. He’d gotten to spend one birthday with him.
The Horde was meeting Emilio Zapata in the afternoon. The new, more like renewed, Colombian king of the Latin American drug trade had traveled all the way to California to meet the Horde in person, ostensibly to broker a peace.
But Emilio Zapata wasn’t a peaceful man. The Horde had been fighting him, killing his men, for a year. And he had sent the men who’d killed Lakota, Jerry, Diaz, and Riley.
They felt their losses much more keenly than he felt his.
The Horde was hurt. The club was depleted. The men were demoralized. Grieving.
But they were not interested in a peace with Emilio Zapata. They had voted to go to this meeting with another goal in mind.
Ronin wasn’t sure he’d ever see Rainy or Cameron again.
~oOo~
Probably as a gesture meant to show how little the Horde worried him, probably thinking that he had the club over his knee, Zapata had offered to let Hoosier suggest the spot for this meet. The club had sat in the Keep while Sherlock showed them likely locations, and they’d voted on a site just shy of an hour south of Madrone—a derelict farmhouse on a property of owned by a friend of the club.
The site was a good one for a meet like this: good road up to the property, but the house was set back out of easy view of passersby. Though it was officially located on the edge of forest land, the sightlines weren’t obscured by tree growth. The house itself sat in the middle of a wide swath of flat land and scrub fields, what had once been a small plot of crops of some kind.
There was no chance of a stealth attack. Everyone at that meet would be visible and accounted for. This had apparently pleased Zapata, as well.
That clear visibility, however, didn’t mean that there wouldn’t be any surprises. The Horde would be looking for a double-cross from Zapata, and they would, if all went according to plan, be executing one of their own.
On the day of the meet, Ronin rode straight from Rainy’s to the clubhouse. They were gathering in the Keep to go over the plan once more.
The Night Horde SoCal was good at this work. Most of the club had been riding outlaw most of their lives, and they knew the risks, the rewards, and the way things worked. They were cool under pressure and they got the job done. Even when they took losses, they always paid them back, with interest.
Ronin scanned the table as that thought came to an end in his mind. Hoosier, seventy-five years old. Bart, who’d just buried his wife. Sherlock, with a fragile old lady and a tiny baby at home. J.R., a hothead, but a good soldier. Fargo, demonstrably not cool under pressure. Keanu, a follower, but reliable. Big Nate, too young, and so new that his patches were still white. But steady.
J.R., Fargo, Keanu, and Big Nate—they’d all prospected and been patched since the Perro war. They didn’t have a history of taking on a cartel head first. To say they knew the way things worked was unduly optimistic. None of them had taken fire like they would today.
On his other side: Muse. Now, Muse was a man who belonged on the front lines. But he had an old lady and a little guy at home now, too. Demon, a monster in a fight. But a family man as well, with three kids and a wife. He wasn’t the psychotic fighter he’d been.
Trick, sitting at this meeting, planning to charge into this fight, after almost two years on the sidelines. He’d been a Prospect during the Perro trouble. He’d gotten out of this line of work and had come back to protect the women and children. He was riding to this meet to atone for their failure to keep Riley and Lexi from harm. He was one of their best, but if his head wasn’t in the right place, Ronin didn’t know how he’d be.
And, finally, Connor. Ronin studied the SAA. He seemed to have calmed down some since the club had been brought fully in on the details about La Zorra and David Vega, but his relationship with his father still seemed tense. They had some things to work out, once the air settled again around the club. If it ever did.
They’d know today, one way or another. Today, the Horde SoCal would either be completely wiped off the map, or they would have ended another cartel. There would be no third option.
~oOo~
They met Zapata and his caravan of five Suburbans at a truck stop about ten miles from the meet site. The intention was to ensure that neither side arrived at the meet ahead of the other.
The Horde had been there before they’d named the site, however, and they’d kept discreet tabs on it since.
They rode all in one group to the site: Zapata’s five trucks, Big Nate and Fargo in the club van, and the other ten members of the Horde on their bikes. Hoosier was on his chopper, up front and side by side with Connor.
The Horde were outnumbered, but they had expected to be. Their plan hinged on Zapata’s continuing misunderstanding of their strength and their will.
When they arrived on the dusty grounds in front of the weathered, disused house, all twelve Horde and Zapata’s sixteen men disarmed themselves, leaving their weapons in two separate piles on the ground.
Ronin saw the smirks from Zapata’s men as he took his daishō off his back and added them to the heap of assault rifles, 9mm handguns, and shotguns. He unfastened his tantōs from his legs, too, and made sure the hilts of all four blades were positioned in the way he wanted. Let them snigger.
Zapata simply watched while everyone else disarmed. When it became clear that he wasn’t going to drop any weapons, Hoosier took a step toward him and said, “Mr. Zapata?”
Ronin saw the light in the man’s eyes when he heard the President of the Night Horde SoCal call him ‘mister.’
&
nbsp; He smiled warmly. “I’m unarmed, Hoosier. You can check for yourself, if you’d like.” Stretching his arms wide, he offered himself to be frisked.
When Hoosier actually frisked him, a dark cloud passed over the victory in Zapata’s arrogant eyes, but he didn’t resist. When one of his men took an aggressive step forward, Zapata waved him away.
Calm & Storm (The Night Horde SoCal Book 6) Page 22