HANDS OFF MY BRIDE

by Claire St. Rose

“Give them enough money and the police will say whatever you want them to.”

  “So, who is he working with? What’s the plan now?”

  “Information, like drinks and this club, are not free, my friend.” Andre said, leaning back in his chair. This is what Andre did: information. He knew everyone in the city; he knew who moved and sold what. He was part of a major drug operation and Scarred Angels was his favorite club. He drank there even though dealing had been forbidden within its walls.

  “The Kane contract ended. Why would I pay you for information if they aren’t paying me anymore?” Adam asked.

  “Because contracts can be picked back up. There is still money to make, my friend, if you want to make it. But you ain’t the only person in the city with a protection racket. If you have no need for my intel, I can take it somewhere else.”

  “What do you have and what do you want for it?”

  “I’ll make you a deal, Mendel; you let me bring some boys in here at night, move some stuff around, give you a cut, I’ll tell you for free.”

  “No,” Adam said, staring straight into Andre’s bright eyes. “Never.” Adam knew that some drugs moved through Scarred Angels; they did the best they could to curb it, but people were smart. Small bags of Molly, X, and weed were always going to be snuck in. But he could never permit someone to actively move large quantities through Scarred Angels. It would get the club shut down and land his men in jail. Adam had worked too hard to make this club a legitimate enterprise. He wasn’t willing to throw all that away.

  “A grand then,” Andre said, looking away as if he were bored with the conversation.

  “A grand for what? Do you have anything concrete?”

  “Nothing concrete in my world, but we both know that when Scarred Angels went legit someone was going to fill that hole you left behind. Just because you’ve stopped escorting drugs and picking up boys for the mob doesn’t mean no one is moving drugs or doing hits for hire anymore. You go straight and there’s ten groups behind you ready to pick up the slack.”

  “I’m not giving you a grand for something I already know. Who is it?” Adam said. His jaw was set. He was staring at Andre with an intensity that unnerved the other man.

  “Soul Stealers,” Andre said.

  Adam made a face at him, dismissing the notion, “The Soul Stealers are half a dozen guys on shitty bikes. You’re telling me they’re going after the Kanes?”

  “The Soul Stealers were a bunch of dumb kids, and then somebody hired them and gave them a lot of money to do a certain thing. They did it badly, but promised they would fix the problem, but their fix didn’t work either. But they got their money, and there are a lot more of them now and they aren’t giving up. They’ve promised their new employer they can get the job done. Plus, the Kanes think they’re in the clear. They got the security at the castle up and running, but no bodyguards.”

  “How can you be sure about this?” Adam asked feeling sick. ”They failed twice. Who would still be paying them to kill somebody?”

  “Can’t be sure about anything, but I do know there are a lot more Soul Stealers than there used to be, and they have money. Whoever hired them thinks they’re an investment, a work in progress. They’ve been buying from us, drugs and guns. They aren’t small time anymore, and don’t ask me who told me about the Kane job; you know I can’t tell you that.”

  “They have the guy who did it is in jail. I caught him myself and he hasn’t said anything about the Soul Stealers.”

  “They may have been a chickenshit operation, but they ain’t fucking around anymore, Adam. That guy wasn’t smart enough to get away with it, but he is smart enough to watch his mouth. He’s not telling anyone about the Soul Stealers. He’s not safe in jail; they can find him there and he knows it. Just because he ain’t talking doesn’t mean he doesn’t have anything to say.”

  “Who hired them?” Adam asked. “Who’s funding the Soul Stealers? Who’s trying to kill the Kanes? Who’s pulling the strings and who’s providing the money?”

  “That, I do not know,” Andre answered.

  “And you have no proof, and you can’t tell me who you got this info from,” Adam said.

  “I told you the truth, Mendel. You can do with it what you will, but I want my money.”

  Adam sighed and nodded. Even if Andre were wrong, which he probably was, he was a good ally to have. “I’ll give you five hundred. You tell me who hired the Soul Stealers and you’ll get the other five. I’ll meet you by the door,” Adam said, getting up and walking away. Five hundred dollars was a lot of money for something that technically didn’t concern Adam anymore. But it was important that a job not just be done, but be done well. Plus, it was Dakota, even if Adam weren’t being paid to protect her, that didn’t mean that he wasn’t going to.

  Could it be true, the Soul Stealers turning into a real presence in the city? Scarred Angels had encountered the Soul Stealers a few times. The most memorable occurrence was when the Stealers had messed up a job, leaving drugs and bodies in places they weren’t meant to be. Scarred Angels had been hired to come in and clean up their mess. The Soul Stealers were a joke. Half of them were too old school to function in the new digital world where it was so easy to be traced, and the other half was reckless kids who couldn’t think ahead. Most clubs had heritage and history; older members taught and mentored the next generation. The Soul Stealers was starting from scratch, maybe they had worked out their growing pains. Money made everything easier and if the Soul Stealers had a backer, that would change the game significantly.

  Adam took five hundred of his own dollars from the safe and clipped them together, slipping the large wad of bills into his back pocket and heading back down to meet Andre. Who would have hired the Soul Stealers? Who wanted John Kane dead? In his research on the Kanes, Adam had learned that John Kane was the definition of an upstanding citizen. He never took bribes, or pushed his weight around; he did everything above board and to the letter of the law and demanded everyone in his organization do the same. John had taught a course on business ethics at UPenn; he practiced what he preached. Adam thought it impossible that he could have made an enemy this focused on killing him.

  Still, it all had to come back to money; it had to. Dakota was his sole heir and if anything happened to her, the money was split between relatives and charities. Adam and the police had ruled out any of the heirs as having a probable cause to murder. Kane took care of his family, not that there were many of them. If they needed money, which none of them did, they just had to ask. That was the whole problem with this Kane business: there was no motive, no reason for anyone to want to hurt him or Dakota. The idea of a lone crazed gunman had made the most sense, until Andre had mentioned the Soul Stealers.

  Andre was waiting at the door and Adam discreetly slipped him the money. “You let me know if hear anything new,” Adam said. Andre gave a nod and left, the club was officially empty. The bartenders were closing up, bar backs and servers were cleaning up overturned drinks and empty shot glasses. A cleaning crew would come in a few hours and give the place a good once over and they would start the whole thing all over again tomorrow.

  Adam wondered where Dakota was at that moment. He had done as James Hastings had asked; he had no contact with Dakota since her attack. He hadn’t gone to the mansion, hadn’t driven past the front gate, and he hadn’t been anywhere near her apartment or the Kane Home. But he hadn’t deleted her number. He hadn’t forgotten her soft hands, or the feel of her lithe body on top of him, he vividly remembered the taste of her, and how it felt to be inside of her. A dozen women had hit him on that night, all of them young and beautiful, some of them rich, but none of them were Dakota. They all paled in comparison with her; nothing any of them did had any effect on Adam. They danced, downed shots, touched his leg, played with their hair, and he had just stared and wondered what was wrong with him.

  You love her, a voice in his head offered, but Adam shook that away. He had only spent a few weeks with her and
she hated him for most of that time. He had been her employee, not her friend or her boyfriend, just a body that followed her around. Until he wasn’t. Until that night drive when Adam had touched that stray hair on her cheek; he had no idea what would follow. There had only been the desperate need to touch her, to prove to himself that she was a real flesh and blood woman, not just some mirage set on tricking him. She was kind, and smart, and beautiful, and he had been alone with her and wanted her. He never would have guessed that she wanted him back, until she did.

  But he hadn’t heard from her. No phone calls or texts, and he had been instructed not to contact her. Dakota Kane could have any man she wanted; Adam had just been a booty call for her – a stress reliever, a fun romp in her daddy’s car with a biker, nothing more. He had been a one-time thing and she had probably forgotten all about him already.

  So what was he supposed to do with this information, if it was even accurate? Who should he call? James Hastings was the obvious person, but Adam hated working through proxy. The police? They had a suspect in custody, they were still patting themselves on the back for catching Kane’s attacker (even though Adam had done most of the work), and he doubted they had any interest in re-opening their case. It would be a media frenzy and Adam had no proof, nothing but the word of a well-connected dealer.

  Dakota’s number was still in his phone. But he had promised to end all contact with the Kanes. He was supposed to delete their info from his life. She was so close, but felt incredibly far away. He wanted to talk to her face to face, to laugh with her, to touch her...No, he stopped himself, no more of this self-pitying nonsense, either shit, or get off the pot. That’s what his uncle had always told him. Indecision was nothing more than a slow death.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “So, it should be down this alley, and then we’ll see and elevator, take that all the way to the top and then...secret rooftop party!” Marley said, pulling Dakota out of the cab and out into the street.

  Dakota looked around at her surroundings. It was dark, there were few cars on the road and a lot of trash on the streets, but almost no people. It seemed too quiet and out of the way for a “rager on the roof.” “Are you sure this is the right spot?” Dakota asked. “This place is kind of skeevy, and shouldn't there be more people around?”

  “It’s a secret rooftop party, Dakota. Obviously, no one is going to be standing around waving a directional sign.”

  “I don’t know. This doesn’t feel right...” Dakota said, looking around her.

  “Is it maybe because we’re near Scarred Angels and you’re worried that you’re going to run into a certain somebody?” Marley asked as she led the way down a back alley lined with locked dumpsters.

  “No, it’s because we have no idea what’s waiting for us up there. You got a text from a guy you used to buy weed from telling you there was a party here. I mean, it could be anything.”

  “Oh come on, Dakota. You said the same thing when we went to that private beach in Nantucket and how much fun did we have that day?”

  It was true; Marley always knew where the best parties were – parties without a guest list, where people showed up and had fun until the police told them all to go home. Since she had known Marley, Dakota had been to secret beach parties, lake parties, garage parties and even if they hadn’t been all that was promised, they almost always had a good time. So she followed Marley down the alley, trusting the vague instructions they had been given.

  They found the service elevator and keyed in the code Marley had been given. The elevator was slow and noisy as it made its way down to them, and when it arrived there was still no one else around and so the two women boarded it alone. Once inside Dakota and Marley closed the gate and the door and hit the button for the roof, and they slowly began to climb up.

  Dakota was waiting for the sound of thumping club music, of people talking and laughing. She waited for the smell of weed, beer, and liquor that were the marks of any good party. But all she heard was the clank of the elevator and the only smell was the lingering odor of gasoline. She looked over at Marley and was surprised to see a look of concern on her face.

  “It is kind of quiet,” Marley admitted.

  “It’s too quiet,” Dakota agreed as her heart began to pound. The large elevator suddenly felt very small as Dakota began to gasp for breath, and she had trouble swallowing. “I want to get out of this elevator. I’m feeling kind of claustrophobic,” Dakota said.

  “Oh, babe. I’m so sorry,” Marley said, coming over to Dakota and gently rubbing her arm. “Maybe this was a bad idea, but look we’re almost there. If it sucks we can turn right around. I promise.”

  The elevator moved inch by inch up the building, painfully slow. It shuddered and jerked between floors, and metal squealed against metal as they kept going up. Finally they watched as the numbers climbed as high as they could possibly go and then the R button lit up. As the elevator stopped the girls both pried and pulled on the gates, desperate to get out and, finally, as the doors opened onto the roof, the girls saw nothing.

  “There’s no one here,” Dakota said, taking a step outside of the elevator. The roof was empty. It was a parking lot during the day, but there were no cars there now. Streetlights were lit illuminating the white lines painted on the pavement, but there was no one there. No partygoers, no DJ’s, no club kids. There was nothing.

  “Dakota, come back inside. You were right, something is wrong. We shouldn’t be here,” Marley said, reaching out and grabbing Dakota, pulling her back in the elevator. Once inside they closed the doors and hit the button for the first floor, and then nothing happened. The elevator didn’t move.

  “Shit,” Marley said and there was a note of panic in her voice.

  “It’s fine, Marley. We’ll just take the stairs,” Dakota said, pulling the doors open again. But still no one was there. “You must have gotten some bad intel. Maybe they got shut down before they even started.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” Marley said, stepping out onto the roof. “The stairs are over there. Let’s get out here. This place is giving me the creeps.”

  Their shoes were impossibly loud on the hard cement. The sound of heels clicking echoed in the silence around them making both girls wince at the noise. They hurried to the door, and pushed on the bar, but it wouldn’t budge.

  “It’s locked?” Marley asked. “Why would it be locked?”

  “It’s locked and the elevator doesn’t work. We’re stuck up here,” Dakota said, pushing on the door a few more times, hoping something would give. “What do we do now?”

  “Maybe there’s a fire escape we can take down?” Marley offered. “Or maybe we could call someone...”

  “Yes, I can see the headlines now: Heiress trapped on roof, needs police rescue” Dakota said, throwing her hands up. “Let’s try and see if there’s a fire escape.” They walked around the edge of the roof. There was no fire escape, but there was the ramp that cars used to get in and out. But the ramp led deeper into the structure and, worse, it was dark down in the building, the thin lights only illuminating a small section beneath the lamps themselves.

  “I guess this is the only way out,” Marley said, looking down into the darkness.

  “Flashlight app,” Dakota said, pulling on her phone and shining the light on the ground in front of her as Marley did the same. “We are not afraid of the dark. We are two adult women who can handle this.”

  “Yes,” Marley agreed, taking Dakota’s hand in hers and together they walked down the ramp, into the darkness. They walked for a few feet and heard nothing, and like all dark and scary places, once they were inside of it, it wasn’t so bad. There were a few cars, and even better, bright red exit signs to guide their path. And then they heard it, footsteps, soft footsteps walking on the ramp behind them.

  “Someone else is up here!” Dakota whispered, grabbing Marley and pulling her down behind a cement partition.

  “Maybe it’s someone else who came for the party.”

  �
��Marley, there is no party. No one is here.”

  “Well, someone else is here. What are we going to do? Let’s call the cops.”

  “And tell them what? That we’re trespassing and then it got scary?!”

  “Fine, then let’s call Adam.”

  “No,” Dakota said.

  “Dakota please. Someone else is here. This is officially scary. I think someone lured us here. Please just call him, Scarred Angels isn’t far away.”

  Dakota opened her mouth to say something, she was going to protest more, say they didn’t need him. And then, the clear sound of a bullet leaving a gun filled the air around them. The sound was so loud and jarring that it destroyed the silence and the two women jumped and then held each other, both frozen still as their baser fight or flight instincts kicked in.

  “Oh my God, it is a trap,” Marley whispered, her voice so quiet even Dakota who was less than a foot away, could barely hear her. “They have a gun. They’re trying to kill us.”