Mercer: Prophets MC

by Laura Day

  “Hey, man,” he said. “The run isn't for another twelve hours or so. We got time.”

  “I know,” I told him, looking around, hoping the bimbo didn't wake up Bates or any of his other lackeys. “But I want to have a plan in place and be ready to roll. I want to meet you somewhere other than here when we head out.”

  “I figured we'd just meet here.”

  “I'd rather not.”

  Jax sat up, fumbled around and finally found his shirt. He yawned as he pulled it over his head, and I sat down beside him. Blondie sat on the other side of him, glaring at me hatefully.

  “Oh, hey, Mercer, meet Tasha,” he said as if suddenly realizing she was sitting there.

  Jax picked up a bottle that was sitting in front of him and sniffed it before taking a long gulp of the liquid. I grimaced, nothing like “the hair of the dog”…

  “Still good,” Jax proclaimed.

  I stared at Tasha, and she stared at me, the hate between us obvious. Her red lipstick was streaked all over her lips, her eyes were bloodshot and bleary, and she looked tired. Worn out. Used up. At that moment, she reminded me of Courtney Love – the strung out version, not the glammed up one.

  Tasha leaned over and draped herself over Jax's lap, and she gave me a look that said she wanted to cut my heart out. I stared back at her with an expression that said I wouldn't hesitate to do the same, and she seemed to shrink back a bit. Jax looked at me and apparently realized I wasn't going anywhere until I got what I wanted so he turned to his girl.

  “Listen, baby, you need to head out,” he told her. “We have work to talk about.”

  “But the fun was just getting started,” she slurred, lapping at his lips like a drunk dog, leaving a trail of slobber down his cheek.

  I shook my head and suppressed the shudder that rolled through me as Jax gave me another look, and sighed. He pushed her away from him.

  “I ain't gonna tell you again, Tash. I have work to do. You need to go. Now.”

  “But I don't have a car – ”

  “Call a cab,” he said, handing her a phone that was sitting on the table. “But wait outside.”

  She looked pissed, but it only took her measuring up both Jax and me to get her to bite back whatever angry remark was about to come out of her mouth.

  “Fine,” she huffed, grabbing a black mini skirt and slipping into it before putting a matching crop top on. “But next time you want me, you're going to have to come begging for it, Jax. I ain't gonna be treated like this by no man. Least of all you.”

  She walked toward the door, and it took everything in me to hold back my laughter.

  “Have a little too much to drink last night?” I asked Jax.

  He shuddered, mostly likely remembering what happened between Tasha and him last night – things that didn't bring back positive memories. “What was I thinking, man? I'm not even sober yet, but damn. Never again.”

  “Never drinking again?” I raised an eyebrow at the bottle in front of him.

  “Oh, hell no, I meant never fucking her again.” Jax laughed, taking another drink. “Not even for all the whiskey and weed in the world.”

  Somehow I doubted that. Jax slept with anything that had a pair of tits when he got wasted. Tasha wasn't the first questionable woman he'd brought home, but I had to admit, she was a little rougher than most.

  “Can you believe she's a fucking stripper, man? People actually pay to see that shit.” He shuddered again and took another swig of the bottle, swishing the contents around in his mouth and swallowing hard. “Can't get the taste out of my mouth either.”

  The mention of stripper stopped me right there. “Which club? Need to know where not to go, ya know...”

  “Oh I dunno, just some shitty place Bates took us to last night.”

  I felt a spike of anxiety lance through me knowing that Bates had taken them out to a strip club. I hoped it wasn't a specific one that I was thinking of. Not that Tasha looked like anyone I'd ever seen at Ace of Hearts, but then again, I rarely looked at anyone but Val while I was there. She very well could have been one of the dancers there, for all I knew.

  “On the strip?” I asked.

  “Nah, somewhere on the outskirts of town. It had some fancy ass name, and let me tell you, bro, this dump most definitely did not live up to that name. Obviously.”

  It didn't sound like Ace of Hearts. Nothing fancy about that name, not really, and while it wasn't located on the strip, it also wasn't outside of Vegas either.

  “Speaking of strippers, man – ”

  Here we go.

  “I'm working on it,” I said, cutting him off before he could ask.

  “What club does she work at?”

  I looked over at Jax. When Bates gave me the job, he wasn't sure where I could find Val. He gave me her information and I'd managed to track her down on my own. I'd told him what he wanted to know at the time – she was a stripper at a local club and that I'd check it out. I'd never said which club, though.

  “Teasers,” I lied.

  “Oh, we didn't hit that one up last night,” Jax said.

  Good. Though to be fair, Val wasn't working anywhere right now. She'd taken some time off. But all it would take was someone to ask the right – or rather the wrong – people, and he or she could probably lead them right to her.

  But if they went to the wrong club, they'd get nowhere. At least for a while. Eventually, they were going to figure it out just through the process of elimination.

  “So what did you want to talk about?” Jax asked, spinning the now empty liquor bottle on the table. “I have a raging headache and need to crash. After a hot shower and some mouthwash.”

  I made plans to meet him away from the clubhouse and made some lame excuse about it looking less suspicious from that part of town. Who the fuck knew if it would be more or less suspicious, but at least it would keep me away from Bates. And at that moment, I needed to stay as far away from him as I could.

  Jax crashed, and I headed for the door. I was just reaching for the handle when a voice froze me in my tracks and shook me to the core.

  “Don't see you around much anymore, Mercer,” Bates called out. “Why's that?”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Mercer

  “Any updates on the girl yet?” Bates asked me.

  “Nothing yet,” I said. “I'll let you know when it's done.”

  Bates leaned forward, across the table, his one good eye staring at me with a disquieting intensity. “You know, I really don't like making paying customers wait. It's bad for business. Wanna know what's worse for business?”

  I didn't respond.

  “Not getting the job done at all.”

  I remember when Bates first took over the club. At the time, he'd had my support. Hell, he'd had everyone's support. He'd been there longer than anyone else. He was a mentor and a father figure to many of us without fathers of our own. A lot had changed over time – including the attitudes some of us had toward him.

  I knew I had to tread very carefully. Bates was a smart guy, and I knew that anything I said could give me away; which would be very bad.

  “It's going to get done,” I repeated.

  Jax wasn't there to have my back. It was just the two of us – Bates and me. Tasha's antics had apparently woken Bates up and alerted him to the fact that I was there. Lucky me.

  “But when? The guy wants to know when,” he pressed. “I guess there's a timeline or some shit, I don't know. But he's getting anxious and wants an update.”

  I wondered how much Bates knew about the job. Did he know that Val had a kid? Hell, did he know she was practically a kid herself? Did it even matter to him? Looking at the way he'd changed over the years, I guessed that it probably didn't. At one time, it probably would have, but not anymore.

  “He must be paying a lot of money,” I said, taking a long drink from a beer.

  “He is, and he's ready to take that money elsewhere if we can't deliver on our promise, Mercer.”

/>   “That won't happen.”

  Bates raised his eyebrow and studied my face. I maintained eye contact, looking away would show him that I was weak or afraid, or even lying. Once upon a time, Bates had been someone I trusted. Someone who I knew wouldn't hurt me. Someone who wouldn't hurt women. A good man…but that man seemed dead and gone.

  “What changed, man?” I asked before I could stop myself.

  “What do you mean?”

  “What changed in you?” I continued. “I mean, the old Bates wouldn't have taken a job like this, no matter how much the asshole was dangling out there. I'm just curious.”

  Bates didn't say anything for a moment; he simply looked down at his hands on the table and seemed to think to himself. Maybe he wasn't sure how to answer. Maybe he didn't know what changed. But a good man didn't turn into a super villain overnight, and neither did Bates. It was a process. It took time and a lot of pressure from outside forces.

  “Nothing changed,” he finally said. “Listen, Mercer, this isn't personal, man. It's business.”

  Business - a term used to excuse so much inexcusable shit. It's all in the name of business. CEO's got away with horrible shit every day, blaming it on business. Bates was no different. His work attire might not be a suit and tie, but he was no different than any of them. Money and power drove him now rather than the brotherhood and a fierce loyalty to the club.

  “Whatever you say, man,” I said, standing up. I was done. This conversation wasn't going anywhere so why should I hang out a minute longer? “I'm on it.”

  “Good. I wouldn't have put you on it if I thought I couldn't trust you, you know that, right?”

  I had to wonder – why had he put me on it? I'd never murdered a woman before – much less a girl as young and naive as Val. I wouldn't lay a hand on a woman unless it was consensual and I'd never raise my hand to one in anger.

  I watched my mom get beaten every day by my father – and then my sister. And there I was, tasked with killing a girl because her abusive asshole of a boyfriend wanted her dead? It was something that hadn't set well with me from the start. And it was something that only got worse after I'd met her.

  Bates had never asked me to do a job like that before. I honestly wasn't even sure if The Prophets had ever killed an innocent woman before. It wouldn't be the first time we'd done a hit on someone for money, but never a woman. And never someone who didn't have it coming. I'd never flaked on Bates, and no matter how difficult, I’d always managed to get the job done. But this…this was different.

  Why was he asking me to do it?

  If I asked him why he would only doubt me, and that was a road in which I didn't want to travel. At least, not yet. Maybe one day soon that reckoning would come, but I wasn't ready for it right then and there.

  “Sure, man,” I told him. “I hear you.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Valencia

  “Maybe we should just order a pizza or something?” I asked as I looked in the fridge and saw that it was bare.

  There was hardly anything – just beer, more liquor, and a pack of frozen ribs that looked like it was older than I was. I grabbed the package and turned it around, trying to find an expiration date on the frozen meat to see if it was even salvageable. I held it up to the light, but the ice – or rather, the freezer burn – coating the inside of the package made it difficult.

  “Go ahead,” Mercer said, opening his wallet and handing me a credit card.

  Glancing down, I noticed that it didn't have his name on it. The name stenciled on the card was for somebody named Rosa Wallis. I thought about asking who Rosa Wallis was, and why he had a card in her name, but looked at Mercer's face and thought better of it.

  “What would you like?” I asked.

  “Don't worry about me. I'll just grab something while I'm out,” he said, grabbing his leather jacket even though it was still in the low eighties outside. “Get whatever you want, though.”

  I stared down at the card with the mysterious name on it and felt my curiosity rising. I knew I wasn't going to be able to stop myself from asking – even though I knew I should.

  “Whose card is this?” I asked, biting my lip, and trying not to sound like a possessive, crazy woman. “Rosa? Is she a girlfriend or a wife?”

  Mercer laughed and shook his head, but didn't answer me. Not until I moved around and stood directly in front of him, blocking his way out.

  “Don't worry about it. It's no one,” he said with a sigh.

  I looked at him and arched an eyebrow, not buying what he was selling. I appreciated everything Mercer was doing for my daughter and me, but I wasn't going to tolerate being lied to. He looked at me, the ghost of a smile touching his lips.

  “It's a fake card,” he said. “We can't afford to leave a trail of any kind.”

  Suddenly, the card in my hand felt dirty. I looked at it and a million questions popped into my head – questions I knew I would probably be better off not asking. But when my curiosity was piqued, I had a hard time stopping myself from sticking my foot into things – even when I knew it didn't belong. Being a party to a crime had never been very high on my bucket list. Going to jail for identity theft and fraud didn't exactly sound like a vacation to me.

  “No one?” I asked. “Or maybe, just somebody else? As in, we are using a credit card that actually belongs to somebody else?”

  “It's not like that – ”

  “Then tell me, what is it like?” I pressed. “Will Rosa Wallis press charges for using this card when she finds out? And she will find out.”

  “Not likely.” He laughed again.

  “Not likely? And what in the hell is that supposed to mean?” I could feel my blood boiling out of a potent mixture of fear and anger.

  I tried to keep my voice down – Laila was sleeping nearby, and I didn't want to wake or scare her – but despite my best efforts, I heard it rising louder and louder. I just wanted some damn answers and didn't appreciate being jerked around. Especially when my freedom was on the line. I wanted to know what the hell was going on. Was that too much to ask?

  “Because she's dead,” he said nonchalantly as if he were remarking on nothing more noteworthy than the weather.

  I dropped the card as if it was on fire and looked at him. “Did you – ”

  His eyes grew wide as he seemed to realize what I was asking.

  “No, it's not – no, I didn't kill her,” he said with a nervous chuckle. “She died of natural causes – old age in some nursing home in Miami or some shit. I don't know all the details, but I didn't kill her. I'd never kill a woman.”

  I was silent for a moment, staring down at the credit card on the floor. The credit card of a dead woman. And even though I believed him – something about Mercer's personality told me that he'd never actually hurt a woman – using the card of a dead woman still felt wrong. Like I was somehow violating her or something.

  “I can't use that,” I finally said.

  “And why can't you?” he asked, clear irritation in his voice. “It's not like she's going to press charges if you do. Hell, she's never even going to know. She's six feet under for fuck's sake.”

  “Is this what you do, Mercer?” I asked. “I mean, I figured you were involved in something illegal – the motorcycle club, the late nights, the being gone for days on end, so that's not a surprise. And I figured ignorance was bliss. I didn't ask because I didn't need to know. But something like this?”

  He grabbed me by the shoulders and made me meet his gaze. “Don't worry about what I do in my own time, Val.” His voice was low and menacing. “What I do is my business, and my business alone, got it?”

  Oh, I got it all right. I was seething, but that was being overridden by my fear. The way he held me – gripping my shoulders tightly, pinning me in place, and holding me so I couldn't break free – sent me into a panic. My eyes filled with tears as I stared at him, silently begging him to just let me go, but being too scared to speak it out loud. In my head, though, I had th
e words already prepared – words I knew all too well. Please don't hit me, Mercer. Please don't. I won't ask you these kinds of questions again, I promise.

  Flinching beneath his touch, I mentally prepared for the worst, but he let me go with a surprisingly soft stroke on the cheek. He had an apologetic look on his face.

  “I'm sorry,” he muttered, gently pushing me to the side. “I have to go.”

  I didn't stop him, mostly out of fear of what he'd do if I did. Shame filled his eyes, but shame always filled Ricky's eyes too after each fight. After each time he'd hit me. Once he sobered up and realized what he'd done, he was all apologies and remorse. He would apologize every single time – just like Mercer had before he left – and he even managed to sound sincere most times. Of course, he'd always promise to never do it again; but those were lies because there was always another time. And another apology. Ricky hadn't been sorry. He'd been faking it. Every single time.