The Skeleton King (Dartmoor Book 3)

by Gilley, Lauren

  “Whose idea was it to take the girl?” he asked.

  Ellison’s turn to shrug. “That was Grey and the Richards kid. I tried to do things through G&G. When that didn’t work, they decided to get a little leverage. I decided to ensure they weren’t fucked over, because they’re both totally fucking incompetent.”

  “So are your safe house boys, apparently.”

  “I need to be more careful in my hiring,” the man agreed.

  “And you’ve got some hiring to do. I think next you check, you’ll find yourself a few guys short. Given my VP’s old lady was stripped half naked and covered in bruises, you’ll want to consider us even. One wife is worth about three and a half of your thugs.”

  Ellison ground his jaw, but said nothing, gaze resolute.

  Ghost gave him a level look. “Knoxville belongs to me and mine. You’re not getting in.”

  “Is that a fact?”

  Ghost reached over his shoulder and tapped the truck window. On the other side, Fielding popped the door and climbed out, gun belt jangling as he walked around to join them.

  Ellison’s eyes widened.

  Fielding wore an expression Ghost had never seen before, one of resolute sadness, and total aggression. His head was wrecked over what had happened in the hunting cabin, and he was channeling that self-hatred into something useful.

  “I want you to meet my friend Vince,” Ghost said. “He’s a Knoxville PD sergeant.”

  Ellison frowned.

  “You see, the Lean Dogs don’t just own the city, we own the police force too. So like I said, you’re not getting in.”

  Ellison considered a moment, finally gave Ghost a tight smile. “Not for now, anyway. You play the game well, Teague, I’ll give you that.” He stepped back and touched an imaginary hat brim in salute. “I’ll be seeing you.”

  When the Mercedes had slipped out of sight, Ghost turned to the cop beside him. Fielding had one hand braced on the truck, staring at nothing, complexion waxy like he might be sick.

  “Ah, cheer up, Vinnie.” Ghost clapped him on the shoulder. “It won’t be so bad. You might even like being my puppet.”

  ~*~

  “Thank you.” Emmie wrapped both hands around the coffee mug Dublin offered her and he smiled in return.

  “You’re welcome, darlin’.”

  On the coffee table in front of her, Tango had left aspirin, Aidan had left a bottle of wine he’d dug from beneath the bar, and Carter had found a bag of Hershey’s Kisses, saying, “Sometimes sugar helps when you’re in shock.”

  It was hard to recall that she’d found these men frightening only a few weeks ago. The night in the field, in the flare of headlights, running for her life and seeing them close around her like hunting dogs – only to end up here, waited on by them, consoled and comforted.

  And rescued. She still couldn’t believe it. It was too big to digest at the moment, and her head hurt too badly, and so she sat with her coffee, beneath all their gazes, letting Walsh shine a light in each eye to check her pupil response.

  “Did you heave?” he asked, retracting the flashlight, eyes bouncing across her face with clinical scrutiny.

  “No.”

  “Still ought to get you to the ER and have you checked. We’ll tell them you fell off a horse.”

  She nodded, the lie not bothering her in the least.

  What was bothering her was the man seated across from her. Strikingly pretty, tall and elegant, with long hair and a thousand-dollar suit, he would have looked less out of place in the clubhouse if he’d been in full clown face paint.

  He noticed her staring and gave her a little wave with the tips of his fingers, smile straight, white, cutting. “So you’re the one all the fuss has been about. I see you’re in one piece.”

  Crap – he was English too.

  She glanced over at Walsh, and he made a negative gesture: not going there.

  Then she looked down at herself. She was wearing Walsh’s sweatshirt, the bloody one, breeches ripped from carpet burns. She didn’t want to know what her face and hair looked like.

  “I’m Emmie,” she introduced herself, without much in the way of politeness. “And you are?”

  He chuckled. “Take it they didn’t kick the claws off you. Cheers, darling.” He stood, straightened his suit jacket. “I’ll be taking my leave, then. Kev, walk out with me.”

  Tango sighed deeply, massaged his forehead.

  “Just go,” Aidan told him. “And get him the fuck outta here.”

  Walsh gathered her attention again. “Soon as Ghost gets back, we’ll head to the ER and get you looked at, love.”

  She smiled faintly. “It’s just a little headache. I’m alright.” She wanted to say more, so much more, but she was afraid she’d cry, so she pressed her lips together and tried to smile again.

  ~*~

  Nerves chased across Tango’s skin as he followed his lover out of the clubhouse and across the parking lot toward the black Jaguar.

  “I hate when you walk behind me like that,” Ian said over his shoulder. He halted as they reached the car and turned to face Tango, frowning in a way that made his face somehow more beautiful. “I want you beside me, always.”

  “That’s not happening here,” Tango said, firmly. His voice was dark, nasty even; it didn’t sound like his own. He was angry, he realized, furious that Ian would show him any sort of partiality or affection here at the clubhouse, in front of his club brothers. “Not now, not ever.”

  Ian’s brows lowered over his eyes, their blue depths soft with emotion. “I don’t want you to pretend to be someone that you’re not, just for their benefit.”

  “I’m not. I like girls.”

  “So do I. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want you in my bed every night.”

  Ian took a step forward, and Tango took one back. “I’m not gay,” he said through his teeth.

  “Of course not, darling,” Ian said softly. “Do you think there’s a label for what we are? We are ruined, love. Inside and out, forever and always. We’ve been destroyed, and I see nothing wrong with taking comfort where we can. You shouldn’t either.”

  “I have comfort. I have a family now.”

  “Yes. You do.” The caressing voice and the tender smile were mocking.

  Tango turned to walk away.

  “Tell your president I won’t forget that favor he owes me,” Ian called to his back.

  “No, that would be too much to hope for,” Tango muttered under his breath.

  Baskerville Hall

  Pub and Eatery

  London, England

  Fifteen Years Ago

  Candles flickered in glass lamps on every table, electric light pooling on the ceiling from the rustic fixtures hanging from the low-beamed ceiling. It was a classic basement pub, a honeycomb of nooks and dining rooms, air shimmering with the greasy scents of fish and chips and hops. A quiet afternoon, only a few patrons tucked away with beer and heaping plates of food, the tellies rumbling to themselves in low voices.

  Walsh wiped a thumb down the condensation on his pint glass, revealing a stripe of golden beer through the haze of frost. “Every year it seems I meet a new brother,” he said to the foam on his beer, frowning to himself. Then he lifted his gaze to the man in the Lean Dogs cut across from him. “You’re the first that’s impressed me.”

  Phillip Calloway smiled, revealing crooked bicuspids. “Now there’s a compliment if I ever heard one.” He sipped his beer. “I wondered if your mum would ever send you my way.”

  “She didn’t. She told me about you. I’m the one who decided to come here.”

  “Just because you’re curious?”

  “Because…” He took a deep breath and when he let it out, he released a bit of the tension he’d been carrying between his shoulders for so long now. “I’ve got nowhere else to go,” he admitted. His jockey dream had tanked with the death of that other rider; Rita had ripped his blood out of her body; he’d killed a woman in Afghanistan; and now here he
was, jobless, broke, and living with his mother.

  “I have no money,” he told Phillip, bowing his head. “I can’t find a job.” He heaved another deep sigh. “I know I’m supposed to come to you and tell you I’ve got dreams of riding a bike in your army, that I want to join the Dogs more than I want anything in the world. But I figure I owe you the truth. And the truth is, I don’t have nothing much to offer, but I will work. I’ll work hard as I can, to be what you need me to be.”

  That said, he sagged back in the booth, depleted of all mental and physical energy. All he could do now was hope his newly discovered half-brother didn’t boot him out of the pub.

  Phillip studied him a long moment, gaze thoughtful. “I do like for a man to be excited about it,” he said, and Walsh felt his chances crumble to dust. “A young tosser comes in here, loaded with ink, with the rings in his nose and his hair all standing up. And he just bought a new Triumph, and he can’t wait to join the brotherhood. It’s all he thinks and talks about.

  “And you know what? Three weeks later, he’s puking at the sight of blood, and he’s running his mouth when he shouldn’t, and he can’t even gain his prospect patch.”

  He leaned forward, grinning. “Excitement means nothing, King, my boy. It’s a man who comes to the club out of desperation that finds his heart and soul there, on the road, with his brothers. You come to the MC a broken man, and it’ll make you whole again, mark my words.”

  Thirty-Nine

  Emmie slept and slept, and Walsh knew he ought to wake her, but he couldn’t bring himself to. Her face mottled with bruises, she lay curled tight beneath the covers, eyes darting beneath her lids as she dreamed, or battled nightmares.

  Walsh slipped from bed and went shirtless down to the first floor, made himself tea because he felt nostalgic, fed Dolly. The sun was just lifting over the horizon, lancing the trees with spears of golden light. He followed the porch around to the side of the house for once, where his view was not of the barn and arena – the business side of the place – but of an empty dew-drenched field.

  A pair of does stepped cautiously from the wood and began to crop at the grass, large ears swiveling. Bright red cardinals fluttered through the shafts of sunlight, wings translucent as the rays passed through the feathers.

  Never in his wildest dreams had he thought to end up here, not after the path he’d taken.

  You come to the MC a broken man, and it’ll make you whole again.

  That Old World wisdom of Phillip’s, something deep and true that reached through the outlaw superficialities and struck wholly human nerves. The scary part of being broken, though, was that you never realized how badly until the pieces started fitting back together again, the new happiness so fragile it took your breath.

  Fragile as soft skin and little woman bones, breakable and vulnerable as the dying spark in a girl’s eyes.

  He didn’t hear Emmie approach, but felt her small hand on his shoulder, his automatic startle soothed by the scratch of her nails at the back of his neck.

  “We never sit on this side of the house,” she said as she settled in beside him on the bench, legs tucked up beneath her. He thought she looked beautiful in her pajamas, her hair loose. But she looked tired, too, still a little frightened around the edges. And her bruises made him murderous.

  “We ought to,” he answered, eyes trained to her. “It’s lovely.”

  “Hmm.” She braced an elbow on the back of the bench, cupped the side of her head in her hand, and winced when she pressed against a lump.

  “Are you hurting? Do you need some aspirin?”

  She motioned for him to stay put. “It’s not as bad if I don’t touch it.”

  “You probably should have stayed overnight in hospital.”

  “I didn’t want to.” Her gaze was fixed on the field, the birds, the does. “Oh, look at the deer.”

  “I want you to tell me if you feel nauseas,” he told her. “Or if your vision goes wonky.”

  She sighed.

  “I’m serious.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “No, you bloody well aren’t,” he said, more harshly than he’d intended. He was angry all over again. “You go through what you went through, you aren’t fine.”

  She turned to face him finally, and the light in her eyes wasn’t anything he’d expected. Maybe it was the rising sun, but he didn’t think so; it was an inner shine, pouring out toward him.

  “Walsh, you came for me.”

  He stared at her, not understanding.

  “You came for me.”

  “Yeah, I did.”

  “Someone took me away, and you and your friends, your brothers, you found me – I don’t even know how – and you came in with guns – Mercy had a damn sledgehammer – and you hurt and you killed people, and you got me out of there. You got me back.” She took a deep breath and her lips quivered; her eyes filled with tears. “In my life, I can’t even get anyone to cover at work for me, and Walsh, you saved my life. You…” She shook her head and drew in another shuddering breath.

  “I’m the reason your life was in danger,” he said, throat aching because he knew it was true.

  “No,” she said firmly, through the tears. “No, you’re not. Those people – people I poured all my time and energy into – they put me in danger. My mentor and her son – I meant nothing to them, and they…” She sniffled hard, dabbed at her eyes. “They used me, and they didn’t care if I…”

  “Em–”

  “I don’t have a life, or options, or a husband, or children,” she said miserably, “because I don’t know how to have those things. Because no one’s ever loved me before. Ever. And maybe you don’t really love me, but that’s what it feels like–”

  He slid across the bench to get to her, took the side of her face in one hand and leaned in. She was crying too hard now for him to kiss her, crystal tears sliding down her cheeks. So he tangled his fingers in her hair and pressed his forehead to hers.

  “Em, love, I am completely, devastatingly in love with you. You have to know that by now.”

  She nodded, her forehead pushing against his. “I know you said you’d let-let-let me go…”

  “Not on your life, sweetheart.”

  It was like she’d been holding a tight check on her tears, and she let them loose, melting against him and dissolving into deep, racking sobs.

  He gathered her close and let her soak his skin, hand clasped gently to the back of her head. This was her catharsis, and she had to cry through it, cry all the poison out.

  The warmth of her body seeped into him, through the skin, warming him to the bone. It spread, filled him up, softened a thousand tensions.

  He closed his eyes and thanked God for his club. It had given him the means to support himself and his mother. Had brought him here to this moment, brought him this woman…and given him the tools to defend her.

  ~*~

  “…it’s our belief at this time, based on forensic evidence, that a member of Davis Richards family injected him with the lethal dose of heroin. His daughter Amy, and his grandson Brett, are missing at this time, and we believe they are fleeing police custody.”

  On the small screen of the kitchen TV, Vince Fielding looked grave, drawn, and empty-eyed as he stood on the precinct steps, talking into a reporter’s microphone.

  Maggie turned away from the morning news and set a plate of scrambled eggs and toast in front of Ghost, frowning. “Baby, what did you do to Vince?”

  “Why do you think I did anything to him?”

  “Because you’re smiling right now. Smiling evilly.”

  “Is that even a word?” he asked, reaching for the pepper. “ ‘Evilly’?”

  “Don’t dodge the question.”

  He shrugged. “Nothing he didn’t deserve.”

  She studied him a moment, lips pursed. “We’re okay, aren’t we?” And he knew she was talking about their family, and the club. Are we safe? Are we still on top?

  “Yeah, we’re oka
y, baby,” he said, meaning it down to his bones. “We’re fine.” Because for the time being, they were, thanks to Walsh’s insane farm scheme. He forked up a bite of eggs and saluted the air with it, grinning. “All hail the Skeleton King.”

  Forty

  Fall was coming. It was in the evening shadows, in the cool undercurrent of the breeze, in the tangy stink of the water. The river had a different smell for every season, distant in the winter and heady in summer. Autumn was nipping at summer’s tail, and Aidan felt the old excitement stirring in the pit of his belly. He loved the cooler weather, the cloudless skies, the crackle of party fires in fifty-five gallon drums. It was a subdued elation this year, one tempered by time, more thoughtful and less exuberant.

  Yes, it was time to grow up. The correct way, not the way he’d tried. Because none of his leadership efforts had ever gotten him anywhere. It was time to accept that his role within the club was that of a follower.

  He sat on the bench in front of the deserted shop, working on the last of a cigarette, letting the depression of realization wash over him.

  When his phone rang, he almost didn’t answer it, but dug it out at the last minute, putting it to his ear without checking the caller ID. “Yeah?”

  “Aidan?” Female voice. Hesitant. Maybe even reluctant. Definitely not Tonya.

  “Yeah.”

  “This is Sam. Sam Walton.”

  “Oh.” A strange lightness blossomed in his chest, a release of the tension he’d held when he first answered. “Hi.”

  “Yeah, hi. I called over at the auto garage and they said they were swamped, but that they thought you could help me. I was on my way home from school, and I’ve got a flat.”

  He flicked the rest of his cigarette away. He felt that instant compulsion to start moving, the same as if Ava or Mags had called for help. “Yeah. Where are you?”

  “I managed to turn off at the Waffle House parking lot.”