by Zoey Parker
“Fuck,” Brent muttered as he pulled his phone out of his pocket and glanced at the screen. “I have to take this.”
“Okay,” Kira said. She yawned a little and cuddled up to the pillow next to her, imagining that it was much warmer and harder than it really was. Stop that, she told herself, forcing her eyes shut so that she couldn’t watch Brent retreat from the room. She kept them closed until she heard the door shut behind him. You’re not allowed to fantasize about cuddling a man. It doesn’t matter if he wants you. You still can’t trust him. You have to be strong. For Lucian.
Chapter Fourteen
Brent
Brent cursed to himself before he answered the phone call, snapping into the receiver, “What?”
“You need to get down here, Brent.” It was his number-two man, Howie.
“It’s like 6 o’clock in the morning, Howie,” Brent said. He sighed into the phone as he walked back towards his bedroom. “I have work soon.”
“You have work now,” Howie said, a sharp edge to his voice that he reserved for serious occasions. “It’s urgent, okay? The guys have been up here all night talking, and they’re taking things to a vote.”
“A vote on what?” Brent asked. “We don’t have any major deals lined up to vote on.”
“It’s not about any deals,” Howie said. “It’s about you.”
Brent’s blood ran cold. He stopped outside his bedroom door, swallowing a few times before speaking again. “What about me?”
“We’re about to vote if you’re going to lead the Soul Catchers anymore. So get the fuck down here already,” Howie snapped. He hung up, leaving Brent with static and silence.
“Jesus Christ,” Brent muttered to himself. He really didn’t need this right now. Before he got disturbed, he was just about to explain to Kira that he ran the Soul Catchers. It was the perfect opportunity, as she’d just been talking about secrets and lies and double lives. But now it was gone, and he didn’t know when he’d get another chance.
Brent sighed deeply, steeling himself for a second before he turned around and headed downstairs, his mind still wrapped up with thoughts of Kira. He knew in a vague, distant sort of way, that this vote was bad news.
Somebody’s trying to steal the Soul Catchers from me, he thought to himself as he exited the house and hopped on his bike. The same person that’s been making sure every single mission has failed the past couple months. And I’ve got to find out who before it’s too late.
***
“All right, all right, settle down!” Howie yelled from the center of the main bar room in the Soul Catchers compound. He’d spotted Brent walking in a few seconds earlier, and now he was banging on the top of the bar with his fist, trying to get the attention of all the members in the room. “He’s here now, okay? Let’s let the man talk.”
“I want to vote already!” one of the younger members, Alex or Andrew or something like that, yelled out. Brent glared at the kid, his upper lip curling in disgust as he saw the way the junior member shrunk away from him physically, clearly intimidated. Such a wimp, Brent thought. We’re letting anybody and everybody in the MC nowadays. That’s probably half the problem.
Howie scowled at the kid, along with a few other junior members who muttered their agreement under their breath. “We’re going to give our fucking president a few minutes of our precious goddamned time before we vote on anything, all right?” Howie said. “Anyone got a problem with that?”
This time, nobody in the crowd gathered around Howie mumbled or made any other dissenting motion. Brent moved through the crowd, pushing people aside so he could take center stage in front of the bar. “Good morning, guys,” Brent said loudly so his voice would carry to the back of the room. “Been a few hours since I saw you last. Long time.” A few people chuckled in appreciation for his silly joke, but mostly the crowd of men just stared blankly at him, clearly expecting him to defend himself. Well, fuck that, Brent thought, clearing his throat. “I’m not going to waste your time here. Clearly some people think I shouldn’t be in charge. Things haven’t been great lately. I’m not going to lie to you about that. But I promise to you, if you keep me in charge, I will do everything in my power to find out who’s responsible for that. And they’ll pay. That’s all I have to say.”
Brent stepped back behind Howie and leaned against the bar casually even though his heart was pounding in his chest, bile threatening to rise up through his throat as his nervousness mounted.
“All right,” Howie said. “All in favor of replacing Brent as leader? Raise your hands now.”
Several arms lifted into the air, followed by a few more when it became clear that a considerable number of men in the crowd wanted to oust Brent as president. Brent fought as hard as he could to keep his face neutral, wanting to look as confident as possible even as he struggled to make out the faces of each man who voted against him. He needed to narrow things down if he was going to figure out who was trying to sabotage him, but it was hard to see everybody clearly in a room this crowded.
After taking a few moments to count the votes, Howie said, “Okay, raise your hand if you’re in favor of keeping Brent as president.”
Numerous hands shot into the air without hesitation, and Brent felt relief wash over him as it became clear that these votes outweighed the other ones. He was still president. He was still in charge. Brent exhaled heavily. He peeled himself off the bar and went to stand next to Howie, keeping his shoulders back and his head high. He needed to show strength here, now more than ever, so that the men who’d voted against him would know that he wasn’t shaken. I am shaken, though, he thought to himself, forcing a smile onto his face for the benefit of the crowd. I am very fucking shaken.
Brent pretended as well as he could, stumbling through several polite interactions with senior members of the MC before going into his office and changing his clothes into a work outfit that he kept at the compound for emergency late nights/early mornings like this. He had to deal with his clients first, but then it was time to focus on the MC. It was slipping away from him, little by little. It hadn’t happened today, but if he didn’t stop the discontent that was brewing among the junior members of the club, it was going to happen eventually. And he couldn’t abide that. He hadn’t devoted his entire life to this club only to have it ripped away from him.
But he realized with a sick, heavy certainty as soon as he exited the clubhouse, walking past various smiling faces of old and young members alike, that he didn’t know whom to trust. Sure, there was Howie, who was as loyal as they come, but for everybody else, he couldn’t be sure if they were on his side or not. He couldn’t exactly walk up to every person in the organization and ask if they were plotting to take control. Who could he turn to for help?
There’s Kira, he thought as he hopped back on his bike. She knows people. She’s good at reading them. She could help.
But he hadn’t even told Kira about the MC yet. Tonight, he promised himself as he sped off towards his office across town. Tonight, I will tell her. I’ll give her the missing piece of myself, and we’ll go from there.
Chapter Fifteen
Kira
“Mommy! Mommy! Mommy, please, no!”
Kira bolted awake and jumped directly out of her bed as soon as her eyes were open. Lucian was calling her, but it wasn’t normal. She could tell that much already, just from the urgent, desperate tone in her son’s voice. “I’m coming, baby!” she yelled back. She bolted out into the hallway and dashed down the hall towards her son’s room. When she flung the door open, she saw Lucian curled up in a little ball on his bed, rocking back and forth. “What is it, baby? What’s wrong?”
“Dream,” Lucian mumbled, looking up at his mother through tear-filled eyes. “Mommy…” He reached out with his two hands, wordlessly asking for her to come forward and hold him.
Kira walked over to the bed and gathered her son in her arms, holding him close to her chest and dropping soft kisses at the top of his head. “What was it, b
aby? What happened this time?”
Lucian shook his head and gripped at her shirt, wiping his tears on the fabric of her pajama top. “It’s nothing. It’s okay. I’m okay,” he whispered, but his small voice still trembled. He was clearly terrified, shaking in her arms. Kira felt her whole body go cold in fear. This wasn’t normal. Lucian didn’t get scared like this. He was such a bright, happy child. Nothing ever fazed him. Even when Larry and Kira broke up, he only cried a few times before he adjusted, remaining the same healthy, perky little child he always was.
Kira cleared her throat and tried to speak as delicately as she could. “Honey, does it have something to do with the bruises? Did somebody hurt you?”
“No,” Lucian said immediately, shaking his head back and forth. “No, that didn’t happen.”
That phrasing made Kira narrow her eyes, suspicious that her son was lying. “What didn’t happen, baby?”
“Nothing!” Lucian said, burying his face deeper into her shirt. “Nothing happened, okay?”
“Okay, okay,” Kira said. She shushed her son softly and rubbed his back, trying to get him to calm down. “Okay, we can talk about it later, all right? Why don’t you try to go to sleep and have better dreams, baby doll?”
“I can’t,” Lucian said, sniffling a little. “I’m scared.”
“Mommy will be with you this time,” Kira said. She settled on the bed with her son still in her lap. “You can sleep. Mommy will hold you, baby. I’ll keep you safe.”
“Okay,” Lucian said, but he sounded like he wasn’t totally confident, remaining stiff in her arms for several long minutes before exhaustion finally got the better of him and he slipped off to sleep.
Kira sighed deeply, feeling crushed by the weight of her worry over her son. Slowly, so as not to disturb Lucian, she got to her feet, still holding onto her son as she crossed the hallway back to her room. She placed Lucian down on her bed and pulled the blankets around him tightly, keeping hold of his hand as she reached over to grab her phone from the nightstand. It was still early in the morning, but Dylan would probably be awake soon. Honestly, it was a miracle that he’d slept through the whole night, given Lucian’s multiple nightmares and the other noise that Kira and Brent had undoubtedly caused together.
Kira dialed Larry’s number, tapping her feet impatiently as it rang several times with no response. “Oh, come the fuck on,” she muttered as the call went to voicemail. She wasn’t going to give up that easily, though. She called back three more times until she finally got an answer.
“What?” Larry barked into the phone, his voice sounding a little clogged-up. Kira figured she’d probably woken him up, but she didn’t really give a fuck. This was important.
“Hey. Did something happen to Lucian yesterday?” she asked, getting straight to the point.
“What? No,” Larry said back, scoffing into her ear. “What are you on about?”
“He came home with bruises he didn’t have before,” Kira said, turning to look at her sleeping child, who was frowning in his dreams.
“So what?” Larry asked. “Kids get bruises all the time, Kira. It’s a part of life. You can’t protect him from everything.”
“He wouldn’t tell me where they were from,” Kira said sharply. “That means he thinks I’m going to be mad about what happened to cause them. So you better cut the bullshit and think hard about what he was doing yesterday that might have gotten him hurt.”
There was a long pause where neither of them spoke, although Kira knew Larry was still on the line because she could hear his shallow, ragged breathing from the other end of the line. “Be careful about what you’re suggesting here, Kira,” Larry said in a warning tone of voice.
“I’m not suggesting anything,” Kira said. “Except that you should be watching our son well enough to know what hurts him. Do you have a problem with that or not?”
“You know, I should really be asking you to take better care of Lucian, not the other way around,” Larry said.
“Oh, yeah?” Kira scoffed. She rubbed her hand down Lucian’s back when he whined a little in his sleep, his brow furrowed up like something was wrong. “Yeah, you’re going to have to do a much better job convincing me that I’m the bad guy here if you want anyone to actually believe you,” she said, even though at the moment she felt a strange sense of guilt wash over her as she watched her son continue to frown in his sleep.
“I’m serious, Kira,” Larry said. “You have him living in that strange house, with that strange man I don’t even know. I haven’t even met the guy. For all I know, he’s a child molester. How do I know he’s not hurting Lucian whenever your back is turned?”
“Because he’s never alone with Lucian!” Kira said. “I would never let anyone touch my child. You know better than that.”
“Then stop suggesting that I would hurt my kid, Kira,” Larry said in a firm, stern voice. “I mean it. You better quit it.”
Kira sighed. She brushed some hair back from Lucian’s forehead, trying to smooth over the wrinkles of worry that had popped up in between his eyebrows. “Okay, well, tell me this, then. Why has he had two awful nightmares in one night? Both of which he refuses to tell me about.”
She heard Larry groan under his breath on the other end of the line. “He’s five years old, Kira,” Larry said. “Nightmares happen. They don’t have to mean anything.”
“These ones do,” Kira protested. “He’s been a total wreck after them, and he won’t tell me what they’re about. He’s never done that before. Doesn’t that concern you at all?”
Larry was quiet a moment. Kira could practically picture his thoughtful face, the way he always stuck his tongue out in between his teeth when he was preparing to say something. God, she used to love that face, but now even the thought of it made her want to hurl.
“You know, Kira, I didn’t want to say this, but since you’ve pushed it this far…”
“What? Just spit it out,” Kira snapped, too annoyed to pretend to be nice at this point.
“Maybe the nightmares have to do with the change in living situation,” Larry said.
“What do you mean?” Kira asked. Her heart pounded harder inside of her ribcage as her anxiety swelled.
“I mean living in that house, with that man. Lucian won’t stop talking about him, you know. I don’t think it’s healthy.”
“What the fuck would you know about healthy?” Kira asked. “And besides, you were the one that got us kicked out of the last place, all because you couldn’t keep yourself from threatening the landlord.”
“I never did that,” Larry said, but Kira was too experienced with his lying to believe him.
“Sure, sure you didn’t,” Kira said sarcastically. “And I’m sure you didn’t call my boss to complain about me either. Hey, asshole, guess what? Next time leave a fake name.” She rolled her eyes, amazed at how fucking stupid her ex-husband was. Sometimes she felt so ridiculously dumb for ever loving him, for ever marrying him, but then she figured it all happened for a reason. At least she got Lucian out of the whole mess.
Larry made a clicking noise with his teeth. That was always what he did whenever he was angry at her and trying to hold it back. Kira shivered, even though she hated that he still had that power over her, to make her nervous. I should be over this by now, she told herself. He can’t hurt me. He can’t do anything to me anymore.
“I’d be real careful what you say to me, Kira,” Larry finally said, his voice low and serious.
“And why’s that?” Kira asked. She gripped a little harder onto her son’s hand, even though he was asleep and couldn’t possibly comfort her in this moment.
“You’re just walking on very thin ice with me right now,” Larry said. “Remember, Kira, I’m the one with the stable job. I’m the one with the same house that we lived in while we were married. It would be pretty simple for Lucian, you know, if he were to come stay with me full time.”
A flash of terror washed over Kira. Her face burned as she consid
ered Larry’s veiled threat. “Why are you doing this, Larry?” Kira asked, dropping her son’s hand and getting to her feet, if only to fool herself into thinking that she was actually taking action rather than feebly arguing with her ex-husband. “You agreed to visitation rights when we divorced. Why are you trying to make things more complicated now?”
“You were the one that made things complicated when you moved in with that man,” Larry said. No kindness or softness remained in his voice anymore. “You should think very carefully before you call me like this again. Have a good day.”
Before Kira could come up with anything else to say to keep him on the phone, he hung up, leaving her alone with her thoughts.
“God damn it!” Kira muttered to herself, biting down on her lip to keep herself from screaming out loud in frustration.
Larry was going to try to take Lucian away, or at the very least he was going to let the threat of it hang over Kira’s head until she did whatever it was that he wanted from her. Maybe he wants custody, Kira wondered. She paced back and forth over the whole length of her bedroom, checking to make sure that Lucian was still sleeping relatively peacefully every few seconds. No, Larry doesn’t want Lucian full time. Not really. He has too many flings to worry about, too many girls to fuck and then fuck over. He must have some other motive, some other reason for wanting Lucian around more often. But what could it be? And how can I stop him?