by A. J. Downey
He grinned from ear to ear and I raised my eyebrows and turned down the corners of my mouth in an attempt to look impressed as I was saying, “About time you got with the fucking program… speaking of…” I turned to Kyle and sighed, “What is the program?”
“Save it,” Dray ordered. “No sense in having to repeat yourself, we’re not all here.”
“Fair enough,” I conceded, even though it pissed me off slightly to do it. I didn’t like being cut off like that, and I sure as fuck didn’t take orders, but it wasn’t worth putting up a racket right now. Playing nice was the rule of the day, even if it did suck monkey balls.
The rest of the guys finally ended up getting here, starting with Dragon and Ghost with some New Zealand tribal motherfucker named Zeb, traditional tribal face tattoos that I could seriously appreciate and all. Additionally, there was a guy named Blue, but with how nervous he looked about being here instead of wherever he’d come from, I immediately labeled him ‘Little Boy Blue’ in my head as well as a liability.
The final man in Dragon’s retinue was a rough-looking sort with a blue denim motorcycle cut instead of black leather. I wondered if that was a preference thing but didn’t ask. He had long, shoulder-length brown hair shot through with gray and a beard getting on the long side that was much the same. His blue eyes sparkled and he had an air of crazy around him but it was crazier like a fox if that made sense. He was introduced as Lucky and I didn’t think it had anything to do with a rabbit’s foot.
Finally an older guy, bald, with a handlebar mustache came in with Revelator. A tall, skinny young guy, covered neck to fingertips in wild ink walking through the door behind them. Everyone was introduced as I wound my hair into a tight knot at the base of my skull and waited to see who would be coming next.
“Looks like we’re all here,” Dragon declared as a last and final bike had just shut off outside.
“Fuck you, man!” A ginger guy, sweeping a hand through his hair which was getting long on top said, coming through the door.
“Well, then hurry your fuckin’ ass up, Thirteen,” Dray commanded.
Ginger Thirteen grinned savagely and let fly two one-fingered salutes in Dray’s direction and it was out of my mouth before I could stop it, “Can’t argue with you there.”
The guys all laughed and I took a deep breath letting it out slowly. I was definitely out classed, outmatched, and for once in my fucking life, should probably watch my mouth.
“Go ahead, Data… let us know what you’ve found.”
Trigger pushed off the edge of Kyle’s setup and walked over, shoving a Styrofoam clamshell of food at me with a plastic fork with a wink and I gave him a wry smile. Good man, definitely not a dick. If I were shoving food in my face I couldn’t talk and I was fucking starving.
I opened the lid to soggy French toast soaked in syrup and several sausage patties, likewise drowned in same and didn’t bitch. It was food and last night’s dinner was a long time ago. He leaned his jeans-clad ass, which was framed really nicely in black leather chaps, against the footboard of the bed, back to me, and all eyes were on Kyle as he took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“I got nothin’,“ he said, and without missing a beat added, “and I hate to say it, I really do, but it’s not like Mali is in the ‘know’ and she ghosted off the grid so efficiently…”
I swallowed the bite of food in my mouth and swear it went down sideways, sticking in my throat that was suddenly tight.
“You were good at this computer shit even back then,” I said honestly. “I didn’t need you finding me. I couldn’t stand the thought of you, of all people, becoming yet more collateral damage in whatever my dad got us involved in.”
“I know, babe, but it’s made it a royal pain in the fucking ass to figure out who or what is behind all of this.” I sighed and straightened up, doing a second’s worth of battle with the food that was suddenly trying to fight back on me.
“Forget what we don’t know,” Dragon said and rubbed a giant paw over his beard. “What have we got?”
“Well, what we have got is one grade-a fucking shining beacon,” he said holding up my laptop. “Only problem is, that will bring them here.”
“Yeah, but if it’s organized crime like you suspect…” Trigger said and I cut him off.
“It is. I don’t know who, there are a lot of flavors to choose from, but these guys are tactical ready. They showed up at my brownstone with fucking tear gas and shit. Followed us in a black SUV… White guys, but beyond that, I don’t know. My dad was great at keeping me out of it right until I shot one of them to protect him.”
“Well, shit. There you have it right there,” Dragon said.
“What?” Kyle asked, frowning.
“Only way someone like her gets hunted to the ends of the earth, even seventeen years after the fact is if she killed someone important.” Looked like Revelator had some brains to go with that brawn.
“Yeah, I thought of that,” Kyle said unhappily. “I have algorithms running through old news reports looking for any crime-related anything… but do you know how long that could take? This is the criminal underworld we’re talking about here, and while I can go hacking into the NSA, FBI, and whatever other alphabet law enforcement soup you want to come up with, it’s really inadvisable unless I have something specific to go diving their web servers for, you know?”
“You got anything for us, girly? Anything at all?” Archer asked and I felt my shoulders drop as I searched through all my memories begging and pleading with it to just come up with that one thing that would make everything fall into place and any one of these guys go ‘ah-ha.’
I let out an explosive breath and said, “I got nothin’. I legitimately have no fucking idea what my dad was into and I was honestly just a kid. Even when he was drunk, that made him even more of a closed-mouthed bastard with a side of violent. He didn’t get to talking about anything more. He was gypsy, even if he was outcast, and fuck… our lineage knows how to keep a secret.”
“Not helpful,” Reaver said with a pout.
“Thank you, Captain fucking Obvious,” I rolled my eyes and shoved the forgotten food aside. I suddenly wasn’t all that hungry anymore, my stomach churning with nerves.
I mean, it was pretty obvious these guys weren’t terribly interested in getting involved and I totally got why. Most of them, according to Kyle, had just found their true loves in life. Most of them also had children, some of those children only months old. All of them had recently lost one of their brothers to a nasty accident, and he’d told me the story of Little Boy Blue and his woman, Hayley and their son that was on the way who might not even be genetically his, but possibly the only remaining, living, breathing, relic of his partner and best friend. I guess they’d been working on being some kind of triumvirate before he’d died so unexpectedly.
I sighed, I didn’t want to be the cause of such a great strife with these people. I was falling, spiraling down, I knew the feeling and I was so frustrated… By making love to Kyle last night, had I made a right choice? I mean, I knew it’d been a good choice, but had it been the right choice? There was sometimes a difference.
I scrubbed my face with my hands, frustrated. I’d worked so hard and been so alone these last few years to protect the other people around me, and now I was here among all of these people Kyle clearly cared about with a stigma attached to me like no other. I was a regular Typhoid Mary in their midst and I could destroy so many lives simply by being here…
Panic spun my thoughts around and they started to fall from their neat, orderly shelves, jumbling one on top of the other. I was going to get someone hurt, someone killed and I really didn’t want to do that. I really didn’t want to destroy the life that Kyle had built for himself. I looked around and saw clearly that these fools were the family that Kyle no longer had in his parents. Did I really want to be the destruction of that? He would hate me forever and worse… he could die and knowing my luck? I would live. And if I didn’t die,
and he didn’t die, but one of these men did? One of their family did? Fuck, the implications were horrible. The mercy would be that they would kill me. Quickly would be nice but men like these? Like Reaver, over there? Quickly was so not their style… Worse yet, Kyle could possibly resent me forever and there were some things that were indeed a fate worse than death. That one certainly topped the list.
“Mali… Mali, look at me.” I shuddered hard and looked over to Kyle who was staring at me intently.
“What?” I demanded and it came out harsher than I intended. It always did when I was scared, but Kyle saw right through me. He always did.
“It’s going to be fine, sugar. This ain’t any of us our first rodeo…” Dragon said and I shook my head letting out an explosive breath. I got down from where I sat and paced, stalking back and forth.
“Even if that’s the case,” I said bitterly, “The stakes have never been higher for all of you, any of you, have they?”
“Hmm, that’s the God-given truth,” Trigger agreed.
“That’s what makes it more fun,” Reaver said grinning and it was a grin that was echoed on a few faces, Thirteen’s and Revelator’s among them.
“Seriously not the time to get cocky,” I derided. “These people mean business… seventeen years, one post on the internet and they were there inside twenty-four hours loaded for bear. What does that tell you?”
“Tells me neutral location with plenty of high ground,” Ghost said and exchanged a look with Trigger who nodded.
“Controlled explosions,” Thirteen said, and someone laughed.
“That leaves me out, you’d need Duracell for the controlled part.” I looked over to Lucky who was grinning but shaking his head a bit ruefully. That wasn’t disconcerting at all, the guy named Lucky playing with explosives that weren’t controlled.
“Eh, I’m sure your homemade brand of firepower has its uses; I bet I could help tweak them so they’d color inside the lines,” Thirteen, said.
“Where, though?” Lucky said.
“The lodge?” Archer asked.
“Too far and it's tourist season through there,” Dray said. “Plus, we really try not to shit where we eat.”
“Got my fishing cabin, but there are neighbors up that way,” Thirteen mused.
“Here?” I asked.
“Could make it defensible and it’s pretty much off the grid,” Dragon said.
“I could be bait. I’d like my gun back, though...” I said.
“Won’t need you for bait, baby,” Kyle said, and he sounded disapproving.
“Well, you sure as fuck aren’t going to be here for the big show and not have me here. Fuck that!”
“Uh oh, trouble in paradise,” Revelator mocked, and Kyle and I turned at the same time.
“Shut up!”
“Stay out of this please, Rev…” we both barked in unison. I’ll give you one guess as to who was nicer.
“Look,” I said, “I am a big fucking problem for y’all, and I would really like to be part of the solution. So if you don’t mind, this self-saving princess would really like to be a part of the action up to find out who the fuck I killed and why he’s so goddamned important. It’s not like that hasn’t been haunting me for the last seventeen years.”
“All right, all right, calm your tits…” Dray said pushing his hand down at me in front of him twice, the classic sign to slow down and pump the brakes.
“She has a point, son.” Dragon sighed and met my eyes, the dark, burning coal to his gaze considerably cooled. “Much as I hate to say it, they come lookin’ they’re apt to scout this place and they’re gonna want to see she’s here…”
“Great,” Kyle muttered and hung his head sharply. He pulled on the back of his neck and I drifted to him, digging my thumbs into his shoulders at the base of his neck, doing my best to smooth out the tension there.
“We need to come up with some kind of a plan, figure out who is gonna be involved, who is going to look after things back at the proverbial ranch… Shit.” Archer hung his head and I felt my breath still in my lungs, my chest tighten up.
“Mali, it’s fine, they’re going to help, ease up.” I startled and let go of Kyle and he turned in his desk chair and pulled me down into his lap to make eye contact with me.
“Trust me…” he said and I nodded because whenever had I not? He was my compass, and he’d absolutely never steered me wrong.
“Right… I think we can all make an exception on a kind of she’s here and we’re stuck with her for now?” Dragon winked and I frowned at him. The rest of the guys grumbled their assent. He nodded and said, “Okay, we’ll put it to a vote.”
14
Data…
It wasn’t as simple as just putting it to a vote and me plugging Mali’s laptop in and sending out a signal, hoping they’d bite. No, we had shit to do and it all started with a division of labor.
We had two snipers in Trigger and Ghost, more effective together but in this case, it was a luxury we couldn’t afford. Not with so many wives and kids’ lives on the line. Trigger had no kids, so he would be staying here to pick a few of the bastards off that would more than likely be coming. No one here would be wearing cuts, either, to give any that might get away any ideas.
Still, as a precaution, Ghost would be stationed up on the roof of the club, which was going into lockdown until further notice. He would have Revelator, Blue, and Nox on the ground and Disney manning my club control center, watching the cameras and tripping and sounding the alarm if anything came near the fenceline. Dray would remain at the club and be in charge of operations there while Dragon was out here with us.
Speaking of out here, we had the majority of our firepower. Trigger would be out there, likely on some high ground inside a half mile radius, so he would be safe no matter what. Mali and I would be in here, eyes on the cameras and running central. Archer was out there with some of his more impressive bows, a silent killer from a distance. Reaver would be prowling around out there in the same capacity.
Red-Thirteen and Lucky were working up some explosives. Thirteen had struck up a pretty solid buddy system with Cell in the year before Cell had died and had been learning from him. Sort of a natural evolution of things seeing as his ol’ lady, Dani, was fast and solid friends with Cell’s partner, Blue. I digress, though.
Dragon, of course, would be in here. Our general, giving orders; and Zeb would be our first line of defense along with Rush. Of course, if the bad guys got that far, we were in serious trouble. Still, we wanted at least one, maybe two survivors.
It was a busy day after church which, it was both weird and fantastic having Mali by my side for it, to see how the guys really were. Not just the jaded and guarded fronts they put up. She’d sat in my lap, toes pressed against the cement beneath us, idly and nervously pushing us back and forth as she listened. Her expression was both guarded and full of open curiosity. She was street-wise enough to know she didn’t belong here and that what she was witnessing was rare. It was a mark of how much my brothers trusted me that none of them blinked or raised any concerns about plotting this much illegal activity in front of her.
I trusted her implicitly and that was good enough for them, even after me keeping her a secret for as long as I had been. I think that was saying something.
“Right, you all know yer jobs. Go to it. Data, I’m afraid yer gonna have to go to the club and check things over, run Disney through his paces and make sure he’s got it. Anything pertaining to this little pow-wow we’ve had here needs to go over burner not yer regular lines.”
Mali got up off my lap slowly saying, “I’ll just stay here then.”
“Yeah, you will, but not by yer self.”
“I’ll stay,” Trigger said. “Need to make sure you aren’t gonna accidentally blow somebody’s balls off with this.”
He brought out Mali’s father’s gun and she nearly jumped, stopping herself at the last second from lunging for it. She tried to be cool but I could tell it was the
last thing she had of her dad’s and she wanted it back, badly.
“Go on and put your boots on, baby. I’m probably going to be a while,” I murmured.
She looked back at me and I could tell that she didn’t want me to go, but I could also tell that she was going to be brave and let me do what needed doing, too. It was the way Mali was, never showing weakness, never showing any kind of vulnerability in front of anyone… except me.
I don’t know what had made me her chosen one, way, way, back… but it was a duty that I took seriously. I took it just as seriously today as I did the first moment I realized that she looked up to me, despite being almost a year older. God, we must have been what? Eight or nine? Just kids who didn’t know a fucking thing about how the real world worked. I couldn’t take care of her then, even though I tried. I couldn’t take care of her as a teen, even though I wanted to be her everything… but now we were neither of those things . I was a man and as the old line goes, it was time to put away childish things.
I’d never killed a man directly. I doubt that I would, even now… but I would start the game and then, if I had to, I would finish it. I had to. I just had to do it the best way I knew how and right now, that was this way. That was by entrusting her care to my brothers while I went to the club and got things set up to protect their families, their loved ones so that they could focus on protecting what was mine.
That was what this brotherhood was about. Give and take, protecting our own and knowing without a shadow of a doubt that the man next to you had your back; had your best interests at heart. That you could put your life, the life of everything you loved and held dear, into his hands and know that it was safe.
“You guys mind if I have a word with my girl before we hit the road?” I asked and a bunch of the guys shook their heads, some even started moving for the exit. Dragon gave me a look that told me not to take too long and I gave him a nod.
When they were all outside, and Mali and I had the illusion of privacy, I pulled her to me and covered her mouth with mine. Her arms twined around my neck unbidden and she leaned into me, holding her body in a tight press against me.