by A. J. Downey
I opened the door and the two men were waiting on the other side. I let Thirteen help me back to bed.
“You hungry?” the doctor asked.
“Starving, actually.”
“You two talk. I’ll fix you some soup, then I gotta get out of here.”
I frowned, “How long have you been here?” I asked.
“Found you two days ago,” Thirteen said softly. The doctor went out into my kitchen.
“Pig?” I asked fearfully.
“I been keeping him updated but he hasn’t felt the need to stop by.” His green eyes cooled and turned more stormy blue and I nodded carefully.
“Who is he?” I asked quietly.
“A friend,” he answered simply. I gave him a look and he laughed softly, but then his face grew solemn. “I know you’re a smart girl, Rocket. Which is why I can’t figure how you got here.”
“Don’t change the subject,” I said softly and stared at my hands, which were folded in my lap. He tipped a finger beneath my chin and lifted my gaze to his.
“It’s really better if you don’t know. Sometimes ignorance is bliss, same reason why you told me not to tell you my last name.” I nodded. If I didn’t know, then Pig couldn’t beat it out of me. He would be safe. Still, I had my suspicions, which could be just as dangerous in some ways.
We were silent for a time and he gave me my space, sitting near me but not too close. I didn’t quite understand why that bothered me. Usually I didn’t want anyone anywhere near me, but there was something different about Thirteen.
“How about you answer my question?” he said, but his voice was kind. Soothing, even.
“What question? I didn’t hear a question.” It was his turn to give me a look that screamed ‘don’t patronize me’ and I gave a weak smile.
“It was around three years ago. I was nineteen, about twenty, and my granddad had died. I was alone except for my boyfriend, Jared. He got mixed up with some guys and a friend of his introduced him to a friend of his who was a Suicide King, and he started hanging around them.” I took as deep a breath as I could, which admittedly wasn’t much. I coughed, and it hurt, and I grimaced. Thirteen handed me a glass of water from the bedside table but he was waiting me out, patiently.
“One night he comes home wearing a prospect’s cut and tells me I have to come out with him; that the guys wanted to meet me.” Thirteen’s brows drew down into a scowl and I rushed through the whole horrible ordeal. By the time I was through he’d had to take the glass of water from me, my hands were shaking so badly. He sighed and I could see the struggle on his face. Finally one side won out and he pulled me against him, tucking my head beneath his chin. I stiffened.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m holding you, Babe. You look like you need it,” he murmured. I tugged back from him and he immediately let me go. I couldn’t remember a time that ever happened. I stared at my hands for a long time and he stood with a sigh.
“Here we go,” the doctor said from the doorway. He brought in a tray with a bowl of soup and some crackers on it. Chicken noodle. I smiled a bittersweet little smile.
“You’re a doctor… any scientific proof to the whole chicken soup thing?” I asked and coughed. He smiled and set the tray in my lap.
“Empirical data suggests that it is indeed good for the soul,” he said and I laughed a little. He took out my IV after giving me a final dose of antibiotics through it, then set out an orange bottle of pills on the table beside me.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“More antibiotics. Three times a day. Morning, mid, and night. You should be fine in seven to ten days. If you’re not all better, have R.T. here call me.”
I frowned, “R.T.?” I asked.
Thirteen, who had taken up the doctor’s place at my bedroom door, smiled, “Red-Thirteen. It’s what I been called since I was a kid. People usually shorten it somehow. Red, usually, but if there’s another ‘Red’ around I get tagged with Thirteen or just R.T.”
“Oh, I guess I’m just used to the guys calling you Thirteen or Pretty-boy.” The doctor arched a brow.
“Pretty-boy huh? I’m gonna have to remember that one,” he chuckled, “Time for me to get going. You take care of yourself, Rocket,” he said.
“Dani. My name is Dani,” I said and the doctor smiled.
“Dani,” he repeated, nodded, and slipped out the bedroom door. Thirteen saw him out of my apartment and came back to sit on the foot of my bed while I ate.
“Hope you don’t mind. I used your washer and dryer while you were out cold.” I shook my head and took the spoon out of my mouth, swallowing the soup, which was perfect. The good kind you got in the plastic tubs at the grocery store, full of big noodles, carrots, and celery.
“Why did you come here, anyways?” I asked before taking another bite. He smoothed a hand over the blankets covering my foot and shin, massaging my foot through the covers absently.
“Pig-Pen sent me over here.” He got up and came back with a Crown Royal bag and I held out my hand for it excitedly. I know it was wrong, that these things had been stolen from their rightful owners; but still, my ability to create, to make things the way my grandfather had taught me, that was mine and the only small source of joy I really had left.
“What is all this stuff?” he asked me, holding the bag out of reach. I tried to set the tray and soup aside and he held the bag up and said, “Ah, ah, ah eat your soup and then you get the goods.” His green-blue eyes held a sparkle of mischief and I settled back, nodding, and ate the rest of my soup and the crackers, which was good. The salt sort of burned my lips where they were cracked and I took a drink of water from the glass on the bedside table. He set the stolen jewelry pieces on the nightstand and took the bowl and spoon to the kitchen, knowingly leaving the tray behind. When he came back I was already sorting through pieces.
“There’s a workbench in the living room, I know you’ve seen it. If you bring me the jeweler’s loop from it, I’ll tell you what this is about. But you have to swear to me Thirteen! You have to promise you won’t tell Pig I told you anything!” He roved my face with troubled eyes and nodded.
When he came back with the loop in his hand, he wore a heather gray tee shirt. I was surprised to find that his putting on a shirt actually disappointed me a little. I was even more surprised to find that I had rather been enjoying the view of his body. I pushed those thoughts away and held out my hand for the loop. He went to hand it to me, but pulled it back at the last second.
“Explain.” He raised his red-gold eyebrows and retook his seat at the foot of my bed. I set the ring in my fingers down on the tray.
“The club runs and sells drugs,” I said, and I could see that he already knew that. There was no surprise on his face. “My grandfather was Philip Broussard.” That did raise his eyebrows. I frowned, “You know the name?”
“I’m not blind, Rocket. It’s the name on the jewelry storefront downstairs.”
I blushed. “Um, right… anyways, my dad couldn’t take care of me. My mom, either. Drugs, apparently, and so when I was two I ended up in the care of my grand-père.” He smiled at the French pronunciation. “He was a custom jeweler from France, it was a family thing; his father’s father taught his father and so on down the line. My grand-père wanted to teach my father, but my father… I don’t really know what happened there.” Which wasn’t exactly true, it was just something I really didn’t want to go into, and wasn’t part of this story.
“Anyways, my grand-père taught me everything he knew and when he died, I inherited all of his tools and his workshop and everything in it. A few months after Pig-Pen claimed me it became apparent that I was only going to be kept around until he got bored with me, and that I had better be of some sort of other value after that point came or I was going to die or be passed around. I didn’t want either of those things so I sold a piece of my soul and made a deal with the Devil himself.” I bit my lips together.
“No judgments he
re, Baby. You did what you had to do.” He said, and that reassuring touch was back. Hand gripping the top of my foot with a gentle, even pressure, stroking up my shin halfway to the knee and back down. Up and down, up and down… I closed my eyes and just let myself enjoy it for a fraction of a second before letting my breath out slowly.
“The club had most of East County hooked on their shit and the more people become addicted, the less reliable they are with the cash flow… pretty soon people were stealing shit to pay for their drugs and were trying to barter with everything from electronics to jewelry. Sparks was livid when some of the younger club members and dealers started showing up with the jewels. Said that he couldn’t pawn this shit without it being traced back to the club and it was worthless, and by then Pig was getting restless with me, so I told him about what I could do.” I looked at him a little hopelessly.
“I knew people were being hurt, that some of the pieces that were showing up were priceless or family heirlooms… But I was scared, and I didn’t want to die or to disappear, and I thought it was better the devil you know. You know?” I sniffed and he nodded, “So I told Pig-Pen that if they gave me the jewelry, that I could take it and melt it down, make new pieces and reset stones so that it could be sold on the internet or pawned and no one would be the wiser that it was stolen.”
It became more than a means of survival though. It became mine. They didn’t care what I made as long as it sold, and made the club money. So I could design my own stuff and it became a way to escape this bullshit for a little while. Something that they couldn’t touch, that they couldn’t spoil or take away from me.
“Pig told Griz, made it sound like it was all his idea. Griz told Sparks and Sparks liked it, so the jewelry started coming to me. I’ve been doing it ever since. They don’t really care what Pig does to me as long as I keep producing. I threatened to stop once.” I shuddered, “I’ll never do that again.” That had been the one and only time that Pig-Pen had let the brothers have their turn at me, after I’d said I would stop, tried to run. I’d made sure to behave ever since, there were no more brave proclamations. I never wanted to pull a train ever again. It had been a nightmare and taken me a long time to recover. Truthfully I couldn’t say on if I were really fully recovered. Some damage couldn’t be repaired.
Thirteen looked me over and picked up my hand where it rested on my tray. He pressed the jeweler’s loop into my hand and said softly, “I’m sorry all of this has happened to you. I never would have kept it from you, not even teasing, if I’d known.” He sighed a broken down and weary sigh, and I knew just how he felt.
“You’re a beautiful woman, Dani, and you deserve so much better than any of this.” I looked at him sharply.
“Don’t you ever let any of them hear you talk like that!” I held my breath and willed him with all the strength that I had left, to promise me. He stared at me, his blue-green eyes, more blue right now, searching my face. He’d gone very still, his expression unreadable, and finally he straightened as if a decision had been made.
“You don’t gotta worry about that,” he said, “It’s just you and me here for now. I think I can buy you a couple of days more to recover, then I just need you to keep doing what you’re doing for a little while longer.” He pursed his lips, and nodded with finality before getting to his feet. He bent at the waist and before I knew what he was going to do, he pressed his lips to the top of my head.
“Just hang in there, Rocket,” he murmured into my hair. I closed my eyes, his breath was warm against my scalp as he spoke and it sent a rolling rush of pleasant tingling down the back of my neck and shoulders. I swallowed hard and nodded, confused. It was like something had flipped the prospect’s switch and I didn’t know if that was a good or bad thing.
I knew with absolute certainty, though, there was more to Thirteen than met the eye. I’d been watching men scheme and play each other against one another for a really long time and Thirteen had that feel to him. He had another feel too, though. Thirteen was dangerous. I could see it in the way he moved around the apartment and in the way he took everything in. I just couldn’t decide if he was going to be dangerous to me or not and so for now, I simply and wisely kept my mouth shut.
Chapter 7
Red-XIII…
I didn’t know exactly what it was about Rocket, but the girl flipped just about every switch into the ‘on’ position where my protective instincts were concerned. The more I learned about her, the more I simply just liked her. She was as smart as I thought she was from the beginning, maybe even more so. She adapted pretty quickly and the thing that got me about her was just how fucking selfless she was, even in the face of all she’d been through.
The girl, for all the fear she held inside, was incredibly brave. After all was said and done, for her to fucking warn me about not being overheard saying anything kind? Damn. She was incredible… and speaking of adapting, I needed to do some of my own because my mission of destruction had suddenly become a mission of mercy, too. I had to figure out a way to not only take out the Suicide Kings, but I had to do it in such a way that there would be minimal blowback on Rocket while I was at it. I wasn’t sure how I was going to do that.
Losing Axe and Corbin had lit a rather substantial fire under The Suicide Kings’ asses and the more their members started dropping like flies, the more unglued the council was going to become; and Pig-Pen had already proven that he wasn’t above using Dani as his whipping boy – er – girl, as an outlet for his anger and frustrations. The problem was, she was right. I couldn’t care, I couldn’t put myself in front of her and act as a meat shield without drawing suspicion onto my self and exposing my ulterior motives.
I was sitting with Rocket as she ate another bowl of soup when Pig finally decided to show up to check on his woman. The front door to her place just opened and he walked in like he owned the place which, seeing as he thought he owned her, shouldn’t have come as a surprise. It shouldn’t have surprised me either that he had a fucking key, but I’d been so absorbed in keeping her alive it’d slipped past me. So when I heard the door open, I automatically went for my gun and had it pointed when Pig-Pen appeared in the door.
“The fuck you doin’?” he demanded.
“Sorry, Man.” I pointed the Beretta skyward, “Didn’t expect you; after Axe and Corbin can you blame me for being jumpy?” I raised my eyebrows and put up my gun, tucking it into the back of my waistband. His expression crushed down into a scowl.
“I don’t check in with you, you check in with me. Don’t you forget it, either.” He turned to Dani, who was still pale and wan and looked like ever-loving shit.
“You finish it yet?” he demanded. She nodded her head rapidly flinching back from his looming presence.
“Yeah, Man, it’s out here.” I got up and put myself between them, subtle enough to keep Pig’s hackles from going up but enough to cause some of the fear and tension to ease from the set of Dani’s shoulders. “You done?” I asked her. She nodded and lifted the tray from her lap feebly. I looked to Pig and jerked my head toward the door.
“Might not want to get too close, my guy said she could still be contagious through the end of the week.” Which was total fucking bullshit and anyone with half a brain would know that, but I was betting the only person in the club that would tell Pig to his face that he’d been had, let alone laugh at him, was Griz. All the rest of them were either afraid of his temper or would keep their laughter to themselves so they could get off on it behind his back later.
Dani’s eyes went real wide and Pig made a disgusted noise and ducked back out into the hallway. I dropped the tray in the kitchen and went to the workbench. I picked up the ring she had finished that day, a gold band in the shape of a crown. She’d needed one last diamond for it and had found the perfect sized one with the right cut in amongst the latest lot of jewelry I’d brought her.
I hadn’t wanted her working, but she promised all she needed to do was set the one stone and polish the ring and she’d
be done, and she’d done exactly that. It still had taken her some time though. The girl was absolutely precise and the result of her effort sat, stunning, gleaming softly in the palm of my hand as I held it out to Pig. He picked it up and held it up in front of his face, squinting at it. He smiled and gave a nod then fixed me with a hard look.
“You sleeping with her?” he demanded, narrowing his eyes. Yes. But I was only sleeping, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell him that.
I blinked, put my thumbs through my belt loops in the front of my pants, and gave the Suicide Kings’ VP a hard look. The thing about most MCs, when they got a prospect, they look for certain traits. Loyalty, an ability to keep their fucking mouths shut, a willingness to learn, and a certain level of badass are all looked upon favorably. When it came to The Suicide Kings, if it was one thing I’d picked up on quickly, was that they prized a certain level of servitude. The guys they brought in tended to be followers. Easily cowed to a certain extent. Non-threats to the upper echelon of the club’s hierarchy, which was total bullshit and made for a weak ass club.
I could see that I was being tested here but I wasn’t one hundred percent on what exactly Pig was looking for. It was always hard to tell, especially when you were dealing with a dude who was using as much as him. I postured myself with that level of badass, nonchalantly, like I didn’t give two fucks, my body language screaming sure, all right, you wanna throw down? I’ll throw down. But I schooled my expression into lines of worry and picked my words carefully.
“Naw, man! I been out here the whole time.” I gestured to the couch, which was still made up from when Doc was sleeping on it. I’d been lucky. I had all kinds of excuses as to why Pig should have stayed away while Doc was here but I hadn’t had to use a single one of them. Pig really didn’t give two fucks about Dani except for her ability to generate him cash, make him look good to his club and his Pres., and for when he felt like fucking her. My reasons for wanting to bury this son of a bitch were growing exponentially by the hour, never mind by the fucking day.