by Blair Grey
“Maybe she has another friend. A female one,” I suggested, even though I hated lying to him like that. There was no way I was going to tell him the truth, though.
It was nice to know he didn’t actually know what I was getting up to with Belle, though.
“It could be a female friend,” Ray agreed, nodding at me. “But if it was, why wouldn’t she tell me about her?”
That was a good point. I wished I could come up with some more plausible excuse, but I couldn’t think of one. “But you don’t have any idea who this guy might be?” I asked.
“No idea,” Ray said, frowning.
I couldn’t help grinning in relief, and I hurriedly tried to cover it with a joke. “So you don’t want me to kick the guy’s ass?”
“No,” Ray said, a hint of a smile on his face as well. “I know most of you guys think that I’ve been overprotective when it comes to Belle. Her friend Nicole certainly thinks that.” I had to laugh, thinking of petite Nicole standing up to Ray. She would do it, too; she had never been the kind of girl to hide what was on her mind. But it clearly hadn’t made Ray any more relaxed when it came to his daughter’s curfew.
“I know,” Ray said, rolling his eyes but also looking amused. “I don’t know who this man is, but I also know it’s about time that Belle started to bend the rules a little bit. And to her credit, she still comes home most nights, except for one, when she tells me she stayed over at Nicole’s.”
“So what do you want me to do?”
Ray shrugged. “I know it’s a lot to ask, but I want you to keep an eye on her. I just want to know who this guy is, and if Belle isn’t going to come forward and tell me, I have to wonder if maybe I wouldn’t approve of him.” He paused. “Whoever it is, he’d better be worthy of her attention.”
The last part was almost a growl, and I swallowed hard. “You know there’s no one good enough for her,” I said weakly.
“I just want to know who the guy is,” Ray said flatly. “You can find that out, can’t you?”
“Yeah, I’ll keep an eye out,” I said. Inside, though, all I could think was fuck. He was basically asking me to spy on myself and then fess up about it. And as for that bit about being worthy for her, well, we all knew Belle could do better than me. What did I have to offer her?
Suddenly, there was a knock at the front door. Ray frowned.
“What,” I joked, “did you think I was going to say no? Is that the backup plan?”
Ray rolled his eyes and went to answer the door. I followed him, guessing it was probably time for me to get out of there anyway. To my surprise, Marcus was there. He gave me a curious look but turned his attention to Ray. “You’ve got to come to headquarters,” he said immediately.
“What’s wrong?” Ray asked, already grabbing his keys.
“You should see for yourself,” Marcus said grimly. “It’s pretty bad.”
Ray swore under his breath. I couldn’t figure out what Marcus could possibly have seen at headquarters unless it was something like Lex had unexpectedly shown up there and demanded a meeting. But that didn’t seem like something the leader of the Unknowns would do, not after our previous meeting. He would want us to meet on his ground again, I was sure. He wouldn’t want to give us any more advantage than we already had.
Marcus and I followed after Ray toward headquarters. I gave him a quizzical look, but he just shook his head sharply. I guess I’d see for myself at the same time that Ray did.
But Marcus had questions of his own. He caught my elbow and slowed us down, putting more distance between Ray and us, his eyes still on the MC president. “What the hell were you doing over there anyway?” he asked. “What’s Ray planning?”
“I don’t know,” I said, shrugging. I paused, wondering how much I should tell him. Ray had clearly asked me to meet him at his house because he didn’t want everyone knowing his control over Belle might be slipping. But Marcus wasn’t the kind of guy to blab this around. I glanced at Ray and shrugged again. “Ray thinks Belle might have a boyfriend. He just asked me to find out who.”
Marcus stared disbelievingly at me for a moment, then laughed and let go of my arm. “That’ll be the day,” he said. “Don’t you think everyone in the whole goddamned city would be talking about it if that was the case? Everyone knows who she is and who her father is.” Marcus paused. “Props to the guy, too, whoever he is. He’s got some pretty serious balls if he really is dating Belle. Ray’ll kill him.”
I grinned at him, but I knew it didn’t reach my eyes.
“So what did you say, anyway?” Marcus asked. “Are you the princess’s new watchdog?”
“Of course I said I’d figure it out,” I said, rolling my eyes. “No one tells Ray no. Least of all me.”
Marcus shrugged, not looking at me. “If he’d asked me, I might have said it was about time that the girl grew up and had a little fun.” He grinned, all teeth. “But I guess that’s why he didn’t ask me.”
Fuck, did Marcus know about Belle and me? He had suspected I had a thing for her; that had been obvious. Had he connected the dots? Maybe he had seen her that night at the bar. Maybe that was why he had made his exit when he did.
No, I had to stop thinking like that. But I lengthened my strides a little, catching up to Ray and effectively ending the conversation about Belle. I almost wanted to tell Marcus about it, that was the thing. I didn’t think he would rat me out to Ray, and it would be good to have someone I could admit this to. But that was probably a terrible idea, especially with Ray right there.
Especially with Ray asking me a personal favor to keep an eye out for his daughter.
When we reached the clubhouse, it was immediately obvious what Marcus had come to get us for. The place had been broken into; the lock on the front door was broken, as were a couple of the windows, and the door was left swinging in a slight breeze. It wasn’t like this alley was very busy, so probably no one had noticed, but it still looked pretty bad. If anyone knew that this was our clubhouse and they saw that it had been broken into, they’d have to wonder if we were losing our hold on the area.
It would be terrible if word about this got out to any of the local businesses. They might refuse to pay up, thinking that they didn’t need us anymore. They might go to the Unknowns next month instead.
“Is there anyone inside?” Ray immediately asked Marcus.
“I didn’t go in,” Marcus admitted. “I thought it was probably best if we checked it out together. I just came by to grab my phone charger; I left it in here the other day, and I can’t find my other one.”
“Good. I’m glad you waited for us,” Ray said. He glanced at the two of us. “Any sign of anyone in there, we all get out,” he said firmly. “The last thing I need is any sort of injury to us. I want to regroup and figure things out before it comes to violence. Figure out who did this and what they wanted.”
“We’re not getting out before kicking their asses, whoever they are,” Marcus growled. “If they’re in there, they’re going to pay for this.”
“No,” Ray said sharply. “Marcus, so help me god, if you don’t listen to me…” He trailed off, leaving the threat hanging in the air.
It made me wonder what Ray might do to Marcus. The club’s president was older and more experienced, but Marcus was definitely bigger and more willing to be violent. Not that I thought Marcus would attack Ray, or even directly go against his orders. Nor did I think Ray would hold off in punishing Marcus if he thought he needed to make an example of the man.
“Fine,” Marcus finally said through gritted teeth.
We walked inside. “Shit,” I said under my breath. The whole place had been ransacked. Everything was gone, even the dirty couch that had been there from before we’d taken the place over. What was left was broken. Glass littered the floor, and Ray kicked at it. It wasn’t all from windows, either. Clearly, there had been bottles shattered on the floor. Whoever came here didn’t just want to strip the place bare. They wanted to make sure it would ta
ke some real effort for us to put the place back together.
And they had also had plenty of time to do whatever they wanted to do. We had an alarm on the building, I knew, something that would alert Ray if someone was in there after hours. Whoever had come in here had managed to disable it, somehow. I thought back to Lex and his goonies. Were any of them smart enough to have done that?
Or was it possible they had someone on the inside helping them out? I glanced over at Marcus. He had been able to get a lot of information about the Unknowns, without seeming to work very hard for it. Who were his informants?
Not that I suspected Marcus was two-timing Ray. I trusted everyone in Red Eyes. I just didn’t know how far along the chain to trust people. Maybe someone at the alarm company had given us up, or maybe this was the police all along, rather than the Unknowns.
Whoever it was, Ray didn’t seem very surprised at the state of the place. It seemed almost as though he had been expecting this to happen at some point.
And maybe he had been. He was always after us about getting too complacent. He expected threats to come up. He had formed Red Eyes and built it up into the powerful MC it was today. But he had to know it wouldn’t last forever without being challenged. That eventually someone was going to show up and try to lay claim to our territory.
Ray started down the hall toward his office. Marcus and I followed. His desk had been reduced to a pile of kindling on the floor. Same as with the other room, there were hardly even pieces of anything left in there. The safe that had been in the wall behind the desk was gone, chiseled right out of the stone.
I had never seen Ray look more silently deadly. “We’re going to find whoever did this,” he finally said, his voice dangerous and dark. No word of how much money had been in the safe or whatever else the thieves might have taken. I supposed he’d probably leave that for Cameron to tell everyone at the next meeting. He shook his head. “For now, we’ll start meeting at my house.”
“We know who did this,” Marcus said angrily. “It’s those fucking Unknowns. You know that.”
“We don’t know that,” Ray said, shaking his head.
“Who the hell else could it be?” Marcus snapped. “Do you know about some other MC moving in on our territory?”
Ray gave him a mild look, and I put a hand on Marcus’s shoulder, warning him to calm down before he said something he’d regret. The last thing we needed was a fight between him and Ray. “We should get out of here before anyone comes sniffing around.”
“Jesus fuck,” Marcus muttered under his breath, but he refrained from saying anything else. I held him back as Ray walked out of there, though. Finally, his shoulders relaxed a little, the tension going out of him, but I could tell he was still bitter and upset. “Can you believe him?” he asked, gesturing after Ray’s retreating footsteps.
I shrugged, not wanting to get in the middle of it, but I was in the middle of it whether I wanted to be or not; I could tell. “He just wants to regroup and figure things out for sure,” I said. “That’s smart. Every little bit of information helps.”
“Oh, does it?” Marcus sneered.
I held up both hands. “Look, I don’t want to fight with you, man. But if we’d had a little more information, we might have known how many people they had waiting for us at that meeting where Ray and I nearly got our asses kicked.”
Marcus snorted. “Bullshit,” he said. “We knew they weren’t going to play fair. Yet another folly of Ray’s was walking into that without backup. We knew exactly what they were going to do.”
I stared at him for a long minute. “So what are you saying? You want to beat Ray up and take over Red Eyes for yourself?”
“Of course not,” Marcus said sharply. Finally, he sighed and looked away. He looked around the room in disgust. “Whoever did this, they’re in for a lot more than an ass-kicking,” he said.
“Do you really think it was the Unknowns?” I asked. I shook my head. “I just can’t believe they would be this dumb. And beyond that, I’m surprised they would be so daring as to come here, onto our territory. I thought that was the point of them making us meet them out in the boonies before."
They had to know exactly what they were dealing with. The whole plan had been cunning. We had never suspected it. I wondered if this was what Ray had meant about becoming complacent. We had figured that with that alarm system rigged up, there would never be a problem here. There hadn’t been anyone looking out for the place.
I just hoped there hadn’t been too much in that safe.
“They knew we wouldn’t be here last night, though,” Marcus pointed out. “They weren’t coming here to meet us on our territory. What fucking cowards. They’re just being obnoxious, more than anything else.”
I shrugged, agreeing without agreeing. I still wasn’t convinced. It could have been anyone; it wasn’t like we hadn’t pissed off enough people. Hell, this could even have been a police raid. They might be thinking we’d started getting too bold, and they wanted to show us a lesson to remind us who was really in charge. It could have been anyone.
What’s more, this wasn’t just obnoxious. This had the power to really ruin our claim to our territory here. I knew that Marcus understood that in some part of his mind, but he’d never been a strategist. He was all about action and reaction; he wasn’t really thinking about why they would want to be “obnoxious” to us.
I didn’t know how much money they had stolen or if that was the main reason they’d come here. But if any of the local businesses found out that we couldn’t even protect our own clubhouse, let alone the rest of our territory, there would be mutiny. No one was going to pay for protection from an MC that couldn’t even defend itself.
“I’m sure the Unknowns would love to tell us all about who did this, if we just asked them,” Marcus growled. “I’ve got leads on a few of them. I’m sure we could find one or two of them. Ones who might be willing to talk to us.”
I knew he didn’t really mean he wanted to ask them, though. No, he wanted to beat the information out of them. He was still thinking with his fists, first and foremost. I just hoped he didn’t do anything brash.
Ray didn’t need another of his trusted club members stabbing him in the back like I had done.
Not that I had stirred things up with another club. Not that I had gone against Ray’s express word. But then again, that was because Ray had never thought he had to spell out, in so many words, the fact that I wasn’t allowed to sleep with his daughter. He had trusted us all; he had thought she was safe with us.
Marcus couldn’t do anything half as terrible as what I had done. My stomach twisted just thinking about that.
I didn’t know how I felt about the idea of meeting at Ray’s house for meetings. Would I run into Belle there? What would I do if I did? I’d always been good at hiding my affection for her from the rest of the guys, but I wasn’t so sure I’d be able to anymore. And what the hell would Ray do to me if he caught me, if he finally connected the dots, while we were there in his house, with all the guys standing witness?
There was no way this could end well. But I supposed I had known that before I had ever started it.
22
Belle
Our Sunday brunch rush finally ended around one, and I took a much-needed breather, leaning against the counter. I surveyed the place, my mind half-convinced there must be something I had missed, some table that needed to be cleared or someone who was waiting for their drink or check. But no, it really was dying down. I sighed in relief.
“What a busy day, huh?” Nicole asked from over by the cash register where she was ringing up someone in her section. She bounced over to hand them the bill and then came back to stand next to me, surveying her section the same way I had surveyed mine. She shook her head. “Whew!”
“So what are you doing in here anyway?” I finally asked. I’d been wondering all day, but I hadn’t had the chance to get in a word about anything other than today’s specials and the unseasonably cool
weather. “You don’t usually work Sundays; it cramps your style on Saturday night, doesn’t it?”
Nicole laughed, retying her ponytail. “Megan asked if she could switch with me, and I knew you’d be working, so I gave her my other shift, the one where I’d be stuck with Hannah all day. Not that I have anything against Hannah, of course. But I’d rather work with you. And as for my Saturday-night style, the guy I’m dating right now works on Saturday nights.”
I raised an eyebrow at her. “When has something like that ever stopped you before? I mean, aren’t you the one who always says it doesn’t count if he’s just buying you drinks at the bar?” She was the biggest flirt I had ever met, whether she was already in a relationship or not. I knew she liked the attention, and part of me was jealous of her for it.
She was good with guys, in a way that I could never hope to be. She laughed and charmed them all, and she was one hundred percent at ease. If any of her boyfriends got mad about it, she just shrugged and laughed, like it was no big deal. And if they broke up with her over it, she claimed she’d never liked the jealous type anyway. Then, she’d move on to someone else.
“This one’s different,” Nicole said with a shrug. “He’s a doctor. And I don’t know; he just makes me want to challenge myself to get out of my comfort zone. Like I should read a book or something.”
It was my turn to laugh. “Oh Nicole,” I said, shaking my head. I couldn’t imagine her spending her Saturday nights reading books. But it also wasn’t the first time I’d seen her try to change herself to be the girl that she thought her current fling wanted her to be, usually someone smarter and more cultured than she thought she was.
“What about you anyway?” Nicole asked. “How’s your guy situation going?”
“I don’t have a guy situation,” I said, but I couldn’t keep from grinning.
Nicole shook an admonishing finger at me. “Don’t even try to lie,” she said. “I totally know the truth.”
“Okay, okay!” I shrugged. “We’ve just slept together a couple times, that’s all. It’s not like we can put a label on it or anything. We’re not dating. My dad would kill me if we were.”