“Yeah, he was caught up in it. But it’s not his fault. Ed didn’t know why you needed what you needed. Ed’s got a kid, seven-year-old boy. The Perros took the kid and held him so Ed wouldn’t warn you. And I know you thought Rick had a hand, but I’m confident he didn’t. Santaveria learned it from straight from you.”
He looked over at Dom, who laid a piece of electronic something or other on the table. “Bart and I found this this morning, before Hav’s memorial. We didn’t want to fuck up his service bringing it up first.”
“Talk to me, Dom.” By now, Isaac was all but growling.
“It’s a bug. It was sewn into the lining of the duffel they put our cash payments in on runs. It doesn’t transmit, just records to a flash—here. We give them the empty and pick up a full. We think there’s a device like this in every duffel.”
Len looked to the end of the room. There was a large cabinet against the far wall. In that cabinet was a heavy safe and several shelves where they stored things ranging from office supplies to boxes of ammunition. And the empty black duffel from weed run take.
Isaac was staring at the same wall. He looked back at Dom and Bart. “So you’re saying that we’ve been handing them all of our business on a fucking silver platter? That they’ve known all our moves from the go?”
“Yes.” Bart answered. “I found this on a sweep. I’m leaving the equipment. I called Hoosier, and he found one in our duffel, too. But we keep our empties in a storage room. Dom should sweep every day, and definitely before meetings. Thing is—it doesn’t transmit, so they don’t know you know. They won’t know that this here didn’t record until you hand it over on the next run. I think you can use that. You can record over this and misdirect them.”
Len had an uncomfortable feeling, and a more uncomfortable question. His heart started to race, his pulse throbbing in his empty eye. “Bart, then they know you gave us the intel to set up Halyard. We talked about that in this room. They know you acted against them. God, man, I hope there’s a good answer to this question, but how the fuck are you still breathing?”
“Riley being who she is gives me a little cover, but I had a hard week when all this went down.” He rolled the cuff of his right sleeve up from his wrist to above his elbow, showing the red, melted-looking flesh of a new burn scar on the inside of his arm, elbow to wrist, where his steel horse tattoo had been. “That was my punishment. I’m valuable to the cartel, though, and I’m sorry to say giving you that intel turned out to be useful to Santaveria, so he thinks I’ve been taught my lesson.”
“And have you?” That was Isaac, his brows drawn tight.
“I agree with you. The only way to keep our loved ones safe is to end the Perro Blanco cartel. But I think we need to think differently about alliances. The bigger the alliance, the more places it can break. So I have this to share with you: The Scorpions are fracturing. In LA we are taking the brunt of cartel shit. We take the huge bulk of the risk, and Sam and the mother charter take the bulk of the profit. We lost our SAA. Perros cut his throat while he stood next to Hoosier. Because he spat on the ground. Not an editorial comment. He just needed to spit. They took out a van full of Prospects because they didn’t move fast enough. Sam is not interested, and Hoosier is fucking sick of it. He had my back with the Halyard intel. That’s why my stomach doesn’t look like my arm—with the addition of about a dozen bullets. That’s why Riley and Lexi are safe. So I offer this on my President’s word: my club will ally with the Horde, even against the mother charter. And we are at the cartel source. So I think we don’t need Becker or anybody else. If we think like the bad guys, I think we can do it.”
Show shook his head. “How does an alliance of two clubs—that’s what, twenty people, tops?—two thousand miles apart even work?”
“Distance means nothing in the twenty-first century, Show. I’m not saying it’ll be easy. But I’m guessing that the Bulls and the ‘Farers are out. They have been cowed. Sam, too. Sam’s always been in Santaveria’s pocket. From years before. There’s only us.”
“You’re telling us to trust people beyond this room again, Bart. Don’t know if I can.”
Bart took a deep breath and let it out. Then he nodded. “I get it, Isaac. Offer’s open, though. You can’t take Santaveria on by yourself and win. I know you know that.”
“We need some time with this, Bart.” Show’s voice was quiet.
Bart nodded. Before he spoke again, he turned his eyes to Havoc’s empty chair. “When I left, you said you’d always have my back. I knew that was true. And I have yours. But it’s more than that. Hav was my best friend. He’s the reason I am—was—Horde. And they dumped his guts on the ground. So you better know that I want Santaveria’s head, too. There’s a lot I’d be willing to give up to collect on that.”
~oOo~
Shortly thereafter, Isaac ended the meeting, wrapping his hand around the mallet of the broken gavel that Show had handed back to him and striking it on the table. Bart left only a couple of hours after that, headed back to California. As the night quieted, Len sat alone at the bar, nursing a glass of Jack, until he felt a familiar, soft hand on his arm.
“Hey, Doc.” He caught her hand in his and brought it to his lips.
“How are you?”
He shrugged. “Lonely. Missed you. How’s Cory?”
Still holding hands, Tasha scooted onto the stool next to his. “Not good. We were hoping that finally saying goodbye would break her out of this fugue she’s in, but…”
“We just buried him today. Maybe it’s just now that she can start.”
“Maybe.”
“How about Nolan?”
She shook her head. “That boy is angry. And he’s worried about his mom. It’s weird, but I think Cory struggling so hard is keeping Nolan together. God, babe. Everything’s so torn apart.”
“Yeah.” He ran his thumb over her hand. Her skin was so silky compared to the grit of his. His thumb swept up her bare left ring finger. “Maybe we should tell people.”
“No. Not yet. It feels like it would be shorting Havoc. We should let people have their grief.”
He understood. He wasn’t sure he agreed, but he understood. And he would not challenge her. She had given him everything and asked only this. Restraint. It was a secret that rested easy on him. So little rested easy these days.
He kissed her hand again. His lips still on her soft skin, he murmured, “Come to bed with me.”
Without a word, she slid off the stool and led him down the dorm hallway, to the room that had been his, and now was theirs, until he could build them a proper home. The kind of home his wife deserved.
CHAPTER TWENTY
With his hand on the small of her back, Len ushered Tasha into their room and closed and locked the door behind them. She kicked her black pumps off and lifted her hands to the back of her neck, preparing to unfasten the hook at the top of her dress. Then she felt his hands, moving her hands away, bringing them to her sides. He unhooked her dress himself and slowly pulled the zipper down, pressing his lips to the nape of her neck. She dropped her head and took a deep breath, needing the calm of his love.
Things were different between them now, and not simply because they had gotten married, without fanfare or even notice, the week before. Things were different because Len was different. And because she was different. Fewer things mattered, and the things that did mattered more. Their lives—their life—had become smaller. Their need for each other had become greater.
Things were different now because Tasha was home, and because Len had come home to her.
He pushed her dress off her shoulders, and she shimmied her hips as it slid down her body and puddled at her feet. His calloused hands moved lightly down her arms, and then in, over her waist. “Your skin is like…I don’t know.” His voice came in low, almost too low to hear, like he wasn’t entirely aware he was speaking aloud. “It’s so soft and pale. I see my hand on your back, and fuck. I feel like I got no right to put that nasty paw on som
ething so perfect.”
She looked over her shoulder. “I love your hands on me. The roughness of your skin feels like…I don’t know, either. Like experience, I guess. It’s incredibly sexy.”
The back of his hand moved up her spine; she could feel the blunt chill of his silver rings. And then the soft pull as he unfastened her bra. Hooking a finger through each strap, he pulled it off her shoulders and down her arms.
His arms came around her waist and pulled her tightly against his chest. She sighed at the fierce love his embrace conveyed, and the sound came out like a wordless plea. He kissed her shoulder, his lips lingering there, and she brought her hand to his head, holding him where he was, tipping her head to rest on his. “I love you.”
“I will never get tired of those words in your mouth, Doc.”
Turning to him, Tasha put her arms around his neck and pulled him down to kiss her. He did, his mouth covering hers, possessing her. The slide of his tongue on hers made her heart race, and she moaned. With a grunt, he grabbed her ass and lifted her off the ground. He carried her to the bed and laid her down, looming over her. Then he pushed himself off the bed and stripped, staring down at her with one warm brown eye as he did so. She wriggled out of her panties while she waited for him to join her.
When he did, he lay over her at once, his hand coming up to cup her breast, his thumb moving with gentle roughness over her nipple, making her arch and moan with each sweep of skin over skin. He stared down at her, seeing all of her, into her, even with only half his sense of sight. She reached between their bodies and closed her hand around his cock, pulling him to her, into her. As she brought her legs up alongside his hips, he closed his eye and pushed deep. She gasped as he filled her, surging up to meet his first thrust.
Until Tasha had started the Pill, neither of them had had intercourse without a condom in years—so many years it was practically forever. They were exclusive now, fully and completely exclusive, and one of the great benefits of traditional monogamy, beside the encompassing and deeply satisfying sense of security Tasha had discovered in acknowledging not only her love for Len but also the real truth of his love for her, was unprotected sex. Skin on skin, everywhere. He was hot and thick and filled her completely, and there was just nothing she’d ever known that could compare with the scalding velvet steel of him inside her.
Thrusting forcefully into her, Len bent down and began to suckle her, his mouth moving in time to his hips, and Tasha grabbed his head to hold him where he was, her own hips moving in counterpoint, making his strokes even longer, deeper. She felt the thrill of his body inside and outside, her nerves singing to the strum and pluck of his cock and his mouth and his hands and his very weight on hers.
He groaned, his tongue vibrating against the tender flesh of her breast, sending sparks of heat through her blood, and she clutched his head hard—dislodging his eye patch. It slid off his shaved head, and he immediately pulled away from her, out of her. Then his hands were around her arm and over her hip, and he flipped her onto her stomach.
Catching her thigh in one hand and pulling her leg up, he pushed into her again, lying on her, his weight holding her still as he moved in her and on her. Every wet slide of his cock in the deepest part of her brought her higher, made her body need more. She tried to push up onto her elbows, seeking to be closer, or to move more with him, but he slid his arms under hers and brought her flat to the bed again.
His mouth was at her ear, and she could hear the staccato beat of his tortured breath as he brought them both closer to release. As he kept up his tempo, and increased it, he made an attempt to brush her hair from her face, and then she felt his lips on her cheek.
“God, baby—God, baby—God, baby—I—” His voice was strained, and he groaned and gave up the attempt to speak.
He rose up onto his hands and doubled his pace until she was crying “Yes, yes!” into the pillows over and over, and then her body clenched hard as pleasure flooded her.
As she drifted back into full awareness, her body twitching with each continued thrust, Len froze, a groan wrenching from his throat, and then relaxed all at once on top of her.
After a few minutes lying like that, their breathing moving in tandem as they reclaimed balance, Len kissed her shoulder and pulled slowly out of her, then turned to sit at the side of the bed. He snagged his eye patch from where it had lain discarded and put it back on.
Tasha rolled over and sat up, brushing her hand over his back and shoulder. His body was so scarred now. He had been so badly hurt. Every mark broke her heart. And made him more beautiful.
“I don’t understand why you try to hide that from me. I see it when you sleep. And, hon, I cleaned it. I treated it. I closed it. I know what it looks like.”
He shook his head but didn’t turn around. “Not then. Not when we’re…not then. I don’t want you thinking about that when I’m inside you.”
It wasn’t like him to be vain, but Tasha didn’t think it was vanity. She thought it was shame. “It doesn’t bother me. It doesn’t change how I feel about you. Or maybe it does. It makes me love you more.”
Now he turned, but said nothing.
“What you went through? What you survived? Your strength astounds me. I feel lucky. That you love me.”
Resettling himself to sit against the headboard, he pulled her close. “I feel lucky, too. How fucked up is that?”
~oOo~
Tasha woke to the chime of her phone, and she unwound herself from Len’s body and rolled to grab it before it woke him, too. She answered without looking at the caller, because she hadn’t yet opened her eyes.
“Hello.”
“Tash.” Shannon, her voice brittle and tense. “We need you here. Now. Right now.”
“Where here?” She opened her eyes and tried to clear the sleep from her head. It was deep dark, whatever time it was.
“Cory’s. She…Jesus. She cut her wrists.”
“Fuck! How much blood?”
“A lot. She did it right.”
“Call 911. I’m on my way, but if she needs a transfusion, we can’t fuck around. Call 911 right now. Tourniquets above the lacerations. Cut off the blood. I’ll be there in ten. Less if I can.”
She ended the call and jumped out of bed, grabbing a pair of sweats and a t-shirt out of the dresser.
Len sat up. “Doc? What?”
“Cory. She slit her wrists.” He was up and yanking his jeans on before she’d finished the sentence. “You don’t need to come, Len.”
“Yeah, I do. Come on. I’ll drive.”
~oOo~
Cory was unconscious and ghastly pale, lying on the floor of the master bathroom, wearing nothing but underwear and a t-shirt, both soaked in her blood. Shannon had tied scarves around her wrists to make tourniquets. By the look of the tub and the floor, Cory had been scant minutes from achieving her goal.
She had cut downward from her hand, one gash about five inches long down her left wrist, and a cut about half that length, but still deep, on the right. Two hesitation cuts on the right—Cory was right-handed and had made her first cut with her dominant hand.
She’d meant business. This was no cry for help.
“I need ice, and I need towels.” Len, standing in the doorway, nodded and turned. Tasha barked at Shannon, “How the fuck did this happen? This is why we were staying with her!”
“I know! I’m sorry! I was feeding Luke, and she’d been sleeping quietly—she’d taken two Valium, and I thought she was asleep. I checked on her as soon as I was able to get Luke back to sleep. I’m sorry!”
Len came back with a tall stack of towels and then left again; Tasha assumed he was going for ice. She asked Shannon, “Did you call 911?”
“Yes, and I called Lilli.”
“How did she get this done? We did a sweep.”
Shannon held up a tiny metal sliver, coated in blood. “She took apart a disposable razor.”
“Shit. She was not playing.” A thought dawned on Tasha. “Where�
��s Nolan?”
“He’s on one of his walkabouts. He doesn’t know.” Even though he’d almost died on one of his late-night walks, since Havoc’s death, it had been impossible to keep him inside at night, and they’d finally given up, after trying to talk to him about at least being safe. As safe as anybody in the Horde family could ever be.
Len was back with a bowl of ice, and Tasha had Shannon wet towels and made ice packs with them. They elevated Cory’s arms and bound the wounds with ice and terry cloth. Tasha checked her vitals—she was in shock.
“We need to try to get her conscious.” She dug into her kit and pulled out ammonia ampules. She cracked one and waved it under Cory’s nose. There was no reaction at first, but then Cory stirred slightly, a subtle twitch away from the powerful scent.
“Come on, honey. Come back. Come back. Your boys need you.” Cory’s eyes moved under her lids. “That’s a girl. Come on.”
There was fuss outside the door. Tasha looked over to see Len moving deeper into the bedroom, and then Lilli was in the doorway. Tasha had never seen that look on Lilli’s face before—rage and fear stirred up to violence. It scared her.
“STUPID FUCKING BITCH!! YOU STUPID, SELFISH FUCKING CUNT!! YOU BITCH!!”
Then Lilli was being dragged from the door by an arm Tasha recognized as Isaac’s. She had no idea at all what any of that was about, but she was too busy to worry. She needed the drama away from her patient. “Close the door. Keep that shit out of here.”
Shannon stood up and did what she was told.
Cory took a deeper breath, but she had lost too much blood to truly regain consciousness. She came back just enough for her brow to crease, and she muttered, “No,” and went away again.
Then they heard sirens. Finally. Tasha checked her watch: thirty minutes since Shannon called her. Left to the EMTs, Cory would have died. It was time to get her practice up and running.
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