by Ryan Michele
“No,” I answered, lowering my gun finally, Brewer and Phoenix following, but we kept them at the ready. Always at the ready. A blink of the eye was all it took to bring down a man. “Why the fuck aren’t you at work?”
“I wasn’t feelin’ good.”
My eyes flicked to the woman, still wide eyed and breathing hard, but thank Christ keeping her damn mouth shut. “Looks like you recovered.”
“Man, I just…”
I took a step closer and Carlo shut his mouth reading exactly what I wanted him to from my demeanor, but I turned to the woman. “Leave.” She scrambled wrapping her body in the sheet as she moved, leaving her clothes on the floor and darting past all of us.
Turning back to Carlo, I got in his face and space. “You know too much about our business, Carlo. Know the comings and goings of what we do and how we do it. Knew that comin’ into the fold of workin’ for us, what would happen if you fucked us over. And yet… you’ve done it anyway by not showin’ up to work.”
His olive skin paled and mouth dropped open. “I…”
“No.” I swung hard and fast, nailing him in his eye as he fell unceremoniously to the beat up green carpet. Going for the nose would’ve broken it, and I needed his ass at the store to do his damn job until Wrong Way sorted out what was going on. Not at a hospital getting it fixed. A black eye wouldn’t hinder him too much.
Standing over him, Carlo moaned, hand to his eye. “You have fifteen minutes to get your ass to work. You don’t show up again, next time you’ll see my fists and a bullet. Got me?”
He groaned and said nothing. Therefore, I kicked him hard in the ribs knocking the wind out of him as he rolled and yelped.
“Got me?” I repeated as he nodded, saying some strangled noise that sounded like a yes.
Using my boot, I pushed him to his back and put pressure on his chest. “You got off easy today. There’d better not be a next time. And tell that bitch in there to keep her fuckin’ mouth shut.”
On that, we turned and left.
At least until we sorted the books and knew for sure what he’d done, he could keep breathing. If Wrong Way found even a fucking dime unaccounted for well, we would revisit Carlo with an entirely different outcome. Until then, he would be smart to get his head back in his business.
Fifteen minutes later, Gus confirmed Carlo was there. He wasn’t as dumb as originally thought. Good. You knew it wasn’t good when the man who knew nothing was more reliable than the man who did. That shit would be handled and soon.
The next three stores only had minor hiccups. Carlo was now on all our radars, and one of Ravage would be checking on his ass every damn day.
Just another fucking day at the office. I almost could laugh about it, but alas I had too much shit still to handle; this was just another day in paradise.
If one could call Rebellion, Alabama paradise it would be any brother in the Ravage MC.
4
Rylynn
“I’m surprised you took my call,” Nadine said in my ear while I sat on the couch in my apartment. It was small, but exactly right for me.
Giving her a chuckle because she knew I’d never not answer, I replied, “And miss not talking to my Charlie?”
Her laughter came through the line, which I loved hearing. “If only I got paid like Charlie did. I’d be on a jet to Hawaii.” She always talked about going to Hawaii. Some of her family was from there, but she’d never been, but wanted to go. I wished I made enough to give her that, but eventually business would grow and maybe one day I could.
“Amen, sister. Whatcha got for me?”
Nadine, Naddy for short, was my Charlie as in Charlie’s Angels, in a way in that she took calls and relayed them to me for jobs. Not exactly a receptionist but kind of was. There were two numbers for people to reach me on: mine and hers. It got around by word of mouth. It worked so we rolled with it. Business was steady so we didn’t need another avenue.
She sighed and I knew what was coming. That drawn out noise was always a telling sign that I wasn’t going to like the jobs, and I was right. “Two different ones. Both cheating men.”
My head fell back to the couch. While these were billable hours, it was boring as fuck. Watching men pound away at a side-piece wasn’t my cup of tea. Unfortunately, it paid the bills and right now, that’s where I was in my career. Everyone had to start somewhere, and I wasn’t afraid to pay my dues. Sad thing was there were a shit ton of cheating husbands around these parts. Good for me, not so good for the women.
“Anything else?”
“Yes actually.” Her tone didn’t give anything away, and I could normally read Naddy through her voice. This caught my attention. “A missing person came in.”
“What?” This was the very first case that had ever came in, and I’d been doing this since I could drive. Small jobs leading up to bigger ones, but nothing this big. I was still getting my feet wet, but working myself up to hopefully get more well known. This though, was something I wouldn’t have expected someone to contact me on.
“Yeah, seventeen-year-old girl. Parents have been looking for her for five months. The cops are at a loss because there are no leads, but the parents aren’t giving up. They don’t have a lot of money, heard of you through Betty Winger. She was the one with the husband who liked to beat the ass of women before fucking them.”
While I remembered the Betty case, my heart hurt for this girl’s parents being kept in limbo without a resolution. If it were Mazie, I’d move heaven and earth to find her not caring one bit the cops couldn’t find anything. That was where these parents were I’d bet. They wanted answers, and this was the only choice they had in the matter.
None of this sounded good, though. “She’s probably dead by now.” It was a harsh truth, but it was correct all the same. There was a hard world out there and if this girl got into some of those worlds, she was probably lost. Sad, but I had to say it straight. That was what I did. “If the cops have no leads, the chances of me finding her are slim.”
“Know that, but the folks called and I’m relayin’. I’ll email you everything on all three cases, and you let me know if you’ll take the missing person for sure and I’ll give ‘em a call.”
“Will do. Thanks, Naddy.”
“Later, Angel.” She laughed, and I felt my lip tip as the call disconnected.
A missing person. I wouldn’t lie and say this wasn’t interesting. It would beat sitting outside of dingy hotels waiting for a man to meet up with his extra piece. It was more than that, though.
This case drew me in a deep way I couldn’t wrap my head around.
I didn’t want to say I was excited, because that was fucked up. No one should be excited about a person in the world being lost. For me, it was a challenge. Something I’d loved since I was a kid.
My father would get me these puzzles that were so twisted and hard for me to solve. Sometimes it would take me weeks to figure it out, but I never gave up. Not once, and I got them all. It’d become a tradition for my dad to give me one on my birthday every year. Therefore, I expected a new one in a couple of months.
This though, was a person. A puzzle yes, but a human being.
Five months was a long damn time for someone to be gone and not have any leads. Fuck.
I already knew what my answer would be to Naddy, and she did too. No way would I let this one pass when there was just a hint of me being able to find her.
Dead or alive.
Either one would give the family closure.
Everyone needed that, at least some sort of it.
I’d learned that the hard way with my grandpa dying. Closure, it was necessary to heal. Knowledge was power and to know this family was literally stuck between living and dying for their child; it was a case I had to take. They probably thought of her every single moment of the day.
There wasn’t a single day that went by that I didn’t think about my grandpa. The pain still consumed me. It still gnawed at my soul. I was raw in my emotions,
my loss. My foothold in life somehow didn’t seem so solid anymore.
He wasn’t supposed to leave us. His time was too early. He was supposed to be here and watch his grandchildren grow up, see his daughter and her husband through the years, and be next to his wife supporting her as she recuperated.
Instead, he was buried six feet under, in the cold, damp, dark ground.
That single thought alone rattled me.
Part of me wondered if he was in there scraping his nails on the wood of his coffin to get out and come back to us. If he was scared being locked up tight unable to breathe. If he felt captured and out of control because he was a man who needed control and just wanted to breathe again.
It wasn’t rational. Deep inside I knew this, but it didn’t change the thoughts going on repeat through my head. Each thought made me want to get a shovel and dig him back up, just to make sure his death was real. Make sure he was really gone and not trying to get back to us.
We’d all said goodbye in the hospital weeks ago. Maybe it was hope. Hope that it was all a dream and somehow I’d wake up seeing the man with the bandana on his head and long braid down his back laughing at the stupid jokes around here.
Except it wasn’t.
This was my reality.
Up until now, no one in my life had ever left me in this way. Even with all the members of the club, we’d been lucky. Pops almost left, but didn’t. It was a major slap in the face. Or maybe more like a wakeup call.
Life was precious.
The pain of death was hard for those of us who lived. Once the person died they had no feelings. All their pain drifted away once they took their last breath. It was those of us left here to live who felt that agony rip our insides to shreds and had to live with that void in us. In some ways, it was better to be the dead one so you didn’t feel this hurt.
Damn my thoughts.
The night we buried him, I buried all the pain in my soul deep inside Crow. Knew I was doing it and didn’t give a fuck. Also, knew he’d be leaving and going home. Therefore, in the end, no harm no foul. Was it stupid, yep. Did I plan to never in my life sleep with a brother? Yep. Did my judgment slack and an opportunity presented itself and I took it? Yep. But it is what it is and that part was done. And he was absolutely magnificent, best I’d ever had by a landslide.
Rubbing my hand over my face in exasperation, I rose from the couch. At least in my pain, in my loss, I knew what I was grieving. This girl’s family couldn’t give up hope when that was all they had left. The pain of the unknown would drive me over the edge. I needed to give them my time, my skill, and help them find the answers they sought. So yup, I was up and facing the tasks ahead rather than wallowing in my grief. There was shit to do today and reliving all of the past wouldn’t get me moving.
Walking through my apartment, it was nice having two bedrooms, kitchen, living room and a bathroom. Small, yes, but doable for me. The Ravage MC owned the building, but I paid rent every month. It was a compromise between my father, Rhys, and me.
When I turned eighteen, about two years ago, the decision to move out came naturally. Loved my parents to pieces and would do anything for them, but my father was a hard ass.
Complete tough guy.
Nothing got by him, even to this day he didn’t miss details.
Hard ass, through and through.
Being under the thumb of a man who just had to look at you to scare the living shit out of you was rough.
He’d never hurt me, that wasn’t what I meant. A lot of people he wouldn’t blink an eye to destroy, but not me. For me, it was the look of when I did something wrong, that disappointment. That killed. Not to mention his punishments were harsh. I missed curfew once, and he made me clean all the toilets and the rest of the bathrooms in the clubhouse. Let’s just say, I wasn’t late again. Those men were gross.
He loved both my sister and I with everything inside of him, and he’d die to protect us. That I had zero doubt. Me leaving the house wasn’t something he was alright with one bit. We fought… a lot. My mother stepped in a few times, but it didn’t help much.
It wasn’t until I sat my father down and we had a long, calm talk about me and what I wanted out of life and his role in what that would be. He finally agreed for me to move out, under the condition it be a Ravage MC owned place.
My condition was I paid rent. Something else he didn’t like. That’s what the world was about… compromises. At least with my family.
Family.
I lived for it, loved for it, and became the woman I am because of it.
Two hours later, the words and pictures stared back at me flooding my brain. Naddy ended up having to send it over in a zip file because the parents gave her every single piece of paper the cops had. Didn’t know the police did that kind of thing on an open investigation, but they did. From the evidence, the cops were out of options; therefore, I needed to find new ones. A difficult task, but one I was up for.
My phone rang, the display saying, ‘Austyn Calling.’ One guess as to why she was calling me. I’d been pretty incommunicado the last few days needing to get my head on straight with my grandpa and Crow.
The thing was Austyn watched me leave with him that night with a huge smile on her face as she waved us off. Now, she was going to give me shit and demand all the juicy details of our night.
I answered, “What, Ryker not doin’ it for ya? You need a woman to take care of your needs?”
“Smartass.” She chuckled. “So how was he?”
“What makes you assume I slept with him?”
She laughed full out, so hard I had to pull the phone away from my ear and could still hear her clearly. “Bitch, if you didn’t, I’m revoking your woman card.”
“Never wanted the damn thing anyway. It always came with periods,” I fired back immediately.
“Those aren’t contingent of the card.”
“Still don’t want it.”
“Stop stalling!” She yelled into the line as I chuckled.
“You know I’m not a kiss and tell kind of woman.” I rolled off the couch and made it to my kitchen. My stomach needed sustenance. Opening the fridge, the cold air blasted me. Felt damn good.
“Bullshit!” she countered as I rolled my eyes then grabbed a strawberry banana yogurt, shutting the door of the fridge. “Seriously, Ry. Crow is hot. Now I love my man, don’t get me wrong, but I’m not blind. The sandy brown hair and bedroom eyes that were locked on you all damn night was sexy. I could feel the intensity of your chemistry across the damn room. Please tell me he knows how to use that hotness.”
I opened the container, grabbed a spoon and just took a bite when she said this, and I had to choke down my laughter.
“You’re not going to let this go are you?”
“Nope.”
Didn’t think she would, but it was worth a shot. “He was amazing, Austyn. We had a good time together then he took off for Alabama.”
Something inside of me clenched and tightened as I remembered that last kiss. Me standing beside him, him taking what he wanted and giving to me at the same time, the warmth of the machine adding to the heat between us. That spark. It was different than the other guys I’d been with.
It felt real for a moment in time. For him, I could’ve been anyone from the clubhouse and he wouldn’t have cared. I knew how this worked, been around it all my life. There’d been club mommas around every once in a while, and the guys who took them to bed didn’t give a shit who it was just as long as it had a warm hole.
What Crow and I did was just that. A way for me to get out my pain and a way for him to get off. There wasn’t anything more to it. The clenching inside of me needed to go away because there was no second time. There was nothing but a great night. Two people getting off. That was it.
“Did he give you his number?”
This question solidified it in my head that I was right. “No, Austyn. It was one night. Nothing more.”
“You can’t tell me that he didn’t want m
ore of you, Ry. I don’t believe that shit for a minute.”
“You been watching me through the window again? You know you could get arrested for that. Wouldn’t want daddy Cruz coming to bail your ass out.” I shoveled more yogurt in my mouth and listened to her laugh.
“You love it.”
Choking down the food, I laughed. “Yeah.”
“But seriously. Nothing?” Her tone turned somber and that sucked. She wanted right for me, but picking a guy up at the club wasn’t going to be the guy for me. Life didn’t work that way. It was the reason I chose him. Knew he’d go away and I wouldn’t have to see him with other women every time I stepped through the clubhouse doors. And he was hot.
“It’s all good, Austyn. I promise.”
“Damn.”
Damn was right. One-night stands were just that, no need to relive it or think of it. Life was life. You lived it and moved on.
“Babe. Don’t worry about me.”
“I’ll always worry about you. How are ya doin’?”
About my grandpa, shitty. Heartbroken. Pissed off. “It’s hell, but this too shall pass.”
“Right. Ryker just left. Something to do with my brother and that chick he likes. Said he wouldn’t be back for a few days. So if you need anything call me. I’m around.”
“Will do. Later.”
We disconnected the call wondering exactly who this chick of Nox’s was, but having enough on my plate that my mind needed to keep focused on.
It was time to get busy and make my money. It was also time for the tingling between my legs to go away and for me not to have visions of Crow every freaking moment of the day.
At least one of them, I had control over.
5
Crow
The door to the back alley flew open, and Tommy came to a screeching halt when he saw what was waiting for him. His eyes grew wide then darted around looking for a way to escape knowing he was in deep shit. Too bad for him we always had all our bases covered. There was no way out for him.