by Levine, Nina
He never talked about what he’d done, especially not since his sister died six months ago. He ignored what I said and asked, “So why did you take a damn job with him?”
I flattened my lips as I considered that question. “It would be easy to say the reason was because he was the only person offering me a job at the time. But it runs deeper than that, and I’m not sure even I fully understand my reasons.”
“Try me.”
“By the time I was disbarred, I’d changed. Everything that happened made me into a different person. It made me harder, but it also made me want to help people who stared at life from a place of no hope—”
“Fuck, you’d always wanted to help those people, Tatum.”
I nodded. “Yeah,” I murmured. “Billy originally asked me to help one of his strippers out of a legal mess caused by an abusive ex who played the system so well that he had the upper hand. Helping her led to him finding more work for me with the people who worked for him and here we are.”
“Do you ever think of leaving and finding a job away from the filth?”
He didn’t understand me, and I wasn’t sure he ever would because we looked at life through different eyes. “Duvall, I don’t judge the filth, as you call it. To me, it’s just people trying to live their lives the best way they can at that moment. We all have parts of ourselves we wish were different, better maybe. The parts of us that have been fucked up by life and the people in it. Sure, some don’t want to change their lives, and that’s their choice, but I’m there for those who do. Sometimes along the way I have to do things I don’t agree with or that I wouldn’t choose to do, but I do them because in the end they help me achieve my goal. And these days, my motivation isn’t greed.” It was that greed, along with my blind trust in a man who had no respect for me that made me feel so ashamed. Back then, he’d made me feel like I wasn’t enough and that was why he’d cheated on me. Not feeling like I was enough had proven to be a hard feeling to recover from.
He drummed his fingers lightly on the table, listening to me but seemingly miles away in his thoughts. “So the end justifies the means, then?”
I leant forward and met his gaze. “Yes,” I said softly, “sometimes it does.”
He listened and he processed, but in the end he said, “We’re going to have to agree to disagree on that one.”
I smiled. “That’s the beauty of friendship, right?”
“I guess it is.”
It always had been that way for our friendship. We’d often argued over cases and the rights and wrongs of the world. And we’d always been able to forget all that shit when it came to our friendship. “Thank you for being a good friend.”
He lifted a brow. “You call me not giving you hell for dating a biker, a good friend?”
How would I ever convince him of the truth? “He doesn’t beat me. I can’t get into it all, but what you saw on that footage wasn’t even close to what you think.”
“I believe you.” When I gave him a confused look, he elaborated. “I looked into it more and found out about the murder at the casino that night. I put shit together, Tatum, and figured he must have been involved in it. And for you to have anything to do with him after that, I figure that dead biker deserved everything he got. Still doesn’t make me happy that you’ve chosen to get involved with Storm.”
I was stunned by what he said. “You’re turning a blind eye?”
He drank some of his water. “I’m not a cop. I don’t have a case on my desk to prosecute and as far as I know, the DPP aren’t looking into it either. There’s nothing to turn a blind eye to as far as I’m concerned.”
I reached across the table and placed my hand on his arm. “And you don’t believe the end justifies the means,” I murmured.
“I believe in your happiness, Tatum. I don’t want to see you hurting anymore, and if this is what makes you happy, I’ll put my shit aside.” His eyes bored into mine. “Tell me you’re happy and I’ll not say another word about you choosing a biker.”
I took a deep breath. “I’m happy.”
He flinched a little at my answer, and I realised that while Duvall said he wanted me to be happy, he didn’t necessarily want Nitro to be the one to give me that. However, he gave me a tight smile and said, “Good.”
I loved him for that. If you couldn’t allow your friends to be happy in the way they chose, you couldn’t call yourself a friend.
* * *
On my way home from work that afternoon, Billy called in a pissed-off mood. “I swear I’m going to close this damn club down, Tatum. It’s a never-fucking-ending headache of staff fucking up and quitting on me.”
I laughed as I steered the car around a corner. “You threaten this on a daily basis, Billy. I think it’s time for an intervention. Maybe some Xanax mixed with some vodka and we could throw in some other shit too if you need it.”
He wasn’t amused. He never was, but I put up with him regardless of the fact he had no sense of humour. “This isn’t helping.”
“Okay, tell me what you need. I’ll make it happen.”
“I need a fucking new cleaner. And I need them tonight.” He said it like he doubted my ability to produce the goods.
I smiled. “Done.”
He took a moment to reply. “Why do you sound so fucking joyful today?”
“Because I am. Now, hang up so I can go get your cleaner.”
He grumbled some more shit before finally ending the call. I pulled the car over so I could access the files I stored in my Dropbox on my phone. Dustin’s résumé was stored in there and it had his phone number in it. Once I’d located what I needed, I dialled him.
“Hello?” He didn’t know my number and sounded hesitant.
“Dustin, it’s Tatum. I have a job for you.”
“Huh?”
“A cleaning job. Do you still need a job?”
“Oh… yes, I do!” Excitement filled my ears.
“Are you free tonight? Because they need you right away.”
“Yes!” Dustin’s easy nature had to be his best trait.
I gave him all the information and called the club to talk with the woman who he’d work with that night, organising with her to hold his hand a little. As I drove home with the intent to relax in the bath for hours, I thought about how happy and grateful Dustin was for the opportunity I’d just found him. That was what made my job worth doing.
Nitro
“One Night Girl” by Blake Shelton
I banged on Tatum’s door, irritated as fuck at her. She took her sweet time answering me and it only gave that irritation time to grow.
Swinging the door open, she said, “Jesus, Nitro, why all the banging?”
I clenched my jaw. “You got Dustin a job with Billy?”
“Yes.”
“Why the fuck would you do that?”
She gripped the door as if she was about to slam it in my face. “If you’re going to come here and yell at me without giving me a chance to explain myself, you can leave right now and come back when you’ve calmed down.”
Fuck.
I shoved my fingers through my hair. I needed to rein this anger in, but fuck if I could. Billy being in the mix made sure of that. Taking a step inside, I said, “I’m not leaving. We’re discussing this.” Before she had a chance to argue, I entered her house and made my way to her living room.
She closed the door, loudly. When she met me in the living room, she demanded, “Right, seems as though you’ve decided you’re staying, tell me what you have against Billy.”
Fuck, just his name caused my anger to spike. “Marilyn works for a bank and Billy was a customer there. Had been for a couple of years and over that time he slowly gained her trust and eventually asked her out on a date. She said no, repeatedly, until the day he finally broke her down and got the answer he wanted. They started dating and it made her happier than ever. She smiled and laughed more often and started living her life in a way I’d never seen. It lasted for six months until the
night I received a call from Renee to tell me her mother had taken a bottle of pills and was unconscious on the bathroom floor.”
I stopped to take a few short breaths. Remembering that time in our lives was difficult as fuck. I’d thought my sister was dead. It was why I’d been so angry the day I’d found her passed out on my couch recently. And why I’d pushed for her to be admitted to the hospital. I couldn’t lose Lynny.
Tatum’s battle stance softened as she listened to me. “What happened between them?”
“You ever see Billy date?”
She shook her head. “No, he keeps his women separate to work. Doesn’t bring them to the clubs ever.”
“Figures. Marilyn thought she was special to him, thought they were exclusive. Turned out Billy didn’t do exclusive and was seeing another woman at the same time.”
“Nitro, from what I know, Billy is up front about that when he dates. Women know where they stand with him.”
My eyes widened. “Are you fucking defending that motherfucker?”
She reached for my arm, gripping it. “No,” she said calmly. “I’m not saying what I think either way, but I would imagine that Marilyn would have been made aware of what their relationship really was.”
I ripped my arm out of her grasp. “Fuck, Tatum, she tried to kill herself over him. She had a fucking breakdown after that. You’re a woman—how the hell can you stand there and defend a man who treats women that way?”
“So, you’re telling me that you’ve never used women before? Never dated casually or simply screwed random women as you pleased?”
“Don’t fucking turn this around on me! I’m not the one we’re talking about right now.”
“That is true, but can’t you see that you’re being a hypocrite about this?”
I grabbed the back of my neck and rubbed it. Glaring at her, I said, “I’m standing here telling you that he ruined her and all you can say is that I’m a fucking hypocrite? Every woman I’ve ever slept with knew what the score was. I don’t lie about that shit.”
She’d been calm up until that point, but she was beginning to lose her cool. “No, you’re not listening to me. I’m sorry that his actions hurt her and that she harmed herself. You have every right to feel hurt and angry for her too. But Billy didn’t do anything wrong. You can’t hold him responsible for her overdosing. That choice was completely hers.” She moved close to me and placed her hand on my arm again. “Nitro, I get it. I totally get it. I wanted to blame everyone for all the bad shit that happened to me, but in the end, I chose how I reacted to what people did to me. Randall treated me so badly, but it was me who chose to ruin my life over him. He never made me do any of it. Just like Billy never made Marilyn take those pills and swallow them. At some point, we have to take ownership of our choices in life.”
I stared at her in silence. I believed in owning your actions, but I’d never looked at Marilyn like that. I’d always felt the need to protect her. Something had fucked her up at a young age, I was sure of it. She always fobbed me off whenever I asked her. Told me I was wrong. But I wasn’t convinced. As a result, I had always held others accountable when Marilyn was hurt. Looking at it from Tatum’s point of view, it made me consider a different side to the argument.
Scrubbing a hand over my face, I said, “You’re right, we do have to take ownership of our choices, but fuck, Tatum, I find it hard to force that kind of responsibility on Lynny.”
She nodded. “I know,” she said softly.
“That Silver Hell biker? You wanna know what he did to her?”
She closed her eyes and held her breath for a beat. I felt her pain right along with her. That fucking biker stole something from both of us. When she opened her eyes, she nodded. “Yes, but we need to sit for this.”
When we were both sitting on her couch, I said, “Back at the beginning of the year, King took revenge on one of their bikers for shit he did to King’s sister. Killed the asshole. When the club found out, they started a war against our club. We didn’t realise for a while, though, because it wasn’t in-your-face shit that they did to begin with. They eventually escalated it, hurting our families and killing club members.”
“What did they do?”
“They started off with things we didn’t realise came from them. Break-ins, assault, theft, shit like that. They targeted Dustin, causing him to lose his job and the place where he lived. He’d been in share accommodation for ages and they got to the woman he rented the room from. Bribed her to report false rape charges to the police against Dustin. That all got sorted out by a cop friend, but he was left homeless and still hasn’t found a permanent place to live.”
“That’s why he lives with you now,” she said as she worked it out.
“Yeah. It was a low fucking act what they did to him, but what they did to Marilyn was worse.”
Her lips flattened. “I hate them, and you haven’t even told me what it was yet.”
“Four of them held up the bank where she works. That in itself was bad enough, because her nerves are shot and that would have been a lot for her to cope with on its own. But while three of them robbed the bank, one of them dragged her out the back and raped her. He then randomly showed up every now and then when she did her groceries, taunting her and threatening to rape her again. After he did it three times, she stopped going out in public. She’d already stopped going to work, but after that, she completely shut down and stopped living her life.”
Tears tracked Tatum’s cheeks and her hand covered her mouth. And then the heaving sobs came. I pulled her into my arms and we held each other for a long time.
When she let me go, I said, “So you see why I protect the fuck out of her? Why I have trouble letting people like Billy off the hook for their careless actions?”
She nodded as she took hold of my face. “I do. And I’m so sorry for everything you’ve both been through.”
“Yeah. Marilyn’s had more shit happen to her than any person deserves in their lifetime.”
“I’m sorry I organised that job for Dustin without running it by you first.”
I wrapped my hand around her forearm. “No, I was a prick about that. I shouldn’t have come over here throwing my weight around. There was nothing for you to run by me. I appreciate you looking out for him.”
She pulled a pained face. “Yeah, but now he’s working for the guy you hate.”
“And I’ll just have to suck that up. If Dustin wants that job, it’s his decision.”
A smile tugged at her lips. “Is this Nitro backing down?” Her playful tone cut through the tension and was a welcome break from the conversation we’d been having.
I pulled her onto my lap and held her tightly. “You fucking cause me to back down all over the damn place, Vegas.”
She brushed a kiss across my lips. “I like that. I’ve never had that before.”
“Trust me, it’s a first for me, too,” I growled, feeling every bit of the heat between us. How she managed to calm the anger out of me, I wasn’t sure. All that lingered was the kind of passion that made me want to fuck her all night long.
I ran my hands down her back, to the bottom of her T-shirt so I could slip my hands under it and feel skin. I gripped her waist as her hands moved to my neck and our mouths found each other. The sexual energy between us had spiked from the anger that sat between us when I first arrived, and I growled deeply as she kissed me with a wild urgency. We might have still had moments of confusion with each other, but there was never any confusion as far as sex was concerned—we both desperately wanted each other.
She clawed at my hair as she crushed her body to mine and moaned. Tearing her mouth away as she ended the kiss, she begged, “Fuck, Nitro, I need you inside me right fucking now.” Fumbling madly at the button on my jeans, she showed me just how desperate for me she was.
Hell, she was hot.
I let her fiddle with my pants; I needed that mouth of hers again. Catching her in another kiss, I forced my tongue inside as I moved my h
ands to the back of her head so I could hold her in place. I didn’t want to be interrupted from what I was doing.
Kissing Tatum turned me on so damn much. Foreplay should always begin with her mouth as far as I was concerned. For a long fucking time.
She struggled against my hold, trying to end the kiss.
I chuckled as I let her go. Moving my hands to her back, I said, “You want my cock in that beautiful pussy of yours, Vegas? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so eager.”
She had her hands in my pants and my cock sprung free. Biting her lip, she wrapped her hand around it and gave me a tug. I lifted my hips and thrust into her hand, suddenly on board with what she wanted.
Meeting my eyes, she said, “Now who’s eager?”
Leaning forward so I could get close to her mouth again, I said, “I’m always eager. Fuck, I could live inside you and never leave again.”
Her breathing hitched. “You wanna start that now?”
“As soon as I do this,” I said before finally pressing my lips to hers again.
She didn’t fight me on that kiss, and when I was done, I lifted her shirt over her head. Dropping it on the floor, I then flicked her bra undone and removed it. She slid off my lap and made fast work of taking her shorts and panties off, and I sucked in a breath at her naked body.
Tatum was fucking stunning. She was perfect with her soft curves that I loved sliding my hands over, and her strength that was an excellent match to my power when I fucked her. The thing I loved the most, though, was that when she stood naked in front of me, there was nothing in our way. Slowly, she was allowing me to strip back the invisible layers that guarded her soul at all other times. Sometimes she tried to run from me, but those times were becoming less and less. One day, she’d give it all to me.
I stood and yanked my jeans and briefs off before sitting back down, taking her with me. She straddled my lap and took hold of my face with both hands as she caught my mouth in another searing kiss. Ending it, breathless, she begged, “Can I please have this cock now?”