by Jen Davis
He shrugged. “He threw the first punch. I threw the last.”
The explanation seemed to satisfy his father. He turned away from Scott to give Kane his full attention. “Do we have a deal?”
“The product’s right there.” He used his thumb to gesture toward the door behind him, the duffel bag on the table inside. “We’ve got to be careful, though. They’re real squirrely about Sucre.” He and Scott followed their father back in the house.
Malcolm laughed as he unzipped the bag and rifled through the small baggies inside. “Heh. Let ‘em wonder.” He held up one small baggie and shook it. “No one ever figured out we put the ungrateful prick in power. They’ll never know we took him down. But we will reap the benefits, boys.”
He refused to let the disgust show on his face. The memory of a young Sucre at the table the night of the fire was as fresh in his mind as if it happened yesterday.
“Call everyone in, Scott,” his father said as he returned the heroin to the black duffel. “It’s time to talk distribution.”
CHAPTER TEN
Amanda
Amanda itched to smooth her hands over the fabric of her black slacks, but her fingers were clutched around the copy of Joshua’s birth certificate Mike had given her the day before. Her palms were damp; God, she hated how her body betrayed her anxiety. Maybe Kane wouldn’t be able to tell.
Yeah right. The man had always been able to see right through her. Well, almost always.
She took a deep breath, trying to steady her pounding heart as she walked through the front door of the worksite.
Clipboard in hand, Xander’s assistant, Robby, made a beeline straight for her. “Miss Griffin, I didn’t realize you would be here today. Xander’s not on site.” His voice hardly wavered at all.
She steeled her expression, trying to mask her own nerves. “It’s not a scheduled visit. I have some papers for Kane Hale. Where can I find him?”
The hammering around her came to a stop, and suddenly the eyes of every man in the room were on her. The big guy, Kane’s friend Brick, one of the men who got shot, walked toward her. His eyes swept over her with the kind of judgment she saw from the nuns at her Catholic high school.
She returned his frank stare with a look fashioned to turn water into ice.
He seemed unimpressed. “Follow me.”
Brick led her out back where Kane was cutting a two-by-four with an electric saw. He turned back and left her there without a word.
Kane glanced up as if sensing her presence. He turned off the machine and removed the glasses he’d had on to protect his eyes. “I wasn’t sure you were going to come.”
“You didn’t give me much choice.” Her eyes darted around the back porch as she grasped for a calm she couldn’t quite reach. “I don’t want to do this here. Can you step out for lunch?”
He grunted. “You’re the boss.” He took off his hard hat, then ran his hand over his beard, knocking off the tiny bits of wood settled there.
Leave it to Kane to make it sound like an insult. “I assume you don’t want to share our personal history with the crew any more than I do.” Though judging by the way Brick looked at her, he already had some idea. “I passed a Panera on the way here.”
He rolled his eyes.
“Would you rather the Waffle House?” she huffed. “It doesn’t matter where we go, Kane.”
“Panera’s fine,” he growled. Giving her his back, he stalked around the side of the house. By the time she made it back out front, he and his bike were gone.
I guess I’m meeting him there.
It was probably for the best they weren’t riding together anyway. Kane would no doubt take up all the air in the car—and she absolutely was not riding on the back of his motorcycle.
It was a moot point anyway. The Panera was only a few miles away, and his bike was outside when she arrived. The packed lot and the fight for a parking spot only added to her growing tension. She tried to shake it off as she strode inside.
The Ice Queen mask wouldn’t work for this, but maybe something like it. Something brisk, but honest. He deserved whatever honesty she could give. She simply needed to control her rioting emotions.
Kane waited at a corner booth, his jaw clenched and fingers drumming on the table. There were two drinks in front of him.
She took the opposite seat and slid Joshua’s birth certificate toward his hand.
He picked it up and scanned it quickly, gripping the paper tightly enough to wrinkle the sides before he put it back down. “This could be doctored.”
She reached into her satchel and dug out a packet of family photos. Christmas pictures showing Mike and Charlie, smiling next to Mom with her growing belly. Then Mom by herself in her last trimester. One of Charlie on his knees, kissing her stomach. There were about a dozen in all.
Kane flipped through them, dispassionately at first, his face slowly morphing into a sad acceptance. “You’re not in any of these pictures.”
“No. I was too busy feeling sorry for myself to visit her.” She rubbed at the tension in her forehead. “Too wrapped up in my own misery to let myself be around anyone happy.” She squeezed her eyes shut to block out his stunned expression. “I wasted so much time.”
His hand touched hers on the table, and her eyes flew open. Just as quickly, his touch disappeared, but her skin tingled where the rough pads of his fingers had been.
She swallowed. “There was ice on the pavement. Crazy for February around here, but there it was. Charlie and Mom spun off the road and hit a tree.” She reached for the numbness, the dead emptiness that kept her going when the hurt threatened to consume her. “They had to cut Josh out of her body. He was the only one who survived.”
This time when Kane took her hand, he held it with both of his. It stole her breath.
She forced in a gulp of air and kept talking. “It made sense for Mike and Cindy to take him. They were getting married anyway, and I was such a fucking disaster, I could barely dress myself, much less take care of a baby.” Her chest knotted with his hands around hers. So much for staying numb.
Such a small thing, his touch, but it shook her to the foundation.
With her other hand, she pushed forward her final piece of evidence. A laminated clipping of her mother’s obituary. She couldn’t remember who gave it to her, but she’d never had the heart to get rid of it. “It says right there, survived by her three children, Michael, Amanda, and Joshua. I’m sure you could find another copy somewhere if you still don’t believe me.”
His slow blink and barely there nod projected patience. Comfort. It almost hurt more than the hate he’d radiated when she walked through the door. Hate was easier. In hate, there was no hope, and hope was the cruelest lie that ever existed.
“I believe you.” With his gravelly voice and simple words, everyone else in the restaurant fell away. Kane was the center of the universe. His warm hands and the look on his face she hadn’t seen in years. The look that said I see you.
You matter.
This is real.
It didn’t make a difference how many years had passed or whether his looks had changed. Behind the long hair—beneath the beard and the tiny lines on his face he didn’t have before—she recognized the man who set the bar for every poor bastard who came into her life or her bed after he left it. No one else had ever come close.
No one else ever would.
“I’m sorry I accused you.” He squeezed her hand.
Her small laugh rang hollow as she pulled away. She couldn’t think straight while he was touching her, and she needed to keep her wits. Unwrapping the straw next to the drink in front of her, she used it to stir the ice in the light brown liquid.
An Arnold Palmer. She hadn’t had one in years. The iced tea-lemonade mix used to be her favorite.
“You don’t owe me an apology, Kane. We both know it.” She sipped at the sweet and tart drink, then forced her gaze back to his face. “I’m the one who’s sorry. I’m sorry I was so awful you
could believe me capable of keeping a child from you. I’m sorry I hurt you. And I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you the truth then, and I still can’t tell you now.”
His eyes widened, and she knew instantly she’d said too much.
She shot to her feet. “You deserved better thirteen years ago, and you deserve better than how you’re living now. It’s not too late to have the life you wanted.” Forcing herself to look away from those soulful brown eyes, she turned and approached the door.
She was almost through the crowd when his strangled voice carried to her ears. “The only life I ever wanted was one I could live with you.”
Gritting her teeth, she fought the overwhelming urge to look back and kept moving out of the restaurant into the cold December sunlight. Nothing had changed. Her father’s threat still hung over her like a scythe. Only now, the small flame of hope she’d been nursing inside her was a fire she wasn’t sure she could ever put out.
***
Kane
Hours after his conversation with Mandy, Kane’s head still reeled. It was crazy stupid to let his attention drift from the job in front of him, but his body still fucking hummed from the touch of her skin and the sincerity of her words. It had been the first real exchange they’d had in more than a decade.
Cue Ball dug his heel into the top of Kane’s foot.
The steel-toed boots protected him from most hazards, but Cue was a big man, and his weight was tough to ignore…which was probably the point.
He forced himself to focus on the exchange at hand. Cue Ball was holding court with two teenaged boys, one with light brown skin, the other slightly darker. Both wore T-shirts and jeans sagging halfway off their asses. They were recruits to help push the club’s new products.
“Twenty bucks for a rock, boys. I’m giving you a dozen to start out with.” Cue dropped a brown lunch bag into the hand of the taller teenager. He’d rolled down the top, creating a makeshift handle. “I know where you live.” He leaned into the boy’s face. “This is a trial run. Don’t even think about trying to fuck me, got it?”
Kane had to give the kid credit. He didn’t so much as flinch at Cue Ball’s threat. “Yeah. I got you.” Bag gripped in his hand, the teen led his friend back to the two bicycles leaning against the park bench.
The pink cast of dusk made the nearly empty field look a little less than the neglected lot it was. By day, it was easier to spot the mountain of cigarette butts next to the overflowing trash can or the rust creeping over the rickety see-saw. But among the warm colors of the diminishing light, the park looked almost inviting.
If only it were enough to let him forget the reason they were here. It took everything he had not to drag his buddy out of here, to plead again for the club to reconsider. But the MC worked a certain way. After a vote, you were either with them or against them. At best, fighting the tide would mean a beating; at worst, excommunication for life.
“Well, look here, Cole. It seems we’ve got some race traitors on our hands.”
Shit.
He cringed against the unmistakable drawl of David Bennett, VP of the Christian Soldiers MC. The group wasn’t made of any real Christians or soldiers he was aware of. They were basically a bunch of white supremacist bullies who liked to pump themselves up by tearing everyone else down.
He wasn’t in the mood for their particular brand of bullshit. “What the fuck are you doing here, Benny? Why don’t you hit the mall? I hear JC Penney has some white sheets on sale.”
The man’s face tightened with the nickname Kane insisted on using. With his sharp features, blond hair and blue eyes, Bennett would have almost been pretty if he didn’t have a perpetual snarl on his face. He was living proof someone could have the face of an angel and still be a cesspool of rot inside.
“One day you and I are going to have a reckoning over your smart mouth, Hale.” Another blond-haired, blue-eyed goon stepped up behind him.
Kane rolled his eyes as Cue Ball took a position at his six. “I don’t have time for this. Seriously. What are you doing here?”
Bennett flexed his jaw. “I heard the Skulls were taking over the wetback’s drug operation out here.”
Kane shrugged. Even if he hated what he was doing, he couldn’t disrespect the club by making it public.
The other man lifted his own shoulder in return. “Doesn’t matter to me if these thugs kill themselves with pharmaceuticals.”
“But?”
“But you’re working with a black supplier, employing black pushers. My men were ready to work this neighborhood with an Aryan supplier, putting cash in the hands of our own kind.” Bennett’s voice rose like a preacher on a pulpit.
He waved it off. “You know I don’t care about all your racist shit. The only hands I care about putting cash in are my own. This is business, Benny, plain and simple.”
“Don’t be naïve. With Sucre gone, this was finally our chance to—”
“I don’t give a good goddamn about your race war shit. Save your breath. This is about bankrolling my club. No more, no less.”
Bennett took a step forward, and Cue growled. The Soldiers’ VP froze, then purposely loosened his posture. He may have been trying to look unfazed, but he was failing spectacularly. “We have a very important man in our corner. You don’t want to get on his bad side.”
This time, Kane stepped forward. He was so close to Bennett’s face, he could smell the stale cigarettes on his breath. “You don’t want to be on my bad side, Benny. Why don’t you take your White Power bullshit and get the fuck out of my business? There are plenty of other places you can sell your product.” He smiled. “Now get off of my lawn.”
Bennett narrowed his eyes, but he took a step back. Then he turned and walked with his buddy back to the bikes they’d left at the curb.
Cue Ball ran a hand over his bald head. “You sure that was a good idea, brother? No real reason to make problems with the Soldiers.”
What? “They came here to make problems with us. You think I should let David Bennett tell us how to do business?”
“I guess not,” Cue mumbled. He took a breath, then shook off whatever was bothering him. “We’d better get going. Scott’s got a surprise for us cooking over at the clubhouse.”
He nodded. It was getting dark anyway. But something told him his brother’s surprise was going to be about as fun as the meeting with Benny had been.
***
The prospect greeted Kane at the front door by handing him a surgical mask.
“What the hell is this?” He held it up between his fingers.
“Just put it on, KC.” His mother beckoned him inside. “Don’t want you breathing in any of the fumes.” Mama V had her own mask secured tightly at the back of her teased blond head.
With a suspicious lift of his eyebrow, he did as his mother instructed. “What’s going on?”
The skin around her eyes crinkled, and she grabbed his arm, pulling him back toward the kitchen. “SP has everybody hard at work.”
The kitchen table and counters were crowded with empty Coke bottles, coffee filters, duct tape, and a whole bunch of other shit. None of it registered until he caught sight of the tall stack of Sudafed in front of one of his brothers. Owen was punching the red pills out of the foil into a big plastic bowl.
“Are you kidding me right now?”
The mask couldn’t hide Scott’s wide grin. “What do you think, brother? We’re really in business now.”
“What do I think?” A pulse beat at his temple. “You set up a fucking meth lab in our clubhouse? What the fuck is wrong with you, man?”
Scott scowled. “Hey, what’s your problem?”
He bit his tongue so hard he tasted blood. “In the chapel.”
His brother followed him, pulling down his mask as they entered the private space. “You need to pull the stick out of your ass right now, K. Can’t you let me have the win here?”
He whirled to face Scott, tugging his own mask down. “The win? This isn’t about yo
u getting credit for something. You set up a meth lab in our clubhouse!”
“It’s not gonna make itself,” his brother huffed. “Why is it you have to shit on every idea I have lately? We’ve been aces together for years, man. Best bros. Now, it’s like we’ve gone back in time. Like before you patched in. You thought you were so fucking special then, too good to do what the rest of us were doing. Fancy girl, fancy job, fancy college. Where did it get you? The exact same place as me. So maybe you should get over yourself.”
His jaw dropped at the venom in his brother’s voice. Scott had never been a fan of his plan to go white collar, but he’d never lashed out like this before. Except when it concerned Mandy, he was always pretty happy and affable. And yeah, they were best bros. He loved his brother, and Scott proved time and again over the years, there was nothing he wouldn’t do for Kane.
He tried being reasonable. “This has nothing to do with me. It’s common sense, Scott. A meth lab at the clubhouse puts us all in danger. First of all, those chemicals seep into the walls. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to wear a mask in here forever. And we’re assuming no one accidentally blows the place up first.” He dropped into one of the chairs. Elbows on the table, he rubbed at his temples. “Even if we don’t all get sick or die, all it takes is one fucking raid, and there is no explaining this shit away. We’re all going to jail.”
“Stop being such a pussy. We take risks all the time. I don’t see you having a cow over the guns we run. Cops pull us over on one of those deliveries, we’re looking at jail, too. None of our business is legitimate. We’re a motorcycle club, not a Girl Scout troop.” Scott leaned his back against the wall, one thumb in his jeans’ pocket. “We’re in the drug business, brother, whether you like it or not. Meth means cash. The shit is cheap and easy to make, and once we start selling it, we’ll be making money hand over fist.”
“This is a mistake, Scott.” Why couldn’t he see it?