by Grey, Blair
I frowned at her. “If this is all such big news, if they’re so terrible, then why hasn’t it been in the news?”
“Well, because no one in their right mind would actually go around accusing Red Eyes of anything,” Maddie pointed out as if I were dumb. She shrugged. “You just don’t want to be on their radar, I can tell you that much.”
“I guess I already am on their radar, though,” I said slowly. “He said something about us doing a funeral for this guy Ray’s wife.”
“That must mean that you did a good job for her funeral, and at least they haven’t asked you for dues or anything,” Maddie said, but I could tell that she was still worried.
I hated to admit it, but I was a little worried too. I didn’t know if I believed everything that Maddie said, but I knew that there were gangs here in Las Cruces, and I knew better than to get on the wrong side of one of them. Especially one that was as powerful as Maddie said these guys were. I definitely didn’t want my business to burn to the ground, not after all the hard work I had put into it over the years.
And especially not when this was how I provided a good life for Sam. Nothing was going to come in the way of that.
I sighed. “All right, I guess getting the body ready for a funeral on Tuesday isn’t that big of a deal,” I said, glancing toward the pile of cash again. If it really did come from dues that the other businesses in town paid to Red Eyes, I wasn’t sure that I even wanted to touch it. But it wasn’t like there was anything I could do about it. Cash was cash, and it wasn’t like it had any bloodstains on it.
I sighed and shook my head, just now noticing that Sam had come into the reception room with Maddie. “Hey, buddy,” I said, reaching down to lift him up. His eyes were round as well, but hopefully not because he’d understood the things that Maddie had been saying about the motorcycle gang.
“Mommy, that man had a motorcycle,” he said, sounding excited. “Is he your new boyfriend?”
I laughed. “No, he’s not my boyfriend,” I told Sam. “He’s one of Mommy’s customers.”
“Oh,” Sam said, pouting a little. He smiled up at me. “But do you think he’d let me ride on his motorcycle anyway?”
“No motorcycles until you’re eighteen,” I said, not for the first time. Sam had loved motorcycles even before he could properly talk about them. He had started out calling them “vroom vrooms,” and he wouldn’t hesitate to tell anyone who would listen that one day, when he was all grown up, he was going to have one.
As his mother, I was terrified of that day. But I figured there was nothing wrong with letting him get excited about seeing them, just so long as I didn’t have to see him ride on one for over a decade. Maybe he’d outgrow the fascination eventually.
“One day, I’m gonna have a motorcycle just like him, and I’m going to drive fast, and it’s going to be so cool,” Sam said.
More reason I didn’t want to have anything to do with this Red Eyes club. I didn’t want my son thinking that those kinds of motorcycle types were cool. I definitely didn’t want him growing up and one day deciding that he wanted to be like them. “But you're going to be a cool motorcycle guy, aren’t you, Sam?” I asked him. “Not a jerk like that guy.”
Sam nodded solemnly at me. “I’ll never be a jerk,” he said, and I had to laugh.
“Good,” I said, kissing Sam’s temple and then setting him down on the ground.
I couldn’t stop thinking about the motorcycle guy. Cameron. He had been a jerk, but there had been something sexy about the confidence that he had, and I almost thought he was hiding something behind that bravado of his. Like maybe he was hurting for this friend of his, Ray, but didn’t want to show it.
I was reading too much into it. Trying to humanize him. It had been a long time since I’d been with a man. I was sure that was part of it. It had been a long time, and as much as our interaction had been strained due to how full of himself he was, I had to admit that there was something sexy about a guy who knew that he was in control and who had that sort of confidence in what he was doing.
He had a little too much confidence for my usual liking, but then again, it had been a while.
And when I really thought about it, it wasn’t like that guy was your usual motorcycle sort. Oh, he had a nice bike, sure. And he’d been dressed like he was going for a ride, in dark jeans and a leather jacket in spite of the heat outside. But he wasn’t this huge, burly guy with a mustache like you saw in the movies. He just seemed like a normal guy. Just a confident one.
I don’t know; it was hard to figure out what my feelings were. Especially after hearing everything that Maddie said about the club, I knew that I couldn’t get involved with him. We’d do the funeral for this guy, Ray, then hopefully that would be the last of it. I didn’t want Sam near anything to do with gang violence.
I couldn’t help but wonder, though. Confidence in bed was always sexy, and judging by the way he moved, I bet the guy was pretty much all muscle. He was lithe, dangerous. Almost catlike in his grace. Not only that, but if he was some motorcycle-riding stud, he probably wouldn’t want much more than a one-night stand anyway.
And, as it were, I could certainly use someone to clean the pipes.
But no. I wasn’t about to invite someone like that into my life. Into our lives, because Sam was a part of my life now as well. Once upon a time, before Sam had been born, maybe. But I couldn’t go around playing with fire now. It wouldn’t be fair. It could ruin everything that I had worked so hard to build.
“Hey, I know it’s not one of our usual nights, but why don’t we all go to dinner tonight?” Maddie asked brightly, shaking me from my thoughts. “It’s just about time to close up this place anyway, and I’d love to take my little boyfriend out on a date.” She winked at Sam, and I gave her a look.
Sam made a face. “Gross,” he said.
Maddie giggled. “Sammy, you know that there are tons of boys just dying to be my boyfriend. I was giving you the first chance, but I guess you missed your shot.”
“I don’t need a girlfriend,” Sam declared. “Mommy’s the best.”
Maddie laughed and shook her head, grinning over at me. “You’re right,” she said. “Your mommy really is the best. Now, how about we convince her to go to that little burger place for dinner, and then we can have ice cream for dessert?”
“We already had ice cream for a snack today!” I protested, even though I knew that it was useless. If Maddie had her way, she would spoil that kid rotten.
And to be honest, I wasn’t really complaining. Sam was a good kid, for all that we spoiled him sometimes. And he deserved a little spoiling. I knew that it was tough for him, growing up without a “real family.” He didn’t have his grandparents and dad and siblings and cousins like the other kids in his kindergarten class. He had a mom who worked hard and sometimes got called in on her days off.
He deserved a little spoiling.
As we walked out of the funeral home, I glanced one more time at where Cameron’s bike had been parked, wondering if maybe I deserved a little spoiling as well of a different sort. But again, I reminded myself that there was no way I could get involved with him. Not after hearing about their motorcycle club. If half the stories were true, that was still way more than I would ever want to get mixed up with.
Besides, Cameron seemed to think something bad could happen even during the funeral. He wanted me to make sure that we had guards on hand just in case. I shook my head. Nope, not getting involved with him. I would give him this funeral, and that would be the end of it. I wouldn’t even have agreed to that if there was any way out of it, but I didn’t need problems for my business.
7
Cameron
On Tuesday, I showed up at the funeral home before anyone else. I wanted to make sure that everything had been done the right way. Make sure that Ray’s wishes were followed to the T and that there hadn’t been any problems.
And to be honest, I sort of wanted to say goodbye. Oh, I’d been into the ho
spital room a number of times over the last days of Ray’s life, but I had never really gotten to say goodbye like Braxton and Landon had. I couldn’t remember what his last words to me had been because I hadn’t realized at the time that they were the last words that Ray would ever say to me.
I was still having a hard time believing that he was gone, if I was being honest. I had never really had to mourn someone who had had such a big impact on my life before.
“I’ll give you a minute alone,” Tara, the funeral home director, told me quietly, and I could tell from the look that she gave me that I wasn’t doing as good of a job as I’d hoped in hiding my feelings. I’d better get it together before the rest of the guys got there. Braxton and Landon, I was sure, would be just as calmly neutral as ever, no outward signs of their hurt unless it was that Braxton showed up a little too drunk and Landon reached out to steady himself against his twin every so often.
And Grant, well. Grant had managed not to blunder too much during the meeting the previous day, so there was at least some hope there. He’d do his best to hold it together during the funeral as well; we had talked about the risk that someone else would see this time as an opportunity—that we were weak and that now was the time to strike—and Grant knew that he needed to keep up a strong front.
There would be other guys there as well. Guys that Ray had met over the years, some of the auxiliary members of Red Eyes. I hadn’t been sure if they should all be invited or if we should keep this small and quiet. A family affair. But in the end, I reasoned that those guys were family as well. And where did you draw the line? Will would be there because he was with Belle, but Marcus would be there as well. He wasn’t part of Red Eyes anymore, not since he’d moved to the Northwest, but Ray was still a good friend of his. And if Marcus was there, what was to stop Ray’s other good friends being there? It wouldn’t be fair not to invite them all.
I just hoped that this wasn’t going to end in disaster and that someone else wasn’t going to make a play for the role of president of the MC.
I glanced one last time at Ray, lying there in his casket, looking somehow just as stern in death as he had in life. I smiled a little and then shook my head. I went out into the main hall to start greeting everyone.
Things went off without a hitch, everyone trickling into the place as we got closer to the time of the funeral. Tara really had done a great job arranging everything, especially as it had been so last-minute. I made a mental note to thank her, and maybe tip her a little extra, even though I knew that we had already paid her more than we needed to, but this was Ray’s funeral, and it was worth it, whatever the cost.
Landon got up and gave the eulogy, and that was the first time that I thought he might crack and show a little emotion, but he managed to keep it together until he was back to his seat, at which point his brother was the one to put a hand on his shoulder, this time, lightly squeezing to give him comfort.
Belle got up to say some words about her father, and I glanced around at the rest of the crowd. It was hard to listen to a sweet girl like Belle talk about losing her dad, but at least he hadn’t died doing something Red Eyes related. That guilt would have been hard for all of us to bear, even though Ray obviously knew the risks of his profession.
A face at the back of the crowd caught my eye. Lex. The leader of the Unknowns.
We’d had some run-ins with the Unknowns in the past. They’d ransacked the Red Eyes headquarters building and caused some trouble for us with some of our businesses as they tried to take over our territory. Finally, it had been Marcus who had gotten them off our backs; he had planted drugs in their headquarters and then called the sheriff to have them all arrested, but Lex had somehow gotten cleared of wrongdoing by a lack of evidence that he had anything to do with the drugs. He’d gone to trial, and they’d let him go.
We weren’t so worried about the Unknowns anymore, not with most of their members behind bars. But Lex was still someone who we definitely needed to keep on our radar. Even if we did have an agreement with him that he wasn’t going to try anything again.
Or rather, Ray had had an agreement with him. I didn’t know all the details, and I had to wonder if Lex was thought that now Ray was dead, the agreement no longer stood.
I groaned inwardly. I knew something bad was going to happen, but did it really have to happen so soon?
I nudged Grant and nodded toward Lex in the back row. I could see Grant’s fingers clench into fists and knew that he was thinking the same thing I was. I nodded at him, and we sneaked toward the back. I tapped Lex on the shoulder and nodded toward the exit, giving him the clear signal to follow us. I whirled on him as soon as we were out of the reception room, narrowing my eyes at him.
“What are you doing here?” I growled. “You couldn’t even let him get in the ground before starting whatever your plan is and violating the agreement you had with him?”
Lex held up both hands. “Easy there,” he said, looking amused. “I’m not trying to stir up any trouble. I’m here to pay my respects, just like the rest of you. I’ve known Ray for a very long time if you’ll remember.”
“Bullshit,” I said, not believing him in the slightest. “This would be the perfect time for you to start stirring up trouble, don’t think we don’t realize it. You think that because Ray’s out of the picture, we have no president and we’re disorganized. But the joke’s on you. We’ve already got a new leader. And we’re not going to put up with any nonsense from you.”
Lex laughed. “That’s good to know,” he said. But he leaned in closer. “You’re right in one thing. The agreement that I had was with Ray. However, I am willing to extend the agreement as well.”
“For what price?” I asked.
Lex shrugged. “No price,” he said. “It’s more a matter of honor. I don’t have agreements with people I don’t trust.” He paused. “So if I can trust your new leader, then I suppose the agreement is still on.”
“What you mean is, if you realize that you’re not going to be able to win, you’re not going to bother fighting?” I asked sarcastically, even though I knew that I probably shouldn’t goad Lex, especially not when he was considering holding off.
Although we’d have to see if Grant was the kind of guy who could inspire obedience where Lex was concerned. Or would Lex think that he was too weak of a leader in the shadow of Ray?
“Why don’t you get out of here and leave us to our funeral?” I asked. It wasn’t really a question, though, more of a strong suggestion. “There’s a room full of people in there who would love to remember all the ways that you went against Ray over the years and make sure that you’re not going to be a problem for the new president.”
That was a bluff, but Lex just laughed again. “Sure thing,” he said, glancing between Grant and me. “I’ll be in touch to set up a meeting between myself and the new leader.”
“It’d better be fair this time, not like the time that you met with Ray and Will and had them outnumbered and attacked,” I growled, even though I knew that this was Lex and he wasn’t going to fight fair. We’d just have to be prepared for whatever he decided to throw at us.
Lex smiled dangerously at me, like he knew exactly what I was thinking. Like there was no way that we would ever be able to counter him.
“For now, there will be no problems,” he said, nodding at me. Then, he turned and left.
I unclenched my fists, realizing that my fingernails had cut crescent shapes into my palm over the course of the conversation.
“Well, that’s good, isn’t it?” Grant asked in an undertone, watching Lex disappear. “He’s willing to work with us. To bargain or whatever. To make an agreement. He said there aren’t going to be any problems.”
“For now,” I said, still watching the door that Lex had disappeared through. “He said that there aren’t going to be any problems for now.”
But I could tell that he was planning something. I just knew it. His agreement had only been with Ray. That’s exactly what he
had said. We needed to be ready, and I just wished that Grant understood that.
He’d seen Lex and the Unknowns the last time. We’d had a hard time countering them because they were just so infuriatingly unpredictable in what they did. And because they’d even seemed to have the sheriff on their side, wanting to drive Red Eyes out of Las Cruces.
We needed to come up with a game plan. I knew that Ray wouldn’t want us to be the first to attack, but I was starting to wonder if that was the only way that we were going to counter him. We needed to come up with a strategy.
But for now, we headed back into the funeral reception.
8
Tara
I was just about finished cleaning up the funeral home on Tuesday when I realized that not everyone had gone home yet. I glanced outside to where Cameron was still sitting by Ray’s gravesite. He was on his own, just sitting there. Not showing any emotion. I wondered about him. I had been able to tell that he was upset. There were a lot of guys there today who were upset, but there seemed to be a deeper sort of darkness around Cameron than around the others.
I’d listened to a few of the speeches. I was surprised at how human all of these guys seemed. They talked about Ray like he was a father, like he was a good man. Not like he was the head of some terrible motorcycle club, a guy who everyone should have been afraid of. It made it easy to feel sorry for guys like Cameron, who had clearly lost someone important to him. It made me want to make sure that he was okay.
I looked around the funeral home. It was Maddie’s day off today, so it was up to me to make sure everything was in shape for the next funeral the following day. It all looked good, though.
I headed out to the gravesite, standing a little behind Cameron so as not to crowd him. “Death is always tough,” I said softly. True enough, even if it was one of those ridiculous platitudes that everyone always said at funerals like this.
