by Hazel Parker
“Thanks,” I said before hanging up.
But that was just the call I had to make, so I wasn’t even that bothered that the woman on the other end wasn’t that kind and gentle. I then found BK’s number in my phone—it wasn’t saved, but I remembered it having dialed me Friday—and called.
It rang.
And rang.
And rang.
Damnit, BK…
“Yes.”
If the woman from the emergency line had sounded dull, BK sounded like a robot.
Then again, he probably didn’t have the number saved in his phone, and that was probably his default answer. He wasn’t exactly the most expressive guy ever.
“BK, its Megan Walker.”
A long pause came.
“Megan?”
It was one of the first times I had ever heard emotion in his voice. It wasn’t a huge amount—if it had come from someone like my father, it just would’ve been the same as him asking me to pass the bread—but from BK… it was clear he was curious.
“What’s going on? Why are you calling me?”
“My business just got attacked, I think by some Mercs.”
I could only hear BK breathing heavily on the other end of the line.
“BK… I heard them saying something about how they don’t have the numbers to fight you directly, so they’re fighting you on the sidelines or something like that. Someone named Grease, someone named Prospector, and… I don’t know, they put your logo on our stuff to try and make it look like you, and—”
“Call the cops,” he said.
“Wait, BK.”
I heard him hesitate, but at least he didn’t hang up the phone.
“I’m calling you because I don’t think they can handle the job,” I confessed.
I heard his breathing elevate as if what he was hearing was unlike what he’d expected. I waited a beat to make sure I explained myself as best as I could.
“The attack in North Hollywood took place over two months ago, and even with everything that happened, there are several Mercs who should be in jail but aren’t. I’m… I’m scared, BK. I didn’t want to be involved in your war or whatever it is you have going on, but I don’t have much choice now, and I want to pick your side. You’ve treated me well, OK? You haven’t robbed me, that’s for sure. So… can you come here? Not…”
I heard sirens in the distance. I knew if I was heard speaking to the Saints on the phone the cops would raise their eyebrows immediately. Sheriff Wiggins of Green Hills wasn’t going to be there—these were hardened city cops who were looking to crack some skulls.
“Cops are coming,” I said. “Give me an hour and then come down.”
“K,” BK said before hanging up.
Again, it was so abrupt.
Maybe it said something about me that I wanted to hear from BK a little bit more. Maybe it said something that I wanted BK to open up, to give of himself a little more.
But right now, I just wanted to get through the police interview without making it obvious what I had just done.
Chapter 9: BK
If she had known this was coming, she would have never walked out as she did.
Hopefully, she’s on our side now. She said she was, but I don’t think she knows what that means.
It was kind of dark to say, but I was sort of amused by how everything had happened. Megan had more or less stormed out on me Friday after she had seen what being a part of the club war had looked like. The entire weekend, I had stressed about how to get her back into the fold and how I could actually get a full hour of her time to help us.
I guessed the answer was to have the Mercs strike her building.
The question was, then, why had the Mercs done that? That particular building wasn’t something historical or monumental, from what I saw on Google Maps. It wasn’t a building that the Saints had a particular affinity for either. It was just a business building.
Someone with connection to the DMs must have known we had worked together in some capacity and gone after her. But we hadn’t even worked that closely together—we’d bumped into each other maybe twice, and that was that. Maybe some politician was in deep, someone from that first meeting I had gone to, and was using his or her connections and funds to pay off the DMs to do some of this work.
Politics was a dirty fucking business, even I knew that, but I definitely didn’t think it would have sunk so low as to include paying off a known criminal organization to get on the thorny side of another criminal organization.
I briefly considered not picking up Megan as a way of teaching her a lesson, but that was just some level of immaturity speaking to me. I quickly put it aside and decided to do the right thing—after all, if I had left an Iraqi citizen behind for whatever reason, I was going to get in trouble back then too. Certainly not as much as leaving behind… a U.S. soldier…
No! Stick with it, BK. Get on that goddamn bike and go rescue Megan.
I literally jumped out of my seat at the bar, scaring the shit out of Trace and Sword having drinks next to me. I realized then that I had zoned out, once again, when I had company around me. This is getting bad. I have to get this resolved before more shit goes down with my head.
“You alright?” Trace said.
“Yes,” I said quickly.
“The hell you going?” Sword said. “You never take off like this.”
I didn’t respond. I just headed out the door, letting it slam behind me, and got on my bike. I revved the engine, kicked it into high gear, and tore out of the lot at a dangerous speed, turning and heading toward the highway.
The ride to Megan’s place was a relatively short one, although in Los Angeles time, that still meant it was just a hair under half an hour. When I arrived, though, there were still cop cars around, so I decided to head to the nearby In-n-Out and kill time eating four by fours until they departed.
I had to say, it was kind of an amusing scene to see everyone in the restaurant stare at me as I consumed nearly three of the four-by-four burgers, giving me a total of twelve patties, twelve slices of cheese, and God knows how many calories. It was a nice moment of levity in an otherwise tumultuous couple of months; I didn’t have many of these, so I just relished them as I could get them.
Finally, the cop cars pulled off, and I headed over. I never left my bike as I pulled up—Megan was already waiting for me outside.
“Come inside,” she said.
But I shook my head. If the Mercs were nearby, they would have destroyed my bike in a heartbeat. I valued protecting Megan, but I didn’t value it over my bike.
“Get on,” I said. “I’ll take you to the clubhouse. We can talk there. You’ll be safe there.”
“I…”
I just stared at her until she gave in. She couldn’t hold on forever—she’d have to eventually make a damn decision.
“I’m worried I’ll fall,” she said.
Oh, poor girl. You have no idea.
“You won’t,” I simply said, almost as much a cough as an actual statement.
“You’re sure?”
I nodded. It was the most confident I had been in anything in some time.
But then Megan came over and did something unexpected. She put her hand on my shoulder. I had not been touched so… so gently in such a long time; it left me a little bit stunned.
“I just got my place attacked, BK,” she said gently. “I’m a little shaken up, and I’m not sure I’m ready to go on a bike. Can we please just go upstairs to my office? You can park your bike in our deck downstairs. I’ll make sure it’s on the bottom floor so it’s safe.”
For almost anyone else and in under almost any other circumstances, I probably would have just ridden off. If someone was going to refuse to ride on my bike, I wasn’t going to be around them, regardless of whether the relationship was friendly, professional, or something romantic.
But her touch… the thoughts I’d been having about needing to be more open, more empathic, more expressive… part
of that meant not just doing things my way. It meant being open to the way other things went.
“OK,” I said. “Be up in a second.”
I revved the engine back up, following signs for the parking deck, and rode my bike to the very bottom before parking it in the most corner spot possible. If a Merc found it, I would know for sure that Megan was on their side, and there would be some very serious hell to pay.
But I didn’t think she was. She would not have touched me like that if she was on the side of the Mercs. She was a businesswoman, not some spy from Russia or China.
I rode the elevator up to the lobby, where she awaited me. She got on the elevator and rode up to the third floor with me. And I had to say, it felt like a very unusual elevator ride.
There was a tension there that hadn’t been there before. It was quite difficult for me to describe, other than to say that it was intense. I could feel it most strongly when she kept looking up at me. I tried not to look down at her, partially because I didn’t like looking away from openings, but…
There was a look in her eyes that was just too different to ignore. It was almost like…
Does she like me? Is she developing feelings because I came here?
It felt…
It felt kind of nice.
But then the doors opened, and I remembered why I was here. I was here to protect Megan and, in turn, get some advice on improving our image. She was going to give me real help now, and if she didn’t, well, that was fucking it. But again, those eyes could not have lied. Her words might have, but the eyes could rarely fool.
It’s why I was so good at connecting with my soldiers and with seeing which Iraqi soldiers might betray us. You stare at a man long enough, even the most hardened ones, and he will eventually soften up and reveal his true nature.
Even me, at some point.
Megan led me to her office, opening the door with a key fob that she pulled out of her slacks pocket.
“Not the club, unfortunately,” she said with a shrug. “But I think you’ll make do.”
“Fine,” I said.
We went inside, and I sat down at the desk across from her. But rather than sitting across from me in her chair, Megan instead leaned on a desk, raising one knee up. It was a sight that I could not ignore in terms of what it might have meant.
“So…” she said. “Do you know what that all meant?”
I sighed. I made sure to explain as much as I could while also speaking correctly and clearly.
“The Mercs… and the Saints… have been at war for quite some time… years,” I said. “The Mercs killed the founder. We killed their founder. They’ve come after our loved ones to try to hurt us, but we beat them every time. Right now, they are weak. But they are not defeated. And they are using whatever they can to hurt us.”
I sighed.
“They are using our logo to make people believe we are attacking others. They are aware of the coverage of us. But we are not going to let them beat us. We are strong.”
“I agree,” Megan said with a gentle smile. “You know, on Saturday, before I went to bed, I saw a video on Twitter of you guys cleaning up the shop that that guy tried to destroy while I was over.”
My eyes went wide. Megan chuckled slightly, her eyes never leaving mine.
“It was sweet, what you guys did,” she said. “I knew it wasn’t you who had done that, but it was really goddamn sweet. You didn’t have—”
“Yes,” I interrupted. “Green Hills is our town. We protect it. Something bad happens to it, we defend it.”
I didn’t think I’d ever explained it so strongly to Megan, and her eyes took on a new glow I hadn’t seen before.
“But them targeting you, I don’t know,” I said, getting back to business before Megan’s gaze put me in an uncomfortably unfamiliar state. “Why would they target you?”
Megan rocked on her table a couple of times, trying to find the answers. I sure as hell didn’t know what they were.
“They didn’t see me with you, I don’t think,” she said. “On Friday, I mean. I stayed inside the whole time the attack went down.”
“Hmm,” I said. “So where else could they have known you from?”
I decided to put forward my idea.
“I think someone in the North Hollywood group is doing this,” I said. “I angered some politician. So some politician wants to strike…”
But Megan was shaking her head so vigorously that I didn’t think it was possible for her to do it any harder.
“I’ve worked with that entire committee from well before you came into the meeting a month ago,” she said. “And I’ve worked with them since. I’m not claiming to know them all, but none of them would have the balls to approach a biker. None of them. The most extreme of them plays pickup basketball in his fifties. That’s it.”
“We cannot rule anyone out; it could be anyone,” I said.
“Maybe,” she said. “But I would peg the likelihood of a potential connection on anyone but the committee. There’s just no way.”
I hated the confidence with which she spoke. She sounded so sure that she was right.
But I was also facing another issue. From my seat, facing up and looking at Megan, I realized that she looked incredibly attractive from my spot. She was brushing her hair repeatedly, not breaking eye contact, and smiling at me frequently. It was…
It was alluring. And intoxicating.
And more than a little dangerous. Is this just because I came here to protect you? Because I’m a nice guy?
If you try and get with me, you become a target. You become someone the Mercs will target. Go ask Jane and Amber how that worked out for them.
So… stay away, BK. Respectfully away.
“Then,” I said, shaking my head to try and remove the lust surrounding me. “What about your clients?”
But Megan just shrugged.
“I mean, I have them, but it would take forever to go through the list,” she said.
“I want the list.”
I should have asked instead of demanded but it was too late. I was so adamant on knowing who was causing us trouble that I couldn’t help but blurt out the request. Politeness and courtesies went out the door when it came to the DMs.
“I can’t just give that to you, BK,” Megan said. “That’s confidential. A lot of our clients don’t want the fact that they’re using us revealed, which I’m perfectly fine with.”
“I am not competing with them,” I snapped. “I need to research them.”
“BK, I’m not going to give over the list.”
Now I was starting to get frustrated. I had shifted from one intense emotion of arousal and lust over to a much different emotion, but it was one that was only possible because of how much Megan was stonewalling me.
“Want me to protect you?” I said. “Give me the list.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Fuck!”
I slammed my fists on the chair in frustration. Megan leaned back, literally scooting on the desk for some distance. I stood up, turned, and moved about five feet away. I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself.
The only way you’re getting that list is cooperation. Trust. Not through coercion. She’s too strong just to hand that over.
You want to build that trust with her? You tell her why you just blew up as you did. You don’t hide it, BK. You put it all out there so she knows what’s going on. Then she can make her own decisions.
“Give me a second,” I said, my voice soft and gentle.
I closed my eyes. There was a very strong reason why I hated not having information and why people not giving it to me hurt so bad. But rather than hiding that reason, as I had in the past, I had to reveal it.
It would leave me vulnerable, and I was far from used to that. I was a soldier, then I was a sergeant-in-arms. A soldier could not be vulnerable; a soldier had to be strong, stand up for what he believed in, and attack when attacked.
But Megan…
M
egan didn’t want a soldier.
She wanted a man.
And I didn’t need to be BK, the Marine and the sergeant-in-arms.
I needed… I needed…
I needed to be Burke Kyle, the man.
That man had been hidden under so many layers for so long, I feared for what would happen when I let him out. But for Megan’s sake, for my own sake, for the sake of stopping the Mercs… this had to happen.
Even if it had unintended consequences between Megan and I.
I turned.
“Sorry,” I said. “Megan… I served in the Marines in Iraq.”
“I know,” she said softly, her voice a bit frayed with fear. “You told me at your club.”
“Mmhmm,” I murmured. “Well, while I was there… I went on a mission without full information, without the necessary recon. I was in a fucked up state. Someone very close to me had died, and I just wanted to take it out on the Iraqi government. I was warned over and over again that we didn’t have the information we needed, but I said fuck it. Let’s go.”
I sighed. It was hard enough having to explain the build-up to everything. Now I had to say what had happened.
“We went out there, Megan, and… people died. My stupidity led people to die.”
I took a deep breath.
“Sorry for what I did. I protect you, yes, but I need to know more. I need to know everything if I am going to help you. And so, let me ask.”
I took a deep breath. Rather than demand, I would ask. Rather than be blunt, I would be courteous. Rather than be abrasive, I would be polite.
I just hoped it would.
“May I have the list?”
Chapter 10: Megan
I was absolutely fucking stunned.
I was literally left speechless, sitting on the desk in my office, staring at BK.
The last hour had already left me in a bit of a mental whirlwind. When he had shown up, I no longer saw him as the guy who had tried to invade my town hall meeting. When he came, instead, I saw him as… well, really, I saw him as a badass man willing to drive to a crime scene to protect a woman.
Me.
The resulting feelings I was getting were very confusing, especially since before tonight, I had never thought of BK as anything more than a relatively inept buff man but he was a surprisingly insightful and intelligent former soldier. He gave off an image very well as… sergeant-in-arms? Whatever that name on his jacket meant, but I knew there was more to him.
