by M J Marino
“Josephine’s my best friend and business partner. Atlas can deal with it,” Jared grumbles.
“I’m Atlas’s best friend and that shit wouldn’t fly if I tried it,” Gauge retorts.
I want to chastise Gauge and apologize to Jared, but I don’t need to. Gauge wasn’t threatening Jared but warning him. With the mood Maceo’s in, having something as blasé as Jared giving me a hug would throw him over the edge.
Maceo is going to have to get over his jealousy of other men especially since my best friend is a man, I work with men, and Maceo’s family is made up of all men. It’s not acceptable, and Jared is right—Maceo will need to learn to ‘deal with it.’ However, today is not a day to test him.
“Jesus, Jo. You need to eat a sandwich or something. Do you even weigh a full Benjamin?” Punk teases. I know he’s trying to lighten my mood, but it can’t be salvaged.
“Send me the feed,” Maceo barks into the phone. He turns to see Punk bringing me to him. His eyes narrow at Punk, but he trusts his brother and he trusts me. The courtesy would not be extended to anyone outside of the club, regardless of how close of a brother Jared is to me.
Maceo gives a chin nod at my computer strapped to my back in its backpack. Punk sets me down and helps me get it out. Maceo takes the computer and pulls up the surveillance video.
Early this morning around two, a black car pulls along the road near the property and a hooded dark figure with a backpack gets out with a baseball bat. He rushes the fence, scaling it easily, and jumps to the ground on the other side. He races to the trailer and starts beating on the door with the bat till it busts open. He disappears inside for some time before reemerging. We all know the destruction he did in there.
The vandal takes off across the property toward the shop, and bangs the shit out of the one garage door till he’s able to yank it up enough to roll underneath it. Again, we know the damage he did in there as well. He emerges through the shop door as opposed to crawling under the garage door again. He jogs over to the house, but can’t find an easy way in the steel and stone structure.
As if admiring it, he runs a gloved hand over one of the windows and peers inside. He backs off and assesses the building, almost like he’s debating if it’s worth the effort. He obviously can tell the windows are bullet resistant. A baseball bat would bounce off and probably hurt the vandal in the process.
He pulls off his backpack and yanks out what looks like a can of spray paint. He shakes the can but duck’s down when headlights sweep across the house—a car must have driven by on the road. It’s enough to spook the intruder, and he takes off up the hill to the fence along the road and climbs back over.
I blow out a sigh of relief. “This could have been much worse. He could have destroyed the house. Thank God I take my computer and flash drive home with me. I have backups to all the work in the trailer. We’re set back ten grand and at minimum two weeks with the shop, but we can move forward with everything else.”
“Did you see how he was analyzing the buildings? He knew all the weak spots to gain excess to them. He either knows construction sites or is a construction worker,” Punk says to Maceo.
“He’s not a crew member of mine,” I say, matter of fact.
Maceo turns to me. “Why do you say that?”
“My crew was all here when your crew came in and set up the security cameras. My workers know where all the check points are and avoid them when they want to slack on the job or piss somewhere in a corner. If it was one of my crew, they would have used the spray paint to obstruct the camera lenses.”
“This was an outsider or at the very least someone who may have been on the build site and was familiar with it, but unaware of the cameras,” Maceo says.
“Can you play it again?” I ask. Maceo hits the button and the videos pop up. I watch closely as the guy runs between the structures. Hmm…
“What is it? What do you see?” Punk asks.
I cock my head. “I’m watching his running form. It’s kind of like a fingerprint, allowing you to know runners based on their stride patterns. This guy keeps his gait real short, like he’s marching, and he holds his arms high, meaning they can get stiff quickly if not stretched out. It explains why after he took out the trailer and shop, he backed off from the beating on the outside of the house. He was already too worn out,” I say, watching the video.
Maceo looks over at me with something resembling pride. He likes how I’m observant.
My face puckers watching the video. “His form looks familiar to me, like I’ve seen this person before. He’s definitely got the build of a runner, long and lean. The upper body on an average noncompetitive runner is typically shit, because the upper body is not given the same attention as the lower body.
“Competitive runners work their upper bodies too. He had enough to scale the fence no problem. And the damage he did in the trailer and shop was significant. He had a hard time scaling back over the fence, but this could be because his upper body is tighter.
“He definitely is a competitive runner or was a competitive runner who’s still committed to the exercise. But his gait…the marching form is similar too—” I stop, my stomach falls.
“Pixie?” Maceo asks, watching me intently.
I close my eyes and sigh heavily. I should have known who it was from what was written on the inside of the trailer. I’ve seen it written a lot lately from one particular source.
What was he thinking? I open my eyes and glare at the computer.
Maceo bends down to me and lightly turns my face to him. “Who is it?”
“It’s Jacob,” I whisper. “It took me a moment to recognize his form; it’s been over a year since I watched him run. We ran track together at USC, we didn’t stop with our workout routines after graduation. He’s done more road races than me, but he never did like how I was a more successful racer than him. Everything was a fucking competition with him. I cannot believe this shit.”
Maceo’s dark eyes grow darker. “The way he scales the fence in the video is the same way the perp who broke into your condo scaled the back fence of your yard. It had to be him that night, too.”
“That’s why you couldn’t catch him when you pursued him. He’s a middle distance runner. He’s got the speed and the endurance to make a quick get away,” I explain, shaking my head.
“We got him!” Punk cheers, his fists flying above his head. I wish I felt his enthusiasm, instead I feel cold.
Maceo shakes his head. “We’ve got nothing. We have a video showing someone doing this shit, but we’ve got no smoking gun. There’s nothing to connect Jacob to this. He wore gloves and was completely covered head to foot. The fucker was wearing a mask, for Christ’s sake. The police are going to see this and say this could be Jacob or anyone else who fits his build,” Maceo says clinically, pacing back and forth. He paces a lot when he’s thinking, or stressed, or both.
I rub my temples. “Speaking of police, we need to contact them and report this. I have to file a police report to see if we can reclaim anything through insurance.”
“Already done,” Gauge says, walking toward us with Jared. “They should be here any minute.”
Overwhelmed and feeling pretty shitty about myself, I pull away from the group. I walk toward the outer edge of the construction zone where there’s only acres upon acres of wilderness. It’s here I break down, again.
Maceo must have followed me, because as soon as the tears start falling, his arms are lacing around me from behind. He spins me around and holds me to his broad chest. “Pixie, what’s going on?”
“This is all my fault,” I blubber. “If I had ignored his text about taking me off the blacklist and never called him, he never would’ve come here. He never would’ve formed this unhealthy attachment to me if I hadn’t invited him. I fucked it up by contacting him back for this consulting job, which backfired. It’s my fault he did all this damage.”
“Absolutely fucking NOT,” Maceo says, vehemently. “Loafer-dick a
lready had an unhealthy attachment to you prior to any of this. The fact you invited him has no bearing on the choices he made to break into your condo and fuck with my MC clubhouse.
“Jacob made the decision to break into two private properties. He made the decision to steal your items. He made the decision to vandalize my property. His decisions are his alone and haven’t one fucking thing to do with you inviting him here.”
“But I put the temptation back in his face,” I argue.
Maceo shakes his head and holds me tighter. “The temptation has been there for him since you left. You think I haven’t seen the fucking dick pics or the smut texts he sent you months after you left his sorry ass? He hasn’t stopped harassing you. This shit has been ongoing. Stop thinking this has anything to do with you calling him while I was overseas. He would have made his way here eventually with or without you reaching out to him. It was only a matter of time.”
He kisses me so hard and deep I can barely think. I know he’s doing this to distract me, but damn if it isn’t working. It makes me imagine us alone in a bedroom with a large bed, and him totally naked…
Maceo breaks the kiss and smiles naughtily down at me. The way he’s appraising me, I could swear his mind is in the exact same place mine is. “Soon,” he promises, kissing the crown of my head.
Damn, maybe he can read my thoughts as well as the emotions on my face.
He tugs us back over to the group and looks at Punk. “Have Chase look into loafer-dick. I want confirmation he was in the state. Check credit cards, cash withdrawals, cell towers—everything to nail the fucker. The police can’t use it, but we can,” he orders.
Punk nods and walks away to make the call as sirens scream in the distance.
The cops investigate nearly all day, causing a shit storm of traffic when my crew and delivery drivers arrive on-site. I have nearly all my workers inside the main house to avoid disturbing the police investigation. It’s a clusterfuck in there, but at least they’re all working and keeping busy.
Jared and I can’t shut down production today and expect our workers to return tomorrow, as if going a day without pay is something they can afford. If we stop work, we run the risk of crew members jumping ship for paying jobs.
Detective Quire questions me and Maceo again. Maceo fills him in on our suspicions that it’s in fact Jacob, but Luke agrees there’s not enough to bring him in with what little we’ve got and our suspicions alone.
My attention is being tugged in multiple directions with the build, my crew, Maceo, and the cops that I can feel my fragile sanity starting to rip.
Maceo is on the phone with Chase and growing angrier by the second, which isn’t good because he’s already in full alpha asshole mode. Tipping him over the edge may cause a nuclear explosion to go off around him. I feel bad for Chase having to deal with him right now.
Punk follows me around like a human shield, though we could probably stop having him do it. Jacob is the panty-snatching fence-jumping vandalizer. Yet, I know Punk would give me the ‘Maceo’s orders’ or ‘Esteban is still out there’ speech. Conceding, I let him guard me to keep the peace.
Jared and I crunch numbers and try to figure out a way to recoup ten grand. I call our insurance company, and Jared tries to hash out better deals with venders.
By the end of the day, I’m asking Jared if he’s reconsidering our partnership. I’ve brought such a fucking headache to this job, and I wouldn’t blame him for bailing. Jared does everything he can to reassure me that he’s with me all the way, but I can’t help but worry about it.
Maceo is busy investigating Jacob with Chase and Gauge, so Jared and I stay late after our crews leave for the day, and sort through the mess of papers in the trailer. I categorize stacks, while Ziggy and Jared tag-team putting things in chronological order. Butch helps by reprinting all my torn blueprints at a local print shop. Punk, Flay, and Eagle remove all the broken furnishings and file sorted paperwork.
Ziggy rush orders a new laptop for Jared. He sets it up on the make shift desk of two saw horses and an old door that Punk threw together—Ziggy is even kind enough to walk Jared through his new computer. By two in the morning, the file cabinet is back in order and the floor is clean. All that’s left is a stack of papers a foot high, but I call it a night.
Maceo takes me home and we fall into bed fully clothed. Hades crawls on top of Maceo and the three of us go to sleep.
In the morning, Maceo and I go for a run with Hades. Our asses are dragging but we need this. I drive to work with Hades since Maceo wants to lift weights. Opal accompanies me. She needs a place to study and prefers to do it away from Gauge—he’s too much of a distraction for her. Punk escorts us to the site, and I attack the last pile of paper, having it all sorted before the rest of my crew shows up.
My workers are happy to spread out again and get right to work. Jared comes with a can of paint to cover the spray-painted wall of the trailer—Ziggy even offers to help him paint, making Jared a happy camper. Cliff makes a new door for the trailer and installs it. By lunch time the trailer looks new.
Two of my crew members remove the built-in cabinets and garage door in the shop. The metal is scrapped to recoup some money. I rush order new ones and they will be in by next week. The hydraulic lift is a big budget hit, but Maceo says to go ahead and order the new one and he will foot the bill. Relieved, I cry in Maceo’s arms. As the day comes to a close, we are working as if nothing has happened and everything is on track.
By the end of the week, I’m ready for the weekend. Jared and I are determined to finish the build before three months are up, and we brainstorm nonstop to figure out how we can make it happen.
We buy pizza for all our employees to thank them for all their hard work. Sometimes all you need to do to let your workers know you appreciate them is surprise them with food. Lunch goes a little over, but spirits are high afterwards.
By four o’clock in the afternoon, the insurance company calls back to inform us our claim has been accepted. It’s enough to cover the rest of the expenses. I’m locking up shop and shooing the rest of my workers home, waiting for Maceo to arrive and drive me back. I double-check the new security system Chase installed and make sure all the cameras are functioning before walking over to my security detail.
Punk nods at me to get on his bike. I guess Maceo isn’t coming after all. I don the helmet Punk hands me and crawl up behind him, wrapping my arms around his mid section gingerly.
Punk laughs and yanks me flush to him. “I don’t bite, Jo.”
It feels weird being this close to Punk when I’m Maceo’s fiancée, but I don’t have another option of getting home.
“Where’s Maceo?” I ask.
“Atlas has been working with Chase and Gauge all day after he finished at the gym. Chase has found a lot of damaging evidence against Jacob, but none of it can be used since it was obtained illegally,” he informs before starting his bike. “Hold on tight, Jo.”
Eagle and Ziggy lead the caravan with Punk and I in the middle and Flay and Brass taking the rear. It always seems like overkill to have this many men watching out for me, but I’m not going to argue anymore with Maceo. He’s made it clear I’m top priority and the Ravens are protecting their first lady.
We get to the MC’s rental and I see Maceo in the garage with Chase and Gauge, huddled around one of the computers. I climb off Punk’s bike and remove my helmet. Maceo stands from his stool and makes his way toward me, Hades padding alongside him. When Maceo is toe to toe with me, he bends down and gives me a deep kiss, making my toes curl in my steel-toed boots.
Maceo raises a dark eyebrow at Punk. “Thank you for bringing my fiancée home. I trust you were on your best behavior?”
“Didn’t touch or hit on her, I swear,” Punk says quickly.
I slap Maceo on the chest gently. “Stop being a bully. Punk is always a gentleman to me.”
Maceo laughs and Punk relaxes. “He knows I’m fucking with him, Pixie.”
I
look at Maceo expectantly. “Punk said Chase found the mother lode on Jacob?”
Bright white teeth take over Maceo’s smile. “He sure did. Come have a look.” He takes my hand and pulls me gently to the garage where Chase and Gauge are working. Punk follows and goes to the fridge in the garage to grab everyone beers.
Maceo sits his fine muscled ass on a stool and sits me on one of his tree-trunk legs. “Chase, why don’t you give my woman the run down?”
Chase gives me a knowing grin. “The fucker is smart, I’ll give him that much. He’s avoiding using his credit cards because he knows they can be traced, but he took out a large cash withdrawal from his savings a week before he vandalized our turf.
“I hacked into surveillance videos around the area and caught him on camera entering a motel Monday morning around four, on the outskirts of Fort Collins. He paid with cash, we assume, since his credit shows nothing. Video footage shows him leaving around three in the afternoon.
“We believe he avoided buying a plane ticket because that could be traced. He drove here in his own vehicle. You would be unfamiliar with it since he purchased the black Volvo after you two had split. He probably thought he was safe traveling around town because no one would recognize it.
“The surveillance video outside your condo clearly shows him staking out the property in his car, probably waiting for you to return. We got him driving by our rental, too, but he was smart enough to keep driving and not stop.
“The fucker left his cell off or didn’t bring it because his cell plan shows nothing. More than likely he bought a burner to use for an emergency.”
A cold shudder runs through me. The idea of having Jacob stakeout my condo gives me the heebie-jeebies. “In other words, we’ve got nothing we can turn over to the cops?”
“We’ve shown them the videos from our properties, but I can’t turn over the motel surveillance video without getting myself arrested for hacking. This is unfortunate since it’s the only video with actual confirmation of him being present in Fort Collins,” Chase answers.
