by Hazel Parker
“You’re not going to win this battle standing up to the cops,” Jane said, drawing all eyes to her, given it was the first thing she said all meeting. “You’re going to have to do it by developing a stronger relationship in the community. The cops want the peace of the community first and foremost; if you make it so that people are upset with you guys leaving, then that’s the best way to get them off your back.”
“A little PR is what you’re saying,” Trace said.
“But we’re already liked in this goddamn area,” I said, modulating my words as Jane made the hand gesture to calm myself. “People support us. The press hates us, but who really trusts the press anymore?”
“People of influence,” Sheriff Wiggins said.
Damnit. I hate that he’s right. I hate it!
“And people outside of the community in the nearby neighborhoods,” he said. “You’re going to have to reach higher up to spread your message of… well, whatever the hell you want your message to be.”
Amber can help with that. She’s connected in Los Angeles. She could get that.
“Look, we can talk about press relations and writing a book someday or going to some charity or I don’t give a fuck what,” Trace said. “But that’s a story for another day. Right now, as in, over the next few days, Wiggins. What can you do to help?”
The sheriff grimaced. He had already helped us in one way, though; we weren’t aiming high enough with our influence. Sure, grandma Betty down the street who secretly wished it was still the sixties liked us, but aside from a citizen’s vote every two years or so, she had no impact.
It was the Green Hills press, the Los Angeles press, and the local mayor and nearby mayors whom we had to reach. Admittedly, part of me wondered if threats were best.
Actually, no, fuck that, I wouldn’t say “wondered.” I’d say “begged to make some goddamn threats.” These fucking assclowns needed a lesson in who actually protected the city, and as much as I didn’t mind Sheriff Wiggins, it sure as hell wasn’t the goddamn badge that did the job. Criminals didn’t fear the police; they feared us. The cops would arrest them and hope they learned a lesson; we’d beat their ass and know they learned a lesson.
But…
That’s why I was fucking vice president. Because Trace had a better grasp on things than I ever did. If he went out again as he had during our fight with Diablos, well, I didn’t want to think about it.
“Right now, I can tie the process up a bit,” he said. “I can say that I conducted the questioning, that’ll get them all tied up, saying things about standard protocol. But even if I do get this particular case out of the way, even if I do manage to get things dismissed on some technicality, they’re not going to stop coming for you. You’re going to need a bigger strategy than just me.”
At that, Sheriff Wiggins gathered his things and headed for the door. Just before he left, he turned and looked to me.
“Your lawyer lady friend might be able to help. And before you say anything about me assuming anything, check the news. Hmm?”
The fuck does that mean?
But I didn’t have time to think about it, because as soon as the door shut, Trace cleared his throat, demanding my attention.
“What?” I said.
“I’m going to need your help with something, Splitter,” he said. “We’re going to have to mandate that the club keep its operations that much more low key.”
That seemed like the easiest request ever, and it was already something we were doing anyway. I failed to see what the big deal was and just said, “OK, I can do that.”
“No, I mean, we can’t be doing parties like this right now,” he said.
“Fuck,” I said, not so much for myself but for all of the passed out guys and girls in this room. People loved getting drunk, getting fucked, and getting into fights; that we’d have to take away all three from them might as well have signaled that we were going to start prohibition all over again. “Well, they ain’t gonna like it.”
“Tough shit,” Trace said. “It’s part of being president. But right now, we need a strategy.”
“Yep,” Trace said. “I think Wiggins is right. We might need Amber’s help.”
“Agreed,” Jane said.
I stared at the both of them, annoyed that my lawyer was suddenly getting pulled in multiple directions within the club. What the fuck was the point of defending me against a murder charge and God knows what else if the club was just going to use her for other points? What the fuck did it even mean for…
“Why do you look so pissed?” Trace said.
Because…
Because I don’t want to share her. Because I want her with me. Because I’m attracted to her and having her attention on other things means it won’t be on me. Goddamnit.
“Look… that’s not important right now,” I said. “We can use her as needed, but I’m not sure what help she will be. Here’s my fucking question. Why don’t we have the police turn the heat on the DMs?”
To me, it was a question that had been hanging over my head since I got indicted. While it was true that we had been the ones to blow up the warehouse and thus had immediately drawn all the attention, it’s not like the Mercs had ever gone without committing a crime. They’d committed so many of them, in fact, that all of their members could share the sentences equally and everyone would be spending life in prison.
And to be sure, the DMs had a much worse reputation in the Los Angeles area than we did. The press hated both of us, but most people understood we were just a different breed of human. But the DMs? They were just fucking savages and animals. So why the fuck wouldn’t the cops want to end them?
“Probably because they think the DMs are dead.”
Well… shit.
“Right now, the DMs have not yet attacked us. Diablo is dead. If you’re a cop and you see that Diablo has been dead for some time and there hasn’t been any retalition, you probably think the Devil’s Mercenaries are buried and dead. Gone forever. We know that’s not the case, but we aren’t cops. We can play by rules they can’t. Which, unfortunately, means the cops can’t do anything until they see something happen.”
“OK…” I said, my voice trailing off. There was something in there that Trace had left open, and I wanted to drive it home. “So if we’re going to lay low and we can play defense without casualties, why don’t we wait until they attack? We can record everything, and then we can give it to the police to go after the DMs.”
“That could work,” Trace said, his mind racing at the same time his mouth moved. “But do we want to be in bed with the cops? That’s the kind of thing that could easily come back to bite us in the ass if we aren’t careful, you know? Like they use us to help them, and they get information on us, pretending to be our close friend, and then they kill us in court.”
I hated that Trace was right.
But just as I thought before, that’s why he was the goddamn president and I was the fucking vice president.
Man, I’m swearing a lot. Amber would not approve. Maybe I do need her here with Trace. Her presence would help calm me down big time. If nothing else, it would get me not to be so up and down.
“I really think we need Amber here,” Trace said as if reading my mind.
“Yeah, I’m in agreement on that now,” I said. “Hold on.”
I reached down to my phone to text her, only to see that she had already texted me. I tried not to show that this development was exciting to me, putting my hand over my mouth so that Jane and Trace couldn’t see me acting like an idiot. I unlocked my phone and read the message.
“Getting harassed by the pap. Not able to see you in public right now. Fear that the only thing I can do is go to your warehouse and we need guys to fend off media. Are you OK with that?”
Was I OK with that? What kind of a question was that? Of course I was OK with that! That was the best news I could have gotten right then! The girl I liked, the girl that was easily the most attractive one I had ever met, wanted to come to our pl
ace? To our turf?
Fuck and yes!
Language, Splitter. Amber would not like it!
There was, however, one problem.
This place looked like a fucking orgy fest right now, because it was exactly that. To say Amber was not comfortable when she first walked in here was a massive understatement, and if she came here with the place still looking like this…
She was too polite ever to say that she needed the place cleaned up before she arrived, but I knew she was expecting it all the same, nor could I refuse such a request on her part. If I did so, the attraction between us was going to fade.
“So I can have her here in a bit, maybe even tonight,” I said. “But we have to get this place clean. She can help both of our situations out, but if this place is looking like a frat house, there is absolutely zero chance she’s going to stick around. What are the chances that we can get this place cleaned by tonight?”
I fully expected Trace to laugh, ask me to look around the room, and ask me what I thought the odds were. If he had, I would not have blamed him in the least. Savage Saints weren’t savage because we were pushovers when it came to giving up things we liked. We were savage because of nights like last night.
“Easy,” he said, leaving me a little surprised, although not in an unpleasant way. “We’ll give everyone here two more hours to wake up. At that point, we start forcing everyone to clean up and get themselves organized. If not, we toss them out the back and let nature wake them up.”
“Damn, Trace,” I growled with a half-laugh. “Not one for fucking around, huh?”
“Not when it comes to the fate of the Savage Saints.”
Oh, he’s more serious than I am. He’s really not going to take any of this shit.
I suppose everything with Jane helped him shape up. He was a great leader before, but this is much more intense of a leader than he was before.
“I’m going to go take a nap,” Trace said. “I still feel like death. Jane?”
“Of course,” she said, smirking.
I had a feeling “nap” was going to be preluded by something much more exciting than what I was going to be doing—which was actually napping—but what was I going to do, cockblock Trace from his girlfriend? Besides, if luck looked in my favor at all, I wouldn’t be too far behind.
And given that Amber would be coming over to my place very willingly in almost no time, I might even be on even ground with him soon.
Chapter 8: Amber
When I had set the three ground rules for Splitter, he was far from the first client that I had had to establish such rules for. In fact, he was one of the better ones—possibly one of the best, if I was being totally honest—because he listened and picked up so quickly on what I wanted out of my clients. Most clients were either too stubborn or too arrogant to listen.
Tonight, though, as I gathered my possessions, made sure I was dressed as professionally as possible, and headed for my car, I decided that someone needed stricter rules for someone—me.
After what had happened in the car, I needed some guidance and some hard rules that would prevent me from doing anything stupid or borderline dangerous. Hugging a client, in a vacuum, was not that bad, but in the context of all the looks we had given each other? In the face of everything we had done to each other? It was a bad sign.
There were perhaps many reasons why: the divorce was unsettling my sense of right and wrong; working with people like the Saints had confused me; my faith had seemed to abandon me at the worst possible time; and on and on and on. But the why did not matter so much as ensuring that the “what” did not happen again.
So, by the time I reached the highway to head to Green Hills around fifteen minutes before nine o’clock, I set three rules for myself for the two-hour meeting.
One, I would not touch Splitter in any way, not even a handshake. Obviously, this would prevent me from hugging him, but it would also prevent me from doing anything that might eventually lead to a hug and possibly more. If I never got to touch his arm, if I never got to feel his grip, if I never got to lean my body into him, then there was no way that I could just hug him. It would feel too awkward.
Granted, not touching him at all might carry some awkwardness as well, but we’d met enough times that I could walk in somewhere and just get right into the issue.
Second, I would leave at eleven sharp. Aside from just being a good lawyer and making sure I did not “accidentally” add time I could charge for, I felt that this insistence on leaving right at the top of the hour would keep us focused. It would also prevent me from doing anything after our time together professionally ended.
Finally, and this was one that I wasn’t sure was a good idea, but it was one I had to abide by for myself all the same: I had to break Splitter in cross-examination practice.
This one, I knew, was dubious. While I was trying to break him as the prosecution would, I worried it wouldn’t be enough. Would the questions come out the same? Would the tone come out the same? I’d seen Edwin and his assistants examine enough witnesses and defendants to know what they liked and did not like to do, but that did not mean that I could perfect it.
I told myself, as far as why I wanted to do it, was because that was the focus of the paid session. It was my professional duty to try and break Splitter in this meeting, and if I didn’t do that, I was not being a good lawyer.
But personally, though, I knew it would make Splitter dislike me just enough that he would not think about touching me or flirting with me. And if I were doing it, then I would see Splitter not as an attractive man, but as a client who needed to stay strong during the inquiries.
You do realize that neither of us are actually trying to touch or flirt with each other. It just comes out. And most of the time… it’s coming from me. I’m the one flirting.
Dang. Maybe I am going to need more than three rules for myself.
Just the fact that I was even having this conversation, asking myself about having these rules, was a bit of an eye-opener. I’d dealt with men that every woman from back home had posters of growing up; I’d dealt with Instagram models who had more followers than residents of the state of South Carolina; I’d dealt with athletes who got courted by very attractive women while they were on the courts.
And yet, I had never needed my own rules until now.
If my divorce is affecting me like this with Splitter… what’s it going to do for someone like an athlete or a movie star?
Nevertheless, such self-questioning would do little good for now, and I knew that in the short term, I just had to get through these next two hours by supplying my greatest legal advice and professionalism yet. When I got home, I’d just pray, find the answer, listen to God, and go from there.
… If that worked, that is. It hadn’t seemed to recently.
Shuddering at the severe questioning of my faith, I kept my focus on the road until I got to Peters’ Auto Repair. I parked the car inside the shop grounds, making sure that no cameramen had followed me—or at least pretending to make sure, since it was not like if they did, I could do anything about it, a few bikers could though—and headed inside the clubhouse.
Remember your three rules. No touching. No staying after eleven. And no doing anything other than trying to break Splitter during cross-examination.
Then Splitter appeared, wearing fitted jeans and a white t-shirt, revealing his unbelievably jacked shoulders and gorgeous arms, and I could not help but wonder how easy it was going to be to actually stay on top of my promise to myself. I don’t know why—it wasn’t like I had never seen an attractive, muscular man before—but there was just something about Splitter that made me so… so…
“Damn.”
I covered my mouth as soon as I realized I had sworn! I silently apologized to God.
“Was that a swear I heard from you, Amber Reynolds?” Splitter said, teasing me. “Hmm? Because I’d be happy to teach you a lot more than that!”
“Sorry, sorry,” I said, legitimately fee
ling quite guilty. “That was bad; I just got caught off guard, goodness me, I just need… this is a bad start. OK, let’s start over. We—”
But before I could finish, I saw Mr. Cole emerging from the bathroom.
“Hi, Amber,” he said. “I was wondering if you could take fifteen minutes of your time to provide some general club advice. I understand it will take away from Splitter’s time, but Splitter and I are in agreement that the club needs this.”
“Um, sure,” I said, feeling a bit hurt that Splitter was losing valuable time. “I can’t promise I can give specific advice without reviewing the evidence of what you’re going through, though.”
“That doesn’t matter,” Trace said. “I mean, it does, but I’m more interested in your input than anything else.”
“Alrighty then,” I said.
I didn’t think that this was some sort of weird trap or anything; I had not done anything wrong, and nothing about Splitter’s behavior had suggested he needed to keep me here to talk to me. But I couldn’t help but feel just a smidgen of awkwardness from what was basically a legal ambush of sorts.
“The club recently was levied a public disturbance complaint from Monday night. While, as you know, the party did get a little bit crazy—you saw the aftermath—it was far from the loudest party we had ever had.”
I shuddered to think of what their full parties looked like. If this was a tame party… full of things that I considered shameful and sinful… what did their real ones consist of?
Focus, Amber. It is not your place to judge. Just stay focused on his advice and answer it.
“I strongly, strongly suspect from talking to sources and from my gut intuition that we are getting pressure from the local authorities. They’re looking for any excuse to get us to crack and go down, and if they can get it with public appearances, well, they’re going to do it. I want to fight this, but I know that we can’t exactly fight the cops and the authorities as we do the DMs or other rival clubs. So… what would you advise?”
We can’t exactly fight the cops… as we do… other rival clubs. Well, thank goodness you aren’t doing that; I can’t stand here and represent a club that would do something like that. That would be too much.
