“What’s that mean for T-Built?” I asked.
“If I had to guess: less funding, less support. The Crew’s got other things to focus on right now, an’ I don’t think T-Built’s the type of guy who likes not being the center of attention. Guy like him becomes the Crew’s heaviest earner, gets himself a bit of the celebrity status in their ranks, then finds everyone scramblin’ ‘round and shittin’ on themselves to keep from getting’ brought down. Suddenly nobody’s around to scratch under his chin an’ tell him he’s a good boy. Somethin’ like that’s bound to make a guy like that kinda tense. That, an’ I guess some Crew whores went and took a go at some of his stash. Killed themselves an’ took a few gees worth of shit into their veins ‘fore they did.”
“Boo-fucking-hoo,” I said with a scoff. “So what’s ‘crazed’ mean for us. And how are we hearing about it this soon?”
“Welp,” Danny smiled wide—a “who’s your main man”-kinda smile—and kicked up his heels. “It just so happens a certain somebody posted a lookout at yer lady’s corner. Y’know, keep an eye on her an’ make sure she was doin’ alright.”
I stared at him, awestruck. “Danny, you—”
“It’s ‘Mercury,’ kid, got it! An’ don’t go nuzzlin’ my balls or nothin’—I was just doin’ ya a solid ‘cuz I was happy to see you happy. Ya start bringin’ in the Lifetime shit an’ I’m gonna pop ya one. I don’t need ya goin’ faggy on me!”
I blinked, stared, and grinned, giving him an appreciative nod. “Okay. That’s fair. Consider me un-‘fagged.’” Then, thinking, my eyes widened. “Oh shit!” I cried out, standing. “If the lookout spotted T-Built at Mia’s corner earlier tonight then…”
Danny nodded, seeing where I was headed. “Then the Crew must’ve been notified about yer girl’s stunt and he was out there checkin’ it out.”
“Was Candy anywhere—”
Danny was already shaking his head. “My lookout said the corner was empty. Said that seemed to piss him off even more.”
I calmed, but only slightly. Frowning, I asked, “Why would T-Built be the one at the corner?”
“Dunno,” Danny shrugged. “Maybe he was the closest when the Crew got the call. Maybe the guy who roughed Mia up owes T-Built drug money, or maybe he has ties to the Crew and T-Built in other ways. Don’t suppose ya caught if he’s part of their crew, did ya?”
I shook my head.
“Hmm,” he hummed, shrugging again. “Who knows? But, like I said, he’s crazed. Been a real shit-storm raining down on him, so maybe he thought wasting a few whores who’ve been particularly naughty to the Crew would ease some tension; maybe he even thought it’d bring some of that old spotlight back on him. Or maybe he’s just a sick fuck. I dunno, Chase, point is he’s out there, crazy as a coked-up cat. Which means two things—one: while that Candy-girl’s still out there somewhere, she’s got a target on her ass an’ T-Built scopin’ for her; an’ two: it shouldn’t be impossible for ya to track him down.”
I cursed under my breath, stepping up the chopper on the side of the road and pulling out my cell. I hadn’t wanted it to come to this—hadn’t wanted to wake Mia or get her involved—but I didn’t have much choice left.
After parting ways with Danny, I’d gone straight to Mia and Candy’s building, parking a way’s up the street to avoid tipping off any Carrion Crew members who might’ve already beaten me to their place. Thankfully, things seemed quiet. But that could’ve just as easily meant I was already too late. Slipping through the doorway that she’d always come through, I found myself heading up a flight of stairs that ended in a shallow hallway with a few doors. I’d found myself stalled at this, unsure of which of the doors belonged to…
That smell!
I felt my nostrils flare and my face scrunched an instant later. Christ, that was acrid! Like someone had loosed a thousand cats to piss all over a bleach factory!
But, no, that wasn’t it…
I knew that smell. I couldn’t be sure from where, but I knew I knew that smell!
Then, remembering that I wasn’t there for whatever that was, I tried to remember if Mia had given any hint about which door was hers.
She hadn’t.
Resigning, I decided to get back to my bike and do what I promised myself I wouldn’t.
I called Mia.
“Jace?” she answered, frantic. “Jace, where are you? Are you—”
“I’m fine,” I assured her. “Really. I just… Mia, the Crew found out what happened. They’ve got people out looking for you and—”
“Oh god…” I heard Mia gasp. “Is Candy…?”
“Not that I know of,” I told her. “One of ours on the street said that she wasn’t at the corner. They think she figured out what was going on and split. I tried to check your place, but I couldn’t—”
“No,” Mia said, a glimmer of hope slipping into her voice. “No, she wouldn’t have gone back to the apartment if there was trouble. She knows that’d be the first place they’d check. No, she always said that if there was trouble we should meet behind Jack-Jack’s Candy Emporium.”
I paused at that, speechless. “The… the goddam candy shop?” I asked after a long moment.
Mia offered a nervous chuckle. “Yeah, I know. It seems silly, but… well, it’s her father’s store.”
I slipped onto the chopper. “Candy’s dad runs the candy store? Her dad’s Jack-Jack?”
“Well, I mean, I never asked his name, but, yeah, it’s his shop,” she said. “They had a falling out a few years back, but I guess she’s always sort of been thinking of him in some way or another.”
“I suppose she’d have to to have her father’s shop be your guys’ meeting place if the shit hit the fan,” I said.
“I suppose she’d have to to go so far as to call herself ‘Candy,’” Mia rebutted.
I thought about that for a moment. “Oh yeah…” I said with a chuckle. “Okay, so you think she’ll be there?”
“Y-yeah,” Mia said, sounding nervous again. “So long as she’s still… well, yeah. Yeah! She’ll be there!”
“Alright. I need you to sit tight, okay? I’ll be there as soon as I can with her,” I promised.
“Please be careful, Jace,” she said, nearly whispering it into the phone.
“‘Careful’ is my middle name,” I joked.
Mia scoffed and said, “Somehow I doubt that.”
“Okay, so before today my crew always said my middle name was ‘Crazy, Suicidal Fuck-Head,’ but, after tonight, my new middle name is officially ‘Careful,’ okay?” There was a long silence after that, and I worried that what I’d said might have upset her. “Mia?” I asked.
“Jace, I…” her voice strained and I heard her take in a sharp inhale. “I love you.”
My breath caught and I nearly fell off my bike. Finally, heart racing and palms beginning to sweat, I answered, “I love you, too.”
Then, feeling a new sense of purpose and, for the first time in a long time, feeling like the old Jace was back and better than ever, I started off towards Jack-Jack’s Candy Emporium.
“Candy?”
“SWEET FUCKING JESUS’ NUTSACK WART!” Candy shrieked, jumping nearly a mile out of her thigh-highs and spinning on me, fist raised and ready to take what looked like a knockout punch my way of Ronda Rousey proportions.
“Please don’t kill me,” I pleaded, working to guard my face and, immediately after, wondering if I should be guarding the jewels, too.
By some miracle, the raised fist was stayed and the hysterical hooker calmed.
Damn! I thought, That was some Buddhist-level self-control.
Candy, still panting from the scare I’d given upon tapping her shoulder, was still regarding me with suspicion. Hazel eyes studied me, checking the immediately obvious danger spots—my hands and under my arms and at my waist for any sign of a holstered weapon—and, not finding anything there, finally the rest of me. As she did, I had a chance to take note of her own appearance. Her cropped bla
ck hair was longer in the front and shortened out as it went back, giving her an exotic, almost Egyptian look. This, I figured, was supported by her tanned skin and curvier physique, which I realized quite quickly was almost all muscle.
More and more I was thankful she hadn’t taken that swing at me.
“The fuck are you?” she spat.
“I’m Jace,” I answered obediently.
She paused, seeming surprised to actually get an answer, and then narrowed her eyes as if she might suddenly recognize me. “Jace?” she repeated. “As in Jace-Jace? As in Mia’s…” her eyes widened and she gasped. “Oh god! OH GOD! Don’t tell me Mia’s… No. NO! I knew I shouldn’t have let her go off with that—”
“Whoa! WHOA! Shh, shh!” I worked to stop the growing hysterics before they could become a full-scale breakdown. “She’s fine. Mia’s okay. She’s back at my place. Safe. I promise.”
Candy’s body relaxed, seeming to collapse like a deflating balloon as all the tension seeped out of her at once. “Oh thank the lord,” she whimpered, shaking her head. “I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to that girl.”
I nodded, smiling at her dedication, and said, “Well, she thinks the same of you, too. That’s why I’m here.”
Candy looked up at that, confused. “Why… you’re here?” she said.
I nodded. “I’m here to take you back to my place, too.”
Candy blinked at that and took a step back. “This some sort of three-way shit you’re tryin’ to—”
“No.”
The sternness with which I said the word was enough to cut her off in mid-sentence and seemed to awaken her to the reality of what was happening. Tears were beginning to form in her eyes as her lips twitched, curling with what appeared to be a genuine strain; as if her face had actually forgotten how to smile.
“You… you mean I don’t have to…” she stammered.
“I’d actually prefer it if you didn’t,” I told her with a smirk. “I don’t know if Mia told you or not, but we’re sort of a thing.”
She laughed at that and nodded. “Yeah, actually. She’s been filling me in on a lot of the details. It’s sort of like a fairytale come to life if you ask me.”
I nodded back. “Yeah. Feels like one for me, too,” I confessed. “Come on. Let’s get back. I don’t want to leave Mia waiting much longer.”
Candy nodded and followed as I led her around the candy store to where I’d parked my chopper. “You have no idea how relieved I am to know Mia’s okay,” she said. “I was in the middle of suckin’ off a John in the alley when I heard our pimp coming—he was screaming his ass off on his phone; enough to let me hear him from all the way across the street. He was goin’ on-and-on ‘bout how he was gonna kill us; how Mia’s ‘little stunt’—whatever the fuck that meant—was the last straw and how he wasn’t gonna stop killin’ ‘til nobody was left to even remember there ever was a Mia Chobavich. I hear all that—hear him comin’ my way—and I think, ‘Candy, girl, if you don’t get your tight ass outta here NOW you’re not gonna have an ass to run off with.’ So that’s what I did,” she laughed and watched as I climbed onto my chopper, pausing to admire it. “No, sir,” she went on, finally beginning to move to get on, “when T-Built says he’s gonna get killin’, you don’t stick around to see if he means you.”
Every fiber of my body strained in an instant until it felt like I’d actually burst into flames. It was almost enough to knock both of us and the bike onto the side of the road.
“T-Built?” I said the name and felt bile rising in my throat. “T-Built… is yours and Mia’s pimp?”
I still couldn’t wrap my mind around it.
In hindsight it seemed so obvious. T-Built hadn’t been too far from where I’d bumped into Mia that first night, and it made sense that the man who’d basically spearheaded the Carrion Crew’s sex industry would directly work with their prostitutes. Looking back on it, the only reason I could come up with for not just assuming it was the case was my refusal to accept that Mia could have any sort of direct ties to someone like him. I wanted so badly to separate her from the Crew that it had just never occurred to me.
But now it was all out in the open.
“Are you… Are you mad?” Mia asked, her face filled with worry.
Candy stayed near to her, a look of protectiveness cemented to her features as she sidled closer to Mia in the back of the Mercedes I’d arranged to meet us back at my place. After Candy had mentioned T-Built, I’d set about another list of preparations. Mia was waiting by the time we got there, the car already idling in the garage near my parking space, and Danny would be waiting back at his shop.
“I’m sorry, Mia,” I offered with a sigh, realizing I’d spent nearly half-a-minute shrieking and slamming my fists on the steering wheel. I was pretty sure I’d said T-Built’s name a few times, and I wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised if the two had heard me say the word “condolences,” as well. Taking a deep breath, forcing my nerves to calm, I repeated. “I’m sorry. And… and, no, I’m not mad. Not at you, anyway; at myself, yeah—myself for being too dumb to figure it out. Fuck… of course fucking T-Built would be your…” but I wouldn’t let myself finish that sentence. T-Built was not her pimp, because Mia was no longer a prostitute.
“What’s your biz with T-Built anyway? You got some ties to the Carrion Crew or something?” Candy demanded. “What’s going on here, exactly?”
“He’s the leader of the Crows,” Mia said.
“WHAT! You didn’t tell me that!” Candy shook her head. “Girl… I dunno if I woulda given you the thumbs-up to follow through with this if I’d known that!”
“Yeah, my friend wasn’t too keen on the idea, either,” I grumbled. “You’ll be meeting him soon. You two can dish about how stupid the two of us are.”
“Stupid-nothin’,” Candy said, shaking her head. “Your cute biker-boy ass got us out of that nightmare. If Mia wasn’t already on that dick I’d probably offer you a freebie just as ‘thanks.’”
I saw Mia shoot her a look at that.
“What?” Candy protested, “I said I’d do it if you weren’t already! That’s your man, I know!”
“I appreciate the sentiment, Candy,” I said, “but you don’t have to go giving anyone ‘freebies,’ ‘cause you don’t have to be a prostitute anymore.”
“Oh…” Candy said, considering this. “Well, then I guess you should all start calling me ‘Nancy’ then.”
I nodded, sighed, and then said, “And, yes, I am the leader of the Crow Gang, but that’s not the only reason I’m after T-Built.”
“Huh?” Mia looked up, worry etched on her face.
“He… he killed my wife,” I finally said, letting the words be made real as I continued to drive, finding it easier to talk about the subject than I’d thought. “The Carrion Crew was just beginning to come into power, wanted to take out any threat from the Crows that might impede that rise, and my brother and I started to represent a pretty sizable threat. We’d executed a strike on T-Built’s earlier drug warehouses, just trying to keep that shit off the streets, and… well, he took it personal. Ordered a hit on my home; targeted my family. I wasn’t there, so my wife was a simple strike. She was…” I paused to clear my throat, “She was pregnant with our child at the time.”
“Oh, Jace…” Mia whimpered, sounding ready to cry.
“Fuck…” Candy—Nancy—gasped.
I looked back into the rearview mirror and saw the look of shock and sadness written on their faces.
“The photograph,” I heard Mia whisper, and I realized she must have seen one of the pictures I’d kept of me and Anne.
“Please don’t cry, Mia. It was hard, yes, but it was some time ago, and… well, you’ve helped me more than you know.”
Mia blushed at that and quickly looked down. I smiled warmly at her reaction before returning my gaze to the road. We were close to the shop and I was glad for it. I didn’t like that I had to make the confession this
way, but I couldn’t see a better time and it needed to be said for what came next.
“So, what now?” Nancy asked.
“Like I said: I’ll send my second-in-command to pick up your things—just the essentials though; everything else I can replace,” I said.
Mia groaned. “Jace, I don’t want you buying—”
“Girl!” Nancy scolded, shooting her a glare, “Don’t you go turning down a good man’s gifts because you still can’t see the difference between that and takin’ a John’s dough.”
Mia’s jaw snapped shut and she looked down.
“Huh,” I mused, “I could’ve used you on our first date.”
“She make gift-buying a chore then, too?” Nancy asked, almost demanded.
I nodded. “Almost a chore, actually,” I admitted.
“Are Mom and Dad are done scolding me now,” Mia groaned.
I smiled at that and nodded. “We are. And you know we love you, babe,” I offered.
Mia blushed at that, seeming appeased by the words.
“Anyway, once you two have what you need and I’m confident that you’re both safe, then I’m going to work on tracking down T-Built and finally putting a stop to him.”
“And after you do,” Mia started, looking over at me, “will that mean the end of the Carrion Crew? Will all of this be over?”
I shook my head. “I wish it was that simple, but the truth is T-Built isn’t their leader. He’s one of their ranking members—certainly one of their biggest money-makers—but it won’t be enough to take them out.”
“Alright, well, we’ll do whatever we can to help,” Nancy smirked. “I want in on anything that had to do with taking T-Built and those Carrion-fucks down.”
“Me too,” Mia offered with a smile. “I mean, I don’t know what I can do to help, but I can at least try.”
Running On Empty_Crows MC Page 31
