“Uh, yeah,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I think I’ve heard of him. So what would you suggest?”
“Not positive yet,” Danny admitted. “Meantime, I got some of our guys watching the docks for us for now. And a few of our sources with the PD are doin’ what they can to slow shit from their side. ‘Cept they can’t do much all at once; protocol and all, y’know. We can slow the sands a tit, but eventually somethin’s gonna happen. I’m not thrilled to throw the word around—we’re more a business than an army, after all—but this is eventually gonna work itself up to a full-scale war.”
“The war’s already begun,” I said with a groan, shaking my head. “It began when I killed T-Built; when we smashed their piggybank and proved they aren’t as strong as they wanted to believe.”
“Still stronger than us,” he said with a sigh.
“Depends on how you define strength, Mercury,” I said, considering.
He raised his eyebrows at me. “Oh? An’ what’s that supposed to mean? Ya got something in mind?”
I shook my head. “Nothing at all, actually,” I confessed.
“Didn’t think so,” he said. “Then we will see how bad we can stick it to them with their shipments in the meantime, right?”
I nodded, still thinking. Then, looking up, I asked, “Hey, can you get your guys to check something for me?”
“What’s that?” Danny asked, raising his eyebrow again.
I swore to myself that I was going to shave those things right off if he didn’t stop. It was like watching fat caterpillars dancing on his forehead.
“Mack,” I said simply.
“What ‘bout ‘im?” Danny asked.
I wiped my face and looked up at him, my own eyebrows doing a little dance as I did. “You think it seems a little fishy that he made an appearance when he did?”
Danny paused to think about that, his forehead and the dancing caterpillars thereon scrunching with contemplation. “Now that ya mention it…”
I nodded and moved to stand, preparing to head out; preparing to find Mia. “Yeah,” I agreed. “Me, too. I wanna know everything about him, and I wanna know if he’s got more going on with the Crew than he’s letting on.”
“Ya got it, boss,” Danny said, making a note on a scrap of paper.
“Oh, and Danny?” I looked over my shoulder as I slid my arms into the jacket.
“Yeah?” he asked, looking up from one of the sheets of paper that had been on the desk.
“Thanks for this,” I said, smiling. “You really are the best friend a guy could have.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said, waving my off. “I’m the best fuck a guy could have, too, but that ain’t for ya to know. Save the sentimental BS for Mia.”
I smirked at that, nodding.
I had every intention of it.
PART 3
The Sour
Medicine
ELEVEN
~MIA~
It was past eleven that night when I had finally settled down on Candy’s couch. I took a deep breath, still working to come down from what had happened with Mack today. After talking to Candy, confessing to her everything that had happened, we had both agreed that I needed to be more careful going out. Though it was an unnerving thought, we agreed it was better to assume that Mack was constantly watching me. Considering this—and considering the way he’d been undressing me with his eyes back at the mall—I was prepared to resign myself to being a shut-in until Mack was back in prison, out of the state, or…
Gone.
Until he was gone.
The conversation worked to convince me of the very real threat that everyone had always been hinting towards, but I found myself growing more afraid of the boogeyman that was my seemingly ever-present brother and less afraid of the Carrion Crew. This, I felt, was about as backwards as things could get, but since I’d been confronted by Mack twice already and still not seen hide-or-hair of any of the Crew—That you know of, I reminded myself—it seemed the more logical approach, at least. All the same…
I shivered, wondering what the chances were that Mack was out there even now; curious of the chances that, if I were to open the blinds in that instant, I would see Mack staring back at me from the other side? The thought sent chills down my spine and I closed my eyes, trying to relax. It was silly to think that Mack was out there, just watching the house, waiting for me to leave. The thought made me sick and I looked up at the sound of a motorcycle coming to a stop out front. A bright light shown past the cracks of the front window where the curtain didn’t cover and then the light went out. I froze, holding my breath as I listened, waiting to see just who had pulled out front of Candy’s place.
I clenched my eyes, trying to tell myself that it was stupid to think that whoever had pulled up was there for me. There were plenty of neighboring homes and I had noticed that not many of the homes here had driveways, most having to use the street for parking. For all I knew, the street was filled for the night and the only available parking had been in front of Candy’s place.
You’re being silly, Mia. Just relax. Mack wouldn’t just barge in like this.
Would he?
Did Mack even have a motorcycle? Could he even…
I shook my head, trying to calm down when a loud knock sounded from the front door. I let loose a shrill shriek at the sound—visions of incestuous rape and maniacal laughter as I was dragged by the hair back to that awful street corner coursing through my head—and the screams were met with a series of increasingly violent impacts against the door.
Oh fuck! Oh fuck! I thought. He’s really here to get me! He’s really here…
All I could do, however, was scream.
And then the door shot open, splinters spraying out in all directions as the lock burst through the woodwork. I turned, prepared to see my brother looming over me—every bit the boogeyman I’d been building him up to be since I’d gotten back—and saw…
“Jace?”
He was standing, wide-eyes and poised for trouble; gun drawn and swinging in any and every direction.
“What?” he was panting, desperate, “Who? Where?”
The scream died in my lungs at the sight and I fought to control my nerves. Apparently I wasn’t the only one working to calm down.
Once he saw that the room was, save for me, empty, he tucked the gun back into the waistband of his jeans and hurried towards me. “Mia? What’s wrong?” he asked, stepping closer. “Is someone here?”
“Wha-what?” I stammered, blinking up at him in confusion. “What do you mean? Other than you?”
“I heard you scream,” he said, staring down at me, seeming to mirror my confusion.
“Because of you,” I said, shaking my head at him. “You scared the shit out of me!” I barked, pointing back at the door.
“H-huh?” he glanced over his shoulder, saw the splintered remains of the door, and started to turn bright red. “O-oh…” he groaned and slumped down on the couch. “Damn…”
His face fell into his hands. I could see just how embarrassed he was at his reaction, and, thinking back on the sequence of events from both angles, I couldn’t help myself.
I began to laugh.
The laughter evolved to cackles, and they just kept rolling out until I fell forward, heaving and holding my sides as I tried to stifle them. This, however, only resulted in even more giggles.
“What the ever-loving—WHAT THE FUCKING SHIT HAPPENED TO MY GODDAM DOOR?” Candy roared as she stormed into the room carrying a large metal baseball bat.
Jace and I stared back at her, blinking.
“Uhhhhhhhh…” Jace drawled, staring up at her like a deer caught in the headlights.
“That better’ve been the biggest fucking ‘uhh’ in the goddam world!” she growled, starting to investigate the extent of the damage. “Do you have any idea—Jesus fuck… Jace! Fucking hell! You son-of-a-cunt! You couldn’t knock like a regular fucking human being? Who the shit told you to go all Incredible Hulk on my love-hut?”<
br />
“I… uh, I thought I heard…” he started, trying to explain.
“It was my fault, Candy,” I explained, blushing. “He knocked and… and I was all worked-up; I got startled, screamed, and… well, he must’ve thought that something was wrong, so…”
Candy groaned as I trailed off, and she slumped against the wall. All of the energy that she’d built up to confront whatever was happening was almost visibly seeped from her as she caught up with what had happened.
“Motherfucker…” she sighed, shaking her head at Jace. “I have half a mind to clock you with this,” she held up the bat. “But I’ll let Mia decide your fate.”
“Well, thanks for that,” Jace said, offering a half-smile in her direction.
With things calming down a bit, I realized for the first time that she was wearing a bright pink bathrobe, the whole thing looking like a ratty piece of shag carpeting and sporting a pair of frilly balls on either side of the loose-fitting tie.
The visual was enough to get me laughing again.
“C-Candy!” I panted around my fresh bout of laughter, “What are you wearing?”
This only drew both her and Jace’s attention to the robe, which chose that moment to slip open and reveal that she was, in fact, wearing nothing underneath.
“Oh jeez!” Jace muttered, looking away as quickly as he could.
“Son-of-a—” Candy growled, dropping the bat and snapping the robe shut. “Don’t think you got to see that for free, Presley! You’d better start cutting me a check for fifty… no, wait, a hundred bucks! I’m uppin’ my prices! And don’t think you ain’t paying for the door! Just make the check out to ‘CASH’ for a grand and we’ll call it even.”
“That’s fair, I guess,” Jace grumbled, still averting his eyes.
“Damn right, it’s fair!” she growled at him, starting to retrieve her back. “I’d tear more out of your ass for what you put Mia through, but I’d rather see you put that money towards her!
“I have every intention of it,” he promised after her.
“GOOD!” Candy, ever in pursuit of having the last word, roared back.
I was still laughing after she’d left the room. “Did… did you see that she… was wearing matching slippers?” I asked between hushed giggles.
“I saw… a lot,” he answered, shaking his head. “Sorry for that.”
“Why?” I asked, “You want her instead now?”
He bit his lip at that and looked down, shaking his head. “No,” he said. “I’m here because, despite what an ass I was, I never stopped wanting you. I just… I just wanted to apologize. I was a grade-A dick yesterday and…well, you didn’t deserve—”
“Before you say another word,” I cut him off, frowning, “just answer me this: did a man named Mack talk to you the other day?”
Jace stared at me, dumbfounded. “Y-you mean your brother? How did you—”
“That fucking ASSHOLE!” I screamed, managing to grab one of the cushions from the couch to muffle the shriek that capped the end of my sentence.
“You… you knew he was out?” Jace asked, still wearing his mask of confusion.
I groaned and nodded, sniffling—the threat of tears becoming very real in that instant—and I looked at him, remembering what sort of awful thoughts my brother had plant into my own brain, and wondering what Mack had said to him. I felt like I had an unfair advantage having grown up with him; I’d grown used to his manipulative ways, how he could twist words and situations to fulfill his desires. His desires, I remembered, almost always involved hurting people or breaking them down so that they would give him what he wanted.
“What’d he say to you?” I finally asked.
Jace told me everything then, and, in response to his honesty, I told him everything that Mack had said to me.
****
“Remember all that awful stuff I said about your brother the first time you told me about him?” Jace asked me.
“Yeah,” I said, smirking at where I already saw him going with this.
“I feel I was too tame with my choice of words,” he confessed.
I giggled and nodded. “Yeah, I think I’m ready to agree with you wholeheartedly there,” I said.
“Mia,” Jace groaned, a look of desperation filling his gaze. “I’m sorry for even beginning to fall for his tricks. Can you ever forgive me?”
“I already have,” I said, tears beginning to fall down my cheeks.
“I’m sorry I made you cry,” he said, moving his hands to my face, gently wiping the tears away. “I love you, Mia.”
“I love you too,” I answered him.
He leaned down, slowly capturing my lips in his in a gentle kiss. I wrapped my arms around his neck, not wanting to lose this connection. The last twenty-four hours had felt like such a bad dream and now, with Jace by my side, I felt that things could go back to how they had been. Mack had tried to break up and failed and it was our turn to fight back.
Together we could stop anyone.
Jace slowly pulled away and looked down at me, his face serious as he moved his hands to my shoulders. “Mia, will you come home with me?” he asked.
“I thought you’d never ask,” I replied, smirking playfully. “But first, you should probably at least try to fix Candy’s door.”
“Yeah…” he drawled, rubbing the back of his neck. “I… uh, I don’t think there’s much hope of that. It’s pretty thoroughly fucked.”
“Oh…” I said, staring back at it. It certainly looked that. “So what should we do?”
****
I couldn’t be sure which one was angrier at Jace for the turn of events, Candy or Danny, but, as Jace pulled away from Danny’s bright-pink house, where Candy was condemned to stay until she managed to get her door fixed, it occurred to me that they at least had something to complain about together.
And, lucky for Danny, Candy had brought her fuzzy pink bathrobe with her.
The thought had me laughing into Jace’s back as he started to drive me home, and I felt him cringe slightly from the contact.
“You okay?” I asked over the roar of the engine.
“I will be,” he said. “I just messed up my back the other night.”
“How?” I asked, biting my lip with worry.
He tensed, either in pain or embarrassment. “I… uh, I slept in the cemetery,” he answered after a long pause.
I chastised him for this, but could only commit so much to it after everything that had happened. Though I had found his reaction hilarious when he’d come barreling inside, the other part of me was touched at how much concern he had for my wellbeing. He had been ready to kill at the sound of my scream and he had done a lot of damage all the same to Candy’s door. I smiled warmly, squeezing his waist even harder—trying, at the same time, to keep the pressure on his back at a minimum—and relishing in just how loved and protected he made me feel. His free hand moved to mine, squeezing back.
“What’s on your mind?” he turned his head slightly so I could hear him better.
“Just… getting lost in the moment,” I answered honestly.
“Same here,” he said.
The rest of the ride was mostly quiet aside from a few smaller comments on how nice the night was. The silence that the remainder of the ride had hadn’t bothered me at all and I still marveled at just how comfortable I was with Jace. As we made our way to the apartment, Jace moved to his parking spot, pushing out the kickstand and helping me down. I thanked him as he led me towards the condo, holding my hand as we entered.
“So what are your thoughts on all this?” I finally asked.
“On all what?” Jace asked back, looking over at me.
“On my brother, the Carrion Crew, us… everything, I guess,” I answered, feeling the heat in my cheeks intensify as my answer expanded on itself.
The elevator doors opened and we stepped in together.
“I think your brother’s a lousy fuck,” Jace started, noticeably holding back a lot more ange
r towards him. “I think the Crew needs to be handled, but I’m not sure how just yet…” he paused, taking a long, deep breath and noticeably relaxing as he did. “And I think you’re the best thing that’s happened to me in a long time.”
I blushed at that, smiling and moving to lean against his shoulder.
“And I think you should stay inside for the time being,” Jace said as the doors opened to his condo.
I cringed at that, the words biting deep when said aloud, but, after what Candy and I had already discussed, I couldn’t bring myself to argue. “Yeah,” I sighed, “Candy and I were sort of thinking the same thing.”
Jace nodded at that, obviously appreciating that I wasn’t about to argue with him on the matter. “It’s just for the time being,” he went on. “Until the situation’s smoothed over. Then… well, then I was thinking we could take a trip somewhere.”
“Somewhere?” I asked, looking up at him.
He nodded, smiling. “Wherever you want to go,” he said.
I already had a place in mind, and while I didn’t say it then and there, I thought that maybe Jace already knew.
Seeming to read my thoughts, he smiled, nodded, and kissed the top of my head. “I asked Danny to try and see what he could find on Mack through his sources,” Jace said then. “He’s usually pretty quick with intel, probably be even quicker this time around. I’ll go see him tomorrow and see if they’ve found anything yet. With any luck we can be through this before the end of the week.”
“Do you think his sources will be of any help?” I asked, sitting down at the dining room table.
“Haven’t let me down yet,” he answered with a shrug. “But nothing’s an exact science with this sort of thing. You want a glass of wine?” he offered, surprising me with the subject change.
“I’d love one,” I said. Then, looking down at my purse, I remembered the keychain and smiled, though he was already turned away and unable to see it.
Riding On Fumes: Bad Boy Motorcycle Club Romance (The Crow's MC Book 2) Page 21
