by Hope Stone
“Cutting it close, aren’t you?” Trainer asked when I joined him in front of the building.
“Yeah, I got a job today at a tattoo shop. I just left.”
“Good for you. Just try to stay out of trouble.”
Trainer knew about my bad luck, although he tended to contribute it to poor decision making on my part. I watched as he went inside with the others, leaving me leaning against the building while Axel paced around. The guy always seemed to have a ton of energy that he was trying to burn off. When we first met, I thought he might be a tweaker, but now I knew that he just didn’t like sitting still. His overactive mind wouldn’t allow him to chill out.
It could get annoying, but I never called him out on it. I was here to watch over the most valuable property of the club, and I was going to do it, no matter who I was with. Hopefully, I’d earn my place and get to attend the meetings soon. I wanted to have a sense of brotherhood with these men. I was ready to wear an Outlaw Souls patch.
Five
Kat
The ride home from work was uneventful. Jason had bought me a new tire to replace the one that was flat, and the spare was back in my trunk. He didn’t even complain or try to get out of it, to my surprise. Jason didn’t usually have much money, but he’d managed to fork over the cost of a new tire and installation on short notice. It was odd, but when I questioned it, he blew me off. His demeanor reminded me of when he was questioned about Las Balas. He always got so damn evasive.
Jason still hadn’t been back home, and when he asked to stick around for dinner, I knew that he was avoiding it. But he couldn’t run away from his problems forever. So, despite my hatred of an empty house, I told him that I would only cook dinner for us if he promised to leave afterward and make up with Lexie.
So, I stood in the kitchen, forming raw hamburger meat into round patties. I was no Martha Stewart, but I could grill up a couple of cheeseburgers for us just fine. Jason half-heartedly offered to help, but I knew better than to ask him to do anything in the kitchen. He was a terrible cook, too easily distracted.
He settled in on the couch while I worked and turned on some kind of History channel show about presidential assassinations. I could see the TV from the kitchen island due to the open concept of the rooms, and it was interesting, but I soon found my mind wandering.
When I met Blade today, I found myself attracted to a man for the first time in months. It wasn’t just physical, although he did have that going for him with his stubble beard and dark eyes. I usually went for guys with long hair, something I could grab onto during sex, but Blade’s close-cropped cut worked for him.
It was his personality that got to me. The guy had a swagger, and during our short interaction, I had gotten a glimpse of his confidence. That had always been my sweet spot with men, enough self-assurance to be attractive without crossing the line into being a cocky asshole.
He’d only been at the shop for a few hours today, observing, and I had clients most of the time to keep me busy. There was a constant awareness prickling at me, though, letting me know that he was watching me. I kept telling myself that it was just a professional curiosity kind of thing, but that didn’t stop my body from responding to him. My skin felt more sensitive, and the juncture between my legs ached.
It had been way too long since I’d had sex.
Pushing thoughts of Blade to the back of my mind, I took the plate full of hamburger patties out to the grill. The outdoor space was my favorite part of this place, and I suspected that it was the reason that my mom had bought this house in the first place.
There was a covered patio where we kept our grill and seating area, with a glass-topped table and cushioned chairs. Beyond the concrete patio, there was a privacy fence around the yard, which was perfect for sunny spring days when I wanted to lay out on a lawn chair in my bikini without the neighbor’s teenage son gawking at me. Along the west side of the yard, my mom had always had a vegetable garden. She grew tomatoes, cucumbers, and fresh herbs back there, often sending me out to grab a handful of basil or dill while she was in the middle of preparing dinner.
I didn’t have her green thumb, and it made me sad to know that there would be nothing growing in that patch of dirt this year. Out front, there were flower beds along each side of the porch steps. With the warm spring weather, there were already Hosta plants growing up out of the ground, since they came back every year. Each day, when I left the house, I saw them, and it made me happy. I wasn’t fit to carry on the tradition of planting big beautiful flowers in the garden, but at least I still had her perineal Hostas.
Jason joined me out on the patio, his arms laden with hamburger buns, plates, ketchup, and a container of potato salad. It wasn’t extravagant, but we weren’t fancy people. Sitting at the patio table, we dug in. Jason took a big bite and let out a moan.
“Damn, Kat. How do your burgers always taste so good?”
“Top secret recipe,” I teased, fighting back a smile.
He threw his napkin at me across the table. “Don’t be a dick. Just tell me.”
I rolled my eyes at his insult. “Fine. I add garlic powder and seasoned salt to the meat. It’s the way mom made her burgers. And what she put on the steaks.”
Jason let out a low whistle. “She could make a killer steak.”
Yeah, she could. I looked across the round table at the chair beside Jason. It was where she always sat, because it was the closest to the back door, just in case she needed to go inside for anything. I never thought about her not being here until she was already gone. Now, I felt like nothing in my life would ever be the same.
“You know,” Jason said after a long moment of silence between us, “I think it’s about time that you started making this house your own.”
“It is mine,” I said. I’d lived here my whole life, and Jason already had a home with Lexie. He and I agreed that I should keep it.
“Sure, it’s yours on paper,” Jason agreed, “but you haven’t changed a thing. It’s like she’s still here.”
“I wish she was.”
Jason reached across the table, putting his hand over mine. “I do, too. But you can’t keep this place like a shrine to her. It’s your home, and you don’t even want to be here.”
I scowled. “You’re too smart for your own good, you know that?”
“It’s a blessing and a curse.”
I sighed. “I hear you, but it’s not easy.”
“Have you at least started on her room yet?”
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” I said, picking at my potato salad with my fork. “I’ll get to it in my own time.”
“I’m just saying-”
“I said no.” My words came out harsh, but I didn’t take them back.
The rest of our dinner was awkward, with the heavy weight of the topic I refused to discuss hanging over us. I hated the tension in the air, but I couldn’t talk about this. Didn’t he understand that I wasn’t ready?
Jason left while I was clearing the table, suddenly eager to get home to Lexie. At least some good came from this.
Damn, I wanted a cigarette.
Instead, I popped a stick of gum into my mouth, glad that I had thrown out every pack I had in the house when I committed to quitting. I knew myself well enough to know that I would cheat if there was a single cigarette in the house.
Now that I was alone, the house was too quiet. So, I tried flipping through the TV channels, but Jason’s words lingered in my mind. I knew that he was right, but I felt like I was still reeling from the news of her death, unable to fully believe that she was never going to walk through the door again. It had been six months; shouldn’t this get easier?
“Fuck it,” I said out loud to myself.
I walked down the hall in the back of the house, passing by my bedroom and opening the door at the end of the hall. The room looked the same as it did the day my mom left and never came back. It was just like any other day. I was at Ink Envy while she ran errands. She was at
the pharmacy when she collapsed.
It was a brain aneurysm. The coroner said that she probably had it for years without even knowing. It ruptured, and she was gone before she even hit the floor. I supposed that should’ve been a comfort, but everything felt too surreal.
I crossed the room, taking a seat on the bed. There was a romance book upside down on the nightstand, only halfway finished. I picked it up, closing it. As I ran my fingers over the cover, I felt a wave of burning anger. I didn’t have an outlet for it, knowing that there was no one to blame for what happened.
Unless I wanted to lay the blame on fate or God or something intangible like that. But what good would that do?
I left the book on the unmade bed and crossed to the closet. Opening it, I saw an untidy pile of shoes on the floor and rows of dresses hanging above them. It was nothing special. I should just box it all up and donate it. I could turn this room into a guest bedroom. It was meant to be the master suite, so it was bigger than my room, but I didn’t think I could ever claim it as my own.
And then what would I do? Redecorate the living room? The kitchen? Erase all traces of my mom and move on with my life? Maybe that was the healthy thing to do, but it made everything real. I knew that I was weak, but I didn’t want to face that reality yet.
So, I walked out of the room, closing the door behind me. I grabbed a bottle of beer from the kitchen and continued outside, resuming my seat on the patio. I was tempted to go out, but I felt like I had to prove something to myself. I could spend the evening here alone.
It might be the best way to begin moving on.
Yet, deep loneliness echoed inside of me. I just wasn’t sure what to do about it.
Six
Blade
I was just stepping out of the shower, with water running in rivulets down my body, when my cell phone started ringing in the next room. I snagged a towel off the rack and raced out into the bedroom, only to scowl at it when I saw the name on the caller ID. Still, I accepted the call, sure that he’d just call again if I ignored him. He always got his way.
“Hey, Dad,” I said with a sigh. Putting the call on speakerphone, I set the phone down on my dresser and started drying off.
“William.” He already sounded tense, and it was only seven in the morning.
“Blade, Dad. I go by Blade.”
“That’s not the name your mother and I gave you. Speaking of your mother, I’m sure you know her birthday is next week.”
I didn’t know that, but I probably should have.
“Okay. What’s the plan?”
“I want you to meet us for dinner on Sunday. Bring a gift.”
My parents lived in Santino Bay, just two hours north of La Playa. It was a gorgeous ride, even taking the back roads. The ocean was constantly on one side, and the other side was mostly valleys and farmland with the far-off Blackridge Mountains as a backdrop.
“Who will be there?”
“Just the three of us.”
Fuck.
It was always better to have a few extra people around when my dad and I got together to act as buffers. The two of us had a history of arguing and ruining family events. I didn’t want to do that to my mom.
“Be at Ocean’s Edge at seven.”
He hung up before I even responded. He was such a damn ball of sunshine.
I opened my dresser drawers, randomly pulling out clothing. Yanking on my jeans, I scoured my mind, trying to figure out what my mom might want as a gift. If I remembered correctly, she was turning fifty, which was a big deal.
I was close to my mom. While I didn’t get along well with my dad, my mom provided me with the unconditional love that one would expect from a parent. Sometimes I felt like a screw-up, and my dad hardly ever discouraged that thinking, but my mom was never like that. I might not deserve it, but she was my biggest fan.
When I was dressed in jeans and a black t-shirt, I went into the kitchen to scrounge up some breakfast. My brown hair was so short that it was already dry, and there wasn’t anything there to style. That was the main reason that I had trimmed it so short with an electric razor. I wasn’t interested in messing with it every day.
I poured myself a bowl of sugary cereal and thought about last night while I ate it at the kitchen table. Normally, Axel and I weren’t directly involved in club business. I thought of our duties as bitch-work, but I never said that out loud.
But last night, when the meeting had broken up, Trainer had pulled me aside, telling me to stick around. I did, and when everyone else had left, the president of the club, Ryder, had come to get us. I was led into the room at the back of the bar where they had their meetings.
I’d never been in there before. It was a simple space, almost bare except for a couple of long wooden tables and the trash can that was now overflowing with beer cans and bottles. Ryder closed the door behind us, and when I turned, I saw that there was one more thing in the room. Hanging on the wall by the door was the club’s insignia. The words Outlaw Souls curved around the image of a motorcycle, forming a circular shape.
Trainer took a seat at a table, so I followed suit, wondering what the hell this was about as I planted my ass in the seat beside him. When Ryder sat down across from me, his expression was solemn.
“What can you tell me about Luca Bianchi?” he asked.
I couldn’t have been more surprised if he’d slapped me. Luca? Why would they want to know about him?
“Uh…I don’t know much.”
“But you’ve been participating in that fighting ring he has in the warehouse by the docks?”
“Yeah.” I’d made no secret of it. Hell, I came to the Blue Dog right after my last fight. “But I don’t exactly hang with the guy. He pays me when I win. That’s it.”
Ryder and Trainer exchanged a long look.
“What’s going on?” I asked, trying not to sound impatient.
“He’s a new player in town,” Ryder said, leaning his elbows on the table, “and we have concerns about his activities.”
“You know that we’ve taken strides to be a more legitimate organization in the last few years,” Trainer added. “We don’t deal drugs or sell guns in La Playa, and we try to stop others from doing it.”
“We’ve had a lot of success with it,” Ryder continued. “But that means that someone could see an opening, an untapped potential to peddle their product.”
“And that’s what you think Luca is doing?” I asked.
“I’m sure of it,” Ryder answered confidently. “But my greater concern is that he might be involved in the murder of Raymond Groves.”
The surprises kept on coming. Raymond was a developer that owned a lot of land on the outer edge of La Playa, where he was building new homes in subdivisions to sell. The man had money, and it was assumed that money had something to do with his death.
But I didn’t understand what Luca or the Outlaw Souls had to do with this.
“Raymond wasn’t just a developer, he was a realtor. He worked with us to obtain the apartment complex and was a friend of the club.”
I knew what that meant. He was under the club’s protection.
“So,” Ryder said, “his death is an insult to us, and we are responsible for keeping his wife safe. We have reason to believe that Luca is the killer, and we need to know what he’s up to.”
I didn’t ask why they believed this. The club had resources, including tech whizzes like Hawk. I trusted the members of this club. If they said he did it, that was good enough for me.
“What do you want from me?” I asked.
“We can’t go after him for retribution until we know his plan. Taking him out before then is reckless.”
“So…undercover work?”
Ryder smiled. “Exactly.”
Now, as I sat in my sunny kitchen eating a second bowl of cereal, the heaviness of that conversation felt unreal, but I knew what was expected of me.
No one wanted to put me in danger, so I was to keep doing the same thing I had been,
to avoid suspicion. I had to keep going to the fights a couple of times a week. But now, I had to snoop around to see what I could find out about Luca. There were always dozens of people in the crowd, and surely one of them knew the man well enough to provide answers. I just had to find him and get him to talk.
I fired off a text to Alex, asking him to come with me again on Saturday. Trainer wanted to come to watch my back, but I was worried about bringing yet another new face to the warehouse. It might look suspicious. Of course, Alex might say no. He’d been in a pissy mood the last time, so it wouldn’t surprise me. He didn’t reply right away, so I slipped on my boots and headed out the door.
It wouldn’t do to be late on my first full day of work.
I owned a motorcycle and a car, but I rode the bike as much as possible. Nothing could compare to the feeling of being on a bike. It was exhilarating, a thrill that I didn’t get from any other mode of transportation.
When I got to Ink Envy, there was only one other car in the lot, and I recognized it as Brie’s. Sure enough, when I walked inside, she was in her spot at the counter, flipping through a magazine.
“You’re here early,” she said, looking pleased.
I glanced at the clock on the wall. “Don’t we open in ten minutes?”
“Yeah, but the girls like to show up at the last minute.” She seemed unconcerned about that.
I headed back through the curtain and into my workspace. I had left my portfolio behind yesterday so that I had it on hand for clients that wanted to see my work, but I already had two people coming in today for large pieces. It was amazing how easy it was to advertise for this kind of thing online. When I worked at the tattoo shop eight years ago, social media wasn’t nearly as popular as it was today.
I had just sat down when I heard a commotion at the front of the shop. Before I could go investigate, the red curtain was ripped open, and a Barbie wannabe came marching through, followed by a harassed-looking Brie.
