Shit. It was Armando.
But Candy had his poker face on. “Nah. Never seen him.” He folded his arms and feigned bored, while inwardly, worry prickled beneath his skin. Stupid fucking Armando. He should never have sold those guns. Damn it. Just goddamn it.
“Hmm,” Riley murmured, regaining some of his scattered composure. “Armando Sanchez. Buyer for the Chupacabra cartel. Mexican police picked him up crossing the border yesterday in possession of twenty Russian AK-47s. He’s saying he bought them off of you.”
“Sure he is. He’d say anything to keep from going to Mexican jail,” Candy said with a sneer. “If that’s even where he goes. My guess, PD down there is in the cartel’s pocket. Or yours.”
Riley’s brows flicked. “Deflecting?”
“Did you find any prints on those guns?”
Riley didn’t answer.
“DNA evidence? Have us on video? No. You don’t. Because if you did, you would have led with that.” He rapped the table with his knuckles and started to stand. “This has been fun, really, but I gotta get back.”
“Actually,” Riley said, and something about his voice froze Candy cold. “I have someone on the inside.”
His heart stopped. “What?”
“I have eyes on you.” Some of the confidence returned, blood rushing back into the man’s face. “And I’m putting a RICO case together bit by bit. In a few weeks, I’ll have grounds to disassemble your entire chapter.”
His mind refused to consider the possibility. No. There wasn’t a rat in his clubhouse. Not possible. “If you really did have a mole,” he said, “telling me about it pretty much guarantees you’ll never hear or see from that guy again. So no, you don’t, or you wouldn’t be talking about it.”
Riley looked amused. “Or maybe I’m planting that seed of doubt, and you can destroy your own club for me.”
“Fuck you.”
“I’m serious, Derek. You’re out of your league on this one. Now, you can come clean now, and spare your boys, or we can do this the hard way.” He grinned. “Personally, I’m hoping you take the hard way, because I can’t wait to see you all in orange.”
“Like I said, fuck you.”
~*~
Michelle
She couldn’t stop looking toward the door. Candy wasn’t back yet, and her worry increased with every passing minute. The police were an unfortunate constant in the MC life – someone was always getting questioned for something. But Candy had that aura of indestructability; the kind of larger than life man who seemed untouchable. Not to mention this chapter seemed haphazardly taped together, and it might all fall to bits without him.
Also…watching her lover walk out the door with federal agents was personally upsetting.
She wanted to keep busy, so she went to the office and started making a list of all the things they’d need for Odell’s, everything from stemware to ceiling tiles. It wasn’t really working, but at least she wasn’t just sitting around doing nothing.
She’d left the door open, and a quick knock startled her. She glanced up to find Candy’s seemingly preferred friend, Jinx, leaning against the doorjamb.
A striking man, for sure. The beard, the bare arms covered in tattoos: vivid and eye-catching. Anyone asked to describe an outlaw would have described him. But Michelle didn’t find him appealing in any way; maybe because she’d never liked beards, or maybe because the beard obscured half of his face. In any case, she wasn’t sure she felt comfortable around him, and of all the men, he was the last she would have expected to see.
“Hello,” she ventured, and suddenly felt like an intruder in the office. Funny, this was Candy’s space, his computer, his chair she was sitting in, but it was Jinx now giving her the sense that she was in the wrong place.
“Hey.” He had a deep voice. Not rude, but not friendly either.
He came to take the chair across from her. “Can I ask you something?” He braced his arms on the edge of the desk, his gaze direct, unnerving.
Was he really more threatening than Candy, she wondered? Or was this a matter of perspective.
“Of course.”
“Do you know what you’re doing?”
“Um…sorry?”
“With numbers,” he clarified. “You’re not just making shit up?”
“I’m not the sort of person who makes shit up.”
“What about Odell’s?”
“What about it?”
“Is it just going to be a money pit?”
“Why would I suggest it if I thought that?”
“I dunno. You tell me.”
She couldn’t believe this conversation was happening. Out of the blue like this; it felt like an attack.
“I take it you don’t want me here.”
He shrugged. “Didn’t say that. Just want to make sure you’re legit.”
A dozen smart-mouthed answers came to mind, but in her experience, that didn’t ever get you very far with this crowd. And right now, Jinx didn’t seem the type to back down just because she showed her claws.
So she said, “Candy trusts me. Is that not good enough for you?”
“Candy likes you.”
“And that’s a bad thing?”
When he frowned, it tugged on his beard. “Candy believes in blood.”
Under the desk, her hands curled to fists on her thighs.
“He trusted Colin to look after Jenny because he’s Mercy’s brother. And he trusts you with the books because you’re Walsh and Fox’s niece.”
“But you don’t believe in blood,” she guessed.
“I believe in what I can see for myself, and what I can do with my own two hands. Blood isn’t more important than that.”
“I disagree,” she said. “But what’s your point, exactly?”
“Like I said before. I want to make sure you know what you’re doing.” He sat back and appraised her. “Candy likes you, and he trusts you because of who you’re related to, and he’s too attached to that dump Odell’s. If you have doubts, you need to share them with him. Because I don’t want you being cocky and getting my club in deep shit.”
“I think,” she said, carefully, “that this is a conversation you should have had with him.”
He grinned, finally, teeth flashing white in the midst of his beard. “Yeah, I thought about that. But he’d just defend you.”
“I doubt that.”
He snorted again and got to his feet. “Yeah. Sure.” He left before she could say anything else.
~*~
Candy showed up about twenty minutes later. He came into the office without preamble and threw himself down in the chair Jinx had occupied with a deep, tired sigh. “Jesus.”
She set aside her list. “I take it you weren’t arrested.”
“No.” He looked at her and his gaze sharpened. “You alright?”
“Fine.” Except she wasn’t. Jinx’s visit had rattled her, harder than she’d even thought at first. Back home, she knew the contempt of the club members had everything to do with her gender. But Jinx hadn’t come across as gender-biased. Whatever his motivation, it was less trivial.
She’d reasoned that he was worried about the ATF, same as her. But she’d sensed a threat beneath his questions. Worse: he’d suggested she was some sort of threat to Candy’s wellbeing. As if, between the two of them, he was the victim somehow.
“You look like you might throw up,” he said, jerking her from her thoughts.
“What? No. No, I’m fine.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
He left it alone. “What are you working on?”
“Stuff we need for the Odell’s project.” She slid the list across to him. “It’s a start, anyway.”
His eyes skimmed down the paper, and then came back to her. “A start? This is, like, fifty things.”
“Ranked according to estimated cost, cheapest at the top.”
He smiled a little. “What must it be like in your head?”
She smiled
back. “Organized, mostly.”
He stared at her a long moment, smile slowly slipping, then looked back at the paper. “My mom used to make these intense shopping lists – I mean, notes in the margins, underlines, that kinda shit. And she’d leave them on Dad’s desk. She was organized like that.” He cleared his throat.
Her chest was tight, suddenly. “How long’s she been gone?” she asked, quietly.
“I was…” His brows crimped as he searched through his memory. “I was twenty-five. So…Christ, twenty years.” His head lifted, face stamped with the echoes of loss. “It seems like it was ten minutes ago, sometimes.”
“It was a car accident, wasn’t it?” she asked, quietly. News traveled through the MC; when an important member’s wife was killed, it made the airwaves.
He nodded. “Overturned semi. Ten car pileup. The cops said it must have been instant.” His eyes were trained on her, but he wasn’t seeing her, looking inward instead. “I had to drag Dad away from the scene. He wanted to…he wouldn’t…they were going to arrest him.”
It was hard to swallow. “Derek, I’m sorry.”
The grin returned, just a ghost of an expression. “Why? You were, what, six at the time? Not your fault.”
“No, but I can be sorry for your loss. And sorry that I reminded you of her.”
The smile firmed, held steady. “Aw, that’s not a bad thing, sweetheart.”
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had so many physical reactions to a man’s smile. Probably never.
“You hungry?” he asked, surprising her.
“Not terribly, but…”
“Let’s go get dinner.”
“I think Darla’s making something.”
“Yeah. Don’t care. Let’s go get dinner. Just you and me.”
How did a girl say no to that? Not possible. “Okay.”
Fourteen
Candy
He hadn’t been on a date since he was in his twenties. The club had guaranteed female companionship of all varieties, and he hadn’t put much stock in conversation and getting to know one another. For years, he’d worried only about his MC; women had been afterthoughts, a means to an end. He’d never entertained the idea of sitting down with a girl, and really talking with her.
But for some reason, seeing Michelle in his big leather chair, so much more real and responsible than the groupies he’d been around, he’d wanted to work for it a little. The mental comparison he’d made – Michelle with his mother – had startled him, but he hadn’t rejected it. It had seemed more than appealing, all of a sudden, to sit down, eat, take his time, and forget all the shit that was bothering him.
She held tight to him during the ride. Looped her arm through his when he offered it out of long-buried chivalry.
He was finding more and more that he liked their height disparity. The way that, though she was self-possessed and sure of herself, she still had that sweetness of youth. He was excited to spend time with her, he realized, and he couldn’t remember the last time that had happened. Feeling lighthearted and boyish, he decided to take her somewhere nice.
“This isn’t the place with the seventy-two ounce steak, is it?” she asked in the parking lot.
“You did your Amarillo research. But no, this isn’t it.”
Instead, it was a quiet, dimly-lit place. Not fancy, but not tourist-cheesy either. The hostess had one of those blank expressions he valued in restaurant staff; she didn’t look too closely at his cut, or at Michelle’s youth, just flashed a professional smile and showed them to a secluded booth with high, wooden backs, and a single overhead lamp.
“This is nice,” Michelle said when they were settled across from one another. She glanced around their shadowy corner, the black and white old west prints on the wall above their table, smile plucking at the corners of her mouth. “Feels a little like home.”
“I haven’t been inside Baskerville Hall since it was fixed up.” His last trip to London, it had still been a sad, closed-up pub with a bunch of dusty, empty rooms above it; it had smelled suspiciously of rats and mold.
“It’s splendid,” she said, a sudden wide smile lighting up her face. She was beautiful when she did that, all pink cheeks and half-moon eyes. “It looks a hundred years old, and smells like hops, and there’s heaps of old photos all over the walls.”
“Am I in any of them?” he asked, mostly teasing.
But she was still smiling, looking at him across the table, leaning to rest her chin on her hand like she found him terribly interesting. “Yes, actually. We’ve got some old shots from Sturgis.”
“No shit?”
“No shit.”
The waitress appeared at the end of their table, dressed in sensible black, no hot pants, no cleavage. She jotted down their drinks and then melted back into the gloom of the restaurant, leaving them alone together again.
“I thought this might be more to your liking than the Armadillo,” he said.
“It is. You’re not missing your Barbies, though?” Her brows lifted.
Little shit, he thought, affectionately. She wasn’t going to leave that alone, was she? “I can promise you, I don’t ever spare them a thought. That’s just a way to pass the time.”
“And what am I, then?”
Their drinks arrived, discreetly placed on cocktail napkins.
“Give us a minute,” Candy told the waitress before she could ask about their dinner, and she nodded, withdrew.
He looked at Michelle again, hair a rich deep gold beneath the lamp, gaze cautious. What was she?
“I think you’re somebody who hasn’t had a whole lot of fun in her life,” he said, honestly, encouraged by the surprise in her expression. “I think you grew up quick, and all you ever worried about was work. And now you’re a pain in my ass,” he said, grinning, “’cause you have no idea what to do when a man pays attention to you.”
“I know what to do,” she protested, but it was weak.
“No you don’t. It’s supposed to be fun, baby doll. Dinner, and drinks, and dancing.”
“You dance?”
“And sex.” His felt his grin sharpen. “The sex is supposed to be especially fun.”
Her face colored, and she glanced away. Nervous.
“Does that embarrass you?” he asked.
“No. It’s just…” She didn’t finish, staring at her wineglass.
“Like I said. You don’t do anything fun. Not even sex.”
“Not lately.” Her gaze returned to his. “But I did. I mean, I have…before, and it wasn’t bad,” she added in a rush, blush deepening by the second, until he thought her face might catch fire. “It was good, even, wonderful. I guess I just don’t see it as something lighthearted, the way you do.”
“No, no, not lighthearted,” he corrected. “Fun. Heavy, and dirty, and sweaty, and fun. Trust me, I take it very seriously.”
She looked like she wanted the floor to open up and swallow her, but she smiled. “You’re awful.”
“Awfully honest.”
She laughed.
“Who was he?” he asked, too curious to keep quiet.
“Sorry?”
“Whichever one of your dad’s guys you had ‘wonderful’ sex with. Who was he?”
She grew more serious. “His name is Paul. He’s good friends with Albie. You all call him–”
“Loon,” he finished, and a mental image of the guy popped into his head. Dark-haired, handsome in a sharp, British sort of way. Much too old for her.
He felt like he’d been punched, suddenly. “Him?”
“Yes, him.”
“Really?”
“Really. Is there something wrong with that?”
“He’s…” Why was it hard to breathe? “He’s shady.”
She laughed again. “So are you, biker man.”
“Hey, I’m an outlaw. I’m not shady. There’s a difference.”
If her smile got any wider, her eyes would be forced shut. “You know, I think you have a jealous s
treak.”
“Do not.”
“You didn’t seem to like me talking to Gringo earlier.”
“He’s shady too,” he said, and when she laughed yet again, he felt as sulky as a teenager. “If Loon’s not shady, why did he try to keep y’all a secret? Huh? Why didn’t he tell everyone you were his old lady?”
That got her. Her smile slipped. “Because I was a teenager.”
“So?”
“He didn’t want to anger my dad.”
“I’ll call your dad right now and tell him everything I’m gonna do to you tonight.” He laid his phone on the table to prove it wasn’t an idle threat.
“Candy,” she said softly. “Don’t.”
“The guy was an asshole,” he said, and knew he meant it. If the man had been standing beside their table, he would have put his fist through his teeth.
“Well, I was young, and–”
“So? Age doesn’t mean shit. You know what this club is, what we do. Do you think we’re all that worked up about age and socially acceptable relationships?” he asked with a derisive snort. “But loyalty to your brothers, that kind of honor, that’s important. You were just a baby, and he should have stepped up. He shouldn’t have ever touched you if he didn’t plan on making you his old lady.”
And boom. There they were: the words that had been teasing at the edges of his mind since he’d first laid eyes on her. A member’s daughter. A member’s young daughter: no one needed to go there unless he planned to go all the way. Because she was Phillip’s girl, because she’d been raised by this club, because she’d sweated and bled for it, there could be no half-measures. She would be a queen, or she would be respected enough to be left alone.
A queen or nothing. And he’d touched her. Been to bed with her.
What in the actual hell was going on in his brain?
“Shit.” He reached for his phone. “Now I really do gotta call your dad.”
“No!” She surged across the table, nearly spilling her wine, hand landing over his on top of the phone. Her eyes were huge. “Don’t. You can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because we don’t even know…and it’s…” She was panting. “It’s still so early. And what if…”
Tastes Like Candy (Lean Dogs Legacy Book 2) Page 15
