by Naomi West
“Why's the CIA worse?” Liona asked.
“Cause, if the CIA's coming after you,” Cutter answered, “you probably did way worse than just killing a prosecutor.”
“Well, what should we do, then?”
Cutter took a breath. This was the time, this was the moment. He had to bite the bullet, had to let them all down. There was a bitter pill, and someone needed to swallow it. As the president of the MC, it was his job. Just then his phone buzzed in his pocket. He kept his mouth shut and fished it out. It was a message from an unknown number. “Been thinking, Desmond. Think I screwed up. Call me. WW.”
He couldn't believe his eyes. There was no way Wyland was calling for a truce. Maybe, though, he'd seen the way they handled Farm to Fable almost getting shut down, and it had changed his mind on whether or not he could win. Or, perhaps, something else had changed his mind. Whatever it was, maybe this was an opportunity. He couldn't say anything to the others, not yet. Not until he knew for sure what Wyland was up to. He was already giving them false hope by not completely leveling with them. What was worse was that he was no disregarding the promise he’d made to Liona. He'd said he'd put an end to Wyland, to his abuses, that he'd make sure he never hurt another woman. He couldn't go back on those words, could he?
He warred with himself in that split second. He could make this work. He could form a truce with Wyland, if that's what it came down to, if it at least meant he could get his boys back and get some breathing room. Once he had the Vanguard whole again, had them back on their original path to legitimacy, he'd end it with Wyland. He'd come out of nowhere with his attack, too. Just like that, it was decided.
“Cutter?” Smalls asked him as he stared quizzically down at his phone. “You okay, brother?”
“Huh?” Cutter asked, his eloquence knowing no bounds as he looked up at his second-in-command.
“Just looked like you were about to say something, that's all.”
“Nope,” Cutter replied, shaking his head. “Got nothing, man.”
A concerned look passed over Smalls's face like a cloud over the moon. There one moment, gone the next. “Cool,” he said. “Why don't you guys grab some beers, and we'll talk about all this?”
“Sure,” Cutter said, nodding. “I'm gonna duck into the bedroom real quick and get cleaned up, first.” He turned to Liona and, with a hand on her lower back, gave her a quick peck on the cheek. “Grab a cold one for me, babe,” he said, then stomped off deeper into the silent clubhouse to make a phone call.
Cutter went into his bathroom, locked the door behind him, and turned on the shower. Hopefully, the running shower would throw Liona and the others off his scent. He dialed the number the text had been sent from and pressed the phone to his ear. Then, he waited.
The phone only had a chance to ring twice before it was picked up on the other line. “Desmond?” Wyland asked on the other end. “That you?”
“Yeah,” Cutter growled. “Got your text.”
“Good,” Wyland said, just as jolly as he had been back in the Farm to Fable the day before. “Haven't changed one bit. Still prompt, still razor focused.”
“You wanted to talk about a truce? Or you wanna spend your time running your mouth, Wyland?”
“Oh, that's right! You're calling about the truce. Well, believe me, I've got a deal that I'm certain we'll all be more than happy with.”
“Spill it then. Ain't got time for this bullshit.”
“Well, it occurred to me that getting you guys, tearing you all apart. That might be fun, gratifying even,” Wyland said, his tone completely conversational. “But, I thought to myself, 'Wyland, is that all you really want? To see Desmond rotting in a jail cell somewhere?' It occurred to me, though, after you and my little whore of an ex-fiancée managed to pull off a shift at Fresh, that brotherhood is what really matters to you bikers. How it's all about trusting the man next to you.”
“Okay. Your point?”
“Here it is. You know who the Bolt Riders are, right?”
“Course I do. They're our biggest rivals in the area. What about 'em?”
“I want you to testify against them. Do that for me, and I'll give you and your crew immunity, leave Liona alone, and we'll pretend everything is just water under the bridge. Hell, you can leave town and take her with you, even. But I want the Bolt Riders.”
Cutter bit his lip, stayed silent. He couldn't speak out against them in court. The Vanguard would tear his patch off his vest in a heartbeat for bringing the cops into a rivalry like this, for turning state's witness.
At the same time, though, he couldn't sit back and do nothing. Wyland had practically already won, anyway. What was he going to do, fight it out in the courts? He was already at the end of his rope on that front. “Why?” he asked. “Why are you offering me this, now?”
“Because you wouldn't do it otherwise. Know why I'm going after the Vanguard and not just you, Desmond? It's because it'll look good for the papers when I go for the big chair, and later run for judge. I don't give a shit if it's the Vanguard I grind under, or the Bolt Riders. You're all little fish to me, anyways. But, boy, does the public love it when a big bad biker gang gets put away. Besides, I get what I want out of this, anyway.”
“Which is ...?”
Wyland laughed into the phone. “Well, you suffer either way, big guy. Don't testify, I dismantle your crew and send you all to prison. Well, keep them there, at least. Testify, and none of your brothers, or any other biker, will ever have anything to do with you. No matter which option you choose, you're screwed.”
“I need time to think about this,” Cutter said, his head spinning from this new option. “I need you to show me you're not just bullshitting around.”
“How about I give you till tomorrow afternoon? Three o'clock, down in that old park we used to drink beer in on Friday nights?”
“Parr?”
“That's the one, I think. In the meantime, I'll call and talk to your lawyer, Hunting. I'll let him know I'll stop protesting his bail requests, and we'll get your guys already in moved up on the dockets and released. How does that sound?”
“Yeah,” Cutter said, the world seeming to rush by, “yeah, start working something out. I still need time to think about this, though.”
“I know, Desmond, I know. You're going to be betraying everything you believe in, right?” Wyland asked with a laugh. “I mean, of course you're going to have second thoughts. But, just remember, you decide to go back on this deal, this all starts over again. You've seen what I can do with just one phone call.”
There was a knock at the door. “Cutter, sweetie?” Liona called through the door. “You alright in there?”
“Just a second, babe,” Cutter grumbled back, his thumb over the phone's receiver.
“Don't be late, Desmond,” Wyland said, a touch of the familiar cruelty in his voice. “Deal expires at three-oh-one tomorrow.”
“Yeah,” Cutter mumbled.
Then the line was dead. Cutter tucked his phone away in his pocket, took a deep breath, and considered what had just happened.
He'd just been offered a way out. A light at the end of the tunnel. He looked at himself in the mirror, looked at the scars that were etched out over his body, the scars that traced over his flesh like a history written in blood and sinew. If he did this, if he ratted on the Bolt Riders, he'd be out of the Vanguard, and he'd have broken his word to Liona. If he didn't do it, he'd eventually wind up in a cell, four feet by eight, constantly looking over his shoulder for a Bolt Rider hitman, or worse.
He reached up, touched his cheek. Could he do this? Could he turn rat? Or, looking at it in a different way, could he sacrifice everything to save his crew? He'd still end up with the girl, this way. But if her feelings for him were tied to this vest, to this lifestyle, he might lose her, too.
A thought occurred to him. There could be an alternative. He had to talk to his lawyer first, though, to see how well it would hold up in court. “Maybe. maybe,” he said into t
he mirror as he allowed himself a small smile, “there's a way out.”
“Babe?” Liona called from his bunk. “You okay in there?”
“Just talking to myself,” he called back.
“You're not losing it from the stress, are you?” she asked, a note of humor in her voice.
“Not yet,” he said, grinning at himself in the mirror.
He stripped down the rest of the way and hopped in the shower. Phone call, or not, he still needed to get the grime of this day off.
Chapter 29
Liona
Liona sat in Cutter's bed with pillows against the headboard propping her up. She'd grabbed a thin book off his shelf and started to read, trying to unwind down the evening. But, the words all seemed to twist inside her, warring with the thoughts and memories of the evening. Something about all of this didn't seem right. But, whatever it was, she couldn't put her thumb on it.
That night, she and the remaining Vanguard had discussed the future. The three men reluctantly voted to keep Farm to Fable closed for the next couple of days, at least until they knew when their men would be free. Cutter, for his part, was strangely confident about that. He said it would just be a matter of time till the guys got out, that his lawyer was moving ahead on everything. Smalls had seemed as surprised as Liona by the turn of events.
“You serious?” he'd asked, brightening up a little. “You mean the boys are really going to come home?”
“Matter of time, that's all,” Cutter had assured him. He'd seemed unhappier about it than he should have, though. “Hunting said the wheels are moving, but they move slower than we think. But, yeah, it's all in the works to get 'em out. Just gotta post bail on some of them.”
Liona had caught his eye during the meeting, and she had her own doubts about what was going on. In the days she'd been there, she'd readjusted to this new, older man, but she'd also learned how similar he was to the younger one she'd known all those years ago. And, to her mind, something about him just didn't seem right. She knew he was telling the truth. But she could also see that he wasn't being completely forthcoming about everything. It was like he was holding back something, but she couldn't be sure of exactly what.
“Well, that's a real good job on that front,” Squirrel piped up as he slurped down more beer. “Real nice, right there.”
“Yeah,” Smalls agreed, laughing and clapping Cutter on the back. “Fuck yeah! I mean, we just gotta give it time, right?”
“Right,” Cutter said, grinning.
In light of things they voted unanimously to keep the restaurant closed for the time being. Now, as she waited for Cutter to crawl into bed with her, her thoughts wandered back over the years, through all the murk of her college tenure, and all the bad times with Wyland. They settled on the last time she'd seen Cutter before just a few days ago, back in the days when he was still just plain old Desmond Hawes.
He'd been an office attendant, then, and was responsible for sending the requests from counselors and the like down to the students. They'd write one up, and he'd go get them. She remembered with a smile, though, that he'd palmed a pad of them from the administrative office at the beginning of their senior year. She should have suspected the beginnings of his criminal inclinations, even back then.
He'd use the stack of hall passes to get her and Wyland out of boring classes so they could go wander the school, or go sneak underneath the bleachers in the auditorium and just hang out. Sometimes just hanging out with your friends and doing nothing was better than sitting through a boring lecture in civics.
One day, towards the end of school, he'd snuck her out of class with a hall pass from the office. He didn't get Wyland, though, just her. She hadn't known it at the time, but he was taking her there to tell her something in private. He'd made a mistake, however. Wyland had seen them through the window as they passed one of his classes. He'd asked to go to the nurse's office a little while later, then slipped after them. Back then he’d had taken her hand. Held it tight, so tight. She remembered how his palms were sweating. She'd thought it was weird at the time, but now she knew he was just nervous. They were sitting close together, and he'd looked into her eyes. He whispered those words to her: “I love you.”
Then, they'd kissed. Their first kiss. Then Wyland had appeared. He'd seen it all and started screaming. The boys got into a fight, with Desmond trying to calm him down and protect himself. Wyland had knocked him back, over a metal support bar. Unfortunately, his leg was still up over the beam, caught like a branch against a tree.
Wyland's eyes were filled with blood-shot rage, the kind of rage only a madman could put off. He stomped down, snapping Desmond's thigh like kindling. Even now, almost ten years later, the sound of that crack haunted Liona as she thought back on it. She shivered at the memory, of how she'd had to pull Wyland off him. What followed, the lies from Wyland, the threats to the school from his father if they tried to punish him, everything had been swept beneath the rug. Including Desmond. Looking back, she knew what was happening was wrong, but she’d been helpless. How could she, one lone girl, make a difference in the grand scheme of things?
So, she'd backed Wyland West's side, and his father's. She kept her mouth shut, and watched as one of her best friends in the whole world was suspended and kept from walking across the stage for graduation.
Cutter came in from the bathroom and crawled into bed beside her, jarring her from her depressing trip down memory lane. “How's the book?” he asked as he pulled her into his arms.
“Not really paying much attention to it,” she said, honestly. “Thinking about the last time we saw each other. Back in school, I mean.”
“Yeah,” he said as she leaned her head against his chest. “Probably not a good thing to think about it. Happened in the past. Should stay that way.”
Guilt gnawed away at her, guilt about the way Cutter had been treated afterward. “I never told anyone about what happened down there,” she replied, suddenly beginning to grow sleepy as she settled into his arms and the security they offered. “Really happened. About how Wyland broke your leg like that when you refused to fight him.”
“Told you I'd rather not talk about this,” he said with a sigh. “It's not something I really want to relive.”
“I should have just said something, should have backed up your story,” she continued, fighting back a yawn. “I'm just, I'm really sorry. I never would have been with him if ... Just, maybe I would have chosen a different path, is all.” She closed her eyes and let the sound of his thumping heartbeat begin to lull her to sleep.
“Honestly,” he said with a deep sigh, “I'm almost happy it happened. Sure, I got fucked over by the school, but it really helped me put some things in perspective and led me here. It sucked when I was going through it, but I'd hate to know what I might have become. Besides, you and I wouldn't have lasted. Not like I was.”
Her lips twisted up in a little smile as he tried to push the past back into its rightful place. “But, were you serious?” she asked, her words slurred with exhaustion. “About what you told me before he showed up?”
“That ... that I cared about you?”
“I don't remember you using that word exactly,” she said as she began to feel herself slipping away into sleep.
“Fine,” he said, his words sounding like they were miles away, in a different world even. “That I loved you?”
“Yeah,” she whispered. But, before she could hear her words, she'd drifted away. The exhaustion had become too much for her.
Chapter 30
Cutter
He woke early that morning, closer to his normal time, and left the still soundly sleeping Liona in bed. He padded on bare feet into the kitchen and began sorting through everything he'd need for the picnic lunch he'd planned as his coffee brewed, his surprisingly well-rested mind going through the hundred ways this day could end.
He'd slipped away after his conversation with Wyland and called the lawyers to check on a few things. What Wyland had said a
bout Big Jack's and Jersey's cases being swapped around and shuffled higher was true. It looked like Jersey's charges might even be dropped. Also, Hunting had been given the impression that the DA wouldn't be challenging him at bail hearings. From the impressions he'd been receiving, it sounded like the DA suddenly wanted to play ball.
Then Cutter had told him about the deal Wyland wanted to talk about. Hunting advised him in the predictable way: he needed to take the deal, particularly if it was going to guarantee his men would stay out. Any guarantee that they could avoid any kind of prosecution was clearly the best option available, no matter what the consequences were personally.
“But,” he'd said, “that's just me speaking as a lawyer regarding the law. I've known you guys, and other MCs, long enough to know that it's not a very good idea, Cutter. I’m not saying this as a lawyer, mind you. Just as another guy on the street.”
