by Naomi West
No, he wouldn’t ruin this night for Felice for anything. Keeping himself in check was hard, but he could manage.
And the light in Felice’s eyes was worth every second of it.
The night wore on and Felice’s brother, Matt, approached them. He’d managed to catch them in the middle of one of their rare moments outside of conversations with some of the other patrons. He had a stupid smile across his handsome face that Pierce didn’t like.
“I’m the brother, Matt,” he said, his face filled with a kind mischievousness that Pierce didn’t like. He was too old for the types of pranks he was playing; what grown adult bet his sister money over her newly broken heart? Not a kind one, Pierce thought as he inched closer to Felice.
“I’m Pierce,” he answered stoically, placing a protective hand over Felice’s shoulder. “You must be the fool with the deep pockets making bets with Felice.”
Matt laughed, a very unpleasant sound. “Yeah, man. And she got so worked up that she actually took the bait. And you are losing, little sis. Don’t forget it!” He walked away, smiling at everyone he walked by. There was no an ounce of empathy anywhere inside of that man’s body; he must have been one of the successful, ruthless psychopaths who make their money through the misery of others.
The bastard even walked right over to a very drunken Clay, smiling as he chatted with him, probably about the same thing he had with Felice.
Furious, Pierce had to bite down on his anger, keeping it in check even as Felice muttered curses under her breath in Matt’s direction.
Surprisingly, however, it wasn’t Matt or even Clay that managed to ruin the evening completely. No, that honor was reserved for Pierce himself, despite his best behavior and killer suit.
But despite Clay and Matt, the evening was going quite well. Until the cops showed up.
When the police entered the ball, people scattered to the walls like marbles rolling away, leaving the center of the Gala completely bare. Pierce stared them down, feeling his muscles tighten involuntarily, as if his body was preparing to flee without him. Felice clung hard to his arm, her fingers digging deep into the flesh of his elbow. But he barely felt it over the waves of horror that flooded him as the police swept the crowd with their eyes.
They were looking for him, he was sure.
Holding his breath, Pierce watched them as they looked from face to face, dismissing each before moving on to the next. It wouldn’t be long before they came to him.
“I almost forgot tonight that Felice’s world wasn’t meant to have men like me in it. I suppose this is my punishment for forgetting that I can never be part of her world with her.”
So when the police came forward, their hard eyes locked on him, his name on their lips, he didn’t resist. He didn’t fight them. But most importantly, he didn’t look back. He wasn’t sure he could handle the devastation on Felice’s face and the smirk he knew would be on Clay Patterson’s.
Chapter Twenty
Felice
Jennifer was holding hard onto Felice’s hand, but she couldn’t even feel it. Even when her bones creaked under Jennifer’s too-tight grip, she still didn’t feel it. Felice couldn’t really seem to feel anything except the gaping emptiness that threatened to swallow her whole. She knew she’d become attached to Pierce, but this massive black hole in her body seemed to speak of something deeper than she’d ever imagined.
Caught up in those thoughts, Felice barely noticed as Kenneth Vanderbilt finally came into his office. There were deep, black smudges under both of his eyes, and his tie was on wrong, like he’d loosened it and tied it back several times. His clothes were wrinkled like he’d been wearing the same suit for days. And given his state of mind, Felice was convinced he had.
“I’ve told yah before, I can’t help with your friend and his legal troubles,” Kenneth said for the third time. “I can’t even help myself right now, yah know?”
Jennifer made an exasperated noise in the back of her throat. “You told us you were being watched; we’re not asking you to do anything illegal. Just looking for some protection from Pierce getting locked up and lost in the system. You know none of those cops are going to look further into the case because he ran from them.”
“Look, Jennifer, sweetheart, I know all this. I still can’t help yah,” Kenneth made a weird gesture of helpless, exaggeratedly swinging his arms around at the office. “I’m gonna lose my office this week, so I have to start packing. It’s hard to pay your bills when half of your business disappears overnight, yah know?”
Felice, her eyes swollen from lack of sleep, stared at him, her expression empty and cold. “How much?” she asked, her voice sounding robotic and icy.
Kenneth looked at her like he didn’t recognize her. Perhaps, right now, I wouldn’t even recognize myself. But she continued to stare at him, unblinking.
“How much for what?” he stammered in reply.
“Your lease. How much do you owe the landlord?” Felice whispered, her voice quiet even in the silence of the office space.
Looking nervous, Kenneth glanced at Jennifer, who shrugged. “About three grand, but that’s not — ”
Felice reached into her purse which was nestled on her lap, pulling out a small stack of hundred dollar bills and threw it onto his desk. The motion scattered the money like a draft through an open window. Kenneth stared down at his desk, his eyes so wide, she could see the whites all the way around his irises. He looked like a frightened horse that was ready to buck his rider and run in the opposite direction.
“Now, will you help Pierce?”
Kenneth opened his mouth and then closed it several times, like a fish trying to breathe air. Then he closed his mouth, picked up all of the money Felice had given to him, and walked out of the door with it. He was only gone for a few moments before he returned, a big smile on his face. “Well, I get to stay in my office, my rent’s all figured out for awhile, and I happen to have the next two days off. I had been planning to use that time to move my office to my house, but I’m gonna use it to help your boyfriend out of jail now.”
For the first time since this whole thing started, Felice felt her heart swell a little in her chest. The void seemed to shrink a little, and then she took a deep breath and steadied herself. Some like hope kindled in her, setting fires in her veins. “Then let’s make a plan to make sure that Pierce gets out of trouble. Whatever it takes.”
Jennifer was worried, but looked a little happier now that they seemed to actually have something of a plan. Kenneth looked like Felice had smacked him over the head with a two-by-four. Secretly, Felice felt bad for him. Had no one ever done anything nice for this poor slob in his whole life?
Kenneth looked at her, his eyes still too-wide. He still looked stunned as he said, “So, start from the beginning, Felice. And tell me everything.”
# # #
Pierce
Sitting in the back of the transport van, Pierce stared down at the handcuffs around his wrists. It had been years since he’d been arrested last, and the memory wasn’t a fond one. Jail had been like a cage for him, pressing in closer every day until the walls squeezed him like a juicer.
The world felt like it was tilting a little, and he wanted nothing more than to run. Break out of this van and run as fast as he could. But that’s what got you in this deep in the first place. I never should have run in the first place. I never should have left my people.
But never running would have meant never meeting Felice. And even if he spent the rest of his life in jail, he would remember that week living at Felice’s white mansion in the desert as the happiest of his entire life. Being with her had taught him so many things; he wished he’d been someone else when they met. Someone completely unlike himself.
The van continued to rumble on, the roads bumping up through the world’s worst shocks and jarring Pierce’s spine. He was the only one in the back of the police van; the only criminal being transported to the East Coast from Nevada, he supposed. It would be a very lon
g and lonely ride with nothing but his memories to keep him company.
“I hope Felice is okay. I hope Felice takes care of my bike for me. I wonder if Felice is thinking of me right now.”
Every thought of Felice was like a shank to his ribs, pain lancing through him. But every thought was about Felice. In the short few days they’d known each other, she’d turned from a mystery he couldn’t touch to his everything. The whole empty world didn’t matter without her in it.
“How did someone like her become so important?” It didn’t make sense; it was like some kind of Disney movie where the big bad beast falls in love with the pretty girl. Even though he knew she could never love him back. Pierce wondered if Felice thought about him now at all, or if she just shrugged him off and fell back into the arms of her ex.
No, he realized with such certainty that it shook him, she wouldn’t have. In spite of what happened at the Gala, Pierce knew that Felice had feelings for him. She wouldn’t have jumped back into Clay’s arms.
Although his hands were bound and the benches in the van were not exactly designed for comfort, Pierce managed to lie down somewhat comfortably. He hoped to at least get a bit of sleep. If he was going to make it out of this, he would need his wits and to be ready for whatever the interrogators threw at him.
He slept fitfully, his dreams clogged with memories of Felice’s skin, her laugh, and her house that somehow now felt like home. Or it felt more like home than the Boston he was heading back to.
In the long hours back to the east coast, Pierce tried to build a plan in his mind. He stared at the sides of the van for hours, its ugly white walls looking like they hadn’t been cleaned in decades. After a long hour of thought and a heavy sigh, he said, “I need to do what Felice wants me to do,” to the walls. He wasn’t expecting a response, but saying it out loud helped to quiet some of his thoughts. “I need to do what would make Felice proud.”
He would talk to the police. He would tell them the truth. He would make Gunner pay, but through legal channels. He would give the police everything he had, hoping something he said would make them doubt just a little bit. Doubt enough to put some legwork into the case again.
This time, he would be the good guy. And no matter what happened next, he planned to stay that way. For Felice.
Chapter Twenty-One
Felice
“What are we doing here?” Felice asked, glancing around the inside of the bar. It looked like a shady little place, filled with people that looked like mugshots on a grimy wall. She’d dressed down for this occasion, forcing Jennifer to dress down, too. But even in their bargain bin jeans with tears in them and ill-fitting Walmart t-shirts, they still looked too good for this place.
The wood walls were ancient, lanced with a thousand holes from darts and broken glass. The clear coat over the top of the bar looked inches deep, added one layer at time over decades, grime and the soot of cigarette smoke caught between the layers.
The few stragglers that were in the bar at this hour glanced up at the three of them with a mix of wariness and anger. Felice tried not to look at any of them too long, ignoring the mottled tattoos that bled out into their skin with time, like she was looking at them through etched glass. A few of the patrons had missing teeth. Something made the inside of the bar smell like trash and body odor.
“There better be a damned good reason we’re here.” Jennifer glanced around with a look of barely concealed disgust; it must have matched the expression the Felice herself was wearing.
Kenneth just grinned at them. His lackluster appearance fit this place in a way that the girls never could. It was probably the poorly tied tie and mustard stains on his clothing. “You remember how you asked your mom’s private investigator for tips? Well, one of them contacted me; he found that this bar was a frequent haunt of your boyfriend’s people. And I think we might find something here if we look hard enough.”
Felice winced. “What kind of looking will we be doing?”
“Watch and learn, Princess,” Kenneth said, snapping at the bartender.
The old man came over, his rock hard expression matching his rock hard body. He looked to be about sixty and was completely gray, but looked like time had not touched his muscles. The man seemed like he could tie their limbs together with those bulging arms. He looked like he’d seen some things that Felice could only imagine in her deepest nightmares.
She had a hard time meeting his clear, ice blue eyes that were as cold as snowfall.
“Greetings, I would like a beer and two of something girly,” Kenneth said, waving dismissively at the two ladies. He then handed the bartender a enough money to pay for all of their drinks and stock in the bar while they were at it. Felice frowned at the obvious bribery, and the bartender did, too.
“What are you digging for?” the man asked, his voice like cigarette smoke and gravel. “I most likely can’t help the likes of you.” His eyes ran over Felice and Jennifer. Not in a sexual way, though; it was more like he was sizing them up, reading their pasts and personalities in every inch of their skin. It was too obvious they didn’t belong here, no matter what Felice was wearing.
She took their glasses of wine without so much as a grimace. Felice even managed to sip hers without making a face.
“I hear that Pierce Normandy and his boys in the Millennium Mayhem frequented this place.” Kenneth glanced around, his eyes tracing the outlines of the bar’s ceiling. “I also hear Pierce might have been arrested two nights ago.”
The bartender’s bushy, salt-and-pepper eyebrows flew up into his hair, his icy eyes becoming unbelievably huge in his tanned face. “Who told you all that?”
“A friend,” Kenneth said, ignoring the glare from the bartender. Felice glanced around, but none of the other patrons seemed to be able to hear them speaking, for which she was thankful. “We know he was set up by Gunner, and we want to ensure Pierce isn’t doing time for someone else’s crime.”
“Pierce?” The bartender looked surprised, then suspicious. “How do I know you’re telling the truth? You could be anyone.”
“We might be anyone, sir,” Felice whispered, wincing as those cold eyes landed on her face. But she forced herself to stare him in the face. “But I need Pierce out of jail.” She didn’t have to fake the wobble in her voice. It had been there since the moment Pierce had been dragged off of the floor and out of her arms. “If there is anything you can do to help us…” Her voice trailed off, but she kept her eyes locked with his.
It was the bartender that turned away first.
“Alright, I might have something to help you.” The bartender called to his backup to watch the bar as he took the three of them into the back. His shoulders looked tense and unhappy. “Here.” He handed Felice a tape. It was unmarked. “This tape has Gunner threatening the guy Pierce supposedly killed, telling the guy he was going to kill him. Pierce is a good guy and he had no beef with Snake Eyes.” The old man crossed his arms over his shoulders. “I thought Pierce had disappeared, gone into hiding. I didn’t think I’d ever have to turn this over to anyone.”
“Do you only have the one copy?” Kenneth asked, a smirk in his voice.
The bartender nodded. “But you can get Billy to make you a copy, if you need it. He’s down on 5th Avenue; has a video repair place. He’s trustworthy.”
Kenneth grinned. “Thank you, sir. Yah have a good day.”
Felice clasped the tape to her chest, and it warmed her all the way through. Perhaps there was some hope in this fool’s errand. Now she just needed to find someone at the police station to listen to her. “How hard can that be?”
# # #
Pierce
Pierce glanced down at the photos of him, prominently displayed, next to Felice in a gossip magazine. “You two look cute together,” the detective said, a wicked smile on his mouth. Pierce rolled his eyes, his jaw tightening as he kept his mouth closed around the angry retort. “So what made you run to her?”
“She’d broken down on the side
of the road, and I gave her a ride back home,” Pierce answered smoothly, his eyes locked with the wall behind the policeman. He felt nervous; cops always made him nervous. But he repeated his mantra over and over in his head, trying to keep cool. “Do what Felice would want you to do ...”
The interrogation room looked just like they showed on TV; ugly drop ceilings, a single chair and table in the center. The police had offered him coffee and water, both of which he had declined politely.
One of them leaned in towards Pierce. “Why did you kill Snake Eyes, Pierce? Was it a hit?”
Pierce sighed. “I didn’t kill him. I barely knew him. Gunner — I mean Jeffrey Tatum — killed him, in hopes of pinning the murder on me and leaving me to rot in jail while he took over the MC.” Pierce glanced around to see nothing but mistrust in their eyes. He added, “I’m telling you the truth.”
