Brax

by Jayne Blue

  And so it’s possible to hate someone and love them at the very same time.

  I cocked my head to the side, wanting desperately to crumple to the floor, squeeze my eyes and wish this nightmare away. It was ruined. All of it. The parlor would never be like it was. I could rebuild. Yes. I had insurance. But they’d slashed the walls. Destroyed the pictures on the wall. Taken a piece of my family history and turned it into something violent. And Doug had either let them or helped.

  In the kaleidoscope of ruin, something caught my eye. I don’t know why, but I moved toward it. Two cardboard canisters of chocolate and vanilla lay in a heap like the others, but these weren’t melted for some reason. How could that be? I walked toward them. I don’t know, maybe I’d lost my mind a little bit, but at that moment I remember thinking if we get them back into the freezer they’ll still be good.

  Brax must have followed my line of sight, because he moved when I did. I sank to my knees and reached out to pick up the tub but Brax put a hand on my arms.

  “We ready to call this one in?” Colt said.

  “No,” Brax answered. He closed his hand around my wrist and pulled me away. “Not yet. E.J.? I need you to get Nicole out of here. Take her back to my place and stay there until I get back. Maybe have a couple of the prospects go with you.”

  I cocked my head and looked at Brax. Some of the color had drained from his face and a pulse beat in his neck at a furious pace.

  “What you got?” Colt stepped forward and my eyes went back down to the tub of ice cream I had meant to pick up. The cardboard had broken away from it. Two square brown packages slid halfway out of it; the tape covering one of them had split. White powder covered the ground.

  I staggered backward as my heart raced. Then I lost it. I lunged for one of the packages and grabbed it off the floor before Brax could stop me. I held it up toward Brax, wanting to tear it to shreds or throw it against the wall.

  Brax rose with me, keeping his hands on my wrists as I clutched the package. “What is it?” I said, my voice coming out more like a shriek.

  Colt stepped forward and took the package out of my hands, prying my fingers away from it as Brax held on to me. Blood boiled inside of me. I felt like I was trying to breathe through tar.

  “Nicole, look at me. I need you to go with E.J. I need you to stay out of sight and off the phone until I get back.”

  Brax looked over my shoulder and gave a quick, grim nod to Colt. He took out his cell phone and stepped out of earshot. I tried to pull out of Brax’s grasp. I wanted to punch something. I wanted to take a sledgehammer to everything that was left. But Brax kept me steady. He waited until I caught my breath again and held my gaze.

  “Nicole. Listen very carefully. Go with E.J. Wait for me. We have maybe one chance to unfuck this and I need for you to not be here right now.”

  I let out a hard breath and nodded. “It’s heroin,” I said, my voice flat and bitter as I tasted bile. “He brought that shit into my house. Into my shop?”

  Brax tore a hand through his hair and blinked hard. Then he locked eyes with me again and nodded. It felt like the ground had opened up beneath my feet and I was falling down hard and fast.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Brax

  Inch for inch, Jase Reddick looked exactly like his brother Colt except for one thing. Instead of a GWMC patch on his jacket, he wore a badge. Tonight though, Officer Reddick wasn’t wearing it.

  I paced near the ruined windows of Nicole’s shop, keeping watch as Jase and Colt talked in hushed whispers behind me. I was too fucking keyed up to stay in one place. Jase squatted near the ruined ice cream cartons, picking through the bricks of powder. He wore latex gloves and his face got hard as he touched his pinky to the powder and put some of it on his lips. He didn’t have to tell me what it fucking was. I curled my fists and smashed through a patch of broken glass hanging from the metal window frame.

  “Can we keep her out of it?” I asked, walking back to where Jase squatted. He rose slowly and fixed his dark eyes on me, then shot a look to Colt. I fucking hated that. The two of them could have whole conversations by some sort of twin telepathy. At the moment, neither of them had hopeful expressions on their faces.

  “Brax, this is systematic. This little bit is what someone left behind. You sure your girl had zero clue this was going on under her nose?”

  I gripped one of the bar stools and thought about trying to rip the fucking thing from its moorings. “That little cocksucker. This was her brother, Jase. One hundred percent. This isn’t on Nicole. I’d put my life on that. Shit, I’d put your life on that.”

  Jase nodded. “No. I get it. But the problem is, it’s here.”

  “You know what’s going to fucking happen if this gets out. If she gets pinned for this. She’s finished. Even if she’s clear of any criminal conspiracy charges. They take her shop. Her fucking reputation. She’s going to lose everything because of that little shit.”

  Colt put a hand on my shoulder and I jerked away. I felt like they were trying to handle me and I wasn’t going to put up with it for a second.

  “What can we do?” Colt finally said, crossing his arms in front of him and squaring his shoulders. “How do we fix this?”

  Jase parted his lips and cocked his head to the side. “Jesus. This is a lot of fucking dope. I can’t just put it in a shopping bag and toss it.”

  “Why fucking not? I mean, what are we standing here for? I know what I’m asking. But this girl is decent. She’s kept this place going in spite of all the shit her family has rained down on her. Goddammit, she’s Lincolnshire. One of ours. And she matters to me, okay?”

  He wasn’t convinced. “Jase. I’ve got a pretty good idea who’s supplying this shit. And we both know this club is better equipped to handle it than your department is.”

  Jase put up a hand. “Don’t tell me another fucking thing. I’m sucked into this up to my balls as it is.”

  I didn’t want to have to say the rest of it. Colt at least understood. Kellan came to stand by his shoulder and he knew what I was implying too. I’d given everything I had to this club and more. I literally knew where the bodies were buried and I was the one who put them there when it had to be done. I’d never asked for anything back. Well, today I was asking.

  Jase shut his eyes tight and let out a breath. “Fuck. Fuck!”

  He turned to Colt. In their unspoken language, I knew he was asking whether this was just my request or Colt’s. It wasn’t just Nicole’s neck on the line right now. If Jase helped us clean up this mess, it put him at risk too. A hell of a lot more than the rest of us, actually. And it wasn’t the first time we’d asked him. I guess being the brother of a club member wasn’t so fucking easy either.

  Colt looked to Kellan then back to me before he gave a quick jerk of his chin to Jase.

  Jase pressed his lips into a hard line. “Get a fucking garbage bag. And hurry. Black and whites are already on their way.”

  I put a hand on Jase’s arm. “Man. Thank you. I know how big an ask this is.”

  He nodded but looked back at Colt. “He’s right, Colton. This is Lincolnshire. I don’t fucking ask what you do and I stay out of your business. But this shit can’t happen. Not in my town. You get that?” He waved the brick in the air as Kellan came back with a black plastic bag. Jase took it from him and shoved the dope inside of it.

  Colt gave him a grim nod and then looked at me. This was a different conversation we needed to have when Jase was long gone. Fucking Doug Ridley was dealing. Big. But we both knew who might be backing him.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  We headed back to The Den just before Lincolnshire’s finest rolled in with lights and sirens. I had E.J. bring Nicole back so she could go over the damage with them. For a minute, I worried whether she’d be able to keep it together. It was still Doug we were dealing with and he was her brother. But Nicole got it. Before I left, I took her into the alley. She was shaky, and that was okay. But solid as a rock too.
<
br />   “I love you,” I said again and it felt good. I fucking hated that she had to go through this.

  She nodded. “I still love you too. And thank you.”

  “You know there’s no way this doesn’t land on Doug, right? The cops know his history and they’re going to ask you a lot of questions. You don’t have to lie. Just . . . well . . . as far as anyone knows, you’ve had a break-in. Forget about the special inventory. It’s taken care of for now.”

  “What about . . .” I stopped her with a kiss.

  “Don’t worry about the rest of it. Just give your statement. I gotta head back to the club. I’ve left a couple of prospects at The Den, they’re a phone call away if you need them. And I mean that. You need anything, you call them. Anything. You find a fucking spider in the shower, you call one of them. And promise me you won’t leave by yourself. You know the guys from the club now. You don’t go anywhere unless it’s with me, one of the club members, or the cops. That’s it. When you’re done, you call me. Is your phone charged now?”

  She smiled. God, she looked so tired.

  “I know the drill. Yeah, this is the worst of it, but I’ve been dealing with Doug’s messes his entire adult life.”

  “You know you can’t protect him. You can’t tell the cops this was random. Like I said, they know his history. They’re going to put two and two together.”

  “Brax, I’m not trying to protect him. Not this time. This . . . God. This is everything. I’m done. I want him to get help, but my enabling days are over. I get it. I can’t help him if he won’t get help for himself. I’ve sacrificed all I’m willing to for him. I love him, but he’s ruining my life. No more.”

  Her lip wobbled and tears filled her eyes, but she wiped them away and looked up at me. I hooked a finger under her chin and kissed her again. “You’ve got this. And I’ll see you either tomorrow or the day after. I think it’s better if we lay low and out of your hair until some of this blows over. I don’t want anyone drawing a direct line between you and the club. Not until I have a handle on shit from my end.”

  She gave me a hesitant nod. God, it killed me to take off on her. But I had no choice. We had serious club business to discuss and the consequences of it could get ugly. Hodges and the Red Brigands were the conduit to those fucking kilos in Nicole’s restaurant. We needed to shut it down. I didn’t want any of it touching her. I’d keep eyes on her from a distance, but that’s all I could do.

  “It’s okay. Really.”

  It wasn’t though. She’d closed herself off just like I had. Except I had a brotherhood to lean on. She didn’t. Her real brother was the problem.

  “Brax,” she said. “I’m good. Now go. You go do you. I’ll do me. We’re on the same page and I’m not going to break before I see you again.”

  I slid my hand around her waist and pulled her to me. My girl was tiny, but mighty. And if I had anything to do with it, she wouldn’t have to be so strong all the time after this. She put a palm on my jacket and gently pushed me away.

  “Do what you gotta do. I’ll see you soon.”

  Smoothing my hand over the curve of her skull, I finally let her go. Colt and the others waited for me at the other end of the alley. I watched Nicole straighten her back as she walked into her wrecked shop to face the cops. It killed me I couldn’t stand by her side. But with Jase sticking his neck out and our past reputation, it was better if I lay low.

  So I did the only thing I could: I rode back to The Den with fury in my heart.

  We had the full membership at the table. Colt took a call right before we started and his face went gray. He pressed his thumb to his eye and nodded. He said exactly one thing to the caller. “Son of a bitch.” Then he clicked off and hurled the phone across the room.

  “That was Jase,” he explained. “He’s got shit handled but he wanted us to know what we were dealing with. That shit we pulled from Ridley’s was China White.”

  Rage bubbled inside of me. We’re not perfect. Lincolnshire isn’t perfect. But until now, we’d kept the harder shit out of this town. China White was as bad as it got. Kids were dying from it in Detroit, Ann Arbor, even in Toledo.

  “You fucking know where that’s coming from,” I said, trying to keep my voice even. This had the Red Brigands written all over it. China White was their calling card and they’d ruined cities with it. Now they were trying to do it here right under our noses. Daryl Hodges probably earned his patch suckering Doug Ridley to get their inventory into town.

  “Fuck.” Colt lowered his head and drove his fist into the table.

  “Are we gonna sit here and discuss this, or are we going to do what we should have done weeks ago?”

  I know it wasn’t fair of me to lay my anger at Colt’s feet. In my heart I understood why the vote went the way it did when I first brought it to the table. Doug was a shitheel. For him alone, Colt couldn’t risk the whole membership. But it still stung. Hard. And maybe if we’d have acted sooner, I could have stopped this shit from landing on Nicole’s literal doorstep.

  “How do you want to handle this?” Colt said. I wasn’t prepared for the question. There was no vote. There didn’t need to be.

  “I think we find Nicole’s idiot brother and get him to start talking. It shouldn’t be hard. He gives us the intel on his next pick-up and we’re there.”

  “You don’t think he’s in the wind by now?” Kellan asked.

  I shrugged. I honestly didn’t think he was that smart.

  “Is there anyone here who doesn’t think the idiot trashed his sister’s place on his own?” This from Tate. “I mean, come on. The Brigands aren’t usually that sloppy.”

  I rubbed my chin and nodded. It made sense and had been on my mind since Nicole first got the call that the alarms went off. “Yeah. I think that’s probably right. He’s stupid enough to think it will buy him time with Hodges and the Brigands. They’re coming after him for missed payments. He brings heat down on Nicole’s place, they find his dope, he skips town. At the very least, he knew they were coming and slithered into hiding before they got here.”

  That last thought made me see white. If Doug had gotten some kind of tip-off that the Brigands were on their way to Ridley’s and he’d bailed, God, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stop myself from killing him. What if Nicole had been there?

  E.J. sat next to me. I think he could see the thoughts crossing my mind. He put a hand on my shoulder and gave me a grim nod. Yeah. We were all on the same page. Nicole was mine. That meant what happened to her happened to the club.

  “It’s settled then,” Colt said. “We grab him up and decide our next move based on the intel he gives us. But no matter what, this shit stops. The Brigands’ line of distribution into our town ends today.”

  I dug my fingers so far into my palms I drew blood. No one said it. I knew they were thinking it. So I knew it fell to me.

  “It’s not enough. Dealing with Ridley isn’t nearly enough. We have to send a message, Colt. Scorched Earth.”

  Colt didn’t flinch. We all knew how this worked. I was still the club enforcer. Hodges was a problem that had to be dealt with. Maybe the rest of the Brigands too.

  “This doesn’t just fall on you, Brax,” Colt said. “We do it together or we don’t do it at all.”

  ***

  Finding Doug Ridley was easy. I had contacts at every train station, car rental place, bus depot, and the airport. He wasn’t the first shithead who ever tried to leave my town without me knowing about it. One of the new prospects from Emerald Coast, a scrawny kid named Sam, grabbed him up, taking a very important step toward earning his patch.

  Sam brought him to an abandoned airstrip we kept just outside the city limits and over the Liberty Bridge. By the time we got there, Doug was halfway to squealing. I had to stifle a smile. Sam had him tied to a chair in the middle of the room under a spotlight in the middle of one of the hangars. He’d set up a card table with a hammer, a saw, and a power drill. Pure fucking theater but Ridley bought it. He wa
s crying when I walked in. It was just me. Though I appreciated Colt’s sentiment, I knew my job and I wasn’t looking to shirk it.

  I paused at the card table, running my hands along the tools.

  “Shit. Brax. Mr. Anderson. Let’s talk. Okay? This kid said you’d be willing to talk.”

  I turned to Doug and picked up the cordless drill. I pressed the trigger and it whirred to life in my hands, echoing through the building. I gave a quick wink to Sam, impressed that he even thought to charge the thing. He turned so Doug couldn’t see his face. Yeah. I wasn’t above using methods like this. But Ridley was just a pretty-boy douchebag. Sure, his parents had let him down, but he’d grown up as privileged and middle class as they come. He wasn’t a hardened thug like I was used to dealing with. I’d have this shit handled with him in half an afternoon.

  I walked slowly toward Doug, bouncing the drill against the side of my leg. Sam put another folding chair in front of Doug’s and I straddled it backward. “You know, I’m not sure there’s much to talk about. At least, there’s not much for me to say. But I’m always willing to listen. I really only have one question. Your answer to it is going to tell me a lot about your character, Doug. And I have to admit, I don’t exactly have a very high opinion of it right now.”

  He trembled, nearly falling backward in his chair. Sam got behind him and pushed the chair forward so the front legs stayed solid on the ground.

  “When’s the next drop, Doug?”

  His eyes went wide. “What drop?”

  I sighed and fingered the trigger on the drill. “Now here I was hoping we were friends. I mean, I visited you in the hospital. Remember that? Remember what Hodges did to you to put you there? I mean, I assume that’s who tuned you up the last time. Now I can help you, Doug. I can’t get you out of the jam you’re in. As long as you owe the Brigands, you’re going to have to live your life in fear. But see, where you’re lucky is here. My need to make you pay for what you did to your sister’s place is outweighed by my need to stop the flow of that fentanyl-laced shit you helped bring into my town. So like I told you in the hospital the last time, this might be your lucky day. You help me out by telling me the when and where of your next drop, and maybe I make sure you don’t get hurt worse.”