Holy fuck. Her ass. How had he missed that? He drained his beer and went after her.
She was moving fast and almost at her car when he got outside. “Wait up, Sport!” he called. She reached her car before she turned, crossed her arms, and waited.
When he was standing in front of her, looking down into those sardonic eyes, he said, “Still don’t know your name.”
“I have an idea you will soon enough. Why spoil your fun?” She put her hand on the door handle. Isaac was amped up from the fight and seriously intrigued by this woman. Acting on animal instinct more than anything else, he wrapped his hand around her slight wrist and pulled it away from the handle. She let him, still smirking.
With his other hand on her shoulder, he pushed her back against the Camaro. He leaned in close and murmured, “Something tells me you’re a lot of fun, Sport.” He kissed her.
Though she didn’t kiss him back at first, she didn’t resist, either. Her lips were warm, soft, and supple, and when he pushed his tongue against them, she opened her mouth and let him in. With a pleased growl, he released her wrist and shoulder so that he could cradle her face and kiss her properly.
Her tongue came alive then, undulating against his, and her arms snaked around his neck. He felt her wrapping his braid around her hand, and then she pulled it over his shoulder, bringing him even closer as she sucked his lower lip between her teeth, biting down. He was completely hard, his cock constricted in the leg of his jeans. When he dropped his hands to her hips and brought her tightly against him, she pulled away a bit. She licked her lips and looked up at him, her eyes contemplative.
He smiled. “Ah, Sport. I want to play with you. I got some business I need to take care of tonight, though. Pick this up later?”
“Won’t rule it out.” Damn, he was already growing to love that knowing smile. He kissed her quickly and put her in her car. As he watched her drive away, his smile became a snarl. He was extra pissed at the Sullivans now. They’d fucked up what would have been a really delightful night.
~oOo~
Isaac pulled up to the Night Horde clubhouse feeling agitated and angry. He glanced around the lot; looked like he was the last one in. Good. That’s how he liked it. He hated waiting for other people.
The Night Horde no longer ran a business per se, not a strictly legit one, anyway. In the town’s heyday and for some time after that, they’d run a construction company, but there wasn’t anything to build these days. By all appearances, they now were simply a recreational club. Wyatt and Victor had family farms. Havoc, Dan, and Bart worked at Keyes Implement Repair, fixing tractors, threshers, and the like. Showdown ran the feed store. Len owned the hardware store. CJ lived off his army pension. Isaac . . . well.
As a club, they earned three ways, the most lucrative of which by far was running protection and enforcement on the local meth pipeline from Crawford County, northeast to St. Louis and into Illinois, and southwest to Springfield, Joplin, and as far as Tulsa. They took a share from both sides of the line. No one in the club liked it, but meth was a way of life in mid-Missouri, and the only way to control it was to, in fact, control it. Help the local cookers get their product to a wider clientele. They ran it out of Signal Bend. All of it. Out. Let the cities deal with it.
Anyone who tried to keep it local had his mind changed.
The town had lost its police department in the early 1990s, when another national fiscal crisis had taken a toll. They were miles away from the nearest substation of the Crawford County Sheriff’s Office. Isaac’s father had led the club in those days, and, rather than watch the town and its environs descend into some kind of pioneer-days lawlessness, Big Ike had seen a way to keep order and make a buck. The Horde had become the town security, taking a monthly sum from local businesses for the promise of protection and a guarantee to fix the damage from what it could not prevent.
They were effective deterrents to crime. So effective, in fact, that Crawford County never saw a need to bring a substation within reasonable distance of Signal Bend, and the club maintained a cordial and very healthy relationship with Sheriff Keith Tyler, who took his cut of the meth profits and stayed out of the way.
The Horde also occasionally did custom bike work. That, though, earned, at best, a low five figures in a year.
The clubhouse showed its history as a rural construction company. The building was long, low, and serviceable, built mainly of cinderblock and surrounded by a large gravel lot that had once held heavy equipment. The property was ringed by an eight-foot, chain-link fence with privacy slats. Normally, though, the huge double gates were left open. There had been no need to lockdown for going on five years. They had beefs with crews in St. Louis and East St. Louis, but that trouble went down on the away field. It stayed out of Signal Bend.
Isaac was damn proud of that.
It’s why he was het up now. Something wrong was going down if Jimmy and Meg Sullivan, cookers extraordinaire, were walking around Signal Bend armed at all, much less bringing that shit into Tuck’s. And the dynamics of the fight were puzzling: Jimmy and Don Keyes first. Don had nothing to do with the trade, though he had a deep connection with the Horde. But then the shift to Will, who was just a farmer—and Isaac’s oldest friend. Good friends with Jimmy, too. Isaac had no fucking clue what that scene was all about. But he wasn’t going home until he knew.
Neither were the Sullivans. He went into the clubhouse.
The Horde were lined up at the bar or sitting at tables nearby. Rover, their Prospect, was pouring whiskey. And there were girls. Always seemed to be girls around. The Horde was the only MC for miles, and lots of farmers’ daughters managed to find the coin to tart themselves up and drive themselves out for a chance for a tumble with a biker. Hence the long row of dorm rooms at the back of the clubhouse. That, and space to entertain the occasional visiting brother. The Night Horde wasn’t part of a large charter, but they were friendly with several and allied with one, The Scorpions, an international charter based in Florida.
Show looked up and saw Isaac striding in. “Hey, boss. Jimmy and Meg are waiting for you in the Room. Made ‘em nice ‘n comfy.”
Isaac nodded. “You good to go, Victor?”
Victor stood on the rung of his barstool and reached over the bar. He grabbed a box of rubber gloves from the shelf underneath and tucked it under his arm. “You know it, Isaac. Born ready.”
The Room was a former repair bay they now used to do their dirtier, wetter work. A room one could hose out and scrub down with bleach, if need be. Not much call for it usually—in fact, it held the booze back stock right now, serving as an overflow storage area as well as an interrogation space. Jimmy and Meg Sullivan were gagged and tied to metal chairs, their arms bound to the arms of the chairs, positioned side by side, about three feet between them. Isaac hadn’t realized how much of a beating he’d laid down on Jimmy, but the skinny fuck looked pretty bad. His broken right wrist was swelling angrily, the hand attached to it livid.
Isaac looked at Victor, and gestured to Jimmy. Victor nodded and walked over to Meg. With a smile that should have turned her blood to ice, he ripped the duct tape off her mouth. She squealed as the tape took some skin with it. Victor pulled a wheeled tool chest up alongside Jimmy, and Isaac grabbed a stool and sat in front of Meg. She was the weaker link.
Isaac leaned in a bit. Her throat was swollen, with a gash still leaking some blood, where Sport had landed her punch. Sport—that’s were he should be right now, dammit, his hands around her naked ass. That amazing ass. He tried to smile at Meg, but it came out a snarl. “Okay, Meg, sweetheart. This is how we play. I ask you questions. I don’t like your answer, Vic takes something off your man. Do you understand the rules of the game?”
Meg took a big breath and began to blather. “Ike, man, you don’t gotta do that. You and Jimmy’s friends. I know you don’t want to hurt him, that’s crazy—NO!”
Isaac had nodded to Victor, who picked up a pliers and attached it to the nail of Jimmy’s sw
ollen right pinkie. Without so much as a pause for a breath, he yanked, pulling the nail straight out. Still gagged, Jimmy screamed like a 12-year-old girl at a boy band concert. His eyes bugged out. Victor dropped the bloody nail into a steel bucket at his feet. The bucket was not small.
Isaac turned back to Meg. “The question I asked was Do you understand the rules of the game? You didn’t answer. Now I’m asking again. Do you understand?”
Weeping hard now, Meg nodded. “I understand.”
“Good. Let’s get to the real questions, then.”
INTERLUDE: 1994
Johnny Accardo was up well before dawn on a mid-autumn Saturday, dressing quickly and lacing up his boots. He went to Lilli’s room and knocked lightly. When he got no answer, he opened the door a couple of inches and peeked in.
Her bed was already made. No longer was there a long line of stuffed animals arrayed across the pillows; his daughter had boxed them up a few years ago, declaring that she was too old for them. All but one: a mangy, spotted dog. She’d had it her whole life. Its name was Dog. Johnny closed the door and continued down the hall.
He heard the sounds of breakfast. Somehow, he’d managed to be the last one up. He was impressed. His mother, who had moved in with them shortly after Lilli’s mother’s suicide, was pulling hard rolls off a baking sheet. Breakfast in this Italian home had almost always been coffee or hot chocolate and hard rolls with jam. Sometimes polenta in the winter. Neither Mena nor his mother had been able to adapt to the American way of cold cereal or eggs and meat. Johnny knew that one of the reasons Lilli enjoyed occasional sleepovers at her friends’ houses was the chance to have brightly-colored, sugared cereal for breakfast.
When he came into the kitchen to pour himself some coffee, he saw Lilli packing up their lunch. She’d already filled their two big thermoses, too. She was dressed and ready. His girl. “Morning, Papa.”
“Morning, cara. I think you’re going to bag your first today. What do you think?”
She shrugged. “You always say that. I’ll try, Papa.”
“I know you will.”
His mother pushed him to the table. “Siediti, Gianni, avere qualcosa da mangiare.”
“Dirlo in inglese, Mamma. In English.” Natalia and Giovanni Accardo had immigrated to the United States with Johnny when he was three. They all became naturalized citizens, but she’d never assimilated well, and his father, enjoying the little piece of home in his home, had accommodated her refusal to learn English or any understanding of American culture. But his father had died ten years ago, and now his mother was Lilli’s primary caregiver. Lilli was old beyond her fifteen years, but he needed his mother to be able to handle crises on her own. Without the language, she could not. Sometimes, he thought that he’d only made things harder for Lilli by bringing her grandmother in to live with them. But he traveled a lot for work, and he could not leave his daughter alone. Her mother had already done that.
Besides, Lilli and her nonna had bonded tightly. They adored each other. And Lilli spoke fluent Italian and, under the tutelage of his mother, could cook and bake like a pro. Between the two of them, they’d packed fifteen pounds on him.
His mother sighed, and, in heavily accented but intelligible English, said, “Sit. Eat. I bake you bread.”
“Good, Mamma.” He sat with his daughter and mother and ate breakfast. Then he and Lilli went off on their hunting adventure.
~oOo~
Johnny was impressed by Lilli’s patience, her ability to be still for long periods. She took his instruction seriously, too. Though they enjoyed each other’s company very much, spent the long drive into the woods engaged in lively debates, and chatted easily during their lunch break, they could sit side by side in perfect quiet for hours.
He was watching her, feeling mesmerized with love for her, when she shifted slightly and brought her Remington rifle to her shoulder. He turned his head slowly and saw that she was sighted on a pretty nice buck. Looked like an eight-pointer. This was the second season he’d been taking her out. She’d sighted deer twice before, but had missed both times. He resisted the urge to talk her through this chance. He’d taught her what she needed to know. Right now, she was still and focused and seemed to be waiting for her shot.
She fired just as the buck heard something from another direction, and his position shifted. Her bullet hit him in the shoulder, and he went down. But it wasn’t a mortal hit. The buck was flailing and screaming, trying to get back on its feet. Lilli had to take the kill shot. He turned to her. She looked stricken, and he was afraid she’d lost her heart for this.
He started to raise his own rifle so that he could end the animal’s suffering, when in his periphery he saw her sight her rifle again. The buck was down and flailing. Not an easy shot. When she took her stilling breath, he felt it rather than saw or heard it. She fired, and the buck’s head dropped to the forest floor.
“Good, cara. Good.” He put his hand on her back. She looked pale and upset.
They walked over to the buck. The kill shot had gone through his eye. A perfect shot. He watched as she dropped to her knees and stroked the buck’s side. She was crying but trying not to.
He squatted at her side. “Good, Lilli. It’s good to feel your kill. You have taken a life. Remember that. Guns are never toys. Never. When you point a gun at another living thing, you do it with purpose, and you do it to kill.”
CHAPTER THREE
Lilli woke from the dream on full alert, on her feet and on the defensive before she was fully conscious. After a tense second, she realized where she was and concentrated on pushing the adrenaline surge down. She woke like this three or four mornings a week, sometimes in the middle of the night, too, so the process was routine.
Better than coffee, she supposed, for getting the day started quickly.
By the ambient light in the room, she guessed it wasn’t long past dawn. She went to the dresser and fished her phone out of her pocket to check the time: 5:52am. Good morning, Signal Bend. She went into the shitty little bathroom.
Her stomach growled. She’d never had much of the burger she’d shared with Isaac last night, and it was pushing 24 hours since she’d eaten anything else. Plus, she might not strictly need coffee, but it was a nice start to the day nonetheless. Sadly, she had nothing in the house yet. Fuck.
Okay. Run first, then find that diner Mac Evans recommended—Marie’s, she remembered—for some breakfast. Then errands to stock the place up. She rummaged through one of her duffels and dug out a pair of spandex running shorts and a top. She combed her fingers through her hair and yanked it into a high ponytail. She found her trail running shoes in the other duffel. She intended to run through what served as residential areas, but there was a lot of gravel out here, and she didn’t want to roll an ankle.
She hid her keys behind the garage. Signal Bend was probably one of those towns where nobody ever locked anything, but Lilli protected her shit. She had shit to protect.
Running through Signal Bend and the surrounding countryside gave Lilli a different insight from what she’d seen from the Camaro. The homes were widely spaced, even in town. A lot of them were obviously empty. Even banks seemed to have abandoned them. All that remained were swing sets rusting in yards, sometimes a car on blocks, weeds growing up through the engine. She passed one car with a tree growing through the back seat and out the empty rear window.
The occupied houses she passed were often lovely and quaint in their simplicity. Lilli saw lots of washing hung on lines, sheets catching the breeze and early morning sun. Just after six in the morning, and women were deep into their chores. Country life. It wasn’t a world Lilli had grown up in.
She noticed that she was noticed as she ran. People—women and small children in their yards, men passing in trucks and tractors—gawked as she passed them. Isaac had told her that people don’t move to Signal Bend, so she was obviously a curiosity as a new person in their midst.
She ran for nearly an hour, judging by her pace tha
t she’d gone about eight miles or so, when she was ready to head back. She wanted to loop rather than simply turn around, so that she could see more of the town, but she wasn’t sure she had her bearings well enough to accomplish it.
Oh, well, one way to find out. She had her father’s sense of direction. She’d figure it out.
It was coming up on 8am, and she’d run about sixteen miles, when she turned onto the gravel road that would become the driveway to her little rental. She saw the bike pulled up in front of the garage as she crested the last hill. She’d only seen it a couple of times, never clearly or up close, but she guessed this was Isaac’s Harley. He’d already gotten some intel on her, then.
And this was why she locked her shit.
She saw him sitting on the steps of the little wooden deck leading to the sliding glass back door. He was leaning back against the steps, his hands linked across his chest, his legs outstretched and crossed at the ankles. Damn, he was big. And not hard at all to look at. Well-worn black engineer boots. Dark straight-leg Levis. Black button-down shirt, folded back on his arms and open at the throat. Leather cuffs. Leather kutte. Black Ray-Bans. He looked like Mr. June in the Harley Biker Beefcake calendar.
She took all that in by the time she’d reached the garage. Without indicating that she’d also seen him, she paused at his bike, breathless from her run, and gave it a once-over. It was a nice bike, a huge black Dyna. Had some miles on it, but it was obviously well cared for.
“You like?” Isaac called over from the porch, where he was still sitting in the exact same position.
Lilli turned to him and shrugged. It pleased her to see him cock his head, as if he’d expected to startle her with his presence. “It’s nice. I prefer something with a bit more speed.”
She had to get her keys, which meant he was going to see that she’d hidden them. Letting him see where wasn’t a problem—she could hide them elsewhere—but seeing that she had gave up a lot. Another new plan she needed. This biker was getting in her way. She went behind the garage and dug them out.
Move the Sun (Signal Bend Series) Page 3
