by Evelyn Glass
“Nothing serious,” he said, and she was suddenly very sure that he meant the exact opposite. “I just wanted to check in on you before I...kept going where I’m going.”
“Where are you going?”
He let loose with a big, long sigh. “You’re going to laugh.”
“I won’t know until you tell me,” she replied.
“I have to go to a strip club.”
Yeah, she did want to laugh. She managed to choke back the sound, but it took some effort. “That’s a hardship?”
Another long sigh. “It’s just not my scene. Known too many girls who weren’t there willingly, you know? And I just...wanted to talk to you for a minute. Before I go in.”
Caroline about melted. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Sorry. I’m being stupid, I know.”
“This is the opposite of stupid,” she said. “I’m glad you called. Is there anything I can do?”
“Not really. I just wanted to hear your voice for a minute. This is going to be hard for me. This girl – she was a friend of my sister’s. It’s hard to see her. It’s hard to remember.”
“I get that,” she said, even though she didn’t really. It just seemed like the right thing to say. “Do you want to call me again when you’re done?”
“Maybe,” he said. “But it’ll depend on what I find out, and how quickly I have to act. So if I don’t, don’t worry. Okay?”
“All right,” she said. Her eyes were still bleary, and she found herself sagging back down onto the pillow. “I’m actually asleep. I’m going to go back to sleep. Okay?”
“Of course, baby.” There was something so gentle about his voice, she couldn’t help smiling. Such a big man, and so kind, when it came to it. Yet she had no doubt that he could throw down with the best of anyone, if it was necessary. She’d seen it when Declan was at the house. The cold fury that had burned in his eyes had been a special kind of terrifying. She’d known inside her bones that she never ever wanted to be on the receiving end of Mason’s rage. “You get some rest, okay? I’ll talk to you later. And Caro?”
“Hm?” She could feel herself drifting away already.
“I’m going to take care of this. I’m going to take care of you.”
“Okay, Mason,” she said, barely aware of the words coming out of her mouth.
Chapter 10
Mason pulled up to the Angels’ garage on his bike. The usual suspects were all around, guys working on their own bikes, the mechanics working on bikes or customers, and Munch, of course, behind the desk. As soon as Mason had his kickstand down, Munch was on his way over.
It made him want to giggle, thinking of the guy as “Teddy.” He was wirey, with a scraggly beard and a nervous twitch that made you think he dallied with meth or something, but he was clean. And Caro trusted him.
Munch held up his hand, and Mason tapped his knuckles to his friend’s; Munch shook his hand, laughing, his grin wide and easy, but as he pulled Mason into a hug, Munch’s voice was an intense. “What the hell did you do to Declan? Boy’s lost his mind, freaking out about you, tearing apart your office, shouting at people...”
Mason returned the laugh and gave Munch a hearty slap on the back. “Is he here now?”
Munch pulled back, shaking his head. His eyes were nervous and afraid, but his mouth was spread in a wide grin. “Mase, don’t you dare ever talk about my girl like that again, I’ll have to beat your head in.”
Mason forced his smile to stay easy, joking. The other guys were watching them; he could tell by the way no one was looking at them at all. If he didn’t play this right, it could mean a gunshot to the back of the head, for him and for Munch as well. “Munch, don’t you lie to these assholes, you’ve never had a girl.”
Munch laughed again, dropping Mason’s hand, and walking back into the front office, to the desk that was covered in paperwork. Mason walked past him, into his private office.
It had clearly been tossed. Everything was neat, and put back nearly where he’d left it, but he was a military man to his bones, in some ways, and his office was always kept pin straight, papers squared to the calendar, which was squared to the edge of the desk, the phone at a precise angle. Someone else might have walked in and thought everything was in order. He wasn’t “anyone else” though. It wasn’t right.
Had Declan been here before or after threatening Caroline? No way to tell from this. Whatever the President had been looking for, he wouldn’t find here. Mason had taken everything to Caroline’s house, which meant that it had all been under Declan’s nose, and he assumed that Caro had left it there when she took off.
Besides, he had to play the role of a dutiful dude who wanted a piece of the action and knew that it was out there. It wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out where Caro was, and he hadn’t been lying when he said he’d need all of his concentration to take care of Declan. The bastard had threatened what was his. Even if Caroline hadn’t been his long, she was still his. And not in some creepy property kind of way. Just that, he’d been at her house. He’d asked for her help. That put her under his protection, by the way he understood things. And by going after her, Declan had directly attacked him. If the club members knew about it, then it was a direct threat to his standing within the club.
As Mason sorted through the desk, looking for anything out of place or anything that was missing, Munch came into the office and quietly closed the door behind him. He sat down across from Mason and crossed his hands over his chest. “Caro okay?”
Mason nodded. “She’s safe. But there’s a problem.”
“There always is,” Munch said, with the wild grin that made him famous. “What’s up?”
“Declan’s gone to the dark side. We get to take him down. Once we do, I think the others will fall in line.”
Munch whistled through his teeth, staring off at the old framed poster that Mason kept to the side of the desk. It was an old poster of John William Waterhouse’s Ophelia, from a show at the Smithsonian. He’d seen it just before he deployed the first time. He’d seen the poster, loved it, bought it, and had it sent back to his half-sister. She’d had it framed for him. He kept it for both reasons. “That’s a lot of ‘once’ and ‘I think,’ Mase. You sure this is worth it?”
Mason nodded. “He’s running everything, Munch, everything we said we were against. Guns. Drugs.” A long swallow; he tensed before he said the next word, knowing that there was an even chance Munch would bolt for the door to try and take out Declan with a tire iron. “Girls.” He watched Munch grip the arms of his chair hard enough that it creaked, but he didn’t make for the door. “Young ones, I think, but I don’t know yet.” Another long, slow breath. “Trish would know.”
The sound Munch made would be qualified by most people as a laugh. “Trish ain’t gonna talk to either one of us.”
“She’ll talk to me.”
“Are you an idiot? You turned her down, and she’s been Declan’s second in everything but actual presence ever since. She is not going to say word one to you, not if it hangs Declan out on the line.”
Mason nodded again. “She’ll talk to me. If it’s true, if Declan’s got young girls somewhere, you know they’re kept against their will. Trish is a lot of things, but she’s sure as hell not a child molester. I help her figure out how to get a bunch of little girls out of a nightmare, she’ll help us.”
“And then what?”
“Then I deal with Declan.”
“Got a plan as to how exactly that’s going to happen? He’s going to know that you’re coming for him. He’ll be ready.”
“Trish first. I’ll figure out the rest as I go.”
Munch stared at him for a long, long moment, and then nodded his agreement. “What do you need from me?”
“Do what you do. Talk to people. Keep your ears open. Get a sense of what side people are going to fall on.” He pushed a piece of paper across the table. “These are the guys who I’m fairly sure are with him. Let it be known, once I
get in touch, that they can fall in line, or they can get out. But if they stay and they keep this shit going, then it’s over.”
“You taking over, then?”
Mason shook his head. “I’m no general. I just need to deal with this, and then the club can choose who takes over.”
That wild grin was back in place as Munch stood up, folding the paper and slipping it into the breast pocket of his grease monkey shirt. “You keep telling yourself that, Mase. And tell Caro I said hi next time you see her.”
Mason suspected that was the closest he was going to get to hearing Munch say “good luck.”
Chapter 11
He hung around the garage until it started to get dark, then got on his bike and crossed town to Trish’s building. She never came to the garage—not anymore—but everyone knew that Declan kept her in style in a condo building in the nicest part of the city.
Everyone knew because he bragged about it, right along with how long she sucked his cock, and all the kinky things he made her do. Most of the guys rolled their eyes about it. Some of them were jealous, and Mason had always listened and wished there was a way to check in on Trish. Not that she’d have wanted him to. Their friendship was too long ago for him to pull that card now. Not after he’d turned her down when she’d finally told him she was interested.
He didn’t regret it, at all. Trish had been in a dark place when it had happened, and Mason had been in the worst of his PTSD inspired freakouts after his tours and his sister’s death. They would have destroyed each other if they’d tried to be together, but Trish didn’t see it that way. Not at that time, anyway, and he wasn’t sure what she would think now. She certainly hadn’t spoken to him since outside of club business.
If Declan caught him anywhere near her place, he’d freak out. He wouldn’t care that Mason and Trish were friends back to grade school—Mason’s sheer presence would be a threat to his property. And Declan wouldn’t be thinking of it in terms of a woman he cared about and wanted to protect; Declan was the kind of dick who decided he owned a woman, and didn’t ever let her leave unless he was done with her. When he was done with her, she’d be turned out of the apartment on her ear, left with nothing. He thought Trish was smart enough to realize it, to sock something away for when Declan was done with her. But he worried about her, all the same.
He checked the block for Declan’s Harley, but it wasn’t anywhere in sight. Still, he was careful as he walked to the door of the building. The inner door was locked; you either had to have a keycard or be buzzed in. He scanned the mailboxes, found Trish’s name, and punched her number into the intercom.
It took a bit for her to answer. “Yeah?” he heard finally, a layer of irritation buried under a lot of nerves.
“Trish? It’s Mason. Mason Butler? I know you may be pissed at me, but—”
The door buzzed, loud and intrusive. It took a moment to realize that and after a moment, he pulled the door open. That had been unexpected.
Back in grade school, he’d been a skinny kid with a junkie mother. He’d coped with everything by burying his nose in books and pretending nothing mattered. Trish had been Patty back then, but she’d been the one kid who didn’t seem to mind that he sometimes wore the same clothes to school a few days in a row, was quiet and jumped at shadows, and never seemed to click with the other kids. They’d been best friends for years, and he’d been the one she came to when she found out her brother was selling drugs, and the local club at the time was coming for him. She’d helped him fix up his first bike, and she’d fronted him the money for the leather jacket he found at Goodwill when he didn’t have the cash for it himself. They’d been best friends for a dozen years until he’d deployed.
She’d tried everything to keep him from leaving, offered him anything he wanted. He’d told her over and over again that he had to, that it was his only way out of the trap laid for him by genetics and circumstance. If he stayed in their hometown, he was going to become a thug or be dead. At the time, he’d really believed that a military career would save him. Of course, she’d ended up being the one who was right. But he hadn’t heard her; he had enlisted, and then he deployed.
When he came back, and everything was already ruined, he’d turned to Trish. She’d introduced him to the Fallen Angels and offered to be his girl in more than just name. And Mason had turned her down. He’d told her the truth—that he was way too screwed up to be with anyone—but all she heard was the “no.” She’d gone straight to Declan after that. At the time, it hadn’t seemed like a fuck-you move; she needed someone to protect her from some of the choices she’d made, and it seemed like a muscle-bound biker was her best choice. She needed someone, and if Mason wasn’t going to line up for the gig, it made sense for her to find someone who would. Declan, at the time, had seemed like a logical choice, and he’d wished her well. Even though she wanted nothing to do with him after that.
He walked up to her condo and rapped gently on the door. The building had been converted about five years ago from a luxury hotel, and some of those touches still showed. The sconces that were spaced every so often on the walls; the plush carpet; and the shiny brass door numbers. She pulled the door open just enough for him to see half her face; she’d thrown the chain before she opened it. That ached, deep down, but then, they hadn’t spoken in years. He couldn’t believe that Declan had been treating her well all this time, and maybe she was worried that he’d gone to the dark side, just like Declan. Or maybe she just hated him. That was also a possibility.
“Well,” she said, her voice laced with honey and sugar. “‘Bout time you came to see me. I’ve missed you, too.”
“Hi, Trish,” he said, trying to stay neutral. He’d loved her for years, but he’d never crossed the line into wanting to touch her. She was more like a trusted friend, a sister. And then he’d come home, his mind so close to breaking, and he’d wanted so badly to take comfort in her, but he was convinced he had nothing to give. Caroline was showing him differently, but he owed that to her, not to Trish. “We need to talk. Is Declan here?”
She rolled the one eye he could see. “No, you jackass, he’s not. You could have called if that was all you wanted.”
She started to close the door, and he pushed out with his arm, locking his elbow and bracing the door open. “Trish, I don’t want to talk to him. I want to talk to you about him.” She was still heaving against the door, unsuccessfully trying to slam it in his face. “I know about the girls.”
She went limp then, and the door yanked to the end of the chain. One fast hit, and the chain would pop—that was the great weakness of that sort of set up, but that wasn’t what he wanted. He needed her to let him in.
Trish looked up at him, that one eye welling with tears. After a second, she moved into the gap in the door, and he could see that the left side of her face was bruised, the eye almost swollen shut. “This is what happened when I tried to talk to Declan about the girls. I am not interested in talking to him again.”
“I don’t need you to talk to him. I need you to talk to me.”
He watched her fight a war with herself. The Trish he’d known as a kid would have lit the world on fire to protect someone weaker than herself, but things had changed now. She’d been through her own war, he could see that, and he had learned a long time ago not to judge a fellow soldier. Everyone had their nightmares, and everyone had their own way of trying to find the light again. He could help people onto what he saw as the right path, but judging was beyond his authority.
“You can come in,” she said, not meeting his eyes. “The second I think anything is weird about you, I'll call the cops and tell them you did this to me.”
He nodded curtly, and released his hold on the door so that she could close it and take off the chain. He expected the sound of her throwing the bolt followed by a maniacal laughter, but instead the door closed and then opened again.
Chapter 12
Trish stepped away from the door, walking down the hall and into a galley
kitchen. He stepped inside, closed the door, and bolted it. He followed her down to the hall and sat at the bar seats. She poured two glasses of iced tea, and he smiled quietly. Some things never changed.
The way she added an inch of whiskey to her glass was new, though. Or at least, new to him.
“How much do you know?” she asked. “I don’t want to waste your time telling you shit you’ve already figured out.”
“All I know is that they’re there. And that they’re young.”
She chuckled to herself as she sat down next to him. “Of course that would jumpstart your sense of justice.”
“It doesn’t piss you off?”
“Don’t be an asshole,” she snapped. “Of course it does. I put up with the drugs because—well, look at me, who the fuck am I to judge? But the girls... he promised me that they were willing college students dancing for tuition and shit. And then I found out where the club was, and I went to go see—”
Her eyes were far away, in that warzone. He knew the look painfully well. “He wasn’t lying, not exactly. But he was omitting the truth in a big way. They’re refugee kids. Ones who came here with their families and then ran away, or ones who had no families back home and lied about relatives to get out of the camps. Vulnerable. Some of them don’t even speak English.”
She rubbed at her right eye. “I freaked out, Mason, just like I’m sure you did. I told him I was getting CPS involved. He didn’t appreciate that suggestion.”
“When did this happen?”
She shrugged. “Last night, I think. I obliterated myself afterwards. It’s always nice to find out how much of a coward you are.”
He reached out and touched her hand, avoiding the bruises where she’d tried to defend herself. He was glad to see that. It was when people stopped trying to even defend themselves that they were as good as dead. She was still fighting, somewhere deep down.
