by Zoey Parker
I also needed to find out what happened with Bobby. What had he seen? What did he know? And if it was all concocted, why had the name Carlisle come up? My dad and Bobby knew Brawn would have recognized that name, but why?
Cory had told me everything Brawn had told the MC’s president, James. The news had come down through Mark, who was quietly overseeing the shop on behalf of Shift until they could get Brawn out of jail. Mark was keeping an eye out for my dad’s men or Bobby, or even some of the guys associated with Carlisle.
I didn’t get to tell Brawn everything, but I hoped he understood that no matter what he told me, I was going to work to help him any way I could. I left the jail and drove over to my dad’s jobsite. I didn’t stop anywhere to take the time to compose myself or figure out what I was going to say.
I pulled up next to the trailer and got out of the car. I looked around the jobsite. It was the same place where we were working when Brawn had abducted me, but it looked nothing like it had then. The office building was standing and the parking lot had been poured. The remaining workers were putting the finishing touches on everything, getting it ready for the shell companies to move in. I was still convinced there was very little legitimate work going on in these office suites that were popping up everywhere.
As I got out of the car, my dad’s voice came from behind me. “Let me guess, that’s Mickey’s car.”
“Hey, Dad,” I said from the driver’s side door, neglecting ever-so-conveniently to answer his question.
“I figured having him locked up would draw you out. Please, come up. We need to talk.” He sounded almost cheerful to see me. It was staged, I knew. He was just happy to have the upper hand again.
“Right. I’m not here to talk long,” I said when I walked inside his office.
“That’s fine, dear. It won’t take long.” His tone changed. He wanted to talk business. I wasn’t his daughter anymore, not in the way that most dads saw their daughters. I was a piece of property, at best, and he was negotiating for ownership.
He went and sat down behind his desk, and I followed behind, sitting in the chair in front of him.
“So, how have you been? You look like you’re doing fine. Maybe you could use a little more sleep, but other than that, you look okay,” he said in a flat tone.
“Small talk, dad? Really? You didn’t call me in here to talk about my day or what I’ve been doing. Besides, I’m sure you got everything from Bobby,” I said, adjusting myself in the seat so I was more comfortable.
“Ah, Bobby. Yeah, he’s a good kid. Hard worker. You know, I’ll give The Twisted Ghosts that. They do raise up some hard workers.” He was such a patronizing ass.
“You didn’t invite me into your office just to brag about Bobby and The Twisted Ghosts either, did you?” I asked.
“You know, you keep talking like you weren’t the one who decided to drive over here. You did that, Maria, not me. So, since there must be some grand reason why we’re talking, why don’t you tell me why you’re here?” He sat back with a smug little smile on his face.
“Easy. I’m here because I knew your little stunt was designed to get me here. You already know why I’m here. I’m here to get you to drop those ridiculous charges against Bra – Mickey.” I corrected myself at the last minute, but I was pretty sure he’d heard what I was about to say.
“It’s okay if you call him Brawn, honey. I know all about him. I know his older brother goes by Shift, and his younger brother is called Hero. I know about Mark watching the shop you and Mickey run together. I know about James and Shank, about Cory. I know about the ladies in the office and the other apprentice working in the shop. I know about the cabin in the woods and the house in town. I know everything,” he explained to me slowly.
My skin crawled as he talked. I wondered how he knew everything, but I didn’t want to sound like he’d affected me, so I refrained from asking.
“Tell you what, Maria; let’s make a deal.” He leaned forward again, putting his hands on the desk.
I swallowed hard. “What did you have in mind?” I asked, trying to keep my voice from shaking.
“You come back to work for me. You accept my offer to train you to take over the company, and I’ll release your boyfriend. I’ll have all the charges dropped, and he’ll be free to walk away like nothing ever happened,” he said.
“Except we can’t see each other after that, huh?” I said.
He shook his head and gave me a sad look. “No, I’m afraid not. That means I’m going to need you to drop out of school, and I’m going to need you to move back home. But, hey, at least you can return his car, because you’ll have your own car back. And you’ll have all of your things back, too.” He talked to me in an exaggerated tone, like a car salesman.
I nodded while I listened. A plan was formulating in my mind. He was giving me an opportunity to do so much more than to simply get Brawn out of jail. I wasn’t going to try to convince him I wasn’t leaving my boyfriend. I had a plan to bring him down using his own deal.
“Give me some time to set some things straight. I can’t just get up and leave like that,” I explained. “But I’ll do it.”
A smile as exaggerated as his tone broke out across his face. “You make me so proud sometimes, Maria,” he said, rising up behind the desk with a hand held out to me. With words like his, I would have expected a hug, not a business-like handshake.
“Save it for one of your employees,” I told him, standing up and ignoring his outstretched hand.
He chuckled and took his hand back. “I’ll be expecting an answer by tomorrow,” he told me as he sat down. “Oh, and don’t tell anyone what you’re doing. I don’t want any trouble from the MC. I’d hate to have to handle them,” he added before I walked through the door.
I left his office with a plan hatching in my mind. I was going to take my dad down and set everything straight. I didn’t want to leave Brawn to do it, and I sure as hell didn’t want to drop out of school to do it. I had to find a way to make sure everything worked out the way I wanted it to while I was investigating my dad from the inside.
I hopped in Brawn’s car and drove back to the house. I had a lot of work ahead of me if I was going to join my father back at the jobsite the next day. Just as Brawn hadn’t wanted to depend on the MC for his business, I didn’t want to count on him. I wanted to be able to do it myself. He was my father; it felt like my responsibility.
I pulled up the driveway to the house and sat outside in the car.
“When you go in there, it’s going to be empty,” I told myself. “When you leave tomorrow, it’s probably still going to be empty.” I shook my head and wiped away a stray tear. I had worked so hard to help him build his dream, and it was becoming my dream, as well. I wasn’t ready to walk away, but I had to remind myself it was only for a brief time. I got out of the car, and walked into the silent house.
Chapter 18
Brawn
“Hey, Mickey, bail,” the guard called as he approached the cell door.
“Bail? As in, get the fuck out?” I asked.
“Yeah, as in some idiot just put up the money to get you out. Approach the gate,” he said.
I stepped up to the cell door and held my hands through the opening so he could cuff me again. For my safety, he insisted. Whatever— I knew it was just a formality. So many things in there were just a formality, a shadow of what I had seen guys go through on the inside. County was not the inside, not by a longshot.
“Can you tell me who bailed me out?” I asked him as we walked down the hall.
“Nope, just that it was done. I didn’t see who did it. They just told me to come back here and get your worthless ass.”
“Hey, man, I can do without the harassment, okay?” I said, laughing with the guard.
“Then, do yourself a favor, punk. Don’t get locked up. Gate three,” he called, and a buzzer rang out. A moment later, the gate opened up, letting us out of the cells and back into the rest of the station. There w
as still another gate to go through to get into the general public area, where someone was probably going to be waiting for me.
“Hopefully, this is the last time I see your ugly mug for a while. Tell your wife I’m sorry I had to leave so soon,” I told the guard as we approached the last gate.
“Gate one,” he called.
The gate buzzed and opened. We walked through, and it closed behind us automatically. We walked up to a little window where a lady was handling paperwork.
“I’ve got Johnson here,” the guard told her.
She looked over her paperwork and smiled. “He’s good to go.”
He took off the cuffs and put them back in his belt. “You heard the lady. Let’s move.”
Another buzzer sounded, and he pulled the door open to a lobby where people were waiting to get into visitation or waiting to pick up inmates who were being released. I thought about thanking him for his service, just to get that sarcastic laugh from him one last time, but I thought better of it. It was time to go. And I was anxious to see who was picking me up.
I walked into the lobby, and there she was – Amanda Langford. She looked dangerous, like a coiled serpent ready to strike. She stood up and reached out a hand.
“Amanda Langford. You must be Mickey,” she said.
I took her hand and gave it a light squeeze. “And you must be the lawyer they assigned to me. I should have known.”
“Well, I do have an arrangement with your MC,” she said.
I nodded. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t mean to take it out on you.” She wasn’t the woman I had hoped to see.
“It’s okay. I understand. Shall we?” She held her hand out to let me lead the way to the door.
“We shall, indeed,” I said as I walked to the glass door leading out to the parking lot. I held the door for her, letting her pass in front of me.
“I’m not used to men not checking me out. I guess that’s why you weren’t happy to see me. You had another woman on your mind,” she observed. “The reason you’re in here, I assume.”
“You are correct,” I said as we walked across the parking lot. I had to squint against the bright sunlight after being under the fluorescent lights of the jail.
“Of course I am. That’s why I get paid.” She led the way to her little red corvette. The car looked just like her.
I sat back in the passenger seat. “So what’s next?” I asked.
“Next, we get you home. Let you get cleaned up and everything, and I will handle everything on my end. It’s obviously bogus. You and Miss Kelly have a business that you launched together, and you’re living together. You didn’t kidnap her.” She turned to look at me. “Did you?”
I laughed.
“I don’t like that laugh, Brawn. I’ve been working with bikers long enough that laughing at my questions tends to make me very nervous.” She chuckled slightly.
“No, I didn’t kidnap her. I took her with me after we both quit working for her father. That’s it,” I said.
“That’s enough,” she stopped me. “I don’t need to know anything else. You’ve given me enough to work with. Make sure your story is straight with Maria’s in case we can’t get her dad to drop the charges before going to trial.”
“Understood.”
She pulled up to the house, and my car was parked out front, meaning Maria was home. Instead of in class. Instead of at work. Something had to be wrong.
“I’ll be in touch,” Amanda said as I got out of the car. She barely even stopped the Corvette to let me out.
“All right,” I said, dismissing her as I closed the door and started toward the door. She drove off behind me.
I opened the door and walked straight to the bedroom. Maria had a suitcase on the bed, and she was stuffing her clothes into it. She either didn’t notice me or was busy ignoring me when I entered the room. She didn’t stop what she was doing, didn’t look up or anything.
“What is this shit?” I asked.
She looked up from the clothes, a startled look in her eyes. “I’ve got to go,” she said quickly.
“What do you mean, you’ve got to go?”
She didn’t answer. She raised her eyebrows and went back to packing.
“No. No, no, no, stop,” I said, stepping around to the side of the bed where she was working with her clothes.
“Don’t,” she snapped, stepping back from me with her hands raised back. “Just don’t. You can’t stop me, Brawn. I have to do this.”
“Have you been crying?” I asked. Her eyes were swollen, and what little mascara she wore had run down her face.
“Maybe,” she said.
“Maybe? What kind of answer is that, Maria? Come on, talk to me,” I begged.
“Brawn, I can’t. Please don’t make me talk to you right now,” she pleaded with me.
“What do you mean, you can’t? What happened when you went to talk to your father?” I asked, raising my voice. Had she lost her mind? Nothing she said made any damn sense.
She stopped what she was doing and sighed. She took my face in her hands and looked me in the eye. “I have to go home, Brawn. I have to go back to live and work for my father for a little while. I’m doing this for us. I know it probably looks like I’m going crazy right now, but I know what I’m doing, okay?”
“I don’t think you do,” I argued. “I think you’re making a big mistake.”
“I think if I could tell you everything, you’d understand, but I can’t tell you what I’m really doing.” She pulled away from me and went back to packing.
“Why the hell not?” I asked. “Seriously, what the hell is going on?”
“I can’t tell you because you’ll try to stop me,” she said finally.
“Then, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it.”
“If I don’t, you’re going to jail for some shit you didn’t even do. Well, you know what I mean,” she said in exasperation.
“Okay, you’re doing something to help keep me out of jail. Maybe I can help. We’re a team, Maria. Let me help you so you don’t get yourself in trouble at the same time while you’re trying to help me.”
“No, I can’t do that, Brawn. Just let me do this myself, okay?” She closed the suitcase and picked it up from the bed.
I grabbed her arm as she tried to walk past me. “No,” I said simply.
“What do you mean no?” she snapped at me, spinning around.
“I mean, you’re not going anywhere until you tell me what you’re doing. Why can’t you tell me?” I asked her.
“If I tell you, Brawn, it will put you in unnecessary danger,” she explained to me. “In fact, you may already be danger just by being here before I had a chance to leave.”
“You’re not making any sense, Maria,” I told her.
“I’m making all the sense I can, baby, I’m sorry,” she said, pulling away from me again and walking out of the room.
I followed her, not reaching for her this time. I was simply following her to the door.
She stopped at the door and turned around to face me. She dropped her luggage and closed the distance between us with a couple of steps, allowing me to take her in my arms again. We kissed. It was a lingering kiss, our lips pressed firmly together. My arms wrapped tightly around her, holding her against me, folding her arms into my chest.
She pulled away and looked at me with something I hadn’t seen in her eyes yet. They were full of emotion, but it wasn’t worry or sadness I saw in them. There was a deep conviction in her face.
“Don’t follow me,” she said.
A horn blew outside.
“That’s the cab taking me to the office,” she added.
“But…” I started.
“This is for the best. I’ll be back when it’s all over, but I’ve got to go home and go back to work for my dad for just a few days, a couple of weeks at most. When it’s over, we won’t have to worry about him anymore, so let me do this,” she pleaded with me one last time.
The horn ble
w again.
“I have to go,” she said, getting the door. She grabbed her suitcase and walked outside toward the cab. The driver popped the trunk, and she tossed her bag back there before getting in.
I watched as the cab drove away. Her request that I not follow her played over and over in my head as I stood there holding the front door open, long after she was gone. I sighed as I closed the door and walked back into the house. I was confronted with a vacuous silence in her absence.
My desire to go after her had to balance out with my desire to honor her wishes and my understanding that she was able to handle herself pretty well. Regardless of what I knew to be true – that she wanted to do this on her own as much as I had wanted to run my business without interference – there was a burning in my chest that said run.
