by Parker, Ali
“You bet your ass I did.”
Dani came and sat down, and we dug into our food. It was delicious, as Dani’s cooking always was, and I was the first to clean my plate. When I got up and walked it to the sink, I heard the front door open. “Are you two expecting someone else?” I asked Ryder and Dani.
Ryder nodded. “Derek is stopping by to talk business.”
Seconds later, Derek emerged in the kitchen. He sniffed the air, rubbed his stomach, and went to the pan on the stove full of eggs. The plate on the counter held slices of bacon, and there was bread beside the toaster.
“Help yourself,” Dani said.
Derek did just that. As he put the bread down in the toaster, he glanced at me. “What are you doing here, man?”
Ryder piped in. “Good question. What are you doing here?”
Dani scolded him in hushed tones for being rude. I put my back to the counter and faced my president. “I came to run something by you.”
“Oh?”
“I have to run to Chicago for a couple days.”
“Is everything all right?” Ryder asked.
“Yes,” I said. Then I realized that I was lying, and I backtracked. “Well. No, not really, I guess. A girl I used to know showed up at Angie’s last night, asking for my help. She and one of my other good friends from back in the day had a run in with a guy. He knocked this girl I know around a bit. Put a big bruise on her hip. I have to go… handle it.”
Ryder nodded. “Go. Take your time. Things here are under control.”
Dani was watching us with concern. “Is she hurt? This friend of yours?”
“She’s tough,” I said. “She landed a few hits on the guy herself before he hit her.”
“I like her,” Ryder said wryly.
“You’d like her even more if you met her,” I said a little wistfully.
Dani smiled at me. Could she see right through me? Could she tell that I was in love with this girl?
For fuck’s sake. Could they all see that?
Derek thumped me on the shoulder. “You need backup, man? I can go with you to the windy city.”
“Thanks, but I can take care of this on my own. I want to keep it quiet.”
Derek nodded. “All right. Well, call me if that changes. You know I’m always up for an old-fashioned beat down. That is the game plan, I’m assuming?”
I shrugged. “I haven’t decided yet.”
Derek’s toast popped, and he plucked it out, swearing under his breath as he burned his fingertips. He started smothering the bread in strawberry jam and then looked at me out of the corner of his eyes. “This girl who came looking for you wouldn’t happen to be Quinn, would it?”
“Maybe.”
“Who’s Quinn?” Dani asked. She pushed herself up awkwardly out of her chair and waddled over with both hands on her belly. She leaned on the kitchen counter and watched me with curious eyes.
“Uh,” I stammered, “she’s just a girl I used to know.”
Derek shook his head. “Don’t lie to our Dani now, Rhys. Come on. Give it to her straight.”
Dani smiled and shook her head. “It’s all right. If you don’t want to talk about her, I understand. This pregnancy has just made me into more of a romantic than I ever used to be.”
“You could say that again,” Ryder said from where he still sat at the kitchen table.
“Ignore him,” Dani said, waving her hand dismissively.
Derek took a bite of his toast and, with a very full mouth, said, “Quinn is the only girl our Rhys has ever loved. If you’re looking for a happy love story, Dani, you’d best look somewhere else.”
“Oh,” she said softly, straightening up and giving me a sad look. “I’m sorry.”
I shook my head. “It’s not as bad as he makes it sound. Yes, I care a lot about her, and we have a lot of history, but we could never work.”
“Why?” Dani asked.
I scratched the back of my neck and considered lying. But that would do no good. So, I took a deep breath. “You know how Isaac Reed killed a bunch of guys from my old crew?” Dani and Ryder both nodded. He had stood up and was walking over to where we all stood. Derek’s toast crunched as he took another bite. “Well, one of those guys who was killed was my best friend, Max. Quinn is his little sister.”
“Fuck,” Ryder breathed.
Dani looked back and forth between us. “I don’t understand what the problem is.”
Ryder shrugged. “Well, if it were me, I’d be torn, too. I imagine this brother of hers didn’t want the two of you together?”
“I don’t know. If I’m being honest, I never let on to the fact that I was into his sister. We kept it a secret from him. But he hated the thought of her ever being part of the way we lived. He wanted something better for her. Something safer. And I wanted the same things. Then, well, you know what all went down.”
Dani bit her bottom lip. I didn’t like the way she was looking at me, with pity. Derek took his breakfast to the kitchen table and started eating.
Ryder sighed. “That’s shitty, man. I feel for you.”
Dani was frowning. “I don’t think you should let who this girl’s brother was stand in the way of you two being together.”
I blinked at her.
Dani rubbed her belly. “Honestly. I mean, I knew that when I met Ryder, I was in way over my head, and everything in my life would change if I chose to be with him. And it did. But I’m still me. I’m still good. And so is he. The way we live is just a bit unconventional is all.”
“And dangerous,” I said.
“Yes. But if history has taught me one thing, it’s this: a man thinking he can make a woman’s choices for her is more dangerous than letting her make them on her own.”
“My woman, the prophet.” Ryder chuckled as he wrapped his arm around her shoulders.
She smiled up at him. “Joke all you want, but it’s true. The only thing keeping you two apart is you. The reasons you’ve made up in your head for why you can’t be together? They’re just lies, Rhys. That’s all I’m saying.”
Ryder cracked his back and nodded at me. “Enough of this mushy shit. You ready to build some shitty furniture?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Derek?”
“When I’m done eating,” Derek said, pointing at his still half full plate of food.
I followed Ryder out of the kitchen and told him I needed a minute to call Quinn. He nodded and went down the hall, and I stepped into the living room to call her.
She answered right away. “Morning.”
“Morning.”
“What’s up?”
“I’ll meet you in Chicago tomorrow night.”
“How are you getting there?” she asked.
“I’ll ride.”
There was a moment of silence on the other end. “Okay. I’ll book mine and Nancy’s flights right now. Come to my apartment when you get to the city. I’m still in the same place. You can stay in my guest room for as long as you like.”
I closed my eyes and ran my hand down my face. “I’ll only need to stay for one night. I have responsibilities here in New York now, Quinn.”
Another moment of silence. “Right.”
Chapter 10
Quinn
Nancy covered her mouth as she yawned. Then she rested her forehead against the back window of the cab and stared out at the passing cars as raindrops rolled down the other side of the glass.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
She glanced over at me and sat up a little straighter. “Yeah. Sorry. I’m just really tired. I haven’t been sleeping much with everything going on.”
“Well after tonight, you will. Rhys will take care of everything, and you’ll go back to sleeping like a baby and snoring your face off.”
Nancy smiled. “You’re sure he’s all right with this? I feel like he’s already done enough for me in the past, and I hate using him like this.”
“He wants to help.”
“Of course he does
. But that’s the catch, isn’t it?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I mean, of course he wants to help when he knows the shit Kyle is doing to us. I guess I just feel like we’re taking advantage of him.”
“We’re not,” I said.
Nancy looked back out the window. “Okay.”
I considered what she had said as I watched the cars pass. We were still fifteen minutes away from the apartment, and I was itching to make a cup of tea and have a sandwich. I needed comfort food after this cold, wet, terrible weather and being cooped up in an airplane.
The cab pulled up outside of my apartment, and we paid the driver. We covered our heads and ran to the front door as the cold rain hit our skin like tiny angry daggers.
Once we were inside, I was uncomfortable and eager to strip out of my now damp clothes.
“All I want is a hot shower, a cup of tea, and a tomato sandwich,” I muttered as we rode the elevator up to my floor. “And to watch a movie or something.”
“Sounds like a good way to spend the night to me,” Nancy said.
The elevator doors opened, and we went down the hall to my apartment door. I stuck my key in the lock to find it already unlocked. Frowning, I turned the handle and pushed it open. Had I forgotten to lock it when we left? No. I wouldn’t have made a mistake like that. Especially since we were going out of town. My stomach rolled over.
We went inside, and I dropped my purse on the floor.
The whole place had been torn apart.
“Oh my God,” I breathed.
Nancy stepped up beside me. “Oh no.”
Every piece of dishware I owned had been taken out of the cupboards and smashed on the kitchen floor. My kitchen appliances, like my microwave and Crockpot which I always left on the counter, looked like they’d been beaten with a baseball bat.
My fridge was dented. My kitchen cabinets were smashed and scratched.
I walked deeper into the apartment. The pillows on my sofa had been gutted and were puking out stuffing all over the place. My television was shattered. Everything was destroyed.
“That fucker,” I said.
I could hear Nancy crying behind me. “Quinn, I’m so sorry. This is all my fault. I’m so, so sorry.”
“Nancy.”
“I never should have come here,” she said. “I never should have asked you to come pick me up. Now you’re on his radar and—”
“Nancy.”
“He’s not going to stop until he gets what he wants. Oh my God. How could I have been so stupid?”
I turned around and marched over to her. She was still standing in the entryway with her bags in her hands. Tears were streaming down her cheeks and leaving mascara tracks in their wake. I took her by the shoulders and shook her. I wasn’t gentle about it, either. “Nancy. Now is the time to come clean, all right? Who the fuck is this guy?”
She shook her head. “I—he—”
I shook her again. “Now is not the time to withhold information. Look what he did to my place! Look how he came after us! He wants to hurt us, Nancy. I’m not fucking around. There’s something you’re not telling me. Kyle is worse than I thought he was, isn’t he?”
She started nodding, and my stomach rolled over. I pressed a hand to my forehead and staggered back from her. Nancy’s bottom lip trembled as she watched me. “He’s not a good person, Quinn.”
“No shit.”
She flinched.
“I’m sorry. I’m just… frustrated.”
Nancy nodded.
I turned in a slow circle to soak in the sight of my mangled apartment. I didn’t even want to know what he had done to my bedroom. I felt violated. He saw everything I owned. Everything. My intimates. My vibrator.
I shook my head. There was no sense in dwelling on that. I couldn’t change it.
“He sells drugs,” Nancy said.
I nodded. I wasn’t surprised. “And?”
“And… he runs with some pretty scary dudes. Men that I know have their hands in some pretty dirty pockets.”
“How dirty are we talking here, Nancy?”
“One of them is a hired hand.”
“Meaning?”
Nancy looked down at the floor. “He’s killed people.”
“Of course,” I said grimly. “And I have Rhys coming out here to deal with this shit. This is great, Nancy. Just great. No wonder you feel like shit about getting him involved. Are these guys too much for him to handle? Because we’re not going to be able to talk him down now, and if I send him off to get killed by your piece of shit boyfriend, I’m going to—” I slapped my mouth shut.
Nancy crumpled to the floor and buried her face in her hands as she started sobbing. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”
But it did happen. And I warned you about him. I knew he was a bad guy. I knew he’d hurt you. But you wouldn’t fucking listen to me. Why do you never fucking listen to me?
I crouched down in front of her and pulled her hands away from her face. “I’m sorry, Nancy. This is just a lot for me to process all at once. And you know how I feel about Rhys. I don’t want him getting hurt.”
She sniffled. “I know.”
“So, tell me if you think he has a chance against these guys or not. And tell me the truth.”
She didn’t have time to answer me. Suddenly, the doorway was filled with a dark shadow. I looked up, and my eyes widened as Rhys stepped into the entranceway and looked around. His green eyes looked darker than I’d ever seen them.
I stood up, and his gaze locked on to me. “What the fuck happened?”
“He came and trashed it while we were in New York,” I said.
Rhys walked around Nancy who was still on her knees on the floor, crying. He didn’t even look at her. Instead, he walked slowly through my apartment, inspecting the damage that had been done. “This is thousands of dollars of damage,” he said.
“I know.”
He stopped in my living room and bent down to pick something out of the carpet. He pulled a photo out of a shattered frame and shook glass off of it. I knew without having to look which picture it was. It was of me, him, and Max a few months before Max died. It had been taken in the summer during one of the MC’s baseball games. We were all playing for the red team, and they’d let me paint red stripes on their cheeks with my lipstick. War paint, they called it.
All three of us were a little drunk in the photo, but it was the best one I had of the three of us.
Rhys ran his thumb over it and then put it down on the edge of my coffee table. It had a metal frame, and that was the only part of it that wasn’t broken. Then he came back over to us and looked down at Nancy. “Where would I find this bastard on a Thursday night?”
Nancy looked up at him slowly. Then she looked at me. I nodded at her to tell him. We didn’t have a choice now. Nancy took a deep breath. “They usually hang out in one of their garages off Rockmore Avenue. The garage faces out onto a back lane. It’s a shady neighborhood. Plenty of foreclosures and no people around who are likely to ever call the cops if something goes down. Like a fight. If you go, Rhys, and you’re in trouble, nobody is going to come bail you out.”
“Do you want my help or not?”
Nancy winced at the anger in his voice and nodded. “I’ll text you the address.”
He turned to me. “Do you have rental insurance?” I nodded. “Good. I’m going to pay this asshole a visit, and then I’ll be back to help you clean.”
“Rhys,” I started to say, but then I realized I didn’t know what I could say. Would he stay if I asked him to? Would he be able to walk away from a fight like this? I knew him better than anyone. He was going to serve his justice one way or another. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go alone. Kyle hangs around with some scary guys. Murderers. I don’t like this.”
“Well, I’m here now,” he said. “And I’m not leaving until this fucker gets what’s coming to him for laying a hand on you. I can take care of myse
lf. Besides, the chance to ask for backup has passed.”
Nancy hid her face in her hands again. Had she been more honest about who we were dealing with, maybe Rhys would have made the effort to bring Owen with him; anyone was better than no one.
“I can come with you,” I said.
“Absolutely not.”
“I’ll wait in the car.”
“Are you fucking crazy?” he asked, grabbing my upper arm. “You won’t go anywhere near this guy, Quinn. Do you hear me?”
“I hear you.”
He let me go and nodded. “Good. I’ll be back when it’s done. Make sure you lock the door behind me.”
“I will.”
Rhys turned and left without saying another word to either of us. I stood beside Nancy for a solid thirty seconds before my brain started working again, and I went and closed and locked the front door. I rested my back against it and sank down it to bring my knees to my chest.
Nancy took her phone shakily out of her bag, and I watched her text what I assumed was Kyle’s address to Rhys.
“Will he be okay?” I whispered.
Nancy slipped her phone back in her purse and looked over her shoulder at me. “I hope so.
Chapter 11
Rhys
I turned down Rockwood Avenue and knew instantly which garage was the one I was looking for. It was located five houses down the little lane, and the door was open. Four men were sitting under cover of the garage while a fire burned in a gas fire pit in front of them. The pavement was littered with beer bottles and food wrappers, and the whole lane smelled like booze, wet asphalt, and weed.
The four of them were passing a joint around. They took long draws and held the smoke in their lungs for a while before exhaling little puffs of smoke, which rose up and floated above them in the garage.
I parked my bike and got off. I left my helmet on the handlebars and started walking over.
If they heard or saw me coming, they chose not to acknowledge me.
One of them lit up a cigarette, which prompted the others to follow suit. By the time I reached them and stood on the other side of the fire, the air was thick with cigarette smoke.
