The Darkest Flame

by Christina Lee

  “Can’t believe Vaughn gave that woman the time of day the other night,” Cherry said low in my ear.

  “Why is that?” I asked, now more curious than ever.

  “She likes to kiss and blab,” she said. “And Vaughn doesn’t usually hook up with customers. Not sure what his deal was that night.”

  I cleared my throat and looked away as she continued. “She was in here the next day telling a group of ladies what a gentleman he’d been.”

  I sprang back in surprise. “A gentleman, huh?”

  “Yeah. Guess he didn’t close the deal that time, if you know what I mean,” she said, and I felt my chest tighten. “So she must be back here to get her some.”

  Vaughn hadn’t slept with her that night?

  I shrugged. “Nothing wrong with wanting some meaningless sex when the mood strikes.”

  “I’m not against her hoping to hook up with Vaughn. It’s her snitching about it everywhere that gets me,” she said. “Anyway, I’ve been working with Vaughn a long time. I’ll bet he only left with her to get his mind off something else that night. Or someone else.”

  A line of heat climbed its way up my neck. Did Cherry know something was up? Or was she only trying to pick my brain?

  My mouth became dry, and I had a hard time forming any kind of response. But by this time, Cherry was used to my silence. She knew I wasn’t a big talker. Unless I was behind closed doors with Vaughn. Then I couldn’t help myself. The man made me that crazy with need.

  “I think he was hurt real good by somebody way back when,” she said. “He deserves better.”

  Little did she know the somebody she was referring to had been a man. Or maybe she did, considering the way she was now staring me down.

  Before I could reply, the woman in question interrupted us.

  I walked away to finish last call while Cherry explained that Vaughn wasn’t around tonight.

  After all was said and done and I was the last man standing, I pulled out my phone and dialed Vaughn.

  “How’s your dad doing?” I asked.

  “Better,” he said, sounding more relaxed. “Though he’s not the best patient.”

  I laughed, remembering how ornery my own father could be.

  “They‘ve got him settled in a room, but they’re awaiting one more test before they take him back for a procedure.”

  “They’re going to do the procedure tonight?”

  “Or early morning. Guess the first twenty-four hours after a heart attack are the most crucial.”

  “Makes sense. Can I do anything else for you?”

  He paused. “I know you’ve already done enough, but—”

  “Just name it.”

  “Can you check on my cats?” he asked. “They should be fine, but soon enough they’ll need to eat.”

  “I’m on it,” I said, heading to his desk drawer where he explained his spare key was located. “Got it. I’ll feed them in the morning, too, unless I hear from you first.”

  “No, you don’t have to—”

  “Consider it done,” I said, hopping on my bike and then tucking my phone away.

  I headed over to Vaughn’s, parked in the lot, and let myself inside.

  I called to his cats, but they didn’t appear, which didn’t surprise me. I found the food, and they sprinted toward their bowls when they heard me open the can. Humans and animals weren’t that dissimilar when it came to basic needs.

  One of the felines—Cane I think—was larger than the other, and he rubbed against my legs before attacking his bowl of chow.

  I sat on the couch and watched them for a few minutes, and before I knew it, I had dosed off.

  I was so damn exhausted, I could’ve curled up right there, and I considered it in my sleepy haze. But I knew that was a bad idea, especially if Vaughn made it home, so I forced myself to get up and leave.

  After crawling between my own sheets, I texted Vaughn.

  Me: All is well with your feline friends.

  Vaughn: Great. Dad’s surgery scheduled in a couple hours. Going to nap on the pull-out couch in his room. Catch you later.

  I fell asleep promptly with my phone in my hand.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Smoke

  The following morning, I showered, slugged back coffee, and then texted Vaughn.

  Me: How did the surgery go?

  Vaughn: As well as can be expected. He’s in recovery.

  Me: Good news.

  Vaughn: I’m heading to my dad’s place to pick up a couple of things and then back to the hospital. I should be able to open tonight.

  Me: Don’t even think about it. Cherry and I got it covered.

  Vaughn: We’ll see. Thanks for everything.

  Me: Don’t thank me yet. I’m out the door to feed your cats again. They might fall in love with me and not care if you come home again.

  Vaughn: You bastard. I can totally see Cane falling for you. But no need to do that. I’m going to stop home later this morning.

  Me: Already done.

  I didn’t know what it was that compelled me to check on his place again. I just wanted to do something nice for Vaughn, I guess.

  But as soon as I opened that apartment door, I knew something was way off. There was a soft keening sound coming from the bedroom, and my limbs locked up. I was afraid of what I’d find. Fuck, had I fed his cats the wrong food or something?

  I searched around the living room and kitchen, but nothing else seemed out of sorts. Was the cat sick?

  Near the foot of Vaughn’s bed, the black cat lay on its side on the carpet. A faint aroma of something sweet hung in the room.

  Cane was sniffing and circling, but the smaller cat was so sick, she looked practically comatose. I could see her chest moving up and down from labored breaths.

  “Hey buddy,” I said, gently lifting her up. The sharp trace of alcohol assaulted my nostrils. When I leaned closer, I could smell the whiskey on her whiskers. What the fuck?

  Did she get into some liquor? That’s when I spotted a bottle of peach schnapps lying near the closet door. Where in the hell had that come from?

  The cat shuddered out a breath and then went limp in my arms. Her little chest was still pumping air but shit, this animal needed help. I held her closer while I dug out my phone and dialed Felix.

  “Pick me up at Vaughn’s place in the Chevelle?” I said. “Need help pronto. I’ll explain later.”

  I reached down and stroked the other cat’s head, and he mewled in response. Then I lifted the bottle of schnapps from the floor. Looked like only the one cat had gotten into it.

  I headed to the kitchen and pulled open Vaughn’s cupboards. The other bottles of booze were stored on a high shelf above the stove, and that’s when it became alarmingly evident that this was no accident. This had been foul play.

  I found a carrier in Vaughn’s front closet and gently laid the cat inside. The other cat circled the cage, so I made a split-second decision to bring him along as well.

  Felix arrived within minutes.

  “You grew up with cats,” I said, placing the carrier in the back seat. “Is alcohol lethal to them?”

  “They get into some?” he asked while pulling out of the drive. “Just a small amount could cause death.”

  “Fuck,” I said, looking back at those defenseless animals one last time. “I need to get that cat to the vet.”

  “Is that why it reeks in here?”

  “Shit.” I smacked my hand on the dash, furious with the one person I figured must’ve spotted me leaving Vaughn’s place late last night.

  A flash of a long-ago memory came to me of Jake, eyes dilated from snorting coke, attempting to light a stray cat’s tail on fire. Sick motherfucker.

  Now I just wanted revenge.

  Felix didn’t ask any more questions as we pulled into the vet’s parking lot. When they saw the condition of the cat, they took her back immediately, along with the second feline, as a precaution.

  After waiting for what
seemed like forever, the doctor finally emerged from the exam room.

  “We had to pump her stomach. She should pull out fine,” she said, smiling. “Though I would caution you to never leave open alcohol containers on the counter.”

  Instead of responding, I just nodded, allowing her to formulate her own thoughts.

  “We’ll have to keep the cat for observation. You can take the other little guy home. He has a clean bill of health.”

  Felix drove me to get my bike, and then I met him at home with the other cat.

  “What the fuck is going on here, Smoke?” he asked when I leaned over the back seat to grab the carrier.

  “Somebody’s screwing with Vaughn,” I said. “I need to talk to Mal about it first.”

  “Same guy who broke into his place a couple weeks back?”

  “Pretty sure.”

  “Was it somebody he fucked over?” he said, pushing the automatic garage door closed. “That doesn’t seem like Vaughn.”

  “I promise to fill you in after I talk to Mal,” I said, and he nodded.

  “I won’t say a word to the guys,” he said. “Let me know if you need anything else.”

  After taking the gray cat up to my place, where he promptly sprinted and hid beneath the couch, I made the long trek to the compound, which was about a twenty-five-minute drive from the city. The ride down on the back country roads had always been a pleasant drive, but today it felt drawn out as the scenery blurred and melded right along with my thoughts.

  My skin felt tight to the bursting point, like I couldn’t hold everything in any longer, no matter the outcome. It was time to tell the prez what was going down.

  The main room was empty save for a couple of recruits. I knew Mal was in the office because I had called beforehand to be certain he was there. Asked him to stay put because it was important.

  I closed the door and slumped in the chair across from his desk.

  He leaned back, taking in my appearance. For all I knew, worry lines were etched across my forehead. I could almost feel the grooves. “You look like hell. What’s up?”

  “I…shit,” I said, inhaling a steady breath. This was going to be tougher than I thought. “I offered to help Vaughn out while he stayed at the hospital with his dad, so I went to his place to feed his cats.”

  Mal stared hard at me, and then his gaze drifted down to my fingers, which were gripping the armrest. “And?”

  “Somebody had been in there again,” I said. “Messed with his cat.”

  His face turned dark. “Messed how?”

  “Fed it alcohol,” I bit out and clenched the chair. “Cat went into a coma.”

  “Fuck,” he growled. “You sure?”

  I nodded. “No way to mistake the smell on that cat’s whiskers. Plus there was an empty bottle lying on the ground. Wanted us to find it.”

  “Vaughn give you any idea who might be—”

  “I know who’s fucking with Vaughn,” I said, cutting him off at the pass. “And it has to do with me.”

  He sat up straight and narrowed his eyes. “What about you?”

  I breathed in deeply. “Somebody from my old club.”

  “What the fuck you talking about?” he demanded, his voice laced with worry. “You mean they got wind of you helping Fish?”

  Before I could even respond, he was working it out in his own head. “Nah, that don’t make no sense. If they found out, why would they be messing with Vaughn? Speak up, boy.”

  “It’s somebody I…” I choked out the words. “It’s Jake.”

  “Jake the Snake?” He leaned forward, and I could feel sweat trickling down my neck. “What about him?”

  Goddamn, this was hard.

  “We…hung out a lot,” I said, looking at floor. “He was the guy who introduced me to my first shot of heroin.”

  “Shit,” he said, shaking his head as if remembering those days. “And?”

  “He was…or maybe still is…kind of fixated on me.”

  “What the living hell do you mean fixated?” he rumbled. “Out with it.”

  “We…him and I…Mal, I’m…” I muttered. “I’m bisexual.”

  “The fuck?” Mal sprang up on that revelation and began pacing with a crazed look in his eyes.

  It was already out. No way to take it back, so I simply kept on going. “And he might think that since I’ve been hanging around Vaughn lately, that…that he’s my boyfriend.”

  Mal’s face turned tomato-red as if he couldn’t even believe what he was hearing. He didn’t breathe a word, his jaw ticking away, his mind probably going a mile a minute.

  “I…listen, I’ve always kept that part of myself private,” I said. “I would never do anything to jeopardize—”

  “Did they know about the two of you?” He spun on me and stalked over to my chair. I clenched my fists on my knees, thinking maybe he was going to slug me. “The Asylum club?”

  “No way,” I said, and his features relaxed a bit. “Seems he’s been keeping track of me all on his own, hoping we could finish where we left off.”

  “What in the living hell did you ever see in that douchebag?” he asked, as if to himself. I had asked myself a similar question plenty of times.

  “By the time I figured out what a fuck-up he really was, I was already an addict. Only cared about the next hit, if I’m keeping it real. He kept me supplied.” Mal stared up at the ceiling, trying to wrap his head around what I was saying. “I was young and desperate and dumb. Learned plenty since then. I could never be with that bastard again.”

  Mal’s gaze swung back to me, and he studied me for what seemed like days. “You’re attracted to both men and women?”

  “Been with women, mostly,” I mumbled. “Haven’t been with too many men.”

  He folded his arms. “But you were with Jake?”

  “Got high with him mostly, but yeah.” I wouldn’t confess how he demanded sex all the time and was nearly insatiable. Just the memory of being with him made me want to dry heave right there on the floor.

  Mal visibly swallowed, and there was a small tremor in his fingers.

  “And now Vaughn is being dragged into this because you’re helping him out with his bar?”

  I simply nodded, not wanting the wrong words to betray me.

  “Don’t make no sense,” he said. “You’re with our boys all the time. What am I missing here?”

  Hell, I had no intention of outing Vaughn. I had no place doing that. One shocker for the day was enough.

  “Maybe because we close up late together and I’ve…been out to his place a couple of times,” I said, trying to make it sound plausible. “I’m considering making him a piece for his fireplace. We’ve become friends. He’s a good guy.”

  Fuck, I might’ve been digging myself deeper. But I preferred the boom to come down on me. Vaughn could stay out of it.

  “And he isn’t technically one of us,” Mal said, tapping his fingers on the desk. “So suddenly Jake’s curious because you’ve never hung out with Vaughn before?”

  “Probably. The asshole had tunnel vision when it came to sex,” I said, wincing. Mal didn’t meet my eyes, but I followed through with my thought anyway. “Always thinking with the wrong head.”

  “Shit. Fuck,” he said, and then he took an awfully long time thinking things through while I flexed my feet on the hard floor, attempting to find purchase. “I don’t want to mess with the Scorpions operation, but when it all comes down, I will nail that asshole to the wall.”

  I caught his eye. “I want to myself, believe me.”

  “You think this is all it is?” he asked. “He doesn’t know about you working with Fish?”

  I could’ve told him about my run-in with Jake the other night, but Mal trusted us to give him the straight facts no matter how we came to them. “Don’t think so.”

  “And you’re sure it’s him—who’s messing with Vaughn?”

  “I don’t have proof, but I know it in my gut,” I said, picturing what happened th
e night of the break-in. “The way he left Vaughn’s place, some of the things in his bedroom—”

  He held up his hand. “I don’t even want to know.”

  We sat silently for a bit and I chewed on the side of my gum, trying to muster the courage to voice what I needed to say. And maybe he was waiting for it, too.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, forcing the words out. “If you want me to—”

  “What the fuck you talking about?” he roared. “I would be some backward-ass leader if I allowed something like this to bring our club down. You’re a good man. Like a little brother to me.”

  Hell, he called me a brother. Not just a Disciples brother, a flesh-and-blood brother. I felt like I was still deceiving him by not coming clean about Vaughn and me. But that was something I needed to discuss with the man himself. No way was I going to share any of his secrets.

  “We all got our kinks,” Mal said, swinging his hand as if to sweep it all away. “That’s why most people keep them private.”

  I wanted to tell him that being gay or bisexual was not a kink, but I was already skating on thin ice.

  “I feel terrible that I caused trouble for Vaughn,” I said. “Maybe you should take me off patrol. Find somebody else for the bar.”

  ‘No.” He shook his head fervently. “I want to do just the opposite.”

  I nearly choked on my own saliva. “What the hell do you mean?”

  He leaned over the desk. “He trusts you, yeah?”

  I narrowed my eyes. “I…I don’t know.”

  “Yeah, he does. It’s settled then,” he said, sitting back in his chair. “Vaughn stays out at your place with Felix so that you guys are always with him.”

  “What the fuck kind of idea is that?” I nearly leapt out of my chair. “Why not send him to live with his dad?”

  “So something could happen to his old man?” he asked. “I’m not going to have that on my conscience.”

  “I wasn’t thinking. Fuck,” I said, shaking my head. “How about he takes a temporary room out here?”

  “Going to guess it’d be too far from the bar and his old man.”