by M. O'Keefe
“All of that to say, you’ve got a week, Joan. Seven days. Winn-Dixie is just down the street. You keep your face down and try to go at night.” She nodded her head to the money in my hand. “That’s five hundred bucks there. That should last awhile if you’re careful.”
“I’ll repay you.” How or when I had no idea.
“I don’t want you to,” she said. “You have the money and the condo. Try to not cause a scene.”
“That’s it?” I said, stunned and weirdly angry and adrift.
“I…I would ask about Jennifer.”
“She’s fine,” I lied and fast. And Fern knew it. She nodded like she didn’t expect anything less.
“Then yes,” she said, “that’s it. There’s nothing else.” I had walked away from this woman seven years ago like she wasn’t family. Like I owed her nothing.
She was doing the same thing to me right now.
“Nothing,” I whispered.
Fern took a deep breath. “I’ll come and check on him once a day. And I’m in the unit right downstairs if you need me.”
I wouldn’t. Or if I did, I would pretend otherwise. And we both knew it.
—
After Fern left, I ran across the street for some coffee and a few newspapers.
Back at the condo, I sat down in the recliner in front of the empty TV stand. But it felt weird sitting there with Max in the other room. It felt lonely.
Lonely never bothered me. Or it never had before.
But Fern’s words had sent me spinning.
So I took my papers into the bedroom and sat down on top of the long dresser across from the bed.
On the back page of The Tampa Tribune there was a mention of the Velvet Touch explosion. My heart hammered into the back of my throat, and for a second I couldn’t read the words. I took a deep breath and tried to calm down.
Two incendiary devices.
No casualties.
Breath shuddered in my chest. I hadn’t killed anyone. I’d spent part of the drive imagining that I’d somehow hurt one of the girls. I’d tortured myself with the idea that some drunk guy had left the club and decided to sleep it off in the car before I blew it to pieces.
But no one got hurt. The relief was delicious.
Police had three suspects in custody. I blinked at that and reread it. Three suspects—all members of the Skulls Motorcycle Club. The owner of the strip club was claiming it was part of a drug deal gone bad.
Zo was saying the bombs had been a retaliation by the motorcycle club against him because he would not let them sell drugs in his club.
There were three pictures of the suspects. I recognized them from that circle of men who’d tried to kill Max.
I nearly laughed. I nearly whooped with glee. My bombs were being pinned on those assholes and Zo was making it stick. It felt karmically right in a way. Like the universe was taking matters into its own hands.
I sobered for a moment, trying to imagine what the universe had in store for me.
Unable to help myself, I glanced at Max, handcuffed to the bed. Perhaps he was the tool the universe was going to use to punish me. Perhaps he was my karma.
I knew when I’d bought those bombs, when I’d paid that weasel-eyed asshole all of my money for them—that I was signing myself up for punishment. That this kind of action in the world could not stand without response.
And I had been ready for that response, because I believed that getting Jennifer and the rest of Lagan’s wives free of his filthy grip was worth any damage to my soul.
It still was.
So, I was going to get punished. But so were Rabbit and his crew.
I could live with that. I grabbed my phone and searched the Internet for more information, but still couldn’t find out what had happened to Rabbit.
Hours later, Max stirred and I jumped off the dresser to the side of the bed. Close, but not too close.
“Max?”
“Where am I?” His voice was a desert, sun-baked and cracked.
“You’re safe.”
He lifted his head as if to verify, but he could barely get it off the pillow before flopping back down and wincing.
“Everything…fucking…hurts.”
“Yeah. I’m sure.” Fern left some serious painkillers and I shook a few out into my hand.
“I have some medicine,” I said, realizing I was going to have to get closer to the bed to give it to him. I took a half-step forward. His brilliant blue eyes found me in the shadowed room and I stopped.
Dad had always set traps around the junkyard, trying to manage the worst of the coyotes and raccoons. One year, he caught a wolf. He took me and Jennifer across the yard to the far edge, near the lake where he had the wolf trapped by the leg. It was weak and skinny, its fur dirty. But when it caught our scent it turned and stared at us. It was trapped, its leg bloody and raw, but still…that look it gave us. Totally fucking scary.
Predatory and desperate. That wolf would have killed us if it had the chance.
Max looked exactly the same way handcuffed to that bed.
“You scared?” he asked, like he kind of enjoyed that. He would. Of course, he would.
I didn’t say anything, because it didn’t matter. He knew. He was well aware of my fear. He could probably smell it.
“Fuck your painkillers,” he said and lifted the wrist handcuffed to the bed so it rattled the chain.
“Max—”
“Go away, Joan,” he whispered. He was falling back asleep
Another few hours passed. I did every crossword and Sudoku puzzle in the papers with one eye on Max. I got myself a few of those burritos from across the street, but they weren’t as good as I remembered. I had a sudden craving for macaroni and cheese. For Jell-O and forgiveness.
Oh, to have a second chance at that meal. I would have done everything differently. I would have let Jennifer eat until she was full. Until she couldn’t move. Who knows how different things might have been if I’d done that.
I napped and played Candy Crush on my phone until finally, a few hours later, Max sighed heavily. He’d been sleeping so deeply I jumped at the sound. I hopped up and checked his forehead. The fever was gone and the bed was nearly awash in sweat.
Fern had been right. The fever had broken. The infection was under control.
“You’re not going to die,” I said out loud. It had been so quiet since Fern left, so quiet that when the air conditioner thunked on I jumped practically out of my skin.
“Let’s hope you not dying is a good thing, Max Daniels.”
I undid the handcuff and tucked the key and the cuffs in the pocket of my cutoffs.
The room smelled slightly of blood and sweat and I decided there was no time like the present to do the little bit of laundry we had. I stripped the sheets off my side of the bed and then put my hands under his shoulders to try and roll his dead weight over onto the bare mattress.
His skin was pale and slick, and for some reason, this felt far too intimate. My hands felt full of him and I didn’t like it. He moaned and the vibrations in his chest rolled up from my hands to my arms. To my own chest. I felt his moan inside my body. And the reality of all of this was too much. He’d nearly died. I had only barely saved him.
All I wanted was my sister back and somehow I’d adopted a biker.
I felt too responsible. There were too many threads tying us together. And I still needed him. And he still needed me. And that sucked on a whole lot of levels—mostly because I wasn’t used to being needed. I wasn’t good at it. But I was worse at needing people.
Finally he rolled, groaning as his legs were tangled in the blanket. I pulled the sheets free, leaving the quilt over his bare body. I made sure the catheter hadn’t gotten dislodged.
Hello, Max’s penis.
And then I gathered up the sheets and the rest of his dirty clothes—leaving the bloodstained leather cut on the dresser.
The laundry was just on the other side of the hallway.
After
I put the laundry in I decided to head out to Winn-Dixie. Because tuna salad and gas station burritos wasn’t going to be much good for Max. When I came back an hour later, I was half prepared to find him up, standing and dressed, gun in hand ready to get back to his fucked-up life.
But the condo was dark.
He was still sleeping on the bare mattress. I touched his skin and found him cool to the touch.
In the kitchen, I emptied the jar of chicken noodle soup into a pot on the stove—because soup was what you fed people in sick beds—I learned plenty from an addiction to historical romance novels, thank you very much.
I also had the stuff to make grilled cheese sandwiches—white bread, cheese slices, and a tub of margarine.
It was pretty much all I knew of comfort. And it was from another lifetime.
Chapter 9
Max
Cold and shaky, I woke up with a start.
Naked. I was naked in a murky room that was vaguely familiar.
Closed blinds, the sound of the ocean. The low dresser across from the bed.
His and hers.
I remembered thinking that. When was that? Yesterday? A week ago?
My head fucking pounded. I lifted my wrist, and then remembered the rattle of the handcuffs I’d grown used to.
But the handcuffs were gone. Surprised, I touched my head, the shaved bit around a row of stitches.
I sat up and braced for the room to spin, which it did in dizzying arcs. But whatever. It was time to get on my feet. Figure out where I was and how to get back home.
Time to go back and deal with the fucking cowards who shot me.
Revenge.
It was time for revenge.
You want the club, fine. Great. It’s all yours you fucking sociopaths. But you don’t get to shoot me and get away with it. No. You shoot me and I bring death to your door. I’ll salt the earth where you stood.
But first I had to take out my own catheter.
Jesus Christ.
A catheter. Surgery. Joan was full of surprises.
I grabbed the rubber tubing and pulled, feeling like I was ripping out the inside of my dick as I went.
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.
It popped out and fell to the floor. I braced myself against the bare mattress, panting through the pain. Sweat trickled down my back despite the arctic chill from the air conditioner. I put my feet down on the plush carpet beside the bed and got to my feet, taking my time. Letting the world settle around me after every step.
I knew how to do this. The concussion. The broken ribs. The bullet wound—none of it was new.
The catheter, though, that was some fresh fucking hell.
I’m an MC president. A 1 percent. The life span is short and brutal.
I put weight on the leg that had been shot and winced at the pull. The deep muscle burn. Damn. That hurt. I limped to the dresser—where my cut was laid out, blood staining the white badges across the front. Breathing, slow and steady through my mouth, I pulled open the dresser. There was a small stack of boxer shorts. Red-and-green plaid. They were big, but I slipped them on feeling like I should have a Santa suit to put on over them.
Whatever, my junk was covered. If I had to fight my way out of here, at least I had that working in my favor. In another drawer, there was a golf shirt. I passed on that. There was a pair of flannel pajama pants. I pulled those on.
Beside the dresser there was a plastic garbage bag. But inside it were only women’s clothes.
I lifted out a bright orange thong.
Joan.
There was a hollow thunk and some humming from another room in the condo. Had to be her. And the smell of food made my stomach, silent until now, wake up and take notice.
I split the blinds and peered out onto a dark beach, a bright moon over the ocean.
We were in a low-rise condo, next to another low-rise condo.
My gut said Florida. Like the ocean waves rolling up on that sand were familiar to me.
I stopped searching for clothes and instead searched the dark room for a weapon. There was nothing but a lamp on the bedside table. It had a solid glass base, so I tore off the lampshade with its pink feathers and useless fringe. I wrapped the cord around one hand and held the lamp in the other. I’d bash in some heads and strangle anyone between me and the door.
Clothes would have been nice.
I eased open the door to find a dark hallway and another door to my right. To my left was a brighter living room—I could see the edge of a blue couch. The wall behind it was empty. There was the sound of a door opening and closing. A woman said “shit” and something got dropped on the floor. The voice sounded like Joan, as much as I could be sure of her voice. But I had no idea who else was working with her. The woman—last time I was fully conscious—had bombs going off at the push of a button.
I could not underestimate that crazy bitch ever again.
I eased back into the shadows waiting for her to come down the hallway but she didn’t.
The kitchen, with its sounds and smells, must be off the living room. I slipped out of the room, sliding along the wall of the hallway until I got to the corner of the living room—which was empty. Eerily empty. Just the love seat, a chair, and an empty TV stand.
There was a statue of John F. Kennedy on the TV stand. I picked it up to see if it was heavier than the lamp, but it seemed hollow.
Hollow plastic JFK statue.
Florida. Definitely Florida.
I eased around the corner, and stepped into the doorway of the kitchen just as Joan was turning toward me with a bowl of something hot and half a grilled cheese sandwich in her mouth.
She caught sight of me and jumped. The sandwich fell in the soup—the soup nearly dropped to the floor, but she caught it in time and it splashed up over her hand and across her chest.
“Holy shit!” she cried. “Max, what the hell—?”
Something about the soup and the grilled cheese sandwich made my murder lamp seem ridiculous.
She set the soup down and grabbed a towel from where it hung over the handle of the oven. I stepped closer.
“You alone here?” I asked her.
“You’re here,” she snapped, all peevish.
That attitude wasn’t going to fly.
I stepped closer, crowding her into the tiny corner of the galley kitchen. She looked up at me, registered my seriousness, and she got appropriately scared. Good. Finally something going the way it should.
“We’re alone,” she breathed, her hands up as if to ward me off. “You shouldn’t be up.”
“Where are we?”
“Safe.”
I laughed and stepped closer again. “Alone with you ain’t exactly safe. You got any bombs you’re planning on blowing up?”
I was right up against her. The heat from the spilled soup across her belly was burning across my bare stomach, too. She breathed and I felt her tits against my chest.
Oh, she didn’t like that, but I leaned in closer. Because this woman needed to be scared. Scared women don’t make up stories. They don’t lie. They were too scared to do anything but think about how to best make me happy.
I had a lot of ideas about how she could make me happy.
“Where are we?” I asked. She gave it a good effort, I could hand her that. She gave me some pissed-off eye contact, but I leaned in harder, bullying her with my size.
“Fuck you, Max. I could take you with one kick to the bullet wound in your leg, so how about you back off.”
I smiled at her, but shifted my leg away, because she wasn’t wrong.
“Tell me where we are.”
“Florida. Forty-five minutes outside of Tampa. It’s safe and we’ve got it for a week.”
The smell of the soup and the grilled cheese was making me dizzy. My stomach growled against hers.
“You’re hungry.”
Joan wasn’t one of those pretty girls. Her cheeks were razor sharp, her green eyes hard as glass. Her mouth…well, her mouth was
pretty when she wasn’t scowling at me.
She was sexy as fuck, but hard. Maybe in another life, a couple of easier breaks in her story, and she could have been pretty. But she looked badass and capable. Nothing soft about her but her tits and her skin.
All of which I was plenty interested in. Not so much at the moment, dizzy and with my leg screaming at me to get off it already. But I wasn’t letting her know that.
I glanced down at the skin revealed by her tank top.
She took a deep breath and her tits shimmied.
I was hungry and weak and the world was spinning.
“Sit down, you idiot.” She shoved at me and I snapped forward, my hand around her neck.
“I don’t know what’s going on, Joan. But you ain’t the boss. Not anymore.”
She tilted her head up, getting a better breath but also glaring at me with as much fuck you in her eyes as she could. I squeezed my fingers at her throat and the fuck you dimmed a little.
“Do not fuck with me,” I said. “You got it?” I gave her a little shake when she tried to give me the silent treatment.
“Yes. I get it.”
“Good, now where are my clothes?”
“What wasn’t ruined is in the wash,” she said, her voice a little strangled by my hand.
“You have a car?”
She nodded.
Okay. All right. All of this I could work with. Some food. Some clean clothes, and I’d be out of here.
“Look,” she whispered. “I know you’re thinking about revenge—”
Nope. That wasn’t going to work. I pulled her toward me by her neck, her skin suddenly pale as she realized she was in serious trouble. She was on her tiptoes and I could feel her swallow against my hand. I could feel her heartbeat against my fingers, like a bird trapped in a bag. I pushed my thumb against that frantic pulse—just to show her how small she was. How, in this cruel world, she was nothing.
I was bigger. Badder. And would hurt her without thinking.
“You don’t know shit about me,” I told her. “Not one thing. You need to stop thinking you do. Understood?”
