Rich Dirty Dangerous

by Julie Kriss

  Twenty-Four

  Dani

  Visiting someone in prison, it turns out, is actually like the movies. You sit on one side of a plate of Plexiglas, and the prisoner sits on the other. You talk through a plastic receiver, like a phone.

  At least in this prison, that was what you did.

  The man on the other side of the Plexiglas was fifty-one—I knew that because I’d looked him up years ago. He was fit and whip-thin, without an ounce of fat on him, even in prison. He had tattoos on his forearms, where his prison-issue shirt was rolled up. Some of the ink was blurred and faded.

  His hair was graying, thick salt-and-pepper. He was clean shaven. He was handsome enough, but it was very clear that anyone who underestimated how lethal he was was very, very stupid. He had dark brown eyes—my eyes.

  My father, Robert Preston, founder and president of the Lake of Fire MC. Convicted murderer.

  “Danielle,” he said. “I wondered if you would come to see me.”

  I tried not to sweat in my chair, or throw up. I was wearing jeans, the thickest sweater I owned, and the sneakers Cavan had bought me in K-Mart. I had no makeup, no jewelry, and my hair was tied back in a barrette. My best attempt to look as much like a bag lady as possible in this terrifying place.

  “How much do you know?” I asked him.

  He gave a faint shrug. “Probably everything.”

  That didn’t surprise me. I’d spent seven months in a motorcycle club, and one thing I knew was that they gossiped more than a bunch of old ladies. The Lake of Fire could get information to their leader inside prison walls faster than Western Union could send a wire.

  “Then you know I’m married,” I said, surreptitiously touching my wedding ring under the table with my thumb. “And you know who he is.”

  “Sure,” my father said. “You found yourself a rich man. I always knew a daughter of mine would be smart.”

  Anger rose in my throat like bile. I forced myself to bite it back. That was what it looked like, wasn’t it? That I’d hand picked Cavan for the money he’d just inherited. I had a wad of cash and a big bank deposit for my trouble. Cavan himself would agree.

  And still, the idea made me furious.

  “What concerns me more,” my father said, his gaze dark even through the filthy Plexiglas, “is that you spent seven months with the president of our biggest rival. That, Danielle, was sneaky. Downright untrustworthy, some would say. Do you catch my meaning?”

  I made myself stare at him, pretending I wasn’t terrified. “Are you threatening me?” I asked. “Your own blood?”

  “My blood doesn’t mean much if you’re a traitor,” Robert Preston said. “I never expected you to be in the club life, Dani—I knew your mother was dead set against it. What I didn’t count on is that you’d end up in bed with the enemy.” He looked me up and down, disrespectfully. “Literally.”

  He was trying to provoke me, I realized. Why? To see what I would do? To take my measure? So he could have an excuse never to see me again, or to have one of his minions hurt me? Who knew what his reasons were?

  “You think that was about you?” I asked, still managing to sound bold. “Do you assume everything is about you? I make my own decisions. You’re just a sperm donor.”

  He laughed, genuinely amused, and for a second—just a split second—I could maybe see what my mother had seen in him twenty-four years ago. “Pretty good, I admit,” he said, “but not convincing. I have a lot of time in here to sit and think, Dani. A lot of time. And I figured you out. I don’t even have to see you to know you, to figure you out.”

  “Yeah?” I said. “And what do you figure?”

  “I figure it was you being rebellious,” he said, hitting the nail so hard on the head I practically felt it. “I mean, it’s perfect when you think about it. A nice fuck you to both your mother and me at once—to hook up not only with a biker, but with the president of the Black Dog. I’d almost admire the ingenuity, if it wasn’t so fucking self-destructive. You almost got yourself killed, didn’t you?”

  “Yes,” I admitted, because there was no point denying it. He already knew. “But I got out. Cavan helped me.”

  “And now you have a ring on your finger, and all the money in the world,” my father said. “And here you are, sitting across from me. Why? This isn’t a sentimental visit, honey. You want something—I respect that, though I might not give you what you ask for. But the only reason I agreed to this visit was curiosity. I’d like to know what the hell you want, when you already have everything.”

  I bit my dry, cracking lip and came out with it. “McMurphy is going to kill my husband,” I said. “I want him called off.”

  He gave me a small smile. “Wrong club, honey. I don’t run the Black Dog MC.”

  “No, but the Lake of Fire is yours,” I said. “If you put out the word that anyone who harms Cavan—or me—gets retribution, you can put a stop to it. I spent a long time in the Black Dog. McMurphy is paranoid and half crazy, but he doesn’t want war.”

  My father tapped the table in front of him with a fingertip. “I’m listening,” he admitted.

  “The Lake is bigger than the Black Dog,” I said, spilling all of my plans. “You have more men, more connections, more firepower if it comes down to it. The Black Dog only functions because the two clubs have separate territories and a truce. You can make it so that any harm to Cavan puts an end to that. You can do it literally with a word. It costs you nothing. You just have to say the right thing to the right people and it’s over.”

  “Sure,” he said. “And what do I get in this deal?”

  I adjusted my sweaty hand on the handset. He was listening, actually listening, at least for the moment. This was my chance. “Weren’t you paying attention?” I said. “I have money now. All the money you want. Just name a figure and I’ll pay it.”

  He kept calm, as if he could take it or leave it, but I knew he was really listening now. It was my first lesson, I realized, in how having money makes people pay attention. My father had never had the time of day for me, but he was talking to me today because I had money. Money suddenly made me important. That was fine with me, because I was finally past my little girl’s wish for her daddy’s approval. I was on my own now.

  “You got what you wanted already,” he said, and I could tell he was probing the idea, the way someone with a toothache probes a sore tooth. “What does it matter if this guy lives or dies? You don’t even know him.”

  “I know him,” I said. “And yes, it matters.”

  “Even though you’re already rich?”

  “Even though I’m already rich.”

  He frowned. Men in MCs understood the idea of loyalty and brotherhood, but the concept of loving someone—selflessly—was foreign. Most of them hadn’t seen it in action in their own lives. “What’s your angle?” my father asked, proving my point.

  “My angle is that I don’t want my husband killed,” I said. “I want a marriage and a home, like other people have. And as a side note, if you don’t do this for me, I’ll show up at your next parole hearing. I’ll make a victim statement about how you getting out will make me live in fear of my life. About how your poor, sweet, innocent daughter is afraid of you.”

  His eyes flared, his pupils going dark. “You’re a bitch,” he said, and then he added, “Nicely done.”

  I was sweating so hard I could feel my sweater sticking to my back, even in the morgue-like chill of the visiting room. “Just do this, and you never have to see me again,” I told him.

  Robert Preston made me wait for a long minute. A minute that felt like a hundred years.

  Then he gave me a black-hearted smile. “I think a million dollars would do it.”

  A million dollars? To this piece of scum? But this was what I had come for. I didn’t even know if I had a million dollars—but if I didn’t, then Devon Wilder certainly did. I didn’t know Devon Wilder, but if he didn’t want to give me the money for his brother, there would be hell to pay—from me
. “Fine,” I said to my father. “A million.”

  He kept smiling. “Have a nice life, Dani,” he said. “Someone will be in touch about the money.”

  And that was how I bought my husband’s life, from my own father, with my newfound money. And how I finally settled my daddy issues so I could get on with things.

  I walked out of the prison half an hour later and got into my car—Cavan’s car—in the parking lot. My hands were still shaking, but the sweat had dried cold and uncomfortable on my skin. I pulled off the sweater—I’d probably burn it—and looked at my phone. There was nothing from Cavan. I wondered where he was right now.

  I thought about calling him.

  I had all of my belongings in the back of the car. I’d checked out of the hotel in Vegas this morning, knowing I would never go back. I’d done what I wanted to do there. The memories were both too good and too bad for me to stay.

  I hadn’t thought about where I would go next, but now that I’d left the prison, I realized I knew. I was on a road trip, it seemed, from my past into my future, back into my past again to put things right before I ended up where I needed to be.

  I started the car and headed in the direction of L.A. It was time to visit my mother.

  Twenty-Five

  Cavan

  Maybe it would have been noble to have a heart to heart with McMurphy. A conversation, a meeting of the minds. He’d made mistakes; I’d made mistakes. He was a little off his rocker, but he wasn’t an unreasonable man when you spoke his language. We could talk through this, maybe come to an understanding. Besides, he was bigger than me, and I was outnumbered.

  I should have thought it through logically.

  Instead, I attacked his mean, leathery ass.

  I used the element of surprise. McMurphy saw me as a pussy, an ink man who wasn’t a true brother, so he didn’t expect it. I walked out of the bar and up to his bike as he parked. I caught him as he was still swinging his leg over the seat, his helmet still on. I kicked his kneecap hard on his balance leg and sent him sprawling to the pavement.

  I had a split second, so I used it. I yanked his helmet off and punched him in the face.

  He roared. Really roared, like I’d awoken a dinosaur in Jurassic Park. He scrambled up but I kicked him in the gut and unbalanced him, sending him down again. Then I punched him again.

  It hurt. McMurphy had a skull of cement, and I felt the skin on my knuckles split. I struck again, but he dodged and I only glanced his nose, which must have smarted. Then his big hands grabbed me and jerked me down to the pavement with him.

  It was all so familiar—here I was, fighting again. Like it was a Friday night at the Black Dog clubhouse, and some biker wanted to trade shots over whatever argument crawled up his ass. Like the guy who had come at me at the soda machine. Maybe someday I’d be done with fighting, just like I’d be done with diners and hotels, but today was not that day. It was either fight or let McMurphy rearrange my face. Besides, this time I was fucking mad.

  McMurphy tried to get my throat; I tried to get him in the nuts. I got him a good one in the kidneys, and he cracked my temple with his huge fist. I managed to smack my elbow into his jawbone and snap his teeth together hard. He managed to thump my head into the pavement.

  We rolled around like that, both of us intent. We had an audience; I could hear some shouts of surprise, the shuffle of feet. I wasn’t worried about the four bikers who had arrived with McMurphy; they wouldn’t join in. Instead they’d stand and watch, entertained, until either McMurphy signaled them to finish me off or until it looked like I was winning. If either of those happened, they’d gang up on me and turn me into roadkill. But not yet.

  It was undignified, it was unplanned, it was maybe even anticlimactic. But it was so fucking satisfying, I didn’t want it any other way. Without Dani to worry about, I was done being nice. Done talking. I realized in this moment that I had spent years—literally years—wanting to punch McMurphy’s face. What he’d done to Dani—that she’d wasted her time and her confidence on him, her trust, even her virginity—just made it worse. I had my opportunity, and I punched him as hard and as often as I fucking could, even when it hurt my hands and I took my shots in return.

  It was fucking glorious.

  He was bigger than me, but I held my own—maybe because I was angrier, or I had more at stake, or maybe just because I wasn’t hungover as fuck. Which McMurphy was; he smelled like he’d slept in a bed of whiskey and pork rinds. The stench only made me more determined, and I hit him harder.

  A heavy motorcycle boot kicked me in the back, and I flinched, losing my grip on McMurphy. The other bikers either had a signal, or they got bored. A hard pair of hands grabbed me and dragged me off McMurphy, and I heard my brother growl, “Hands off, motherfucker.”

  Shit. Devon was getting involved.

  Blood was running into my left eye, but I managed to get my feet under me so I could try to scramble up. Someone kicked my foot out from under me.

  “This is it, McMurphy?” I said, wiping the blood from my eye. The bikers were surrounding me, and McMurphy was sitting up a few feet away. “You can’t beat me one on one, so you call in your buddies?”

  “Shut up, Wilder,” McMurphy said.

  “You piece of shit,” one of the bikers said, taking a swing at me. I dodged, and then Devon was there, twisting his fist into the biker’s ratty t-shirt. “Back the fuck off,” he said. Anyone who thought Devon was afraid of a few bikers had obviously never grown up with my brother.

  There were non-bikers watching too, though those people hung further back, along the sidelines. This bar had seen its share of fights, most of them probably in this same parking lot. A big, burly guy stuck his head out the door and shouted in a bored voice, “Get the fuck out, boys. Someone’s called the cops.”

  “Shit,” Devon growled. “Let’s get moving.”

  I turned to McMurphy. My head was pounding like hell. “We done?” I said.

  He shook his head. One of his ice-blue eyes was bloodshot and he had blood in his teeth, which was a sight that shouldn’t have gratified me. But it really did. “Never,” he said. “We’re never done, Wilder. Not as long as you breathe.”

  “Wrong.” This was Ben, Devon’s lawyer, who stepped in between us, putting his phone in his pocket. He, too, had no fear of a few bikers, and this time I really did see why Devon hired him. “I just got a call from inside the Lake of Fire,” he said to both of us. “Word’s gone out from Preston. Anyone who touches his daughter, or her husband, is starting a war. You want that, McMurphy?”

  Dani, I thought. There was only one reason Robert Preston would decide to get involved after all these years, and that must be because Dani asked him to. Which meant that Dani must have gone to see him in prison. You brave fucking woman, I thought. And hard on its heels was: What did you promise him?

  In response to Ben’s question, McMurphy spat blood on the concrete. “Stay the fuck out of Arizona, Wilder,” he said. “Come into my territory, and it’s off. I’ll rip your fucking balls off and feed them to you, motherfucker.”

  “Classy,” Ben said, “but honest. Now all of you get out of here before someone gets arrested. I’m not doing any fucking bail hearings today.”

  The biker gripping me let me go, and Devon helped me up. I scrubbed more blood from my eye as one by one each motorcycle roared to life and peeled out of the parking lot, vanishing down the highway before the cops could come.

  “Feel better?” Devon asked me.

  Everything hurt—my face, my hands, my jaw, my back. “Yeah,” I said. “I feel much better.”

  He laughed softly. He completely understood, the asshole. Fuck, I had missed my brother. “You can’t drive,” he said, looking at the blood in my eye. “Grab your bag from your car and get in. Time to clear out of here. The last thing we need is cops.”

  So I grabbed my bag from the car I’d bought in Vegas, and I got in Devon’s car. Ben gave us a wave, got in his own car, and drove off. Devon�
�s car was a Mercedes, deep black, about ten years old, cared for like a baby. Basically, erotic love on wheels. My brother had always had taste in cars. If I wasn’t married to Dani, I might marry that car.

  “Bleed on my seats, and I disown you,” Devon said, deadpan. “You don’t get a dime.”

  “Yeah,” I said, folding myself gingerly into the passenger seat. “I get it.”

  “You need a hospital?” he asked, getting behind the wheel.

  “Are we fucking related?” I asked.

  “No hospital,” he agreed. He started the car and left the parking lot. From far off, we heard faint sirens. “You want to call your wife,” Devon said, “considering she just saved your sorry ass?”

  “I’ll call her,” I said.

  “Impressive,” he commented. “One woman making the Lake of Fire bend to her will. Sounds like maybe she gives a shit about you.”

  “She thinks she does,” I said. “I told her she needs to think it over.”

  “Maybe,” he told me. “But if you ask me, she sounds like exactly the woman you need. You fuck it up and lose her, I disown you. You don’t get a dime.”

  I pulled up the hem of my shirt and used it to mop my face. “If I disappear for another ten years, will you stop nagging me?”

  “No,” Devon said. “Also, don’t go back to Arizona.”

  “Right.” I’d spent ten years in the desert; I was done with it. I didn’t care about McMurphy’s threats. I only wanted to be where Dani was. Assuming she would even look at me again. “Anything else?”

  “I’m bringing you back to San Francisco,” he said. “I have a house in Diablo that our grandfather left. It’s big, and it’s nice. I live there with Olivia. You’re staying there until we get some shit sorted out. Your wife wants to join you, there’s plenty of room. Max wants to see you and introduce you to Gwen.”

  I was quiet for a minute. The fact was, I choked up. I’d spent ten years with nothing, no one. Now I had my brother, and the woman he loved, and Max and the woman he loved, and even Devon’s badass lawyer. And Dani. I could have Dani. Maybe I didn’t deserve any of it, but it was what I had. And as Devon would put it, what was I gonna do with it?