Loverboy (Dartmoor Book 5)

by Lauren Gilley

“Oh, it’s Daniel now?”

  “That’s his name, Ian.”

  “And when was the last fucking time a client gave his name?”

  Tango ducked from beneath the water and sent Ian a level look. “This is really upsetting you.”

  Ian’s expression was unrecognizable. “Are you in love with him?”

  “No.”

  “Will you stop seeing him?”

  “He’s a client, and you know we don’t get to choose our clients.”

  “Bullshit!” Ian shoved him, hard, crowding him back against the tiled wall. He got in his face. Water dripped off his nose, off the ends of his long hair, beaded in his lashes. His breathing stuttered, chest pressing into Tango’s. “You can’t love him. Don’t. Don’t you dare.”

  “I don’t.”

  Ian kissed him, the touch of their mouths violent and suffocating. Ian bit his lip and Tango tasted blood.

  ~*~

  The heroin injections started again, and Tango couldn’t deny the peace each chemical rush of pleasure brought. He slept deep, and he lived in a daze, and more and more Dartmoor seemed like someone else’s fantasy he’d only heard of in passing.

  ~*~

  A horrible thing happened one night, two months into Daniel’s patronage of the club.

  In the warm, cotton candy light of his preferred back room, on sweat damp sheets, Tango was out of his head again, lost in the slick slide of skin and the quiet sounds of passion. He didn’t even try to pretend anymore that this was about work, that he was capable of staying above the tide when it came to Daniel. The man was his lover, now, and Tango shut his eyes and gave himself over to it.

  Which was why he didn’t hear the door open. Why he didn’t see Ian walk up to them on the bed. Didn’t see the broken chair leg Ian raised like a club.

  ~*~

  “Did he kill him?” Whitney asked, a terrified whisper.

  “No. Knocked him out, though. Security came in and carried him out. I don’t know what happened to him after that,” he said to his untouched plate. “I never saw him again.”

  Across the table, Whitney pushed away her own plate and reached across the wood to lay both her hands over one of his. “Kev–”

  “Don’t pity me. I can’t handle that right now.”

  “Okay.” She didn’t move her hands. “Can I just love you?”

  How did he deserve her? It wasn’t possible.

  His throat tightened, and he realized he couldn’t tell her the rest. The vicious argument he’d had with Ian after lights-out, the scratches they’d left in each other’s skin with their nails. The heroin-addled haze of his last few weeks. Ian’s kisses of apology, his vow that he had an escape plan, that he would get them out of The Nest once and for all.

  It was all a blur; he didn’t feel alive anymore.

  And then Ghost, and Mercy, and Aidan had come striding through the dim light of the club one night. Mercy had swung a sledgehammer in an arc, breaking noses in dark showers of blood, and Ghost had pulled Tango’s mostly-naked body down off the stage and into his arms.

  “I’ve got you,” he’d said. “It’s okay, we found you. You’re safe. We’re going home.”

  Tango turned his hand over beneath Whitney’s so he could lace their fingers together and squeeze. He hoped his touch said all the things he couldn’t right now.

  Her squeeze back said it probably did.

  Twenty-Five

  That night, when the Lean Dogs happened upon the eleven o’clock news broadcast, a story would catch their attention: Fourteen-year-old boy missing, presumed abducted. His name was Jamie Long, and he was slight, beautiful in the face, long-limbed and graceful in the gymnastics photo his family shared with the news station. He’d been walking – with his mother’s permission – from his gym to the ice cream parlor on the corner, there to work on his homework, have a snack, and wait for his mom to pick him up. But there was no trace of her son when Mrs. Long arrived. He was just gone, vanished. Not at the gym, not at the parlor, not at home. None of his friends knew where he’d gone.

  Ghost watched the story with Mags, who whispered, “Jesus.” And he knew exactly where that poor child had gone. And what would be done to him.

  Somewhere in the city, The Cuckoo’s Nest was preparing a new crop of dancing boys.

  ~*~

  Had anyone asked Ghost about the year they got Tango back from Carla Burgess, he wouldn’t have wanted to tell the story. He’d only told it once, and that was to Maggie, in the warm safety of their bed, in the dark, while she combed his hair with her fingers and didn’t comment on the way his shoulders shook. But had someone else asked, and he’d felt like telling it, he would have told them this:

  Walgreens called the bike shop to ask if they could come pick up an abandoned bike. “Looks like one of yours anyway,” the clerk said over the phone.

  It was Tango’s, parked right up in front, like Tango had just run in to grab a few things. They were putting it on the flatbed and Walsh was inside asking about security camera feeds when Tango’s aunt called Ghost, tearful and insensible.

  “He never came home last night,” she cried. “I thought he was just out having fun, you know how boys are, but he wouldn’t do that to me. He would answer his phone.”

  “He would,” Ghost agreed, a grim ball of dread forming in his gut. “I’m looking into it, and I’ll let you know when I hear something, okay? We’re gonna find him.”

  “O-o-okay.”

  Shit.

  Walsh came out of the store and waved for him. “Manager’s got tapes, and he says he wants to turn them over to the cops, but he’ll let us see them first.” Walsh lifted a meaningful brow as they walked. “If we smooth the way a little.”

  “Fucker,” Ghost muttered. But he pulled a crisp fifty out of his wallet and handed it to the manager when they reached the office. “What’ve you got?”

  “This is from last night,” the manager said, starting the grainy black and white video. “This your guy?”

  Tango’s leggy, long-haired delicacy was easy to spot, even with poor film quality. “Yeah.”

  “Do you know those guys?” The manager tapped the mouse and three heavy men in black came onscreen.

  Ghost gripped the back of the manager’s chair until his knuckles cracked. “No.” But he would find out.

  ~*~

  There weren’t many enemies brave enough to kidnap a member of the Lean Dogs. Once Ghost realized none of said few had snatched Tango in the middle of Walgreen’s, his suspicions were confirmed: Carla had taken Tango. Taken him back, as it were.

  Ghost’s first instinct was to sic all of the club’s considerable resources on the bitch. With the help of his brothers, Ghost could find the poor kid in a day or so. But bikers couldn’t be gay – one of those stupid-ass, archaic old MC rules that suppressed every one-percenter club in the world. How would the rest of the boys react when they knew what Tango had done for so many years? Would he be lucky enough to leave without his patches? Or would he be another grave dug into the side of a hill on his dad’s old cattle property?

  Fuck, he couldn’t tell the club.

  Not all of them anyway. There was one person he trusted with precious things.

  He rapped once on the kitchen doorframe. “Merc.”

  At the table, Mercy and Ava made a strange portrait: the tall, big-shouldered, long-haired young man, sinister and weapon-like, now all smiles and softness as he helped Ava with her homework. Ava looked so tiny and fragile beside his big frame, a little bird between the paws of a massive attack dog. The affection between them was a palpable thing.

  Hmm. Ghost made a mental note to question this tableau in a few years, when he had the time and energy to feel threatened by it.

  Mercy’s head lifted, smile dimming from the wide delight over Ava to something quieter and more professional. “What’s up, boss?”

  Ghost nodded his head back toward the living room. “Need to talk to you for a minute. Ava, keep working on your homework, okay?
”

  “Okay, Daddy.” Her eyes followed Mercy as he stood and moved around the table to join Ghost.

  Making another mental note to think about that later, Ghost led Mercy over to the couch, but didn’t sit, standing with his arms folded tight.

  He realized his chest was tight too, his head light, and he had to take a deep breath.

  Picking up on the seriousness of the moment, Mercy mirrored his stance, black brows snapping up toward his hairline. “I’m starting to worry, boss.”

  “It’s about Tango.”

  Mercy leaned in a fraction, and Ghost could sense the anger and protectiveness vibrating off the man. Yes, he’d made the right choice in trusting Mercy. He just had to make himself say the words.

  Quietly, barely trusting the security of his own home’s walls, Ghost told Mercy about the long-haired boy Aidan had found sitting at a picnic table outside the high school two years ago, about what went on in Carla Burgess’s rotating club of delinquency.

  “Shit,” Mercy breathed, scrubbing at the back of his neck. “Fuck. Are you serious?”

  “Wish I wasn’t.”

  Mercy met his gaze, dark eyes flinty. “Whose head do I gotta put a hammer through, boss?”

  Ghost felt a smile tug at his mouth. “Help me find him, and then all of them.”

  ~*~

  It took two months. Ghost wasn’t sure he ate a full meal in that time, his stomach taut and lean, always growling, always hurting. Maggie looked at the bruises the sharp points of his hips had left on the insides of her thighs and said, “Not that I’m complaining, baby, you look fantastic, but I’m starting to think you don’t like my cooking anymore.”

  He nuzzled into her perfumed throat and admitted all his fears, that they wouldn’t find Tango, that he might have already been killed by some overzealous client, that he wouldn’t be able to recover from that hell a second time even if they found him.

  She wiped the pads of her thumbs under his eyes and didn’t tell him his worries were unfounded; she knew what was at stake.

  Mercy finally found the club. Without his cut, tats covered, baseball cap pulled low over his face, fairly new to town, he managed to ask the right questions at the right bar, and was slid a folded Post-It note with a handwritten address on it.

  “How do you wanna work this?” he asked in the Teague garage the next day.

  In the weeks since Tango had been snatched, Ghost had cycled through a whole list of ideas. He’d intended to tip off PD and get Carla finally busted. He’d seriously considered killing her. But in the end, all he really cared about was getting Tango back. He felt like a shit heel for it, but he was too desperate to be anything less than honest. Tango was the priority. Involving the cops, setting up some kind of massive raid, would increase the club staff’s chances of getting tipped off and moving the boys ahead of time. And he couldn’t involve his brothers, for reasons he’d already explained to himself and Mercy.

  “I just want to walk right in and take him,” he said. “Simple plan. Merc, you’re on point.”

  Mercy nodded, eyes already bright with the idea of violence.

  “And what am I gonna do?” Aidan asked, skinny, petulant, and angry as any sixteen-year-old had ever been.

  “You’re gonna stay home with Ma–”

  “Fuck that,” Aidan said. “I’m going. He’s my best friend, and you need an extra set of hands.” He stood up, reminding Ghost that though he was thin, they were the same height these days. His little boy was growing up. “I’m a member of this club. I’m coming,” he repeated.

  Ghost sighed. “Fine.” Secretly, he was proud.

  ~*~

  A part of him hadn’t believed they could pull it off; that they could get Tango back. But there he’d been on the center stage, lit up like Christmas, eyes glassy and mouth slack as he danced for the lechers below.

  That image was burned in his brain, staining the backs of his eyelids when he blinked.

  But again, that was before he’d seen the worst of it.

  After Tango was home, after the detoxing, when he’d decided he couldn’t live with what he’d been made to do.

  Twice in one lifetime, Aidan had found his best friend’s body in a bathtub full of blood.

  It was too much. All of it was just too much.

  Staring up at the ceiling of his bedroom, his wife warm and asleep against his side, a grounding presence, Ghost made one of those sober, middle-of-the-night decisions. The dinosaurs of the past were dead, and it was high time his club made another step out of the Stone Age.

  Friday, at church, he was going to say the things he should have said a long time ago. And if they voted him out of office, so be it. It was high time Tango was made to feel like he really, truly belonged with them all. That he was family, no matter what.

  Twenty-Six

  Tango woke to the unobtrusive beeping of the alarm, cool winter sunlight toying with the curtains, Whitney’s small warm shape pressed against his side beneath the weight of the covers. Whitney muttered something about not wanting to get up and tucked her face under his arm, into the worn cotton of his t-shirt. He slapped the alarm and lay still for a moment, soaking up the last few moments of peace before they had to crawl out of bed and start their respective days.

  He listened to the hum of the fridge out in the kitchen, the low shush of traffic out on the street, the faint threads of music downstairs in the bakery.

  It took him a second to realize what he felt: calm. Calm, and warm, and light, and content. Only good things. No ball of anxiety in his gut, no guilt that he was tainting Whitney, no fear, his craving only the faintest of voices, an echo of memory at the back of his mind.

  “Hey,” he said, quietly, not wanting to break the spell.

  “Hmm?”

  He rubbed little circles against her back with his fingertips, her sleep shirt soft, knobs of her spine prominent beneath. “Thank you.”

  That got her attention. She pushed up onto her elbow, so her face hovered over his, expression sleepy, but concerned. “For what?” She tucked her hair back behind her ear, and he thought she was beautiful, rumpled and makeup-free, seam of the pillow imprinted on her cheek.

  “For listening last night.” It took every ounce of self-control not to tell her he was sorry for unburdening on her. It seemed like something Mercy would tell him, to stop apologizing all the time. “It – it really helped, I think. So thank you.”

  She blinked a few times, and nodded. “Of course. Whatever you need.”

  His first instinct was to duck his head. But that was cowardly, not to mention bad boyfriend behavior. When she said something supportive, he needed to show how much that meant to him. How much she meant to him.

  So he cupped the back of her head and pulled her down for a kiss.

  She wrinkled her nose as she pulled back. “I haven’t brushed my teeth yet.”

  “Don’t care. Me neither.” And kissed her again, smiling.

  ~*~

  Talking about what he’d been through had helped Kev – something had actually helped him that wasn’t chemical or sexual – and Whitney was immensely glad for that. Listening, though…listening had fucked her up.

  She sat at her desk in her cubicle, staring down at the candy bar Mark had brought her a few minutes ago, thinking about the way Kev had been denied food until he’d agreed to dance again. The only times in her life in which she’d ever been hungry was because she’d forgotten to eat lunch, or been running too late to grab a bagel on the way to work. Normal, comforting hunger, easily assuaged with a snack, tided over with a few sips of Coke.

  No one had ever struck her.

  She’d never been raped…because of Kev. Because Kev had offered himself up instead of her, as a sacrifice, because what was a little roughing-up from Ellison’s men after the things he’d endured as a child?

  She barely managed to grab the wastebasket under her desk before she curled over it and vomited. There was nothing in her stomach – she hadn’t been able t
o eat breakfast – but the bile burned her throat; the dry heaves hurt her stomach.

  “Whitney?” Mark asked, voice worried, popping up over the divider between their cubicles. “Oh crap! Are you okay?” She heard the squeak of his chair wheels as he got up and came around to see her.

  She pushed her hair off her clammy forehead and managed to straighten, nausea still rolling through her. “Fine,” she croaked. “Just upset stomach or something.”

  Mark stood at the entrance of her cubicle, frowning with concern, looking unsure how to help. “You need anything? Ginger ale?”

  She nodded, just to get rid of him. “Yeah, that might help.”

  “Be right back.”

  Whitney laid her head down on the desk, the cool plastic a relief to her clammy skin.

  Things that were not okay: throwing up after her boyfriend relied on her for support.

  As it turned out, Whitney’s boss didn’t think a puking employee was good for office morale, so he turned her loose. Stepping outside into the crisp winter air helped a little. By the time she reached her car, she knew the danger had passed, and that she wasn’t going to have to pull over. Stupid stomach. Kev had lived through all that, and she couldn’t even handle hearing it? Pathetic.

  She had most of the day left at her disposal, and she sat behind the wheel a long moment, thinking about her options. She could pick up lunch and take it to Kev at work. But that would involve food. And also smiling at Kev and pretending his story hadn’t made her ill.

  Some girlfriend she was.

  Without much conscious thought, she ended up in front of Mercy and Ava’s house, turning into the driveway and parking behind Ava’s black truck.

  Guilt needled her – Ava didn’t need to be bothered by some sad sack girl-child who couldn’t control her gag reflex when she thought about her boyfriend’s sordid history.

  But the idea of going home alone, to the apartment she had no right to call home, made her sick all over again.