by Cat Porter
Skid shook his head. “So fucking hot. Come on, man, let’s go. I suddenly need to get laid. You’re gonna need me to put in a good word for you with the girls, ‘cause that face of yours...” Another raw, loud laugh.
I pulled tight on the goddamn ponytail again, and the cold wind raced over my exposed neck and slid inside me. The world slowed down around me, and I was at its center, stuck, standing still.
I jammed my hands in my pockets and forced my legs to move. “I could use a drink.”
We left the hotel behind us. I left my woman behind us, my heart and soul. Everything inside me shuttered down like a house under a sudden hurricane warning.
Windows taped and boarded.
Evacuate.
Abandon.
When the hell would I see her again?
22
Finger and I managed to continue seeing each other—irregularly, very irregularly—but we managed it. Three years had passed, and I’d moved out of Tania’s apartment and gotten my own place in the same neighborhood. A teeny tiny studio, but it was all mine. I set up a second-hand sewing machine I’d bought on a long table in the center of the space. At any time of day or night I’d sketch and pin patterns and cut and make a mess while Etta James sang for me on my portable CD player, and I loved it.
I decorated with Tania’s help and made pretty things out of the simple, sometimes broken objects around me, just like my grandmother had done for me. I missed Grandma.
My own mother never had the time or the inclination for such creativity. She’d glance at me and Grandma, our heads bent over a piece of embroidery, as she’d be getting dressed to head back to the bar. “That’s nice for some,” she’d mutter, slipping on her high heels, that eternally pissed-off look etched on her face, a cigarette hanging from her lips. “But the rest of us have to live in the real world.” My grandmother would ignore those swipes, only taking in a tiny tight breath as she continued showing me her needlework. On her way out the door, Mom would always mumble a “Later” to us, as if it were some kind of promise of better things, but it was a later that would never come.
Once things got busy for me with school, I wasn’t able to hang out with Ciara as much as before, which was just as well as far as Finger was concerned. At school I met photographers and models through my various internships, and I volunteered to style their shoots which eventually turned into paying jobs. I kept my job at the store and was now the weekend manager. There, I learned about the business of running a business, about marketing and the art of designing a great storefront window, cultivating clients and keeping them.
Plenty of attractive guys buzzed around at school, at work, at the parties I went to, but none of them were My Man. Every sexy come on smile, every gym-trained body, clever twist of phrase, and suggestive look had a certain appeal, but none had any power over me. Only he did. Only Finger could unwind me with a look, destroy me with a touch, tangle me with a hoarse whisper against my skin.
Being true to him wasn’t a hardship. It was the way it was.
Finger got me a cell phone when he got himself one, and he either called me a lot or not at all for stretches of time. I would offer to meet him somewhere halfway between wherever he was and Chicago, but he’d always refuse to let me take the chance to travel alone. He was traveling a lot, rising the ranks of his club, proving his dependability, his resourcefulness. And ruthlessness, I had no doubt.
We’d had a close call that one time when he’d used his signal to tell me to stay away, that our rendezvous was cancelled and to not contact him until he did. He’d put his long hair up in a ponytail, something he rarely did. That spooked me. A reminder that neither of us could ignore. Being happy was dangerous for us. Happy together meant letting our guard down. It meant fucked up consequences for us. We would never ever be safe to live freely. We couldn’t ever get comfortable, we had to stay vigilant.
I would never forget that afternoon. I’d walked past Finger and the biker he was with in front of that hotel and tracked down Tania and Neil at a restaurant. I spent the night club hopping with them, forcing myself to appear to be having fun, not a care in the fucking world. I got drunk on purpose and crashed at Tania’s apartment for the whole weekend. It took me days to get over the anxiety and the disappointment of having been so close to him, of seeing him again, and yet having to walk away as if he were invisible. I felt invisible. My heart hollow.
Up until that aborted meeting, I’d been feeling almost normal, content even. Afterwards, I’d eventually managed to settle into a routine again. Three years had gone by since then, the best three years of my life, and I’d almost forgotten to keep looking over my shoulder.
Almost.
“Do you have any maxi skirts with high slits?” came the loud, nasally voice from the center of the store.
A voice I knew.
My pulse sprang in my neck as I lifted my eyes from my computer screen at the front where our two cash registers were lined up on a high platform. From my perch I had a great view of the entire store.
A short blonde woman on high heels, in her late thirties, waved a long skirt on a hanger at Beth, my best salesgirl. Beth led the blonde to a set of racks further down the aisle.
Luckily, today I wore my brown contact lenses, but I took the oversized aviator sunglasses that rested on my head and slipped them down over my face. Why take any unnecessary chances? My long black hair was now streaked with green and blue and shaved on the sides. New tats swirled around my upper arms. Would she recognize me?
She’d barely spoken to me my last year at the club, but I knew her. Anne Marie, the old lady to one of Med’s men. She was friendly, she was smug, she was arrogant. She was everything I’d never wanted to be. And here she was shopping in my corner of Chicago, Illinois.
Was Ann Marie here on purpose or was this simply a coincidence of fate? Had they found me and sent her in as a preamble to the slaughter or to make me some sort of deal? Did she have friends or relatives in Chicago? I couldn’t remember. Was her old man, Scrib, in town too?
Scrib. Scrib had carved up Finger’s face.
My breath shorted as Anne Marie swept out of the dressing room wearing a tight cheetah print maxi skirt Beth had found for her. She smoothed the material down her thigh as Beth adjusted the cropped top at her swollen middle. The outfit wasn’t right for her body type, and I was sure she knew it, too, but Anne Marie always got what Anne Marie wanted.
I steadied myself and scanned the store window. People passed by on the busy sidewalk. Cars and buses cruised up the street. No men in leather stood on the street from the sweeping view I had of the outside. I shifted my weight and returned to my work at the computer. I wasn’t going to run and hide. And anyway, there were a number of customers in the store. I couldn’t just take off and leave Beth on her own. I took in a quick breath and focused on the computer screen, returning to the emails detailing upcoming deliveries.
“Ashley will take your purchases. Thanks again.” Beth’s sweet voice snapped me to attention as the cheetah print skirt and the striped crop top slid on the counter in front of me. Beth left me with Ann Marie.
I shot her a quick smile and rang up the two items. “That will be sixty-seven twenty-three.”
She snapped a credit card on the counter, her long, glossy, French manicured fingernails glinting in the overhead lamp. I slid her card through the machine, handed her the receipt the register spit out, and she signed, her dangling earrings swinging.
“You finished or what? Let’s go already.”
My blood froze in my veins. My throat constricted at the sound of that deep voice. A heavy set biker stood in the entryway of the store, a little boy at his side. Scrib was here with his son, Logan.
I used to babysit Logan. Feed him, read to him, give him baths. I’d give him popsicles when he had a fever and sing to him. Once he even insisted on my spending the night at their house. Logan h
ad to be eight or nine years old now.
Anne Marie rolled her eyes as she tossed the pen on the counter toward me and grabbed at her receipt from my hand. “Don’t ever get married. Husbands are always trying to tell you what to do.” She turned to her old man. “I’m done! Geez, would you relax?”
My lips curled into a small grin as I handed her the shopping bag. I opened my mouth to thank her, but shut it quickly. I’d been lucky my appearance had thrown her off, but maybe my voice would spark a memory.
She snatched the bag from my hand and sauntered over to her husband. Logan stared at me.
“You got what you wanted?” Scrib asked his old lady, throwing a glance at me.
I paid no attention, pretending something I didn’t understand had just appeared on the screen.
“Yeah, I did,” Anne Marie said as he pushed back the door for her.
“Logan, let’s go!” Scrib bellowed in that demanding voice, and my stomach cramped. But it wasn’t just the voice of a stressed out parent. The last time I’d heard it, he’d been jamming his cock into me, holding my wrists over my head. “Come on, come on, yeah, bitch. This is how it’s done.”
“Look at that lady!” Logan’s clear voice rang out.
“What lady?” asked his father.
“Her!” Logan pointed straight at me, and my eyes darted to him like arrows, my heart hammering in my chest, the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end.
Scrib shot me an impatient look, but this time his eyes lingered. Ann Marie glanced back at me, flipping her hair from her face. Scrib’s head suddenly slanted as he took me in, and my breath burned in my throat.
“She’s got the same green and blue hair like the magic witch in my comic book!” said Logan.
“Yeah, yeah, she does,” his father muttered, guiding his son out the door by the shoulder. The three of them stalked off down the sidewalk.
“Twenty, nineteen, eighteen...” I counted as much to keep my breathing steady as to time when I should look up from my screen once again, in case they or anyone else was watching me. “...two, one, zero.”
My knees gave way, and I slid down to the floor, shuddering, taking in great big gulps of air. I wrapped my trembling arms around my chest and bit down on my tongue to stop the moans from escaping.
The next time we spoke, I told Finger what had happened.
“Oh fuck. Baby…” His breath hissed sharply over the phone. “Goddammit.”
“They didn’t recognized me,” I assured him. “It was okay. I’m okay.”
But silently, I asked myself how long could that “okay” possibly last?
23
“Are you sure about quitting the gallery?” I asked Tania.
She handed me a mug of hot chocolate as I folded my legs underneath me on her sofa. We were catching up on each other’s news, not having been able to see each other for weeks because of our hectic schedules.
“I’m sure and terrified, but I know I need to do it. I’d rather be an independent dealer working for collectors and representing artists. I’ve learned a lot about the art business and the art world, met a lot of personalities, understood how things work, but at the end of the day, I don’t want to own my own gallery or run someone else’s. The job’s been feeling dead-end for a while now.”
“Just a job.”
“Exactly. And I don’t want just a job. I want something more.”
“How did Neil take it?” I asked.
“He tried to talk me out of it, but he gets it. We’d talked about opening our own gallery together one day, but my heart’s just not in it.”
“Good for you for realizing that,” I said. “That would be awful if you made a commitment to Neil and then you weren’t really into it.”
“That’s how I feel. Better to explore now, and if I want, I can go back, right?”
“Sure, why not? I’m excited for you, my adventurer.”
“Thank you.”
“It’s wonderful. It’s the right move.”
My gaze fell on a framed photo of Tania and her best friend Grace from high school back in South Dakota. Grace had just gotten married when I’d first met Tania four years ago, and she had married a biker, Dig, an officer of the One-Eyed Jacks, their local club. Recently, Dig had gotten killed in some sort of assassination by a rival club. Tania had told me how her mother had called her to tell her the horrible news. Grace had survived a bullet wound, and the death of her unborn child, and she’d killed the fucker who’d gunned down her man.
Good for you, Grace. Good for you.
“How’s Grace doing?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“I went home for Dig’s funeral.”
“Right.”
“The night before she tried to kill herself in the hospital.”
“No!”
“Yes. It was horrible. They pumped her stomach, though. None of us could see her after, and then I had to leave the next day to get back here for work. After I left, Grace’s sister, Ruby, let my mom see her, which was good. Mom said she was far gone, very depressed.” Tania wiped at her watery eyes. “Grace was the one who always looked at the positive in any situation. I was always Ms. Worst Case Scenario. She really wanted that baby. Their baby. Now no baby, and—oh yeah—no more babies for her ever again after her injuries and the surgery she had to have. I have no idea how to help her.”
“Maybe now she just needs to focus on herself, and soon enough she’ll be ready for friends and be open to you reaching out. All you can do is be patient and understanding and be there for her whenever she’s ready.”
“Grace got out of the hospital, but she hasn’t returned my calls. I called Ruby last week, and she was pretty tight-lipped with me, which pissed me off. I’m trying to be understanding, but it’s harder than I expected.”
“Tough.”
“I know.”
A pounding at the door. Our heads jerked toward the booming noise. “Who the hell is that this time of night?” Tania shot up from her sofa.
I grabbed her arm. “I’m going in your bedroom.”
“Go.”
I gathered my mug and sweater, jacket and backpack, and went into Tania’s small bedroom. I stashed everything under the bed, closed the door behind me and waited, every cell in my body listening.
Was it finally happening? Did they find me?
“Boner? What the hell are you doing here?” Tania’s shriek was somewhere between shock and delight.
Boner was a member of the One-Eyed Jacks from her hometown. Tania had told me he was Dig’s best friend and a close friend of Grace’s.
“Where is she?” His voice was tortured, loud, almost off key.
I went to the door and peeked through the opening I’d left. Boner was tall and thin, with long dark wavy hair and green eyes that gleamed in the lamp light. He was emotional, distraught. Something was very wrong.
“Who?” asked Tania.
“Who? Are you kidding me? I’ve been riding straight to get to you so I could look you in the eye myself ‘cause I can tell when I’m being lied to. Don’t you fucking lie to me!”
“Calm the hell down and talk some sense, would you?” Tania shot back. “You want a drink? Let me pour you a drink.”
Glasses clinked, a liquid poured from beyond my sightline. Heavy breathing and the sofa creaked. “What’s going on?” Tania’s even voice rose.
“She’s missing. Sister’s missing.”
Sister was the club’s nickname for Grace.
“What the hell are you talking about missing? Someone kidnap her or—” Tania’s voice was high pitched, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. My stomach dove and twisted like the innards of a washing machine with a double load on full power mode.
“No, not that,�
�� said Boner. “She picked up and left. Not a word to anybody.”
“And Ruby?”
“Went with her. But that was weeks ago. Ruby’s back now and ain’t talking. She put Dig and Grace’s shit in storage, sold their house real quick. Now she’s left town too and got a job in Rapid. I went to see her, but she ain’t talking. You know Ruby.”
“Hard as nails.”
“Yeah.”
A glass slammed on the table.
“You were her best friend, Tania. You gotta tell me where she is. I gotta see her, make sure she’s okay. I can’t not know where she is. I just can’t!”
My heart twisted in my chest at the anguish in his voice.
“I wish I knew, but I don’t.”
“Don’t say you don’t know, Tan! Don’t say that! How is that possible? You two—”
“Since the funeral I’ve been calling her, but she never answers. Now you’re telling me she up and left town? Her home? Her friends?”
“Yeah. Gone. How could she do this? She needs us! I need her.”
“Yes, but she’s lost now, right? Oh shit, Boner...” Tania dissolved into tears.
Mumbling and muffled voices. Heated words.
I slid down to the floor. Grace, who’d had everything to live for, a husband she loved, a baby on the way, a good club as her family to protect her and keep her safe. But Grace was now destroyed. All of it gone, her whole world shattered, ripped from her. The two most important people in her life taken from her—her old man and their unborn baby. Taken by another club’s wrath, for real reasons or shits and giggles, who knew. Anything was possible on the turn of a dime.
Anything.
I knew that better than most, didn’t I?
My heart careened in my chest at the thought of losing Finger. Losing him now when we had gained so much. So much.
“Do you think she went into hiding for a reason? Are the Demon Seeds after her now?” Tania asked, her tone urgent.
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out here. I need to find her. Help her. She’s in the pit now. I know what that’s like, and I gotta pull her out. She contacts you, you let me know. Promise me.”
