by Cat Porter
If only a hell of a lot of shit.
Rachel had plummeted into a depression, started using. One night I tried to shake her out of her daze, literally shake her. She slapped me, shoved at my chest muttering all sorts of angry words. I’d grabbed her hand, stopping her, but then I asked myself, why are you stopping her? She’s right. You’re a concrete wall, that’s what you are. I’d let go of her hand, and she punched and slapped me, kicking at me, yelling at me to leave her alone until she fell into a heap of tears on the bed. In the end her sister had come and taken her home, and I never saw or heard from her again.
I’d been kidding myself with Rachel, and she’d known it. I saw it in her eyes plenty of times, that wash of sadness, a submission to futility in the face of my barren landscape which, for her, would ultimately yield nothing.
Plenty of my bros had children. Many of them were devoted husbands and dads, and many weren’t so devoted. Either way they had their own families. I’d once wanted that for myself.
Once.
Once it had been a dream, a goal, a burning desire. But all of that was wrapped up in Serena without any beginning or end, and even though there was no more Serena, there was no way to unravel it.
And I didn’t want to. I was that stubborn. As stubborn as the prairie grasses that grew and grew, season in, season out.
Seeing Lenore pregnant with another man’s kid in her belly was a sledgehammer slamming down on me. I’d chewed on shards of glass at the sight of her that day and then months later when I’d seen her in Rapid and she confirmed the boy wasn’t mine. I’d tried to move on with other women, especially with Rachel. She’d been the last relationship. But after the miscarriage, I’d shoved the whole idea over the side of the table like some china platter, and it shattered into a thousand unrecognizable pieces. I would never be a father. I would never have my own family.
Catch had become a father, and it had made him stand up straighter. For all his swagger and personal crazy, he melted every time he saw Becca, and I liked that for him. I was glad for him.
I eyed Butler. “You get out there, find Creeper, bring him to me so I can have my fun with him, then do whatever the fuck you want and impress Jump with the leftovers.”
A grin lit up his face. He relished the opportunity. “I’m going to get this done and get back to Ohio. Reich liked the job I did for him last month. Said he has other shit on the back burner he wants me to take care of.”
“Oh, yeah?” I ground down on my teeth to control the charge of excitement that flickered through me.
I had sent Butler in Reich’s path months ago and it was paying off.
Turo and I had continued to work together over the years. Our business alliance remained secret, the way we both preferred. It worked for us, and filled my chapter’s vault with cash and maintained a firewall of protection from small fry interference throughout the Midwest stretching toward the East Coast.
He’d killed Med and sent me a photo of the fucker’s mangled body. I’d celebrated by taking off and riding through the Sandhills of northwestern Nebraska to deal with the volatile emotions that had erupted through me at the sight of that picture. Riding the banked turns, the sweeping hills, the hidden descending curves on that road was a better high than any drug or booze. That’s what made me feel alive, focused. At night the stars there can shine bright enough to cast a shadow over the grass covered ancient sand dunes. There I cleared my head, alone.
Turo also kept his eyes on Reich for me. Even sent a whore on his payroll to get close to him, and she did. She’d told Turo all about Reich’s scarred dick, in fact. Although Reich had a wife, that hadn’t stopped him from having plenty of action on the side, and Turo’s Chandra became one of his favorite girlfriends. She reported back to Turo on his movements, his disappearances. Disappearances that I’d tried to trace, but without much luck.
Finally, Reich took Chandra with him on a quick weekend getaway to Atlantic City that was really a business meeting with a local Jersey mobster. Chandra took photos. I made sure those connections went south for him with Turo’s help—deliveries not made, promises broken, goods stolen, destroyed. Reich’s reputation suffered. We let him have a few victories in between, and then tore him back down again. Eventually, Chandra let Reich’s wife know about all the wild sex she was having with her old man, then Turo pulled her and Chandra disappeared from Reich’s life. Reich looked over his shoulder all the time now, a permanent sneer on his mug.
“I got something for you,” Turo had told me over the phone a couple of months ago. “There’s a connection I can’t place between Reich and a Tantucci.” The Tantuccis were a rival crime family in Chicago.
“The Flames of Hell don’t work with the Tantuccis. Never have,” I said.
“I know. This Tantucci Reich talks to is connected to a state senator. Reich was spotted with this senator at a hotel in Michigan of all places. Brief. But it was a meeting. I’m digging, but you should dig too.”
“Will do.”
That was when I’d urged Butler toward Reich, and Butler had played it well, offering Reich his services under the radar of his club as well as mine. A nomad wasn’t supposed to do a job for another club without permission from his own. Butler’s reputation appealed to Reich though, so they both took the risk of bending the rules.
After his move to Ohio, Reich had set his sights on a position at the national level, and he’d succeeded. I wanted to slice him wide open, and I needed someone unattached to me and my club to do the dredging, and Butler was the perfect choice. Butler was no stranger to the subtle, the underhanded, the risky.
“Reich likes me,” Butler said, his light blue eyes gleaming, that cocky grin of his tilting his lips. “As much as he can like anyone.”
“Yeah, he pats you on the back with one hand, holds the knife over your head with the other.”
Butler knocked his head back and laughed. “That’s right.”
“And don’t you forget it.”
He held my gaze. “I won’t. As soon as I secure Creeper, and get back to Ohio and finalize a few details with Reich, I should have something for you. I’ll be in touch. After that, I plan on heading back to Meager, to the Jacks.”
“Good luck with that.”
“Yeah, I’m working on it.”
“You waiting on Jump to roll out the red carpet for you?”
“Well, some kind of carpet, yeah.”
Butler was clever, a sneaky fuck in the past. Just cause he was sober now, could I be sure that he wouldn’t stab me in the back with Reich somehow?
I stretched out my legs, crossing my arms. “You know, before the white man got to this area, the Native Americans used to burn large sections of land to divert the deer, elk, and the buffalo for easier hunting, driving the animals where they wanted them. A selective use of fire. Fire as destroyer, but fire as creator. Purposeful. That way they got rid of the brush and the tall trees, creating the wide stretches of prairie we got today.”
“Huh. Didn’t know. I like that,” Butler said, packing his cigarettes and lighter back in his pocket.
“That’s what I’m looking to accomplish here, Butler. That’s my ultimate endgame. A stretch of prairie, animals who heed. Nobody’s immune to flames. You get too close, you get burned.”
Butler stilled, his jaw tightened. “I want the best for my club, Finger. I’m killing myself out there to make sure that happens, and you know it. I’m not interested in double crossing you in any way. This—what we have here, you and me—” he tapped two fingers on my desk. “—I’m respecting it, and it stays between us. Too much is at stake.”
I picked up my Digi-Flex once more. “A hell of a lot is at stake. And you can either be a part of that purposeful fire or get destroyed by it yourself.”
43
Loud voices and rushing footsteps echoed in the main room just beyond my office.
Sla
de leaned his head in, rapping his knuckles on my office door. “Prez, two women just showed up with Catch’s kid.”
I turned and scanned the security monitors at my side, Butler behind me.
“What the hell?” Butler muttered.
My pulse picked up. Tania stood in the center of the main room. She was with another woman in a baseball cap pulled down low, who held Catch’s daughter. Jill flew over and took Becca from the woman’s arms. Tania spoke with her brother as the main room filled up with Flames and their women relieved to see Becca safe.
Tania was here at my compound and under emergency circumstances. I hadn’t seen her in over ten years or spoken to her since I’d called her about her brother prospecting. I’d checked in on her once, twice, and found out she’d gotten married and then left Chicago for Racine, Wisconsin.
She was older now, yet even more attractive than before. There was a sharp confidence in the way she held herself, but she seemed tired and strung out; she was coming down from an experience. Stern-faced, telling her little brother what for, pulling no punches. The two of them had been estranged for years from what little Catch had told me. I’d never let on I knew his sister.
That was over now.
I listened to their conversation. Tania and her friend had happened to cross paths with Creeper at some junkyard not too far from here. He’d held them hostage, but the women had managed to knock him out. My muscles tightened at her description of Creeper assaulting her and threatening them and little Becca.
Tania at the mercy of that fuck. All this time of keeping her on the sidelines, and now, years later, she got touched by Flames business.
Her friend was keeping quiet, body language pulled together. It was perfectly natural for a civilian woman to be anxious at our clubhouse. She and Tania shared a quick, knowing look. There was something familiar about her face.
She was no civilian.
It was Grace, Dig’s widow. Catch knew her too from his childhood, but I was sure he hadn’t seen her in years, and he was too emotional now with Becca safe to notice much else.
“Did you call the cops?” asked Catch, his eyes on Jill, who kissed and held their daughter, tears running down her face as she murmured to the baby.
“No,” replied Tania. “We asked Creeper why he’d taken the baby, and your name came up. I would’ve called you, but my battery died, and I don’t know your number by heart.”
“Appreciate it, Tan,” he said.
Tania intervening once again, getting the job done. She followed her instincts and reached out. That was a fucking gift.
I stepped further into the room. “Why don’t you two take a load off and tell us where you found the kid and more about this guy, so we can catch up with that motherfucker?” I asked.
Tania took in a tight breath, her gaze landing on me. “Hey.”
A slight smile curled my lips. “Tania. Been a long while.”
Grace stiffened, her lips pursing.
“Yeah.” Tania’s voice was low, her eyes darting to my president’s patch.
We stood there, taking each other in, maybe not knowing what to say, but hell, we didn’t have to say anything. It was good to see her again. Real good.
Jill and the baby reemerged from a side hallway. Two bags were slung over Jill’s shoulders, Becca in her arms.
“Where you going?” Catch hollered after her.
“Are you joking? I am out of here, once and for all. I am so done. Done!” Jill yelled.
“Babe, come on now. It’s over,” said Catch.
“Over? It’s never over!” Jill let out a shrill laugh.
Catch shook his head. This was a well-rehearsed script between these two for months now. “You need time to settle down? Take it. Nothing’s over, though.”
“For God’s sake, Catch! Let’s be real for a change. This has been over since before Becca was born. But I stuck it out. You were supposed to be watching your daughter while I was at work. You! But no! Instead, you had one of your whores doing it while you were out. Unbelievable. I’m getting out of here, out of this shithole town, and—”
“And where you gonna go?” Catch dug his hands into his hips.
“I—”
“Yeah?” he prodded.
“Why don’t you come home with me?” Tania’s sharp voice demanded consideration. Jill spun around and faced Tania, her lips parted.
There she goes again, reaching out and helping someone she doesn’t even know.
“Sounds like a plan,” I said.
Catch’s eyes hardened. “To Meager?”
“Why not?” Tania said to her brother. “There’s plenty of room at Ma’s house, and she could use the company once she gets out of the rehab center. She was just saying how she wanted to get to know her granddaughter. I’m living at the house now, too, helping her out, but someone needs to be with her full time.” She turned to Jill. “If you’re up for that sort of thing, that is.”
Tania was living in Meager now?
Catch had mentioned that their mother had recently been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Suddenly, Meager was full of people I knew.
“Are you up for that sort of thing? Helping out with my mom and all?” Tania asked Jill.
“Yes, I am. Oh my God! Yes! Thank you.” Jill practically jumped up and down.
Catch’s face hardened. He didn’t like the idea too much.
Jill and Catch hadn’t been getting along for months now. She was unhappy, had accused him of cheating, and he had cheated on her. He didn’t know which end was up and couldn’t keep up. Their daughter was the only thing attaching them, but they’d become a worn out rubber band, loose and frayed, ragged, but still holding on. You stay together for the child, but you’re still unhappy. Still bitching and miserable. Wasn’t that going to stain your child? Make her miserable too? What the hell was the point of all that?
“Sounds like a fine plan,” I said.
Catch glanced at me. He was worried, pissed off. He shot his girlfriend a harsh look. “How am I gonna keep you safe when you’re not here?”
“Like you kept us safe before? Give me a break!” Jill said, wiping at her face.
I raised my chin at Catch. “Time to move this along, man.”
Catch swallowed, his hard eyes glowering at his sister and then snapping back to his soon-to-be ex-girlfriend.
“Thank you, Tania,” Jill said. “I really appreciate this. God, you don’t even know me.” She kissed the side of her daughter’s face, her gaze hanging on Tania like she was grateful for the unexpected seat on the last lifeboat, the ship sinking fast underneath her feet.
“You’re welcome,” replied Tania.
Jill was a good girl from what I’d experienced of her around the club. She was friendly and helped out without having to be asked, without complaining, worked at the local laundromat to bring money in to her family.
Catch had to learn that to give up was not being less of a man or a failure, that there was strength in admitting the broken couldn’t be fixed no more. But he was emotional. I’d checked that shit at the door years ago, hadn’t I?
Catch jerked his chin toward the exit, and his girlfriend rolled her eyes. She brushed past Grace, and Becca reached out a chubby hand and nabbed Grace’s sunglasses from her face. She nabbed them right back, sliding them on once more. Diamond bands were on the ring finger. She’d gotten married again.
Good for you.
“You okay?” I asked her.
“Me? Yes, thanks.” She flashed a quick grin at me.
“Long day, Maddie?” asked Butler, an edge of irony in his tone. Of course he knew her. “Got a nice bruise there.”
“It’s not every day you get held at gunpoint and your life is threatened by a ratty-ass biker, is it?” Tania jumped in, shooting me a look.
I let out a laugh. I’d missed her.<
br />
“How ’bout you ladies give me the details on this piece of shit so I can head out after him?” Butler asked.
“Sure,” Grace murmured, glancing at me. I held onto her gaze and didn’t let go.
I’d started keeping track of Grace after I’d seen her in Colorado at that Harley Davidson store. She’d kept drifting all over the country, working at different HD stores, keeping pretty much to herself. I’d stopped after year two. Was she back with the One-Eyed Jacks now and that’s why she was playing it incognito standing here in my clubhouse? Did Tania, Grace, and Butler think I wouldn’t like a One-Eyed Jack woman on my property? I appreciated their caution. Now I wanted to see how they’d respond.
“You know these two?” I asked Butler. “Tania’s from your parts.”
“Yeah,” Butler replied curtly. “We met years ago in Meager before I went up north.”
My attention slid to Tania. She raised her chin and took in a long slow breath.
“Never seen this one before.” Butler gestured at Grace.
Real smooth. What an actor. But Jacks loyalty came first for him, as it should.
Tania said, “Maddie came down with me from Racine last week to help me with my move.”
So Tania was back in South Dakota, and it sounded like she was on her own.
Tania returned my heavy look with one of her own. Don’t ask me now. I’ll tell you another time.
I cocked an eyebrow. I’ll make sure there’ll be another time.
“Butler, find out what these two know, and bring me that motherfucker,” I said.
“Let’s go, ladies.” Butler gestured towards the main door.
Tania glanced at me over her shoulder and smiled. A smile that raced through the dark tunnels and hallways of my soul, leaving a familiar trickle of warm light in its wake.
Good to see you too, baby.
Butler got the job done. He caught Creeper that night and brought him into the safe house I’d designated for him earlier, about ten miles into the woods northwest of the clubhouse. Catch and I arrived within the hour. Catch jumped off his bike and tore into the shed. He wanted his revenge for his daughter, for losing his old lady.
