The Handler (Noir et Bleu Motorcycle Club #2)

by D. R. Graham

  “What is that guy doing here?” she whispered, which she didn’t really need to do because they had turned the TV on and were talking loudly.

  “He’s my body double. He’s a security guy Tim has worked with in the past. He’s going to hang out with you and Aaron and Stan while I meet with Marie Josie.”

  “Why do you need a body double?”

  “We need everyone to think I’m with you to buy me more time.”

  “He doesn’t even look like you. Nobody’s going to believe it’s you.”

  “What are you talking about?” I pointed at him. “Put a hat and sunglasses on him, and even I won’t know it’s not me.”

  She glanced over at him and frowned. “He doesn’t smile right and his legs are shorter than yours.”

  I stretched my arm across her shoulders and kissed her cheek to reassure her. “No one’s going to notice.”

  “Why can’t Mug and Kaz go talk to her?”

  “I don’t even know if I can trust them. I need to talk to her myself to find out what the Noir et Bleu already know and aren’t telling me.”

  “And then what?”

  “Nothing. I’m just going to talk to her and see what she says. Maybe she doesn’t even know him. I won’t be gone long.”

  “He knows we were in the neighborhood yesterday. What if he’s there waiting for you?”

  “He’s more likely outside the hotel right now.”

  She sat up and brushed my arm off her shoulders. “That makes me feel a lot better, thanks.” Her gaze shifted and she saw the handle of the gun sticking out of the inside pocket of my jacket. “A gun? What are you trying to prove—that you can get yourself thrown in prison or that you can get yourself killed?”

  I inhaled and rubbed my eyes. “It’s for my protection. I won’t need to use it.”

  “Do you even know how to use it? Obviously you plan on doing more than just talking to her. I don’t understand why you have to be the person who takes care of it. Your stupid vendetta isn’t worth what you’re risking. Huck has already lost her dad and most of her mom. Do you really want her to lose you, too?”

  “That’s not going to happen.”

  “No? Really? You’re going to just handle it like you handle everything else?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Give me a break.” She shoved my chest. “You’re an idiot, and I’m not hanging out with a stranger so you can go off and get yourself killed.” She unfolded her legs and stood.

  I reached for her hand and pulled her back. She lost her balance and landed on my lap. I hugged her to keep her close. “I’m not going to get killed.” I tucked her hair behind her ears and stared at her mouth. Her chest rose with each breath. “Just trust me,” I whispered as I leaned in to kiss her.

  She turned her face away. “Cain, don’t. You can’t kiss me and be sweet to make this all right.”

  I rested my forehead on her cheek and hugged her tighter. “I don’t want to worry about you while I’m taking care of things. If you don’t want to hang out with him, just stay in the hotel.”

  She shook her head sadly.

  “Come on. Please just help me with this.”

  After a while, she turned so our cheeks were resting against each other. “How much do you care about me?” she whispered.

  “A lot.”

  “Enough to stay because I asked you to?”

  The guys got quiet, and even though the TV was on, it felt like they’d be able to hear what we were talking about. I glanced at them, then reached up to touch my finger to her lips. She stared in my eyes for a long time. I watched her lashes slowly lower and raise as she blinked. Her eyes got watery, and her eyebrows angled together.

  “I’m only going to talk to her. Once I find out more about him, I’ll call the police. The whole reason I’m doing it is because I care about you and I want you to be safe.”

  “Yeah, well, I want you to be alive.” She abruptly pushed my arms off her, stood, and bent over to zip up her knee high boots. “Let’s go,” she snapped and grabbed Steve by the sleeve. “Bye, Cain. I hope whatever you’re planning on doing is worth losing every single person you care about.” She dragged Steve out into the hall. Tim, Aaron, and Stan followed them.

  After a steeling breath, I took my phone out and wrote: If anything happens to me, always remember how much I love you. I sent it to Huck and then went down to the lobby and called a cab.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  I asked the cab driver to drop me off a block away from Marie Josie Dewalt’s building. I pulled my sweatshirt hood up over my head and walked down the street. The front door was propped open. Two kids were set up on the hallway floor playing cards, but they didn’t even look up. I checked the front panel for her name. It wasn’t listed. 3C was the only apartment that didn’t have the name listed. Instead, it had Occupant written next to it. I laughed at how easy it was and climbed the stairs to the third floor. A woman with a dog passed me on her way down the hall. I looked at my boots so she wouldn’t see my face and loitered until the sound of her footsteps disappeared before I knocked on the door to 3C.

  As I waited, I slid my hand into my pocket and wrapped my fingers around the handle of the gun. The deadbolt clicked and the door opened just wide enough to see half her face. The security chain drooped between the door and the wall. She closed the door, and I was just about to kick it in when the chain slid. She opened the door wide and waved her arm to invite me in. I frowned and released my grip on the gun, then slid my hand back out of my jacket.

  “Bienvenue.”

  I stepped inside and she closed the door behind me.

  “Veuillez vous asseoir?” She pointed to the sofa.

  I didn’t move, although I understood that she asked me to take a seat. She watched me for a second and then went into the kitchen. A few minutes later, she came back into the living room with a tray that had a teapot and two cups on it.

  “Sit, please,” she said with a heavy accent.

  “No thanks. I need to talk to you about Martin. Do you know where he is?”

  “No.” She sat down and poured both cups full.

  She blew on her tea and watched me for a while before taking a sip.

  The wood-framed furniture was old, and the European rugs were faded and tattered in the high traffic areas. Oil paintings of river scenes were hung on the wall, and a giant wood cross was prominent above the fireplace. Family pictures in silver frames were arranged on the mantle. One was a picture of Marie Josie with a younger Fireball, before he got the scar. The picture beside that one caught my eye. I walked over and picked it up to examine it more closely.

  “Why do you have a picture of my mom?”

  “Elle a toujours été ma préférée.”

  “Favorite what? How did you know her?”

  She took another sip of tea before answering, “Martin loved her.”

  “What?” I muttered under my breath and stared at the photo.

  There was a knock at the door. She glanced at me with a panicked expression and pressed her lips together. A shiver shot up my spine and made the hair on my neck stand on end.

  I put the picture frame down, pulled out the gun, and stood up against the wall next to the door. I reached over with my left hand to slide the chain and turned the knob to open the door a crack. The person pushed the door open farther, and a motorcycle boot stepped across the threshold. I pressed the gun to his temple, and he froze just inside the doorway.

  He sort of grinned before he said, “You shouldn’t have involved my mother.”

  “You shouldn’t have killed my father.”

  His eyes darted over to glance at Marie Josie before he said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. What do you want?”

  I kicked the door shut behind him. My mouth was so dry that when I tried to swallow, it felt like the walls of my throat stuck together. I licked my lips and said, “I want to settle a debt you owe me.” My hands were so wet the sweat marked my jeans when I rubbed my left
palm on my leg. I clenched the gun tighter in my right hand so it wouldn’t slip right out of my grasp. “Stand over there.” I waved the end of the gun toward the couch.

  He slammed his forearm against the side of my face and drove me into the floor. He punched me across the jaw and used the heel of his hand to crush down on my wrist, trying to make me release the gun. I swung my leg and kicked the bottom of the bookshelf. It teetered forward, then crashed down on his back. He turned to push it off and I was able to wriggle out from under his weight, but he grabbed me by the jacket and chucked me against the wall.

  I scrambled to my feet and held the gun in both hands to point it at his head. He was about to stand up, but I said, “Don’t fucking move.”

  He remained motionless on his knees and glanced at his mom again. She had moved and was peeking out from the doorway to the kitchen. “Put the gun away before someone gets hurt, kid.”

  “Don’t tell me what to do,” I said, seething.

  “You can kill me, but it won’t help you much since there are a shit load of guys out there who already want the hundred thousand dollars offered for your head.”

  “I’ve lived this long with a bounty on my head. It makes no difference to me.”

  “Yeah, well, now they think you took out two members in Miami.”

  “Fuck that. I didn’t do anything. You did it.”

  He shrugged and seemed amused. “You’re welcome.”

  “Shut up.”

  He laughed again and said to his mom, “Est-ce qu’il vous rappelle quelqu’un?”

  She raised her eyebrow and shook her head as if she didn’t approve of any of it. Then she disappeared into the kitchen.

  I lowered the gun to aim it at his chest so I wouldn’t miss.

  “Do what you came here to do.” He challenged me. “What are you waiting for?”

  My arm tensed, and I put pressure on the trigger. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead when he realized that I was prepared to do it. My heart beat in my ears, and my legs started to shake.

  “You’re not stupid enough to do it in front of my mom, are you?”

  “Why not? You killed my dad and set my mom on fire in front of my little sister.”

  His eyebrows creased together, and his mouth dropped open slightly. “What are you talking about? Nobody else was there.”

  He looked at the collection of silver frames as if he was remembering something. He shook his head. “Your mom wasn’t there that night.”

  “I’d get her to tell you herself, but her fucking tongue was melted off,” I shouted.

  His expression filled with rage and he stood up. “Shut the fuck up. She wasn’t there,” he roared as he lunged toward me and swung his arm at the gun. I squeezed the trigger, and his body blew backward. The sound of the gunshot bounced through the tiny apartment, followed by ringing in my ear. He landed on his ass, then grabbed his shoulder and writhed around. Marie Josie ran into the living room and knelt beside him. She applied pressure on his wound with her hands and screamed at me in French.

  I couldn’t understand her, and she was in my way, so I aimed the gun at her and said, “Get out of here.” She crawled and reached for the coffee table to help hoist herself back to her feet. She was still rambling in French. I stepped forward and stood over him. I aimed the gun down at his head and took a deep breath.

  He groaned, and his face winced. “I’ll see what I can do to get the contract dropped.”

  “I don’t need your help. I need you dead.”

  “Are you sure you’ll be able to live with yourself?”

  “I won’t even give it a second thought, you piece of shit.”

  He smiled. “You don’t know who I am, do you?”

  “You’re the bastard who killed my dad and set my mom on fire in front of my little sister. That’s all that matters.”

  “No. That’s not what—”

  The door to the apartment burst open. A six-foot-five guy with a red beard and tattoos showing above the collar of his leather jacket rushed me. He nearly broke my arm when he twisted the gun from my grasp. He pointed it at Marie Josie. She quickly disappeared into a bedroom, closing the door behind her. “Get up,” he growled at Dewalt. Mug and Kaz stood in the doorway to the apartment. They pulled Fireball out into the hall. Then the guy with the red beard pointed the gun at my head.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “Move,” the biker with the red beard said to me. He dug his fingers into my neck with one hand and pointed the gun against my ribs with the other hand as he led me out of Marie Josie’s building. He shoved me into the backseat of an SUV. Some other guy wearing a bandana was driving.

  “Where’s Dewalt?” I asked.

  “Keep your mouth shut,” the guy with the red beard mumbled from the front passenger seat as we sped off.

  I frowned because I recognized his voice. “Say that again.”

  He looked over his shoulder at me as I put the pieces together.

  “Cisco?”

  “Yeah. You okay, kid?”

  “Yeah. I guess.”

  He chuckled and shook his head because I obviously wasn’t okay. “You look like shit.”

  “What’s going on? How did you know I was there?”

  He turned in his seat to face forward. “Did you forget who you’re dealing with?”

  To be honest, yes, it was too hard to keep track of who I was dealing with and who I could trust. “Where are we going?”

  A police car passed us going in the opposite direction, which Cisco glanced at briefly, but he didn’t seem concerned. “Digger’s waiting.”

  What? That was not good news. “He’s in Montreal?”

  “Yup, and you know how he hates to take care of business himself.”

  “Shit.” Digger didn’t even like to make his own phone calls if he didn’t have to. Whether he flew across the country to shoot my ass or save my ass, either way, he was going to be pissed, and I was screwed.

  We arrived at a warehouse outside the city and parked inside the steel building. A heavy guy wearing a black toque closed the sliding door behind us. It took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the dim lighting after we stepped out of the truck. Dewalt was sitting in the middle of the warehouse with his wrists taped to the arms of the chair. He was already roughed up pretty good, and the shoulder wound I inflicted had bled quite a bit. I didn’t want to look at him, so I stood behind Cisco while Digger talked to a short, scrawny guy with a steel pipe in his hand. Dewalt obviously wasn’t a pussy, because if I were in his position, I’d be begging Digger for forgiveness. Instead, he grimaced and sat silently.

  “Come here, kid,” Digger called.

  I knew he was talking to me, but I looked around at everyone else hoping that by some miracle there was another person in the warehouse he might be summoning. Cisco pushed my shoulder, and I stepped forward. Dewalt watched me as I walked closer to them. I glanced at him once, then focused on Digger instead.

  “This is definitely the guy who torched your mom and dad?”

  I nodded.

  Dewalt shook his head and mumbled, “I wouldn’t do that to your mom.”

  My head snapped to glare at him, and I growled through clenched teeth, “I saw you do it.”

  “I told you, I didn’t know she was there.”

  “You poured gasoline on her. How can you sit there and say you didn’t know she was there?”

  “I didn’t pour gasoline on her. She must have jumped on the bed and tried to save that sorry son of a bitch’s ass.”

  “Shut up,” I shouted.

  “I swear to God I didn’t know Monique was there.” He tilted his chin up, and the tendons in his neck popped out. “I would never hurt her, and I didn’t know the kid was there, either. You all know I wouldn’t have let it go down if I saw that the kid was there. They were supposed to be out of the house at a dance recital.”

  I turned to Digger. “He’s a fucking liar. Just get it over with.”

  I walked back to the tru
ck and slouched down in the backseat so I wouldn’t have to watch. I waited for the sound of a gunshot, but it never came. I figured maybe they slit his throat instead. I didn’t really care how they did it. When nothing happened for a long time, I got antsy. I couldn’t stand the waiting, so I got out of the truck and slipped into the warehouse office where Cisco, Mug, Kaz, and a couple of other guys were hanging out.

  I nodded at them and stood with my back against the wall. There was electronic equipment everywhere, and they were obviously running wiretaps and doing video surveillance. Cisco sat on a chair and scrolled through his phone messages.

  “What’s he waiting for?” I asked Cisco.

  “Settle down. It’s complicated.”

  I couldn’t see Dewalt through the office window, but I could see Digger pacing back and forth in the warehouse. He was the same age as my dad. His short hair and goatee were dark with some gray, and he wore glasses. He was wearing dark jeans and a charcoal colored V-neck sweater that made him look like an average Joe. Without being able to see his tattoos, the only thing that would have tipped people off that he was one of the most powerful outlaws in the world was that he also had a scar that he got in one of his many motorcycle accidents. It ran from the inside corner of his eye across his cheek to his ear.

  He hung up the phone and made eye contact with me through the glass. My heart forgot to beat for a long second and then, when it remembered, it felt like it was stumbling to catch up. He came into the office, and sweat rolled down my temple as I waited for him to say something. “Have a seat,” he finally said. I sat on a wood chair. He lit a cigarette and stared at me as he exhaled. “You’re starting to feel like a real pain in my ass, kid.”

  “Sorry.”

  He was quiet for a while, and he looked around at the other guys before he said, “Your mom was pregnant when she married Southpaw?”

  “Yeah, I was born four months later. I already knew that. So?”

  “They got married two months after they met.” He hesitated and coughed to clear his throat. “Do the math, kid.”