“If you’ll still be in town tonight, you’re welcome to run here,” Randall offered. “Harmony can hang out in the kitchen area and talk to whoever’s here.”
Brain looked at me, then back to Randall. “Thanks for the offer, I appreciate it. Let me get back to you and let you know?”
“Of course.”
“I think the rest of my questions are for Brain, personally. I’m sure the rest of you have other things to do.”
Bud leaned forward and said, “Brain’s important to us, you’re important to him, thus, you’re important to us. We’d kind of like to get to know you better.”
“For what it’s worth,” Duke told her, his eyes solemn, sad, “I liked you from the beginning, but I had to make sure the club was safe.”
I didn’t know how to answer. I wanted to call him a pompous assed cretin, but I also didn’t want to up the tension. The violence in the fight earlier had bothered me a great deal and I didn’t want to be the catalyst for another fight.
“Guys, you’re making her uncomfortable,” said Brain, “and I’d like to take her out to eat and give her some downtime before we meet with Abbott.” He looked to Bud. “I asked for two months and you gave it to me. I’m only five weeks in.”
“I did. Doesn’t mean we don’t miss you. The MC’s gonna think she pulled you away from us. The longer you keep her a mystery, the bigger deal she’ll be when you bring her around.”
Brain gave my hand a comforting squeeze as he stood, and gently pulled me up with him. “Thanks, Randall, for legitimizing the binding. Thanks, Bud, for coming along for moral support.” He nodded to Aaron and Duke, and as we walked out I told the room, “Nice to meet you.”
“No, it wasn’t,” Brain said with a chuckle as we rounded the house towards his car, “but now you legally know about us, and I can answer your questions, and no longer have to hide my wolf from you.”
“You talk about him as if you share your body with an animal.”
“I do, kind of.” He opened the passenger door for me, closed it, and went around to the driver’s side. “The wolf acts on instinct, and I have to remember I’m human and not ruled by my reflexes and instincts. Duke’s wolf is always closer to the surface. He hears better, smells better, when he’s in human form than most of us, because of it, I think. I have a feeling Randall is the same.”
“You were Duke’s second, does that mean you were the second most powerful wolf?”
He chuckled. “Oh, no. I’m probably in the thirtieth percentile amongst the MC when it comes to strength and fighting ability, but I make up for the difference with brainpower. My wolf has learned to listen to me, when he’s holding the reins, as I can usually get us out of just about anything.”
“You probably wouldn’t have caught me if you’d been human.”
“I don’t know. At least twice, I’d have likely lost the trail, but there’s a good chance I’d have picked it up again online.”
“Do you want to run at Randall’s tonight?”
“Randall will make sure you’re physically safe while you’re on his property, but that doesn’t mean people won’t come talk to you, and I don’t want you hurt emotionally. I won’t leave you alone in Chattanooga so I can go running.”
“I still have other identities, with money in their accounts. I can get a room for the night while you run.”
“The Atlanta RTMC has land away from the city. You’ll be safer at home, when I need to run, but I’m good for now.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Brain
Harmony didn’t ask as many questions as I expected, and I wondered if she’d wait until we were home to let loose with her barrage.
We ate at a nice restaurant, and then headed to the address Abbott had given me, which turned out to be a huge-assed house on a golf course.
Eric met us on the front porch, and he shook my hand and then touched my arm as he said, “I’ve missed you. It isn’t the same with you gone.”
“Harmony, this is Eric. He has an overpriced yuppie crotch rocket, but the club still lets him ride with us, some.” I looked to Eric. “I assume you’ll take us to Abbott?”
He nodded. “Yeah, he’s up, and the guard could’ve let ya’ll downstairs, but Abbott figured you’d be more comfortable with me.”
Eric walked us through a hidden door, and then a series of doors, using a handprint for one, and an eye scanner for another.
I smelled Aaron, Sophia, and Gen as the last door opened, and I put my arm around Harmony to walk her into the room.
Aaron’s wife, Sophia, came running towards me and jumped as she neared, her tiny arms wrapping around my neck. I hugged her with one arm and looked to Harmony. “Remember Aaron telling you I’d helped keep his wife safe? This is his wife. Harmony, meet Sophia.”
I leaned forward until Sophia’s feet touched the floor, and she let go and turned to Harmony. “It’s nice to meet you. I haven’t seen Brain in too long, sorry about hugging him before I met you.” She glanced at Aaron, and back to us with a sheepish look. “I guess it was kind of rude, I hope you’ll accept my apology. Aaron tells me you’re as smart as Brain, and I couldn’t be happier for him, to have finally found his match. Come, sit down. Do you already know everyone?”
Gen stood and said, “No, I haven’t met her, though I’ve heard a lot about her.” She looked at Harmony and said, “I’m Gen, or I guess Brain has probably called me Duchess, if he’s talked about me. I’m Duke’s wife.”
I could smell my Buttercup’s anxiety, and I looked to Abbott as I said, “We came to give you information, I didn’t expect an ambush.”
He spread his arms and gave me an apologetic smile. “I lost track of you, and was worried. I’m happy to discover you had a good reason for falling off the grid for a while. I’m curious, though, as to whether you intend to fully integrate back into the Atlanta RTMC.”
Instead of answering him, I started with an explanation of why I thought Detective Appian was someone Abbott needed to be made aware of, and then let Harmony finish the explanation. She handed him a USB drive, and I said, “That’s all we came to tell you, so if someone can let us out, please?”
“Does Harmony know what I am?”
I shook my head, and he motioned towards an empty sofa. “I’d prefer she knew, since she already knows of the supernatural, in general.”
I looked at him a second and said, “You’re trying to help. Wanting to make sure she stays safe, doesn’t stumble into trouble because of something she doesn’t know.”
He nodded, and I walked Harmony to the sofa with a sigh.
“Occam’s Razor will probably give you the right answer here, too,” I told her as we sat.
“He’s in a room with no windows, and tons of security for his lair. So, vampire?”
Abbott smiled. “Got it in one. I’ll answer the initial questions — I drink blood, but don’t have to take enough to kill. Most of us are only up when the sun is below the horizon, but I’m stronger than most so I rise a few hours earlier, though I don’t go aboveground until the sun has set.”
“So, werewolves, vampires, and,” Harmony looked to Aaron, “other kinds of shapeshifters. What else is there?”
“I’m a swan,” Sophia said, her voice soft. “There are many kinds of shapeshifters. Our world can be harsh, especially to a human’s eyes. I’m sorry for the way you were treated. I know Duke to be a good man, and it saddens me to hear of the rift in his friendship with Brain. I hope you know how lucky you are to have the love of someone so loyal and true.”
“I do, and I’m sorry for the way I was introduced to your world, as well. It’s my hope Brain and Duke can eventually find a way to mend their fences, but I don’t believe I’ll ever be able to be in a room with Bash or Gonzo and not want to claw their faces off.”
Gen gave a short laugh and said, “I’ve felt the exact same way about Gonzo, on more than one occasion. I understand why Duke put him on you as a guard, but… darn-it-all, he messed up by not trustin
g Brain.”
Harmony looked at me in question, and I smiled big as I told her, “Yeah, the MC president’s wife doesn’t cuss.” I looked at Gen and said, “I miss you, Duchess, but I won’t be back.”
The rims of her eyes went red, and I saw tears forming. “No.” I told her. “No tears. Not fair.”
“We need you, Brain. The club’s falling apart without you, and everyone blames Duke for running you off. They vote against him just on principle, and if there was someone else capable of leading while keeping the club profitable, they’d probably be President by now. A third of the video cameras around town have stopped working, and McGyver has no idea why. He replaced a few of them with new cameras, but they still don’t work. The guys have had to step up patrols where there aren’t cameras, and the dealers are figuring out where they can come into the territory for short periods and get away with it. The fighting’s gotten worse… but all of that’s peanuts to the fact you just aren’t here anymore. There’s an empty place in the family.”
I looked at Harmony a few seconds, and then back to Gen. “The only way I’d consider coming back were if Duke, Gonzo, and Bash left. Then, and only then, would I step in.”
Her eyes froze and she whispered, “That won’t happen.”
“Then there’s no sense discussing it.” I looked to Abbott. “If you don’t need us for anything else?”
He nodded. “Certainly. Thank you for the information on the detective — the situation will be handled. The guards will let you out.”
“I’m going to walk you out, as well,” Aaron said as he stood.
No one said anything until we were outside by the car, and Aaron handed me a thumb drive. “My proposal, with Abbott’s blessing. Password is where you stored your motorcycle while you helped me keep Sophia safe. You’re a valued member of our society, and if you think Harmony’s special, I’m sure the rest of us will as well, once we get to know her.”
He looked to the sky a second, back to me. “I’m sorry if you feel I was out of line, watching your communications on the app. I consider you a friend, and don’t want to lose your friendship.”
“I’ll give you the courtesy of looking over your proposal.”
Aaron nodded to me, and looked at Harmony. “It was a pleasure meeting you, and I hope to see you again soon under less uncomfortable circumstances.”
When we were in the car and a few miles away, Harmony asked, “If Duke, Gonzo, and Bash were to leave, would that make you president?”
I shook my head. “They won’t leave. I just needed to be clear I can’t be in the same chapter as them.”
“I need to do a test, in front of government cameras, to make sure the surgery worked.”
I nodded, happy to change the conversation. “I’ve been considering the possibilities, and I’m thinking we take a trip to Nashville. There’s a city park just across the street from their huge arena, where it’d be easy to get lost in the crowd again. If we don’t get any bites from that, you can take a stroll around the state capitol, with me nearby on a borrowed motorcycle in case you need a fast getaway.”
She sighed and said, “I did some research on the FBI guy assigned to me. I’ve never been able to figure out who’s in charge of my case with the NSA, but the FBI agent has enough hacking skills, he’s more than a little dangerous. If I were in his shoes, the next time there’s a hit, I’d watch the cams but wouldn’t send anyone in. I’d let a half dozen hits go by, maybe even a dozen, before I moved on me again.”
“Right, to make you let your guard down, thinking you’re safe, so they can get you when you don’t have an exit strategy.”
Her eyes met mine — dark, serious. “If they ever put me together with you, it means we can’t stay together.”
“Then we’ll have to be sure they don’t.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Harmony
It was almost another week before the doctor finally released me to exercise, and I had Brain drive us back to Piedmont Park straight from the doctor’s office, so we could run. We ran a different loop, which meant we ran just under two miles, but I was embarrassingly out of breath two hundred yards into it. I slowed to a pathetic jog a few times, but I didn’t stop until we completed the loop.
And then I fell onto the ground on my back, my arms out to the side, and gasped for air.
Brain fell to the ground beside me, not the least out of breath, and said, “It won’t take long to get it back. Do you need me to carry you to the car?”
I didn’t bother answering, didn’t even glare at him, just stayed put and tried to catch my breath.
I looked at the moving clouds in the sky overhead, and pointed to one that kinda-sorta looked canine, and breathed out, “Wolf.”
He chuckled and pointed to another, “That one kind of looks like Tinkerbell.”
“Are there fairies, too?”
“Tinkerbell was a pixie, according to Disney, not a fairy.”
“So, there are fairies, and they’re nothing like Tinkerbell?”
“Can’t tell you about anything besides myself, Buttercup.”
I nodded and sat up. “I want to get dressed up and go out to eat. My treat.”
He shook his head and said, “My treat, but yeah, I’d love to take you out.”
I sat up and looked down at him. “Please tell me you aren’t going to do the macho bullshit where you always pay?”
He gave me a cocky smile, not in the least apologetic as he said, “Damned straight I am. You’re with me, I take care of you.”
I shook my head, looked around, and said, “While we’re talking money, I need to run something by you. I have several million dollars in a Cayman Island account, and nearly two million pounds in a Swiss account. I haven’t accessed any of the funds because the Russian Mafia is aware of that identity. I can hire a private plane to the Caymans and withdraw the cash in person without having to deal with Custom’s bullshit, but it’ll be a year or two before I try getting a passport under this identity. I won’t be able to touch the Swiss account for a while, but I’d like to see if it’s plausible to get it out of the one in the Caymans.”
He started to say something, but I spoke fast, before he had a chance. “I’d like to travel to Miami, open a bank account with another identity, and transfer the Swiss money to the U.S. account. From there, it’ll take me three days to move the funds through several financial systems until I have the money in forms that can’t be tracked back to the original identity, and also isn’t connected to the Harmony ID, but will allow me to legally access it in the future without danger.”
“Why Miami?”
“I spent two years on the eastern coast of Florida, I know my way around. It’s a large city, easy to get lost in.”
“Three days? You have to know they’ll show up and find you if they’re keeping an eye on the account.”
I shook my head. “A wig with heavy bangs, big designer colored glasses that look prescription but aren’t, silicon injections in my lips just before I leave for the trip, deep contouring under and around my eyes, and bright lipstick… no one’ll get an image they can compare to the new Harmony. I’ll be in and out of the bank in under an hour to set up the account, and will use someone’s free wi-fi to transfer the funds from the Swiss bank to the Miami bank. I’ll hack the router while I’m there, and then the next day we’ll go somewhere else, and spoof the IP of the place we were the day before, for me to do the first dozen or so transactions.”
I detailed my plan, and he stayed on the grass, looking up at me, and let me talk.
When I finished, he said, “How about we talk to Aaron Drake about hiring one of his planes and a pilot to get us to the Caymans, get the money out in person, so you’ll have it as untraceable cash, and then you let me work on a way to get us to Switzerland without dealing with Customs. I don’t like any of it, and if it were just about the money I’d tell you to forget it, let it go. However, since you know they’re likely watching the accounts, it feels like this i
s more about you making a statement that they can’t hurt you, can’t affect you. It’s your money and you should be able to get it.”
I nodded, unable to talk because my emotions swelled into my throat. There was no way he picked all of that up with his sense of smell, how had he known?
He sat up and pulled me into his arms. “Okay, then. We need to talk about Drake’s offer, figure out how to respond to him, because he’ll ask us about it when we contact him about hiring the plane.”
I nodded. “It makes sense, for him to hire both of us, list me as snack shop manager and pay me an appropriate salary, and pay you the difference in what I’m making and should make, but it bothers me.”
“Because it means we have to stay together? Ties us together financially?”
I nodded. “It shouldn’t trigger the IRS on Harmony, as her occupation will basically stay the same, so it’ll work…” I shrugged. “It just doesn’t sit well with me.” Changing the conversation, I pointed out, “If we do the Cayman trip, we’ll be there three days. I’ll have to walk in and make the request, and then go back to pick up the cash two days later. I use a private bank — they won’t balk at the large withdrawal, but they don’t keep millions on hand in the vault.”
Brain sat with a heavy sigh. “That complicates things.” I was afraid he’d completely nix the idea, say he wouldn’t help, but he surprised me by saying, “Just means we need to plan everything to the nth degree and have more than one escape plan in case things go sideways.”
I threw my arms around his neck. “Thanks for understanding I need to do this, but I can’t ask you to go with me. If anyone puts you there, they might start watching you, and then they’ll find me. I have to do this, Brain. Just me.”
His arms wrapped around me as he said, “You’ll have to walk into the bank alone, or with someone Aaron provides who can’t be traced back to Drake Security, but you won’t be going to the Islands alone. We’re a team, Buttercup.”
Brain Page 17
