Beyond the Cut

by Sarah Castille

  “Monkeys are lame,” Cade said. “How about we go see some real animals. Predators. Lions, tigers…”

  “And bears?”

  Cade cracked a grin. “Saw that movie when I was a kid. Mom loved it. Me not so much. Dorothy put the damn lion to shame. Made me appreciate a strong woman, though. Damn, you made me proud this morning.”

  “What happened to him?” she asked when the girls were out of earshot.

  “We taught him a lesson, then handed him over. Benson called an ambulance and when the bastard is all fixed up, he’ll spend some time in jail. Probably get out on bail. Trial a coupla years away … Due process. Just like you wanted.” Cade stopped walking and pulled her into his arms, his hands smoothing down the back of her cut. “Having second thoughts?”

  “Yes. I’ve never done anything like that in my life.”

  “Did it feel good?”

  Dawn bit her lip. “It felt … great.” So great she’d wished she’d been able to do that to her uncle and Jimmy. Maybe even Shelly-Ann. Although Shelly-Ann had been almost decent when she dropped the girls off. Not only had she bought Maia and Tia new clothes and toys, she took the money Dawn gave her without asking for more. If Dawn hadn’t been so shocked, she might have asked why. Shelly-Ann had acted almost as if she felt guilty, overcompensating the way Jimmy had the days after the nights he lost control.

  Maia led them to the lion enclosure and they arrived just as the lion trainer began his presentation. Dawn’s nose wrinkled at the sharp scent of blood coming from the lions’ evening meal. She turned her focus to the talk as the girls settled on the bench between her and Cade.

  When had she last seen them so relaxed and happy? She gave Tia’s hand a squeeze and her daughter looked up and beamed. Dawn’s eyes teared. Nothing warmed her heart more than her daughters’ smiles.

  Turning her attention back to the talk, she learned that male lions did little but eat, sleep, and copulate multiple times a day. By contrast, the female lions did all the hunting and raising the young.

  “What does copulate mean?” Maia asked.

  “It means have fun.” Cade whispered. “And the lions have it right. Males need to conserve their energy to protect their females and cubs from predators, and for important nighttime activities.”

  “You can be the male lion,” Maia said. “Tia and I will be your cubs. You can protect us from predators like you did at the park.”

  Cade tucked one girl under each arm. “Good idea. And how about your mom pretends to be a lioness and gets us some burgers while I keep people away from her seat?”

  “Male lions don’t get to partake of nighttime activities if the lioness is tired from running around hunting for food.” Dawn folded her arms. Seriously, sometimes she wondered if Cade belonged in the Stone Age.

  Cade quickly detached himself from the girls. “So, what does everyone want on their burgers?”

  “We all just want ketchup and Mom also wants candy floss,” Maia said as he turned to leave. “Pink.”

  “Pink candy floss?” Cade’s mouth turned up at the corners.

  Dawn blushed. “My happiest childhood memories involve pink candy floss, roller coasters, and stuffed animals my mom won for me at carnival games. When she was young, she dated a carnie and he taught her all the tricks.”

  “Candy floss, three stuffed animals, and five burgers coming up.” He winked at Dawn. “I was a carnie when I was a teenager. My mom thought a summer job would keep me out of trouble, but carnival folk aren’t a conservative bunch.”

  Maia counted five fingers and frowned. “That’s one burger too many.”

  “I’ll need two.” Cade grinned and lowered his voice. “Extra energy for nighttime activities.”

  Dawn snorted a laugh. “From what we’ve just heard about lions, I don’t think you can compete. Didn’t the trainer mention something about one hundred times a day?”

  “Babe.” He leaned forward and brushed his lips over her ear. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding. Lions have nothing on me. I haven’t even begun to show you my best moves.”

  And didn’t that just put all the wrong thoughts in her head for a day at the zoo.

  They spent the rest of the afternoon watching the animals, and then Cade and Dawn pushed the girls on the swings in a nearby playground. They were having so much fun no one saw Shelly-Ann arrive.

  “Well, look at this.” Shelly-Ann’s eyes lit up with a gotcha smile and she pulled out her phone. “Jimmy’s not gonna be happy to see a picture of his old lady parading around in a Sinner cut. Didn’t notice it when I dropped off the girls. Maybe I shoulda got out of the car.”

  Dawn clamped her hand around Shelly-Ann’s wrist and pulled her close. “Then let’s not make him unhappy. Put the phone away.”

  Shelly-Ann jerked her head away and her hair swung back behind her ear. Dawn stared at the massive bruise on ex sister-in-law’s cheek, the size and shape eerily familiar.

  “What happened to your face?”

  “Nothing.” Shelly-Ann’s face shuttered, and she tugged her hair down.

  “It was Jimmy, wasn’t it? He always uses his right hand and his Brethren ring leaves a mark.”

  When Shelly-Ann didn’t answer, Dawn pushed a little harder. “Did you ask him for more money because I don’t have enough? Is that why he trashed my house? Does he not believe I’m giving you everything I’ve got?”

  Guilt flickered across Shelly-Ann’s face, but it disappeared so fast Dawn wasn’t sure if she’d seen it. “Don’t know anything about Jimmy. Or the money he’s after.” She turned to shout for the girls and Dawn saw finger-shaped bruises on her neck.

  “He tried to strangle you.” Her voice caught. “Shelly-Ann, you don’t have to let him do that to you. I can help.”

  “Don’t you fucking be nice to me.” Shelly-Ann’s face curdled. “You think you’re something now that you’re wearing that cut? You think being with the Sinners will solve all your problems? You’re too damn good to be bad. You don’t have what it takes to be a biker chick. When Jimmy finally comes for you—and nothing will stop him now that he thinks you’ve got his money—I’ll be fucking relieved ’cause I’m tired of watching you fight. Just give up. You’ll never beat him. I don’t understand why you never give the fuck up.”

  “What money? I don’t understand.”

  Cade put a steady hand on Dawn’s shoulder. “I almost forgot. I brought some ammo for your gun, babe.” He reached into his pocket and handed her a magazine. “That enough?”

  She stared him in disbelief. “Um … thanks for giving me that ammo, and so subtly threatening my ex-sister-in-law in the parking lot of the zoo.”

  Totally oblivious to her sarcasm, Cade smiled. “Pleasure, sweetheart.”

  Shelly-Ann rubbed her wrist, bouncing back to her nasty, officious self in seconds. “You’re quite the pair. A regular Bonnie and Clyde. I’ll be glad when Jimmy’s done with you and I can go back to my nice quiet life.”

  Cade’s eyes lit with humor. “Teamwork. You should try it sometime.”

  Five minutes later, after a flurry of tears and good-byes, Dawn followed Cade to his motorcycle in the parking lot. But when he put out a hand to help her mount, she took a step back.

  “Did you really think I would shoot her? I felt good when I hit Stan because what he did was so utterly wrong, and so deeply personal, but it doesn’t mean I’ve changed my views about violence. I’m not going to run around with a gun shooting anyone who pisses me off. Not Jimmy, and certainly not Shelly-Ann.”

  Cade cupped her face between her hands and stared at her intently. “You can’t avoid violence in this life. Even when you left Mad Dog, you were still a part of his world. He’s playing the game by different rules. Now you’re on even footing. You have options. And one of them is me. Not just now. Always.”

  “What are you saying?” Her heart thudded in her chest. She knew what he was saying. She just didn’t want to hear it.

  He leaned down and brushed a soft kiss ov
er her forehead. “I’m saying I’m here for you. Anything I am and anything I have is yours. However you want to deal with this situation, I’m on board. And when we both get what we want, when you’ve got your girls, and I’ve got justice, I’m not gonna let you go.”

  FIFTEEN

  My ink is my heart. My cut is my bond. My bike is my soul.

  SINNER’S TRIBE CREED

  Cade joined Gunner, Zane, and a handful of Demon Spawn brothers crammed into the only strip bar in Whitefish. The dark, scuzzy dive in the center of town contained a small stage with a pole, no more than twenty worn, wooden tables, and enough smoke to conceal a wildfire. But it fitted Cade’s mood to a T. He didn’t want to be here. The Sinners didn’t want to be here. And Demon Spawn definitely didn’t want to be here since they suspected the Sinners hadn’t come for a simple social visit.

  And they were right. The Sinners hadn’t just traveled to Whitefish to deal with the Demon Spawn members who attacked Zane and Cade in the alley. Dax had obtained some very disturbing information from Matchstick in the Sinner dungeon, and Cade and Zane intended to find out if it was true.

  So now they were all pretending to celebrate, but the only person with a smile was the stripper on the pole.

  Gunner slid over in the booth and Cade joined him, falling back against the plush, black velvet cushions. The prospect hovered at his shoulder, and he sent the kid away to find him a drink.

  “Nice of you to join us.” Gunner grabbed a beer from the collection in the center of the table. “I wasn’t sure you’d make it tonight.”

  “Neither was I,” Cade said, keeping his voice low. “Who woulda thought I’d be spending my honeymoon offing a bunch of betraying Demon Spawn bastards?”

  “Whaddya think of our girls?” The Demon Spawn VP, Skid Mark, soon to learn he was the new president, leaned over to shout above Warrant’s “Cherry Pie,” while the dancer spun around the pole. He was clearly drunk, his eyes at half-mast and his words slurred. “I hear you’re the expert.”

  “Not anymore. Got an old lady now.”

  “That’s right. I heard about that, too. You stole Mad Dog’s old lady.”

  Gunner tensed, but Cade played it cool. “Can’t steal something if it didn’t belong to him.”

  “You steal his kids, too? They’ll ruin your life, man. Suck your wallet dry.”

  Gunner was out of his seat now. And Zane, too. The prospect put down the beer he’d brought for Cade and moved to intercept the bouncer heading their way.

  “You got a lot of personal information about Mad Dog’s situation.” Cade sipped his beer and fought for calm. “Kinda curious since Mad Dog lives way down south and you live way up north. But then, he likes to visit up here, doesn’t he? Maybe he’s a big skier, or does he come for the roads? Or maybe he likes disrespecting a brother’s old lady, just like you.”

  Theory of a Deadman’s “Bad Girlfriend” blasted through the tinny speakers and a new dancer took the stage, but the audience was now watching the conversation between Cade and Skid Mark. Tension thrummed through the bar, a powder keg ready to explode.

  “Hey man, no offense. Just rumors. Congrats on getting hitched.”

  “He didn’t mean to offend.” Skid Mark’s companion offered Cade a beer. “Sometimes he runs off at the mouth when he’s had too much to drink.”

  Cade pushed the beer away. Disrespect was disrespect and it couldn’t be smoothed over with words. Plus, he’d been itching for this fight since he left Conundrum. According to Matchstick, a handful of Demon Spawn members were Black Jack puppets, bikers who did the Jacks’ dirty work in exchange for the promise of being allowed to form a new Black Jack chapter, or be patched over to the club, and it was time to put them in their place.

  Justice for their treason would be swift and fierce, and Cade was leading the charge.

  “Not interested in beer, but I am interested in teaching shit-for-brains a lesson in respect.” He grabbed Skid Mark by the hair and smashed his head down on the table. “You can fucking apologize to me outside for disrespecting my old lady.”

  The music kept playing.

  The dancer kept dancing.

  The bikers drew their weapons.

  Zane paid off the bouncers.

  Cade’s phone buzzed in his cut.

  “Gotta take a call.” He thudded Skid Mark’s head on the table again. “You gonna walk outside or I gotta drag you?” He hadn’t expected to have to make a show of the Sinners’ dominance so soon, or in public, but what the hell.

  Let’s get the party started.

  “Fuck you,” Skid Mark said.

  Cade pulled his gun from his cut and held it to Skid Mark’s head. Skid Mark’s Demon Spawn brothers pointed their weapons at Cade. He almost laughed at their lack of resolve.

  “Tell your brothers to stand down or someone is gonna get hurt and I promise it will be you.”

  “Stand down,” Skid Mark shouted, blood trickling from the side of his head.

  The dancer on the pole did a Hands-Free Marley to Mötley Crüe’s “Girls, Girls, Girls” and the dudes in perverts’ row at the front clapped. Clearly there had trouble in the bar before. Cade had never seen a more brazen performance of “the show must go on.”

  Once upon a time, Dawn had been that girl on the pole. She’d danced, not because she wanted to dance, but because she had been given no choice. She would have finished her show and then gone down to perverts’ row for the lap dances that were a dancer’s bread and butter. Men would have touched her. Maybe more. And all the while Mad Dog would have watched and done nothing to protect her. Cade clenched his hand by his side, pushing the thoughts away as he tried to focus on the task at hand. As if he weren’t wound up tight already.

  His phone buzzed again. Zane, Gunner, and T-Rex disarmed the Demon Spawn brothers and tossed their weapons into the prospect’s backpack. They wouldn’t have been quite as bold if there hadn’t been twenty more Sinners waiting on their bikes outside.

  Cade threw a wad of money on the table and forced Skid Mark up at gunpoint. “Let’s go for a walk. I’ll leave your mouth alone so you can apologize and tell me which of your members are Black Jack puppets.”

  Skid Mark paled and Cade snorted a laugh. “Yeah, we know about the Jacks, and you’re gonna give us a list of the puppet members. If your list doesn’t match the one we got from Matchstick, you get to make up the difference.” He yanked Matchstick’s cut from his pack and threw it at Skid Mark. “Congrats, by the way. Looks like you got a promotion. Matchstick won’t be needing that anymore. Wear it while you can, ’cause it won’t be for long.”

  His phone buzzed again—probably Jagger wanting an update. Damn irritating. He nodded at Gunner and Zane to take his hostage, and then he turned off his phone. Punishment time. Jagger would damn well have to wait.

  He headed outside where his Sinner brothers had herded the rest of the Demon Spawn members into a field behind the strip club. The local sheriff and his deputies were hog-tied in the police station, and the roads were blocked. No one was coming to help Demon Spawn now.

  Cade handed Skid Mark a piece of paper and a pen. Skid Mark shuffled over to a patch of grass, silver in the moonlight, and wrote down a list of names that matched the one Dax had given to Cade. The traitors, including Skid Mark, were culled from the rest of the herd, and Gunner ushered the remaining Demon Spawn members away. Cade held a gun to Skid Mark’s head.

  “Bad fucking decision.”

  “Yeah. We should never have listened to Mad Dog, but Matchstick trusted him. They were friends going way back. He told us the Jacks were the stronger club. He said they’d been making up puppet members all over the state, hiding their numbers so they could take you down when you weren’t expecting it. He said we should join the winning team before it was too late.”

  Cade didn’t know what Mad Dog had to do with the Black Jack puppets in Demon Spawn, because Matchstick had kicked the bucket before he could share that information. Usually Zane kept Dax under control d
uring torture sessions, but he’d been busy gathering intel on the Jacks and Dax got carried away. He loved his work, but sometimes the sadist in him got a little too greedy.

  He kicked the gravel underfoot, struggling between offing the bastard now and pumping him for more information. “Mad Dog didn’t think his own club was the winning team? Demon Spawn and the Devil’s Brethren would have been a good fit.”

  Skid Mark cast a worried glance at his brothers and Cade cuffed him on the head. “Don’t look at them. Look at me. I’m the one who chooses whether you live or die. If you’re cooperative, you might wind up in the hospital instead of the grave the brothers are digging just outside of town. I’m interested in Mad Dog and why he’s sniffing around.

  “Mad Dog is a Black Jack puppet in the Brethren, like some of his men. The Jacks are backing him to win the Brethren election on the condition he patches the entire club over to the Jacks. He’s been paying off Wolf’s supporters to vote for him ’cause the Jacks made him all sorts of promises if he can get the job done.”

  Good information. Cade shared a glance with Zane who nodded in silent agreement. If they’d picked up Skid Mark instead of Matchstick, Dax wouldn’t have had any fun. They hadn’t even had to break a finger. “You shoulda called us.”

  Sweat beaded on Skid Mark’s forehead, and he wiped it away with the back of his hand. “Hell … we’re a small club. Most of us have families and we support them mainly by running guns for the bigger clubs. I’m a single dad with two little girls. Mad Dog came here recruiting for the Jacks. He said the Jacks would let us form our own chapter, fully funded, and give us a cut of the arms trade up north. How could we pass that up? You Sinners just came in here, forced us to be a support club, and walked away. We helped Mad Dog empty a warehouse where the Brethren were storing their weapons, and he paid us for our trouble.”

  Gunner kicked him in the side. “You pass it up because you’re a Sinner support club. You pass it up out of loyalty, respect, and the fact that if you don’t you fucking die.”