THE DEVIL’S BRIDE
Page 12
There was no reaction from the man, which meant he didn’t work for Alexei, Paul gathered. His shoulders drooped, all the bravado rushing out of him. He had gotten himself all worked up over nothing.
“Niko isn’t around, so if you’re looking for him, I can’t really…” Paul stopped midsentence once again, this time because the man had removed his sunglasses and Paul now finally knew who he was. “Holy shit, you’re Ace Connor,” Paul breathed, right before passing out from fear.
Ace looked at the unconscious boy at his feet. “Goddammit,” he said, sighing. He nudged Paul with his boot. Nothing. He nudged harder. Still nothing.
Taking a quick look around, Ace hooked his elbows under Paul’s armpits and hurriedly dragged him into the alley behind the warehouse. He propped Paul up against the brick wall, wincing as the kid’s head scraped along the rough stone.
Ace stood up, panting a little. He was in good shape, especially for a man in his early thirties, but he had to admit, things were beginning to ache.
Paul groaned and began to stir. “Please don’t hit me again,” he pleaded, looking up at Ace. “I swear, I have no idea where Niko is.”
“I didn’t hit you the first time!” Ace said indignantly. “You fainted!”
“Well, that’s embarrassing,” Paul muttered. Ace offered a hand and he took it, pulling himself up. “What do you want with Niko? If it’s to kill him, you’re wasting your time. Alexei’s already on it,” he said, gesturing to the building across the street with one hand while rubbing the back of his head with the other. “You sure you didn’t hit me?” he asked skeptically.
“To be honest, I don’t want anything to do with Niko,” Ace said, ignoring Paul’s comment, “but his sister, Fiona, came around a tad pissed off about Alexei wanting to kill her brother and looking for help. Thing is, I like to be informed before I go sticking my nose where it might get shot off, and Fiona hasn’t been very forthcoming with the details, see?”
If Ace were to be perfectly honest, he would have mentioned he hadn’t really asked Fiona for any details. There wasn’t any point to it, really. She was too close to him to see the truth about Niko. That was why he needed Paul.
“Why do you care what Fiona wants?” Paul blurted out.
Ace scowled at Paul and grabbed him by the back of the neck. “Do you want to ask questions, or do you want to keep your tongue?”
“Sorry!” Paul squeaked out.
Ace glared at him for another minute to make sure he got the point, then let go. “Tell me what happened with Niko,” he ordered, folding his arms.
“Well, I guess it all started out a while back when I met Niko, because, well, we were going to be heading to this place out in…the…” Paul’s voice faded as he noticed Ace’s menacing stare. He was nervous, and babbling because of it. “Sorry,” Paul repeated. “Um, Niko has a pretty bad drug problem, especially when it comes to the nose candy, if you know what I mean, and he was always short on cash. So when Alexei gave us the opportunity to run some drugs, well, we took it,” Paul admitted.
Ace sighed. He could guess where this was headed. “Niko started tasting his own product, didn’t he?”
Paul fervently shook his head. “No way, man. Niko might ride the white pony a little too often for me, but he was smarter than that,” he insisted.
“Then what happened?”
Paul looked at his shoes. “We got jumped. They took everything; our money and our stash. Alexei was pissed. Told us we were responsible for it.”
Ace was nonplussed. “What happened to your guard?”
“Our what?” Paul asked, equally confused.
“Your guard,” Ace repeated. “You should have had a guard with you to make sure that exact thing didn’t happen to you…” He trailed off, seeing Paul wasn’t understanding anything he was saying. Come on, Alexei, Ace thought, aggravated. This is Drug-Running 101; where’s your head at? Unless…
“Paul, do you know who jumped you?” Ace asked urgently. “Did they say anything?”
Paul frowned as he thought back to that night. “No…” he said slowly. “Why?”
Ace sighed. “Because Alexei rolled you two.”
“What do you mean?” Paul asked anxiously.
“It’s a fucked up thing to do, but then, Alexei’s pretty fucked up,” Ace said. “You send out a runner with no guard so they’re defenseless, then you send someone out after the runner to rob them. It’s easy because you know exactly where they are on the route,” he explained. “They come back and you demand they come up with the money or you kill them. Then they have twice as much, see? The only thing I don’t understand is why Alexei would pull this on Niko. There’s nothing to suggest Niko would be able to pay up,” Ace wondered aloud.
Paul’s shoulders suddenly drooped.
“What?” Ace asked suspiciously.
“My cousin, Patrick,” Paul said miserably. “He’s rich—he paid for my share, and even some of Niko’s. Alexei must’ve been going after me,” he stuttered, clearly distressed.
“Yeah, probably,” Ace agreed absentmindedly.
This changed things considerably. It had been one thing to rile the gang up this morning, but as much as he hated to admit it, Katie had been right—they weren’t going to be swayed for long by some sap who couldn’t pay his debts. But if Alexei was intentionally rolling his own runners, well, that was a different story.
The gangs of Chicago often hastily formed alliances and broke them just as quickly – that is, when there were enough gangs for an alliance to be necessary. These cease-fires, which were fragile enough to begin with, were most frequently broken when one gang jumped another gang’s runner. Attacking your own runner could inadvertently end a truce. Plus, it was just bad business—if you can’t protect your employees, no one will want to work for you.
I can take this back to The Hell Brothers as a real issue. I can work this! Ace thought excitedly, purposely ignoring why he was so happy he was going to be able to help Fiona without putting too much strain on his role as the leader of the gang.
“Ex-excuse me,” Paul stammered nervously, pulling Ace from his reverie.
Ace snapped his head up to look at him. “What?” he demanded.
“Can I help?” Paul asked timidly. “Niko was—is my friend, and if I didn’t have my cousin, Alexei would be hunting me down right now, too.”
Ace didn’t think it was a good idea to bring someone of Alexei’s back to headquarters just yet, but he was glad to have a guy on the inside. He smirked, imagining Katie’s face when he told her he had a double agent. That’ll show her, he thought smugly.
“What can you tell me?” Ace needed information, and quickly.
“Uh, well, um.” Paul was struggling under the pressure to remember the conversation he’d overheard only an hour earlier. Ace took a deep breath, trying not to strangle the kid with his bare hands. “Vlad’s pushing Alexei to kill all you guys, well, not all, but enough that you won’t be able to do business anymore.”
“I know that already,” Ace said impatiently. “What did he say about Fiona? And Niko?” he added hurriedly.
“Oh, that. Alexei wants both of them by the end of the week,” Paul said. “I said something about maybe getting them to leave Fiona alone, but they didn’t like that. I…I don’t think it’s about the money anymore.”
Ace rolled his eyes. He could have guessed that much, as well. Paul was essentially useless. But that didn’t mean he always would be. “Okay, Paul, that’s great,” Ace lied. “Can you keep doing this? Can you keep telling me what’s going on with Alexei? If you do, I promise I will help your friend Niko.”
“If it’ll help Niko—anything,” Paul said firmly. “Thank you, Mr. Connor.”
“No problem.” Ace rubbed the back of his neck, hurrying to leave before the kid burst into tears or something.
He needed to go to Fiona’s and talk to her about what he’d just found out, but he doubted she would want to see him right now. After he’d left so abrupt
ly last night, he’d sort of been avoiding her. Ace angrily rolled his shoulders. What’d she fucking expect anyway? I’m not the kind of guy who brings a girl breakfast in bed, and if Fiona thought otherwise, that’s her own damn fault!
He wanted to believe that was true, he really did, but deep down, Ace knew the reason he left last night was because of the weird, sick feeling in the pit of his stomach he couldn’t name. It was that feeling that made him run from Fiona’s bedroom last night, and it was what kept him from kissing Katie earlier.
Either not wanting or not ready to face whatever it was that was growing inside of him, Ace shoved his emotions all the way down to the bottom of his gut and put on his game face. He would be all business when he saw Fiona, that was for certain.
***
“Ugh, that was so good. I needed that,” Fiona said, patting her distended belly.
“I don’t know whether to be impressed or disgusted,” Melanie said in awe.
She and Melanie had just returned from Denny’s, where Fiona had completely inhaled six strips of bacon, two biscuits with honey, three sausages, three sunny-side up eggs, two and a half glasses of orange juice, and four pancakes loaded with strawberries, syrup, and butter, courtesy of Melanie’s mom’s credit card.
“Be jealous,” Fiona said, sighing contentedly.
She wanted nothing more than to fall back on her couch and pass out, but her sofa was still shot to shit and, more importantly, she still had to find Ace again. She was growing more and more concerned that he hadn’t stopped by, or at least called her.
What if Melanie’s right? Fiona thought worriedly. What if he played me—played on my situation?
Oh, right, her cynical side replied, the leader of a motorcycle gang has nothing better to do with his time than to trick someone like you into letting him eat your pussy, sure.
“What’s wrong?” Melanie asked, seeing her friend’s sour face.
“Huh?” Fiona was startled out of her self-deprecating thoughts. “Oh, nothing. I just remembered that Ace is supposed to come over soon to tell me his plan for Alexei,” she lied.
In reality, Fiona needed to figure out how she was going to get in touch with Ace, and since she wasn’t ready to admit to Melanie that she might have been conned, she was going to have to do it herself.
“Do you want me to stay? Give you an excuse to avoid…anything?” Melanie offered kindly.
“Um, I think he would probably see through that. You should just go,” Fiona said hurriedly. “But, thanks, really,” she added genuinely. Melanie was a better friend than she deserved right now.
There was a knock at the door that startled both of them. Melanie let out a little scream. “He must be early!” she said, laughing at her own reaction.
“Yeah…” Fiona said slowly, staring at the door, confused. “Must be.”
She walked over to the door, a small wave of cool relief washing over her. She didn’t know why Ace would just randomly show up to her house without notice, but she didn’t care. Fiona was just glad he was here.
She opened the door to see what could quite possibly be considered the very antithesis of Ace.
“Fiona!” Ash exclaimed, throwing his arms around her—a difficult feat considering one of his hands held a massive bouquet of red and pink roses. “I’m so glad you’re okay! I pulled up and saw the house! What happened?”
Fiona gently but firmly pushed Ash away from her, taking a deep breath now that she wasn’t being suffocated to death by a floral arrangement. “Ash, what are you doing here?” she asked.
“You haven’t responded to any of my calls or texts for almost a week, so I thought I would pop by with a little surprise,” he waved the oversized bouquet, “and say hello!”
Fiona sighed and turned back to look at her friend. “Melanie…” Melanie cut her off with a wave of her hand.
“Got it,” she said, picking her bag up off of the floor. She gave Ash a sympathetic little pat on the shoulder as she walked past him, shutting the front door behind her.
Ash looked at his shoulder as though Melanie had wiped rat shit on it. “I don’t know why you talk to her,” he said, glaring after Melanie.
Fiona ignored him. She’d had that argument with him far too often for someone who wasn’t even her boyfriend. “Ash, this isn’t a great time right now. I’m kind of in the middle of something,” she told him.
“I can see that, Fiona!” he gestured to the destroyed living room. His dull brown eyes narrowed at her. “This has something to do with your deadbeat brother, doesn’t it?”
Someone knocked on the door again, loudly this time. Figuring it was Melanie, Fiona went to answer it. Maybe she overheard Ash and came back, she hoped.
She opened the door and was met by a pair of dark green eyes.
“Ace,” she breathed.
It wasn’t until Fiona felt this rollercoaster of expectations that she grasped how attracted she was to this man. Shoving this realization far into the deep recesses of her mind, she stepped back to let Ace inside.
“Who is he?” Ash asked indignantly, a touch of fear in his voice.
“He’s helping me with my deadbeat brother,” Fiona said contemptuously.
Ash’s face swiftly changed to one of regret. “Oh, Fiona, you know I didn’t mean that. I just worry about you.”
“I think the lady would prefer if you left,” Ace interjected menacingly, his hands unconsciously tightening into fists.
He felt extremely territorial coming over to Fiona’s house and finding a man already there—one with clear romantic intent, judging by the rosebush sitting on the table. Ace wanted nothing more than to take those roses and shove them somewhere they would never see sunshine again.
Deep down, he knew he had no right to this feeling. Obviously this…person had history with Fiona, one that predated all of the eighteen hours Ace had known her. That’s what makes it sting, though, he decided. His only claim to Fiona was the deal she was bound to. If it weren’t for that, she would probably be with what’s-his-face over there—the kid who couldn’t stop staring at Fiona with big, pleading puppy-dog eyes.
Ace snorted softly to himself, rolling his shoulders. That’s the problem with getting attached to people—it’s never what you want it to be, but you’re so dependent on them you become weak, he thought, looking over at the two of them. The sap was holding Fiona by her bicep, whispering agitatedly to her and glancing at Ace as though to make sure he was keeping his distance. Even worse, you don’t even see how pathetic you’re being.
He couldn’t think of anything more appalling.
Ace strode over to the pair, clapping his hand on the sap’s narrow shoulders. “Sorry, but the lady and I have business to attend to, and you’ve overstayed your welcome.”
Fiona tried not to giggle as she watched Ace steer a highly indignant and spluttering Ash towards the front door, pushing him out rather unceremoniously. She felt a little guilty that she enjoyed seeing that so much.
Ace slammed the door, a firm sense of satisfaction clicking into place as he locked the deadbolt. “Goddamn,” he cursed. “I don’t know how you can stand even to talk to that guy, let alone fuck him.”
Fiona’s temper suddenly flared. “At least he’s there when I wake up in the morning,” she snapped.
Should have seen that one coming. “So suddenly I’m boyfriend material? That wasn’t the deal, sweet cheeks.” He grinned lustily.
“You are most certainly not boyfriend material,” Fiona vehemently agreed. “That’s the whole point with Ash,” she explained. “I don’t have the time for a full-fledged relationship right now, but…something’s better than nothing,” she said, shrugging.
“Is that why you’re still helping your brother, despite the fact that all he does is weigh you down?” Ace asked suddenly. “Because some family is better than no family?”
“What?” Fiona said defensively. “No! Of course not! Niko is my brother and I love him. He does not weigh me down,” she informed.
“I told you right away that my brother had problems!” Fiona fired back.
“So you did know about him?” Ace said in disbelief. “You know all about the coke, and him running drugs? Everything?”
Fiona nodded defiantly. “So?”
“So I’m willing to bet this isn’t the first time you’ve had to bail out your brother, and because you refused to cut ties with him, now it’s about to be the last!” Ace said, letting out a small laugh. Fiona said nothing to dispute him, and he knew he was right. “I get you’re stuck on the family thing because of your dad, but let me be the first to tell you: families suck, and people suck, too. And if you rely too much on them, you’re just giving them more and more opportunities to let you down,” he told her regretfully.