“Yeah – your bullshit, bro,” the sergeant snorted over his shoulder, taking the interruption as nothing more than a piss-poor attempt to detract attention from the question in hand. “If you don’t wanna tell me, I’m gonna assume--”
But that was as far as he got in trying to bust his brother’s balls before the smell hit him too – just ahead of the wave of intense heat. The whole place went up fast, like the big kerosene-soaked inferno someone had made sure it turned into.
***
CHAPTER 30
“Fucking hell!” Sam spluttered, coughing smoke out of his lungs and thanking their lucky stars they hadn’t actually been inside when the ill-fated strip club had gone up. As it was, something had exploded and the blast had knocked them on their asses. Glass from the windows shattering and sprayed shards outwards, as he and Colton pulled each other to their feet and scrambled to safety. “You think the firebug got out?”
“Didn’t see. Could have,” Colton grimaced, trying to dust himself off and inadvertently rubbing dirt and grime into the little cuts and grazes he’d managed to acquire. “Think it was the bangers?”
“Had to be. At least it looks like Will’s in the clear now, with the law anyway,” the sergeant said, dashing the back of his arm across his stinging eyes. He was already guessing that the Norteños got scared the cops would start sniffing round looking for Dixie and somehow find out about their crank. “Ain’t nothin’ left to investigate.”
“But they must already know Dixie was shot, even if the cops think he died in the fire.”
“True. But I guess we just gotta wait and see if they know enough to retaliate in the right direction. Nothing more we can do, is there?” Sam sighed, watching what had turned into a make-shift funeral pyre burn and hearing the crash as part of the roof caved in. “Let’s just get the hell out of here before the fire crews show up. Dunno about you, but adding arson to the rap sheets is the last thing I need.”
Recognising the sense in that, Colton turned and headed for his bike, mumbling curses under his breath as he went. It was barely 9am and he’d already had to forgo climbing back into the comfort of Callie’s bed with her, only to come damn close to having been burned to a crisp in some dive – as mornings went, he’d had better.
“Ah, quit bellyachin’, dude,” Sam summoned a grin, hearing the dark mutterings as he followed. “Go tell your girl it’s her turn again to kiss your boo-boos better ...” He trailed off into laughter as his brother simply flipped him the bird without so much as breaking stride.
***
She knew she couldn’t avoid him forever, but dealing with Michael was not what her poor abused head needed right now. Ignoring him or sending him away though ... Well, that only ran the risk of him coming back and she’d rather face him alone than chance Colton adding to the bloodshed her living room had seen of late.
Besides, it wasn’t like she was scared of him and she couldn’t quite shake the guilty feeling that she did owe the man at least some kind of explanation. She hated feeling like she’d led him on, jerking him around and letting him think there was more between them than there really was. But deep down, she knew that was exactly what she’d done. Her only saving grace was that she’d been trying to kid herself as much as anyone.
“Callie, come on!”
The call made her wince, irked by his impatience but at least appeased that he hadn’t seen fit to just use the key he’d wrangled out of her once upon a time. Nothing like a semi-serious head injury to set some boundaries.
“All right, all right,” she called, steeling herself for the encounter as she padded reluctantly across the floor in her slipper socks. A glance through the tiny peep hole showed her ex shifting restlessly in the hallway, before she opened the door and stepped back to let him in.
She was so used to him extending his courtroom bravado to his personal dealings that she was ready for at least some kind of confrontation. Seeing him have to sheepishly lift his head to face her though ... It threw Callie for a second. With his shirt crumpled, more stubble than she’d ever seen on him and dark shadows below his dulled blue eyes, he looked awful and every day of his fifty years was written in the lines on his face. Although she supposed, feeling another prang of self-consciousness, she was hardly in any state herself to pass remark.
But if she was taken aback to see him looking so dishevelled, it was he who took a step towards her without even seeming to realise as shock registered across his face.
“Jesus Christ ...” Michael breathed, reaching out a hand as if to caress her cheek. His eyes were fixed on the vicious bruise - evidence that what had happened was all too real. “Oh shit, Callie, your head! I’m so sorry, darling ...”
But she shied from his touch, moving instead to sit stiffly on the edge of the couch. “I’ll live.”
“But you’ve seen someone – a doctor, I mean?” he asked in concern.
“Didn’t stitch it myself,” she shrugged, before relenting with a little sigh. “I’m fine really. Bit of concussion. Like I said, I’ll live.”
Crouching down in front of her and looking up to try catching her gaze again, Michael took her hands in his and this time refused to give up and let her pull away. The usually eloquent lawyer was obviously struggling with what he wanted to say. “I ... I never meant for you to get hurt,” he managed finally, squeezing her slim fingers gently. “Never, Callie – you have to know that.”
“I know,” she said eventually, the words soft. “Physically.”
That drew a hint of an unsure frown. “What?”
“Physically,” she repeated. “You didn’t mean to hurt me physically.”
Pulling her hands out of his, Callie stood up to try to put some distance between them again. For all things she blamed herself for, there was still something she needed to call him on in all of this. “What you said to me ...” she started, willing herself not to get emotional. To just tell him exactly what he’d done rather than ever let him see.
“Callie, you know I didn’t mean that,” Michael tried, already knowing exactly what she meant. Just like he’d known what he’d done the moment the cruel words were out of his mouth.
“You were the one person I trusted with that and you used it against me the minute things weren’t going your way, Michael.”
“Not going my way? Sweetheart, I’m not denying I was wrong to say it, but you were screwing some other guy! How the hell do you expect me to react? You make it sound like some petty little tiff over nothing ...”
“I’m not proud of that,” she said quietly, looking down uncomfortably as she played with the hem of her top. “But the difference is that I never set out to hurt you and that’s exactly what you wanted to do to me. You’ve got every right to be angry. Hurt too. But I’d never use anything you’ve trusted me with against you. You know that.”
“Do I? I thought I knew you wouldn’t cheat on me, but I sure got that wrong, didn’t I?” Pushing himself up from his crouch, Michael took a seat on the edge of the coffee table opposite her, elbows resting on his knees as he leaned forward with his head in his hands. “You gonna tell me about him?” he asked, forcing a wry smile on his face. “Does he make you happy? Younger man, keeping you satisfied ... Go on, lay it all out. I might as well hear how much better this guy is.”
“Michael, don’t – it wasn’t about finding someone younger or better ...” Callie tried, not wanting to plead but still wanting him to understand. “I wasn’t looking for anyone at all.”
“But you found him anyway,” he laughed bitterly, thinking back to all his dealings with the charismatic sergeant. It didn’t take a genius to work out what women saw in the tall, blonde biker. Of course guys like that got chicks like Callie without even trying – meanwhile, there he was ... Learning the hard way that getting her wasn’t the same as keeping her. “So what, you gonna tell me you’re in love with him?”
A pause. Just a beat, but it had him sitting up straighter. He hadn’t expected that. She was supposed to jum
p in with her denials, like he was crazy for even asking. Tell him it was just a one-time thing, a meaningless fling. That she’d been too tied down, bored with how things were with them. He’d prepared himself for that – even for the possibility that whatever she’d had with Sam wasn’t over yet.
And then she shook her head - but not in answer to his question. “I’m not doing this with you,” Callie said, her voice unsure despite her efforts to be firm. “I wanted to be honest with you, to tell you I’m sorry for how this all played out ... Not to be spiteful or to start some dick-swinging contest about who’s better.”
But, no matter what she might say, it was a wake-up call and a big one at that. He hadn’t even considered that actual feelings could be involved. That she wouldn’t come back to him in the end.
***
The call was answered on the second ring. He’d been expecting word back from one of his spotters and they hadn’t let him down. They knew better than that.
“It’s done,” came the simple, hard-toned message over the pre-paid.
“And our new amigos?” Antonio Cervantes demanded from the driver’s seat of his ride, eyes drifting for a second to the red bandana knotted around his wrist as his hand rested on the steering wheel.
“Still in one piece. For now. You want us to stay with them?”
“Surveillance only. Not too close,” he decided quickly, having had to really get used to thinking on his feet since La Eñe14 started making a play for power. The increased interest in his growing unit had been making life ... well, interesting to say the least. “Routes they take, where they go, who they associate with. Those crackers think they’re so smart – let’s show them how smart Norteños can be.”
“Just let us know when they’re green lit, boss.”
It had been tough to bite back the anger that had surged through him when the news of the strip joint owner’s demise had filtered up the chain of command. He didn’t give a shit about Dixie though, none of them did. Only the fact someone – anyone - had pissed all over the convenient little set-up they had established.
“Soon,” Antonio smiled confidently, flicking open the silver Zippo lighter one of his men had found discarded on the office floor, right by the body. Sparking a flame and watching it dance above the engraved eagle. “They’ll get our message soon enough.”
***
He might have had no choice other than to leave, but stood there in the hallway again after she turned her back on him and closed the door, Michael’s fists clenched in anger. His pleas for her to give him another chance, pathetic as they had sounded even to him, had fallen on deaf ears and for what? A common criminal facing life in jail for cold-blooded murder.
He had offered her everything she could ever want and more and she threw it back in his face. Had warned him - cool as you like, though her voice had held just the hint of a tremor - that she’d call the cops if he didn’t back off. He guessed he was supposed to be grateful it wasn’t the hotline to her killer boyfriend she was calling.
It was a hard pill to swallow, and one only made all the worse by that moment she went back inside. He’d still been telling himself he’d talk her round in the end. That was what he did after all. Judges, opposition lawyers, police chiefs – they all crumbled eventually when he wanted them to.
She was young, probably naive about what she was getting mixed up in. Did she even know the first thing about what her bit of rough really was behind the cocky smiles and bright blue eyes?
But then she’d stood there in front of him, pushing the sleeves of that too-big hoody up her forearms. Telling him she was sorry, that he had to go. That it was over, they were over. And then she was turning and walking away - a stinging insult to red-raw injury. One he swore he wouldn’t forget.
***
CHAPTER 31
Callie padded back to the couch and sank down with a sigh, tossing her sketchpad to the floor and curling up with a cushion hugged to her chest. Just a couple of the tears she’d vowed not to let Michael see escaped before she bit her lip and blinked them back, silently telling herself not to be stupid.
She wasn’t some heartbroken little girl, pining for a lost love – but she had just closed the door, both literally and figuratively, on her relationship of over a year and she wasn’t anywhere near heartless enough to simply shrug off someone she had actually granted rare access to her life. It wasn’t usually something she did lightly.
Of course, poor Michael never really stood a chance though. Sharing her bed and sharing her life were two very different things and, whether unconsciously or not, she’d never really allowed the lines to blur with him. Unlike a certain biker who was supposed to be just another client.
Shifting onto her back to stare up at the living room ceiling, Callie threw an arm over her eyes and groaned. She wished she could just crawl into bed and hibernate until everyone had forgotten she existed – or at least until the pounding in her head had stopped and trying to think clearly wasn’t such a struggle.
All she could hear, going round and round in her mind, was his voice. That line of questioning.
Does he make you happy? You gonna tell me you’re in love with him?
She tried to tell herself the questions simply didn’t apply. They weren’t together, so her happiness wasn’t his responsibility for a start. And of course she wasn’t in love with him – what did they know about each other really?
In all the time she and Colton had been acquainted, pictures of their lives had been painted solely in the broadest of strokes. He probably vaguely knew she’d left home years ago, she was aware his dad was dead and that his mom was the only family that mattered. They shared an interest in tattoos and a friend in Sketch.
If she was being at all honest though, she knew he was still deeper under her skin than any ink could ever be ...
For the second time that day, a knock at the door broke through her reverie and Callie closed her eyes in the vain hope that whoever it was would just go away, praying Michael hadn’t decided she was worth another shot.
“Miss Delaney?” called a female voice. “It’s the police ...”
***
“What the hell’s goin’ on now?” Sam muttered to himself, as he and Colton pulled their bikes up in the yard only to spot a crowd of bodies gathered around the front door of the clubhouse. Pulling his helmet off and slinging it over the handlebars before heading to see what was up, he didn’t have to go too far - not to make out the rush-job graffiti scrawled across the building. “Son of a bitch ...”
“What’s this shit about?” Colton demanded from behind him, pulling off his shades to get a better look at the red paint desecrating what was theirs. His nose wrinkled in distaste at the crude artwork and his dark eyes turned hard.
Already striding towards them, Jake jerked a head towards where a grim-faced Johnny and thunderous Will had stepped away from the hangarounds and were currently deep in a heated discussion. “I suggest you don’t ask how this happened in broad daylight.”
“Nobody saw anything?” the sergeant demanded in disbelief, raking a hand through his hair as he still surveyed the damage marked at least six feet high on their headquarters.
“They blacked out a couple of the cameras - heard a van roar outta here when it was too late. Will’s bike got marked too ... Hey, what happened to you guys?”
“Never mind that now. Just Will’s?” Sam exchanged a look with Colton, neither of them pleased by this development, and getting a nod from Jake. “What’d they spray?”
“Same damn thing,” came the answer. “We dunno what--” Jake broke off with an irritated look on his face as one of the girls split from the rest of the pack and came straight over to where they were stood, a half-smoked cigarette between her fingers and a worried look beneath her deep red bangs.
“Sam, can I talk to you for a second?”
“Not now, doll,” he shook his head, a slight warning edge to his tone that suggested she was already on thin ice by interrupting him wi
th his brothers. He hoped this wasn’t the kind of thanks he got for his recent good deed.
Ashley wavered for a second but, albeit with a look of apology on her face, steeled herself to say her piece to the one man she seemed to think might at least hear her out. “I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important,” she tried again, rushing on in a bid to make him understand before she earned herself a backhand. “It ain’t ... personal or anything – it’s shit you need to know. About the tag.”
That got his attention. Jake and Colton’s too. “Whatever you know, spill it.”
“It’s used by the Norteños,” the girl explained, looking up at the three men with just a hint of nerves as they towered over her. “I’ve seen it before. Not round here though, but in other parts of the city ...”
“What’s it mean, Ash?” Sam prompted impatiently, watching her like a hawk as she took a last shaky drag of her cigarette and exhaled a stream of smoke before pitching the butt to be crushed under the toe of a scuffed stiletto.
“Nothing good,” she told him, almost in a whisper. “One-eight-seven, it’s like from the law – what cops call murder, y’know? Sam, tagging it like that ... It’s meant to be a death threat.”
***
Sitting across from the young woman at her kitchen table and meeting those cool gray eyes, Veronica wasn’t sure what she had been expecting when it came to Corsada's other half, but this certainly wasn’t it.
Oh, she’d heard the stories and pieced together some of the jigsaw on her own. Young enough and attractive enough to be out of the league of even Michael’s silver-tongued charm - until, of course, you factored in those added qualities like his standing in the legal world or his bank balance.
But, taking that to be the case, she had counted on someone a whole lot ... well, flashier. Some airhead in one of those minimalist penthouses, with all the mod-cons extra convenient for having been bought on a lawyer’s platinum card. Not this seemingly low maintenance girl in her cosy little lived-in apartment, who’d been surveying her visitor rather shrewdly from the moment she’d arrived.
Ink (The Haven Series) Page 20
