Knife & Flesh (The Night Horde SoCal Book 4)

by Susan Fanetti

  That hurt more than anything Emily had said so far. “Why not? Has my work been lacking?”

  “Until this leave, not at all. You’re the best paralegal I’ve worked with. You have a keen mind and a strong intuition, and you have empathy for people. You’re able to connect with clients in a way I admire. If it weren’t for your child, you’d be an absolutely ideal candidate for a position in any firm. If it weren’t for your child, you’d be an attorney in your own right by now. But now you bring more baggage than just the child.”

  “Emily…”

  “I’m sorry, Juliana. Your options at this moment are two: resign and accept any one of those five offers. Or force me to terminate you, and I will see to it that all five offers are rescinded, and you will leave with no reference from Shepard & Grohl at all.”

  She tried to make her mind settle enough that she could think. “I need at least to confirm these offers before I make a choice to eliminate unemployment benefits. I need to be sure I can take care of my daughter.”

  “You have thirty minutes.” Emily opened her laptop, dismissing her simply by no longer acknowledging her presence.

  Numb, Juliana stood and walked stiffly out of the office and back to her desk. The desk that had been hers. She opened the file and stared at it.

  Two of the five offers weren’t even for positions in immigration law. One offer was so low as to be offensive, and two others were too low for Juliana to keep up with her studies. She’d already lost one semester, and she only had two left before she could graduate. She wasn’t losing what she’d worked so hard and so long to achieve.

  The two letters that named an offer at least close enough to her budget that she thought she could use smoke and mirrors and make it work were both for immigration law. That was her dream, and she wanted all the experience she could get to make it happen.

  So she set those letters side by side. She knew one firm well—not as large as Shepard & Grohl, but a multi-division firm. The other she’d heard of but didn’t have much experience with. They were a small firm with three attorneys, and the whole firm was devoted to immigration law. They did a lot of pro bono work. She was surprised that their offer was as high as it was.

  Unless she’d be the only paralegal in the office. God, that would be so much work.

  She took some time and did some research online. While she was looking, a thought occurred to her, and her research took a different tack.

  Twenty-five minutes after she’d stood up at Emily’s desk, Juliana slid her Chanel-style jacket back on over her black sheath. She printed a document, clipped it into a blue backer, and took it into Emily’s office. She didn’t bother to knock.

  Her soon-to-be ex-boss looked up and closed her laptop. “You’ve made a decision?”

  “Yes.” She set the piece of paper on top of Emily’s closed laptop, and then she sat in the chair she’d taken earlier.

  Emily picked the document up and perused it. Then she set it down. “This was not one of the options.”

  “It is now. Look, you didn’t fire me already because somebody with more clout than you doesn’t want you to fire me. So fuck off with the threat about that. But let’s say you do it anyway, and it doesn’t explode in your face. Okay, well, I’ll fight it. And that leave was approved, so you can’t use it against me. You broke about five hiring laws making your threats in here earlier. I will drag it out as long as I can—and all the while, I’ll be collecting unemployment. And then you could lose. So that’s my counteroffer, which, by comparison, will save you a lot of money. You want me to quit and save you all that aggravation, then you sign that right there.”

  “This is more severance than your contract entitles you to. By a great deal.”

  It was enough to cover her salary for the remaining weeks of the year, as well as her tuition, Lucie’s preschool fees, and her babysitting expenses for the next twelve months, in fact. “Oh, I think we’re beyond the limits of my contract, don’t you? On both sides.”

  “I found you other positions. Several other positions. I’d think you’d show some gratitude.”

  Juliana didn’t answer. She’d made her decision and had accepted one of the offers, and after talking with her new employer, she felt confident that she wasn’t being lowballed, but if Emily thought Juliana trusted her to have negotiated those offers in good faith, she was a moron.

  Emily stared hard at her. Then she pulled another manila folder from the side of her desk and pushed it across. “You sign this first.”

  Her heartbeat soared, sensing victory, but she didn’t even reach for the folder. “No.”

  “Juliana—”

  Juliana cut her off, echoing the tone and phrasing Emily had used earlier. “I’m sorry, Emily. Your options at this moment are two: sign that agreement and cut me a check, at which point I will resign, or refuse and terminate me, at which point I will do all I can to make that an exceedingly unpleasant decision for you.”

  Again, Emily simply stared. And then, miraculously, she smiled—not a pleasant smile, not a friendly smile. More like a snarl, but one of grudging respect. She picked up one of her fancy pens and signed with a flourish. “You know I can’t cut you a check, but I will approve the disbursement, and you can pick it up downstairs at Accounting. She opened her laptop, struck a few keys, and then turned it so Juliana could see the screen. “I’m not clicking ‘Confirm’ until you sign that resignation letter.”

  Adrenaline pounding through her whole body, making the world loud and unsteady, Juliana picked up that folder and opened it. She read a basic, terse resignation letter, and then she reached for the same pen. Emily handed it to her, and she signed it. She held on to the file until Emily clicked ‘Confirm.’

  “Get out of my office.”

  Juliana stood and left without a word. She’d worked for Emily for years, and though they’d never been affectionate with each other and hadn’t often been friendly, she had admired her boss. But she didn’t look back even once. She gathered her very few personal items—just some framed photos—and walked away.

  After she’d picked up her check, she stopped in the nearest ladies’ room and puked her guts out, crouching at the toilet in her homemade faux Chanel blazer and her tall black suede boots with their four-inch heels.

  When she got down to the atrium at the building’s street entrance, she pulled out her phone and dialed her friend Lisa. In her cheeriest voice, she said, “Lunch. I need all the wine.”

  ~oOo~

  “You can’t call after everything and just chirp ‘Lunch!’ into my ear!” Lisa kissed the air near each of Juliana’s cheeks, and they both sat down. “Good golly, woman. You’ve had me a wreck!”

  They’d met at one of their favorite places, a little hole-in-the-wall Brazilian place called Café Yemanja. Juliana, her time suddenly her own, had arrived first. Instead of wine, she’d ordered a mojito. She’d been nearing the bottom of her second when Lisa arrived.

  Now she dug into her glass, plucked a saturated mint leaf out, and plopped it into her mouth. “I told you that Lucie and I went away with Trick.”

  “That looks good. I want one. And that is utter bullshit. You would never in a million years just drop everything in your life and run off to play with a guy for nearly two months. At the beginning of a semester? Right after all that crap with Mark? Please, Juliana. Don’t be offensive. Nobody knows you like I know you. You can’t possibly think I’d believe that fiction.”

  The server came to get Lisa’s drink order and went away with an order for a mojito for each of them and to keep them coming. When they were alone again, Juliana picked up the conversation.

  “I’m sorry. Things were…complicated. They still are.”

  “Aren’t they always.” Lisa rolled her eyes and sighed theatrically. “Okay, I let you play pretend, because you called often enough that I knew you were still breathing. But now you spill. Everything.”

  Obviously, she couldn’t and wouldn’t spill everything. But Juliana felt calmer,
just having her friend here, ready to listen and to help her make sense. Lisa could get judgmental, but when she was called on it, she backed off right away and took another look.

  But first things first. The most recent news was the scariest at the moment. “That’s not why I called. I have other news. I just quit my job. I start a new one after the holidays.”

  “What? Jesus! I’m never letting you out of my sight again. Okay, start there. Something tells me all your adventures are related. Something else tells me that being with a Horde is not the sexy kind of dark and mysterious, after all.”

  She was right, of course. All of her adventures had landed her in the same place, upside down and inside out, all because she was in love with Trick Stavros, member of the Night Horde MC.

  She told Lisa everything about her morning with Emily: coming in, feeling out of place, finding Emily at her desk. The offers, that first awful exchange in her office. Her research, her decision to take the offer from the smaller firm—where, yes, she would be the only paralegal. Then her negotiation with Emily and walking away from her first career-oriented job.

  She left out the part about puking in the ladies’.

  By the time she was finished, they were halfway through their lunches and a couple more mojitos. And Lisa was grinning so hard she looked about to sprain her face. “That is AWESOME! Juliana, that’s so badass. About time that bitch got a faceful of you.”

  “I’m pretty scared.”

  “That’s why it’s awesome! You’re always so careful about everything. You think and think and think until the chance to do something is gone. But this time you were brave and took a risk. Throwing all that back at Emily Garcia took giant steel cojones, and you did it—and look how it turned out! You have school paid for, and Lucie’s stuff, too. And you have the rest of November and all of December off. Holy shit! I’m so jealous!”

  That last part hadn’t been planned, and, frankly, the thought terrified her that she’d be spending more time with nothing to do but worry about Trick and wonder what the future held. But Harris, Khalid, & Cope, her new job, didn’t want her until January. Everything was signed—she’d spent the hours between leaving her old job and meeting for lunch meeting her new bosses and making sure that the new job was secure—but January was six weeks away, and that was a long time to be worried and afraid with little to occupy her mind during all the hours Lucie was in school.

  “Okay.” Lisa finished her latest drink and set it aside. “Now. What the fuck with the last couple of months? And don’t tell me it’s complicated. Obviously, it’s complicated. But chica, I’m worried.”

  “There’s not a lot I can say. There was trouble, and the Horde kept me and Lucie safe.”

  “Trouble for Trick? That put you in danger?”

  Trick and Lisa had met once, one night at The Deck. Their meeting had been unremarkable, except that Lisa had thought he was hot, and Trick had thought she was ‘a lot.’ She’d considered the meeting a success, especially since Mark and Lisa had loathed each other and actively sought to drive each other from her life.

  “I don’t know what to say, Lisa. Yes, trouble for Trick. But Lucie and I were safe. That’s why we were away. I can’t talk about it. But it’s over. Or no, it’s not. I don’t know. Trick’s really hurt, but he won’t let me help him.”

  “Jesus, Juliana. What are we talking about here? What’s over? He’s hurt how?”

  For the first time, she felt the muzzle of Trick’s Horde life. She couldn’t say anything about what had happened that would let her best friend since she was a girl understand what she needed now. Looking at her friend across the table at one of their favorite restaurants, Juliana had the disorienting impression of almost literally seeing Lisa being pushed away from her.

  Physically and emotionally exhausted, overwhelmed by the violent swells rocking her life at every turn, lonely and scared, and drunk on mojitos, she broke into tears.

  “Everything’s over. We’re over. He wants us to be over. I can’t say how he’s hurt. I can’t say. I can’t say anything. But I’m so scared. I love him and he won’t let me help him. God, Lisa. Everything’s upside down.”

  Lisa came around the table, sat next to her, and wrapped her in her arms. “Shhh. Shhh. It’s okay. I’m here. You’ve got me scared, too, but we’ll work it out together.”

  Weeping into her friend’s hair, Juliana shook her head. Lisa couldn’t help her work anything out. The life she’d had in which Lisa Jones was her best friend—that life was over.

  Now, without Trick, she was simply alone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Trick sat in the corner of Hoosier and Bibi’s living room, a glass of orange juice—just orange juice—on his knee. He’d been back about two weeks, but he was still not at full strength physically. Apparently, that infection, which he’d been incubating for weeks, had nearly killed him. He still felt weak, and he’d only gained a pound back of the twenty-six he’d lost.

  He smoothed his tongue over the implants in the left side of his mouth. They felt odd, unnaturally smooth. But they were better than the odd pain of the hole they’d replaced.

  Mentally, he was a fucking wreck. Hence the orange juice: he’d learned quickly that alcohol and his broken brain were a very bad mix. It didn’t make him forget; he didn’t have that kind of luck this time. Instead, it brought down the barriers he was trying to build and let the memories, from the distant past and the recent, loose to run roughshod over his sanity.

  So he sat in the corner and drank orange juice and watched a life he couldn’t share.

  Scent and noise filled the house to the roof on this Thanksgiving. Bibi and the rest of the club women had turned the kitchen into an arena for some kind of acrobatic cooking event, and the house resounded with their chatter and with the savory aromas of a feast. He could smell the sweet potato casserole and acorn squash that Bibi always made special for him.

  The Horde had a lot to be thankful for this year, and the air swelled with good feeling. Hoosier had recovered. His speech was almost normal, and while Trick had been away, Hoosier had gotten off his trike and back onto his chopper. They had a new house and had reclaimed the life that had nearly been destroyed in last year’s fire.

  Connor and Pilar were married, and they, too, had bought a house and begun building a foundation for a life together.

  Muse and Sid were expecting a baby in early April; they’d just announced at this gathering that they were expecting a boy. After what sounded like a rocky start, everything looked good; mom and son were healthy.

  And Trick was home, and the club was clear of heat from DHS. They’d had a rat infestation, but it had been dealt with.

  Trick was home—everybody was demonstrably thankful for that.

  Except Trick, who was incapable of thanks or relief or ease of any kind.

  When he’d first been taken, after a couple of days of solitary stillness, he’d been ‘interrogated’ frequently. At first, there had been legitimate questions: they wanted him to confess to killing Allen Cartwright. They wanted him to roll on the Horde and on La Zorra. She was their chief interest.

  He knew how to keep his mouth shut, and the way he did it was to keep his mouth shut. He’d refused to talk at all.

  Interrogations got increasingly less about questions and more about force and pain. And then, one day, after one of the times they’d dragged him, hooded and bound, into a truck or a van or something, and driven him several hours, then dragged him into another hellish room, they’d just stopped asking questions at all.

  He had no idea how long after they stopped asking questions they’d kept torturing him. Weeks, at least. Centuries, in his mind. Then, when they no longer considered him a valuable asset, things had gotten very bad. There had been a moment then when he’d accepted that only death would free him, that he would spend the rest of his life at the mercy of people who didn’t see him as human—who had already made him less than human.