“That’s a good way to start the day,” he sang out, and began to whistle between slugs of black coffee as he settled at the Evindrude and fired it up again.
The gator writhed in its throes, and Mercy patted the soft white underside of his jaw as the bateau’s prow slid through the water, and they went off in search of quarry at their next baited line.
No one from Acadia had been surprised when Felix Lécuyer grew up and joined the Lean Dogs, and adopted the name Mercy. No one in his club was surprised that one of his skillsets was hunting alligators. Nothing about him surprised most anyone, really. He was too big to ever go unnoticed, and too convincing to ever be mistaken for something else. They were qualities that made him believable; duplicity was not his game, only strength and force and honesty.
No, no surprises from Mercy, from the displaced Cajun boy.
But then he’d been asked to watch out for Ghost Teague’s wife and daughter, and before he was able to recognize what was happening, he’d gone and surprised himself – and shattered the tiny world he’d built for himself outside of New Orleans. It was home he’d gone, after that, letting the steam of Louisiana swallow him up again; he’d slid down her throat, that one gator he could never kill: home. He hated it there, but that was where he belonged; he was nothing but a swamp rat with a taste for violence and a penchant for dealing it out. Dangerous creatures needed to live amongst other dangerous creatures, in appropriate cages with thick steel bars.
So why was he back in Knoxville, then? He could fool himself all he wanted, blame it on the power shift in Tennessee, say that he was needed, act like his presence at the mother chapter would somehow strengthen the club as a whole. He could even blame it on his love of this college town, so different from the murky, French depths of his birthplace.
But none of that was the real driving force. He knew that as he stood in the parking lot and watched Ava Teague climb into her truck with her new boyfriend in tow. She hadn’t glanced his way once, but he’d looked his fill, from behind the dark lenses of his shades.
She’d always been long-limbed; rangy as a colt as a girl, with that little bit of gangly awkwardness that hadn’t gone away until sometime around her seventeenth birthday. That last, important birthday before things had changed irrevocably. She was still leggy, still had those slender, graceful arms, but she was all grown up now, filled out in all the right places, rooted solidly in her body; she owned it now, her bones and beautiful skin and the waving sheets of mahogany hair that flapped over her shoulders as she walked into the breeze. The sight of her sweetheart face, her long lashes, little nose and lush mouth still pulled at his gaze, a magnet, feminine and gentle, soft ivory curves of cheeks and chin and smooth forehead. Her body, when she walked, worked itself into sinuous, artful shapes. She might have taken up ballet, if she’d been born into a different family.
Mercy had sensed the change in her, though, even from across the parking lot. Gone were the ripped jeans and Converse sneakers of her teenage years, the old leather jacket that used to smell like his cologne the way she always wanted to be tucked up under his arm. She wore a sunny yellow skirt she wouldn’t have been caught dead in a few years ago, her sandals feminine and pretty – but so unlike her. She looked, now, like the sort of girl who needed those around to her to see her as a girl. I never needed that, he thought. He could look at her plump tits and her tight calves and appreciate the swing of her skirt, and still wish she was in jeans and one of her brother’s old t-shirts. Still wish she was the same Ava who’d cried with unabashed fervor the night he’d walked away from her.
The girl he watched start her truck and leave the lot was a whole new girl from the one he’d known – a woman. A woman who’d had a story published in an online magazine, a crumpled, well-worn copy of which he carried inside his duffel bag. He’d read her story – the words she’d formed in her little head and typed out on her computer – hundreds of times, one reading right after the next, feeling that this glimpse inside her mind was a way of being close to her again. He didn’t pretend that the man in her story wasn’t him. She could change the hair color and the accent, the height and the bad fashion choices, but she couldn’t disguise that lingering hurt in her heart – that was all him. And she’d poured it into her writing.
That’s what he’d thought, at least, up until just a few moments ago, when he’d laid eyes on her again. After seeing her posh boyfriend, he wasn’t so sure. Maybe she’d found a bandage for her wound after all. Maybe she hadn’t squirmed inside, merely passing by him, the way he had for her.
If he was smart, he wouldn’t bother to pursue the idea further.
Good thing for him, he’d never been too bright.
“Merc.”
He snapped back to the present, heat moving beneath his skin to be caught drifting off into his thoughts, guilty to be standing in front of Ava’s brother while he was reminiscing about her.
He shoved his hands in his back pockets and focused on Aidan; Aidan, like everyone, was a glance down from his full height. Mercy forced a smile across his lips, something vague and benign, something that wouldn’t give away his memories. “What?”
Aidan had this habit of hiding his true expression behind a semi-permanent smirk, one corner of his mouth plucked up like he was always pleased with himself. He had dark, hard to read eyes. Now, his smile could have been genuine, or it could have been assessing. He stared up into Mercy’s face. “I asked if you wanna head with us over to the Bell Bar. Mags and the girls are gonna be a while decorating and shit, and if we stick around, we’ll just catch a buncha shit.”
“You think you won’t catch shit if you leave?” Maggie’s voice pierced their male bubble. The rubber soles of her Frye boots hadn’t made a sound across the pavement, and she stood behind them, hands on her hips, five-feet-four-inches of don’t-fuck-with-me, as beautiful and blonde as always. Ava may have had her father’s dark hair and eyes, but her looks were straight Maggie.
Aidan grinned and gestured toward the clubhouse she’d just come from. “You’ve got fifteen hangarounds in there wanting to kiss ass. They’d do your nails if you asked them to.”
Maggie pretended to inspect her red fingernails. “I could use a third coat.” Then she looked back at Aidan. “But I don’t want you guys being late. I want everyone in the room when James walks in.”
Aidan probably rolled his eyes behind his shades, but he nodded and said, “Yes, ma’am.”
Then Maggie’s hazel gaze swung over and up, and latched onto Mercy, and he wanted to squirm all over again. He didn’t – Jesus, how unmanly – but as he met her eyes unflinching, he felt the old dull flutter in the pit of his stomach, like back when Ava was seventeen and Maggie was keener than any mother had a right to be.
“Mercy,” she greeted, her tone unfathomable. “Good to see you.”
He ducked his head. “Mags.”
She studied him a moment; he felt the weight of her gaze, sensed the urge in her to say a whole tirade of things. Instead, she said, “Ghost is looking for you. He’s around here somewhere.” And she left them with a little wave and walked back to the clubhouse with a straight, strong back and sure steps. Maggie had never once struggled to find her place within the club. Her husband adored her, and she knew it; with that boosting her natural confidence, she’d become a central matriarchal figure, stronger even than Bonita. It seemed only fitting that as Ghost became the new president, Maggie would finally take her rightful place as queen of the MC.
Ava didn’t know it yet, but she had that same steel in her.
“Bell?” Aidan prompted.
“Dude,” Tango said, “you’ve gotta see the new bartenders they’ve got in there. I mean–” He formed an hourglass with his hands and whistled.
That would be a smart move: throw a few back, find something warm and curvy to warm his lap, see if she felt like coming to an outlaw MC party with him (most bartenders did). But he shook his head. “Nah. I better find your old man,” he told Aidan. “See what
he wants before tonight.”
Aidan nodded. “Suit yourself.”
Mercy’s NOLA brothers, Grady and Matt, went with Aidan and Tango, Bell Bar-bound. Mercy struck off across the massive Dartmoor property, in search of the man he hoped would be his new president.
Dartmoor, owned by the club financially, and Ghost personally, had begun as a weedy patch of dirt along the river, and ended up a shining beacon of MC enterprise. London transplant Walsh, a scrupulous money man, had helped boost marketing efforts about ten years ago, and Dartmoor thrived, an industrial complex worthy of the road on which it sat.
In buildings of corrugated steel, all clean and sparkling, were a bike repair shop, an auto-body garage, a self-storage company, a truck rental company, and a nursery that sold live plants, seed, mulch, and outdoor hardscape materials. The clubhouse sat at the far end, with a gate they closed at night to separate it from the retail spaces. The whole property was cordoned off with chain link and barbed wire, a massive sign planted on the east end that could be seen from boats on the river and cars on the interstate. Walsh was trying to talk the officers into setting up a boat storage garage, and putting a launch out into the water, on club property. That was Walsh – always pushing for business expansion, pushing in no way when it came to anything personal.
It had been a long time since Mercy had enjoyed this walk in the daylight, breathing in the scents of river and warm pavement. The sun beat down gently, lovingly, heating his skin in a pleasant way. He’d always loved Tennessee, how forgiving and temperate it was. No quicksand, no snakes, no gators. No bizarre banshee screams in the night. No blood. No horror.
Just the havoc he’d wreaked.
The firing and fading of bike engines echoed off the acres of asphalt and steel, a happy growling. The men called to one another, shapeless shouts that were tinged with excitement about the night’s party. It would be a huge blowout: blaring music, tons of beer, strippers, groupies, the works.
Yay, works.
Mercy found Ghost in the Dartmoor Trucking offices, the VP sorting through paperwork while the helpless desk manager looked on, her hands knotted together.
“Mr. Teague,” she was saying, her short blonde curls teasing at her ears as she peered over the biker’s shoulder. Her half-moon reading glasses were pushed up on her forehead and the nosepieces had left dents at either side of the bridge of her nose. Mid-forties, she was related to the club only through business, which Mercy knew was the way Ghost liked things. While club family often got hired for the information-sensitive jobs, Ghost liked business-minded outsiders in his offices who wouldn’t rest on their laurels, assuming the club would give them a free pass for being lazy. “I’m sure I can find it, if you’ll just let me…” She gestured to the desk that her boss had commandeered, clearly fidgety to have been displaced.
“If you can find it, why am I having to look for it?” Ghost asked. He glanced up long enough to tap his cigarette ash into a Coke can on the edge of the desk, and caught sight of Mercy. Ghost didn’t startle – it just wasn’t possible – but he paused a moment, guarded dark eyes moving up and down the full height of him.
“Merc,” he said. “Good trip up?
“Can’t complain.” Any trip in which he was traveling north of the swamps was a good one. “Mags said you wanted to see me.”
“Yeah.” Ghost nodded and went back to his papers, sighing. “Just let me…oh, here.” He shoved the mess at the desk manager and got to his feet. “I want it in my hands by the end of the day.”
She clutched the uneven stack to her chest, trying not to drop it. Her glasses slid down out of her hair and landed on her nose, lopsided. “But your party – I can have it for you first thing tomorrow–”
“Tonight,” Ghost insisted.
She sighed. “Yes, sir.”
Ghost dropped the last nub of his smoke into the soda can and gestured toward the door. “Let’s walk.”
Mercy fell into step beside him, keeping his long strides in check so they kept pace with one another.
Though a few inches shorter, Ghost was an imposing figure in his own right. The kind of man who made taller men want to bend their knees so they were on the same level. Lean and hard with muscle, his parentage of Aidan had never been in question: the same strong nose, dark hair and eyes, low brows that gave him a perpetual scowl, and a firm jaw that was always grinding. He’d boxed in the army, and he still had a fighter’s wide shoulders and catlike grace. Ghost never fidgeted; he had no nervous tics. He occupied a room with such indomitable presence, a radiant, unaffected confidence that was a part of his every fiber, and never a show.
“You saw Walsh in Atlanta back in the fall,” Ghost said as they strolled across the parking lot, in the general direction of the panel trucks that sat waiting to be rented. “I’ve no doubt he told you that things were shaking up around here.”
Ghost, like any good politician – and there were politicians in the MC world just as there were in the civilian world – had a habit of talking in veiled circles, leading you into agreeing with him before he’d ever posed his question. Mercy knew this, and still, he never managed to avoid the traps.
“He told me James was stepping down,” he said. Little nod, easy non-smile. Relaxed. Just talking. “Congrats, by the way.”
Ghost snorted. “Don’t act like it’s a blessing.” Then: “The truth is, it’s a bad time for a power shift, but James just can’t put his leg over the bike anymore, so it has to happen. The only thing worse than having a new president in this situation is having a lame duck president. We wouldn’t want word getting out that the club was breaking its own rules; undermines our presence.”
“Wouldn’t want word to get out to who?”
Knoxville wasn’t New Orleans, or even Newark. This, the mother chapter, was afforded the luxury of a low-crime place to call home. The last time any real outside threats had been present had been almost fifteen years ago, when the Carpathians had moved into town. Mercy had been part of the party that had sent them fleeing. Things had been quiet since. Well, unless you counted that business with Ava five years ago.
But Ghost said, “The Carpathians are back.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“I wish I was, man. But two nights ago, Briscoe and Dublin got jumped outside Bell Bar.”
“Jesus. Are they alright?”
“Yeah. One of the fuckers had a knife. Briscoe needed stitches.” Ghost paused and turned a serious look up to Mercy. “But they were flying colors. Three-piece patch colors. Wherever they’ve been since we last saw them, they’re real one-percenters these days.”
Back in the day, the Carpathians had been a small time riding club trying to go outlaw, illegitimate, and therefore underestimated in their danger. If they were a real MC now, that automatically granted them more power, just their patches alone.
“What’s worse,” Ghost continued, “is that someone’s using them to launder money. The Carpathians are dealing meth, and they’re sending the cash up the food chain somewhere, getting guns and bikes and real estate to build a clubhouse in return. They’re someone’s hired butt monkeys, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t going to make things personal. They hate us, and they want blood.”
“An eye for an eye,” Mercy agreed, heaving a sigh. “Guess we shoulda known that one would come back to bite us in the ass.”
Ghost scowled to himself, glancing off toward the trucks. “It shouldn’t have to be now, though,” he said, allowing himself a rare moment of pure frustration. “Not after Georgia and London just got done with all that.”
Aiding a family of vigilante security contractors, Georgia president, Stack, had been forced into a full-scale war on a business tycoon that had led the Georgia boys to London. Mercy had been part of the team that had hopped the pond. He’d been there with his brothers, and Sly Hammond, as Sebastian Rolland was exposed to the world as the perverted mastermind that he’d kept carefully hidden.
Ghost looked over, his dark eyes sharp an
d assessing. “I think I’m gonna need you around here, Merc. You’re the only one in this club who does what you do the way you do it.” He grinned at the goofiness of the statement, then sobered again. “I want you to transfer here. If you can.”
If he could – but there wasn’t really an option, was there? When the president of the mother chapter wanted you at his table, a man couldn’t very well say “no thanks” and keep his distance.
Feeling suddenly like a teenager and too small inside this big body, he rubbed at the back of his neck. “Yeah. I mean…yeah. I can. If you’re sure?” He lifted his brows.
Ghost studied him a moment, then gave him one of those firm non-smiles and clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about that old shit. We all want you here. Let’s call it a fresh start.”
It was unnerving the way the man seemed able to read his thoughts. Almost as disturbing as the knowledge that there was no such thing as a fresh start.
When he left Ghost, Mercy put the clubhouse at his back and ambled down the long Dartmoor lot toward the end of the compound. He loved his brothers, loved socializing as much as the next Dog, but he felt cold inside now, full of an old familiar chill that had everything to do with Ava. He’d denied she was the cause of the sensation five years ago, but in the long stretch of time since she’d left for college, he’d faced the reality with the help of a lot of Scotch and a cache of old photos: Of all the horrors he’d committed, it was what he’d done to Ava that haunted him. Ava, his one chance for brightness, and he’d dashed it to bits. For her sake, he’d told himself. So she could have the future she deserved.
Fearless Page 5
