He held out a hand for it and she rolled her eyes, pulling it up onto her arm.
“I thought this whole white knight bit worked for girls,” he said like he was fighting down a laugh.
“Too late; I’ve already seen your true colors.” She pulled her hood up and put her sunglasses on. “Can we at least go out the back door?”
“Whatever m’lady wants.”
She elbowed him in the stomach on her way past.
Thankfully, the hall was clear. Outside, the sky was barred with gold and salmon, faint indigo shards of night fracturing at the high center point. She could hear bike engines: the crisis was pulling everyone in early.
Ava zipped up her hoodie, put her head down, and made a beeline for her truck, hoping to escape notice completely. All the guys would find out she’d been there – Aidan never could keep a secret – but she didn’t want to be there when the discussion broke out.
Mercy’s light touch between her shoulder blades caught her attention; the way he cleared his throat told her something was wrong.
She lifted her head, and in the dawn gloom, there was Ghost, one arm hooked casually over the driver side mirror of her truck.
Ava ground to a halt.
Mercy propelled her forward, hand at her back, and her feet were forced to move; even without trying, he could have pushed her over onto her face, and she didn’t want to add a skinned nose to her morning’s list of problems. Her steps were heavy. She knew her face was stricken, behind the glasses.
Ghost watched their approach with a flat, unreadable gaze. “You’ve got class today?” he asked as she drew up in front of him.
She pulled her purse across her body in an unconscious shielding maneuver. She wasn’t afraid of her father, but she didn’t want to hear the yelling. She was never going to understand why, after having been raised by this club, he’d resent her for falling for one of its members.
“Yes,” she said, and added a “sir” for good measure.
He nodded. “Prospect,” he called, and Littlejohn appeared from behind the other side of the truck, stocking cap pulled low on his forehead, little curls of chestnut hair licking from beneath the edge. “Ava’s got school today,” Ghost told him.
“Right. Yes, I knew that, sir.”
Then his gaze moved up over her head to Mercy. “Chapel in ten,” he said, and shoved away from the truck, heading for the clubhouse front door.
When he was safely away, Ava whirled. “Did that just happen?”
Mercy looked satisfied. “I told you, things are different now.”
“Different how?”
“You’re not seventeen, for starters.” He reached around her for the door handle. “Where’s your keys? Unlock this.”
She found the fob in her pocket and the locks disengaged with a muted thump. “He didn’t yell,” she said, amazed. “He didn’t…Dad.”
Mercy tossed her bag into the backseat and laid a hand on top of her hooded head. “I know. Enjoy it while it lasts.”
“But…”
He kissed her. “Go to school. Be safe. Check in with me later.”
One last bit of protest rallied in her. She didn’t want to allow herself to trust him completely, not like she had the last time around.
“What if I didn’t break up with Ronnie?” she asked.
He smiled and tousled her hair through the hood. “Call me.” He whistled at Littlejohn, snapped his fingers, and headed back for the clubhouse.
“You don’t know that I did!” she called to his back.
He tossed her a wave over his head. “Yeah, I do.”
“Son of a bitch,” she muttered. She turned, and saw Littlejohn staring at her. “Oh, like you weren’t thinking it.”
**
Stella’s didn’t open until eight, so she stopped in at Leah’s father’s shop, Cook’s Coffee (not-so-creatively named by the owner). She could have run through a drive-through, but by the time she’d pulled off the Dartmoor lot, last night’s drinking was beginning to catch up to her. She needed to sit down for a second, get some coffee in her, see if she could chase away the approaching hypoglycemic attack.
She parked in one of the slanted spots to the side, and walked in to find Leah frantically popping tops on to-go cups.
“Oh, gosh.” Leah flipped her pink-streaked ponytail behind her back with a fast head-sling and started slotting the cups into takeout holders. “You must be psychic. I need to talk to you.”
Ava pulled off her sunglasses and folded them up in her purse. “I need to get some protein in me. Can I come around there?”
“Please.”
Behind the counter, Ava pulled a package of peanut butter crackers from her purse and then stowed the bag under the register. She popped a cracker in her mouth as she accepted mugs and directions from Leah, going to the steaming silver bank of brewers along the back wall. She fixed herself a mug of black, forced down the cracker with a few swallows, and said, “What’s up?”
“Ugh,” Leah said, shoving the coffees she’d prepped into the waiting arms of a customer. “It’s just…well, it’s probably nothing, but I wanted to run it by you since you…” Pointed look over her shoulder. “Have the inside scoop on city stuff.”
Ava frowned and sipped. “Okay…”
Leah urged another employee – high-school age dude with shiny pimples – up to her place at the register and moved back to pull drinks with Ava.
“Two lattes, extra whip, one chai tea, one espresso, two coffees cream and sugar,” the kid called from the register.
Leah pulled down a mug and said, “This guy came into the shop the other night, right before we closed up. We just had like three people left – coeds working on a project – and I was sweeping. Man in a suit walks up to my dad at the register and starts asking about his lease.”
“On the shop?” Ava nibbled another cracker and shot whipped cream on top of the lattes.
“One cup Earl Grey, one green tea with ice,” the kid said.
Leah nodded. “He seemed friendly, so I thought, maybe he’s got a shop too, and he’s looking for a storefront to rent along the strip, you know? So I kept sweeping. Then I look up, and Dad’s gone totally white. Like that time I fell through the glass coffee table and there was all that blood everywhere.”
Ava remembered that instance; Leah had come to school the next day striped with neon Band-Aids.
“What was he saying?” she asked.
“I kind of swept my way over there…”
“One cappuccino, one soy latte.”
“…and the guy said, ‘This is in the city’s best interest. Refusing wouldn’t be smart.’ ”
Ava felt her brows go up. “Refuse what?”
“I dunno. Dad wouldn’t say. Just kept telling me not to worry about it. But I should be worried, right?”
Ava frowned. “Have you seen the guy anywhere else?”
“Coming out of As A Daisy last week.”
The flower shop that was suddenly not on friendly terms with the club.
“Can you mention it to your dad?” Leah asked. There was a glimmer of real fear in her eyes. “I can’t go to the cops; what would I say? There’s some nice-dressed guy talking to my dad? But the Dogs could” – she lowered her voice – “find stuff out.”
Ava nodded. “I’ll tell him.”
They lapsed into a necessary silence as they concentrated on filling a lightning round of orders. By the end of it, Ava had managed to choke down half the crackers and all the coffee, but felt no better for it.
Leah shooed Pimples off the register and took his place in the middle of a slight lull. “What are you doing in so early anyway?” she asked. Her thin brows waggled. “Ronnie keep you out late?”
“Not Ronnie, no.”
Leah gasped. “No!”
Ava pulled her purse from under the counter. “Thanks for the coffee. I’ll talk to my dad.”
“Ava Teague, don’t you walk away!”
Ava smiled and waved. “Bye.”
“You’re cruel,” she called as Ava left. “You had sex with someone not your boyfriend, and you deny me details. Cruel!”
A dozen curious glances cut her way and Ava ducked out the door with her hand in front of her face.
“At five-fifty-two this morning, dispatch got a call that Milford Mattress was on fire,” Ghost said. He slapped a hot copy of the morning paper down onto the table, the sound echoing off the walls of the chapel. “And guess what the headline is.”
Gang War in Knoxville it read, in huge print above a photo of the burning mattress store.
“They’re blaming us,” Ghost said. “To turn the whole city against us.”
“They so torched the place themselves,” Aidan said, and everyone murmured an agreement.
“I knew Larsen was reckless,” Collier said, face grim, “but I didn’t think he was this smart.”
“Smart?” Troy had deemed this an important enough reason to haul his arthritic ass out of bed and ride in to church. “That little shit ain’t smart. He’s got no evidence and nothing to point toward us.”
Ghost heaved his eyes skyward. “Prosecution isn’t the issue. What this is, is a PR nightmare. We don’t have to have done anything. If the civilians think we have, that’s enough to run us out of business and bring the feds in for a good sniffing-around.”
Troy waved away the concern. “The club’s survived worse.” “But it hasn’t thrived through worse,” Ghost said, tone growing harsh. “I don’t have a basement apartment to run back to when shit goes south, gramps. If Dartmoor sinks, I sink with it.” He cast a meaningful glance around the table. They’d all be sinking too, if it came to that.
“The problem is twofold,” Ratchet said, holding up the appropriate number of fingers. “Reputation repair, and threat elimination.”
“Mags said someone got to Ramona at the flower shop,” Ghost said. “Made some kinda threat; she doesn’t want to do business with any of us. I’m betting she’s not the only one who’s been visited. If people see that we can’t even damn shop on Main Street, that’s all the more incentive to stop bringing their business here.
“We’ve got to charm the hell outta this town,” he said, rolling his eyes again.
“Good thing you’re so charming,” Walsh said, straight-faced, and managed to earn a grin.
“We’ve gotta be visible,” Ratchet said, “and friendly. We need to do nice things.”
“Nice things?” Mercy said.
“Pulling cats outta trees,” Dublin said.
“Picking up hitchhikers,” Briscoe said.
“Things out of character for you, Merc,” Ghost said.
“Hey, I’m nice.”
“So are rattlesnakes. I want you, Michael, and Rottie working on the ‘threat elimination’ part of things. Hound, you help out where you can, but don’t go getting yourself hurt, old man.”
Hound made a displeased sound. “ ‘Old man.’ That’s all I am now to you losers.”
Tango leaned over and put an arm around his narrow shoulders. “Doesn’t mean we don’t love you, though.” He laughed as he was backhanded away.
“Alright.” Ghost made a settle down gesture. “Ratchet, what can we do charity-wise right now?”
As the secretary went down the list, Mercy let his mind wander. He shouldn’t – church was never anything to blow off – but since he’d been delegated to the kill squad, he didn’t much care how many hours everyone else was going to clock at the old folks’ home. He reflected on the moment beside Ava’s truck, and the lecture he hadn’t received.
Had Ghost finally come around? he wondered. If he had, then something told him Maggie had had a lot to do with it. How was that for incredible? The mother of the little girl giving him the green light. No, not just that: encouraging him. Maggie wasn’t normal, and for that, he was grateful.
“…like last time,” Michael was saying with a frown as Mercy refocused.
Ghost sighed. “That could have happened to any of the three of you. Let’s just call off the pissing contest, alright?”
Mercy shot a shit-eating grin across the foot of the table at Michael. “Oh, I dunno, boss. If Mikey wants to measure stuff…”
“Hey,” Ghost said, “don’t make me think about your dick any more than I absolutely have to.”
Aidan and Tango erupted in spontaneous laughter, and the rest of the table joined them, all save Michael.
Mercy felt the heat in his face and ducked his head over the table. “Yeah. Okay.”
“Michael,” Ghost said as the laughing died down, “Mercy is one of this club’s best guys. He’s the only extractor we’ve ever had. Learn to work together, because I need you both on this assignment. Understand?”
Michael nodded and glanced down at his hands.
Mercy felt the compliment all the way down to his toes. Yeah, things were different. Tides were shifting, grudges washing away.
“We have to be a united front,” Ghost continued. “This isn’t like anything we’ve faced before. This isn’t just club against club; this is club against club, town, mayor, PD. This is about the future of the Lean Dogs, boys. Let’s make sure there actually is a future.”
When church was dismissed, as the boys were filing out, Ghost snagged his VP with a snap of his fingers. “Collier. You got a sec?”
“Sure.”
Ghost thought the vice president had a nervous set to his chin as his eyes followed their departing brothers. Hmm. Ghost propped a hip against the side of the table, very casual and unofficial, and lit a smoke, gave off the impression of being comfortable and unworried.
Collier put his hands back on the table and leaned against it, between two chairs, head facing the doors, eyes flicking over to Ghost. There was a tension in him, one he kept well-hidden, but one out of character for him. It had been there for days. Ghost had written it off as grief.
“What’s up?”
Ghost tapped ash in one of the heavy crystal trays on the table. “Just wanted to make sure you were doing okay. What with everything.”
Collier snorted, one corner of his mouth lifting in a humorless smile. “Everything’s kinda going to shit, isn’t it? We can handle it, though.”
“Yeah.” Ghost took a long drag and let the smoke out through his nostrils. “But that’s not what I meant.”
Again, Collier’s eyes shifted over, quick, furtive. “You mean about Andre?”
“I know you cared about him. Our prospects start to feel like our sons.”
Collier snorted. “One of your prospects was your son.”
“True.” He’d only ever sponsored two – he wasn’t big on the mentoring – and that had been Aidan and Tango, both together when they’d prospected at sixteen. That hadn’t been much different than parenting. “But still.”
“Still,” Collier echoed, heaving a deep breath. “I’m alright. Guess I shoulda been expecting something to happen, given his habits.”
Ghost made an agreeing sound.
“I just wanna focus on dealing with the Carps right now,” Collier said, pushing away from the table. He looked older than he had a week ago, more stoop-shouldered and less vital. “Andre’s buried and the girls took up a collection for his kids. There’s nothing else I can do for him now.” He turned to face Ghost fully, guilt pressed deep in the lines of his face. “Right?”
Guilt could kill a man. Guilt over not having done enough. Guilt over missing signs.
And they couldn’t afford for any member to be distracted by something as acidic as that.
So Ghost said, “Right,” and clapped his old friend on the shoulder.
Ava’s hangover settled in during her second class of the day, the sweeping nausea, the crippling headache, the exhaustion, the god-awful loudness of every whispered voice and jostled backpack, pushed-back chair. She put her head down on the table at some point in the middle of the lecture; she didn’t mean to, it was just that the faux-wood grain of the table kept getting closer, closer, closer…Oh, what the hell
. She’d just shut her eyes for a minute. Maybe then she’d stop feeling so sick.
“Miss Teague!”
She snapped to attention, head jerking back on her neck, nausea threatening to overtake her, temples pounding. The room swam and refused to come into focus for a second, then her professor, the formidable Miss Coleridge, solidified into a solitary tweed-clad figure.
“Miss Teague, am I boring you?”
Ava pushed herself up on her elbows and heard someone behind her squelch a laugh. There were eleven of them in this class. In those big undergrad auditorium classrooms, one sleeping student was easily missed. But with just eleven, she was a disruption.
“No, ma’am,” she said, dashing at her cloudy eyes with the back of her hand. Oh God, she was going to be sick. “I’m fine. Just…not feeling well, is all.”
Miss Coleridge harrumphed. “I take it your condition has nothing to do with alcohol and everything to do with staying up late to go over my syllabus.”
Ava flicked her a bare smile. “Of course.”
Miss Coleridge gave her a stern look – weren’t grad professors supposed to be more laid back than this? – then resumed her seat on the front of her desk and picked up her MLA manual again. Professional Report Writing: a dry class by normal standards; throw in all the Johnnie Walker she’d consumed, and Ava was ready to take a nap with her head in the wastebasket.
She checked her phone, where it rested on her thigh beneath the table, in an effort to distract herself from the crushing nausea.
One text message from Ronnie: Can we talk? Call me.
No, she wanted to type back. No we can’t. You insulted me in every way possible, and I don’t want to talk to you ever, about anything.
She clicked the screen to black and forced her head up, stomach rolling. She just wouldn’t respond, she decided. What would she tell him anyway? That she’d spent an entire night with someone who wasn’t him?
She was surprised to feel a twinge of disappointment. She didn’t want to stay with Ronnie – no, not after last night – but she’d never pictured herself a cheater, someone who lied and two-timed. She’d never thought bringing Ronnie home with her would lead to all this. Or that she was so weak-willed as to be sucked back into Mercy’s trap again.
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