Fearless

by Lauren Gilley

  “Right.” The knowledge wasn’t comforting. How many of the great prehistoric beasts, she wondered, passed beneath their small boat as they sat here?

  Mercy hefted the first stone. “Sit there, in the bow,” he instructed, “and keep real still. It’s gonna tip the boat a little when I dump him in.”

  She nodded and braced her hands on the sides of the bateau, stomach clenching. A vision of the craft capsizing and spilling them both into the gator-infested water filled her mind.

  “Okay,” Mercy said, taking a deep breath. “I haven’t done this in a while. I hope the old bastard’s still in the habit.”

  He chucked the first rock into the water and it hit with a loud plunk and splash. Ava saw the plume of water flash white in the gloom.

  “Big Son,” Mercy called, keeping his voice low. In went the second rock. “Come and get it, you big son of a bitch.”

  Third rock.

  “There,” Ava breathed, pointing. Something was stirring the water, a great sweeping motion back and forth beneath the surface.

  Mercy’s grin was a flash of white teeth in the dark. “Oh yeah. That’s him.” He reached into the open tarp they’d lined the bottom of the bateau with and hefted up the dead man. A sequence of easy moves for him, like he was picking up groceries, a sack of garbage, rather than a full grown man.

  “Son,” he called again. “I got something real good for you.” And he deftly slid the body over the side, into the welcoming dark water.

  Ava watched the disturbance move closer, that pendulous motion that had to be his massive tail propelling him forward. She imagined she saw the scaly ridges of his back, the knobs of his eyes.

  And then there he was, fully realized in the flashlight, right at the top of the water, breathtaking in all aspects. Ava glimpsed his stubby front foot, the one Mercy had told her about, and then all her attention was on his huge head, as he opened his jaws in a flash and grabbed hold of the dead man.

  “Oh, God,” she whispered.

  “Turn the light out, baby,” Mercy said. “You don’t want to watch him go into his roll.”

  “No,” she agreed. “I don’t.”

  It was bad enough she could hear the splashing and snapping as Mercy poled the bateau out of Son’s pool. Other gators passed them, gliding through the water, headed toward the feast. A chill went up her spine to hear the deep, guttural groaning sounds the reptiles made, the hissing as others challenged the big gator for a piece of meat.

  When they were safely away, and the noise had faded, Ava twisted around. Mercy was a dark ghost in the stern of the boat, like a gondolier from hell.

  “He’s real,” she said. “Big Son.”

  He chuckled. “Of course he is. I may tell stories, but they’re always true.”

  “Pathetic losers, the lot of them,” Walsh said, which amounted to a big speech from him, as he toed one lifeless corpse with obvious contempt. A speech, and a facial expression. A big show for the Englishman.

  Twelve Carpathians lay like dominos, lined up on the floor one beside the next, all shot cleanly and expeditiously. Dead. They’d never suspected an ambush at their own clubhouse. None had been armed, none ready. The girls had all made a break for the doors, screaming, and the Dogs, faces covered by masks, colors safely left at home, had managed to let them escape without losing any of the Carpathians.

  “Yeah,” Ghost agreed. “Poor stupid bastards.” He surveyed the dead with his hands on his hips. “One problem, though.” He glanced up to scan all their faces. “Where are the officers?”

  “We’re missing the VP, secretary, sergeant, and Larsen,” Collier confirmed, walking down the line of bodies. “Were any of them part of the four you took out last night?” he asked Michael.

  Michael shook his head. “They were just kids.”

  Ghost scowled. “That’s not a coincidence. They knew we’d come, after the drive-by. And they’re not here.”

  A thought struck Aidan. “The drive-by was a distraction.”

  Ghost gave him a sharp look.

  “Larsen’s got something planned, and the drive-by was to keep us busy.”

  “The drive-by’s their MO,” Ghost argued.

  “Yeah, but last time, they were trying to kill your wife and kid.”

  Ghost frowned, muscle in his jaw twitching. “We need to find him.” He gestured to the bodies. “You’ve got this?” he asked RJ and Rottie.

  Both looking exhausted, they nodded.

  “I’ll go with them,” Briscoe offered.

  “Me too,” Dublin said. “That’s too much digging for two boys.”

  Carter could see his face in the coat of varnish on the bar top. He’d polished until his elbow ached. His reflection looked droopy-eyed. One final scrape of his thumbnail at a mystery fleck, and he literally threw in the towel, tossing his rag into the bucket under the taproom sink and slumping sideways onto a stool.

  His eyes went to the room’s only other occupant.

  Maggie had been on one of the sofas for hours now, reading a paperback romance novel. Carter hadn’t seen her turn the page once, lashes flicking every so often as she blinked.

  The common room had been scrubbed top to bottom – not that it needed it. The two prospects, Harry and Littlejohn, were taking out the trash, a chore that was massive here in the clubhouse. For the moment, it was just the two of them.

  “Can I get you a drink?” Carter asked, and his voice seemed too loud in the quiet.

  Maggie didn’t jerk – she had too much poise for that – but she glanced up at him with a moment of startled disorientation. She’d forgotten he was there. Then she settled and smiled, faintly. “Probably not. I bet you think I’m an alcoholic at this point.”

  As tired and stiff as his face was, he felt a returning smile form. “I grew up with a drunk. I know a real alcoholic when I see one.”

  Her smile shifted, becoming sympathetic. “How’s your dad doing?”

  He shook his head.

  Maggie closed the book she’d been pretending to read and tossed it onto the coffee table. She stood. “Tell you what. I’ve got something better than a drink.”

  She waved for him to stay seated as she left the room, heading toward the kitchen. She was back a minute later with two Dove ice cream bars. The kind with the almonds in the chocolate coating. “I shouldn’t,” she said, as she handed him one and opened the other. “Straight to my hips. But you know what? Sometimes, all you can do with a problem is throw ice cream at it.”

  When he didn’t open his right away, she said, “Aw, come on now, you’re gonna make me feel like a cow. You’re skinny. You actually need the calories.”

  The plastic wrapper crackled as he tore it open. “I can’t remember the last time I had ice cream,” he murmured, and truly, he couldn’t. “Sweets weren’t on the menu when I was in training.”

  Maggie made a face. “Do you miss it? Football, I mean.”

  He considered the bumpy, almond-studded surface of the Dove bar a long moment. “You know what’s funny? I never really gave a damn about football. I mean, I don’t dislike it, but I never loved it either.” He shrugged. “It was something to do. Something I was good at.” He frowned. “A way to get the fuck away from my old man.”

  When he glanced up, Maggie was looking at him speculatively. “And what about now? Is that what you’re doing? Getting the fuck away from him still?”

  She was waiting for him to flinch away. He wasn’t going to. “He’ll always be my father. I think I’ll be doing that till the day he dies.”

  Small flicker of something in Maggie’s hazel eyes.

  “But what I’m doing here…” he continued. “I’m hoping it’s not just a lateral move. I’m tired of just getting away. I want to get somewhere.”

  She took a bite of her Dove bar and leaned sideways against the bar. “You should talk to some of the guys. Maybe when things settle a bit. But you should. Most of them were trying to get somewhere when they joined. They found what they needed here.
Maybe you can too.”

  Before he could respond, the door opened and in trooped the guys. Most of them, anyway. None of them looked pleased. Their faces reminded him of those of his teammates, after they’d lost a game.

  This is my team now, he thought. If he chose to stick with it. He didn’t yet know how to feel about that.

  Ghost came to stand beside his wife, leaning down to steal a bite of her ice cream. He managed to make even that look dignified.

  He glanced at Carter. “You been keeping an eye on things?”

  “Yes, sir. It’s been quiet.”

  He nodded. “Good.”

  It was nicer than anything his father had ever said to him.

  The chirping of the crickets was punctuated by the throbbing call of a bullfrog. It was never quiet in the swamp, Ava had realized. Never did it settle and go to sleep. Alive always, pulsing, calling, shifting. Mercy had described it to her as an animal that swallowed you down, and you lived against its beating heart and working lungs.

  It was apt. Her poetic Cajun biker.

  She lifted her head where it rested on his chest. The bedside clock was just visible over on the nightstand. Three-fifteen a.m.

  She’d thought Mercy was asleep, but he stirred beneath her, his hand shifting against her back. “You’re awake?” he asked, his voice clear. He’d been awake for a while himself.

  She settled her head on his warm, bare skin again and nodded. “Yeah.”

  His fingers stroked along her spine, a slow, absent petting. He exhaled deeply, chest dropping and then lifting once more against her cheek. His body generated such heat, his skin so warm, and the day’s events had left Ava so cold inside, like all the evil had lowered her core temperature. She was grateful to snuggle naked along his side like this, the familiar hard length of his body a comfort.

  When they’d returned to the cottage, after dumping the body, they’d eaten their not-at-all bad pasta, reheating it on the stove first. Mercy ate as always, but Ava picked, unsettled and chilled and not even in the mood to celebrate her handiwork.

  After, greasy with dried sweat and mosquito-bite-speckled, they’d showered, not seeing any sense in going about the process separately. Amid the steam and the slide of soaped hands on skin, the worries had been pushed back. Still dripping-wet, Mercy laid her down on the bathroom rug and mounted her right there beside the tub, the idea of walking to the bed too awful to bear. They’d air-dried on top of the sheets. Sleep came in uneasy handfuls, punctuated by a gnawing anxiety.

  “What are we going to do?” Ava asked quietly.

  “Not much we can do, ‘cept be ready.”

  She nodded, and as she drifted, she thought again about how warm his skin was. It was almost hot to the touch. Dry and smooth.

  Fever, she thought, but she was already too far gone.

  Forty-Seven

  Standing five feet away, Ava could hear the ferocious growl of her father’s voice on the other end of the phone Mercy held pressed to his ear. She tried to make out what he was saying as she monitored the snapping bacon in the skillet in front of her. She had no luck with the listening, but so far, the bacon was coming along nicely.

  “No, I hear you,” Mercy said, leaning back against the wall. He looked put out. “I just don’t know what kinda good it’ll do.”

  As anticipated, the news of their hoodie stalker hadn’t gone over well with the home front.

  Ava flipped the bacon strips with a fork and took her chance to really scrutinize her husband. He was his usual towering, golden self. His sleeveless muscle shirt put his biceps on glorious display. She’d always loved his arms. They weren’t the ridiculous, bulked up arms of a pro wrestler, but rather the sculpted, long limbs of a man who worked hard for a living. Like all of him. Beautifully contoured, but never intentionally chiseled.

  Shit, focus.

  She took a good look at his face, and saw the redness in the corners of his eyes, the dark shadows beneath them. Despite his scowl, there was a fatigue in his face, a slackening between his features. A stranger might not have noticed, but to her, who knew every part of him so well, he looked sick.

  Her stomach tightened. It was his shoulder. Had to be.

  “No, I…” He sighed. “Fine. Yeah. Okay.” He pulled the phone from his ear and held it out to her. “He wants to talk to you.”

  She took a fortifying breath and swapped places with Mercy, handing him her fork and taking the phone. It was warm from his hand. Very warm.

  Frowning, she put it to her face and said, “Hi, Dad.”

  “You haven’t been eaten by an alligator yet, have you?” Ghost demanded, his voice like sandpaper.

  Ava bit down hard on the sudden laugh that wanted to explode out of her. She said, “Yes, in fact, I have. I’m talking to you from his stomach right now.”

  “Don’t be a smartass.”

  She smiled, only because he couldn’t see her. “Sorry.”

  He took a deep breath and seemed more composed when he spoke again. “Merc said that guy was following you around the French Quarter.”

  “He was.” At his prodding, she repeated the entire story that Mercy had already told him, down to the gator body dump. When Ghost seemed skeptical of that, she said, “That’s how they do it down here, Dad. You’ve got the cattle pasture; the NOLA guys have the gators.”

  He made a disgruntled sound. “I didn’t send you down there so you could be feeding corpses to lizards.”

  All of this worry was actually touching. She’d spent so much time being angry with him the last few weeks that it was nice to be reminded that he did see her as his daughter, that he loved her and fretted about her.

  “Is it any safer up there?” she countered.

  A beat passed. “Nah. It’s not.”

  “I’m okay,” she assured. “I’ve got the best bodyguard a girl could want.” She glanced over at Mercy, as he removed the bacon from the skillet onto a plate.

  “Yeah, well, I’m sending Rottie down with your brother. They’re heading out within the hour and riding straight down.”

  A prickling went up the back of her neck. “Rottie? Dad, the entire New Orleans chapter is at our disposal if we need them.”

  He made a snorting sound. “None of them can do what Rottie does. This is club business, Ava, don’t worry about it. Expect a call from Aidan when he gets in town.”

  After a bewildered goodbye, she handed the phone back to Mercy at Ghost’s instruction. She sliced bread from the baguette and laid the pieces onto the stove top to warm as Mercy had some final argument.

  It was a massive relief to hear the phone settle into its cradle with a decisive click.

  “Christ,” Mercy said, rubbing both hands across his face and back through his loose hair. “I feel like I just got sent to the principal’s office.” He dropped his hands and glanced at her. “Course, I never did that. But I assume it sucks.”

  “Big ones,” she assured, smoothing butter across the warm bread.

  He came to inspect the breakfast she’d laid out on the counter. It wasn’t much: just the bread, bacon, yogurt the O’Donnells had stocked for them, and fresh strawberries. “See?” he said, smiling. “I knew there was a chef hiding in those typewriter hands of yours.”

  She snorted. “Hardly. And by the way, no one writes on typewriters anymore.”

  “Your old man’s right. You’re a smartass.”

  She wasn’t going to get distracted with the back-and-forth; she had two items on her agenda. “What was he talking about, sending Rottie down?” She glanced back over her shoulder and saw Mercy’s expression tweak with concern. The dark circles were even more noticeable close up like this. “What’s he sending a tracker for?”

  He snagged a strip of bacon and made a thoughtful face as he folded it into his mouth and chewed. He glanced at her, weighing things in his mind. He was trying to decide, she realized, whether he should talk to her about club things. That had never been a dilemma for him. No matter how much he’d loved her, he�
��d never budged on that front.

  Maybe marriage had shifted things a little. Maybe being his old lady messed with the delineations in his head.

  Finally, he swallowed, looked resigned, and said, “Larsen disappeared.”

  She tried to swallow and her throat wouldn’t work. “Maybe he finally came to his senses. Got spooked and took off.” But she knew it was a weak hope, and Mercy shook his head.

  “From what your dad said, Larsen set up the rest of his club to take a fall, as a distraction so he could skip town. He and his officers are missing. When I told your dad about what happened last night – he’s convinced that was some sort of scout. Larsen may have wanted the Carpathians to become the only MC in Knoxville, but there’s one thing he wants more than that.” He smiled ruefully. “My head.”

  The fear that took hold of her was on old one, a fear that had visited her when she was a child, when Jasper Larsen’s father and uncle had forced open her bedroom window and slid in with the smell of rain to kill her in her bed.

  “My guess,” Mercy continued, “is that he realized his club was headed for the shitter, so he decided to at least get what he really wants. Revenge. Ghost thinks he’s headed here. Rottie talked to a gas station clerk who saw a man in a plain white van matching Larsen’s description filling up late last night. He went in for smokes; guy got a good look at his face.

  “So Ghost is sending Rottie along to try and sniff him out, somewhere between here and Knoxville. Get to him before he gets to us.”

  “I thought this place was impossible to find,” she said, pulse beating in her ears.

  He gave her another lopsided non-smile. “That guy from yesterday found it. Not as secret as I thought, I don’t guess.”

  “God.” She pressed her knuckles to her lips and bit at the inside of her cheek, trying to fight the welling panic back. “Should we run?” she asked, voice muffled by her hand. “Take off right now and go…” Where? She had no idea.

  Mercy shook his head. “I still think it’s safe here. And I’ve got the advantage over them. I know these swamps. This place’ll eat a man alive if he doesn’t know what he’s doing.”