Fearless

by Lauren Gilley

  Mercy’s brows lifted in mild surprise.

  “Ava’s too relieved you’re not dead to give you the ass-kicking you deserve, so I’ll deliver it for her. You will not turn my daughter into your nursemaid. You will not sit here for months, feeling so damn sorry for yourself that the worry and the guilt break her. Because you will – you will break her. Losing that baby was the start five years ago–”

  Mercy’s eyes flared with aggression at the mention of the baby. That was forbidden territory. Ghost didn’t care.

  “ – and then finding out about her little boyfriend. What she did to Larsen. She’s hanging by a thread.

  “You two, your marriage – you have my full support, because I think that might be the only thing to keep her from going off the deep end.” He stood. “So do your fucking part. Get better. Stop sulking. Be her damn husband.”

  Mercy’s gaze raked up him slowly, boots to brows, his eyes black and gleaming with rage. Ghost realized, in that moment, that he’d never been on the receiving end of this particular look. He’d been to war, he’d earned his way to the club’s president seat, and still, he felt the chill, deep along his bones, of Mercy’s threat. He was transported back to the night five years ago in Hamilton House, to the moment when he’d been unable to call Mercy off Mason Stephens. Ghost felt an emptiness in his hands. President or no, he wasn’t the one who held this truly frightening man’s leash.

  “Not as my president, huh?” Mercy’s accent thickened noticeably when he was riled. The voice was quiet though, too low for anyone outside the room to hear. “From where I sat, you were never much of a father, either, so don’t come at me from that angle. You wanna be Kenny and Felix? Fine, let’s be them. Don’t lecture me on what’s best for that little girl. You don’t have a damn clue. And don’t you dare fucking mention that lost baby to me one more time. I know what it did to her. What it’s still doing to her.” He looked away, with the deliberate dismissal of a tiger.

  Ghost was startled by the sound of the door creaking open. Ava stood in the threshold, arms folded, her face drawn into a tight, furious knot. She looked like a dark-haired Maggie, and when she opened her mouth, she sounded like one too.

  “For the love of God,” she said. “Are you kidding me? You two have been having – are still having – the stupidest argument I’ve ever heard!” She threw her hands up. “Trying to decide who actually loves me? Wasting all this hate on each other instead of the people who are the actual problems in our lives? Stupid!” she shouted, hands accentuating her point. “Let it go already! Jesus Christ.”

  “Ava–” Ghost started.

  “Let it go!” And she stormed off, narrow feet stomping extra hard across the carpet for effect.

  Ghost sighed, watching the empty doorframe. “I hope you know what you’re in for,” he muttered, “because she’s going to turn out exactly like her mother.”

  “I didn’t know you guys were cattle ranchers,” Greg said, gazing out the window at the fields touched by deepening twilight as they began the climb up the old farmhouse driveway.

  “We’re not,” Aidan said, steering the truck around one of the deeper potholes in the gravel drive. Every bump and rattle of the truck tightened the awful fist clenched in his belly. He couldn’t seem to work his face into its normal state of animation. He looked dejected and guilty, when he caught a glimpse of his face in the rearview mirror. How Greg didn’t suspect anything, he had no idea.

  “My grandfather had cattle,” he explained, taking them into the first of a series of switchback curves. “And he left my dad the property when he died, but none of us have ever done anything with the place. It’s falling apart, actually.”

  “Hm. It’s kinda nice up here.” Greg had his nose pressed to the window like a kid. “It looks peaceful.”

  “It is.” Save for all the bones buried beneath the lapping waves of grass.

  In truth, Aidan did love the property. Ringed along the edges and cut across in several places by thin strips of forest, it was a dipping and diving expanse of hills and hollows, deep stream beds and high crests. You could see nothing of Knoxville up here. There were no sounds save those made by the animals that slept between the trees. A forgotten, timeless place, all brushed over with gray in the evening like this.

  The drive climbed for a while, before finally leveling out, and at its end, beyond the fork that led to the barn farther up the hill, was the house. It was a classic old farmhouse, white clapboard, wraparound porch, high peaked roof with slate shingles. It was falling apart, slowly but surely, a spectral ghost as it glowed in the fading light, its porch spindles broken and uneven, like gapped teeth.

  Aidan parked in front of the detached garage and stared through the windshield a moment after he’d killed the engine. His skin felt too tight and cold all over, prickly even, as he contemplated what was about to happen. He envisioned Ghost’s face from earlier, the unforgiving insistence of his dark eyes. He was the president, and if he asked Aidan to rob a bunch of nuns at gunpoint, he expected his order to be carried out without protest.

  What must that be like, Aidan wondered, to have such absolute certainty in your authority?

  “Aidan,” Greg said, yanking him back to the present. “You alright?”

  “Fine.” Aidan gave himself an all-over shake. “Let’s go.”

  They climbed from the truck and Greg stood waiting, hands in his jacket pockets, expectant and maybe a little excited. He was being included. He felt needed, and that was bringing some small happiness back into his life.

  Aidan wanted to throw up.

  “What did you say we’re supposed to be picking up?”

  “There’s an old Impala engine up in the barn. Dad’s convinced we can salvage it.”

  Greg turned, scanning for the barn. “Should we drive there?”

  “Nah. We can walk. Come on.”

  They fell into step beside one another, Aidan keeping his strides short so he didn’t outdistance the smaller man, their boots crunching on the gravel. The sky had clouded up, and the last light of the day was an underwater silver, pressing low at the horizon. The wind scudded along the ground, blowing dirt and sand, providing resistance to their pace as it tugged at their jeans.

  “I’ve been meaning to thank you,” Greg said, as they left the house behind.

  “For what?”

  “For helping me out like you have. You didn’t have to believe me.” He shot Aidan a sideways glance that was almost shy. “You could have tossed me out on my ass. But you listened. Really listened. You got me away from Larsen and his crew–”

  “Look, Greg–”

  “And I’m thankful for that.” He kicked at a rock. “What happened to Jasper anyway? He just split, didn’t he?”

  “Something like that.” Aidan sighed. He scanned their surroundings. The driveway was flanked by tossing pine trees, crowded at their bases with honeysuckle. This seemed like as good a place as any. “Look, Greg,” he started again. “Step over here for a second.” He left the drive, walking toward the trees, and heard Greg follow.

  “Um, why?”

  Aidan slipped a hand inside his cut, fingers curling around the butt of the .45 in his shoulder holster. “I want to show you something.”

  “What?” Greg asked, but he followed. Trusting. Unsuspecting. Doomed.

  Aidan leaned between two trunks, pointing beyond at the needle-strewn earth. “Look there.”

  Greg pitched forward at the waist and stuck his head between the trees, not noticing that Aidan had stepped back, that he was withdrawing the gun from inside his cut. “I don’t see anything.”

  “Greg.”

  Aidan had meant to sound commanding, but some strain in his voice gave him away, caused Greg to go still, and then turn slowly, his eyes already wide before they landed on the .45 aimed at his heart.

  “Aidan.”

  “I’m sorry,” Aidan said, grinding his molars together.

  Part of him wished that Greg would run, so that he’d have
no choice but to fire. But instead, the poor man stared down the barrel of the gun, tears springing up in his eyes.

  “You brought me out here to kill me?”

  “You had to know this would happen, man,” Aidan said. “After you turned on your own club–”

  “It wasn’t my club! I never wanted to be one of them. Aidan.” He took a half step forward. “You know I would never try to go back to Jasper. I wouldn’t hurt you guys like that.”

  “Jasper’s dead.”

  “Good! I don’t care. Aidan, please–”

  “How could we ever trust you? You proved that you’re not loyal. I don’t care what kind of shithead Jasper was; he was your president, and you told us his secrets. That’s called being a rat, Greg. Did you think we’d ever patch you? You think we’d knowingly patch a rat?” The words were cruel and he hated them. He hated all of this. He wanted to scream.

  “Please,” Greg said in a small voice, his chin beginning to tremble.

  “It’s my fault,” Aidan said. “I contacted you. I encouraged you to leave the Carpathians.” He took a deep breath that didn’t bring him the air he needed. “I’m sorry for that. Really I am. I wish I didn’t have to do this, believe me.”

  Greg looked like a sacrificial lamb. Some poor, innocent thing that had to fall beneath the churning wheels of the MC machine. A casualty of protocol. He knew too much, had seen too much, had belonged to the enemy side.

  Aidan tried not to, but he couldn’t help remembering Greg at sixteen, scrawny and pale, fending off the jabs and towel-snaps of the jocks in the PE locker room. He didn’t want to remember Alex Curtis putting a hand around Greg’s throat and slamming him back against the lockers, the sound of Greg’s head hitting the metal.

  Just a nerdy kid with nothing to his name. He didn’t deserve this. He wasn’t some thug, some white trash crusader like Larsen, hell bent on revenge and violence. Greg wasn’t a Carpathian, not in his heart, where it counted. He was just this unlucky kid who’d thought Aidan was cool, and who’d been trying to do the right thing in an unjust world.

  “I’m sorry,” Aidan said again. “I’m so sorry.”

  Greg shut his eyes, throat quivering as he swallowed, resolved to his fate.

  Aidan felt the sweat on his palm, the way his finger slipped against the trigger. This was one of those moments that had the potential to determine his future in the club. One of those situations his president – his overbearing father – had thrown at him on purpose, to test his loyalty and mettle. Killing Greg had nothing to do with Greg. This was about him, about his penchant for leadership and making the hard call.

  He thought of his brothers. Dad, Collier, Walsh, Michael, Mercy – they wouldn’t have hesitated. They would have put a round in Greg’s heart and gone back to the truck for the shovel. No second thoughts. No regrets. Hell, he wasn’t sure his stepmother and sister wouldn’t have done it.

  But Aidan felt his heart squeeze tight.

  Wrong, a voice said, ringing through his head. Not his subconscious, but every fiber of his being: Wrong, wrong, wrong.

  His gun fell limp to his side. “Run.”

  Greg’s eyes opened. “Wha–”

  “Run,” Aidan said. “Get out of here, go. And don’t look back. Get as far away from Knoxville as you can. Go! Run!”

  Greg slipped as he spun, feet sliding on the fallen pine needles. But then he took off, sprinting away into the gloomy evening, toward the long stretch of pasture that would eventually take him to the road, and then freedom.

  He looked over his shoulder once, and Aidan waved him on with the gun. Then he kept running.

  Aidan stood rooted until the chill of the wind overtook him. Until he was shaking, and Greg had receded into nothing, and night had fallen. Then he walked slowly back to the truck.

  **

  Ghost woke automatically at six the next morning. Maggie’s face was against his throat, her warm breath ruffling across his Adam’s apple, one of her legs between both of his. She was asleep, but the feel of her hand down low against his stomach, even unmoving like this, had the ability to turn his mind to unproductive things if he let his thoughts dwell too long on the shape and heat of it.

  He eased away from her and sat up. She murmured something, fingers brushing against his thigh.

  “I’ll come back,” he promised, smoothing her hair back off her face. It didn’t matter that she pouted in front of the mirror about the lines around her eyes. She was only thirty-eight, and she’d always look like jailbait to him.

  Barefoot, he walked past Ava’s closed door – he could hear Mercy snoring softly – and went through the dark living room by feel, managing not to stub his toe as he made his way to the front door, and then opened it.

  There was the morning paper, waiting on the stoop like always. He opened it up, and in the light of the streetlamps, saw the headline on the front page.

  Mayor Funds MC War: The Shocking Truth of Mayor Stephens’ Anti-Crime Agenda

  Ghost smiled.

  Fifty-Three

  Eight weeks since the day of the crash on a New Orleans bayou road. Mercy had endured a second, successful surgery. Mayor Stephens and his cousin, William Archer, had been arrested. Slowly, through a diligent marketing campaign and an insistent charm, the club was gaining back the lost favor of the city. Knoxville was quiet, normal, untroubled. Football season was in full swing and out of town fans came in droves to cheer on the Vols, the scandals of before trampled down into the soft earth where they belonged.

  Ava slid a spatula beneath each cookie on the pan with care, passing the warm chocolate-chip discs onto a waiting plate, not damaging one of them. Finished, she pulled off her oven mitts with a satisfied smile. This cooking business wasn’t so bad after all. If she kept this up, she’d be able to contribute to Christmas dinner.

  When they were all arranged to her liking, she set the plate on the breakfast bar and went to the fridge for a Coke. She and Mercy had that in common: Why chase cookies with milk when you could rot your teeth a little more with a soda?

  Her hand was on the fridge door when she heard the knock. She pulled back, startled. It was two o’clock on a Wednesday. Who the hell could that be?

  There was a .38 in the ceramic canister beside the flour. Her eyes went there first, as a reassurance, before going to the back door and what she could see through its window.

  A man stood on the back step, a young man with dark, close-cropped hair and one of those faces too-wide in the jaw for her liking. He had a bad case of football-player face.

  Ava folded her arms and stared him down. “Can I help you?” she called through the window.

  He pressed a badge to the glass. “Harlan Grey, FBI, Miss Teague. I wanted to ask you a few questions.”

  Grey: the name Maggie had passed along to her with an eye roll. The same agent Layla Hammond had warned her about in a phone conversation they’d shared a week or so before. “Him?” Layla had said with a laugh when Ava asked about him. “Yeah, he was down here for a while. He was looking into that operation our boys” – both their respective husbands – “took care of in London. Incompetent fool,” she’d averred. “One of my dad’s employees cracked him over the head with a cast iron skillet and he missed the whole thing. I think he got demoted. Apparently, he’s looking to bag himself a Dog or two and get back on his boss’s good list.

  “Don’t worry about him,” she’d said. “You could have him chewed up and spit out before he ever knew what hit him.”

  Ava felt warm and bolstered at the memory of the conversation. She disengaged the locks and invited Grey in with a casual sweep of her hand. “I guess I have a few minutes. I made cookies, if you want one.”

  “No, thanks.” He surveyed the kitchen as she shut the door, like he was searching for something that would pop out and scream outlaw at him. A brick of coke, a bloody knife, an AK with the serial number filed off, a dead hooker. The usual. He turned back to her finally, patting his flat stomach, his athlete’s face creasin
g in an insincere, jock-boy smile. “I try to limit my carb intake.”

  She shrugged. “More for us, then.” She picked one up and broke off a bite with her fingers, popped it in her mouth. She almost smiled, pleased that her efforts had been fruitful. “Which reminds me,” she said, leaning back against the counter and propping one foot back against the lower cabinet face in an effort to look casual. “I need to check on my hubby. So it’d be great if we could make this fast.” Small, tight smile for effect, as she nibbled cookie.

  He gave her another of his fake smiles. “Your husband. That’s right. It’s Mrs. …I’m sorry, how do you pronounce his last name?”

  “Lécuyer.”

  “That’s right. Congratulations.”

  She stared at him. It was an old move she’d used on Aidan, growing up, and always managed to annoy him. She hoped it would work on the agent.

  He was better-trained than her brother. “He had a motorcycle accident, didn’t he? In fact, you were with him, weren’t you?”

  Her shoulder throbbed in remembrance. She’d come out of her sling two weeks before, but was using her exercise ball at intervals throughout the day, squeezing it, lifting it over her head, strengthening the joint.

  She nodded. “I wasn’t hurt as badly.”

  He lifted his brows. “And that happened in New Orleans?”

  “Agent Grey,” she said with a nasty smile, “I’m not some poor dumb twenty-two-year-old. If you know anything about my family, you know how they raised me. Can we please get to whatever it is you want to ask me about?”

  That set him back a step. His smile was more of a grimace, and the appreciative gleam in his eyes was tainted with anger. “Well,” he said with a shrug, “since you’re in such a hurry” – quick eye roll – “I won’t worry about being a gentleman. I’m trying to find Ronnie Archer, Mrs. …Ava,” he corrected, unable to manage the French. “And I think you know where I can find him.”

  She lifted her brows. “Collier Hershel confessed to killing Ronnie. He’s been arrested for it.”