by Naomi West
THE MONGOLS
It was crude and simple, rather unlike the flair for the dramatic that Chopper had come to expect from Spike. Still, the tone of the letter got under his skin, and after he had read it, he gave into his fiery urge to tear the thing into ribbons. Then he crumpled the pieces and let them fall to the ground in a ball, which he stepped on with his heavy boot. Finally somewhat satisfied, he turned away to inspect the rest of the room. So, Spike’s grand plan was to hold Kelsey for ransom? A smirk crossed Chopper’s face as he thought about how well that had ended up working out. Kelsey was safe at home — and where was Spike? That was the million-dollar question.
The silence in the bedroom seemed thicker than in other areas of the compound, for reasons Chopper couldn’t really explain. He knew in his soul that Spike Lawler must still be alive, but the atmosphere of his room felt haunted. The hairs on the back of Chopper’s neck prickled, and he sped up his search, wanting to be out of there as soon as possible. He hoped the unease wasn’t some sort of bad omen; that was the last thing he needed.
The desk and bureau were filled with bottles and vials and other drug paraphernalia. In the interest of being thorough, Chopper swept them clean. He found more bottles stashed under Spike’s enormous bed, plus a small safe with its door open, the padlock hanging. On top of the bed was a pile of debris strikingly similar to the one he had found in the office: a mix of cinders and half-burnt things littering the bedspread. He saw what looked like part of a day planner underneath some ashes, and he dug it out and brushed it off. The flames had eaten through part of the open side, but a good chunk of the book near the binding was still intact. Chopper flipped it open. Another smirk leapt onto his face.
Addresses. Dozens and dozens of addresses—and one of them was circled. This time, Chopper did laugh out loud. How could Spike have been so stupid? It was almost comical. But Chopper knew he had to give himself and his boys some credit too. He could just imagine Lawler, watching as his empire crumbled around him, scrambling to take the things he absolutely needed. Probably, he was also suffering from withdrawal; it would explain the half-assed burn jobs and the way he’d looked at the warehouse. If he wasn’t out to kill him. Chopper might have felt sorry for the guy. It had to hurt to see his life and legacy fall at the hands of his oldest rival. But it didn’t matter anymore. Chopper had what he needed, and soon, he’d be able to solve the Outlaws’ biggest problem for good.
He made one last sweep of the room for good measure before he left. There was a picture of Kelsey tucked into one of the bureau drawers. Chopper took it out and slipped it into his jacket, next to his heart. Nothing of Kelsey would be left in the compound if he could help it. He knew she was trying to cut her ties with the club life, or at least lessen its influence, and he couldn’t find it in his heart to blame her. After all, the clubs had never brought her anything but heartache, himself included. He glanced at his reflection in the mirror above Spike’s dresser and scowled, turning away. Was there anything else in here that he needed? No, he decided. Not now. He could send his men back here to clean up the place once he’d routed out its exiled king. If nothing else, he knew it was safe.
On his way out, he passed through the office on the second floor again, and out of curiosity, he tried one of the cabinet drawers. To his surprise, it came open immediately, and it was full of nothing but air. When he tried the others, he found that many of them were also empty, and the ones that weren’t were stuffed full of documents dating back to even before Spike assumed command of the Mongols. Chopper made a mental note to have one of his bookkeepers sort through this mountain of paperwork, but for the moment, he let it be. He should have known that the massive bank of cabinets was largely a ruse to intimidate whomever happened to venture into Spike’s record room. Almost none of the Mongols would have wanted anything to do with the club’s filing system—Chopper was sure of that.
He walked out the busted front door and went around to where his bike was hidden. The documents he’d pilfered from the compound went into his side bag, and then he threw his leg over the bike and started the engine. Its low roar filled the stale quiet with a comfortingly familiar sound. Chopper felt himself relax as he pulled off down the drive toward the road. Mission accomplished, he thought.
When he got back to his own compound, he found Mickey waiting for him outside the door of the war room, her face etched in worried lines. He hadn’t seen her much at all since the last confrontation with the Mongols, and he was surprised to find her presence somehow reassuring, as if she was the true indicator of normalcy returning to his world. He smiled at her as he approached the room. She smiled back, but nervously.
“What’s up?” he asked, opening the door. He let her sidle in first. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”
“Been laying low,” she said. “Keeping my head down. You know.”
“I know,” he agreed. He dropped the binder and the planner on the table. Her eyes darted questioningly between the books and his face. “Just some souvenirs from Spike’s place,” Chopper told her. “Money shit. Don’t know if I understand it all.” He decided not to tell her about the addresses, or his plans regarding them.
Mickey hesitated, brushing some of her flyaway copper hair from her eyes. “I might be able to help you with that,” she said. “Or, I might have someone who can.”
“Really.” Chopper leaned on the edge of the table, crossing his arms. “How soon?”
She pursed her lips. “Right now. One of Spike’s girls got in touch with me this morning. At least, she says she’s one of his girls. I told her to meet me here. She’s downstairs.”
“How long’s she been waiting?” Chopper asked.
Mickey shrugged. “An hour, maybe? I told her you weren’t in, but she said she didn’t care. She wouldn’t tell me what her deal was, only that Spike hung her out to dry.”
Chopper chuckled wryly. “Send her in for me.” He paused. “And remind me to give you a bonus.”
“Ah, whatever,” Mickey said. But he caught a glimpse of a grin on her face as she breezed out of the room. Her quick footsteps echoed down the stairs, and then he heard different ones coming back up. They were slow and deliberate, and they made a noise that he recognized as sharp-heeled shoes. He braced himself.
The woman who appeared in the doorway was one he would have described, pre-Kelsey, as a classic beauty. Her smooth, rounded figure spoke of pinup girls and sailors’ tattoos. She had red hair like Mickey, but hers gleamed in the light like flames instead of pennies. A pair of sunglasses obscured her eyes, but when she saw Chopper, she took them off, revealing piercing hazel irises. A bitter little smile quirked her lips.
“Chopper Slater,” she said. Her voice was low and sensuous, with more than a drop of poison in it.
Chopper kept his arms folded across his chest. “Who are you?” he asked evenly.
“Oh?” She arched an eyebrow. “Your little puppy didn’t tell you?” She walked over to a chair and lowered herself into the seat, crossing her long legs primly, one over the other. “My name’s Dahlia. I used to be Spike’s old lady.” She paused, eyeing him. “I take it you don’t remember me.”
“To be fair,” Chopper said, “he’s had a lot of ladies.” He grabbed a half-spent pack of smokes off the table and offered it to her. “Here. You look like you need one.”
She laughed, plucking a cigarette from the pack. He lit it for her. She didn’t speak again until she had taken a long drag and let it out in a plume around her head, her gaze steady through the screen of smoke. “He has,” she agreed. “And I was foolish enough to think that I would always be the queen.”
“Who dethroned you?” Chopper asked.
“Oh, please. As if you don’t know.” She inhaled again, the tip of the cig glowing bright. The smoke left her lips in rings. “The moment he laid eyes on her, he was lost to me. And when you took her away, I thought he’d die right there. Die, or kill someone.” She turned her head to stare out the window, thinking. “I should have kn
own,” she continued. “But I held on for a long, long time. Don’t ask me why. I don’t know that either.” She tapped the cigarette delicately, and a long cinder of ash fell to the tabletop. “Sorry,” she said. “Ashtray?”
Chopper passed her one. “So, what? You finally realized he’s a scum bucket and came to me to atone for your sins?”
She looked up from brushing the ashes into the tray. “Something like that.” Her eyes hooded themselves as she watched him. “I have a confession to make, if that’s what you mean.”
He masked his interest as best he could. “The priest is in,” he said.
For the first time, her hypnotic gaze dropped to her lap. She put down the cigarette and began to turn the gold ring on her finger. “I’m the one who told Spike where she was hiding.” She took a breath and pressed on. “I watched her. I told him when he could go in and scare her out. I don’t know what I thought would happen.” She sighed. “Right before, I called her. There’s a message on your voicemail machine. I suppose you’ve heard it by now.”
He had heard the message, and it had made him furious. Now, he didn’t know what he felt. “That was you? You sound so … different.”
“Maybe I was hysterical,” she said. “Who knows.” The ring kept turning. “I saw her run out the back, and I think as soon as she was gone, I knew I’d done something horrible.”
“Because she was pregnant?”
Dahlia hesitated. “Yes.” Her voice hitched just slightly. She cleared her throat. “She was running very, very hard.” Those eyes met Chopper’s. “But I told myself it didn’t matter, that I was doing it for love. Because …” She trailed off for a second. “I loved Spike, you know.”
“Why?” Chopper couldn’t help himself. He clamped his mouth shut as soon as the word left him.
Dahlia let out a short, harsh laugh. “Good question.” She ran her fingers through her fiery hair. “I can’t stop thinking about her running for her life, away from a man who loved her more than he loved me.” She stared at her ring. “What’s her name?”
“Kelsey.”
Dahlia nodded. “I knew that. I just didn’t want to.” She picked up the cigarette and put it between her lips again. “I have information for you,” she added. “Call it penance, or payment, or whatever you want. I can tell you where he is.”
Chopper pushed the binder across the tabletop toward her. “Can you help me with this?”
She opened it and rifled through the pages. A tiny grin crept onto her face. “What happened to it?” she asked. “He tried to burn it?”
“I guess so.”
She shook her head. “Idiot. He should have taken the papers out.” Her eyes scanned the number columns. He could practically see her doing calculations in her head. Clearly, she was a lot smarter than Spike had taken her to be. “What do you need?” she said. “I was there for all of this. I can tell you anything.”
“Can I trust you?”
She shrugged. “As far as I’m concerned, you can. I have nothing to gain from this except revenge.”
Chopper thought it over. He had no doubt that Dahlia was capable of being a very dangerous woman, but that almost worked in her favor this time — if she had wanted to fight or kill him, he was sure she’d have at least tried to by now. It was possible that what she really wanted was a way into Outlaw ranks now that the Mongols were on their way to becoming defunct, but he could hardly blame her for that. They both knew it was a dog-eat-dog world. “One last question,” he said. She raised her eyebrows. “Why are you here?”
Dahlia didn’t answer for a long time. At last, she looked at him and said, “Kelsey lost her baby, didn’t she?”
“Yes,” Chopper said softly.
The breath she took was deep and shaky. “I lost mine, too.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Kelsey
That night, Kelsey went out for a walk as twilight descended on the neighborhood. The shadows were long and soft, and for once, she wasn’t afraid of them. Her meeting with Brittany in the store had changed her perspective drastically. She wondered how long it would last. Right now, the world seemed much less scary than it had only the day before. She had an ally other than Chopper for the first time since she’d led a normal life. She felt like progress was being made.
Most importantly, now she knew that Hannah wasn’t forgotten. Mixed in with all her other grief was a crushing sense of guilt for letting Hannah’s murder fall by the wayside. A good sister would never have allowed her life to get so screwed up in pursuit of something so important. She should have kept her focus pinpointed on the thing that mattered most, but instead she’d let herself get sidetracked by a sexy man … and it was all downhill from there. Well, not completely. Kelsey reminded herself that things had somehow made themselves almost right again. And all she’d had to pay for it was a bleeding chunk of her heart.
The night air refreshed her. She might have stayed out for hours if her phone hadn’t gone off with a message from Chopper.
“Where you at, babe? I’m home.”
Her face lit up with an extra dose of happiness. She jogged the remaining block back to the house, practically bounding up the steps to the door. She hadn’t had this much energy in forever—it made her want to throw herself into Chopper’s arms. She found him stretched out on the sofa in the den, lazily flipping through channels. He sat up when she came into the room.
“There you are,” he said. “I was about to send out a search party.” It was a joke, but only halfway.
She smiled and gave him a kiss on the neck, squeezing his broad shoulders. “I went for a walk,” she said. “It was a good day today.”
“Oh yeah?” He lay back again and pulled her with him, holding her head gently against his chest. “Why’s that?”
Kelsey didn’t know where to start, so she just launched into the story of Brittany at the store, telling him in a tumbling waterfall of words how she might finally have found someone who could help her close Hannah’s case. She was so excited that she couldn’t sit still, even in Chopper’s arms, and she fidgeted restlessly beside him. He watched her with an affectionate smile on his face, his fingers drawing shapes on her back. Eventually, she stopped and looked at him, her cheeks flushed. “Sorry,” she said. “I don’t even know if you could understand any of that. I just — I can’t believe it’s finally happening.”
“I’m glad, honey,” he said. “Been a while since I’ve seen you so happy. I missed it.”
Kelsey leaned down and kissed his forehead. “You look tired,” she said. “How did it go at the compound? Did you find anything?”
It was Chopper’s turn to talk. He had debated extensively with himself over how much he wanted to tell her, and in the end, he decided to tell her everything. Kelsey wasn’t just his girl; she was his partner, and he was resolved to treat her as such. It was the only way he felt he had a chance of keeping both her and the club. So, he told her about the binder, and the day planner, and the ransom note, which made her scrunch up her face in disgust. She wanted to know how much he asked for. “He said all the drug money,” Chopper answered. “By now, that’s at least seven figures.”
“I guess that’s okay,” she muttered.
He laughed. Then he told her about how he’d put a new girl on the Outlaw payroll, and when she asked for details, he told her about Dahlia. “Did you ever see her?”
“Dahlia? Yeah, I saw her. She never talked to me, though.” Kelsey thought for a moment. “What are you paying her for?”
“Bookkeeping.” Chopper said. She gave him a look, and he added, “Really. She knows more about that shit than I ever have. When she’s done auditing the books, I’m gonna have her go back and pick through the whole compound. Told her she could take whatever she wants when she’s there.”
“Was she satisfied with that?”
“Seemed to be. I think she’d rather see the whole place go up in smoke, but it might be useful as an Outlaw location. What do you think?”
Kelsey s
miled at him. “Why are you asking me? I don’t know anything except what you like for breakfast.”
“Come on, babe. That’s not true.” Chopper sat up and kissed her lips. “Look, maybe I wasn’t planning on telling you this now, but since it’s come up, what the hell. I want you to have a part in this. All this stuff that’s mine, I want it to be yours too. We’re in this together, as long as we’re alive. Right?” His eyes, burning into hers, were equal parts lighthearted and deadly serious.
Kelsey didn’t know what to say. She returned his gaze for as long as she could, and then her eyes wandered a little. She could still feel him staring at her. “Jesse…” She let his name hang in the air between them for a minute while she searched for the words. “I don’t know what I want. I love you, but … we’ve lost so much.” She took his hands and squeezed them. “If I can be safe with you, I’ll follow you wherever you go.”
Chopper was quiet for a while, studying her face. When he finally spoke, his words were soft and deliberate. “I have one more bad thing I need to do.” He brushed the hair back from her face.
