by Jade Kuzma
“Who are you?” I said.
“I’m Madeline,” she said as she stuck her hand out to me. “Lacey’s friend. Nice to meet you.”
Before I could do anything, Lacey grabbed her friend’s arm and lowered it down.
“Can you stop trying to make a fool of me right now?”
“Okay, okay,” Madeline responded as she put her hands up. “Just wanted to meet the guy you were fucking.”
“Maddie!”
Lacey grabbed me by the arm and pulled me aside before she could say anything more.
“Look,” Lacey whispered. “I don’t know what the hell is going on with you. Whatever the hell it is, leave me out of it.”
“You don’t think I’ve been trying to do that? Lacey, those men followed you here. The only reason I even came was because I found out they were looking for you.”
“I…”
“They confronted you. You’re right. It is my fault. They’re here because of me. I’m trying to fix it. I’m not asking you to forgive me for not being completely honest with you. But shit, I’m fuckin’ trying. You have to give me that.”
She looked away from her and sighed again. I could see how torn she was just from the way she didn’t want to look back at me. I cared about her but there was no way I could convince her to give me a chance so quickly. Not when I haven’t even given her much time to think.
“I’ll give you your space,” I said. “I’ll give you all the time in the world to think. If you wanna walk away from me for good, if you wanna hate me for the rest of your life, if you never wanna see me again… That’s your decision. But I have to be here. Until I figure out what the hell those guys are up to, I have to be by your side. ”
I wasn’t about to beg her but damn if I wasn’t thinking about it. Lacey consumed my thoughts. I was so focused on doing everything I could for her that I didn’t give a shit about anything else. None of the consequences mattered as long as she was all right.
“How long is this going to take?” she asked.
“I’m working with the Devils. Sebastian’s got a lot of info. It won’t take long for me to settle things with Ellis right now. I’ll get an answer from him. You’re not safe until he’s taken care of.”
She looked back at me and rolled her eyes, her arms still crossed.
“Go do what you have to do,” she sighed.
It wasn’t much but it was all the approval I needed. I gave her a nod and headed out of the bar. Ellis and his gang were lined up on one side of the parking lot with Sebastian and the Devils waiting for me on the other. Lacey followed after me but she didn’t say anything.
“Let’s go, pussy!” Ellis shouted at me.
I ignored him as Sebastian walked up to me.
“This guy’s a chump,” he said. “I can have my man Mercy here put his lights out with one punch if you want.”
He snapped his fingers to emphasize his point. I shook my head and took my suit jacket off.
“I don’t want anybody to end this with one punch,” I said. “I’m gonna make this punk suffer. Annoying motherfucker…”
“I knew you’d say that.”
Sebastian took my jacket from me and slapped me on the arm.
It hadn’t even been 24 hours and I was back in the parking lot of a bar getting ready to brawl with another asshole.
Fucking Ivory…
I rolled my sleeves up and held my hands out to Ellis. The dirty biker walked forward and licked his lips like he wanted to eat me or some shit.
We both started circling around one another in the center of the open parking lot.
“You sure you wanna do this, pretty boy?” he said. “I don’t wanna mess up that pretty little face of yours.”
“That’s a shame. Because I’m gonna fuck your face up pretty bad.”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“I’ll give you one last chance. Tell me what the fuck you’re doing then walk away. Do that and I’ll spare you the ass whipping.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Grant. I have my reasons. You’re just gonna have to live with what I’m about to do to you.”
“I think I’ll live with it just fine—”
Ellis rushed at me and threw a punch to try and catch me off guard. I moved out of the way and slammed him in the ribs. He hunched over with a grunt of pain. I raised up to swing again but Ellis swiped at me, forcing me to move back.
“Let’s go!” Hunter shouted at me. “Kick this motherfucker’s ass.”
I was focused. I had my hands up, ready for anything this asshole was about to throw at me.
Steady… Steady…
Ellis fought like he looked. Some crude oaf who thought he could use his brute strength.
A right hand headed toward my face but I ducked out of the way. He followed with a backfist that I backed up from. Then he tried getting at me by throwing a kick.
“Come on, you cunt!” he shouted. “Stop fighting like a bitch!”
His club cheered him on, taunting me with every insult in the book.
Stay focused…
I’d had enough training in the city to handle myself. You never knew what kind of a back-alley thug was waiting for you on the streets. I wasn’t worried about Ellis. He was just another thug I was about to separate from his senses.
“You fucking pussy!”
He swung at me so hard that he was off-balance. I cracked him right on the top of the head and made him stumble back. The rest of his club caught him and kept him on his feet.
He recovered quickly, screaming at me as he rushed forward. I wasn’t fast enough. The bastard wrapped his arms around me and I fell to the ground with him.
“Get up, Grant!”
“Come on!”
“Beat the shit out of this motherfucker!”
More people had spilled into the parking lot to see what was going on. All of the voices filled my ears.
Calm down… Stay focused…
I ignored all of the distractions. The only thing I had to worry about was the man I was struggling with.
Come on!
A sudden fist slammed into my skull and sent me into a daze. My fucking eyes rolled back in my head.
Shit…
“Ezra!”
Her voice…
Through all of the noise, I could still hear Lacey calling out to me. I couldn’t let this asshole get the best of me. Not tonight. Not ever.
Come on!
With all of my strength, I wrapped both of my hands around his throat and rolled over on top of him. I raised my fist up and with one swift movement, slammed it into the side of his head. His eyes rolled back in his head and his body went limp suddenly.
I rolled off of him and keeled over, sucking in air like I just climbed a fucking mountain.
“That’s the way to do it,” Sebastian said as he patted me on the back.
I got my focus back as quickly as I could. I turned toward Ellis and watched as his gang helped get him back up to his feet. They were all glaring at me like they were about to do something.
But before anything else happened, police sirens in the distance filled the air.
“Come on,” one of Ellis’s men said. “We gotta get the fuck outta here!”
They all got onto their bikes. Ellis somehow managed to stumble to his ride and get away. The crowd in the parking lot dispersed back into the bar.
“You know what that means,” Sebastian said. “I think it’s time we hit the road. Again.”
The Devils all got on their bikes and revved their engines.
I turned to Lacey, that torn look still in her eyes.
“Lacey,” I said. “It’s not safe here. I know that you don’t have any reason to trust me but you have to. As long as Ellis and his gang are still out there…”
She turned to her friend and sighed. The woman gave Lacey a shrug.
“It’s up to you,” she said.
There was still some doubt in my mind. But a bigger part of me knew that
this was the right thing for Lacey to do. I stuck my hand out, knowing that she felt the same way somewhere inside of her.
“What am I doing?” Lacey said.
She took my hand and I brought her over to my ride.
“She’ll be all right,” I shouted to her friend as I revved my engine. “I promise.”
“You’d better,” her friend shouted. “If anything happens to my friend, there’ll be hell to pay.”
“I’m counting on it.”
Lacey squeezed her arms tight around me. I moved my back down the road and headed back to where I knew I could keep Lacey safe.
Chapter 20
LACEY
Hades was more than just a pub. The place was still being remodeled but it was more than adequate for a motorcycle club. There were some rooms in the back of the clubhouse where I assumed most of the club members stayed. The bedroom was small with a bed and a small dresser but not much else inside of it. I stayed near the window and looked out onto the barren streets of Old Town.
I couldn’t shake the thoughts of what just happened out of my head. Ezra got into another brawl with some bikers and the only reason things didn’t end up any worse was because the police showed up. There was something else looming over the horizon and the fact that I didn’t know how things were going to play out twisted my stomach. All of this was nothing like I’d ever been through before.
I jerked my head when I heard the door open. The usually magnanimous Ezra looked different than before. His tie was gone and the top button on his shirt was undone. There was some bruising near his eye with some blood next to it.
He sighed a deep breath as he tossed his jacket onto the bed.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
He smiled softly at me.
“You care about what happens to me?”
“Just because I’m angry about you not telling me the truth doesn’t mean I want you to be hurt.”
“Right… Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. No, I’m… I’m fine…”
He sighed a deep breath and put his head down. His hands on his hips, he started pacing back and forth.
“Sebastian knows a lot of people in this town,” he said. “He’s got some cash, too, so he can pay the right people to get the information he needs.”
“Information?”
“His name is Daniel Ellis. Him and his crew are the Desert Rebels. A nomad motorcycle club. They’re not from Ivory.”
“What are they doing here?”
“Modern day raiders. Pillaging the towns they come across. They just so happened to come to Ivory when you and I arrived.”
“What does that have to do with you though?”
“That’s what Sebastian and the others are still trying to figure out.”
He walked up to me and put a hand to my cheek. I looked up into his eyes, trying desperately not to get lost in them.
“How are you feeling?” he said. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” I said as I looked away.
I turned my back to him completely and crossed my arms as I looked back out the window.
“You know you don’t have to do that,” he said.
“Do what?”
“Put on that act. Anybody, man or woman, would be distraught after witnessing what you just did. Shit’s not comfortable knowing that there’s some biker gang following you.”
“What do I have to worry about when I’ve got another biker gang watching my back?”
I raised an eyebrow at him. The way he smiled made it hard for me to stay mad at him. But it would take more than a charming smile for me to forgive him completely.
“What about your friend?” he said. “What was her name again?”
“Madeline. She’ll be fine. She’s been living in the city for a long time. She knows how to take care of herself. A place like Ivory can’t do much to her.”
“She’s a good friend, huh?”
“The best. She’s been with me through it all. She was with me when I was at my lowest. She was there when I…”
I swallowed thinking about the memories that came back to me. I closed my eyes to collect myself.
“When you what?” he asked.
I have to tell him…
I knew I couldn’t keep it from him. Even if he didn’t need to know, there was something inside of me that wanted him to know. Despite every reason I had to walk away, I still couldn’t do it. Idiocy kept pushing me back toward him. Or maybe it was something else. Whatever it was, I was glad that he was still here with me.
“I came to Ivory because I needed a fresh start,” I said.
“A fresh start? A fresh start from what?”
“It’s… It’s a long story.”
Ezra took a seat on the edge of the bed.
“I’ve got all night.”
“Right…”
I wrestled with my fingers, a sudden nervous anticipation washing over me. I looked down at the ground as I started to pace back and forth.
“I was an only child,” I said. “My parents were always pushing me to succeed. They loved me more than anything because I was their only kid. They always told me how proud they were of me. They told me how I was going to go on and do great things.
“I was a straight-A student in high school. I spent all my time studying and reading and writing and doing everything I could. No matter how hard I worked, there was always some test or exam or paper waiting for me on the horizon. By the time I got to college, I was so burned out. The stress of it all. It was too much for 18-year-old me to handle.”
“There’s no shame in that,” he said. “It’s a lot to expect out of an 18-year-old.”
“Try telling my parents that. They were always reminding me how great I was. I was working so hard but it got to the point that I didn’t even care about how well I did. All I was doing was trying to satisfy my parents.”
I swallowed hard and shook my head.
“I was only one year into college when it became too much for me to handle,” I said. “I started hanging around the wrong crowd. A group of other kids telling me that there was a way to relieve my stress. I figured ‘why not?’ A little weed never hurt anybody. But not me. I spent my whole life so focused that when I got a taste of something that made me feel so carefree, it just spiraled out of control.
“Smoking was just the start. I moved to pills. I started injecting stuff and…”
I closed my eyes as the memories came back to me completely.
“Lacey, you don’t have to—”
“I dropped out of college,” I said. “I let my parents down because I wanted to chase some stupid high!”
I shook my head, getting rid of the worst memories I had. I coughed to clear my throat. Ezra remained sitting on the bed. He wasn’t blinking.
“I ended up in the city somehow,” I said. “Too embarrassed to go back to my parents and tell them the truth. Told them that I’d found a living in the city and I was gonna make something of myself. The truth I was just struggling to survive.
“One night, the girl I usually got high with… We were in the alley. I poked the needle in my arm and passed it to her. I’ll never forget the look in her eyes. So dead. So lifeless. She wasn’t even alive. Just a slave. Even when she smiled, her eyes were still soulless. That’s when I realized I had to do something.”
“What did you do?”
“What could I do? Do you know what it’s like to fight a craving? Do you know what it’s like, feeling like you’ll die if you don’t get that next hit?”
“You did something though. You wouldn’t be here now if you didn’t.”
“I did something,” I sighed. “I got lucky.”
“You got lucky?”
“I was in the alley behind some restaurant, digging through the garbage for scraps. Some lady saw what I was doing. She offered me something to eat. I said I didn’t have any money to pay her. She told me I could work it off. So I worked.”
“That’s how you got your star
t?”
I nodded.
“I washed dishes. I mopped. I scrubbed toilets. She gave me all of the food I wanted and more. But I wasn’t doing it for the food.”
“The drugs…”
“Whenever I got a craving, I’d stuff myself with more food. I’d shoved some broccoli into my mouth. A plateful of fries. A whole sandwich to fill my stomach up to the point that I wanted to burst. But it worked. I was so full that getting high was the last thing on my mind. Eventually, I’d worked so hard that I ended up on the line in one of the nicer restaurants in the city.”
I smiled as I thought about it.
“Madeline worked at the restaurant, too. She would always make fun of me when she’d see me eating. But she stopped when I told her why I did it… We’ve been good friends ever since…”
I trailed my fingers along the tattoo on my arms.
“The scars aren’t visible anymore,” I said. “It took awhile but there’s enough ink that I can’t see them.”
“Lacey…”
I looked back up at Ezra. Despite how strong and confident he always appeared, the sympathy in his eyes was unmistakable. It was the Ezra that I wanted to see. The man that I wanted to believe wasn’t so completely callous or a complete liar.
“This is important to me,” I replied. “I ruined my life over some drugs. If you came here to Ivory to peddle the same shit that almost killed me, then I can’t be anywhere near you.”
He got up from the bed and put his hands on my arms. His grip was firm but comforting and secure at the same time. I looked up into his blue eyes and the man I needed to see was still there.
“I made a mistake,” he said. “I’m sorry. I… I should’ve told you from the beginning. But I never lied to you about who I am or what I was. I’ll lay all my cards out on the table now.”
“What else is there for you to tell me? I know who you are.”
“Not entirely. I never brought it up because I didn’t think it mattered. Now, I think it does.”
My heart skipped a beat. I feared the worst. I clenched my jaw as Ezra spoke.
“My father is Eugene Grant. My mother is Kate Harper. She’s the daughter of Ruben Harper. My grandfather. He was a Devil here in Ivory. A long time ago back before when things were different.”
I sighed in relief.
