I blew my nose and wrapped my arms around myself, shaking horribly. God, it felt like the worst flu I ever had. I picked up the phone and dialed Spike.
“Yo.”
“Spike, it’s me.”
His tone softened immediately. “Hey Julia, how’s it—are you crying?”
“No, I’m sick. I really need your help.” I twisted the napkin in my hand. “I need some blow.”
“Straight to the point, eh? No ‘Hi, how are you?’ or any of that bullshit that would make someone think you actually care. I’m a little disappointed in you as a hustler. Aren’t you supposed to soften them up before you go in for the kill?”
He was so annoying I wanted to scream. “Fuck, Spike—”
“Sorry, no can do.”
“Spike, please. I never ask you for anything. Just one—I just need one bump—”
“No.”
“Just a taste!”
“No.”
Then I started to cry. It was the only thing that made me happy, the only thing I really needed. He hadn’t hung up yet; I could still hear the static on the phone. “I’ll do whatever you want. I don’t understand why you’re doing this.”
“I’m doing this because I care about you, Julia. Don’t even think about going to the club and asking for dope. I already warned everyone not to give you any.”
I slammed my fist on the kitchen table. “Fuck you, Spike. I can’t stand you.”
“I love you, too,” he quipped.
The phone flew across the room as I hurled it. It smacked into the kitchen cabinets and cracked on the floor.
Fuck it. A couple days and it’ll be over.
I cried when Spike said that Crash forbade anyone to bail him out of jail. This meant that my access to coke would be cut off.
A couple days ago, you hated him. Fucking junkie.
There were moments of clarity when I almost managed to push my cravings into the background. I rubbed my skin and felt ill at the thought of visiting Cain.
The doorbell rang and I slowly limped across the linoleum kitchen to answer the front door. Spike stood in the sunshine, looking cheerful as always. His smile fell when he looked at my face.
“Ah, shit.”
His heavy boots stepped inside as I shivered violently. It was an effort just to keep standing. He pulled me against his chest and my heart constricted painfully.
“It’ll be over soon. You’re already through the worst of it. I should have been here to help you.”
Anger throbbed in my chest. I still hadn’t forgotten about the phone call. “I’m fine.”
His chest shook with laughter. “Yeah, judging from the state of this place, you’re fine, all right.”
I ripped myself out of his embrace and glowered at his dancing, brown eyes. “Let’s just go.”
The playful smirk was back on his face as he opened the door for me. Each step down jarred my bones and I clenched my teeth. “What did Crash say when you told him about Cain? Was he pissed?”
“‘Pissed’ doesn’t really do it justice. The man was like a raging bull. He wants to remove Cain from VP.”
My hand tightened on the metal railing. “He can’t do that.”
“No, he can’t, but he really wants to. That’s why he’s letting him stew in jail for a few weeks. Once the precinct wised up to who they were dealing with, they contacted Crash and told him they were going to release Cain. Instead, Crash told them to keep him there without charging him.”
“For how long?” I gasped.
“Three weeks.”
I whirled around. Spike’s head blotted out the sun, casting him in darkness. I couldn’t see his face. “It’s just going to make him worse. When he comes back—”
“Maybe not. Maybe he’ll cool down and get the drugs out of his system.”
All of it seemed too hopeful. I swallowed hard as I walked to Spike’s bike, more anxious than ever about meeting him.
When he comes back, he’ll take it out on me.
Spike seemed completely unaware of my panic. He slid onto his Harley and I climbed up behind him, wrapping my arms around his waist. His abdominal muscles tensed under my fingers as he throttled forward.
The bike drowned out all further discussion and I was just content to have my arms around him, enjoying the ride. I forgot how wonderful it was to bike through the scenic highways. Brown valleys where horses grazed surrounded the road as we headed north, towards Martinez. The rolling valleys disappeared and transformed into ugly, industrial factories that belched grey smoke into the clear blue sky.
We rode into the parking lot of an ugly, grey compound that was Martinez County Jail. I slid off the bike and unhooked my helmet.
“Fuck, I’m not looking forward to this.” Spike smoked a quick cigarette before we went inside, his normally carefree eyes troubled.
It was a half hour of waiting and going through security before we were allowed to see Cain. My nerves were shot. Spike held open the door to a common area where men in orange jumpsuits sat around round tables.
They looked up briefly when I entered the room and I shivered as I felt their predatory eyes stripping me down, but the one who made me the most uncomfortable was a blonde man in the back of the room. His lip curled into a threatening leer.
“There he is,” I said, pointing.
He can’t hurt you in here, I reminded myself.
“He’s seen better days,” Spike uttered as he made a beeline for him.
As we approached Cain, who was dressed in the same tattered orange jumpsuit, the extent of his mental disarray became more and more apparent. His eyes roved restlessly and he licked his lips compulsively. He stood up when I got close, the chair scraping loudly against the floor.
“Julia.”
I barely had time to offer him a weak smile before he pulled me into a fierce hug. I stiffened inside his arms, looking at Spike desperately. He pulled back and gave me a small smile. His eyes were clear, but they were restless. Before I could think, his mouth descended upon mine and I just couldn’t kiss him back. He pulled back, still holding me, and frowned.
“What’s wrong?” His nails bit into my flesh.
“You’re in fucking jail.” I pulled away from him and sat down across from him. Then I buried my face in my hands as if I was upset. Inwardly, I danced with glee at the thought of him being locked away forever.
Cain said a gruff greeting to Spike and gave him a one-armed hug before both sat down.
“Good job on pissing off your old lady.” Spike’s sardonic voice snapped suddenly.
I glanced up over my hands and saw Spike lounging on the chair, his arm stretched on the table as he glared at his brother. Cain gave a little shrug.
“She’s just pissed that she doesn’t have access to my stash.”
A small tear slipped down my face as I feigned hurt outrage. “That’s not true.”
He sneered at me and I loathed him for seeing through me so easily.
“Why haven’t I been bailed out already?”
“Crash doesn’t want anyone to bail you out. He’s putting you on time-out for a few weeks.”
I snatched my hands away as Cain slammed his fist on the round table. It was such a violent outburst, completely out of character for him. One of the guards screamed.
“Do it again, and I’ll kick them out!”
He showed no sign that he heard the guard’s command. Pale eyes shifted from Spike to me, trembling with absolute fury. I couldn’t bear to look at him. He would see the treachery in my eyes.
“I’m sorry, man, but I can’t do anything about it.”
“You could,” he said in a deadly whisper, “but you don’t have the balls.”
“Fuck off, man. I’m a new member, remember? No real power. If you had only listened to them, you wouldn’t be here! I’m not going to go against the President, Cain. Jesus.”
I reached across the table and took Cain's hand, who looked at me with only slightly less rage. “You need to stop fight
ing. Spike’s doing everything he can.”
A small flicker of the old Cain became visible for a second. His mouth relaxed as his eyes regarded me steadily and he even squeezed my hand.
“Spike,” he said, still looking at me, “you need to take care of Julia while I’m gone. And you need to make sure that we stay on schedule with Red.”
Take care of Julia. My face flushed. “Cain, I don’t need—”
“You’re my old lady. Someone has to make sure you’re safe.”
It was odd how he could be so concerned about my safety one moment, and utter threats in my ear in another. He didn’t really care about me; he just wanted to keep his possessions whole.
“He’s right, Julia. I’ll keep her safe, brother.”
Sensing that the meeting was over, I stood up to leave but Cain pulled me into his arms again.
“Remember who you belong to,” he hissed into my ear.
How could I forget?
SPIKE
I strolled into the clubhouse behind Julia, who raised her hand in greeting to all the members. They smiled back at the beautiful woman. It hadn’t taken them long to warm up to her because she brought so much money into the club. She gained the guys’ respect, but they still looked at me like I was a kid.
For only being a member for a few months, I was rising fast. Too fast. Crash appointed me acting Vice President to fill in while Cain was gone. I could feel the greedy resentment of the guys surrounding me. Hell, if they wanted the job, they could have it.
Max, who held a grudging respect for me, lifted his head and nodded as I walked in. Pike and River, two of Cain's lackeys, eye-fucked me from across the bar. I returned the look with interest. They were two boneheads who followed Cain around the club, thugs gravitating towards a man who could teach them more refined forms of cruelty.
“Spike! Spike!”
A blonde haired boy dove into my knees as I walked in the club. He clutched my leg and grinned toothily. I liked him. He was my little buddy.
“Tommy-boy! What’s up?” I smiled at the boisterous toddler and ruffled his hair.
“Nothin.’”
“Wanna see magic tricks?”
I dug a quarter out of my pocket and made it bounce across my knuckles, and then it disappeared. Tommy’s blue eyes watched with fascination, and then I pulled the quarter from out of his ear. I laughed at his stunned face and pressed the quarter into his tiny hand.
“It’s magic?”
“Yeap.”
One of the club whores made a beeline for me and grabbed the toddler’s hand. “Tommy!” She gave me an apologetic look as she tugged him away.
Smiling, I waved goodbye to the boy and grinned at Julia, who hung by the pool table. I leaned against the bar next to Crash. For once, he didn’t have a drink in his hands.
“Crash, I’d like to call up a meeting to talk to everyone.”
He nodded and yelled over the noise in the club to meet in the boardroom. The Dragons followed us inside and I sat down at Crash’s left, feeling unusually anxious with their eyes on me.
“Hey, guys. I just wanted to say a couple things before we start the day. I’m going to be filling in for Cain for a few weeks as VP. This is still his ship and I intend to keep it running just the way he wants so that when he gets back, he won’t chop my head off.”
I smiled, expecting laughter, but the members remained stony-faced.
“Cain has become a reckless, unreliable VP,” Crash interjected. “He’s high on Red half the time—it’s only a matter before he screws up and gets himself killed. For that reason, I want Spike to remain VP after Cain gets back.”
Bile raised in my throat. “What the hell are you talking about?”
He looked at me solemnly. “If everything goes well, I want you to be Vice President.”
“This should be a club vote,” I said angrily. Not only did I have no interest in keeping Cain's position, but also I was pretty sure that he would take it as a betrayal.
He vouched for me to become a member. Suddenly, Julia’s dire warnings against Cain rang in my head.
The club was undecided on the matter and Crash slammed his gavel. “We’ll bring it up again at another time.”
Dragons stood up and left the office, some of them shooting me dark looks.
River gnashed his foul teeth my way and Pike, another one of Cain's men leered across the table. The hair raised on the back of my neck. Wolves were circling around me, waiting for me to stumble.
How am I supposed to keep those psychos in check?
I grabbed Crash’s arm as he stood to leave. “Are you trying to get me killed?” I asked when everyone left.
He rolled his eyes. “They might grumble and complain, but they’ll get over it. I know you’ll do a great job.”
“It’s not them I’m worried about.”
He scoffed. “I can handle Cain.”
My eyes widened at the confidence in his voice. Cain was like a trained wolf. Crash didn’t realize that once wolves had a taste of freedom, they would never go back to begging for scraps at the table.
You can’t handle him. No one can.
Except maybe Julia.
Just the thought of her made me warm.
There were a million things for me to do, but all I wanted to do was hang out with her. Visiting Cain in jail had shaken her and I knew that she wanted to be free of him. Well, I had the power now, but I would feel like a worthless son of a bitch if I used it. She was into me and I was definitely into her, but I couldn’t just—steal my brother’s old lady. How would that look?
Still my feet walked towards her as if I had no control over my body. I couldn’t stop thinking about how I stopped myself from kissing her at Cain's apartment, how it felt to have her hands playing with my hair. From the moment I met her, I knew that she was the most stunning, gorgeous woman I would ever meet.
“Spike?”
Her low voice caught me off guard. She was always doing that, tripping me up. I fixed a grin on my face.
“Yes, angel?”
Careful, Spike.
Her somber face lightened a bit. “What’s going on? What am I doing today?”
I frowned. “I don’t think you should hustle for a while. You’ve already hit most of the bars around town and word’s going to get out about you. You’re a bit hard to forget.”
She blew out her cheeks. “Yeah. Usually I’d drive out ten, twenty miles every day to hit new places.”
“I have some pretty boring errands to run. You could spend the day with me, if you want.”
Still blue from yesterday, she nodded, unsmiling. “Sure.”
I’ll get you to smile before the day’s over.
* * *
Heaviness filled my chest like lead, despite the pretty girl walking beside me. The sun was out, and it made her hair gleam like molten gold. The bouquet of flowers hung limp in my hands as we walked through a grassy knoll, where tombstones sat on the ground like flat rocks. I inhaled sharply when I saw the big tombstone up ahead and Julia took my hand. Another painful feeling tugged inside my chest. She was warm, reassuring. I plucked out a flower from the bouquet and gave it to her. She raised the pink rose to her lips and inhaled.
We stopped.
DEBORAH AND JAMES McCONNELLY. BELOVED MOTHER AND FATHER.
I regarded my parents’ graves, my eyes rereading the text over and over. Why did I let them write that? There was not a single line about who they really were.
Just a one-lined cliché: Beloved mother and father.
It said nothing about their personalities. My dad used to run around the house in his underwear and chase me.
He was always a crazy bastard, I thought with fondness. Mom was less of a jokester, but she did little things like hang paper fish over my bed when I was asleep.
“These are your folks?”
“Yeah,” I said, my smile straining. It was a long time ago, but the pain was still there like an old muscle wound, still smarting. “It was a g
ang initiation.” Fucking pointless deaths.
“I’m sorry.”
Her voice was so low that I could barely hear it. I nodded, my eyes unfocused. I saw them lowering the two coffins into a giant hole, and Crash’s hand squeezing my shoulder, almost painfully. He told me not to cry, to be a strong man, even if I had no family left.
My uncles were always in and out of jail, and my grandparents died long ago. I was forced through the system, and I was owned by various people I didn’t really care for. Crash did what he could. He helped a boy get vengeance and asked for nothing in return. He couldn’t adopt me because he already had a boy—Cain, who kept his hands full.
I’ll never forget the pain of that day.
That day, I swore to myself that I would never care about anyone ever again.
I gently laid the bouquet over their graves. Within a few hours, the Californian sun would bake them dry. Despair momentarily squeezed my chest. What was the point of it? Mom and Dad weren’t there to see them. The flowers died when they were cut, only to dry out in a few hours, losing everything that made them beautiful.
“C’mon,” I told Julia, tugging her hand.
We sat under the shade of an oak tree so close we were almost touching, but not quite. The rolling hills gleamed in the sun like spun gold. I tried to soak in the beauty of it all.
Julia spun the rose in her fingers, the waxy, green leaves shining in the sun.
“Have you ever lost anyone you loved?”
She gave me an apologetic smile. “Not really, to be honest. The MC killed my husband, but I never really cried about it. I felt relieved to be free of all that pressure.” A nervous laugh left her throat. “I sound like a heartless bitch.”
My insides twisted. “I forgot about that. Sometimes, I feel like I don’t know Crash at all.”
I ripped blades of grass and tossed them compulsively. “I know we’re a bunch of marauding, godless bastards, but I thought there would be more. Killing innocent people wasn’t what I signed up for. It’s just fucked.”
Julia leaned back on her elbows, her hair flying around her face, brushing over her black tank top. She was an enigma. Most girls were easy to peg. Her? Impossible.
Ruthless (Dark MC Romance) Page 13
