“They left with the driver. It looked like he was running the whole operation.”
“I knew something was wrong with that guy the minute I saw him,” growled Nick, though he was reserving his anger for himself. He swung his head up to look at his friend, who crouched down, taking off his hoodie to stanch the bleeding in Nick’s shoulder. Nick pushed him away. He didn’t deserve another Black Spark to tend his wound. He’d take care of it himself. “He set us up, Tom. He knew Tryg wouldn’t be here, and he used it. I bet Tryg’s thing in Dayton was a setup to get him out of the picture.”
“The Vipers?”
Nick stared down at the blood-streaked pavement, head swimming, trying to grasp onto some piece of logic he could use. “Did you get a good look at the guy? Did you see where they went? We’ll go after them.”
Nick stumbled to his feet again. “Whoa, kid, you’ve got to sit down,” said Tomahawk. “You’re in no shape to go after anyone.”
“I’m fine,” said Nick, taking a slow breath, in and out.
Martin stepped forward. “I’ll go on ahead. See if I can track them down,” he said flatly. His words were helpful, but his tone dripped with contempt. He was looking Nick up and down as if the wounded young man were a stray tire thrown in the road in front of his bike – worse than useless: actively harmful. Nick heard him start his engine and peel out of the parking lot, but it offered him little comfort. All he could think about was what he was going to tell Tryg.
“Think you can ride?” asked Tomahawk after a second.
“Fuck yeah,” said Nick. “We’ll get these guys.”
“Nick, it’s too late,” protested Tomahawk. “They’re gone. They got everything.”
“I know,” replied Nick. “But we’ll get them.”
CHAPTER FOUR
“Welcome home,” said Kirrily Ryan, Tryg’s Australian wife, enveloping her in a hug. For Liana, as she stood outside the Prudence bus station, watching the driver hoist her beat-up suitcase out of the compartment under the seats, it all seemed kind of unreal. It was especially strange to think that this tanned, bleach-blonde woman in black leather, with her exotic accent that seemed to sing of koala bears and coral reefs, could signify “home” to Liana. But ever since her mother, Larissa, had moved to Fort Myers with her new husband, this was the closest to home Liana had left. And even though it meant sharing the house with her formidable uncle Tryg, the president of the Black Sparks M.C., she was glad to bother.
On the bus, she’d torn her eyes away from the brownish-green sameness of the Midwestern landscape that flew by outside. She stared down at her phone, her fingers drifting to her photo album, her old house in Ohio, the one her mother had sold after she’d finally divorced her stepfather. She’d left for a reason: because there was nothing left, nobody whose toes she hadn’t stepped on, nobody to whom she didn’t owe an apology, nobody she hadn’t insulted in her misguided notions that everybody in Prudence, Ohio was beneath her—notions that her stepfather, Noel Richardson, had cultivated and encouraged. But Noel’s concept of his stepdaughter’s superiority only lasted so long as she remained afraid to step outside of his giant shadow.
“You’ll come crawling back,” her stepfather had laughed when she left. “Do you know how many small-town girls try to make it New York every year? It’ll chew you up and spit you out.” Thankfully, it was her stepfather who was gone now, but his sardonic laughter remained in the back of her mind, even after every audition, stepping up to give a monologue or sing a note, his face staring out at her from the darkened audience, judging her, kicking her dreams until they were as bruised as rotten fruit. “Your place isn’t here,” his voice always seemed to say. “Your place is in Prudence.”
Under Noel Richardson’s thumb, she’d always thought bitterly—or, if not his, somebody else’s. And given the situation she was fleeing, she knew she’d done nothing but prove her stepfather right. Again.
Look at the princess now.
She thought back to “The Goose Girl” play she’d never get to perform in now. It was just as well. She had called Rob the next day and told him she was leaving town and to tell her understudy the role was hers. At least somebody will get some good news today, she’d thought.
Rob had begged her to stay, of course, even offering to advance her fifty dollars out of his own pocket to cover groceries for a week. But it would only be a bandage over a wound that had long ago begun to fester, and she’d already made her decision. If she waited any longer, she’d be offering up her limbs for amputation. She’d be losing part of herself. And as much as going home to Prudence would hurt, she knew all she had left was herself.
“I promised I wouldn’t bombard you with questions, and I’ll stick to that,” said Kirrily, strapping her niece’s suitcase on the back expertly, then handing her the spare helmet on the back of her Harley, which gleamed like a snorting beast in front of her. Strange that a woman whose father and grandfather had been the former presidents of the fiercest M.C. in southwestern Ohio would be so hesitant to climb aboard. But that was another thing her stepfather had expressly forbidden. He’d cut her off from her birthright, her roots.
Her Aunt Kirrily seemed to share no such taboo, thankfully. That didn’t mean it would be easy to adjust. “But Tryg might be another story.” Liana wasn’t sure she wanted to think about her Uncle Tryg yet. He was only around ten years older than Liana, more like a cousin than an uncle, and he was the quintessential Papa Bear, and never hesitated to get dangerous when he felt someone threatened him or his family—which included the M.C. he led.
During most of the time she was growing up, he’d been across the world in Australia, setting up the Black Sparks charter in Brisbane. When he’d come back with a pregnant Kirrily in tow, Liana had felt like she could finally let out a breath she’d been holding for three years. If he’d been around to defend Liana and her mother against Noel when she was seventeen, she suspected things would have never have happened the way they did. Of course, naturally, he considered all of Prudence his domain, and he was bound to ask Liana questions about what had happened to bring her inside it, the exact questions she hoped desperately not to be asked.
“Well?” Kirrily held out her hand, and Liana grabbed hold, swinging one leg around the back and scooting forward, hoping her aunt couldn’t sense how stiff she was as she wrapped her arms tightly around her waist. Kirrily grinned at her. “I left Kizzy playing at the neighbor’s,” she said. “I told her I was bringing back a surprise.”
“How disappointing for her,” Liana joked, though she was only half-kidding. “She’s probably expecting a pony. Or a Pokémon.”
“Probably,” said Kirrily, and Liana startled at the roar the bike sent up as it jerked forward, roaring like a wild animal, catapulting them into the heart of the town of Prudence, Ohio, population eight thousand.
On Main Street, budding cedar trees shaded the post office, which shared space with the armory, the community church, and the Black Sparks biker bar, all of which whizzed by so quickly Liana didn’t have much time to take them in. She was just thankful their route didn’t take them past her old house. She preferred to think that it had blown down in a tornado, though she knew it was wishful thinking.
“Think she’ll remember me?”
“How could she forget?”
CHAPTER FIVE
“Let’s just say I was dating a guy, and it didn’t end well,” said Liana softly, curled up on end of the wicker sofa on the back porch of Tryg’s house, gazing at the strip of brownish-green grass leading to the garage beyond. She watched as a woman in a Subaru and sunglasses pulled up and went into the office. “He was trying to control me.” She didn’t add that, even though she’d told Jack Camus, her stage-door-Johnny turned boyfriend, it was over, he had refused to let her go. No, not refused—outright forbid. She curled her bare feet underneath the cushion, suddenly cold, trying not to picture Jack’s rage, the vein in his forehead beneath his close-cropped straw-colored hair, telling her she was wor
thless without him, that he’d made her, that nobody would ever love her except for him. All of those crippling words that so mimicked the ones she’d heard long ago, from her own stepfather.
“Liana?” Kirrily asked, patting her niece’s thigh.
She was safe here, she reminded herself. Jack had no idea where she was. She’d ensured that. When she’d left Brooklyn, she’d even taken a different route to the bus station to make sure she wasn’t followed, and paid for her ticket in cash.
Kizzy, a curly-haired five-year-old in lavender overalls, hummed the theme from “Sofia the First” as she took a safety scissors to two empty Lucky Charms cereal boxes her mother had given her. When they’d arrived, she’d raced to the door, eager to catch a glimpse of the “surprise” her mother had promised. Every so often she’d glance over at the young woman, as if she were trying to size her up, wondering whether this interloper was to be trusted enough to let into her world.
Liana smiled, trying to put her at ease, but she didn’t blame her. She’d been far too trusting as a girl. She hoped Kizzy would always keep her wits about her.
She turned back to Kirrily, staring at the glass of chardonnay her aunt had poured her. “When I left Prudence, it was all about turning my back on this place – about proving I could make it on my own, out from under the thumb of the Black Sparks, out from under Noel – to prove that no man could control me. And look what happened. I feel like such a failure. I’ve failed twice now.”
“Nonsense,” said Kirrily, setting down her drink on the wicker end table. “Did I ever tell you that when I was nineteen, I once ran off to take a job on a cruise ship in the Coral Sea? I wanted to see the world, and it sounded so glamorous. I figured I’d meet some exotic jetsetter and he’d whisk me away.”
Liana smiled. She knew, even as ridiculous and naïve as they sounded, there was very little to differentiate Kirrily’s girlhood dreams from her own. “The M.C. had a stranglehold on my town there, just like they do in Prudence. I wanted more. I was sick of my mum and dad ordering me around and telling me what to wear, what boys to see. So I signed on for a two-week trip.”
“And?”
“For half the voyage, I was so seasick I couldn’t work and the other half, gross, drunken old passengers kept grabbing my ass. I was miserable. I hightailed it home as soon as my contract was up, broke and depressed. I had to meditate for a month to unblock my chakras. And then a few years later, I met Tryg.”
“But wasn’t that exactly what you were hoping would happen?” Liana asked.
“Are you kidding? He was exactly the kind of guy I told myself I didn’t want. Of course, that little cruise proved to me that the kind of guy I told myself I did want was no peach, either. So I gave Tryg a chance. And here I am in America.” She looked at Kizzy fondly, reaching out to caress her daughter’s unruly curls. Kizzy bit her lower lip in concentration.
But Liana knew there was nobody like Tryg waiting for her here or anywhere. She’d had her one chance with a Prudence boy; she’d ruined it. Just like she’d ruined everything else she’d ever tried to do on her own.
“Is everything okay?”
Kirrily’s cellphone buzzed, and she snatched it up, a little more eagerly than Liana would have expected, given the relaxed, beachy vibes her aunt usually gave off. She watched her look at the caller ID, letting out a small sigh of relief. “The pharmacy,” Kirrily explained. “Kizzy’s getting over an ear infection.”
“I had to take anna-biotics!” Kizzy suddenly explained.
Liana laughed, then sobered. “Is everything all right?”
Kirrily rose off the couch, looked over at the garage, where the Subaru woman talked to a guy in a prospect’s cut-off jacket. The rest of the club must have been out on a job. “With Kizzy, yes.” She grabbed the handle of the patio door, closed and latched it. “I wish I could tell you more. But I know that asking would just stress me out, and it’s nothing we can help with. Guy stuff.” She shrugged. Liana knew there weren’t many worlds where purely “guy stuff” existed anymore, but outlaw motorcycle clubs were one of them. She knew that, but she wasn’t sure she liked it. “Another M.C.‘s been giving him grief, muscling in on his suppliers and his territory. That’s where he went this morning, into Dayton to see some Russians. Shore up his alliances for the gun trade. ” She made a face. “I don’t like it either. But it’s my job to have his back. These are dangerous people he’s dealing with, but I knew that when I signed up for it.”
“I didn’t sign up for it,” Liana said.
“No,” said Kirrily. “You were born to it. Your grandpa started this club, and your dad helped build it up into what it is today.”
“But I didn’t grow up in it,” Liana said. “Mom didn’t want me to. She wanted my life to be normal. That’s why she married Noel after Dad was killed. Because he was respected in town. He had a real job. He had money. What a joke that was.”
“Larissa wanted you to believe you could do no wrong.”
“And Noel treated me like a princess, as long as I did exactly what he said. He had an image to uphold after all.” The image of the benevolent banker, the wise city father, who took in underprivileged kids and turned their lives around. Who brought them into his home with one rule only for his stepdaughter: don’t touch. She closed her eyes, overcome by a snipped of memory, a bit of copper hair in sunlight. She opened them again.
“Your mom was misguided, but she was scared. Can you blame her, really? She held the Black Sparks responsible for your dad’s death,” said Kirrily. “She figured taking the exact opposite route was the best way to keep you safe.”
Liana nodded miserably. “I would have been on the wrong end of a gun.” In fact, her whole life, she had been pulled into two different directions—on one end, the violent anarchy of her father’s M.C., which she’d always been warned against; on the other, the different, but no less stifling, tyranny of her “respectable” stepfather. She couldn’t have known that even after fleeing it all in favor of the freedom New York seemed to offer, she still wouldn’t be free of men trying to control her. The thought of what she left behind sent a chill over the room. She grabbed for her glass and wrapped two hands around it protectively, like a shield.
Kirrily seemed to sense how overcome she was by the sharpness of the memories. Her aunt met her eyes, and in their reflection, Liana could see precisely what she was thinking of.
“I wish Tryg and I had been there to protect you through that time with Noel. I know how much of an asshole he was. And—”
“Kirrily, you can’t blame yourself,” said Liana quickly, knowing there was a chance her aunt had been about to mention an incident she was by no means ready to revisit. “You didn’t even know me then. Besides, I survived,” she said. “Barely.”
The front door flew open. Kizzy looked up from her work, brightness in her eyes that could only come from a little girl counting the hours before her daddy arrived home. “Daddy! Come see what I made!” she cried. “It’s a house for My Little Pony! I’ll show you how they live in the house, then we can play, and you can be Pinkie Pie and I get to be Twilight Sparkle—”
Tryg laughed his throaty chuckle as he stepped into the room, the dichotomy of the little plastic horse in Kizzy’s hand with the intimidating tattoos snaking up and down his arms, the creak of his black leather cutoff jacket declaring himself president of the Black Sparks M.C., and the thud of his heavy black motorcycle boots on the hardwood floor. She was told his chiseled features resembled her father, though she really only had pictures to go on, since his much-older brother, Trace Ryan, had been killed in a shootout with a rival M.C. when she was barely a toddler. His smooth shaved head contrasting with his bushy goatee and eyes that were brown but usually shone coal-black.
Kirrily put her hands on her daughter’s shoulders as Liana stepped forward, like a diplomat paying her respects to an emperor. “Tryg, I—”
Tryg cut her off. He grabbed Liana and pressed her to him, the musky male scent of leather an
d gasoline, one that was elemental to Liana, dating back to when her father was alive. She knew it was illogical how safe it made her feel, but she’d never be able to shake it.
“Daddy!” Liana felt Kizzy grab the leg of her father’s jeans.
“Later, sweetie,” he said.
“I’ll play with you, Kizzy,” volunteered Liana. “Which one is Pinkie Pie?”
Kizzy looked up at her skeptically, as if gauging whether she had a worthy playmate in this family member she barely remembered. Finally she sat down across from her cousin as if she intended to give her a chance, at least.
“You’re back early. I thought you had the Chillicothe run tonight,” said Kirrily.
“Nick’s taking care of it,” replied Tryg, a lack of emotion in his voice.
Liana felt herself stiffen, her fingers tightening in the thick pink mat with the plastic comb stuck in the pony’s hair. She trained her eyes away from her uncle, careful to give him no indication that the name meant anything to her, though she knew that everybody in that room, save for Kizzy, knew better. She may just have been lying to herself that she could play it cool. But what she did know was that she was not in any way ready to talk about, or even hear about, Nicholas Stone. Not now.
“I had to go to Dayton, but the Russians are playing hardball. Somebody’s gotten to them.”
“Have you heard from Nick?”
“Any minute now.” Tryg trailed off, seemingly more interested in scrutinizing Liana.
She turned the pony around in her hands, uncomfortable under her uncle’s intense gaze. She knew that was part of the reason why he was such a good leader—the intimidation factor. He made it almost impossible to lie to him.
“Liana, I need to know what’s going on,” said Tryg finally. “I know you came back for a reason. Was somebody bothering you in New York?”
Long Ride: A Motorcycle Club Romance (Black Sparks MC) (Whiskey Bad Boys Book 1) Page 3
