by Jen Davis
“We?” He narrowed his eyes and approached her. “We aren’t going to do anything. I am going to pay this bastard for his silence.”
She let out the breath she’d been holding. “Thank—”
“You,” he continued as if she hadn’t spoken, “will cut all ties with Kane Hale. Now and forever.”
“No,” she breathed.
Her father put his face centimeters from hers, so close she could smell the cigar smoke on his breath. “Oh yes. I will not leave myself open like this again. You want to save this young man, give me what I want.”
Tears streamed down her face, but her father appeared indifferent. “Decide now.” This. This was the kind of thing her mother ran away from, but now Amanda was trapped.
What choice did she have? She nodded.
“He’s at Northside Hospital. Go now. Make a clean break.”
She turned, her heart in her throat. Her stomach churned, threatening to empty its contents on the Aubusson rug.
“And Amanda, don’t get any ideas about changing your mind later. If you go back on our deal, I’ll go to the police myself. This stays between us. Remember, there’s no statute of limitations on murder.”
CHAPTER NINE
Amanda
Mike listened to Amanda’s confession without so much as a twitch on his face. But the moment she finished her story, his features twisted. “Your father is a rank bastard.”
Not the response she was expecting, but it was true, nonetheless. Beau Griffin was also controlling and narcissistic. His genteel manners and charming smile, the simple tools he used to boost his popularity among the people. Their regard fed his bottomless well of need for respect and adoration. No matter how hard they tried, the simple love she and her mother had to give could never have been enough. They’d been doomed to disappoint him.
The bourbon no longer burned as she swallowed it down, generally a sign she needed to stop drinking. She screwed the cap back on the bottle and returned it to its perch above the side-by-side refrigerator. “Be that as it may, he’s the only reason Kane is walking free.”
Mike rolled his eyes. “He’s the reason Kane was threatened in the first place.”
“Ah, but you’re forgetting one thing, big brother. My father had nothing to do with Kane going to the apartment building or with whatever went down inside.” She dragged one of the kitchen chairs from beneath the round oak table and sat down. “Don’t you think it occurred to me he was behind the whole thing? But it doesn’t make sense. There were too many factors out of his control.”
Mike wheeled to the refrigerator and pulled out a plate covered in Saran Wrap. He lifted up on one heel to stick it in the microwave and hit the start button, then sat back down to watch the plate spin around on the revolving tray.
“I guess you’re right, but it doesn’t change the fact he manipulated the circumstances to his advantage. He never wanted you and Kane together. Thought he was beneath you, like he thought my dad was beneath your mom.”
The timer went off, and he lifted up again to pull out the plate. He placed it on his lap, then grabbed a fork from the drawer and delivered it to her.
Under the cellophane, she spotted two chicken legs, some mashed potatoes, and corn. Her stomach gurgled.
“Eat,” he chided.
She pulled off the covering and moved the food around with her fork. It smelled amazing. “You’re right. My dad doesn’t do anything out of the goodness of his heart.” Look at the price she had to pay for his help with the company. Though she had no intention of sharing those details with her brother.
She blew on a forkful of steaming potatoes. “It doesn’t matter anyway. Kane and I are both different people now.” Carefully, she slid the creamy bite into her mouth.
“For a smart woman, you sure are stupid sometimes.” Mike shot her a patronizing look. “It’s still Kane. He’s still the same guy.”
Mike couldn’t really be so naïve. She grunted as she swallowed her food. “The Kane I was with would never have joined a biker gang. He hated everything about it. He wanted to be an investment banker, for crying out loud. Now he’s right there, living the life with his asshole brother and misogynist father. He lives outside of society. If those things don’t make him a different man, I don’t know what would.”
His face softened. “Talk to him. God, sis, you owe him that much.”
“Yeah.” She took a few more bites, but she barely tasted her meal anymore. “I need a copy of Josh’s birth certificate. Kane saw him tonight; he thinks he’s ours.”
“Damn,” he muttered. “His reaction couldn’t have been pretty.”
The food no longer held any appeal. “It wasn’t.” Exhaustion was a crushing weight on her shoulders. “You mind if I crash here tonight?” Tomorrow was Saturday; it wasn’t like she had to go to work.
She didn’t wait for an answer. Depositing her dish in the sink, she stumbled to the guest room and crashed face-first onto the bed.
She dreamed of kissing away Kane’s scars in his hospital bed, a life free of her father, and a baby with dark brown hair and green eyes who she could call her own.
***
Kane
Kane squinted against the rays of afternoon sun burning his retinas. Though he wore a pair of durable sunglasses, a night with little-to-no sleep had left him sensitive to the light.
He couldn’t find any holes in Mandy’s story about the kid he’d seen on Mike’s porch, but he also couldn’t dismiss the possibility it was all a lie. Maybe a part of him wanted it to be a lie.
The idea of a child of his own—a son—did something to his insides he couldn’t bring himself to examine all at once. There was hope there, but also anger and a deep sense of betrayal. Surprising, since he thought Mandy had already dicked him over as much as one person ever could.
The blaring horn from a car behind him shook him out of his thoughts. The light had turned green. With a sigh, he lifted his hand in recognition before resuming his course to the seedier part of town.
Gone were the streets lined with Wal-Marts and Applebee’s. Now he passed small houses long ago repurposed as various businesses. One was faded pink with a rusted air conditioning unit in the front window and a wooden sign advertising a psychic inside. The one next to it was blue with a yard made of mostly short weeds and dirt claiming to be a daycare. A “KinderKare,” according to the stenciled letters next to the door.
Some of the houses looked like they’d been abandoned for years. A couple showed evidence of fire; one had no roof at all. Then, an old service station…an overgrown lot with a threadbare sofa on its side and two bald tires…and finally, his destination.
He shuddered as he pulled up to the massive apartment complex. It was the same place where Scott had dragged him all those years ago. The place where a wannabe gangbanger carved a fucking ravine across one side of his face. The place where life as he knew it came to a screeching halt.
He parked next to his brother’s Dyna Low Rider and tried to ignore the burned-out shell of Building D as he walked past. After all these years, no one had touched a thing; it was left like a macabre monument to the families who died inside. Or maybe no one had the money or the motivation to fix it.
Rubbing over the scar on his cheek, he ambled to Building E, projecting a nonchalance as real as a three-dollar bill. The last thing he needed was for anyone to smell blood in the water.
The door opened before he had the chance to knock. He didn’t recognize the guy who waved him in, but he looked young enough to be in high school, dark skin, hair cropped close to his scalp, jeans, and a T-shirt. But his eyes were older, and the handle of a handgun peeked from his waistband.
He pushed down his misgivings and followed the sound of his brother’s voice.
“—won’t be any problem at all. We have the men to keep the business running and a reputation guaranteed to give anyone second thoughts before they try to fuck us out of our money.” Scott wore his cockiest smile as he talked up the club to a
black guy in his mid-fifties wearing an impeccable gray three-piece suit over an open-collared black dress shirt.
The man traced the thin beard along his jaw with the back of his fingers. “Very good, Mr. Hale, because if we go into business together, your money is our money.” He turned to a small entourage of three men behind him. “Jay, what do you think?”
The guy who scowled had on black jeans and a white shirt with a leather jacket that had to be stifling in the warm apartment. “You know what I think, Ace. Our focus needs to be on what happened to Sucre.”
The guys around him nodded in agreement.
Ace, obviously the boss, shook his head. “We talked about this.”
“You asked me my opinion and this is it.” Jay broke away from the group and paced the room. There wasn’t a lot of space, but it looked way nicer than Kane would have ever expected from the outside. A black leather sofa and chair in the living area to their left. A big flat screen on the wall. And a long glass table to the far right of the room. It had probably been moved to create the empty space where they were standing. In most apartments, it would be the eat-in kitchen.
Something told him no one cooked here; no one shared this space for a family meal.
No. This place was for business, and their visits couldn’t happen often. No dishes anywhere. No garbage cans. And a light sheen of dust reflected off the face of the television.
Jay’s lips pinched. “Sucre didn’t just walk away from us.”
Kane’s stomach turned. They couldn’t know the club took Sucre out. He and Scott were out-numbered. If this went bad, neither one of them would walk out of here alive.
Thankfully, Jay seemed oblivious to his discomfort. “The guy was creepy as fuck, but he never gave us reason to doubt his loyalty. He paid on time. He met his obligations.” Jay got more animated as he went on. “He was our associate, and whatever happened to him is a reflection on us.”
Ace shook his head with the sufferance of a father explaining something to his wayward son. “We have no reason to believe he didn’t take his money and move to the Bahamas.” It echoed of an argument made many times before.
“Bullshit, man, and you know it.” The men who had been standing with Jay nodded with his words. “Someone knocked him off, and whoever did it took out his whole crew. Unless you think they all went to the Bahamas.”
“Enough.” Ace’s hand sliced through the air. “I told you this already. If we find out someone killed de la Cruz, we’ll handle it. In the meantime, we have a business to run. To make money, we need a distributor. My only question to you now is who it’s going to be.” He turned back to Scott. “Obviously, we’ve had a lot of interest in what’s only been a short period of time. In my opinion, however, your club seems to be one of the most suited for possible success.”
Scott smiled. “We wouldn’t ask for the job if we weren’t up for it.”
The man waved away Scott’s reassurance. “Obviously, your club has made a name for itself in weapons. I understand you work on the up and up, and you know how to be discreet. My only concern is the impact of your plan to diversify.”
There was a reason this guy was in charge. He asked the right question, and it was the one Scott seemed determined to ignore.
His brother tilted his head to the side like he didn’t understand what Ace was saying. Maybe he didn’t.
Kane cleared his throat. “We’re still committed to our original business partners. Loyalty is important to us too.” He gave what was supposed to be a reassuring nod to Jay, who was still pacing in front of the flat screen. “We’ve worked with those partners for over a decade. Our club has grown over the years, and we have enough men to run both operations.”
One of the guys who had been standing by Jay spoke for the first time. His arms were folded tightly in front of him. “Sucre had more than twice as many men.”
No one was looking at Scott anymore. Kane liked it better when he’d been invisible. “Like us, Sucre had diverse interests. But unlike us, he had no other partners. He needed more enforcers to collect on the loans he fronted.” He shrugged and held up his empty palms. “We have no interest in becoming loan sharks. The startup costs are way too high, and policing the returns requires additional manpower and yields unreliable results.”
Ace raised an eyebrow. “Indeed.” He shooed Jay out of the room, and his lieutenant returned a moment later with two big black duffel bags, which he dropped at Kane’s feet.
“H in one bag, coca products in the other.” Ace stepped closer to him, Scott all but forgotten. “You want meth, make your own. Weed and pills, you’ll have to get somewhere else. But I will be your only supplier for the products I carry.”
It wasn’t a question, but he nodded anyway. “My brother has your guns.”
Two of the men sat with Scott at the table to sort out the weapons.
Ace stood two feet from Kane. He spoke softly. “One last thing. No matter how unsavory all this is, it is a business. And I am a businessman.”
There was no doubt in his mind.
“Your brother is not.”
No doubt of that either.
“Before you spoke up, I was prepared to walk away from his proposition. However, you strike me as someone I could work with. This…association between my people and yours is contingent upon your continuing involvement. I assume my caveat is amenable to you.”
He glanced at his brother whose jaw was now clenched shut. Ace had spoken softly, but Scott had clearly heard it all.
It didn’t matter, though. This was the deal; take it or leave it.
“It’s fine,” he agreed gruffly.
“The guns check out.” Jay hoisted Scott’s heavy backpack onto his shoulder.
Ace smiled and offered Kane his hand. “Then it looks like we have a deal.”
***
Scott didn’t say a word as they walked back to their bikes, each with a duffel bag in hand. His face was unreadable—at least to anyone who didn’t know him—but Kane knew there was emotion simmering beneath his skin.
It only took a few minutes to get back to the clubhouse, and even then, Scott said nothing as he stomped in the door, heading directly to the chapel.
It wasn’t until Kane stepped in behind him and closed the door, his brother dropped the duffel and whirled around with an expression on his face loaded with hurt and betrayal. “How could you do that? You knew this was my deal.”
Sighing, he set down his burden on the table. “I didn’t even want to go at all, Scott. But you and Malcolm made damn sure it happened anyway.”
“This is how you get back at me?” Scott raked his fingers through his hair. “You try to undermine me? Make this your deal? We’re brothers. We’re supposed to have each other’s backs.”
Kane balled his hands into fists. “The last thing I wanted was for this to be my deal. I think it’s a terrible idea, which you know damn good and well. It should have been more obvious than ever when those guys started making noise about avenging Sucre. They find out it was us, they’re coming for every brother wearing a cut.”
Scott rolled his eyes. “If they were really worried about what happened, they would be looking for us regardless.”
“But by approaching them, we drew a big fucking bullseye on our backs.” Scott could not be this fucking dumb.
“Nobody forced you to come.” Scott grabbed the pack of Camels on the table and stuck a cigarette between his lips. He marched outside the back door, and Kane followed on his heels. “I could’ve brought Cue Ball with me.”
Funny. Scott never mentioned Cue Ball when he told him about the meet. “You think I would have ever chosen to go back there?”
Scott lit his cigarette, then took a long drag. He blew the smoke out defiantly.
It took everything he had not to close the distance between them and knock the cigarette out of his fucking mouth. “The last time you dragged me there, I almost died. Twenty other people actually did.”
Scott’s eyes darkened, his hur
t feelings giving way to something harder. “Who took care of you when you got out of the hospital, huh? This club did. I did. Your precious old lady kicked you to the curb, and your family stayed with you to pick up the pieces.”
He stepped into Scott’s face. “There would have been no pieces to pick up if you hadn’t manipulated me into going in the first place.” He poked his brother in the chest. “You want me to thank you? For almost getting me killed? For ruining my fucking life? Fuck you, brother. You’ll go to your grave waiting for any thanks from me.”
Pain bloomed across his cheekbone before he even realized his brother had taken a swing. But it was fine. It gave him permission to finally let go.
He hit back with a hard punch to Scott’s gut. Then, as his brother doubled over, he grabbed his shoulders and wrenched him down until Scott’s head connected with his knee. But instead of assuaging the ember of rage inside him, the violence only fed the flame.
It was almost a relief when Scott threw another punch.
He knocked it away with his forearm and with a howl, used his shoulder as a battering ram to knock his brother to the dead grass at his feet. It would be so easy to kick him while he was down. Or to climb on top of him and whale on his face until it was beaten to nothing short of raw hamburger.
But Malcolm grabbed him by the shoulder and jerked him back.
He hadn’t even heard him come out.
“What the fuck is going on here?”
For a moment, he was tempted to land his next punch across his father’s weathered face, but he forced his anger under control. It was a skill he’d damn-near perfected over the years. “Scott’s pissed the supplier wants me to take the lead as the liaison for the club.”
“He’s pissed, huh?” Malcolm looked meaningfully at Scott as he pulled himself to his feet.
