by Heather Long
Darla shifted again when Jasper demanded, “Freddie Dunlap. Where is he?”
This time, when her gaze flicked to me, I pinned her with a look and she gulped.
“Where is he?” I kept the question soft. The girls were dead silent like they didn’t want the crazed guy with the axe noticing them. Not that I could blame them.
“I’m—” Darla began, then grimaced. She cut a glance back to the drama unfolding behind me. I kept my gaze on her.
The swing of the axe would come any moment, if she wanted to save the guy’s hand, she better speak up now.
“He showed up looking to score with one of the girls from Mama’s.” The statement was only a fragment of the story. Freddie wouldn’t wander into 19D territory on a whim. Not even for pussy.
“And?”
“Look, if I tell you—” A sharp scream punctuated the air behind me, and she blanched beneath the red lights. Those hard eyes cut to mine, and her jaw tightened. If anything, she looked like she was going to be sick.
“He’s next door at Bernie’s,” the girl next to Darla said and then winced when Darla slapped her. I caught Darla’s wrist when she would have swung her hand again. Tears filled her cold eyes, but I ignored Darla and focused on the brunette who’d spilled the beans.
“How do you know?”
“Because I got him here from Mama’s,” she admitted and offered up her own life. No wonder she’d been dead silent and pale since we arrived. “There was a reward if you found a Vandal alone and let them know.”
Let them know. The 19Ds.
“How long?” If it happened in the last twenty-four, it was Meeks. If not, then it was old shit rearing its head, and the Bay Ridge Royals sticking their fingers into everything was more than enough to destabilize the peace here.
The last thing any of us needed was a gang war, but between Jasper severing body parts and Meeks pushing an agenda, we were well on our way.
Another reason to get Emersyn the fuck out of here.
Darla tried to jerk herself free, but I shackled her wrist without a look. When she would have swung her free hand, I twisted the arm up behind her back and pushed her face first against the wall. I didn’t slam her or do any other damage. If she kept struggling, she’d keep inflicting pain on herself.
“Just a couple of days. Some of the 19Ds were supposed to leave you a present, and then they didn’t come back…”
The fuckers at the playground.
“Freddie’s next door at Bernie’s. Upstairs, backroom overlooking the alley. He was pretty high when they dragged him out of here for singing.”
Only fucking Freddie would get bagged by a rival gang and then piss them off by being too cheerful about it.
“Hawk,” I said over my shoulder. “Got a location.”
“I’ve got it here, go,” Vaughn said without Jasper responding verbally. I jerked my head toward the girl, and she hurried away from the wall and toward the doors. Darla hissed as I let her go.
JD moved to cover her while I headed for the doors with Jasper.
“I’m Candy,” the girl told us.
“I don’t care,” Jasper informed her as he pushed the door open to the street. Thank fuck he left the axe behind. Candy winced, but I put a hand at the small of her back to keep her moving.
For her sake, Freddie better be in one piece. Bernie’s shop next door to The Smokestack was one of those international bodegas where they sold a little bit of everything. I’d been in here once, and a five-foot-eight paunchy guy with a receding hairline ran the place, unironically named Bernie.
I welcomed the first wash of fresh air I sucked into my lungs. It might also have smelled of exhaust fumes, but I didn’t give a damn. Even the competing scents of roasting peppers and spicy meat were a welcome reprieve from the more cloying nature of the scents inside of the club.
Bernie eyed us as we came inside. He was behind the register, stacks of cigarettes behind him. “I don’t want any trouble.”
“Keys.” I ordered as I flipped the lock on the inner door and the sign to the closed side. There was a rat outside watching the front, but better to avoid surprises. “Keep your hands where I can see them.”
The man passed over a set of keys and then raised his hands. “Like I said, no trouble.”
Right.
I tossed the keys to Jasper, who caught them one-handed. He weaved through the store toward the back stairs, and the clunk of his boots hitting the steps as he went up them echoed through the shop. Somewhere, coffee hissed into a pot, the scent of it edging into the others and reminding me it’d been hours since we took a break, much less got food or coffee.
I’d kill for a cup right now.
Above our heads, the clunk of boots continued as I kept an eye on Candy and Bernie. She had her arms folded over her chest like that would keep her safe, and she looked anywhere but at me.
A double thump echoed.
Relief flickered through me. At my exhale, Candy cut me a glance. “Am I free to go?”
I didn’t answer her while I tracked the movement from above. Jasper didn’t waste any time bringing Freddie down, and goddammit, he was more than fucked. His gaze was all over the place. His hair was stringy with sweat and his grin loopy.
“Kestrel,” he greeted me as he staggered, despite Jasper mostly carrying him. Lurching forward, he tried to hug me, and I grimaced at the state of him. “It’s been a hot minute, where you been?”
I flicked a look to the thunderous fury on Jasper’s face and pulled out my phone. One text went out to Vaughn and the rats with us. Our cars would be on the way, and we’d leave them to clean up their own mess.
Freddie staggered against me and then focused on Candy. “Oh, I remember you.”
She looked nervous. Freddie kept patting my chest, and I was used to dealing with doped out Freddie so I ignored it.
“She’s the chick who offered me a blowjob and an eight-ball.”
Great.
“She didn’t give me either.” He rolled his head to look at me. “That’s pretty shitty, you know?”
Copper tinged some of the stress sweat rolling off of him.
“Yeah, Freddie, but you gotta just stop sticking your dick in everything, man. Particularly pussy that just wants to sell you out.”
“Ah, they were fucking hysterical. Thought they’d get me high and I’d spill, so I started with kindergarten.” His laughter cut through the silence, and Jasper just looked more pissed.
“Who?” He fired that one word like a bullet.
“I don’t think I should tell you,” Freddie said. “You’re not being very nice to me.”
“We’ll deal with it later,” I said more to Jasper than to Freddie. We wouldn’t get much out of him while he was this fucked up.
“Oh shit,” Freddie said abruptly. “I’m starving.” He tried to pull away from me to head over to the counter, and I dragged him back.
“Later,” I told him.
We didn’t need him puking in the car.
Jasper grabbed a carton of cigarettes and dropped three crumpled twenties on the counter. Then he eyed Candy. “Disappear.”
My phone chirped, and I hauled Freddie toward the door. The lock turned, and I didn’t have to glance back to know Candy had already taken off running for the backroom and out of the store.
Bernie stayed right where he was, his expression stone but his hands where I could see them.
“Put him in my car,” Jasper ordered as the five vehicles pulled up smoothly.
Fine by me. I all but shoved Freddie into the backseat of Jasper’s car. He didn’t wait for me or the rats before he replaced the rat driving his car and peeled out with a screech of tires. Hopefully, the ride back to the clubhouse chilled him out some.
“Should we clean up?” JD asked, and I shook my head.
“That’s their problem. Get out of here and scatter. Keep an ear to the ground.”
Unsurprisingly, Vaughn was the last out of The Smokestack, and he exited shirtle
ss, carrying a bag over one shoulder. Most of the blood had been cleaned off, but he would still need a shower when we got back. I popped the trunk as I slid into the driver’s seat, and he set the bag inside it.
The weight as it landed in the trunk told me it likely had more than the axe in there.
Even before Vaughn fully closed the door, I pulled out, and the rats streamed away behind us. Two of them followed me to the next corner, then turned away. In the distance, the hollow scream of a siren followed by a powerful bleating of a horn suggested paramedics had been dispatched.
“We’re going to catch hell for that,” Vaughn said.
I shrugged a shoulder. “They should have answered the question.”
“He’s out of control,” Vaughn commented quietly.
“No,” I said, disagreeing. “If he were out of control, it would have been a full-on bloodbath.”
“He cut the asshole’s hand off.”
Yeah. Not much I could say to that.
“What’s next? He really starts dismembering people?”
I chuckled. “We dismembered a guy yesterday.” Or had he already forgotten?
“Fuck me,” Vaughn muttered as he ran a hand over his face.
“No thanks. Pretty sure you already dipped where you weren’t supposed to.”
“Don’t be a jealous prick.” He rolled his head from side to side. “You wouldn’t have sent her away either.”
Bullshit. I had turned her down. The light in her eyes when she’d flirted with me had vanished when she realized I was one of the people who’d taken her. The tough shell she wore couldn’t fully disguise the hurt, and I’d been a dick enough to lean into that. Her getting attached was a bad idea.
Her fucking Vaughn was a worse one.
“You want her, man,” Vaughn said quietly, and I scowled as I adjusted my grip on the wheel. The urge to punch him thrummed through me, and I stuffed it down with every other impulse I’d curbed since we’d found out she was coming to town with her show.
“Wanting and having are two different things,” I reminded him. “She’s not ours, Vaughn. This world isn’t for her…”
“This world is a fuck load safer for her than the other one.” Those words rocked me, and I frowned. “Don’t play like you don’t know that. Asshole partner abusing her. Management riding her and letting the pain go on because it made them money. Then someone fucked with those silks after I did my check, because I know they were damn secure.”
I believed him on the last. None of us would mess around where her safety was concerned.
“And you said someone went for her in the parking garage at the hotel.”
“That could have been a drunk driver.” It was weak. Neither of us believed it.
“That family of hers leaves her out on the road months at a time. She was miserable, the pain in her performances? The rawness of it? You don’t make that shit up, and she isn’t that good of an actress.”
On that, he was wrong—she was probably better than any of them realized. She hid those injuries from me in the first few days like they were nothing. Even her body lied when she wanted it to. The sheer amount of control she had over it… No kid should have to control themselves that much.
I’d taken the long way back to the clubhouse. We didn’t have a tail, but that didn’t really matter. It wasn’t like the 19Ds wouldn’t know who hit them and where to hit back. We’d have to be vigilant over the next few days.
Rome and Freddie both needed to stick close to home. Neither were good at it. They moved to their own beats. Fuck. Emersyn was still there.
Maybe this would be the impetus for Jasper letting her get back to some semblance of a real life. Or something.
I knew the answer to that without even bringing it up.
It wasn’t until we turned toward the clubhouse itself that Vaughn asked, “Are you going to tell him?”
“Fuck no,” I rumbled and let out a humorless laugh. “He’s already in a dickish mood. Just don’t fuck her again.”
“No.”
I cut a look at him. “Vaughn…”
“You heard me, I said no. If she wants me, I’m not turning her down.” Instead of combative, it sounded like a promise. “She deserves good things.”
“And you think that’s us?” I couldn’t help but scoff.
“I think we’re a hell of a lot better than what she had. At least we give a damn if she’s hurt and there are no new bruises on her. She can take a deep breath, and she can move… Goddamn, can she move.”
My dick twitched at the last. Particularly with the emphasis he put on move. Not a good plan. Just, none of this was a good plan. Sooner or later, Raptor would find out. Or worse, Jasper would find out about Vaughn and then Raptor would.
We didn’t need this grief in our life, especially if we had a turf war in the offing. Neither of us said a word as the double wide doors rolled back and I pulled into the clubhouse. Rats kept watch, and the doors closed behind us.
A familiar dark blue bike sat parked off to the side. Liam was still here. At least he’d had Rome’s back. Vaughn headed inside with the bag, and I followed him. Freddie’s singing carried as we entered, and the door behind me made a thud as I closed it. I was so not in the mood for Freddie’s shit, but the soft sound of Emersyn’s laughter was like a balm to my soul.
“Careful, Dove,” Vaughn said ahead of me, and it took me a couple of steps to close the gap and see what he meant. Freddie was hunched over a bucket and seated on the sofa next to her. The sound of Freddie’s retching wasn’t much better than his singing, but instead of being turned off by it, Emersyn kept rubbing his back.
Something inside of me unclenched at her swift glance from Vaughn to me, then back again. The curve of her lips, the gleam in her eyes… Fuck me, I’d missed her today.
Nothing good was going to come from this.
Freddie threw up again, and I stripped off my jacket.
Nothing good.
Chapter 5
Emersyn
It was early evening when Jasper rolled in with a staggering Freddie in tow. The smell of cloves, smoky fruits, and bitter chocolate clung to the air, underscored by the tobacco as Jasper exhaled a stream of smoke. Freddie had all but collapsed next to me on the sofa, puncturing the tension in the showdown between Liam and Doc. Rome and I hadn’t said a word to each other, but he’d taken one look at me and then just nodded.
Maybe I was reading too much into it, but it felt like forgiveness, so I’d go with it. Thankfully, he didn’t hesitate to bring a bucket over to where Freddie had begun to heave. I’d really rather he didn’t throw up on me.
“How bad?” Doc asked, switching gears from the combative pose he’d adopted when Liam challenged our arrival. Oddly, Liam hadn’t challenged me, just Doc. If anything, Liam had taken my return even better than Rome.
“Hey, Doc,” Freddie managed before another gag took him. I concentrated only on breathing through my mouth and not just because of the smell of the vomit, but the sour odor of sweat combined with the acridness of the urine weren’t doing him any favors. My stomach twisted at the next choking cough that came from Freddie before he threw up again.
“Come on, Little Bit,” Doc said, moving to tug me up from the seat so he could take my place. “How much did you do?”
Jasper caught my arm and tugged me a little farther away. Freddie seemed to fight to track where I was going, but his eyes were dancing all over the place and his skin was shiny. When Freddie finished retching, Jasper grasped the bucket and carried it out. My stomach lurched, but this wasn’t the worst I’d seen.
I caught Rome staring at me, and then I glanced back at Freddie. He was a mess.
“I have Narcan,” Doc said. “But I don’t want to use it without knowing what you did.” His focus remained on Freddie.
“Went to get food,” Freddie said, the fun in his voice plummeting toward misery. “Sorry, Boo-Boo, got a little turned around. But we didn’t have shit in the kitchen, and I can’t cook
anyway.”
“It’s fine,” I said, folding my arms. “Though I hope you weren’t picking up the drugs for me.”
“Nah,” Freddie said with a crooked grin that was all bad boy sass, like he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t have. “Unless you wanted some. ’Cause I know some places to score.”
“No, she doesn’t want you to score,” Jasper snarled as he clapped Freddie in the back of the head and slammed the bucket down next to him on the floor. “Tell Doc what the fuck you took, then what the hell they gave you before we got there.”
“You know, Hawk, you’re an asshole.” Freddie glanced up at him, not even an ounce of remorse in his expression. “We all know you got a crush on Boo-Boo, so be nice to her, ’cause she’s pretty and she’s nice. She smells good too.”
I cut my gaze away and caught Liam rolling his eyes, and I swore for just a moment, the corners of his lips twitched. A hand danced against my back, and I glanced over my shoulder to find Rome holding a hand out to me.
Jasper glared down at glassy-eyed Freddie, and for once, Doc wore a similar expression. Compassion infused that anger, since they needed more information if they wanted to help him.
Taking Rome’s hand, I let him pull me toward the kitchen. Doc and I had only gotten back minutes ahead of Jasper. We’d barely even made it inside before he’d arrived, dragging Freddie with him.
“Get him ice,” Rome suggested. “The crushed will help.”
That was a good idea, especially since he was sweaty. I opened the freezer and stared at the nearly empty appliance. There was an entire bag of crushed ice already there, in addition to the cubes in the ice marker. He turned the sink on while I filled an oversized tumbler with the ice.
When I turned around, he had a pair of washcloths soaked and squeezed out in his hands. Without a word, he passed them to me.
“Rome—” I started, but he pressed his fingers to my lips. Cool and still damp from the sink, they sent a chill through me. The calmness in his eyes washed over me, and he just gave me the barest shake of his head. I frowned until his gaze flicked past me.
