Good Gone Bad, page 17
“Clean this up!” Grease shouted over the shout of his revving engine as he and the others took off.
Wrath and I remained, arms crossed, shoulder to shoulder like sentries.
The second the group disappeared around the corner, we moved.
I crouched to the guy with the bullet wound and slapped his face to bring him to. “Hey, hey, need you to put pressure on this wound.”
“Fuck,” he said in a pain strained whisper. “Fuck you, you fuckin’ ’serker.”
“Shut the fuck up and put pressure here,” I said, using his own hand to quell the blood flow. “The cops are comin’ and they’ll get you to the hospital.”
He blinked up at me, sucked in a wet breath and then launched a wad of spit into my face. “Fuck you.”
I rubbed the thick saliva off my cheek and left him to it to check on King.
Wrath was helping him up when I jogged over.
“Thanks, man,” King grumbled, shaking his head to clear the cobwebs. “Did you have to hit me so fuckin’ hard.”
The goliath shrugged. “Had to look the part.”
“Yeah, well don’t think anyone’s gonna be the wiser the way you clocked me. Jesus, have a headache for a week after this. Cress is not gonna be happy with my shiner.”
“What the fuck is goin’ on here?” I asked, the situation so far out of my realm of understanding that I couldn’t make any sense of it.
King grinned at me and clapped me on the back. “Good to see you, man. Have to say, like the leather better than that Canadian cowboy look you usually got goin’ on.”
“What the fuck?” I repeated.
King threw his head back and laughed as if we were at my place in Entrance shooting the shit in my garage instead of on the side of a highway littered with bikes and bodies. “Yeah, betcha thinkin’ what the fuck right ’bout now, but we don’t got time to clue you in. I gotta see if Axe-Man’s gonna make it and you two gotta get the fuck outta ’ere.”
Wrath grunted his agreement and walked away to retrieve his bike.
King made to move away then stopped shoulder to shoulder with me before he moved past me and stared. His eyes were pale even in the darkness and they went straight to the center of the confusion and chaos in my soul.
“Good to see you, Danny,” he muttered softly. “Stay safe.”
“Lion, get movin’,” Wrath called as King walked away and the sirens seemed to be right around the corner.
I got movin’, my head spinning nonsensically in my head as I got my bike out of the brush and followed Wrath into the darkness back to Vancouver.
Only, Wrath didn’t take us back to the clubhouse when he entered the city limits. First, he drove into the dirty bowels of East Hastings Street and turned off onto a filthy row of welfare housing. I pulled up beside him when he stopped before a peeling, white painted house and took off my helmet.
I didn’t lay into him with questions or rage. I’d learned the hard way as a cop that silence was the best tool in garnering a confession, so I waited.
Wrath had his helmet off, his gaze tipped towards the house, face soft in a way I recognized by seeing King with Cress and Zeus with Lou.
He was in love with the person that lived in that house.
“Name’s Kylie,” he started, his voice gruffer than his usual deep rasp. “Met her when she was fifteen and her mum tried to convince Reaper to pay child support yet a-fuckin’-gain. He hit her mum, sent her sprawling right to the ground in the driveway at the clubhouse and then stalked off. Didn’t know she was fucking fifteen, but the sight of her in this purple dress with her hair a riot of all these little curls, it knocked me on my ass just as surely as her mum. I helped her up and drove the both of them back home. Stayed while Kylie made me fuckin’ tea, as if I’d drink it, but I did.”
He looked down at his heavily scarred hands. “Doesn’t care ’bout his baby mama’s, hit or miss if he cares ’bout the kids. Coupla months, don’t know how, he took notice’a Kylie and started pushing ’er to hang around the club. Mutt got to ’er.”
I hissed, imagining the damage Mutt might have done to a young girl.
“She’s a grown woman now, twenty-two, but she’s a slight thing. Mutt sent ’er to the hospital. He cut open her mouth with a penknife so he could get his dick in there.”
My gut rolled at the blasphemy of mutilating a woman like that. “Fuck.”
“Yeah, took everything I had not to go into the clubhouse in a rage of gunfire, takin’ out every damn brother I could. They were there that night, you get me? They saw Mutt take ’er into his room, heard her scream and cry out. Didn’t do shit about it ’cause this crew doesn’t stand for brotherhood and freedom, it stands for male supremacy, rapin’ and beatin’ women into submission, killin’ those who oppose us even if it’s over a fuckin’ spilled beer.”
He stopped, his breath fast in his chest. A light turned on, then off in the silent house, on then off again.
A signal.
“He’d kill me he knew she was mine,” Wrath said, holding up a hand to the house even though I couldn’t see anyone looking out. “Kill me and let his boys kill her ’cause his sense of loyalty is whacked and he likes us to prove we’d go to hell for him.”
“What does this have to do with King, brother?” I asked quietly, using the endearment every brother in the club used for each other but using it in a way that showed I was with him, that I had his back and got his tragedy.
“Kylie went to university with him, they struck up a friendship. When shit went down, I went to King to buy protection for her, he didn’t want money though, he just wanted the same for his sister. I fell down on that job, but Cricket was my cousin and it was complicated, but I’m rectifyin’ it now by givin’ her the protection of bein’ my Old Lady.”
I didn’t even try to stem the tide of relief that flooded my chest at hearing Wrath and Rosie’s relationship was a ruse. Guilt followed swiftly like red tide mucking up the clean when I thought about my commitments to Diana and Laken. I could get rid of Diana, we’d been dating for years, but we didn’t have even a spark of what I had with Rosie. In fact, it was a dick move, but I decided to call her that night and end it over the phone. She deserved better, but then, so did Harleigh Rose.
The only problem was ending my relationship with Laken when she was crucial to the investigation. I was pretty damn certain that Reaper only trusted me because his favourite kid did, and getting rid of that security, especially now that Harleigh Rose was involved in the MC, was a dangerous move I couldn’t risk.
“Does he know his sister is involved with the cops?” I asked, because even though he loved his sister, I couldn’t see the new prospect, King Garro, liking that idea.
Wrath’s mouth thinned. “No, and actually, didn’t know that ’til now. Just thought you two had a history.”
“We do,” I said, taking a chance on him just as he’d taken a gamble on me. “And she is.”
“Right, well I’m guessin’ you don’t want me to tell King, that’s fine, that’s her business and it might fuck with my gig. King kept his part’a our bargain. Kylie’s been stayn’ up in Entrance until this week ’cause my girl loves her Mama and it’s her birthday. She’ll go back up after that. Can’t risk it.”
“She gonna stay up there with King forever?” I asked because I knew the answer was no.
His face hardened, and he turned to face me. “They call me Wrath ’cause I’m a big guy, strong enough to crush bones between my fingers, and when roused, I’m a vengeful beast, but they shoulda called me “Hound” ’cause I’m smart ’nough to see shit and know shit others don’t.” He paused. “Like the fact that Harleigh Rose or her daddy prob’ly killed my bastard ass cousin for beatin’ her one too many times. Or that Reaper keeps an iron lock down on his source in the Port Authority, but he’s got a new bitch in his bed he talks to so the opportunities ripe for the takin’ to help you bring these sons of bitches down. Like the fact that you’re a fuckin’ cop and I knew it only ’cause I could fuckin’ smell it on ya.”
I rubbed a hand over my face, reeling from the sudden turn of events, trying to figure out how I could make this work to my advantage and feeling grateful I’d decided not to wear a wire that night, otherwise cops would be rolling up to turn Wrath C.I. even as we spoke.
“Why didn’t you go to the cops? Why didn’t you turn me in?”
“First, liked you,” he shrugged. “Even ’fore shit happened with Kylie, thought ’bout leavin’, defectin’ to another club that stood for what I wanted, family and freedom to live without rules. The Fallen seemed to fit, made a deal with King that when the time came, I’d be welcomed there if I worked with them to take out the club.”
“You’re working with The Fallen,” I echoed.
“They know they got an inside man, don’t know who it is only that I’m feedin’ them solid intel. Didn’t want this shit spreadin’ so only King knows.”
I raised my brows and let out a low whistle. “Not even Zeus Garro?”
Wrath’s smile flashed white through his beard. “Not yet.”
“Fuck, well, why tell me this?”
Wrath looked back to the house. “We both got girls in this fight, I figure we need each other.” He peered at me and for the first time in the three years I’d known him, I could see his soul shining in his eyes, wide and deep as a well, seemingly black but filled with something a fuckuva lot lighter than anyone gave him credit for. “You with me?”
I shouldn’t have been.
It was my job to take him into the station, get him set up properly as a confidential informant, promise to get protection I knew wouldn’t be given to his woman, and let the higher-ups make the bigger calls.
I was just a grunt.
But I looked into Wrath Marsden’s eyes and saw a soul I could respect a lot fucking more than I respected the paper pushers I worked under, the father who’d taught me the police were elementally, eternally in the right, and I made another of a series of decisions in my life that were not morally good, that pushed me in the direction of another kind of brotherhood than the one with the men in blue.
I took Wrath’s offered hand in mine and clapped him on the back.
I left the weed at King and Cress’s front door before I hauled back to Entrance going fifty kilometers over the speed limit so that I’d beat the brothers back to the clubhouse. I’d told Farrah and Reaper that I was going to take a nap in Wrath’s room while I waited for him to get back from the job, then I’d climbed out the window, jumping to the garage roof and then the soft grass at its back. My car was still parked prominently in the front yard of the compound so it was a good thing I’d learned to hotwire cars when I was twelve and King was bored enough one day to teach me. Newer cars were a pain because of alarm systems and automatic start buttons, but I’d found a beautiful old model Aston Martin DB5 just sittin’ pretty in a driveway a few blocks away that did the trick.
I parked it in the same spot I’d found it and then couldn’t resist using the pink lipstick I found in the passenger seat to press a kiss to the side window and write a little “xoxo, thanks for the ride” underneath.
I’d just climbed back through the window and changed into one of Wrath’s tee shirts because mine were covered in dirt and it would better cement my napping story anyway when I felt the thunder of bikes rolling into the drive.
Still, I stayed upstairs.
It was only when the second, lesser growl sounded outside that I knew Danner and Wrath were back that I realized the danger of Danner coming inside.
Farrah was still there, and she knew him. Sure, she’d been high and obliterated as Ben Franklin’s lightning struck kite each time he’d visited to have a chat with her about raising her kids right, but Danner was not the kind of man a woman could forget.
I jumped off the bed and raced down the stairs. Thankfully, Wrath and Danner were just climbing up the steps when I crashed through the door and launched myself at Wrath.
Instinctively, he caught me and my legs went around his waist even though he was too mammoth for me to wrap them fully around and I had long legs.
I dipped my face to his shoulder so that any of the onlookers would think I was giving my man a tender embrace. It was sketchy to warn him in front of Wrath, but I figured I knew enough about his secrets to blackmail him if he gave us grief about it.
“Farrah’s inside,” I whispered to Danner who had immediately locked furious eyes on me.
I guessed I wasn’t forgiven for getting involved in the ambush.
“You cannot come in. Farrah’s inside,” I repeated.
The fury dimmed then flared to life again reminding me that he hated my mum even more than I did.
“Need ya to take my woman home,” Wrath said loudly to Danner. “She’s got school tomorrow and I’m gonna be ’ere awhile debriefin’. You got ’er?”
“Yeah, brother,” Danner agreed easily then looked over my shoulder. “You cool with that, Prez?”
“Sure the girl’s mum would like to spend more time with ’er. Why don’t you leave her here while we finish up our business? Won’t take long.”
It was formed like a question, but we had no choice.
My heart was lurching in my chest, overtaxed by the amount of excitement I’d had that day.
“She’s tired, Prez,” Danner tried again.
It was the wrong move.
Reaper’s anger lashed through the air. “Don’t give a fuck, do I, boy? Now get your asses in here and Harleigh Rose go on up to your mother.”
We trudged in dutifully, Wrath letting me go so that they could follow Reaper into the “chapel,” a room in each biker clubhouse designated for just the patched-in members of the club, where they held their meetings.
I went up the stairs to find Farrah.
She was in Reaper’s bedroom, a master suite at the back of the house that was covered in biker girl posters and strewn with dirty clothes.
My mother sat in the middle of the bed wearing black fishnets and lingerie.
“Jesus, do you seriously just hang out like that?” I asked, covering my eyes against the sight.
She laughed. “Word of advice, Harleigh, this is how you keep a man.”
“Don’t need your help with that. Can you please cover up?”
She sighed, but I heard the rustle as she got off the bed. “Yes, I heard you kept a man for four years. Impressive, I guess, if you hadn’t let him beat on you. You never did learn anything I tried to teach you.”
When I was little, and my mother was being wicked or drunk and cruel, I came up with a game to distract myself. I tried to think of a positive memory and match it to a song.
I thought of that morning waking up in Danner’s bed, of his fingers binding me to the cabinets and his mouth on my pussy, his cock in my cunt after so many years of wishing for exactly that.
I came up with a song by one of Cressida’s favourite artists, “Can’t Help Falling in Love” by Elvis.
The song started playing softly in my head as Farrah, finally covered by a silk black robe, continued her lecture.
“You never should have left me, prettiness, I would have taught you how to be a woman. Instead, you’ve become this rough, biker thing,” she waved her hand, bangles jangling and I thought about how I wanted to rip those cheap bracelets off and choke her with them.
“Oh, I listened to the lessons you taught, Farrah,” I said through gritted teeth. “I listened to the one about not doing drugs that you taught me when you’d overdosed three times by the time I was ten. I listened to the one about being careful not to drive away a good man, the best man by being unfaithful in all the ways that word means. And most of all, I learned that just because you think you’re a good person, it doesn’t mean you are because nothing you’ve ever done has been good or honest, and the fact that you don’t even seem to understand that makes it so much worse.”
Farrah stared at me for a long moment, her cruel face impassive, before she sighed. “You always were dramatic.”
“I’m not dramatic, I’m right,” I hissed.
I didn’t want to be there after the night I’d had, seeing King fall to Wrath’s punch, watching Axe-Man get shot in the gut by a man I despised while I just lay in the dirt doing nothing. I wanted to go home.
Not my apartment, Cricket had taken the home out of that place.
No, I wanted to get on the back of Lion’s bike and ride with him to his little house, open the door to greet a happy Hero, take the punishment Danner was probably at the moment thinking up for me, and then fall exhausted into bed with him.
Instead, Elvis kept crooning in my head and my mother kept running her mouth.
“You don’t get this because you were too young, but your daddy was a beast. He ordered me around like I was his fucking slave and then he took my kids from me!”
“He took us because you were a washed up, abusive, drug abuser,” I told her flatly. “And I don’t see you complaining about Jacob. He took Honey from you too.”
“Yeah, well karma got the bastard. He died of a fucking car crash when Honey was five and I got ’er back.”
“And look at her now! She’s a high school dropout, drug-addicted porn star.”
“It’s just a phase,” Farrah said, arranging herself back on the bed as if she was the queen of fucking Sheba. “You’re clearly going through one now too. Don’t worry, you stick with your Mama and I’ll get you through the other side.”
“Both Zeus and Jacob left you ’cause of your drug addiction, who says Reaper’ll be any different?”
God, I hoped he was. I hoped he kept her and ensnared her in his filthy web so that when he went down, she did too.
“Oh baby, old Reaper and me go way back,” she said with a childish giggle. “He’s been in love with me since I was with your daddy. He’d do anything for me…” she shot me a sloe-eyed look. “Even kill for me.”
Trepidation sliced through me. “Who would you want killed? You owe a dealer or something.”
“Come sit with your mama,” she ordered me softly, patting the bed beside her. “And I’ll tell you.”
