Burning Ember (59 page)

“I don’t understand.”

“Not much to understand.” He stares at his smoke and rolls it between his fingers. “My old lady slept with my best friend and you’re the evidence I need to prove he betrayed me.”

The truth doesn’t always set the world right. Sometimes it wakes you from a dream you’d rather spend your whole life living.

MAVERICK

Slamming the door to the chapel, I bite out, “What in the fuck is so important?” My gaze travels over Whiz who’s holding a manila folder in his hand, and then Taz standing in front of a large brushed metal HOC emblem that hangs on the wall. His arms are crossed and he’s wearing an expression I’ve come to know well. His head is locked on a mark and he’s ready to do what he does best, make whatever problem the club has
disappear
.

The door reopens and Edge and Griz walk in. “What’s this about?” Edge asks me.

“That’s what I’m here to find out.” I motion for Whiz to get on with it.

“You’re going to want to sit down,” he says.

As a hollow feeling begins to build in my gut, I take my chair and feel the worn leather give me what comfort it can, though I’ve been ill at ease since I left Ember. Edge sits with one thigh on the table to my left, and Griz in the seat to my right. After walking around the table, Whiz lays the folder in front of me. He opens it to a picture of Ember on the arm of another man.

I knew eventually I’d have to see something like this, but it’s still a blow all the same.

I lean forward and pick up the photo. It’s her, only a completely different version of her.

Her hair is slicked and pulled back into a low ponytail, not one hair out of place. She’s wearing jewelry, and a conservative white and navy capped sleeved dress. She looks polished and elegant, and nothing like the woman that was wrapped around me a few minutes ago.

I don’t like this look on her. I don’t like it one fucking bit.

My eyes shift to her ex. The asshole that raped her and held her against her will. I memorize every detail of his pretty-boy face, his ice blue eyes, bone structure, and even his fake approachable smile. He’s tall, younger than me, and clean cut. He wears a charcoal suit, tailored to fit his frame and expensive. Everything about him screams money. His posture, clothes, and even the gold watch peeking out from his shirtsleeve.

“You wanted me to dig and find everything I could on your girl’s ex,” Whiz starts.

Shifting in my chair, I push down the darkness rising higher inside me the longer I stare at the picture. “Yeah.”

“Well, I dug. But I found out something you’re not going to like. Whiz flips over news article after news article about her going missing and the fire. I grab one of the articles and do a quick read through. ‘Senator McTearney Helps Son Search for Missing Girlfriend’ is the headline. For a few minutes, I scan through the other articles, besides the most recent one that says they’ve ruled the fire as an accident due to a gas leak; they all say pretty much the same thing.

“I know all this already.” I shove the file back at him.

“There’s more.”

Taz speaks up. “I told Whiz to look into your girl when you started showin’ interest,” Taz confesses. “But we didn’t have much to go on. Didn’t know her name or where she was from, until you told Whiz about the fire and this ex of hers.”

My jaw hardens and I shoot him a dirty look. “That’s what this is about? You found some dirt on her and couldn’t wait to share it?” To Whiz, I snap, “Did you or did you not check into this Warner guy?”

“It’s more than dirt, brother. It’s a fuckin’ mole hill of shit.”

“Is this really somethin’ Griz and I need to hear?” Edge cuts Taz off. He’s about as pleased at his night being interrupted as I am.

“This touches the whole club.” Taz comes closer and pushes the file back toward me. He searches through the documents until he comes to a birth certificate and hands it to me. “Look at her name.”

I snatch the paper from his hands and scan her birth certificate. I read her full name out loud, “Ember Dee Pierce.” I hoard these additional slivers of information about her like their precious jewels I’m collecting. Her full name. August 12
th
, her birthday, only a couple of days before she showed up at the clubhouse. Her mother’s name is Tessa Owens. Father, nothing listed, which matches what she told me.

There’s nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing incriminating either.

Taz repeats “Dee Pierce” like it’s a revelation.

Griz noticeably freezes next to me. After a few seconds, he sits up with interest, and sorts through the papers. He takes one, his eyes skim over it. Edge leans over the folder and grabs another, does the same.

“What am I missin’?” Raising my head, I peer at each one of them, take in their dower expressions.

“Show ’em,” Taz orders the prospect.

Whiz pulls additional photos from the back of the folder. He places them beside Ember’s picture with her ex. The first isn’t of her, but a face I’ve seen enough of the last two days that I don’t care to see more than I have to. The the second man, I’d prefer never to see again in my lifetime.

Confusion pinballs around in my brain.
Why in the ever-loving-fuck is he showing me these?
Then something clicks, shifts inside my head. The last name Pierce. The shape of Deed’s—the GB we call Sonny Psycho—cheekbones. Something in Pappy’s green eyes.

Dee Pierce. Decker Pierce. Dean Pierce.

Ember.

Deeds.

Pappy.

Disbelief surges through me and my pulse starts to race. There’s air everywhere around me, but I can’t seem to pull any of it into my lungs. The similarities are eerily similar.

Too similar . . .

My heart’s screaming
NO!
Fuck no!
This isn’t real. This isn’t happening.
And my head’s a tornado of images. Her freckled nose. Pappy’s white and dotted skin, at least from what’s visible under his assortment of Irish pride tattoos. Her red hair fanned across my chest. The same fiery red hair that Deed’s always has spiked in some kamikaze style, and that identifies Pappy from a hundred yard away. I think back on Ember asleep on my pillow looking like an angel. And then I see her father looking like Satan incarnate, the entire right side of his cut covered with the names of his fallen brother, but none of the names of all the brothers he’s dispatched himself.

Griz says what I can’t. He shakes his head and shoves the photos down the table. “No. There’s got to be another explanation.” Then something must occur to him, because he swipes up her birth certificate and examines it. I watch and cling to the hope that this is all one big practical fucking joke. But Griz tarnishes that spark of hope when his shoulders deflate, and he whispers, “Tessa Owens” under his breath like it means something to him.

That hollow feeling in my gut grows wider and deep like a damn abyss.

“Awe . . . fuck, Telly Girl, what did you do?”

“What?” I steal it from his hand. “Who’s Telly?”

“Tessa Owens.”

He vigorously rubs his forehead, as if he’s fighting some internal battle. When his gaze finally meets mine, it’s guarded. “I think after you hear what I’m gotta say you need to push pause, and think on this. No matter what these fuckers”—he points at Whiz and Taz—“say, you know this girl better than anyone.”

Heat climbs up my body. “Just tell me!” I shoot to my feet and start pacing the room. Run my hand over my face.

“I knew Tessa way back. Back before Cap and I split from the Greenbacks. Knew her real good because she was a brother’s old lady.”

My throat begins to close up. I stop pacing for a second and look at him. “Pappy’s?”

He shakes his head. “No. Pappy’s been with Vaughn since they were kids.”

“Then how can this make sense?”

“She was Smoke’s old lady.”

I open my mouth, but he keeps talking. “Smoke did a couple years for assault. While he was in lock up, some of the brothers talked some shit. Said Pappy was takin’ real good care of Telly, if you know what I mean.”

I grip the back of Cap’s chair so hard with both hands that my fingers dig deep into the leather. “So it’s true?” A shot of pain awakens in my chest and pulses outward.

“It’s possible,” Griz replies.

I throw the chair across the room. Shove the heavy table forward. Then panting with rapid breaths, I lean on the table. “She told me she didn’t know who her father was.”

“She lied,” Taz growls.

A thick silence descends as I shake with a kaleidoscope of emotion—doubt, shock, and so many others. Rage, because if this is true then every moment I shared with Doll, every happy memory she’s given me will vanish like smoke, mean nothing, and she’ll have fixed me, healed me, only to cut me open all over again. Faith, because as I replay every second with her, the good, the bad, and the incredibly perfect, I pray she has an explanation for the unexplainable. A reason I should believe the unbelievable. Everything I’ve come to know about her battles the doubt circling through my head and my heart, like they’re fighting an epic war.

I ask Griz, “Is this what it looks like?”

Say no.

Throwing his hands up, Taz hisses, “What the fuck more proof do you need? She’s one of them!”

My entire body strings tight. I keep my gaze on Griz and wait for his answer.

“God’s honest truth, I don’t think that girl’s got a rotten bone in her body. Maybe Pappy’s got something on her, and he’s forcin’ her to do this.”

“His own daughter?” Edge says with doubt.

“Wouldn’t put it past him,” Griz replies. “Killed a man point blank in front of Deed’s when the boy was no more than eight years old. Had a gun in that kid’s hand since he was a teen. Had him killin’ for the club before he was even out of high school.”

“And yet you all think he had nothin’ to do with Cap.” This from Taz.

“Totally different,” Griz replies. To me, he says, “Gotta be another explanation.”

Taz comes toward me, lowers his voice, but I can hear the restrained animal behind it. “She shows up here and latches on to D. The second she figures out he’s not the one in charge, she sets her sights on you. Not a fuckin’ coincidence.”

I turn away and stare into the wood of the table, focus on the swirl patterns in it, instead of his words.

“I know your head’s spinnin’ ‘cause, yeah, she makes your dick rock solid. But brother . . . someone is spillin’ info to the GBs and she was standin’ right the fuck behind you when you told us about the witness.”

“So that makes her the snitch?”

“No, her DNA does. And the fact that she showed up here days after Cap got shot desperate for a place to stay. I guarantee if Dozer hadn’t stepped up, it would have been him all up in her pussy right now and not you.”

A hurricane of fury crashes into me and I launch myself at him. Grabbing his cut, my right hook connects. Fire spreads across my knuckles. The punch sends Taz staggering back a step.

Edge and Griz grab hold of me and yank me back.

Edge shouts at Taz, “Been back a day and already sick of hearin’ you run your mouth.” I throw their arms off me, and pace with my hands around my head fighting not to see every minute with Doll in a different light. Warped and distorted, with her as a fucking spy for another club and not the girl who’s acted like she’s fallen for me just as hard as I have for her.

“You’ve said your bit. Now, shut the fuck up and let’s figure out what to do with what we know,” Edge spits at Taz. Then he stops me, grabs the back of my neck, and makes me meet his gaze. “Not gonna lie to you, it looks bad, brother, but one thing I know for sure is one side of the story isn’t all there ever is. Go get her and we’ll see what she knows.”

Taz wipes the back of his hand across his mouth. Blood smears down his arm. He spits more of it on the floor. “You’re too close to her to see her for what she is.” He gestures toward Edge. “Just like the last piece of pussy you were wrapped up in. The one that sent him to fuckin’ rot.”

Boisterous laughter and rock music follows me up the stairwell, the party below hitting its peak. Every single guitar cord and jovial voice that rings out grates on my nerves like nails screaming down a chalkboard.

Each one a reminder that the world as I know it hasn’t changed, only my view of it has.