Devil May Care: Boxed Set (80 page)

I frowned. That didn’t make sense to me, not really. How could beating the absolute crap out of someone be about walking away cleaner? I didn’t think something like that was possible and it must have shown on my face, because my mom gave me a sympathetic look and patted my knee.

“Adam used to come home with these bloodied, bruised hands,” Mom told me, looking wistful as she always did whenever Dad dropped into the conversation. “It used to make me really nervous. My mom was one of those women who ended up with an asshole for a father and then, like an idiot, went and married someone just like him.”

Mom didn’t talk about my grandmother much. Lucy was an alcoholic and a flake, but no one blamed her much for it because her life had been so terrible. Her father had taken to beating her with his belt over and over again when she was a child because he couldn’t hold his liquor or his life, and he had to take it out on someone.

At sixteen, Grandma Lucy made a break for it. I heard all kinds of stories about what she did to survive—prostitution, dealing drugs, stripping, raising dogs to fight—but Mom never said for sure one way or the other. I did know that Lucy was pregnant at seventeen and no one knew who the father was. Mom didn’t care and didn’t ask, she said, but I felt like that had to be a lie.

By the time she was nineteen, Lucy had married an attractive man who liked to beat her purple. But she put up with it because he was the kind who said he was sorry afterwards and bought her pretty things—or stole them, anyway.

Whenever Mom was telling an anecdotal story, something with a point behind it that I was supposed to take away and apply to my own life later, she used Lucy as her example.

“She used to tell me, ‘He’s a brutal bastard, just like the rest of them,’ but I never believed her.” She shook her head and it took her a while to come back to the conversation. She sat there and stared ahead as though lost in her own little world; I figured she was and that it was one with Dad sitting there with her. “I didn’t believe her, honey, but I thought coming home with blood wasn’t a good thing. So I confronted him about it—I was five months pregnant with you.”

She poked at me a little, emphasizing her words. I pushed away her hand, though I smiled a little at her. “What did he tell you?”

“Well, I asked him why he had to do all of this. Why couldn’t he just let the others do the beatings if they were so damn necessary and just come home to me as my lover and my husband? And he told me the truth. He said to me, ‘sometimes men have bad things in them. Sometimes they’ve got demons and they need to be exorcised. It’s not something any priest can do, only a man and his own hands. So we make sacrifices by using the new member to take out our demons on, but then he becomes one of us and he gets to exorcise his demons, too. So we can go home to our loves and our wives as nothing more than the men we are.’”

I thought long and hard about that. Did I really believe it? Did I honestly think that men could just beat the shit out of each other and that somehow baptized them in blood, chasing off their demons like some sort of church exorcism?

I thought of Johnny that night, the wild look in his eyes, and I thought
maybe
, but mostly I thought that I could see exactly why that was something my mother wanted to believe. It was better than the alternative: that they were all monsters.

Shrugging my shoulders, I said, “I guess that makes sense. I just worry about Johnny.” And me, but I didn’t say that part.

Smiling kindly at me, Mom told me, “He’s alright. Johnny’s a good man. He’s always been tougher than the rest.”

I nodded my head. “Yeah, you’re right. I shouldn’t worry.” But I did.

“Speaking of Johnny…” My mother’s smile turned sly. “How are things between you two?”

I glanced back towards the TV screen because I didn’t want to tell her the truth. How was I supposed to explain that I felt like I didn’t even know him sometimes, but that I loved him still? How was I supposed to tell her that I wanted him desperately, but didn’t think I could bring myself to have him like I had before, because I was worried about the violence and the gore?

So instead I said, “Good. I hate these late nights though. I can’t help but worry.”

“Oh, honey, is that what’s bothering you?” Mom asked me, sympathy lacing through her tone.

It wasn’t, not exactly, but I let her think that. “A little. I just keep thinking that one day I’ll come home and—”

I stopped. Six months ago I’d made a promise to myself that I would never discuss the night my father had died with anyone. It held true and I couldn’t let it go. It terrified me and there were nights where it still haunted my dreams. Johnny said I should talk about it, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t bear to relive the images that swam through my head. It was just too much.

I’d come close to telling her about it now, though. I hadn’t meant to, but once I started talking about Johnny and the things he did at night, the dangerous things that were part of the club business, I couldn’t help but associate him with my dad’s death. Not in the sense that I believed he caused it, but rather that I was scared on some level that I would have to repeat that death with Johnny.

Cold swept through me and I felt a little sick. It took everything I had to stay calm on the outside even as my insides wrapped around themselves and tried to eat me alive. My palms were sweaty, but I resisted the urge to rub them on my pants to dry them off.

I realized how true it was that I actually
was
worried about Johnny tonight. I realized that I hated not knowing where he was or what he was doing, and I was terrified of coming home to find him dead just like I had my father. Whatever might be wrong with our relationship right then, I knew that I loved him and that I couldn’t lose him. Not like that.

My mother must have sensed what I was going to say, because she put her arm comfortingly on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “It’ll be okay, honey.”

I shook her off; I didn’t want to acknowledge things in any way if I could help it, so I focused on the here and now instead. “It’s fine. I don’t know why we watch this show anyway.”

Evidently deciding that she wasn’t going to get anything more out of me, Mom agreed that the show was stupid and shifted topics. Sort of. She stuck with the topic of Johnny, but at least it was no longer focused on how that was bothering me.

“When’s the wedding anyway?”

My head jerked in her direction, my eyes wide. “The
what
?” Wedding? What wedding? I was sure that someone would have mentioned something to me about a wedding if there really was going to be one, but I hadn’t heard a damn thing. Not a single, solitary thing, and if Johnny had been talking to my mother about it behind my back, so help me god, I’d—

She laughed, bright and full of life. Saucy, people called that laugh. “Oh, calm down, honey. I’m only teasing.”

Teasing. I glared at her fiercely even as a twinge of disappointment trickled through my system. “Not funny, Mom.”

Her grin suggested that she still felt like it was. “I’m only asking what everyone wants to know.”

I folded my arms across my chest. “Well, then you get the same answer that everyone else gets: none of your damn business!”

My mother held up her hands in surrender, but she didn’t really mean it. “Is it wrong for a mother to ask when you and Johnny are finally going to tie the knot? Is it?”

I couldn’t help but roll my eyes, slipping back against the pillows. “Mom, you’re ridiculous. You’re like a gossiping high schooler or something, you know it?”

“Stop it. You’ve been dating Johnny since you were sixteen. That man is crazy about you. He’s dying to marry you.”

I couldn’t stop my barking laughter, though I wanted to. I didn’t like how bitter it sounded. “Please, that’ll be the day. Can you even imagine me and him in a wedding? We’re not the settling type.”

Or at least
Johnny
wasn’t the settling type…was he? Was I? I wasn’t really sure anymore, but I knew one thing: Johnny Rykers wasn’t going to ask me to marry him.

I got up from the bed, pecking my mother on the cheek, and then heading over to the door. “I’ll make us some dinner, okay?”

I didn’t wait for her answer, though I heard her call something unintelligible out after me. I reach the kitchen and went directly for the large pot and filled it with water to put on to boil, because spaghetti is about all I was ready to do right now. I didn’t have the energy for anything else.

Tonight I knew the truth even if I wasn’t brave enough to admit it to anyone else: I needed to get out. This life wasn’t for me and now it never would be. But the other half of that was Johnny. I couldn’t leave without him, and if I couldn’t do that, I’d never get out.

Johnny

The night air was warm. Sure the drive down had been chilly thanks to riding down the mountain on our bikes, but the night itself was nice. It was one of those nights that was clear and crisp, without being cold. Like a freshly washed blanket, straight from the dryer. It was the best kind of night and I knew that there were a lot of things I’d rather be doing than standing in the industrial district gearing up for a meeting with the leader of my enemies. All of them had to do with Charlotte and none of them had anything to do with Stitches, the aforementioned leader.

“You good?” I asked Specter, mostly to break the stillness of the air, because now that we’d come to a stop and were standing on the pavement looking towards the abandoned warehouse, things were too quiet and too still. It made me nervous.

Specter nodded once, reaching around to pull the piece he’d tucked into the waistband of his jeans. It was identical to mine, even kept in the same place, and I knew Specter had a hell of a lot more experience with it.

I’d shot rounds with mine and was a decent shot, but I’d only had occasion to use it a few times in the last couple of years, and maybe twenty since I’d joined the Unholys. It was sort of a record in reverse and the guys liked to joke about it, but I took pride in knowing that I didn’t have to resort to violence at the drop of a hat to get things done.

Well,
that
kind of violence anyway.

“We’re early,” I told him, glancing at my wristwatch. I took an extra moment to check my phone, but I shouldn’t have bothered. I knew even before I saw the screen that there wouldn’t be anything. No messages, no calls.

I needed to stop thinking about Charlotte and focus instead on checking my phone every five seconds to see if she’d called.
She’ll come around
, I told myself, but lately I believed it less and less. I had this uncanny feeling that one of these days she
wouldn’t
come around and I’d find myself alone.

The worst kind of alone, too. The broken hearted kind.

“Think we oughtta take a look around?” Specter asked, already trying to glance around the corners of the buildings and through the grimy, dirt stained windows. Several of them were broken, but even those were impossible to see through. It was too dark inside and even if it wasn’t, I knew for a fact that Specter wasn’t tall enough to look through them. Not unless he had some superhero jumping capabilities that he’d never mentioned to me before.

I shrugged my shoulders. Part of me—most of me—thought it was a good idea, but I also knew Stitches. He was a finicky bastard, and if he actually showed up tonight, casing the place would be taken as a pretty serious insult. Especially if we got caught doing it. And the other half of that was that there was a good chance they were already here, just as early as we were. If I were in their shoes, I would be.

“Nah,” I finally said when it looked like Specter might take my silence as agreement. “Waste of time. They’re not worth the effort. ’Sides, I think they’re already here.”

I gestured towards the door. The lock was missing. In all honesty, I didn’t know if that had anything to do with the Berserkers. Probably not since this place had been abandoned for a long time now and kids and the homeless had probably broken in a long time ago, but it sounded plausible and I could tell that Specter bought it.

“Shit,” he muttered, and shoved his piece back into his waistband.

This wasn’t where we usually had meetings, but then we didn’t usually have meetings with rival gangs either. Stitches and I agreed on this place because it was neutral territory and would remain that way after we split up the city. That way we’d be able to use it for meetings in the future without either side crying foul.

Specter had wanted it on our turf; Stitches had wanted it on theirs. In the end, I told them both to stuff it, put on a brave face, and pretended I wasn’t scared of either of them.

I was though. I most definitely was.

“Let’s not keep them waiting,” I told him, though the sweat on my palms and the rapid fire beating of my heart told me that I’d just as soon keep them waiting for all eternity, politics be damned.

We approached the door and as I looked around, I was thinking more and more that I was right. They were already here. The broken windows up above I’d originally thought were black because it was so dark inside, but I realized that someone had put something in them to black them out so that we couldn’t see inside. And the door was open just a crack, the chain hanging off to the side. Maybe they hadn’t broken it, but now I was starting to think that was the less likely scenario.

Specter held back just a little, standing off to my right side and maybe a pace or two back. He was there as my back up, but in the end this meeting was about me and Stitches. We called the shots for our respective groups and whatever Specter or the Berserkers thought, in the end it was our call.

I reached for the door, sweaty palms sliding along the handles, and took a deep breath so that I could pause just one last moment. I wasn’t supposed to be afraid, but I was. This wasn’t how I’d wanted my life would go all those years ago, but I had guessed that it would. It was pretty damn inevitable all things considered. Really, I should have been grateful I wasn’t just dead instead of constantly on the verge of it these days.

After that second’s pause, I jerked the door open. I was right; they were already here. Light poured out, dim but noticeable. It was enough that I could see Stitches and two of his club members flanking either side of him. It was enough that I could see the warehouse was empty save the table with the map of the city laid out. It was enough that I could see the man, bloodied and hanging by a hook, right in front of me.

“Jesus,” I muttered in a voice that was more like a breath. “What the hell is this?”

Specter’s face was hard and flushed, his hand behind his back, definitely gripping the handle of his piece, ready for the trouble that was already brewing. It took everything I had not to do the same, but they were here first and there were at least three of them here—probably more since they’d had the time to case the place.

A wicked, almost giddy grin spread across Stitches’ face. He looked eager and gleeful, and for the first time I noticed that as he sat next to the table, his leg was bouncing like a little kid who’d been made to sit for too long.

“A present,” he said, clearly pleased with himself. “I hope you like it.”

My eyes quickly glanced over the man. Unremarkable, not someone I recognized. His face was a little eaten up already, his nose broken and blood still leaking from it, though much had dried on his face like thin scabs. His hair was matted and greasy; his chest was bare and had tattoos and scars alike. He was just a man and I couldn’t figure out why the hell Stitches would call this a “present.”

“A present,” I repeated in a dull tone, forcing emotion and reaction from it. I didn’t want him to know that this seriously worried me. Just who were we getting ourselves involved with?

Stitches nodded once, then rose from his chair to stand next to the man. I was at least slightly relieved to see that he was still breathing. Patting the man on the shoulder—it caused him to jerk in pain and maybe fear—Stitches answered in that same eager voice, “A good faith present. A favor, if you will. Consider it my way of showing you that I mean business—that we’re serious when we say we want to coexist.”

I couldn’t help the frown that worked its way across my face. This felt like some sort of riddle, a puzzle that I couldn’t solve because I only had half the pieces. “And why would this present of yours matter to us?”

If it was possible, Stitches’ grin widened, making him look like some ghastly villain from a comic book or a horror movie. “Because this is the man who made the Reverend kill himself. Isn’t that worth something to you?”

My blood ran cold. I froze and I could feel Specter do the same. Then, when he melted, I thought he might be shaking. With rage? Because that was what I was feeling. Absolute rage. My eyes looked at the man again in an entirely new light. Gone was the relief that he was still breathing. Gone was the disgust with Stitches for his cruelty and twisted idea of “good faith.”

In its place was the sense that vengeance was at the tip of my fingers. I had to clench my hands tightly into fists in order to keep them from jerking up suddenly and, of their own accord, strangling the man in front of us.

We needed him alive. For now.

“I see,” I said, finally managing to choke out a few words. “And how do you know that?”

Stitches just laughed at me, clearly amused by both mine and Specter’s reactions. “Because he
told
me.”

That would explain the blood and the broken nose. Clearly he’d already been interrogated to some degree. I was curious; I wanted to know how Stitches had gotten his hands on this man and how he’d found this kind of leverage.

Because it was leverage. Maybe it was a show of good faith as he claimed, but in the end, to me, it meant we owed him a favor.

If this really was the man responsible for the Reverend’s death.

“You understand that we’ll need to verify this information.”

Stitches shrugged his shoulders, unconcerned and confident. Clearly he believed that this man had told him the truth, otherwise he wouldn’t have bothered with the show in the first place. It sent something like adrenaline and power surging through me. A need to destroy something, some
one
, and I had a feeling that I’d get that out of my system tonight one way or the other.

“Do what you’ve gotta do.”

I glanced over at the man again, but couldn’t leave my eyes on him for long. The mere sight of him made me see red. I knew this wasn’t going to be something I could let go. I looked back to Stitches. “After he’s awake. We’ll verify it after he’s awake.”

Stitches nodded in agreement, then motioned towards the map on the table before them. “Then shall we get on with the meeting?”

I nodded my consent, though I wasn’t sure how much good I’d be at negotiating now. If this really was the man who pushed the Reverend to suicide—assuming it
was
suicide—then I’d have given Stitches just about anything he damn well wanted. It made me feel better that the man was still unconscious and that I wasn’t able to interrogate him yet. It meant that Stitches wouldn’t have all of the leverage just yet. It bought us time if nothing else.

The entire time we talked, the man just hung there, this odd piece of bait that had me clenching the edge of the table over and over again. I could tell it was affecting Specter, too. His face had become pale and he was sweating, which was pretty unusual for him. He was cool as a cucumber most days, especially during the more dangerous things the club got involved with. It was the main reason I’d decided to keep him as lieutenant after the Reverend passed and I got saddled with leadership. Having a second in command who was unflappable when a long way, especially when half the time I didn’t know what the hell I was doing.

But Specter was shaken now. I hadn’t pegged him as being the overly emotional type, not even for the sake of the Reverend, but I guess I was wrong.

We spent hours in that damn warehouse going over the agreement. I told him the places we wouldn’t let go of. Most of them were practical places—like the pier, because so many bought and sold there; the Red District, because where there were prostitutes, there were junkies; and of course, Fifth and Colt, because that’s where the shop was, our very legitimate and profitable business. That last one was because I wasn’t about to have a bunch of Berserkers making waves for the most legitimate portion of our profits. Business was business and they couldn’t have a piece of that one.

I pointed at Charlemagne’s, a classy joint that was most definitely a hole in the wall. From the outside it looked like the type of place you cooked meth or paid by the hour for a bed that no one bothered to clean, but once you walked through the door it was like stepping into a portal to another world. The owner, Candace,  made a point of keeping everything clean and up to code. Charlemagne had been her great-grandfather’s and she’d worked hard to keep it in the family. She was a nice, hard working girl and a favorite of the club, but that wasn’t why I was so keen on it.