Bash, Volume II (17 page)

Angelica

Duke asked Brain to set up surveillance in my parking lot, and to let me know when Thomas went into his apartment. I’d put my camera away when nothing happened to our vehicles, but Brain likely would’ve wanted his own equipment in place, even if mine had still been in the window.

Bash wasn’t around when Thomas finally showed up, thank goodness, and I put the earpiece in and walked to the other end of the complex.

Brain had given me a burner smart phone loaded with the video of Thomas threatening me, and I tucked it in my pocket with the video ready for me to hit
play
.

When he answered the door, Thomas merely asked what I wanted without inviting me in, which worked for me.

I handed him the phone, touched the play button, and let him watch it all the way through before telling him, “If you don’t back off on everything you’re doing against me and the MC, that video goes viral. The deal you’re offering Viper, and anything else you’ve put into play, needs to disappear as if it never happened. Viper can be prosecuted for attacking you and me, but the drug charges need to go away. Don’t know or care if he had them or if they were planted — he says they were planted, and at this point I’d be more inclined to believe him than you,
or
your crooked cops.”

“You’re blackmailing me?”

I shook my head. “Nope. I’m trying to get you to do the right thing.” I reached for the phone as if I wanted it back, and he stepped away and held it behind his back. I hadn’t wanted it back, just wanted him to think I had, so I glared at him and said, “Fine, whatever. You have to know that isn’t the only copy,” before turning and walking away.

“You did good,” Brain said through my earpiece. “See you in a few.”

I didn’t go to my apartment, but to my bike, and then to the compound.

Dozer was in the main room when I walked in, and he still eyed me suspiciously, but I ignored his look as I let him know, “Brain’s waiting for me.”

He nodded. “I know, and Duke wants me to take you to the workout room and spar with you when you’re finished with Brain. He said he’d planned to, but something came up and he can’t.”

I didn’t even slow down as I said, “That’s okay. I’ll wait until Duke can.”

“Duke didn’t make it sound like a suggestion. I’ll be waitin’ out here for you, when you finish with Brain.”

I started to tell him I didn’t have to do as Duke says, but decided to ask Brain what was going on before I argued with Dozer.

I pushed the button outside the control room, aimed a cheesy smile toward the camera, and then pushed the door open when I heard it buzz.

“What’s up with Duke wanting me to spar with Dozer?”

“Just do it, see if you can’t win him over. Still can’t get to the bottom of why he dislikes you so much, but the sooner we get past it, the better.” He shook his head. “I think it’s rooted in his distrust of you because of Pickering, and the fact he thinks you’ve snowballed the rest of us. Whatever it is, why don’t you see if you can change his mind?”

I handed him the earpiece I’d been wearing, and sat in the chair beside him. “Sure. Has Pickering made a move, yet?”

“He made this phone call after watching the video another time.” Brain punched a button and we heard Thomas saying, “We got a problem. Meet me at the coffee shop in ten minutes.”

The mic on the phone I’d given him was open, with a direct line back to Brain. It looked like it was off, and would even work if he tried to call someone on it. We’d hear him until either the battery went dead or he turned it off, and nothing gave it away as having an open mic.

“This is the live feed.” Brain punched another button and we heard the local talk radio station, and I saw a dot moving on the map. It’d taken me less than ten minutes to get to the compound, so he was still on his way to whatever coffee shop he was headed to.

The radio station and car noise turned off, we heard the car door close, and then not much of anything for a few minutes. He ordered coffee and a pastry, and must’ve taken it to sit down because there was silence for a while.

When he finally spoke, he said, “Took you long enough.”

“
I
still have a job, and I had to stop and talk to a few people on my way out so it wouldn’t look like I was in a hurry to get somewhere. What’s up?”

“We’re going to have to take the deal off the table to implicate Angelica Wright. Need to make the trumped up drug charges go away as well.”

“Why the hell would I do that?”

I didn’t recognize the voice, but didn’t want to interrupt to see if Brain knew who it was.

“It appears the MC and Disciples are going to work together on this. If they prove it was all trumped up crap, it won’t look good on
anyone
involved.”

“Fuck, Pickering. You’ve really stuck your dick in it this time. I can contaminate the evidence, or maybe get rid of the chain of custody records for it, but this is the last time I’m doin’
anything
for you.”

“Angelica’s going to have to be off limits for a while. She has friends in high places we don’t want to fuck with. Don’t know how she managed to get the FBI on our asses so hard, but we all need to stay on our toes.”

“There’s something you aren’t telling me, but as far as I can tell her only crime is breaking up with you and then getting in bed with the RTMC Sergeant at Arms, so I got no problems backing off. I only agreed to your plan because you promised to give me five major favors. I’m thinking you’re poison now, though, so we’re done.”

“We’re done when I say we’re done.”

We heard the sound of a chair scraping, and then no more talking. Brain flipped a switch and told me, “It’ll keep recording, and will alert me if there’s any more talking.”

“Did you recognize the voice of the man he was talking to?”

“Deputy Chief Hansen. He worked his way up through the detective division and I didn’t think he was dirty.”

“You’ll let Marlin know I took care of my end of the bargain?”

He nodded and I asked, “You and Bash get things worked out?”

“We’re still on shaky ground, but I don’t think it’ll come to blows again.”

Again
. Fuck. I shook my head and told him, “I’m sorry.”

He grinned, and didn’t look the least bit upset. “Don’t apologize. We hadn’t used it in so long, I wasn’t sure it would still work. I guess I was trying to pretend it was broken, and I think you were doing the same.”

“I’m glad you have Harmony. Ya’ll are perfect for each other. Our binding was a fluke, and it isn’t a relationship binding because I’ve never known when you were with someone.”

“It’ll be okay, Angelica. Bash and I’ll get it worked out.”

I walked towards the door, but stopped a few steps from it and turned back to him. “I really have to spar with Dozer?”

“Don’t have to do anything, but I think it’s a good idea.”

I sighed and walked out the door. Dozer was leaned against the opposite wall, looking at the door when I stepped through. I knew they’d soundproofed the room, knew he was trying to knock me off my game, and I smiled at him and said, “Looks like we’re sparring.”

He followed me downstairs and the hairs on the back of my neck wanted to bristle with him behind me, but I worked to keep my breathing and my nerves steady so he wouldn’t know.

He sat and began taking his boots off when we made it to the sparring area, and I followed suit.

He went to the center of the mat and told me, “Okay, let’s see what you have before we start. Take your best shots at me — feet, fists, elbows, knees. Whatever you can hit me with.”

I stepped to within a few feet of him and looked at him a few seconds, debating. Dozer is
huge
, and if he were human it would mean he’s strong but slow. He’s a wolf, though, which meant he’d be strong, fast,
and
huge. His reach would be a lot longer than mine, so I needed to get in close to him to keep him from getting too much power behind his punches.

I smiled, stepped close, and did a series my dad taught me, with the final punch supposed to land on his face hard enough to get his attention.

I landed the first three, but was shocked when he caught my fist as I attempted the final punch, twisted my arm so he held my fist behind my back, and had me totally disabled before I took another breath.

“Fuck, Dozer! Uncle!
Shit
.”

He let go of me and chuckled. “Did you just say
uncle
?”

I rubbed my shoulder and glared at him. “That fucking hurt, so yeah, I did. Now that you’ve shown me the error of my ways, want to show me what I should’ve done?”

He shook his head. “What is it about you? You have them all charmed, like your shit don’t stink.”

I chuckled this time. “How dare you! Implying my shit doesn’t smell like roses!” I rolled my eyes and shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you. I didn’t know Pickering was the DA at first, and then once I found out, maybe I should’ve walked, but I didn’t. I never gave anything to him on ya’ll, and did nothing but defend the MC to him. I broke up with him, in part, because he kept disparaging my dad and the club.”

He sighed. “You had the right idea, stepping in close, and it would’ve worked if I was human, or even if I was wolf and didn’t have training. But with a wolf my size who knows how to fight, it’s never going to work.”

The next hour, he worked with me, taught me a few things, and just generally gave me an awesome workout. I didn’t know if he’d decided maybe I wasn’t so bad after all or not, but he truly helped me, and I thanked him when we finished.

“You really want to thank me? Help me train some of the new guys. Having someone small for them to spar with, and a way for me to show them how to immobilize a female without striking her, would be great.”

I shook my head as I put my shoes on. “Sounds like a hellish way to spend an evening, but sure. I get off work at five during the week. Let me know when you need me and I’ll come by and do what I can.”

“How old were you when your dad started teaching you how to fight?”

“I don’t remember the first lesson. Probably four or five, if I had to guess, but it may’ve been sooner. I think it was more working on defensive muscle memory than offensive stuff, until I was older.”

He nodded. “It shows. Good for him.”

I tightened my last lace and stood to leave. “Thanks again for the workout. Let me know when you want me here to help.”

Bash was in the main room when I went upstairs, and he motioned me to him when he saw me. “Brain tells me he sent you down to spar with Dozer. How’d it go?”

“He gave me a good workout, and asked me to come help him train some of the new guys,” I told him as he pulled me into his lap.

He gave me a quick kiss, put his nose to my neck and sniffed, and I felt his wolf bristle. He
really
didn’t like smelling other men — especially other wolves — on me. Dawg seemed to be the sole exception, but it hadn’t always been so.

He didn’t say anything about it, though. Instead, he told me, “Brain brought me up to date. There’s a game on I’d like to watch with the guys. You wanna hang out with us? I’m thinking the conversation you and I need to have should wait until tomorrow evening, so we can finish everything in one night, once we start.”

Right, the conversation about punishing me for three minutes and then not letting me have an orgasm for a week. I didn’t mind putting that particular talk off indefinitely.

“Maybe you need a night hanging with your brothers. I think I’m gonna go get my toes and nails done, maybe get my eyebrows waxed.” The bitch of
changing
was that my nails and eyebrows went back to their natural state when I came back to human.

Some women came back with full-length armpit hair, leg hair, and bushy pubes. Thanks to some careful planning by my mom, I was lucky I didn’t have to deal with all of that, so I tried not to complain
too
much about my nails and eyebrows.

“Don’t like you being out alone.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’ll be near the mall, nowhere near their territory, and I’ve fought them off before with no problems.” I showed him my bare nails. “I need some serious girl time.”

He wasn’t terribly happy about it, but he let me go without further argument.

I called the nail place when I got into my car, and they told me it would be an hour before they could get me in. I stopped by the BMW dealership, thinking I’d test drive a few cars, but they wanted me to go inside and fill shit out, have a conversation, and the dude pissed me off so I told him not to worry about it.

The Subaru dealership had no such compunctions, and within a few minutes of arriving on the lot, I was driving out with a nice salesman in the passenger seat of a Crosstrek Turbo.

I loved it, but wanted to look around more before buying. I shook the guy’s hand, thanked him for his time, and went to the nail place.