Price of Angels (11 page)

              He was silent.

              “I want a straight bargain, no details.” Her voice was shaking. “I give you the names, you kill them, and I’ll pay you for it.”

              “Pay me how?” He gestured to the secondhand loft around them. “You gonna rob a bank?”

              “No.” She was quaking all over, little rivulets of coffee streaking down the sides of the mug where her tremors had spilled it. Her voice was resigned, though. Flat and emotionless. “I have a little cash to give you, and then after that, I’ll have to pay you with my body.”

              He tilted his head in silent question.

              She said, “I’m twenty-six. My breasts are real. Thirty-four double Ds. I’m very small and tight.” She laid one shaking hand in her lap, as if he needed the demonstration. She met his gaze squarely. “I’ll do whatever you want, for however long, however many times. You can tie me up if you want. I don’t care. I can act like I like it. I can do…anything,” she repeated, voice the barest scrape of sound. “Anything, if you’ll do this for me.”

              “You want to pay me with sex.”

              “It’s all I have to give.” She didn’t break eye contact, her earnest gaze absolutely tragic. “Please. I don’t have anyone else to go to. I know it’s not much” – she gestured to herself – “but I…” She didn’t finish. What else could she say?

              He studied her a long moment: the shadowed view up her short skirt to the red panties beneath; the full swell of her breasts against the neckline of the tank top; the sharp inward flare of her waist; the shape of her lips. Yes, he wanted her, because he was a man, and she was a young, beautiful girl. It was only natural.

              “Come here.” He flicked two fingers in command.

              She set the sloppy coffee mug on the table and rose, coming to him with well-shielded trepidation.

              He opened his knees, giving her a little space to stand between, and he sat forward, catching her hand and drawing her down, so she was bent at the waist, so he could see all the way down into her shirt, the gooseflesh across the tops of her breasts.

              Michael took her face in one hand, fingers pressed to her jaw. Brought her in close enough to feel her breath against his lips. “That’s a real good way,” he said slowly, “to get your brains raped out, offering yourself up like that.”

              She smiled, sadly. “My whole life has been one long rape. Nothing you could do to me would compare, Michael.”

              The thought was thrilling. He could throw her down right here on the rug, mount her, and she wouldn’t resist.

              But it horrified him, too.

              “You’re not afraid of me,” he said, and it wasn’t a question.

              “No,” she said. “I think you’re beautiful.”

              They were almost his undoing, those particular words. He stared at her face, the open pleading and offering in her expression, and he knew she meant what she was saying. That he could do whatever he wanted with her. And that she did find him beautiful, whatever her reasons.

              In a rare spark of weakness, he let himself entertain the idea. Maybe she didn’t want him, but there was at least fascination on her part. Admiration. And there was no fear. She would lie down willingly beneath him, and she wouldn’t be one of those scared, anxious groupies he hated. She was young, and soft in all the right places, and he wanted to feel her skin against his hands.

              And if he gave into the sudden, intense urge, he’d owe her a few murders, wouldn’t he? That was her bargain. Her body for his blade. A fair trade, and then their separate ways.

              Maybe it was worth it. Ghost hadn’t made anything official with the prospective dealers yet. He wouldn’t miss them; didn’t need them. Maybe a night or two with a willing, beautiful girl would be worth whatever repercussions he’d face afterward.

              He had no memories, after all, of ever bedding anyone who’d wanted to be under him.

              As inducement, Holly pulled gently back from him, straightening, hands going to the hem of her shirt. She peeled it up, and over her head, back arching as she lifted it clear, and then dropped it to the floor, rib bones pressing at her thin white skin, smooth muscles of her abdomen stretching.

              Her breasts were plump perfection inside her red bra, full and straining at the cups. He could see the hard round buttons of her nipples, as the cold air swept across her skin.

              She unfastened the skirt, and worked it off her hips, one at a time, swaying back and forth to aid the tight denim in its descent. She stepped out of it delicately, left it on the rug behind her. The panties were the same bright red as the bra, a slick satin that only half-covered the rounded globes of her bottom. The lingerie had cost more than a girl in her condition could afford, he could tell. She’d splurged. She’d bought it for this moment, this transaction, so he’d want her.

              He should stop her, he decided, because she was so frightened her teeth were chattering. But he sat leaning against the back of the chair, unmoving, as she urged his knees together and then settled onto his lap, straddling his legs. She moved in close, leaned forward and put her hands on the back of the chair on either side of his head. Her breasts were right there; he could drop his face and bury it between them.

              She wasn’t taunting him. It didn’t feel like that. She was encouraging. And she might have been enthralled, and she might not have hated the idea, and she might have let him do whatever he wanted…but
let
was a long way from
want
. And he could smell the acrid burn of fear along her skin. Could feel the trembling in every muscle and every inch of her.

              Michael made his decision, and once he’d made it, he had the will to execute it to the letter.

              He caught her around the waist with one arm, and surged to his feet.

              She gasped. “What–” Her question became another gasp as he swung her up into his arms and carried her toward the bed.

              Catching his meaning, she slipped her arms around his neck, leaned into his chest as he walked.

              “Pull that back,” he instructed, when they reached the side of the bed.

She took the covers in-hand and jerked them loose from the pillows, tossed them aside.

Michael laid her down on the sheets…and then let go of her, righted, pulled the covers up and over her and tucked them tight beneath her chin in a harsh imitation of a mother putting her child to bed.

Holly struggled to sit up. “What?” she repeated. “What are you–”

But Michael was walking back to the sofa, picking up her coffee, bringing it back to her. The spills were drying down the sides, gummy against his hand. “Here.” He held it toward her. “Drink this. You’re freezing.”

She stared at him, uncomprehending.

He lifted one of her hands, wrapped it around the mug, and didn’t let go until he felt her take hold of the thing. Then he sat down on the foot of the bed, a respectable distance away, his arms crossed.

Holly glanced down at the mug in her hands, dark lashes beating quickly against her cheeks. She took a shaking breath. “I’m not enough,” she said in a soft, broken voice, lifting tear-filled eyes to him, “am I? I can’t pay you, but I’m not enough to sway you.” She attempted a smile. “It’s okay. I was sort of expecting that I wasn’t.”

He cleared his throat. “If you’d made that same offer to one of the other members, you’d have your knees up around your ears right now.”

Her mouth pressed into a flat line, face going scarlet.

“I don’t take contract hits,” he told her. “I don’t accept payment for killing.”

“What makes you kill, then?” she came back at him, quicker and harder than he’d expected. “What’s it take?”

“Loyalty. I’m not a hit man.”

She regarded him a long moment, sitting up with the covers around her waist, sipping coffee with her breasts trying to spill out of her red bra. “Then what are you?”

“Most of the time, I don’t know.”

She nodded, and swallowed; closed her eyes, and glimmers of moisture gleamed in the outer corners. “Oh, God.”

He waited, studying her.

“I’m not a stripper,” she said, eyes opening again, full of tears. “Or a prostitute. At least, I don’t want to be. But I don’t know what to do, Michael.”

“You could get a divorce. Move to California.” Though the idea of her leaving put a strange tightness at the base of his throat.

She shook her head. “Dewey would never agree to that. My father would never let him.” She gave him a level, sure look. “They have to be dead. That’s the only way to stop it. Trust me: I’ve thought about it, and thought about it, and there’s no way to make it all end if they’re still alive.”

“Go to the cops, then.”

She sighed. “I tried that.”

He sucked at the corner of his lower lip, feeling uneasy with what he was about to say, but unable to keep from saying it. He had to give her something. Some kind of solace. “Do you know how to shoot a gun?”

Her eyes widened. “No.”

“A knife? Can you use one of those?”

“Only when I’m cooking.”

He sat forward, something very much like emotion moving through him, exciting him in some way. Not that he projected it outwardly. “What if I show you how?”

She’d never felt like this before: wanting to throw her hot coffee in a man’s face and to hug him at the same time. After about five seconds of careful thought, she realized something. No, he didn’t want her, didn’t find her attractive, wasn’t going to accept her offer of sex in exchange for murder.

              But he wasn’t abandoning her either.
Teach me to shoot?
she wanted to ask him.
Throw me to the wolves, how ‘bout it!
She’d be dead in no time, if he left it up to whatever shooting skills she could acquire on such short notice.

              And yet…

              “You can’t just do it the easy way?” she asked. Genuinely curious, though flickering at the edges with relief. Her offer of anything he wanted had seemed only fair, but had scared the hell out of her.

              Michael watched her with more of his unshakeable composure, eyes narrowing further as he considered. “Sex terrifies you,” he said, and she shivered, caught by the razor-edge of the truth. “And maybe you need someone to show you that it shouldn’t,” he continued, without one scrap of innuendo, “but that’s no way to bargain for three lives.”

              “Biker with a heart of gold?” she asked, feeling the wistful smile tug at her mouth.

              “With a president to answer to.” He stood, and she was sorry for the loss of his body heat seeping into the covers at her toes. “I’ll meet you in front of the bar tomorrow, three hours before you have to be in for work.”

              “It’ll take three hours?”

              “Longer, but that’s a place to start.” He glanced across the loft, like he was searching for something. “You got something else to wear?”

              “My robe’s in the bathroom,” she said, and started to climb from bed.

              “I’ll get it.”

              Holly watched him retrieve it, his exact strides carrying him across her floor. She liked the way his shoulder blades shifted beneath the leather on his back. Liked the way he made walking look so effortless. Liked the way his jeans fit, tight all over, and just loose enough on the bottoms to cover his boots.

              “Put it on,” he said when he returned, tossing the terrycloth nightmare across her legs on the bed.

              She set her coffee aside and reached for it. “I’m not that cold,” she said, drawing it around her shoulders.

              He made a face, an actual face, lips pressing together and brows lifting. “Yeah? Well, you being scared only goes so far, and I’m not a saint. Cover yourself up, before I change my mind.”

              “Okay.” She complied, hiding a sudden smile into the shoulder of the robe.

              “Tomorrow,” he reminded, and as he left, Holly felt the faintest of hopes, beating its dusty wings deep in a part of her she’d thought long-dead.

Six

“Don’t worry about me. You know how it works in here.”

              Ghost frowned at his friend through the glass that separated them. Yeah, he knew how it worked, and that didn’t ease his conscience much. The handful of Dogs in prison had understandings with some of the gangs, even some of the other MCs who’d lost members to jail sentences. There were protection deals in place, oaths and contracts and any number of little trades that kept his boys safe. But Ghost wasn’t sure he’d ever rectify the childhood friend he’d trusted so completely for so long with the haggard man in the orange jumpsuit on the other side of the glass.

              “Justin and the boys are looking out for you?”

              “Oh yeah. It’s like old times.” He smiled, but it was weak.

              Ghost sighed, and dropped his voice a notch. In here, in this long bank of visitors talking to inmates through phones, no one gave a damn what the men at the next booth were talking about, but he still felt the need for secrecy.

              “The DA is talking death penalty, Collier,” he said, the words hurting his throat. “Because of those two kids.”

              Collier’s face became smooth, almost peaceful, the lines made less harsh by the acceptance of his situation. “I figure being dead’s not much worse than being locked up forever.”

              “Except you won’t ever see your wife again, man. Do you know what that’ll do to Jackie? If she knows you got put to sleep like an actual dog?”

              “You guys will look after Jackie for me, I know you will.” Pain streaked across his face. “I can’t help her now. I had to make the decisions I did for the betterment of the club, and she understands that. Wouldn’t you do the same thing, if you were me?”

              Ghost stared down at the Formica counter where his elbows rested, the deep scratches carved into its surface during years of anguished visits, from loved ones to inmates.

              “You wouldn’t,” Collier said softly. When Ghost’s gaze snapped back up to him, he was smiling. “I don’t blame you for it, I’m just saying. Your family comes first.”

              Ghost sighed. “The cops dragged the river. But really, I don’t think Fielding cares if he doesn’t find the bodies. You’re an easy scapegoat.”

              “Good,” Collier said, with a firm nod. “That’s what I wanna be.”

              “Coll–”

              “There’s something else I wanted to talk to you about,” he said. “I figured out why Andre and Jace turned rat.”

              Ghost swore he felt his ears prick up, like the fabled black dog on the back of his cut. “Yeah?”

              “Both of them had contact back and forth on their phones with somebody named Shaman.”

              Ghost lifted his brows.

              “I know, right. Anyway, best I can tell, he’s a dealer, one with some major connections, because everybody seems afraid of him. From what I’ve heard in here, Shaman’s in the business of playing outlaw chess; he’s trying to control the underworld, bringing down whichever clubs don’t suit his purposes, and backing the ones that do. From what I’ve heard, he was betting on the Carpathians getting the best of us,” he said with a grimace.

              “Hmm.” Ghost wasn’t surprised. With backing from the mayor, the rival MC had been a shoe-in for leading outlaw force in Knoxville. “How do our losers figure into it?”

              Collier held up a finger.
Getting to that
. “Jace and Andre were in deep debt to him, apparently. They’d bought a little dope off Fisher, which we knew about, but apparently, they’d been buying coke off Shaman. They were in talks, if I believe the gossip, to deal some meth for him, for a pretty cut of the profits. And they owed him bigtime, so he had them by the short hairs.”

              “Turn on us, become dealers, erase their debt and fill their pockets. Christ, why did we ever patch those assholes?”

              Collier made a helpless gesture. None of them had known how shakable their loyalty had been. Not until it was too late.

              “So this Shaman,” Ghost said. “What’s his next move?”

              “He wants to get on your good side. According to Justin” – one of their longtime inside members – “he’s sending an envoy. One of his dealers wants to sell as part of your ring.”

              “Abraham Jessup?” Ghost guessed, feeling the bottom drop out of his stomach. The dealer Ratchet had met with. The one he was supposed to meet himself this afternoon.

              “I didn’t get a name.”

              Ghost scratched at his jaw, feeling the bristle that shaving didn’t quite take care of anymore. Maggie liked it; would scuff her knuckles across it and say she liked him rough.

              Okay, focus. Mags had no bearing on this conversation.

              Didn’t she, though? Weren’t the women in his life the root of his beating heart? The reason the club decisions he made were so much more than club decisions. The reason he hesitated to send Mercy into a dangerous situation, now, because Ava’s whole happiness depended upon him.

              Being president sucked.

              “Well, keep an ear to the ground. See if you can find anything else out for me,” Ghost said.

              “Always.”

              Ghost’s chest felt tight. Never had he anticipated this moment, as a boy, as a young man, as a Dog striving for president – that his best friend would wind up so suddenly on the other side of glass like this. “We’ll look after Jackie,” he said.

              Collier smiled, wistfully. “I know.”

              Ghost sighed. “I love Walsh, but I wish it was you sitting on my left.”

              “I know,” Collier repeated. “But you need me here, more than you need me there. Go get ‘em, prez, and you lead our boys where they need to go.”

Holly didn’t know what a person was supposed to wear on her first ever shooting lesson, but she figured her work uniform wasn’t it. Dressed in jeans, her favorite tall cowboy boots, a thick cream turtleneck sweater she’d splurged on just that morning, and her usual jacket, she leaned against the side of the Chevelle, enjoying the weak touch of the December sun on her face, breathing in cold, crisp air and waiting on Michael to show up.

              She hadn’t slept the night before, restless and nervous, dreaming, in the snatches of half-sleep, about Abraham and Dewey, and Jacob, whom no one had mentioned having seen in town yet, but who doubtless was still stuck like glue to his brother. She had ugly dark circles under her eyes, because of the nightmares, but hadn’t been able to do anything about them. Michael wouldn’t care; he didn’t want her anyway.

              The street was all decked out for Christmas, garlands and lighted holiday tokens on every lamppost: bells, reindeer, sleighs, Santas, angels. At night, they glowed with colored light; the bells even seemed to swing back and forth. All the shop windows were done up with greenery, ornaments, shoe polish murals on the glass. The air smelled like snow, that up-high sharp note of moisture. She loved the idea of a white Christmas, tucked away in her loft window, the streets too slippery for anyone to be out on the prowl, coming after her.

              When she heard the grumble of the motorcycle, she turned toward it automatically, and found herself smiling. It was a relief, if she was honest, to know that he wouldn’t take advantage. She could relax a little – with him, anyway.

              Michael rode a Harley. All the Lean Dogs did; only American made bikes for them, Matt had told her. His was black, not flashy, the handlebars and pipes the only chrome. She could feel the vibration through the pavement, moving up into the soles of her boots, up her legs, and she liked it. The same way she liked his retro black shades, the way the plain black helmet made his face look harsher, the unadorned leather jacket that framed his lean waist and wider shoulders in a classic, masculine silhouette. He wasn’t wearing his cut. He wore a beat-up Jansport backpack, dark blue, and it should have made him look ridiculous, but didn’t. Nobody with that kind of tension in his jaw could look like a dork.

              He parked in front of her car at the curb, killed the engine, pulled off his gloves. “You ready?” he greeted.

              She nodded. “Where are we going?”

              “You’ll see.”

              He swung off the bike with a fluid movement, graceful, long-practiced. He ran one hand through his hair after the helmet came off, one fast show of self-awareness. Then he reached toward her. “Where are your keys? I’ll drive.”

              She kept her arms folded, smiling at him. “Oh, because I’m a girl, and you can’t let me drive?”

              “Because you don’t know where we’re going.”

              “You could tell me.”

              He held his hand in front of her, fingers flexing in silent demand for the keys.

              Feeling bold, unable to wipe the grin off her face, she said, “You have the worst manners, you know that?”

              “Yeah? You’re the one who stripped naked in front of a total stranger.”

              She held up a finger. “One, I wasn’t naked. Two” – a second finger – “you’re not a total stranger.
Strange
, maybe,” she said, suppressing a giggle, “but not a stranger.”

              He sighed. “What are you doing?”

              “I’m teasing you. Isn’t that what friends do?” She felt her brows pluck together, felt the awful surge of true curiosity. The only friend she could claim was dead, murdered in the alley of this bar. “I want us to be friends,” she said, softly.

              His brows lifted over the frames of his Ray-Bans.
Why?

             
“Do you have any?” she asked. “Because I don’t. And maybe, if nothing else, we could be that. I think it’d be nice.” She sent him a hopeful smile.

              He stared at her, projecting bafflement, though he probably didn’t want to. “You’re weird, you know that?”

              It was her turn to lift her brows.
And you’re not?

              He sighed, and shrugged. “Fine.”

They drove out of town, at his direction, Holly shocked she was the one behind the wheel, Michael watching through the window with unruffled calm.

              “This is your car?” he asked as they turned off Main and headed out of town.

              “Yep.”

              His eyes slid over, unreadable behind the lenses of his shades. “Did you steal it?”

              Holly felt her palms grow damp on the wide plastic steering wheel, but she laughed. She didn’t know why, but being alongside him today, in the sunlight pouring through the tint-free windows, had lightened her somehow. Left her feeling buoyant and happy.

              “I’m serious,” Michael said. “Did you steal it?”

              “What, you’re going to turn me in?”

              “Just wondering.” He sounded sincere.

              Holly sighed, felt herself deflate a little as they took the next turn. “It’s mine,” she said. “After…well, after everything…I think I’m at least owed a car.” Not a lie, and almost the truth. “Maybe I’m wrong, though,” she mused. “Maybe nobody ever deserves anything. It’s just about who takes what.”

              She glanced over at Michael’s hard profile. “What do you think?”

              His lips pursed. Thinking face. Dear God, he took her serious. He was actually listening to her, considering what to say.

              Delight streaked through her. For the first time in so, so many years, sheer delight.

              “ ‘Deserve’ is a tricky word,” he said, finally, sunlight striking like white fire off his face. “Like there’s somebody up there” – he pointed at the headliner, the sky beyond – “keeping track of rights and wrongs.”

              “Not a man of faith, then?”

              “Didn’t say that. Just said it’s tricky.”

              “Hmm,” she agreed. “My mom was a believer,” she said, surprised, as she said the words, that they’d come up her throat. She tried not to think too hard about her mother, because it hurt too badly, but she couldn’t talk about church in relation to her father, no matter how many bible verses he’d spewed at her. No, that wasn’t the God that Mom had talked about. How could it be? How could Lila’s gentle, loving God, of sweet forehead kisses and prayer books open in the sunshine be at all related to the God that Abraham carried on his bourbon-soaked breath, when he’d pulled the ropes from the cabinet?

              “I believe in God,” she continued. “Most of the time, anyway. I’m not sure how to put that belief in any kind of box, though.”

              “You don’t need a box.”

              “You don’t think?”

              “Nah.”

              Holly felt a dozen muscles unclenching, in her neck and arms and her midsection. His stalwart caveman assuredness was a balm to her tattered nerves. Maybe
tattered
wasn’t the right word. Maybe she’d been born with incomplete, split ends. How could a child born of her father’s seed be at all normal or complete or full-up with love?