Shift (The Disciples' Daughters #2) (12 page)

When I was sure Daz was good watching Emmy, I made my way to Stone’s office. The door was closed, but that wasn’t unusual. Stone kept it that way even if he was in there alone because things could go from quiet to rowdy at the drop of a hat in the clubhouse. His office wasn’t far removed from the action, so the door was a must. I knocked and waited.

“Come in,” Stone called in that gruff, commanding voice of his. He sounded like a leader, but then, he was, and long had been. Even before he was president of the Disciples, he was a Sergeant—though I wasn’t sure of his exact title—in the Marine Corps. He was used to giving orders to intimidating men.

I opened the door to find Stone behind his desk, Ham sitting across from him. Both men lifted their chins in greeting and looked back at each other.

“Take care of it,” Stone instructed.

Ham nodded, then left without a word.

Stone held out his hand, motioning it toward the seat Ham had just left. I took it, my nerves starting to rise. Something about this felt like being called into the principal’s office, or being brought into a police station for questioning. Stone was an intimidating man, but the black flag hanging on the wall behind him with the Disciples’ insignia—a bike in front of crossed scythes that were nearly true to size—along with the huge desk only made sitting before him more daunting.

“What’s up?” I prompted.

“Things have been busy, haven’t had a chance to sit down with you. Sorry about that, girlie. Now, I got the chance, so it’s time you knew what’s going on.”

It was probably time for that. I still had no idea exactly what sort of threat the club was under. Actually, since I’d been around, it hadn’t really seemed like there was a threat. Once or twice as a kid, the club had gone into full lockdown. Everyone—the brothers, their women, family, whatever—had to go to the clubhouse. The brothers would leave occasionally to deal with whatever the problem was, but the rest of us were kept inside, no exceptions. There certainly was no lockdown going on, so there didn’t seem to be an imminent threat to the entire club. However, Roadrunner had made it clear I had not been safe at home.

I had to admit, I was pretty okay with having been in the dark over the last week. Not knowing the danger made staying in denial so much easier.

“Okay,” I agreed, although reluctantly.

Stone watched me, seeming to assess whether I was ready to hear what he was going to say. I wasn’t, but I put on a self-assured face. I figured he saw through me, but the determination was enough to have him go on. He opened a drawer, moved through the contents for a moment, and then placed a small stack of photographs on the desk.

On top of the stack, in stark black and white, was a picture of me.

I snatched the pile up. It was definitely me in the picture. I was in my uniform from the diner and my coat. The direction I was facing as I passed the florist told me I was on my way in to work. The coat I had on said it had to be a few weeks back when it was colder. I flipped that one to the back and looked at the next. It was the same day, but I was closer to the diner. I kept going, following the pictures showing me closer and closer, then through the windows of the diner as I worked.

When I came to the last one, I lost my breath. Whoever had taken it had captured a moment when I’d been looking through the window for some reason. My face was straight on in the image. That wasn’t what shocked me, though.

What had me absolutely terrified was the message scrawled across the lower half of the picture.

We’ll make her join her father.

My hands shook as I dropped the pictures onto Stone’s desk. I wanted to get up, leave. I wanted to run away and hide. I wanted to pretend I’d never seen that.

Distantly, I could feel that I was starting to hyperventilate. I thought the club as a whole was under threat. I thought someone had threatened to hurt people close to the Disciples in a generic way. That sort of threat had been enough to bring me back, if only to ensure Emmy was safe.

I never would have thought someone was actually threatening me.

“I…don’t…” I panted.

“Fuck,” Stone muttered, but I didn’t look at him. My eyes were still on that picture.

A body moved into my line of sight, hands grabbed onto mine, then Stone knelt down in front of me.

“Ash, I fuckin’ swear to you, we’re gonna keep you and Emmaline safe.”

He looked too sure, so confident.

“Whoever it is, they were the ones who killed my dad?”

A flash of pain and regret came over him before he answered. I knew he could have hidden it. Stone had his name for a reason. He chose to let me see. “Yes.”

“But they got him…oh god.” I was panicking. No question, I was freaking out. “You couldn’t stop them before. They killed him. What if they get me? What will happen to Emmy? There’s no one to take care of her. What if—”

Stone’s hand released mine and he pulled me into his arms. I felt tears rolling down my cheeks. I heard him shushing me over my gasping breaths. Yet, everything was weird. I knew all of it was happening, but I felt removed from it. My body, my panic, they were far away from me. I was somewhere else, remembering my dad’s smile, remembering how much I loved him, remembering how much it destroyed me to lose him. I couldn’t let Emmy experience that. She was so young, and she’d be all alone.

“Breathe for me, Ash,” Stone instructed.

I didn’t want to breathe. I wanted to run. I wanted to go far away, so much farther than Portland. I’d been too close all that time, I really appreciated that now. I wanted to get Emmy and take her somewhere these people would never find us.

“Come on,” he kept trying. “In and out.”

How far could we get? I didn’t even have my own car. Even if I got back to Portland and got to my car, how far could it go? I didn’t have a lot of money, nowhere near enough to start up somewhere new.

Crap. Crap. Crap.

“Firefly.”

That name made it through. Stone said it, yet it almost sounded like Dad. His voice had been so clear in my head. I blinked through the tears and looked at Stone, making sure it was really him.

“Focus on me,” he insisted.

I did. My mind centered on him and I felt grounded again. I was really there. Stone was, too. He was still kneeling, his hands on my shoulders.

“In and out.”

Right. My lungs were hurting. In and out. In and out.

Each breath came a little easier than the one before.

“Good. That’s good, Ash.”

I kept going. In and out, pulling in more air each time, holding each breath in a little longer. It took a while, but eventually, I was calm again. I could breathe steadily and the tears had stopped.

“Okay,” I said. I wasn’t completely sure what I meant. It was some kind of mix of saying, “I’m okay,” “It’ll be okay,” and “Okay, keep going.”

Stone understood.

“I know you’re worried, but things are much different this time. Indian was involved in a way you will not be.”

“What does that mean?”

There was a pause I was very used to when it came to asking about Disciple business. It was a weighty pause where the brothers thought about how much they could say without giving away too much of what they considered to be for brothers only.

“The threat comes from a man we’ve had problems with for a long time. He’s a distributer, deals in anything he thinks he can sell—drugs, women, whatever. He found drugs most lucrative. He runs an operation supplying all through the state, but primarily in Portland.

“There’s been a lot of tension between his men and the club, partly because we keep that shit out of Hoffman. Barton’s got loose ties in high places, thinks it makes him untouchable. Your dad was particularly hot on taking Barton down.”

Stone’s tone changed as he went on, becoming more gentle. “You know I respected the fuck out of Indian. He was family. I’m not saying anything against him when I tell you we tried to talk him back from that fight. Barton’s backing thought his operation could be the foothold to bring their reach up this way from California. They were willing to supply him, help him get shit done. We didn’t have the kind of power we needed to fight that on our own.

“Indian didn’t want to wait it out. He kept pushing Barton. We backed him on that play. He was our brother and we weren’t about to let him take on that fight alone. But that didn’t change facts. He led the charge and Barton knew it. That’s why Barton targeted him.”

I’d wanted that information. Years ago, I had wanted so badly to know why it was my dad who had been killed and I’d been so angry about not getting an answer. Finally, I had my answer, and I felt…nothing. Knowing didn’t help; it just gave me more questions. I didn’t understand why Dad would put himself on the line. Why would he risk being taken from me?

For the club,
I answered myself. He risked it because of the Disciples.

An old ache felt fresh as that understanding settled. The club always came first, even if it meant dying for them.

I wanted to be done with this discussion. I wanted to get out of there. So, I prompted, “And what about now?”

He’d expected more of a reaction from what he’d said, but I didn’t have it in me to give that to him. I needed time, and I needed to be alone.

“Now,” he thankfully went on, “the backing Barton had has dried up. He knows it. He also knows we know, or expects we will soon. And, most importantly, he knows we’re going to get revenge for Indian. That’s got him scared. The threat against you is meant to throw us off. Maybe he thinks we’ll back off if we’re reminded of what happened last time. Maybe he wants us to think he’s still got power behind him. I don’t know. I don’t give a fuck. Either way, it’s bullshit.”

“If the threat is bullshit, why am I here?” I asked.

“The threat isn’t bullshit. He’ll follow through, given the opportunity. With you in Portland, he would have had that opportunity at some point. We couldn’t protect you there. What’s bullshit is him stating he can get a hand on you if you’re protected, which he knew we were going to do as soon as he sent the photos. If it were about hurting you, he would have just done it. No pictures, no warnings. That’s not what this is. He wants to tell us he’s still got enough power to get through our protection.
That
is bullshit.”

That didn’t sound good. That sounded like a gamble with my life, and my daughter’s in the balance.

“How do you know he doesn’t have that kind of power?”

Again with that pause where he considered what he could tell me. “Because we have mutual alliances with the powers that used to back him. We know they’ve pulled out. On top of that, they took half of the workforce Barton recruited.”

Well, alrighty then.

“So, I’m not in danger?”

“I won’t say that. Barton’s a man backed into a corner. What he’s built is falling, and he knows it. That can make people desperate. He could decide he wants to hurt us while he goes down. Without protection, without one of the brothers with you, you are in danger. We’re not going to let that happen, though. We’ll keep you safe.” He was firm in that declaration, and I felt like I could believe him.

“Okay.”

“Last thing we gotta talk about is how we’re going to keep you safe.” Something about the way he said that told me I wasn’t going to like what he said next. “It’s going to take more than bringing you here. There wasn’t a chance to set things up sooner, but now, it’s all in place. You aren’t at the farmhouse or here, you’ve got a brother on you.”

Crap.

“Um…”

“Nope. Not gonna hear it, Ash. That’s non-negotiable. Only way to be sure you and Emmy are covered. The guys will be on a rotation. End of.”

Well, damn. That was firm.

“Need to know one thing, though.”

I had a sneaking suspicion of what he needed to know. “Yeah?”

“Is it going to be a problem if Sketch is part of that rotation?”

Yes. Definitely, yes. I needed to stay away from him as much as possible. He was determined he was going to get me into bed and…whatever else he had planned. If I spent too much time around him, he was going to succeed. I knew it. Denying it—at least to myself—was not going to make that fight any easier. So, the answer was absolutely yes. Being around Sketch was a problem.

“No.”

“You sure about that?”

I didn’t sigh, even though I really, really wanted to. “Yes. I’m sure.”

“Alright. Then, it’s settled.

I was pretty certain nothing about the situation was settled, but maybe that was just me.

“I’ll get out of your hair,” I said.

I started leaving, but he spoke before I could make it out the door. “Ash.”

I turned. “Yeah?”

“Not the circumstances I’d want, but I’m glad you and that angel of yours are here.”

Whoa. That was more than I ever expected from him.

I couldn’t agree, even though I kind of wanted to in response to what he’d just given me. Instead, I gave him something else that was the truth.

“I missed you, Uncle Stone.”

Then, I got myself out of there. I was dangerously close to losing it again.