Blood & Rust (Lock & Key #4) (43 page)

“He didn’t care if you or anybody else got hurt as long as his point got made, his rage felt,” I said. “I got to experience it firsthand. Look, Nina.” I opened my blouse for her to see the marks her brother-in-law and his buddy had left behind.

“Oh my God, Tania! He did that to you?”

“He wanted to piss off Butler and Finger.”

“Going after women and kids is wrong, so wrong.”

“Isn’t it? But he enjoyed every minute of it. Every goddamn minute. I figure, what’s that compared to controlling the life of a young girl for years? For forever? He will never allow you to leave again with anyone. He will never take his eyes off you. You will be no better than a prisoner if you go back with your sister. Do you want that for your baby? What if he tries to make you get rid of the baby? Or takes the baby away from you? He’s capable of anything.”

She swallowed hard, her brown eyes searching mine. “I’ve never been able to tell anyone. Not my sister, nobody. Only Butler.”

I wrapped my hand over hers. “I’m sorry. That’s awful. Truly. You did something to get out though, didn’t you? You took a chance on Butler, and he helped you. That was brave of both of you. But do you want to keep running from that bastard all your life? You have to protect your baby now, too. My brother’s baby.”

She chewed her lips as she stared at our hands.

“You and Catch having an affair and getting caught actually works in your favor here, funnily enough. If Reich sees that you’re leaving Butler for Catch, he’ll know that this time, this relationship, is for real. No more grabbing at happiness in secret whenever you can. Or what you think is happiness.”

Her eyes darted up at me. “I get it.”

“You give it a chance with Catch, and if it works out between the two of you, terrific. If not, you both go your own way. No worries, no backlash.”

“What does Catch say? Have you talked to him? Is he still—”

“He’s back, and I spoke with him before I came here. He’s in, if you are.”

“He is?”

“He’s out in the hall with Finger, waiting to see you.”

Her forehead puckered, and she sank back against her pillow. “He’s into this because of the baby though, not because—”

“I didn’t tell him about the baby. No one has. He wants you, pure and simple. You have to be the one to tell him about your baby.”

Her shoulders dropped, her face visibly relaxed. She was relieved. Pleased.

“I came to see you, because I wanted us to talk first,” I said.

“Woman to woman or as a lawyer, negotiating?” Nina asked.

“Both. If you’re going to do this, Reich and your sister need to hear it from you. You have to tell them that being Catch’s old lady is what you want and that you are taking charge of your life, responsibly, not just running off with some guy again.”

“You’re right.”

“I also came to you first because we’re talking about my little brother, and I care about his happiness.”

Nina held my gaze.

“I know my brother, Nina. He needs a woman he can trust, not just a woman in his bed, now more than ever, and I think he’s ready to appreciate that, especially since he lost Jill over bullshit a while back. He knows where he went wrong there. Where they both did. I think, if you put your cards on the table with him from the very beginning, and be straight-up, stay loyal and honest, you’ve got a great chance of keeping things good between you two.”

“I really don’t know what that’s like. Sad, huh? Pathetic.”

“Nina, there is nothing in this world like mutual respect between a man and a woman. I would say it’s the most important thing, even more important than love. Love’s easy. It’s a good feeling that seeps through you like fine wine and makes you all dreamy and warm. Respect takes thought and care. I’m no expert, but from where I’m standing, it’s huge. You’ll make mistakes, both of you, but it will be worth it. No games though. No bullshit. That time has passed.”

“I want to see Catch.” She let go of my hand and shoved the magazine to the side of the bed. “Thank you, Tania,” she whispered.

“You’re welcome. I’ll go get him.” I rose from the bed, but her fingers clasped my hand, stopping me.

“You’re setting Butler free,” Nina said.

“Uh—”

“He’s got a deep sadness inside him. He’s never let me see it, but it’s there. I don’t know if anyone will ever get through it and get to him, but I hope you do.”

“I’m going to try.”

I CALLED FINGER
, insisting we meet at a gas stop on Route 385, just over the border in Nebraska.

He tugged off his gloves, his eyes scanning the row of dumpsters, the old air pump, and the rusted out steel drums by where we stood.

We were alone, except for our bikes, a beat-up Dodge pickup, and plenty of garbage steaming in the midday sun.

“Tell me,” I said.

“Tell you what?” He pushed back from the grimy wall by the restroom door.

“Why the fuck did you kill Jump?”

He raised an eyebrow. “That keeping you up at night?”

“Yeah, it is.”

“An unpaid bill that had to be paid. In full.”

“I realized you liked being friendly with me because you knew Jump didn’t like me much,” I said.

“Yeah.” He folded his arms across his chest. “And you were way friendlier with me than I think your national president would have liked, nomad.”

“I was. I took the risk. But that’s between us. And you liked that. I let you in, and I let you take advantage of that.”

His eyes narrowed. “And you got your in with me.”

“And I got my in with you, and we pissed off Jump, which benefited both of us. But he was my president, Finger. What did he do to you? You looking to step in, take over the One-Eyed Jacks? Or maybe throw me a bone to distract me, shut me up, install me as your puppet, and drain the Jacks dry until there’s nothing left? ’Cause that is not going to fucking happen.”

“I considered it, but that’s not what I want. Not from your club.”

But that’s what he’s planning for the Broken Blades.

“No, Jump and I were never about the Jacks,” Finger said. “It was all Jump.” His expression remained neutral, calm, revealing nothing.

“I need to know.”

“Is it gonna change anything?” he asked, his tone weary.

“I need to know!”

He tilted his head, leveling his eyes with mine. “Once upon a long time ago, I was in trouble, needed help. I’d gone underground, and I was on the run from the Smoking Guns. My own brothers didn’t even know. It was an impossible situation, and I’d put everything on the line, everything, but I had no choice.”

I lit a cigarette.

The Smoking Guns were terrors that had risen in the wake of the Flames of Hell’s notoriety back in the seventies. They had wanted a piece of the Flames’ cocaine pie, a piece of the gun-running, and the easy money rolling in back then. They had also wanted the badass reputation that the Flames enjoyed throughout the country, being one of the first nationally organized outlaw clubs. And, as the Flames had spread throughout North America and then the UK, Germany, Sweden, Holland, so had the Guns.

Stupid confrontation followed epic confrontation. Until one day, the Smoking Guns in Kansas took Finger, tortured him, viciously hacked at him, then sent him back home. The point of no return. The Feds had been watching and waiting for the Flames to retaliate, but the Flames had put the brakes on the bloodshed and notoriety and opted for peace instead. That was twenty years ago. Over that time, there had been mini explosions here and there, some grandstanding, but they had been skin-deep, bullshit posturing.

“Was this before or after they held you prisoner?” I asked.

“After.”

“You went back to Kansas? You went on your own to get your revenge on the Smoking Guns for torturing you?”

“No. Things were locked down tight after I’d gotten released, after everyone had smoked their fucking peace pipe. What I did wasn’t about my revenge, and that’s all I’m going to say about it.” He crossed his arms, his eyes wandering over the dumpsters again. “Point is, I went in, did what I had to do, and on the way back, I needed help. I was heading for South Dakota to stay out of Nebraska for a while. I was hurt. I needed to lay low. I arranged with Dig to get to a Jacks’ safe house for a couple of weeks, and he agreed. When I needed him though, he was gone.”

“You mean, when he got killed?”

“No. It was when he got married to his old lady and went on his honeymoon. I couldn’t reach him, so I contacted Jump, who was Dig’s backup man. And you know what that asshole told me? He said no. I was literally fucking bleeding on the side of the road, and he told me no.
No, I can’t help you. No, I can’t get you safe. No, I can’t take a risk for you. No. No. Fucking no
.”

The muscle along his jaw twitched and pulsed. After all this time, his hate for Jump, for the Smoking Guns, for anyone who had ever crossed him—I was sure—was still raw and brutal, embedded deep. That beast within was alive and beating a barbaric drumroll from within his scarred, blackened soul.

“I was stranded, nowhere to turn. Fucking Guns hot on my ass. If they’d caught me, I would’ve been wishing I were dead. It got so bad that I almost ended it in the fucking restroom of a gas station on the highway.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No, I didn’t.” He licked his bottom lip, his gaze pinning me. “I managed. I survived and got done what I had to get done.”

“And you’ve been waiting all this time to—”

“I didn’t make life easy for the Jacks after that,” Finger replied. “Dig was always a man of his word. We’d been doing small favors for each other here and there. When he found out about Jump leaving me hanging, he was in a rage. He tried to make it up to me, but things cooled off between us. Then he got himself killed.” Finger let out a drawn-out long sigh. “But Jump…that fucker. I was never going to forget what he’d done to me.” Finger pressed his lips together, his eyes narrowing.

“That was ’cause of me, you know—Dig getting married out of the blue. They’d kicked me out for flirting with his old lady, sent me to the chapter up north. He married her in a flash the next fucking week. Things were crazy for a while there.”

Finger let out a dry laugh. “Well, don’t expect a thank you from me. Things might have worked out differently. Who the fuck knows?” He rubbed his shoulder. “Doesn’t matter now. I got safe. Here I am.”

“You’re a patient man then.”

He shot me a look. “I need to be if I want to get the job done right. Any job. Many times, a situation presents itself—like Reich’s bomb at the Jacks’ clubhouse and I happened to be there. Purely random. That shit is real sweet when it works out, isn’t it? I slipped right in and got done what I’d been wanting to do for years. No big fucking showdown, no fuss, no mess—during and especially after. The best part, Jump was conscious. Looked me straight in the eyes. He knew, and I saw his fear there.” A subtle grin broke over his face and then receded.

I exhaled a final stream of smoke, and that goddamn dizzying rush went off in my head, that gnawing need crawled through my veins. I tossed what was left of my cigarette to the ground, crushing it with my boot.

“The next best part, I didn’t have to get rid of the body,” said Finger. “Your club got itself a new martyr and a fancy funeral, not a vanishing in the dark of the night.”

“Oh, we should be grateful?”

“
You
should. Without Jump riding your ass, you got yourself a good chance to rise the ranks again, if that’s what you want.”

“I only wanted back in
. That
was enough for me. To be in good standing in my brother’s eyes, to bring something to the table. Not to take away again. Not that!”

“You accomplished what you wanted, and I got what I wanted.”

My pulse banged in my head, and that ache exploded across my skull. “And the blame gets placed on Reich’s dirty shoulders, just where you wanted it to, am I right?”

“Patience, my friend, is an important virtue to cultivate. That taste of anticipation brews on the back of your tongue for years, and finally, finally, it transforms into a glorious amalgam of blood, satisfaction, and burning pleasure. It’s lingering still.” He made a sucking sound with his teeth.

There was a purpose to his madness. A scheme. A huge, fat fucking scheme. He enjoyed bulldozing his enemies in a quiet way. If this shit with Reich was Flames club business and not just about Tania, I had no doubt that vengeance would be taken on a large scale, Napoleonic Wars scale with a legion of troops marching across the agreed upon battlefield.