Knife & Flesh (The Night Horde SoCal Book 4) (17 page)

So they had a normal evening. They changed into ‘play clothes’: shorts and t-shirts. Lucie had a worksheet to do for homework—they had to color and cut out a paper and then fold it into an origami crane. Her teacher, Mrs. Amy, had read a book called
The Paper Crane
to them.

After that, Juliana heated up some chicken and rice for dinner. They watched a little television, and then Lucie stretched out on the floor and played dinosaurs while Juliana worked on the dress she was making. She hadn’t started it with any idea that she’d have a place to wear it, so there was no reason now not to finish, even if she was again unsure where she’d wear it.

She never had made that call to say hi to Trick.

Lucie was in bed, and Juliana was sitting in the living room with the television on, sketching in her sketchpad, when there was a light knock on her door. It was nearing midnight.

Knowing who it would be before she stood, she set her sketch aside, turned off the TV, and went over. A look through the peephole confirmed that yes, it was Trick. She opened the door.

“Hey.”

“Hey.” He grinned, and she wanted more than anything to pull him inside and feel his arms around her. But she stayed where she was and didn’t say more.

His grin faltered. “You okay? I’m not asking to come in—I get what you said about going slow around Lucie. I just saw the light and wanted to see you quick before I went up.”

Going slow around Lucie
. Yes. They’d talked about that, about how he shouldn’t stay over when Lucie was there, that they needed to pace themselves and let her adjust to any changes that might be happening in her life. Now Juliana felt a new flutter of hope. Maybe if they went slowly enough, played it chill enough, Mark wouldn’t need to know Trick was in their life.

That was dumb, though. Even if they moved at a snail’s pace, at some point, if where they were headed was where they ended up, Trick would be in Lucie’s life.

She had to simply be honest. Tell Trick about what had happened. Make the next choice together.

“You should come in. We need to talk.”

Now his face did that thing where it became utterly expressionless. In just their few days together, she’d learned that that stony visage didn’t mean he wasn’t feeling anything. It meant the very opposite. But he nodded and stepped over the threshold.

“Can I get you a drink? There’s still some vodka.” She’d been thinking that she’d pick up whiskey and beer when she went to the market next, so that she’d have something for him to drink. Now she wasn’t so sure she’d need it.

“No. Thanks. What do you need to say?” He stood, rigid, near the door, looking like he was expecting to take enemy fire, and her heart hurt.

She rose up on her tiptoes and looped her arms around his neck, holding him close, her forehead against his twitching jaw. “Nothing is changed about how I feel.”

At that, she felt him relax, and he put his arms around her. After a moment of close quiet, he asked, “What’s up?”

She stepped back and took his hand, leading him to the sofa she’d been sitting on. As he sat, he picked up her sketchbook. He studied it for a few seconds and then looked back up at her.

Blushing, she took the pad from him and closed the cover. “I’m good at bodies, but I suck at faces. Sorry.” She’d been sketching him, focusing on his chest and arms, trying to get his ink right. Her rendering of his head was all hair and beard—and smudges where she’d tried and failed to get his eyes right.

“Don’t be sorry. I’m…humbled is the word, I guess.” He took her hand. “What’s up, Jules?”

“Mark came to my office today.”

Juliana hadn’t been sure how Trick would react to that. She’d been prepared for shock or anger, some kind of blow up. But no. He didn’t blow up. That was what he’d told her. He didn’t explode.

What he did was take a long, slow, deep breath. “Tell me everything. Exactly. Don’t leave anything out.”

She told him everything, exactly, leaving nothing out. As she spoke, he didn’t focus on her face. He seemed to stare at her knees, his attention there perfectly still and perfectly complete.

When she had recounted the scene, she said, “He was saying that he can find out about you, and that if you’re in Lucie’s life, he will find out everything he can.”

Trick nodded but didn’t speak or otherwise move.

“I told you that he’s an investigator for a law firm. You said you carry other men’s secrets, and they carry yours. He can hurt you. He
will
hurt you. And your club.”

Again, he only nodded.

Deciding that she needed to know—to know, not suspect, not wonder—Juliana asked, “Trick, are you a criminal?”

Finally, he moved. He turned and met her eyes. And then, for long seconds, he was still again.

“Trick?”

“I’m an outlaw.”

She laughed—not with amusement but with irony. “Which is the same thing. You sound like a politician, spinning the truth.”

“No. I don’t spin the truth. I say what I can, and I keep what I can’t to myself, but I don’t play games with the truth. Criminal and outlaw are not the same thing. A criminal knocks over a gas station and kills the poor clerk who was just trying to feed his family. A criminal shoots up a school because he’s pissed off he didn’t get to sit at the cool table at lunch. A criminal twists the stock market into some kind of Gordian knot and fucks poor people into loans they can’t afford and then fucks off to the Caribbean while Congress cleans up after him and the people he fucked go homeless. A criminal does hurt to people who don’t deserve it. Innocents. I’m an outlaw. I don’t recognize laws when the people who made them aren’t subject to them, when only the powerless are subjected. I live outside that law. I live in a world with its own code. And when I break the laws I don’t recognize, I don’t hurt people who don’t deserve it.” He sat back. “For what it’s worth, I don’t have a record. My time in the stockade is my only time inside anywhere, and I was never formally charged. All of that was erased with my discharge.”

They sat quietly. Juliana tried to figure out what she thought. She knew she should tell him to go. What she wanted for herself and her daughter was a stable, secure, quiet life. Trick’s life didn’t offer that.

She’d known that from the first, though. He was confirming her suspicions, not telling her anything new. In fact, from that perspective, persuading her of the difference between criminal and outlaw might reasonably ease her mind a bit.

“You work with the law, Jules. You know I’m right. The law is nothing but a few people with power shaping the world in their own image. And the powerful shape it at will, twisting the laws they made to suit their whim in the moment, crushing the powerless under their Gucci loafers. I know you know that’s true. I know you felt it, with what happened with your parents, and with your custody case. ‘Laws are spider webs through which the big flies pass and the little ones get caught.’”

Hearing in that last sentence the inflection of a quote, Juliana found a small smile. “Who said that one?”

His smile was bigger. “Balzac.”

She’d spent the better part of her day combing through case law, seeking precedents and technicalities that might save a family from being destroyed by deportation. She knew for a fact that he was right, that it was money and power that passed through loopholes, not need or merit.

“It’s good. And you’re right. But the law recognizes you even if you don’t recognize it. What if you get caught in the web?”

“I do what I can to get free, and if I can’t, then I stay still and deal.”

“And the people who love you—they have to deal, too.”

Trick took both her hands in his. “Yeah, they do. I wish that weren’t true, but it is.”

Juliana looked down at their joined hands. He had beautiful hands. They were large and strong, the palms rough with work, the backs dark with ink, but they were graceful, too, with long fingers, and he used them like precision instruments rather than blunt objects. He often spoke with his hands, painting emphasis in the air. So many contradictions in him. Gentle and rough, thoughtful and physical. Strong and vulnerable.

“I need to keep Lucie safe and happy. I need to give her a good life. She will always be my first priority.” She could feel him tensing as she spoke, but she held on to his hands. “She wants you here as much as I do, and she’s right: you’re a good people. But Mark can really hurt you. He has resources and powerful friends, and he’s vengeful and mean. I don’t want you hurt. I don’t know what we do now.”

“He’s not the only enemy I’ve ever had, Jules. He’s not my only enemy right this minute. I’ll talk to my brothers. We know how to analyze threats and find ways to neutralize them.”

‘Neutralize’ sounded like a euphemism. “Lucie loves him so much. You can’t…can’t…” Unable to say ‘kill him’ out loud, she let the sentence die.

“I understand. Just trust me. I’ll handle whatever threat he is to me or the Horde. But first, I’m going to make sure he backs off of
you
. Because he is not going to pin you down alone like that again. Ever.”

It was easier not to be afraid when you weren’t alone. Juliana had Trick with her. In her corner. She felt safe and secure. This was what she wanted. For her and her daughter, all she’d ever wanted.

“Got a minute, man?” Trick knocked on the frame of the open door to Sherlock’s office. While most of the other patches did two different kinds of work—the on-the-books jobs in the bike shop or with the entertainment support stuff they did, and the club stuff, where their roles were more militaristic—Sherlock’s work was basically the same for the shop or the club. He was their tech guy: the shop’s IT guy, running the hardware, software, and security systems that kept the shop running smoothly, and the club’s Intelligence Officer, doing the same work for the club, with the added responsibilities of hacking and gathering intel the club needed. He managed both websites, too, for the shop and the club.

Trick needed the IO.

“Yeah, T.” Sherlock pushed away from his setup and swiveled his chair. “What’s up?”

The office was small and windowless and had probably been some kind of storage room before the club had bought the building. But it looked like something out of science fiction, with all of Sherlock’s hardware and gizmos. His house was even more bizarre.

There was a cheap vinyl chair at the side of Sherlock’s desk. Trick sat down. “I need some help.” He hadn’t said anything about Juliana to anyone yet, not even Connor, and Sherlock would not have been his first confidant. Not that he didn’t trust him or consider him a friend as well as a brother. He did. Several of the Horde were of an age, within five years of each other, and they were all close: Trick, Connor, Sherlock, Lakota, Jesse. Demon was close in age, too, but he’d always held himself somewhat aloof. For reasons they’d all known and understood even before those reasons had been exposed in the middle of the Hall.

So it wasn’t that he didn’t trust Sherlock; it was more that he knew he was starting at the wrong place in the chain. He should have told Connor first. And Hoosier. But Sherlock had what he needed.

“I need some intel. I’m seeing a woman—”

“You, too? Fuck, the whole goddamn club is nesting. What the fuck?”

“You’re seeing what’s-her-hame—Karen?”

“Taryn. And I’m not seeing her. I’m fucking her.”

Trick grinned and rolled his eyes. “Few times a week. At her house. And she’s got kids.”

“She’s a great fuck. But I’m just going to her house and fucking her. End of story.” He huffed. “Anyway, what do you need? You looking for a stalker special—job, activities, financials, find out if she’s worth your trouble?” His brows drew in. “Or do I need to run a club check? You serious with her?”

The club collected intel on new women who got close to a patch. One of their threat management strategies. “We’re serious. Yeah, I guess you should run a club check.” He hated that, but it was necessary. He’d tell her about it. “I need something else, though. More important.”

Sherlock leaned back in his chair and waited for Trick to continue.

“She has an ex. He’s a real son of a bitch. They have a little girl together. He doesn’t like me in the picture, and he’s making threats—on her and me and all of us. He does some kind of PI work for a law firm, so he’s got resources beyond the average asshole.”

Sherlock had sat forward as Trick had spoken. Now he turned his chair back to his desk. “You need to go to Hooj with all this.”

“My next stop. He was on the phone when I came over. But I need to know where to find this guy, because he put hands on Juliana, and I’m going to make that stop.”

“I need names and everything else you can tell me.”

“Mark Stiles. Drives a gold Lexus GX. I don’t know what firm he works for. But he had everything on me—Army service, school records, how long I’ve had a patch. He got all that with nothing but my first name and my kutte.”

“That’s a lot, T. Our kuttes are practically encyclopedias of any info we don’t have locked down. I mean, shit. Think of what’s right there on our website. Pictures, short bios. And you did that ‘What It Means’ thing, so there’s more about you than anybody.”

Jesse, their PR officer, had been on a kick a while back, when they were just getting back into the outlaw life, to beef up their public persona. Sherlock had redesigned the website, they’d added a ‘shop’ with t-shirts and hats and shit like that, and Jesse had had the ‘brilliant’ idea that one of them should write an essay about why they were who they were. Trick had gotten that assignment. He’d done about a thousand romanticized words on what it meant to be a biker, glossing over the darker meanings. It was all very Easy Rider, but there was some disclosure in it, too. Not too much to breach his own privacy, but he’d found it impossible to write about what it meant and not write about what it meant to
him
.