Knife & Flesh (The Night Horde SoCal Book 4) (27 page)

BOOK: Knife & Flesh (The Night Horde SoCal Book 4)
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Shit. Jesse was a long-term member, an officer.

 

Trick swallowed down his whiskey and thought about that.

 

“That’s not what we need to talk about, and you know it. I want to know what the fuck happened at the park last weekend.”

 

Out of habit, Trick prepared to offer an excuse, a lame explanation, some kind of diversion. But Juliana was right; he needed to talk to someone. Connor was the only person in the world he could give his full confidence. Though Juliana had his complete trust, he couldn’t tell her everything, because to do so would put her at greater risk.

 

“Come on, brother. Talk to me.”

 

Trick nodded. “Not here.”

 

Connor waved at the girl behind the bar. “Fawn—I need a full bottle of Jack.” Fawn brought a sealed bottle from the back wall and handed it to him. “Thanks, puss.”

 

Standing, Connor grabbed the back of Trick’s kutte. “Shop. Let’s go.”

 

They settled on the leather chairs in the shop showroom, which had closed for business a couple of hours earlier. With only the security lights as illumination, the large, modern space felt cold and eerie.

 

Connor broke the seal on the bottle of Jack and handed it to Trick for the first drink. He took a long draw and handed it back.

 

There was an air of interrogation about the scene—not that Connor had intended it, Trick was sure. The shop after closing was a good place to be private. No one could eavesdrop. Still, the dark space, the stark, spare lighting—none of it was cozy and friendly. Might as well get right to it, then. “What happened at the park is I have PTSD.”

 

Connor took the bottle from his mouth and set it in his lap. “What?”

 

“Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. I have it.”

 

“What? Why?”

 

“From spending the better part of five years in the desert killing people, I guess.”

 

“You’re saying you’ve had it since the Army? T., I’ve known you years. You’re not like…you don’t…what?”

 

He wasn’t like Demon, Connor meant. No, he wasn’t. “I was getting it under control when I first came to the shop back in the day, and it’s been under control until the last year or so. Longer than that. It’s only gotten to be more than I can handle over the past couple of months. For years, I thought it was behind me. Now it’s back.”

 

“You never said anything.”

 

“Would you have?” He held out his hand for the bottle.

 

Connor handed it to him, but held on a beat after Trick had it. “To you, yeah.”

 

Trick doubted that but let it slide. By the standards of their world, Connor had had an idyllic life—a stable home with parents who loved and cherished him, the choice to have the only life he’d ever wanted in the club, now a good woman who really loved him and knew what she’d gotten herself into. Aside from less than a year in a medium-security prison, Connor was not a likely candidate for post-traumatic stress.

 

He took a couple of swallows. The Jack made this easier. “I’m sorry, man. It’s not that I don’t trust you, it’s that I’m ashamed of it. I don’t get violent, I fall apart. Like you saw Saturday. That’s some weak bullshit, and I don’t want people to know.” He handed the bottle over. They’d picked up a rhythm that made the Jack akin to a talking stick—whoever had the bottle had the floor.

 

Connor drank long and then sat for a few seconds with the bottle on his knee. “A year, it’s been back?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Cartwright. Right? Doing that hit—it brought it back.”

 

Trick wasn’t surprised at all that Connor had put it together so quickly. “Yeah.”

 

At the confirmation, Connor sat back hard in his chair. “Fuck, T. Why didn’t you say anything?”

 

Trick held out his hand and waited for the bottle. When Connor handed it to him, he drank, taking his time, maintaining his calm. Then he set the bottle on the arm of the chair. “I told you. Not something I’m proud of. I’d gone years without trouble. I didn’t know the job would set me off—and even if I had known, what was I gonna do? Say, ‘no, can’t do it because I’m a pussy?’ No way.”

 

“What if it had fucked up the job? I’m sorry, bro. I gotta ask.”

 

Of course he did. He was SAA. It was his job to protect the club. “I know. It doesn’t work that way. Not for me. During the job, I’m in soldier mode. It doesn’t fuck with me until later.” That was true—even as the past had encroached on his sighting of Allen Cartwright, he hadn’t so much as twitched. In fact, he’d probably been
better
because reality had slipped backward on him.

 

It was in quiet moments, moments of safety, that his mind had its way with him.

 

They’d been in dicey situations since Cartwright, and Trick had even killed since—fuck, he’d been shot since. He’d been steady. And those kills had made sense. They’d been necessary. They weren’t the stuff that made the ghosts in his head.

 

“You’ve seen me in action since it’s been back. You know I’m not a danger.”

 

Connor’s eyes narrowed. He scrutinized Trick, and Trick sat still for it. After at least a full minute, Connor held out his hand for the bottle, his face relaxing, and Trick leaned forward and handed it to him.

 

“You could have told me, T. No judgment. I know you.”

 

“I know. I wanted to. It’s not that easy. And I thought I had a hold on it. It’s slipping away from me lately.”

 

Connor nodded and took another drink. “What happened—specifically—on Saturday? Why then? Is it just random?”

 

And they were at the hardest part, the part Trick didn’t yet fully understand himself. But what he understood vexed him to no end. He held his hand out. When Connor passed him the Jack, Trick noticed that they’d almost finished it. Funny; he didn’t feel the least bit buzzed.

 

His swallow finished the bottle, and he set the empty aside on a glass and chrome table. “I know how stupid this is. I’ll say that up front.” He paused, and Connor cocked his head, waiting. “It’s Dora. I don’t fucking know why, but since you told me she wants…something from me, I’m losing my fucking shit. I don’t understand it.” He tensed, holding Connor’s look but preparing for derision.

 

But Connor didn’t laugh. “You know we’d never expect you to do that.”

 

“But you asked.”

 

“No, T. I told you about it. That’s all. Like I said then, it was your call to make. Why’s it got you so messed up?”

 

Trick shook his head. “I can’t figure it out. It’s hard to think about it without spiraling, so I keep dropping it. It’s not about fucking her. I know that much. I don’t want to, but I’m not losing my shit because a hot chick wants in my jeans.”

 

Connor laughed. “I know that, bro.” He sat up and leaned his elbows on his knees. “She freaks me out, too. I think she freaks everybody out. Maybe not my dad. But everybody else. You can see it at the table: the way J.R. throws a tantrum every time she comes up, the way everybody’s eyes drop away. I respect the fuck out of her, but she’s scary as hell. But she’s not paying any of us any kind of extra attention. To the rest of us, she’s La Zorra. A drug lord. The Queen. To you, though, she’s all that
and
a hot chick who wants in your jeans. I wonder what La Zorra scorned would be like. That’s a lot of power for one angry woman to wield.”

 

Trick swallowed and clenched his fists. Connor was getting close to it, and Trick discovered he was still not ready to go there. He didn’t respond; he was afraid his voice would shake if he tried.

 

Connor went on. “I haven’t been around this week, so I only got a hit off this before we went into the Keep, and it’s not something that’s coming to the table, I hope. But it’s about you, so: Dora talked to Dad at the park. She had a lot of questions. She passed it off as general interest in the club, but she kept coming back to you. And she had questions about your lady, too. Enough to get Dad’s bells ringing.”

 

“She talked to me, too. Right before I left. I told her that I was with Juliana. The words she said weren’t bad, but she was pissed. She all but threatened to take my grandpa’s house back.”

 

Connor frowned. “She threatened that?”

 

“No. She…she asked if he was happy to be back home.” Connor cocked his head again, lifting a brow. That sounded lame to Trick, too. “It
was
a threat. The way she said it, or something.” He tried to recall that conversation, but the memory was still muddied by the anxiety that overlaid it. Now, though, he doubted his conviction that Dora had meant the question to be a threat.

 

Connor took a deep breath and sighed it away. “Okay. Let’s take a step back. A lot of shit has gone down over the past few years. Dora’s ruthless, but she’s not bloodthirsty. She does what she does because she has to, and she goes as far as she has to, however far that is, but she doesn’t do it for fun. She doesn’t do it for spite. She gets retribution, not revenge.”

 

“You think she’s still like that? Look what she did to Ferguson.”

 

“That was retribution. Ferguson was on the front trying to take her down. And we know ourselves that he’s a two-faced bastard. I’ve got no sympathy for him.”

 

“She’s got too much power, Con. Hooj says powerful people all start to believe their own legends. I think she’s already passed that point. I guess…I guess the trigger for me is being the fulcrum between her and the club. She gets her way, or she gets revenge—call it retribution if you want, but it comes down to people who get in her way pay. I don’t want the club’s welfare resting on where I do or do not put my dick.”

 

As he said it, comprehension opened wide in his mind. That
was
the trigger. That was it. He wasn’t freaking out that Dora Vega wanted to fuck him. He was freaking out that La Zorra did. Even more than that, he was freaking out that the entire charter could be resting on this one question. If La Zorra turned on them because he wouldn’t fuck Dora—Jesus Christ, his gorge rose at the mere thought. Too much pressure. Too much fucking pressure.

 

Too much.

 

“Shit,” he muttered and clutched his hands around the arms of the chair. “Shit.”

 

“What—now?” Trick heard Connor’s question, but he was already struggling too hard to hold back the wave of panic. Jesus motherfucking Christ, this had to stop.

 

And then Connor was standing in front of Trick’s chair. His friend grabbed his kutte in both big hands and yanked him forward. “Keep it together, T. It’s okay.”

 

Trick shoved him away and fell forward, puking Jack Daniels all over the gleaming showroom floor. While he hovered over his spew on all fours, gasping, desperately grasping at threads of reality in his mind, his hair was pulled back.

 

“I swear to Christ, I will
end
you if you tell another soul, in this life or the next, that I held your hair while you puked,” Connor growled.

 

Trick laughed, and just like that, his head began to settle, and he was back in the driver’s seat. “Our secret. I’m sorry.” He sat on the floor, out of the splash zone, and Connor sat next to him and put his arm around him.

 

“Don’t be sorry that your fucked up life fucked you up, my brother. Be sorry that you’re a stupid jackass who didn’t ask for help he needed. We stand with each other, right? You and me especially. I got your back. Fuck you for not remembering that.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

 

 

Juliana crouched at one of the long legal file cabinets that dominated a wall of her small office, pulling a file for a case Emily had a meeting about the next morning. The day was almost over—this part of the day, anyway. She had class tonight, so she and Lucie wouldn’t be home until nearly ten.

 

At a knock on her door, she looked over her shoulder and saw Andy Dubrov wave at her through the glass.

 

She frowned at first—the Dubrovs’ case was over; they’d won their appeal and had permanent resident status—and then quickly erased that look, replacing it with a smile. She stood and waved Andy in, and he opened her door.

 

Tall and very blond, Andy had the kind of face that broadcast what a nice guy he was. Even through all the stress and trauma of his parents’ near-deportation, he nearly always had a smile.

 

His story was not much different from hers, though it had a happier outcome: the only child of undocumented parents, he was born in the US. His parents had lived in the country for nearly thirty years before they’d been outed as illegal. He was older than she had been when she lost her parents. He was twenty-seven.

 

“Hi, Juliana. Sorry to bother you.”

 

“It’s no bother, Andy. Is everything okay? Did something happen with your parents?”

 

“Nothing bad, no. They’re in the lobby. Pop was afraid to come back because we don’t have an appointment, and Emily intimidates him—don’t say I told you that.”

 

Juliana laughed. “She has that effect on most people. She’s in court today, though, I’m sorry.”

 

“That’s best case, I think. They come bearing gifts, but Pop will be relieved that he can just leave Emily’s. They’d both like to see you, though. We’ve got something to show you.”

 

Curious, Juliana nodded. “Well, sure. Bring them back.”

 

Andy stepped out. When he came back in, he was leading his father and mother. They were a physically mismatched couple: Mr. Dubrov was tall like his son, well over six feet, and rotund. He had a thick head of white hair. He’d worn the exact same suit every time Juliana had ever seen him—a sedate navy, beginning to fray at the edges. He had two neckties: a grey and white stripe and a solid red. Always worn with a white oxford-cloth shirt. Today, he wore the red tie and held a canvas grocery sack in one fist.

BOOK: Knife & Flesh (The Night Horde SoCal Book 4)
4.86Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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