Knife & Flesh (The Night Horde SoCal Book 4) (31 page)

Keeping his voice calm and unthreatening, he answered, “I’m sorry.”

As if the event had been choreographed, one of the other three Feds came at Trick from the side and drove him chest-first into the reception desk, knocking the wind out of him. His head was shoved hard to the desk and he was roughly frisked, then his arms were yanked back. Handcuffs closed, brutally tight, around his wrists, over the ink of his shackles, and then he was dragged backwards. No one had announced charges or suspicions; no one had read him his rights.

The three other Feds had drawn on the Horde, whose hands were up. As the lead Fed pushed Trick toward the front door of the showroom, Hoosier yelled, “What the fuck? What are the … the…”

“CHARGES!” Connor’s voice erupted, filling in his father’s sentence. “Jesus fuck!”

None of the Feds answered.

~oOo~

He had demanded his lawyer immediately and then sealed his mouth shut. No one even bothered with the pretense of interrogation. But they didn’t put him in a cell, not at first. They left him sitting on a metal chair, chained hand and foot to a metal desk, in a bare room, for hours. Trick had a great deal of experience in remaining still for hours, however. So he sat and stayed in soldier mode. He focused on analyzing and understanding the situation.

No one had spoken to him at all, except to make demands about where to go and what to do. He had not been charged; nothing more at all had been said about why he was here. They’d said they had questions about last August, but none had been asked. Since they had not begun any interrogation, they had not read him his rights.

But Trick suspected that Miranda did not apply to him.

His only experience in a situation like this had been after he’d beaten his CO, and that had not been remotely normal. So he had nothing to go on but the stories of his brothers.

And his reading. He read widely and deeply, and he had read a lot on American ‘justice’ and the penal system. As the hours ticked by and his body finally began to clamor against its stillness loudly enough that he couldn’t ignore it anymore, Trick understood that they were holding him as a suspected terrorist.

Which meant that he was entirely, completely, wholly fucked.

“They look like little boats!”

“You’re right, they do. Scoot,
mija
. Oven’s hot.” When Lucie had stepped far enough away, Juliana opened the oven door and slid in the tray of stuffed eggplant. “Okay, I need to do chopping for salad, so you need to leave the kitchen. You can set the table.”

“Okay.” Lucie went to the table and started laying out place settings from the stack of silverware and dishes Juliana had left out for her. “Three plates because we’re a family. One-two-three. Is Trick my step-papi like Nikki is my step-mami?”

Juliana stopped in the act of chopping scallions and turned to her daughter. She and Trick had been serious now for about two months, and he’d been staying overnight with them, almost every night, for a while. Lucie had accepted it without any comment at all. Until now.

“Well, Papi and Nikki are married. Trick and I aren’t married.”

“Why not? He sleeps with you in bed like Nikki sleeps with Papi.” She folded a napkin into a triangle and set it next to a plate. “And he loves us and we love him.”

“Yes, that’s true.”

“I want to marry him.”

How did one explain love and relationships to a five-year-old? “If we got married, it would be me who marries him, Lulu. Little girls don’t get married.”

“Why not? I live here, too.”

“Marriage is a grownup thing. Marriage love is a little bit different from family love.”

“Because married people hug naked?”

Oh good lord. Juliana’s heart skipped weakly as she tried to give an answer. “That’s one thing married people do, yes. But that isn’t what marriage is.”

“Nikki said being married means loving somebody and wanting to be with them forever. Is that why you didn’t marry Papi, because you didn’t want to be with him forever?”

Juliana focused on chopping for a few seconds while she tried to get some thoughts in order. “You’re full of questions tonight,
mija
.”

Arranging the silverware neatly at the last place, Lucie nodded. “Yes. I’m curious and asking questions is how we learn.”

Before she could formulate a response, the gate console buzzed. Juliana set the knife on the cutting board and pushed the board to the back of the counter, then went to the console and answered. “Yes?”

There was no one she expected, so she expected it to be Mark, causing some new kind of trouble. He’d been civil and under control for the past few weeks, and she’d just started to believe that Trick had, in fact, handled her problem.

But it wasn’t Mark. Connor’s gruff voice came through the speaker. “Hey, it’s Connor. Buzz me in.”

Connor worked at the shop with Trick. If he was here and Trick was not, something had happened to Trick. The subtly sick worry in her belly bloomed into fear. “What’s wrong?”

“Buzz me in, Juliana.” His tone brooked no refusal.

She did as she was told and then opened the front door and stepped onto the walkway. Lucie tried to come with her, but she pushed her daughter back. “No,
mija
.”

“But, Mami!”

“No! Stay inside!”

Her eyes flared at Juliana’s sharp tone, but she stepped back into the apartment.

Connor, Demon, and Sherlock, the Horde other than Trick that she knew best, all headed to her, with Connor in the lead. As they neared her, she asked again, “What’s wrong? Is he hurt?”

Taking her elbow in his huge hand, Connor said, “Let’s go inside.”

He had her so firmly that she didn’t have a choice, so they went inside.

“Hi, Connor!” Lucie grinned and trotted up to him. He crouched down to her level.

“Hey, Lucie-goose. Can you do me a great big favor and go play in your room for a few minutes?”

“Okay, do you have to do grownup talk?”

“Yes, we do. Just a little bit.”

“Okay, but dinner’s almost ready, so don’t take too long. It’s stuffed eggplant and salad. If you ask Mami, maybe everybody can stay and we can have a party, but we can’t eat until Trick gets home.” With that, she turned and went to her room.

Juliana had stood quietly through that, her arms wrapped around her body. “He’s hurt,” she said, when Lucie was in her room.

“No. He was arrested.”

Her knees weakened with relief at first. Arrested was much better than hurt or dead. “Why?” She laughed bitterly and waved her hand. “Never mind. You won’t tell me.”

A spasm of irritation crossed Connor’s face and was gone. “No. But it’s trouble. I need you and your girl to pack a bag—enough for a week—and come with us. Right now.”

“What?” Juliana didn’t understand. “I have dinner in the oven.” It was a dumb thing to say, but her brain wasn’t firing on all its cylinders just now. From the corner of her eye, she saw Sherlock cross into her kitchen. She watched as he opened the oven and took out the unfinished eggplant, using a dishtowel as a potholder. “Now you don’t,” he called as he closed the oven door and turned off the heat.

“Juliana, listen,” Connor said, giving her arm, trapped again in his grip, a shake. “This is not the time for questions. This is the time to do what I say. You’re not safe. There are people who will be very unhappy that Trick’s been caught up. Unhappy enough to hurt him, and nothing would hurt him as much as something happening to you. So we’re taking you and Lucie to Bart and Riley’s, and you are going to stay there until it’s safe.”

“I…can’t. I have work. School. Lucie has school. And she has a father she’s supposed to see this weekend. I can’t go into hiding. I have a
life
.”

This time, Connor shook her arm so hard he hurt her, and she cried out. She knew that Connor was Trick’s best friend, but at this moment, he scared her. Badly.

“Con.” That one syllable was all Demon said.

Dropping her arm, Connor took a deep breath. “Please. Do as I say. We’re trying to keep you safe. We’ll handle Lucie’s father. And your job. Just do as I say.”

Her head spinning much too fast for sense to jump on board, Juliana looked hard into Connor’s eyes, and then Demon’s. And then Sherlock’s.

Sherlock smiled a little and nodded, sending encouragement. “It’s important, sweetheart.”

What choice did she have? Like she was taking a step off a high cliff and falling into a whole new life, she nodded. “O-okay. Okay. I need like fifteen minutes.”

Connor turned to Demon and then Sherlock. “You guys take watch outside.” They both made the same curt nod and went out, closing the door behind them. Then Connor returned his agitated attention to her. “Ten minutes. Take what you need for a week. Only what you need.”

She nodded and went back, deciding that she would tell her daughter that they were having a special treat and getting to stay with Bart and Riley and Lexi and Ian and Deck for a sleepover.

~oOo~

“Did she go down okay?”

Juliana closed the door to the guestroom she’d put Lucie to bed in and turned to answer Riley’s question. “Yes. She’s excited, so it took a couple of extra chapters, but she’s out now.”

The Elstads had so many rooms that they actually had two guest rooms decorated for children and stocked with toys and books. In the rush to leave their apartment, Juliana had forgotten to pack any books for Lucie, but they’d found some in the room that she liked.

“Good.” Riley Chase put her arm around Juliana’s waist. “That’s everybody, then. Come on. I think we need to be drinking tonight.”

“Oh, no. Thank you, but no. I don’t like to drink when Lucie’s with me.”

“Marta is here. She’ll be our designated adult for the night. This is a time for drinking. Come on. Veda showed up, so we’ve got everybody but Pilar, and she’s working tonight.”

“Why…I don’t understand why everybody’s here.”

Riley squeezed her waist. “Let’s go downstairs. The guys won’t tell you much, but the women have some things to say. We’re all here for you.”

They went down the sweeping staircase, and Riley led her into the living room. There Bibi, Faith, Sid, and Veda sat. Most of the them, she’d met at the wedding and hadn’t really seen since. But they’d all been friendly and kind to her, and they smiled at her now as she followed Riley in.

Faith stood up and came to her, arms out, and Juliana let herself be hugged. “It’s going to be okay. Come sit.” Now Faith and Riley both led her to sit on one of the sofas in the large room.

What had struck her first and foremost about the Elstads’ house was its sense of ease. Though it was enormous, and obviously full of expensive things, there was no sense that those things were only for show. She would have expected a celebrity mansion to look like it belonged in a magazine, but this house was just a nice house. It got lived in, and its contents got used. She felt more comfortable because of that.

Connor’s mother, Bibi, spoke first. Juliana had sat next to her, and she reached out a lightly scarred and heavily bejeweled hand and gave her hand a squeeze. “I know this is hard, honey. I’m sure you have questions. Some things we know and can say. Some things we can’t. But those are just details, and they’re not important to the big questions. We can help with the big questions.”

Riley had gone over to a bar at the side of the room. Now she came back with a tray holding a bottle of tequila and six shot glasses. When she set the tray on a low table amidst the sofas and chairs they all sat on, Sid cleared her throat.

“Um…I’m going to pass on the tequila tonight.”

Bibi’s attention spun quickly from Juliana to Sid. “What?”

Sid smiled and waved a hand dismissively. “Just not in the mood tonight. Carry on without me.”

“Sidonie, you’re always in the mood for tequila.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Bibi. You make me sound like a drunk.”

“She’s right, Sid,” Riley offered, handing a full shot glass to Bibi. “You’re usually first to the bottle.”

“Guys, fuck off!”

“Come to think of it,” Faith chimed in, “I don’t remember you drinking at the wedding, either.”

Bibi leaned forward, her full glass steady in her hand. She got a look in her eyes that, even in profile, made Juliana feel vaguely uncomfortable. Like she had turned on X-ray vision or something. “Young lady, did Muse knock you up?”

At the question, Sid blushed and dropped her eyes.

Bibi tossed back her shot. “Well, holy shit. How far? And why you hidin’ it?”

“Thirteen weeks. And we’re just…waiting. I’ve spotted a couple of times, ended up in the ER. Everything’s okay so far. We just wanted not to say anything until I started doing better.”

“Jesus, baby. Well, that explains Muse lately.”

Sid laughed. “Yeah, he’s freaking out. He’s worried about me, and the baby, and that he’s too old to be a father. And he’s terrified he’s going to be a father like his father—but Beebs, don’t tell him that I told you that, okay?”

“Honey, I didn’t need you to tell me that Muse would be worried. But I’ll leave it be.”