Knife & Flesh (The Night Horde SoCal Book 4) (38 page)

“Now, gentlemen, I’d like to speak to Mr. Stavros alone. Luis, Mattias, please show our guests to the other room.”

Connor turned to him, his brows up in a question, but Trick nodded. It didn’t matter. His stomach leaden, Trick watched his brothers and Dora’s lieutenants leave the room.

When they were alone, she chewed the last olive from the spear, swallowed, and then asked, “Are you sure you don’t want a stronger drink than water?”

“I’m sure. Thanks.”

She nodded and poured herself another martini, plucking a new spear of olives from a small bowl of them. “Thank you for indulging me by joining your officers in this meeting.”

“You got me out of there. I owe you.”

Sipping at her new drink, she regarded him with clear brown eyes. “What do you think you owe me?”

He swallowed and sighed. “Whatever you think I do.”

She was quiet for a moment, studying him. “The woman at Connor’s wedding? She is still yours?”

“No.” The knife of loss sank more deeply into his chest. He felt like Judas, but it was true. Juliana wasn’t his.

Dora nodded. “I believe you know I…admire you.”

He didn’t respond. Fuck.

“Do you admire me as well?”

Now, for the first time, Trick really met her gaze. He should have said yes—it was what she wanted to hear, and if he was here to give her what she wanted, then he should have said yes. But the word wouldn’t come. “I—not in the same way. No.”

She set her glass down, and Trick took a deep breath.

“Then why would you agree to such a thing? You think you owe me that much? Or is it because you fear what I would do if you rejected me?”

Again, Trick was quiet, but this time because he truly had no words to say. She had surprised him.

“I find you admirable not because you are handsome, but because you are forthright and thoughtful. I watch you and see you thinking. But you disappoint me now. And insult me. You think I would abase myself to force myself on a man who doesn’t want me, simply because I have the power to do so? You think I would put all I have worked for at risk over a romantic rejection?”

“I-I’m sorry.” He cleared his throat and sought a way to explain. “You are powerful. And you’ve taken terrible revenge before.”

“Ah, yes. I’m bloodthirsty and vicious. I am La Zorra. Do you know what that word means?”

He did, in all of its connotations. He spoke the safest: “The Fox.”

“A female fox. In English, a female fox is a vixen, yes? Which has the meaning of a promiscuous, conniving woman. In Spanish, the word has similar meanings, even more. It’s deeply offensive. My enemies named me that, trying to dismiss me, thinking they could take my power away by calling me a whore. They were wrong. I took the name from them and wear it proudly. I made it mean what I wanted it to mean. I am more than my sex, Trick. I am a great deal more than that. I don’t take revenge. I exact payment. There is no emotion in the things I do. To be personally offended is to allow someone else to take strength from me. Your lack of admiration for me is disappointing, but nothing more.”

He thought about Juliana’s assertion that fear gave away one’s power. That idea wasn’t much different from what Dora had just said. “Dora, I apologize. I’m ashamed.” He
was
ashamed, and it was the first true emotion, clear of the taint of the past, he’d felt in weeks—months, now. He felt almost invigorated by that clarity of feeling.

“Yes. I accept your apology. I have gone far because men can’t see me without dismissing me as a woman, believing I am ruled by my emotions, and perhaps even the moon. Even now they underestimate me. I am used to it, and I use it. This is not why I wanted to talk to you alone, however.”

“No?”

“No. I feel I owe
you
. Your ordeal was a consequence of work you did for me. I owed it to you to do what I could to free you, and I owe you a better explanation. I’ll ask for your discretion regarding what I tell you now—I would rather you not share it with your club, but I understand that you will, and I understand why. I’m not prepared to lay bare my plans, but I want you to know that my plans are long-term and far-reaching. I have powerful allies. Very powerful. Politically powerful. Not all agencies have fancy badges and seals imbedded in marble floors. And not all agencies work toward the same purpose.”

Trick felt his eyes bulge. “Agencies? Government agencies? You’re working with the government—ours?”

She shook her head, not denying the truth of his question, but refusing to answer. “I say only that I have allies everywhere. People who share my vision. I know that you are leaving the outlaw life, and I respect that. But I owe you this assurance: you have my eternal respect for remaining stalwart, and you have my gratitude. I learned things in my quest to find and free you, and that information will be helpful to me.”

After a pause, during which Trick was quiet, sorting through his shock at all she’d said, Dora added, “I do have one concern. Mark Stiles.”

A chill coiled around the base of Trick’s skull. If she knew about Stiles, then it wasn’t only Trick she’d dug into during her quest. He realized that she probably knew everything about Juliana and Lucie, too. “What about him?”

“He is a variable I’m not comfortable with. He is situated to cause you trouble. You feared that a spurned woman would be a threat, but I
know
that an emasculated man is one. That trouble could ripple in inconvenient ways. I don’t understand why the threat hasn’t been dealt with.”

“It has been. He’s been neutralized.”

She shook her head. “There are only two ways to neutralize a threat: eradicate it or assimilate it.”

“He has a little girl. She loves him. I love her. I don’t want her hurt.”

“Your concerns have been noted. In any event, neither the decision nor the responsibility is yours.”

“Dora…” He stopped, not sure why he was fighting for Mark Stiles’ life.

She stood and held out her hand. Understanding that their meeting was over, Trick stood and wrapped his hand around hers.

Smiling, she shook his hand briskly. “I will say my goodbyes to you with this last thought: La Zorra is not a drug lord. She is a warlord.”

~oOo~

Riding home in formation with his brothers, Trick let his mind roam free. It was safe; riding always settled his head. He could lay his thoughts out flat before him, like an array of cards for a game of Solitaire, and contemplate them one at a time. If he could stay on his bike forever, he might keep hold of some piece of self and sanity.

He believed Dora completely; he had no reason not to. To his knowledge, she had not once lied or double-dealt the Horde. His shame at expecting her to be some caricature of a scorned woman had cleared out a lot of trash from that corner of his head. Knowing that
something
had come out of his ordeal helped, too. As horrific as those weeks had been, he’d been spun to come out of it and be told that it had all evaporated, that there was no record that it had ever happened. Those weeks had broken him, body, mind, and soul, and to know that it was insignificant—maybe that was the worst thing of all.

But it had not been insignificant. It had mattered, more than merely to him.

He was no longer an outlaw; no more deaths to tarnish his already dark soul. He had not betrayed his brothers, and he had not made them subject to La Zorra’s scorned feelings.

He wasn’t sure what she had in mind for Stiles, but Dora had absolved him of any further part in the decision or the outcome, and he was willing to accept that absolution. He felt steady there.

He could face forward and be clear.

When he and his brothers pulled into the lot at the clubhouse, Trick felt, for the first time since the happiness he’d briefly had before, that the future could hold something for him.

He’d thought that all the good in his life had been destroyed, but he’d been wrong.

Now, he had to find the strength to reclaim the most important thing, the first pure happiness he’d ever known in his life. If he could. He’d spurned Juliana. He’d abandoned Lucie. They would both be right never even to look at him again.

How much would he push? How much could he?

Those were the questions in his mind when he dismounted and followed Hoosier, Bart, and Connor into the clubhouse.

And found Juliana sitting at the bar, drinking coffee, talking to Bibi.

She’d turned to the door as they’d come in, and when he met her eyes, he stopped in his tracks.

In her expression he read fear and reserve, and he didn’t know what to say, what he could say.

Bibi gave her shoulder a little push at the same time that Connor turned and hooked his hand around Trick’s neck. “Jesus fuck, T. Enough.” He pulled Trick forward.

Juliana spoke first. “You look better.”

He could only think of two things to say. They seemed like the most important things.

“I love you. I’m so sorry.”

He was still so thin, but he did look better. It was more than his healed face or his smoothed beard, or even his straight posture and squared shoulders. It was in his expression, which seemed calmer than she’d last seen—and not that forced calm he got when he was most upset.

His surprise at seeing her was clear, but he seemed calm. He looked better.

When Bibi had called to coax her here, she’d resisted. Three weeks had passed, and Trick had ignored her all that time. Her worry for him hadn’t abated, but she’d had to try to set him aside or go crazy. Not working, not going to school, with Lucie in preschool, she’d spent most of her time sewing. She’d almost made whole new wardrobes for the both of them.

And she’d still had time to continue her research into torture and PTSD. Her research appalled her, but it made her feel closer to Trick. And more hopeless that she’d ever be close to him again.

But it turned out that Bibi was not an easy woman to refuse. She’d shown up at the complex, Faith and her kids in tow, and now Faith was entertaining three kids in Juliana’s little apartment, and Juliana was here, face to face with Trick for the first time in weeks.

And he’d just told her loved her.

Bibi nudged her again. “Go on, honey.”

But she stood where she was. She’d come this far; he needed to take the few steps that remained between them. If he could do that, then maybe they could face the gulf between them together.

“I’m so sorry, Jules,” he said again. And then he came to her. He stopped just short of touching her. His blue eyes bored into hers, but he didn’t touch her. “Can I talk to you?”

Her eyes prickled, and she blinked away new tears. She’d never been afraid to cry, and in her life she’d had plenty of things worth crying over, but she’d wept more since the day Connor had taken her and Lucie from their apartment than perhaps in all the rest of her life combined.

He lifted his hand and, with his thumb, brushed a tear from her cheek.

She nodded and caught his hand. “Yes, you can talk to me. You always could.”

~oOo~

Trick led her back, down a dark hallway. Juliana had never been in the clubhouse before. She’d been vaguely afraid of it, but it had turned out to be like nothing so much as a big, sort of smelly mancave. Sitting at the bar with Bibi that evening, she’d wondered what it was she’d been afraid of. Had she thought they’d have weapons hanging on the walls and naked women in cages or something?

This part of the clubhouse, though, was a bit more ominous—a dark hall, lined with closed doors. But Trick had her hand in his, and she hadn’t thought that would ever happen again, so she wasn’t worried. He stopped at one, pulled out his keys, and unlocked the door.

Oh—it was just a bedroom. Tidy and plain. A stack of books on the dresser next to the bed told her that this was where he’d been living.

Releasing her hand, he turned and closed the door. “Have a seat.”

She looked around the room: only a straight-back chair for seating. Or the bed. After a second’s hesitation, she chose the bed.

He shrugged off his kutte and hung it from a hook on the door. He sat on the chair, pulling it close to the bed.

And then they just…sat there.

Juliana watched Trick play with his rings for a while. He wore them all again, but he hadn’t put his earrings back in—or, she assumed, his other remaining piercing.

Finally, when it seemed he wouldn’t speak, she said, “I thought you wanted to talk?”

He looked up, one side of his mouth lifted in a sheepish smile. His teeth had been fixed, too. “Sorry. I don’t know how to start. Are you okay? Lucie—she’s okay?”

“We’re both fine.” Juliana heard the chill in her voice; so did Trick—he dropped his eyes again. She hadn’t meant to sound cold, but she was confused and overrun with emotion. And afraid. “We miss you,” she added, more warmly.

“I’m sorry.”

Juliana reached out and grabbed his beard. She lifted his head and made him face her. “I know, Trick. Those two words can’t be the only thing you have to say. You asked if you could talk to me. You can. So talk.”