Strength & Courage (The Night Horde SoCal Book 1) (31 page)

“And he didn’t hurt you?”

Muse made a fist on her thigh, and Sid put her hand over it, trying to send him some more calm. “No,
Baa
. This had nothing to do with him.”

Her father turned to her mother. “Our daughter is a woman, not a girl. I have trust in her. So should you. And you should show respect. Is there pie?”

~oOo~

Somehow, despite that painful meal, they had been convinced to stay the night after all, and their plans for her birthday were still set. After Sid’s father had come to her aid, Davis had stepped in and agreed that pie was a good idea. And Claude had been quiet and hostess-pleasant the rest of the evening. Sid didn’t think anyone had ever called her out quite so plainly before, and at her own table. She doubted it had earned Muse the respect he’d demanded, but at least it had taken Claude off her stride.

Claude had claimed fatigue and gone up to the master suite about an hour after dessert. Then, things had gotten nearly friendly among the rest. Davis and Muse had even played a few rounds of pool in the games room while Sid and her father played backgammon, and Helena and Harrison played video games. With her mother’s derision put to rest, the night turned out okay.

Now, Sid was sitting in bed with her laptop on her lap, going through job openings. She had to figure out what else she could do. Her savings would give her a few months to look, but after that, she’d be tapped out, and there was no way on any plane of existence that she would be hitting up her mother for financial help. She and Davis had provided the down payment on her house. That was the last help Sid intended to take. Ever.

Muse had said he would take care of her, but she didn’t want that, either. She wanted them to take care of each other.

He came into the room now, fresh from a shower, dressed in his jeans, the plaid button-down shirt he’d worn for the day open and showing his fantastic chest. He dropped the backpack on an armchair near the balcony doors.

“That bathroom is as big as my whole fuckin’ house.” He sat on the bed, facing her, and reached out to rub his thumb lightly over her furrowed brow. “How you doin’, hon?”

She closed her laptop. There was enough going on this week; she didn’t need to add her stupid worries about jobs to the list. “I’m okay. I’m really sorry about all this.”

“You said it would suck. You weren’t wrong. But it turned out okay. Davis is alright. And your dad seems like a decent guy. Quiet, though.”

“He’s different when he’s more comfortable. He has trouble connecting with people, and he doesn’t really try anymore. And he doesn’t deal well when things aren’t done in the way he thinks is right. But he’s sweet.”

“He stood up for you. I like him.”

“Sorry about my mother.”

He grinned and turned to sit at her side, pulling her under his arm. “I don’t know what you mean. I think I won her right over.”

Sid laughed and hugged him. “I love you. I’ve never known anybody like you.”

“Likewise, hon. Likewise.”

They rested together like that, Muse sitting against the headboard in his jeans and open shirt, and Sid snuggled against his bare chest, for a few quiet minutes. His hand was on her arm, caressing her with long, light strokes from her shoulder to her wrist. She was wearing a camisole and flannel pajama bottoms. No bra.

The touch was soothing, but then, something changed in it. She wasn’t sure what. Maybe it was the way he was touching her; maybe it was his heartbeat or the tension in his muscles. Maybe it was the way his mouth moved in her hair as he kissed her head again and again.

Whatever it was, she knew without looking or touching that he was hard inside his jeans, and that his touch, whether it had intention or not, had desire.

She sat up.

“I can’t, Muse.”

“I know, hon. I’m not pushing. Can’t help the way I want you, though.” He reached out and picked up her hand. “Is there anything I can do?”

“No. I just need time to get my head clear about it. I’m thinking about it too much right now.”

Muse looked confused. “But he didn’t…did he?” A flash of pain went through his eyes.

“No. It was close, but no. It didn’t get that far.” And then she made a decision. She wasn’t sure if it was a right thing to do or not, and she wasn’t sure why it suddenly seemed important, but she said, “I want to show you something.”

She lifted her camisole.

He hadn’t seen her undressed since the morning of the attack. She had been careful to keep that away from him. But now, she wanted him to have some kind of sense about the intimate violation she’d endured, even if she’d held Green off from penetrating her, and she thought seeing her chest might give him an idea. Sexual assault was outside his experience, his context. He was thinking of her as if she’d been beaten, and she had. But it was more than that. Maybe he needed something to make that more clear.

Her whole left breast was purple and black, her nipple the angry red of a blood blister. Maybe that would be real enough.

She was right. He leapt off the bed. “Christ, Sid!” He began to pace. “Motherfucker!” He turned back to her, looking frantic. She’d put her top down, but he stared at her as if he could still see it. Then he came and knelt at the side of the bed, picking up her hands and holding them to his face. “I’m so goddamn sorry.”

She pulled a hand free and combed her fingers through his hair. “Muse. It’s not your fault, and I’m as okay as I was before I showed you that. I’ll be okay.” She knew she would. She could feel herself overcoming the experience already. It was different from what had happened to her in college, and not just because Green hadn’t finished. In college, there had been shame and guilt, too. For a long time, she’d held herself responsible. She’d been alone with the memory, the knowledge. And, eventually, that sense of aloneness had forced her to surmount the trauma on her own.

But this time, even though she felt she’d made some really stupid mistakes and had definitely overestimated her own abilities, she had fought for herself. She hadn’t let it happen to her. In the hours right afterward, when she could still feel his hands on her, she’d tried to blame herself. Muse hadn’t let her. And he’d been right. Having him there, and Bibi, and the whole Horde family, had not caused her shame. It had given her strength. Muse had been there and added his strength to hers, helped her get free, and then his family had been right behind him.

He believed that was what family meant. And now, sitting in the lush room that her mother had assigned to her in this opulent house, she understood that he was right. She wasn’t alone. She was strong. And she would be fine. This trauma wouldn’t linger even as long as the first had. She felt her mind kicking it to the curb already.

An idea occurred to her. “I’m giving myself until the bruising is gone to be okay. Then we’ll try. Okay?”

When he looked up, his eyes were wet. “As long as you need. You come to me when you’re ready. Christ, Sid. Christ.”

She leaned over and kissed his forehead. “Take your clothes off and come to bed. I want to sleep on your chest. It’s after midnight, so it’s my birthday. That means I get what I want.”

He did as she’d asked, and she settled back onto his strong chest and fell asleep to the rhythm of his steady heart.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Sid laid her head on Muse’s back, and he closed his eyes for a second and took a breath. She wasn’t the first woman he’d ever had on the back of his bike, but she was the first woman he’d been in love with, and riding with her made a whole new kind of freedom. After the days they’d just had, this ride home on 57 was just the cleansing they both needed.

Her family was something else. No wonder she’d been so wary of what she had with him. He was used to getting his way with women, but it wasn’t necessarily something he needed, not for its own sake. After seeing the complicated layers of control among her and her mother and father, he understood why she’d kept a guard at the door of her life. Everybody seemed to want to control her in some way.

Her mother was the most obvious—and infuriating—but her father did it, too. He hadn’t seen it so much at Thanksgiving dinner, but the next day, this day, Rajesh’s own needs for control had become obvious. There were only certain places he’d go, certain places he’d park—though he hadn’t been driving—certain tables at a restaurant he’d sit in. Even certain ways he’d walk along the sidewalk—no more than two abreast. He’d actually drop out of a conversation in mid sentence and step back if a third person came up. He expected Sid to conform to those quirks. He expected everyone to, but he insisted that Sid do so.

Sid seemed to take it mostly in stride, but Claude and Rajesh had done a muted tug-of-war all day. Muse felt bad for Sid. It was her goddamn birthday, and they’d followed her fractious family around an outdoor holiday arts and crafts thing and then had a prissy lunch at a prissy restaurant where the guy up front had tried to give Muse a tie to wear.

The guy had tried to insist. He’d failed.

As a gift, after they’d finished dessert, her mother had handed her a check. Sid had handed it back.

After that, the day, never very healthy, died. All in all, she was having a crappy birthday.

Muse took the next exit. He felt Sid sit up behind him and take notice, her arms tensing around his waist, but the Knuckle was loud, so she didn’t even try to ask why the change of plans.

Good. She’d get a surprise on her birthday, then.

~oOo~

He pulled up on the side of the PCH near a rough-looking bar across from the beach in Malibu. Bikes were lined up along the front of the bar and on both sides of the highway. Sid was going to get a taste of her first genuine biker bar.

They were far out of their way now, and it would be late before they’d be ready to hit the road again, but there was a motel nearby, cheap, by Malibu standards, but clean. He knew the chick who ran it. ‘Knew’ in the biblical sense, but Ivy was good people and harbored no delusions or grudges. She’d put them up tonight. Cliff was with Hoosier and Bibi, so they could be a little spontaneous.

He helped Sid off the bike and then dismounted and turned to her. She was taking off her helmet. “Where the hell are we? Besides Malibu, I mean.”

“You need a much better birthday, and I got distracted by all our shit lately and didn’t get you a present.” He took her helmet from her and locked them up.

Her hands on her hips, she looked at the modest building. The heavy beat of down-and-dirty blues pulsed in the chilly evening air. “This is my present?”

Grinning, he took her hand. “This place is famous, hon. And your present’s inside.”

He led her over the gravel lot and into the dusky dark of the bar.

It was loud and crowded, and the vibe was so diametrically different from the way they’d spent the last thirty or so hours that Muse laughed aloud. When Sid looked up at him, her smile was bright and wide, despite her damaged face. He bent down and kissed her, hard, and felt a heart-stopping rush when she looped her arms around his neck and kissed him back.

“This is how I celebrate,” he murmured in her ear before he set her back and took her hand again and headed for the bar.

Though there were a goodly number of looky-loos, the bar had a lot of regulars, too, and Muse knew them. He’d been a regular here before he’d gone Nomad, and he still dropped in as often as he could. They stopped frequently so Muse could greet old friends and introduce his old lady. In this bar, her face barely got a second look. They would assume it was as likely that Sid got hurt fighting as anything else. Bruises were no scandal here.

Yet every last one of these guys would have ripped Green apart if they’d known what he’d done. Even the men who might not be so gentle with their own old ladies would tear the parts off a man who went at another man’s woman.

It was a kind of honor Muse knew Sid wouldn’t fully understand, but it was still a kind of honor. These people were his people. Newport Beach? That was another fucking galaxy.

They got to the bar, and the bartender, a fat old guy nearly covered in ink, met him with a hand extended. “Muse! Brother!”

Muse grasped his hand and leaned in so he wouldn’t have to shout quite so loudly. “Igor. Been a minute.”

“Indeed it has. Jack?”

“Cuervo for me and the lady. Willie around?”

Igor poured the shots. “She is. In back.”

“She busy?”

“Always. But she’ll kick a fella to the curb for you. Head on back.”

Muse handed Sid her shot, and they both drank. “C’mon, hon.” He hooked his arm around her waist and led her through a door at the back of the bar.

Once the door was closed behind them, they could talk at a normal level. They were in a narrow, dark hallway. Sid stopped and tugged on his kutte. “What the fuck, Muse?”

“You’ll see in a minute. It’s good, I promise.” He hoped it was. He was pretty sure it was. Feeling pleased with himself and enjoying the furrows of confused irritation on her forehead, he couldn’t control his grin. They went down the hall, and he pushed open a dented black door.

His old friend was sitting on a stool, inking a smoking revolver into the upper arm of a muscular biker. “Hey, Willie.”

She lifted the machine from her customer’s arm and looked up. “Muse! Jesus hell, how ya been?”

“Good, darlin’. How ‘bout you?”

“Can’t complain. You want some work?”

“You got time? Me and my lady, both.”

Both women jerked their heads to him at the same time. Willie got a huge, gap-toothed grin. Sid simply looked stunned.

“Well goddamn. Muse got hooked. Goddamn.” She smiled at Sid. “Caught yourself a keeper, baby.” She looked around the guy she was working on. There were two men sitting in a makeshift waiting area. “Guys, hafta be another time. VIP just came in.”

The men groused but didn’t fuss much. It wasn’t wise to piss Wilma George off, and everybody knew it.

Sid was still gaping. Muse leaned down. “This okay? She did all my work. I know the place isn’t much, but she’s quality talent, and it’s clean like a hospital.”

“A tattoo is my birthday present?”

“
My
tattoo is your birthday present. If you’re not ready for one, I get it. I’m springing this on you.” Willie was covering with plastic the revolver she’d just finished. Muse watched Sid look around. “You ever been in a tattoo shop before?”

She shook her head, still looking dazed, and he brushed her cheek with the backs of his fingers. “It’s okay, hon. Like I said, you can just watch.”

“You’re getting a tattoo for my birthday.”

“I am. I’m getting your ink. I told you I’d wear your name. Where d’you want it?”

And finally, all the pieces fell into place. He could see it happen, understanding dawning over her face. She grinned. “Holy shit. That’s amazing!”

“Got a place in mind?”

Still smiling, she pushed her hand under his kutte and rubbed his chest, just over his heart. He picked up her hand and kissed it.

“That’s where I was thinking, too. If it’s okay, I’ll get your whole name. Not sure how it’d be to have just ‘Sid’ inked on my chest. Could be some confusion.” Fuck, if he landed back inside at some point, confusion would not be the word.

“No, that’s great. That’s…amazing. I already said that. I can’t think words right now.”

He liked that, that he’d knocked her back like this. He had another idea, too. “Do you know how to say ‘love’ in whatever they speak in Nepal? I want that under your name.”

“They speak Nepali.” Her voice broke, and he saw that her eyes were blurry. “It’s
māyā garchu
. But it’s a different alphabet. It’s in
Devanāgarī
, and I’m not exactly sure how to write it.”

“I can handle that.” Willie had been settling up with her previous client. Now she turned to a big Mac desktop. She went online and did some searching. “I want to be sure I don’t end up writing ‘dickwad’ on you or something, so gimme a minute. C’mon on over, baby. See if you see what’s right.”

Sid went to Willie’s side, and they looked together. Muse busied himself shedding his kutte, hoodie, and beater.

“That’s it.”

“Okay.” Willie blew up an image of elaborate, alien script on the screen. “That’s nice. No sweat.”

As Willie sterilized her work area, she looked over at Sid. “How ‘bout you, baby? You putting his mark on you, too?”

Sid looked at Muse. He smiled. If she needed to wait, he’d understand. He’d be disappointed, but he’d understand. Her life had taken some big spills this past week. It was a risk, he supposed, taking ink without getting her commitment to do the same right now, but he didn’t feel exposed at all.

And he had no reason to. She smiled back. “Absolutely.”

~oOo~

Muse watched Nolan struggle for a few seconds, then walked over and grabbed him by the top of his vest, pulling him close and ripping open the Velcro tabs. He reseated them and got the vest straight on his shoulders. “You gotta wear it as tight as you can. You don’t want any space between you and the Kevlar. This is your first time in the fire, huh?”

The kid gave him a sharp, defensive look, but when Muse just cocked an eyebrow, he nodded. “First time I might take fire, yeah.”

He was a pretty big guy, lean but tall, and he looked strong, but he was really fucking young. Muse had just been prospecting at that age, and Nolan was more than two years into a patch. Every time Muse took a look at him, he felt shock about that. But the Missouri Horde was legit. The danger they faced was probably minimal—as had been the case for SoCal, too. But not anymore. He wondered if Showdown had made a mistake letting this kid get his first taste of heat facing off against a cartel.

“But you shoot? You have skill?”

In answer, Nolan picked up an assault rifle. “Yeah, I know my way around.”

With a loan from Bart and Riley, the Horde was well stocked for the outlaw life now: guns, ammunition, Kevlar, explosives. And today, they would make their first skirmish, answering the challenge from the Castillos by taking out their shipment.

It was a big move. But they were backed now by a big player: Isidora Vega, La Zorra. Hoosier, Bart, Connor, and Sherlock had met with her and come to terms, and now they were working with her new version of the Águilas cartel. Working with her, or for her. Muse didn’t understand it all, but he didn’t need to. He was a soldier. He did what he was told.

This move had been Hoosier’s idea, though. Before La Zorra pushed the Castillos back from her border, Hoosier wanted the chance to answer for their ‘message’ at the shop. He wanted to make sure they understood that the Horde was back, and they were not simply hiding under La Zorra’s skirts.

Their take of this job would easily be what the club made in four months of their straight work. Muse’s work for Hollywood could now be just enough for cover. And frankly, he’d rather face AK fire than deal with that crowd.