Fury’s Promise_A Motorcycle Club Romance_The Devil’s Kin MC Read online

  “Shit,” Butcher says. “No, Fury, I vetted him myself. He might be a bit dopey but he ain’t no mole.”

  “Hmm.” I shrug. “I trust you, Butch, you know that. But do me this favor. Don’t let him touch his phone. Don’t let him stop the car so he can take a quick piss. None of that shit. When did he learn about the location of the building?”

  “Just now, with you.”

  “You sure about that? He wasn’t at the Marine’s place with you?”

  “No, he wasn’t. I picked him up just before I got here, and we didn’t talk about the job.”

  “All right.” I nod shortly. “I know you don’t like this, Butch. If we’re going to war, we all ought to be on the same side and all that, and we are on the same side, but we’ve gotta be careful too. ’Cause if he is the mole and he gets word to Big Loco that we’re comin’ …”

  “Then it’s all over.” Butcher glances over my shoulder at Gloria. “I remember when Kaylee got bad pregnancy pains toward the end, real bad, the kind that make a lady think her baby is dying. I rushed her to the hospital and she got tested and then she just had to lie there in bed, waiting to hear if our baby was dead or alive. She looked exactly how your lady looks now, Fury, like she was in between worlds or somethin’. Purgatory, she called it. She said even hell’d be better than purgatory.”

  “Me, I’d take heaven.” I try for a smile. “All the beer and whisky a man could ask for, and no motherfuckers gunning for me.” The smile slips. “All right, enough chitchat. Let’s get moving.”

  I return to the car. Butcher’s right about Gloria. She looks at me the same way folks look at the doctor in hospitals, expecting news. “Do they know where he is?”

  “They do,” I say. “The Marine’s never once been wrong, so I’m pretty confident this is it.” I start the car and pull out of the old station, wait for Butcher to pass me, and then follow him. Gloria’s almost hyperventilating next to me, clutching onto her knees. “Think about what you’ll say to your—our, sorry, our—son. Think about how hard you’ll hug him. Think on good things, Gloria, ’cause if you have a panic attack I’m gonna have to pull this car over and calm you down, and that ain’t gonna be any good for the boy.”

  “No.” She closes her eyes, breathes slowly. “I’m not having a panic attack,” she says, in a tone that tells me she’s trying to convince herself as much as me. “I just—this all doesn’t seem real. None of it. I want to open my eyes and wake up in bed with Alexis calling me, asking if today is the day I finally introduce Jimmy to his father, for it all to go back to the way it was.”

  “If it did,” I say, “would you come?”

  “If I knew Jimmy was going to be taken while we were drinking shakes? Of course not.”

  “But if he wasn’t taken.”

  She looks at me, bites her lips, looks down at her feet. “I don’t know, Jack. Life was simpler …” She trails off.

  “Before,” I offer.

  “Yes. Life was simpler before.”

  Before me: before I brought this hellfire down on her head. “My dad used to say I poisoned everything I touched. Ever since I was a little kid, he said that. I remember one time he swiped me across the mouth with a frying pan that was still warm from bacon and told me it was my fault my mom never wanted to make love to him anymore, since I poisoned her—when I came out of her, I ruined it, he said.” I shiver. “Sorry, I never talk about that shit. I won’t mention it again.”

  She touches my elbow. “When this is over, you can tell me all about it. But right now you need to be hard. You need to be a machine, Jack. You need to be a man.”

  I feel the weight of this responsibility settle on my shoulders, tons of it driving me toward the earth, but I also feel the weight of it on my chest, where it crushes all my anxiety and second-guessing. If I have to be a man, that means I can’t think on past demons and ghouls of memory. I’ve got to look ahead, be tough, do what has to be done.

  I bring the car to a stop just down the street from the building, down a back alley. I get a text from Butcher, telling me that he’s on the other side, ready to approach the building when I am.

  “All right.” I turn to her. “You need to wait here. We’ll be just round the corner. You’ll hear the shooting, if there is any. And then I’ll bring our son back.”

  “I’m not waiting here.” She looks at me like I’m crazy. “Anything could happen.”

  I bite down on my knuckle, stopping myself from shouting at her. And then I go on as calmly as I’m able right now. “You shouldn’t even be here, Gloria, but fine, you’re here. Now you can make sure you don’t get in the way by fuckin’ waiting here!”

  “I’m not waiting here,” she says flatly. “I refuse.”

  “Are you still drunk?” I snap.

  “No. Not at all.”

  “Then what the fuck are you thinkin’? This isn’t some game. This is the real fuckin’ deal. You’re not an outlaw. You’re not a soldier. You’re not a cop. You’re not a hunter. You have no business being involved in this.”

  “But—” She hesitates. Her eyes are red. “I really don’t want to wait here, okay?”

  I let out a growl. Butcher texts me again. We going?

  “You go to the back of the building. All right? You leave the alley and you go right when I go left, and then you skirt around the electronics store and wait at the rear of the building. That’s all I can give you. Actually, fuck it. I’ll drive you round there now.” I don’t like the idea of her roaming the streets, alone and distraught, with a gun. “So you can still wait in the car, but you can see the building. All right?”

  “Okay.” She nods, her breathing relaxing a little. “I’ve got it.”

  I drive her around to the rear of the building. “Keep your head down,” I tell her. “And don’t leave the goddamn car.”

  She catches my wrist as I leave. “Thank you,” she whispers.

  I look at her for a moment, at her beautiful, tragic face. “Don’t thank me yet.”

  I meet Butcher at the front of the building, we nod to each other, and then he crouch-runs toward it with the Kid, both of them running around the edge toward the back exit. I head for the front, pistol in hand, taking calming breaths as I always do when my shooting needs to be one hundred percent efficient. I visualize the headshots. I see the deadly accuracy.

  Then I push open the old rickety door and walk into the building, listening for voices.

  I expect laughter, banter, something. But there’s only silence. I walk past old landlines and over shattered glass, through what used to be the daycare area but is now nothing but a large empty room, more cobwebs than I can count clinging to the ceiling. There are no bikers in this room, but a light comes from an office to the left. It might’ve been where the administrators lived when this place needed administrators.

  I creep toward it, gun raised, alert to every movement, every sound. When I get to the door, I place my ear against it.

  Breathing, but nothing else. Somebody—maybe several somebodies—is on the other side of that door.

  I ready myself, take a step back, and then kick through the door, ready for murder.

  And then I immediately lower my gun. The room is filled with Lady’s Death, about twenty of them crammed into the office, all of their guns pointed at me. Butcher and the Kid and Gloria are in the corner of the room, Lady’s Death clamping down on their mouths. And in the middle of the room, sitting behind a small desk made smaller by how huge he is—even bigger than me, than Butcher—sits Big Loco.

  My son stares up at me from his arms.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Gloria

  Big Loco is a giant, at least seven and a half feet, a Mexican man with slicked-back, graying hair. He’s wrinkled around the eyes and cheeks. He must be at least sixty, perhaps older. He doesn’t have any tattoos, which surprises me because all of his men do. He wears a suit and holds Jimmy with what could almost be called tenderness, if that wasn’t my baby in his arms, if that wasn�
��t my Jimmy!

  I was able to stay calm when I thought that Jack might save us, but when I see him drop his gun and all of Big Loco’s goons step forward, aiming their guns at him, I lose control. I throw myself against the men holding me, raking at their eyes, and then dive for Big Loco and Jimmy. Jimmy reaches out for me, wailing horribly, his voice cutting through me like a straight razor. And then Big Loco’s men wrestle me back, shoving me up against the wall.

  “If she doesn’t calm down,” Big Loco says, stroking Jimmy’s hair, “I will cut out her tongue.”

  “Gloria.” Jack walks over to me, hands raised. He leans down so that his eyes meet mine. “You have to stop this. It won’t help anything. It’ll only make it worse.”

  His voice comes to me from across an abyss, echoing somewhere even further away. But then I hear Big Loco’s words again, as though on a delay: Cut out her tongue. I don’t doubt that he’ll do it, either. He says it the same way people comment on the weather, a mere fact. I close my eyes and breathe, breathe, breathe. When I open them, I nod.

  “Thank you,” Jack whispers, glancing around the room. He and Butcher meet eyes, a silent message passing between them: We fucked up.

  “Why don’t we all sit down?” Big Loco says with a smile. “You and your lady; those other Devil’s Kin can stay standing. Come, don’t be shy. Don’t you want to be close to the boy? Isn’t that the point of this heroic mission?”

  The bikers shove me in the back, keep shoving me until I’m at Big Loco’s table. It takes all my self-control not to reach out and touch Jimmy, to stroke his cheek, to let him know that Mommy hasn’t abandoned him. Jack gives me a warning look: a look full of sorrow and pity, but a warning look nonetheless. They push me into the chair and stand behind me with their hands folded over their weapons, staring dead-eyed. I’ve no doubt that they would kill us, gladly.

  “Isn’t that better?” Big Loco says, and then he does something that causes worms to crawl over my skin. He kisses Jimmy on the top of the head. The mere act is sick enough in itself, but what’s just as sick is the actual tenderness in the action. There really is some softness there. Like he cares about him. “We wouldn’t want the little guy to get upset now, would we?”

  “Let me hold him,” I whisper. “Just let me hold him—sir.” I put as much sincerity into my voice as I can. “Just for a little while. He’s my baby.”

  “My heart goes out to you, it really does,” he says, nodding slowly. “But if I let you hold this little guy, you won’t want to let him go. That could lead to some dark places.” He speaks not at all like how I’d expect him to if I spotted him on the street. There’s no hint of a Mexican or Hispanic accent, and his voice is fluid, learned even, a voice which shouldn’t belong to a man named Big Loco. “It cannot be easy to see your tiny babe in my large arms, I am aware of that, but he is completely safe. I promise.”

  “If you hurt the lad …”

  Big Loco turns to Jack with a small smile. “I admire you, Fury, I always have. But now is not the time for threats.”

  “Let me swap with him.”

  The room erupts in laughter. Jack chafes as he realizes how that sounded. He closes his eyes for a moment and waits for the laughter to pass. “Take me as a hostage and give the lad back to Gloria.”

  “Ah.” Big Loco shakes his head. “You’re offering me something I already have. If I wanted you as a hostage, I have you. If I wanted to kill you, any man in here would do it without question. Torture … what’s to stop me? We have a man called the Knife, a very sick man, truth be told. He’s not here right now, but he’s nearby. If I were to summon him—” He shivers dramatically, all seven-plus feet of him, causing the chair to squeak. “You have no bargaining power, Fury, none at all. So why don’t we just skip that part?”

  “What are we doing here then?” he asks. “That was a smart play, I’ll give you that. You knew we’d track you, probably knew how, I reckon, so you set yourself up and waited for us. I would’ve done the same. The only thing I can’t figure out is why we’re still alive.”

  Big Loco looks at Jack with an expression that’s hard to discern. It’s like the way teachers looked at me after my parents died, pity but also impatience, like they wished it had never happened so this extra burden wasn’t added to their job. “There is lots you don’t know, Jack,” he says. “I could tell you now—all of it—and I doubt you’d believe me. You’d call me a liar. You’d rage, rage, rage …” Dylan Thomas, I reflect with shock: this psychopathic murder kidnapper is quoting Dylan Thomas. “But now is not the time. It may never be the time.”

  “What are you talking about?” Jack tries to stand up, but immediately several men aim several guns. He drops back into the seat. “Stop these goddamn riddles.”

  He tuts. “Must you swear in front of the boy? I don’t want him to grow up with an ugly vocabulary. I’ve worked very hard to make sure my way of speaking isn’t barbaric, and I want the same for him.”

  “That isn’t your decision to make,” I say. “You don’t get to decide if he swears or if he doesn’t!” I go on, voice rising. “He’s my son and I’ll make that decision.”

  “He’s your son in the sense that you carried him and you pushed him into the world,” he says, in the tone of voice of a man allowing a minor point: a quibble. “But he is not your son in the sense that he belongs to you. Not anymore.”

  “I don’t understand,” Jack says. “What the hell do you want him for if not to use as some sort of bargaining chip, to cause the club harm?”

  “When I was a boy, my parents—I was adopted, but they were and are my parents still—were very poor. I spent my childhood wishing I had the things the other boys had. When I was younger, it was toys. When I got older, it was cars and money to take girls out. But we were always dirt-poor. Here I was, in the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave, and we were poorer than some of my poor cousins back in Mexico. Not that there aren’t rich folk in Mexico, you understand, but the US of A has a particular brand of ludicrous wealth.

  “Then, when I got older and became Big Loco, I had all the money I could ever want. Do you know what I realized when I made my first million? It was not the money, or the things, I had longed for. All I really wanted was to get rid of that feeling in my belly, that feeling that I was less than everybody else, that there was something wrong with me. That I had been marked at birth.”

  “There is something wrong with you!” I spit, as he strokes Jimmy’s arm. “There is something very wrong with you!”

  He just shrugs. “Perhaps. But that’s not the point. The point is that it was the same with Samuel here. When I ordered my men to take him, you are right, Fury, it was to get at you. But when they brought him to me, everything changed.”

  “Samuel,” I mutter, bones going cold. “Samuel.”

  “My wife and I have been trying for a baby for a very, very long time. Years of trying and failing, of her becoming pregnant and then her body rejecting the child. It’s a process that would hurt any man, and it has hurt me greatly. My wife is in tears most nights. When I presented Samuel to her, though, the crying stopped. Her face lit up like it did the first time she found out she was pregnant and didn’t know that God would punish us. She loves little Samuel more than anything already.”

  “No,” I whisper, staring into Jimmy’s eyes. “Don’t listen to him, Jimmy. Don’t listen to this sick old man.”

  “So I do have a proposition for you, Jack, one that you may not like at first. But it really is what’s best for everybody.” He gives Jimmy his finger and, to my horror, Jimmy wraps both hands around it and looks up at him with an innocent smile. “I will order the Lady’s Death to back off the Devil’s Kin MC. We will not fight you or disturb your businesses as we have been doing. We will stop killing your men and burning your buildings. We will leave New Oak to you almost entirely, save for a few business dealings we must conclude. But after that, you will never see us again; we will leave you be. My price is this: you will never try and take Sa
muel away from us. You will leave him alone, to be raised in a loving home by an older woman whose time is running out. I know this will be painful,” he says, turning to me. “But you are young and full of life. You will have another child, and I will leave that child be. You will forget little Samuel in your love for your new child. All will be as it should be. That is my price.”

  “No,” Jack and I say at the same time.

  “No,” Jack repeats. “We refuse the deal. Give us the lad. Let’s go on fightin’, Loco, if you reckon you’ve got what it takes. But we ain’t takin’ that deal.”

  “Ah.” He walks his fingers across Jimmy’s head, making him giggle. “I should have been clearer. This is not a deal you can decide on, Fury. Calling it a deal is my attempt at affording you some respect. No, this is what’s happening. You should come to terms with it now so that things aren’t difficult later on. I really would hate to have to kill you both. You make such a nice couple.”