8. Take the Risk
8
TAKE THE RISK
Hugger
The next morning, Hugger stood on the balcony sipping coffee he made and staring straight at the assholes who were back enjoying a Saturday morning latte at the coffee spot in the courtyard.
He heard the door slide open and twisted to see Diana , her hair in a messy knot at her crown, some loose drawstring shorts hanging on at her hips, and a cropped babydoll tee tight at her tits that shared she was a fan of the Diamondbacks . It was the first time he’d seen her with no makeup.
She was just as gorgeous as she was with it on.
Christ .
It was like she was trying to torture him.
“ You’re awake,” she noted.
He nodded and tipped his head to the courtyard. “ We got company.”
She did an annoyed side-eye and stuck her tongue out like she was gagging.
Fuck him, her cute was as hot as her hot.
Totally torturing him.
“ Gotta use the can,” he told her. “ You can stay out here, but don’t get anywhere where they can lay eyes on you.”
“ You didn’t already—?” she began.
“ You said not to invade her space. And I agree. She needs her space.”
Soft hit her expression. “ Hugger , just knock on my door, and if I’m sleeping, just go through.”
“ Been holdin’ it a half hour, babe. Can we discuss this after I drain my bladder?”
She bit her lip and nodded.
He went inside to take care of business, returned to the balcony to see her sitting on the light-blue cushions on the couch of her patio furniture, her bare feet up on the white coffee table, a mug of joe in her hand, so he went to the pot to warm up his before he joined her.
He sat in an armchair at corners to the couch.
“ Sleep okay?” she asked.
He slept shit.
She was right; he was too big for her couch, even with the back cushions off.
And he was too close to her, lying in her big king bed all alone.
But it was what it was, and it was going to stay that way.
“ Slept great,” he lied.
“ Liar ,” she whispered to her mug before she took a sip. She looked to him after she swallowed. “ You seen Suzette ?”
He shook his head.
“ She’ll come out when she senses you’re out here.”
“ Yeah ,” he muttered.
Her gaze drifted away. “ I’m gonna talk to her today about protective custody. I forgot to mention yesterday that Dad told me he spoke with one of the cops who was keen to look after her. He also said the FBI wants to talk to her?—”
Hugger sat up straight. “ Say what?”
Her eyes darted to him. “ He said the FBI wants to talk to her.”
“ Why ?”
She pulled her shoulders forward but said, “ Babi? is a bad guy and probably doesn’t curtail his felonious activities solely to the Phoenix Metropolitan Area .”
“ And what would Suzette know about that shit?”
“ I don’t…” The importance of what they were discussing dawned on her, and she sat up straight too, taking her feet from the coffee table. “ Oh shit, Hugger ,” she whispered. “ When Dad said it, I didn’t put it together.”
She wouldn’t. Her father rocked her world yesterday.
But now, she was.
“ How much you know about her, babe?” he asked.
“ Not really anything.”
“ Tell me what you know,” he demanded.
“ Not really anything,” she repeated. “ And I’m not being cagey. She hasn’t opened up. At all.”
“ How’d she get here? You pick her up from her place or what?”
He asked because he wanted to know where that was and break into it to see if they might find some answers.
Regrettably , she shook her head. “ She called from the hospital and took me up on my offer. Told me to meet her at a QuikTrip . I did. She had a bag with her, got in Baby Shark , and we came here. That’s it.”
“ Baby shark?”
“ My car.”
Christ .
This fucking woman.
“ She’s got a phone?” he asked.
She nodded.
“ She call anyone? Talk to anyone?”
“ I don’t keep an eye on her all the time, but no. Not that I’ve seen. As far as I can tell, she doesn’t have anyone. When you guys aren’t here, and I’m home, she comes out of her room and hangs with me. I’ve tried to get in there. All I know is, she got really upset when I asked about her parents, so I backed off fast on that one. But she just says she’s not got many close friends. She’s so…you’ve seen her, Hugger . She doesn’t invite pushing. She’s so fragile, I’m afraid I’ll break her if I push too hard.”
He got that.
And it sucked, but they were going to have to start pushing.
“ Called the president of my Club last night, babe,” he told her. “ His name is Rush . He’s sending down another brother, Dutch . Resurrection is sending down two of theirs, Core and Linus . We’re gonna add on our list of things to do making sure your dad is good.”
The softness came back, but it didn’t fully push out the alarm.
“ And we need a meet with that detective,” he went on. “ Because there’s shit we don’t know that we need to know to keep all of you safe.”
“ I’ll get my phone,” she whispered, and hauled her ass out of the couch to do that.
Hugger pulled his own out of his back pocket and shot a text to Eight and Big Petey .
Just learned the FBI wants to talk to Suzette . Diana’s dad told her yesterday. Looking at getting more info on that. Hold tight.
Diana came back, and as she made her way to the couch, she asked, “ Is it cool to call him on a Saturday ?”
“ Let’s chance it,” Hugger replied, holding out his hand.
She looked to his hand, then his face, and asked, “ Wait , are you going to talk to him?”
“ Queue him up and hand it to me, ’cause, yeah, I’m gonna talk to him.”
It took her a beat, then she did what he asked and handed him the phone.
He kept his eyes on her, and his mind went to Nicole saying she knew Diana was an excellent judge of character.
So he asked, “ You trust this guy?”
“ He seems solid to me, but what do I know? I’d guess a cop who was dirty wouldn’t expose it to anyone, much less someone like me.”
“ Gut , though. Solid ?” he pushed.
She nodded.
“ Any of the other cops you dealt with on this give you a hinky feel?”
“ There weren’t many, but I’ll say, all of them seemed more focused on justice for Suzette than serving justice to Babi? because it would be an awesome collar. I mean, it isn’t like they’re not all about taking him down, but she was…” She lifted her shoulders. “ You know how she was, Hugger .”
He knew.
“ And if any of them were faking it, they’re really good actors,” she concluded.
“ Right .” He looked down at the phone that had gone dark. “ Need you to engage this again, babe.”
She did, he checked the name and hit the call button.
The man on the other end didn’t fuck around answering.
Guess it was okay to call him on a Saturday .
“ Diana , are things good?” a deep voice asked.
“ Rayne Scott ?” Hugger asked back.
“ Who’s this?”
“ Harlan McCain . Chaos MC . Denver . We’re providing security for Suzette and Diana .”
Nothing from Scott .
“ You heard Armitage is out as counsel?” Hugger inquired.
“ Yeah .”
“ He told Diana the FBI wants a crack at Suzette .”
“ I wouldn’t put it that way.”
“ How would you put it?”
“ They have some lines of inquiry they wanna follow.”
“ Care to share?”
“ I don’t know you, so no. Is Diana there?”
“ Sittin ’ right here with me on her balcony. Two of Babi?’s assholes are at the coffee place downstairs. So it’s safe to say, think we need a meet, but not here. Suzette is comin’ out of her shell, but she’s takin’ her time. Don’t wanna do something that makes her crawl back into it. But my guess, we both got the same goal, getting her safe and keeping her that way.”
“ Maybe you don’t know that cops don’t discuss particulars of a case with anyone but those involved in the case and other cops,” Scott educated him.
“ And maybe you don’t know we got a vested interest in making sure Suzette survives whatever she’s facin’ and then gets on with a long and happy life.”
“ I’d love to take your word on that, but I hope you don’t mind I’m not going to,” Scott returned.
“ Can we meet?”
“ We can, but it’ll be a waste of time. It’s not gonna change my mind.” Scott paused then said, “ Listen , not sure how you got involved in this. Can’t say I’m upset that Suzette and Diana have someone looking out for them. But the only thing we’ve got to discuss is finding a way to first, get Suzette in a more secure situation, and second, get her to open up about things she might know.”
“ So she wasn’t some random chick he picked up to destroy her life,” Hugger noted.
Scott blew out an audible breath but said nothing.
Hugger knew it was useless to keep pressing, but he did anyway. “ Again , I’ll point out, we got the same goals here, Scott .”
Scott took a beat, two, and then shocked the shit out of him by saying, “ Let’s meet.”
Hugger jumped on it. “ Great . You call when and where, we’ll be there. It’ll be me, and likely a brother of mine, Eight .”
“ How many of you are there?”
To build trust, Hugger gave it to him. “ Four out-of-towners, for now. Three more coming in, ’cause we gotta cover Armitage now. And all of Aces .”
“ So this is about Aces ,” Scott muttered, sounding like he was connecting the dots, and he probably was.
“ Partially . You seen Suzette . The minute we did, it became all about her. And Diana .”
“ I hear you.”
“ Where we meeting?”
Scott gave him a time and place.
“ We’ll be there,” Hugger said.
He disconnected and tossed the phone to Diana .
“ I’ll get dressed,” she said, already on the move to the door.
“ You’re not coming.”
She stopped. “ Yes , I am.”
“ No , babe, you aren’t.”
“ I so am. Is Big Petey coming over?”
“ Di —”
“ Harlan ,” she snapped.
He shut up, because even saying it annoyed, he liked his name in her mouth.
“ It totally sucks your name is as cool as you,” she griped.
He didn’t know anyone who thought his name was cool, even himself.
“ Get Big Petey over here,” she bossed, then flounced into the apartment.
He released a sigh.
Then he bent his head to his phone and got down to business.
* * *
More torture, Diana on the back of his bike.
It was bad when she just had his belt loops, like now.
It killed when she was pressed to him, like yesterday.
She didn’t get his Club name was ironic. She didn’t get he didn’t like to be touched. She tugged his shirt, held his wrist, slapped his arm, and when she needed him, pressed tight.
And he didn’t give what he made others get to her. Further , it was almost painful the times he pulled away from her.
He also didn’t dive into why he didn’t do that nor why he felt the pain.
He’d called Rush the night before, but he wasn’t sure he was going to call Tack .
He wasn’t sure, because what he had to talk to Tack about—first—was not taking a trip down Tack’s memory road to how he won his old lady, Tyra .
There was something else.
Something huge.
A mountain between him and a life.
A mountain between him and his Club .
A mountain between him and whatever might happen with Diana .
A mountain he’d been eyeing since he joined Chaos , and he still didn’t know if he wanted to climb it.
His life was steady and predictable. He couldn’t say he was happy, he couldn’t even say he was content.
He could say he was breathing, he was safe, he didn’t have to worry about money, and he had people he respected around him.
And with the life he’d led up to Chaos , that was better than he expected he’d get.
Scaling that mountain to see what was on the other side? Something that could be an oasis. Or it could be a desert of shit.
In his experience, the most likely vista was a desert of shit.
So …yeah.
Climbing that mountain was all kinds of iffy.
But now was now.
Big Petey had been right, there was something more with Suzette .
She knew something.
Something that Babi? was tweaked about even more than being convicted of a rape that included serious physical injury, which would give the man a minimum of twenty-five years, and a maximum of life.
So it was something big.
This meant it wasn’t only Pete they left back at Diana’s place. Muzzle was there too. Driver was back, and he’d brought another Aces brother, Gash . They were sitting outside the coffee joint, a table away from a couple of goons.
Babi? wanted to make a statement?
They were gonna make one too.
He pulled into the parking lot of some public tennis courts off a road called Indian School . Eight was already there. And for some fucked up reason, even though it was a hundred and six degrees outside, two lunatics were playing tennis.
Other than that, no one was around.
He rolled up beside Eight , parked, and Diana jumped off.
He swung his leg over after she did.
Eight eyed her, looked to Hugger and grinned.
“ You say no to her,” Hugger replied to Eight’s unspoken comment.
Eight’s grin got bigger before he asked Diana , “ What kind of tacos are we havin’ tonight?”
She huffed before she shared, “ Harlan doesn’t want tacos every night. I’m making white chili and serving it with Red Lobster biscuits.”
“ What time?” Eight asked.
“ I don’t know. Six ?” she answered.
“ I’ll bring the beer again,” Eight said.
“ Also some wine,” she put in. “ White . Sauvignon blanc or a buttery chardonnay.”
“ Buttery chardonnay. I’ll get right on that,” Eight replied, looking like he was about to bust a gut trying not to laugh.
Hugger felt him.
Diana Armitage was something, and fuck him standing, all of it was good.
“ We’re also gonna get right on giving Diana some cake. She’s not feedin’ this crew without reimbursement,” Hugger entered the conversation.
“ I’ll see to that too… Harlan ,” Eight gave him shit.
“ That isn’t necessary,” Diana stated.
“ It is,” Hugger and Eight said in unison.
“ It really isn’t,” Diana asserted.
“ What it is, is not up for discussion,” Hugger returned.
“ Bluh ,” she grunted adorably, giving in.
Fucking torturing him.
“ Hup ,” Eight uttered, jerking up his chin.
Hugger and Diana turned to see a big shiny SUV rolling in.
The thing was, they knew who was behind the wheel, so it wasn’t the Phoenix cop.
“ This just got even more interesting,” Eight murmured.
“ Who’s that?” Diana asked.
“ Kai Mason ,” Hugger answered.
“ You know him?” she queried as Mason swung in and parked.
“ He’s from Denver . Moved down here to expand their business,” Hugger shared.
“ And that business is?”
He looked down at her. “ Investigations and security. And before you ask, yeah, they’re good. The best.”
“ Why’s he here?” She was watching Mace walk toward them.
“ Because Scott can’t tell us dick,” Eight said. “ But Mace can.”
Proof .
Detective Rayne Scott was solid.
They waited until Mace got to them.
“ Eight ,” Mace greeted on a handshake.
“ Mace .”
“ Hug .” Mace turned to him.
They shook and Hugger said, “ This is Diana .”
“ Know who she is,” Mace muttered and dipped his chin to her. “ Diana .”
“ You know me?” she asked. “ How ?”
“ Try to know as much as I can in this town,” he replied without really giving her anything.
Of course, Diana didn’t let him get away with that.
“ Precisely … me . How do you know me ?” she pushed.
“ Anything that Imran Babi? touches, I know. Anything that he might touch in a way that will piss me off, I know better,” Mace returned.
That was acceptable to Diana , because she backed off.
“ All right, I got a buttery chardonnay to buy, let’s get down to it,” Eight called it to order.
Mace got serious.
“ Suzette Snyder doesn’t exist.”
Diana gasped.
Eight grunted.
Hugger growled.
“ At least, the woman staying with you isn’t named Suzette Snyder ,” Mace said to Diana .
“ Oh my God ,” Diana whispered.
“ Cops don’t know who she is. She had no ID when she came in, and didn’t provide any before she went out. Address she gave, someone else lives there and they’ve never heard of her. Prints aren’t in the system. She reported to the cops she was twenty-three. Doctors who treated her said they can’t be certain, but they think she’s no more than seventeen,” Mace stated.
At that, Diana reeled, so Hugger threw an arm around her shoulders, pulled her back to his front, and locked her down by curling his arm around her chest and holding her against him.
In turn, she lifted both hands and latched onto his forearm.
“ You’re fuckin’ shittin’ me,” Eight gritted.
But Hugger caught on.
“ Trafficked ,” he bit out.
“ No ,” Diana moaned.
“ That’s what the cops, and FBI , are guessing,” Mace affirmed. He focused his attention on Eight . “ Maybe we can talk alone.”
“ Whatever it is, I should know,” Diana put in.
“ I get you think you do, but I know you don’t,” Mace replied.
“ If anyone’s going to talk her into a safe place and get her to the point she can keep it together and help, it’s me. I should know what I’m dealing with,” Diana pushed.
But Hugger was studying Mace’s expression.
So he gave her a squeeze and said, “ Babe .”
She twisted her neck to look up at him. “ I should know, Harlan .”
Fuck , but she’d latched onto his name stronger than she had his arm, and she had a damn strong hold on him.
“ How bad is it?” Eight asked.
“ The worst,” Mace didn’t delay in answering.
Eight made a move to put distance between them. “ Let’s do this.”
“ No !” Diana shouted. “ I should know.”
Mace looked at Hugger .
“ Don’t look at him,” she demanded. “ Look at me.”
“ Why are you in this?” Mace asked her, and Hugger’s hold got tighter.
“ That isn’t relevant,” she returned.
“ I disagree.” Mace stood his ground.
“ Okay then, it’s none of your business,” she retorted.
“ That I can’t disagree about,” he replied, looking her straight in the eye, which meant he’d made an experienced guess, and that guess was correct.
Hugger felt Diana shiver, knew what that was about, and growled to Mace , “ Lay off.”
Mace switched to looking Hugger right in the eye, he nodded once, then said, “ Prelims on the DNA came back. Multiples .”
Oh fuck .
Heat came at him from Eight .
Blistering heat.
Fuck .
“ Multiple what?” Diana asked.
“ Don’t answer that,” Hugger gritted at Mace , let Diana go, but took her hand and pulled her away from the huddle.
“ Harlan ,” she complained as they went.
When he got her far enough away, he turned her toward him, bent so they were face to face, and caught her with both hands on either side of her neck.
“ You don’t want to know this, Diana .”
“ I do, Harlan .”
“ Baby , step back from this. Let us finish talking. Then we’ll go back to your crib and you’re on Suzette , like normal. And we’ll stay on target and get deeper into it.”
Her head jerked.
Fuck .
Her face saturated with pain.
Fuck .
She was figuring it out.
“ Diana , step back,” he ordered.
“ Multiples ,” she whispered.
He moved his hands to her jaw and got nose to nose with her. “ Step back.”
“ Multiple sources of DNA ,” she pushed out. “ It wasn’t just Babi? . She was gang-raped.”
“ Baby ,” he whispered.
She pulled out of his hold, whirled, took two angry steps away, then stopped so fast, her body swayed.
She whirled back to him and announced, “ I want to hurt somebody.”
“ Somebody’s gonna hurt. Just not you gonna do it. Come here.”
“ I can’t. I can’t. I …” She shook her head. “ Oh my God , she’s no more than seventeen and she’s been gang-raped.”
He didn’t repeat his command.
He went to her and pulled her into his arms, one around her head so her cheek was tucked to his chest, the other around her, so she was too.
They stood that way awhile, the sun beating down on them, her heat beating into him.
Hugger was working up a sweat just standing there, but he didn’t move, and this wasn’t only because she felt damn good, it was because it felt better, giving her something steady to hold on to.
Eventually , he sensed her pulling her shit together.
Only then did he loosen his hold.
But he didn’t let her go.
“ You good?” he asked.
She tipped her head back to catch his eyes and nodded.
“ You strong?” he pushed.
“ I … I don’t know what you mean, but I hope so.”
He examined her face, at the same time he remembered her meticulously cleaning an ugly-ass painting with a Q -tip. Remembered her being in the middle of an emotional trauma, but not letting the opportunity of a cookie slide by. Remembered her pointing at her head and snapping, “ Blowout .” Remembered her delight at Suzette coloring in a book. Remembered her cackling with her ex-stepmom on the couch for two hours, while her sorta-stepdad, once removed made a play at bonding with the men who were looking after a woman he had no blood or real connection to, but he considered her his girl. Remembered her trusting him to help her get through a difficult text convo with her father.
And he remembered something hazy and distant.
It was hazy and distant because he made it that way. It was hazy and distant because he buried it along with every other good thing that happened in his life, outside the honor of looking after his mother.
He remembered his mom coming home from a client to a house he’d cleaned. He remembered her smile. The bright in her eyes.
And her saying, “ One day, my beautiful boy, you’re gonna make a woman really happy.”
And he made a risky decision.
“ You wanna be in this? Really in this?”
“ I don’t know what you mean about that either, but I think so.”
“ You gotta know if you do. And I gotta know I can trust you. So think, Di . You in, or are you gonna look after Suzette and talk her into getting safe and chatting with the Feds while the rest doesn’t touch you?”
“ You’re kinda scaring me, Hugger ,” she said quietly.
“ Good ,” he returned.
“ It’s hard to make a decision about something I don’t know what I’m deciding at the same time being kinda entirely freaked out.”
“ That’s the trust part.”
“ I —”
“ Diana , in or out.”
“ I don’t?—”
He caught her by the jaw and got nose to nose with her again.
“ In or out, baby.”
She stared into his eyes.
And whispered, “ In .”
He knew that would be her answer.
And now for taking the risk.
“ Resurrection MC is known by two other names.”
“ Okay ,” she said slowly.
“ They’re known as the Angels of Vengeance .”
Her eyes got big.
“ And the Angels of Death .”
Her lips parted.
“ And both just got activated.”
“ Oh my God ,” she breathed.
“ So , you got no part in that, but you got a part in this. You and Pete . You get Suzette talking. About herself, about what went down, about getting safe and giving up what she knows, and about why she picked you.”
“ Why she picked me?”
“ She got away and didn’t hole up. She went to the hospital. That is not a woman who’s given up. That’s a woman who wanted help. But she doesn’t trust the cops. She trusts you. We gotta know why she doesn’t trust cops. So we gotta know why she picked you.”
His hands moved as her head did in a nod.
“ You gonna get on that?”
She nodded again.
Okay .
“ Now , this is what’s gonna go down,” he began. “ Mace knows Eight . He knows Resurrection . He knows what switch he just flipped. I don’t know his motivation. Maybe he did it on purpose. Maybe he did it to light some fires elsewhere. Scott is gonna look into things. He’s gonna hear things. It’s a good bet Mace is gonna tell him things. And Chaos is not about that. Neither is Aces . So we’re in a race right now, baby. I got no problem with what Eight and Muzz are intent to do. But me and Pete and Dutch can’t let it touch you, Suzette or Chaos . And the best chance we got to do that is get Babi? in a cage and shut down his shit.”
“ So you’re…at odds with Eightball and Muzzle now?”
“ It ain’t cross purposes we’re at. It’s just the endgame doesn’t match.”
“ Oh . All right,” she muttered, sounding confused.
“ Don’t worry about it. Focus on you. The decision about dinner with your dad. And Suzette .”
She emitted a shocked little laugh before she asked, “ Dinner with Dad ?”
“ This is what I know, Di . Life goes on. Suzette is important. And that’s important. You threw a man a lifeline yesterday. Don’t lose focus and let him drown.”
Her eyes started to get bright, she sniffed rough, then nodded.
“ You good?”
She nodded again.
But she said, “ No more than seventeen, Hug .”
“ Yeah ,” he whispered.
Her lip trembled, she clamped down on it with her teeth, let it go, sniffed again, rougher this time, and squared her shoulders.
And that right there was why he knew he could take the risk.
That right there was what he knew yesterday, but didn’t trust.
Now , he had no choice but to trust.
He let her go, took her hand and led her back to the huddle.
“ You got everything we need?” he asked Eight .
“ Sure fuckin’ do,” Eight answered.
Hugger was beginning to get a new appreciation for the men of Resurrection .
Maybe , even if it still wasn’t his to do, he could forgive.
But now, he had to work beside him at the same time thwarting his purpose.
That was going to be tricky.
Diana took his mind off it by squeezing his hand. “ Can we go? I want to get back to Suzette .”
“ We can go, babe,” he told her.
“ Nice to meet you, kinda,” she said to Mace , and added, “ No offense on the kinda part.”
“ Nice to meet you too, Diana ,” Mace replied.
“ See you for dinner,” she said to Eight .
“ You bet, sweetheart,” Eight replied.
Hugger guided her to his bike.
He got on.
She swung on behind him.
And this wasn’t a belt loops ride.
Tits flush to back and chin on his shoulder.
He’d been wrong, it wasn’t torture.
It was indication it might be time to climb that fucking mountain.
Because maybe, just maybe, against all the odds stacked against him since his conception…
There might be an oasis on the other side.