Chapter 14
Indigo
Duke and the guys must have decided I deserved a rest because when I cracked my eyes open and gazed at the window, I could tell the sunlight that had peeked its rays through my curtains was now the golden twilight of early evening. I yawned and tried to stretch, my aching muscles reminding me I’d had a little bit of a rough night last night. Recreational electrocution really took it out of a girl. I winced as I looked at myself in the mirror. Falling asleep with makeup on after a light torture session gave me the appearance of an emo raccoon. I padded over to the shower and stripped down, stepping gingerly into the hot spray before relaxing and allowing the luxurious heat to penetrate my sore muscles. I heaved a sigh as my shoulders eased away from my ears and rolled my neck to try to ease the crick I’d had there since awakening in the confessional.
After washing my face, body, and hair, I stepped out of the shower and dried myself, wrapping my hair in my towel after I swiped the steam off the mirror. I took the opportunity to check myself over, but other than a few bruises and barb marks from Priest’s taser, I was fine. Or as fine as I’d ever be. Last night had been a lot, and I needed time, coffee, and carbs to process my feelings. I threw on a pair of ratty old gray sweats that hung precariously low on my hips but were so buttery soft I couldn’t help but adore them, a bra, a poppy-red tank top, and a pair of socks. Deeming myself appropriately attired to rummage around the clubhouse kitchen like the feral raccoon I was at heart, I put my damp hair into a sloppy braid and headed out in search of sustenance.
I tippy-toed down the stairs, surprised to find the clubhouse eerily quiet. Since the Los Cuervos headquarters was rarely empty, it was seldom quiet. Today, however, a hush lay upon the space. The club girls wouldn’t be here this early, so that explained the absence of their irritating giggles and squeals. Not to mention the other sounds I heard them make from behind the closed bedroom doors of several Crows. Eww. No one was at the bar or in the main room of the clubhouse, so I crept as quietly as I could through the saloon-style doors and into the hallway leading to the dining and kitchen areas. Maybe everyone was in church or some of the other outbuildings?
I walked into the kitchen but stopped short when I realized someone was at the table. Lorna, Priest’s mom and Duke’s ole lady, had a cup of coffee cooling in front of her. She sat back in her chair, sightless eyes fixed on her mug. I didn’t think she was aware that I was frozen in the doorway like a deer caught in headlights. When it became apparent to me that she wasn’t going to yell at me for foraging in her kitchen, or that she even knew I was there at all, I unlocked my limbs and continued my mission to locate and consume carbs.
I put a bagel in the toaster and filled and drank an entire glass of water from the kitchen faucet while it toasted. I slathered my slightly scorched bagel in cream cheese and exchanged my glass with a mug of coffee from the pot on the counter. As I was putting my knife and glass in the dishwasher and wondering if I should just take my food and run, Lorna finally spoke.
“You can eat that here. Don’t leave on my account.”
I nodded and placed the paper towel my bagel was wrapped in on the table along with my mug.
“Thank you,” I murmured, curling my feet under me as I took a seat at the worn kitchen table. We sat in silence, regarding each other while I ate. I had been introduced to Lorna when I first became a guest of the Crows, but I didn’t see her around the clubhouse much. Usually, she was only around on the weekly family night for dinner. She had never been rude or mean to me, but she hadn’t exactly been warm either. Lorna might not speak to me, but I felt her eyes on me sometimes. Watching. The sensation wasn’t new to me, though. I almost always felt like I had eyes on me when Los Cuervos were around.
“My son hurt you,” she said quietly, tucking her dusty-brown hair behind her ear.
I didn’t want to minimize what happened by telling her that I’d been hurt so so so much worse before, that what occurred with Priest in the confessional might as well have been a tickle fight. What he did wasn’t cool, but I wasn’t going to be dramatic and milk the situation either. So I went with a noncommittal shrug in response. A few bites of my bagel later, Lorna spoke again.
“When they were kids, Lochlan and Ellis got along for the most part. Lochlan was older, and usually, he’d be patient with her when Ellis would get it in her head to get up to some foolishness. I could see him bite his tongue when she got sassy with him, trying to stay patient. Sometimes he was successful; other times, they’d end up bickering and fighting. He’s got a temper and he’d say things in the heat of the moment, but he’d always feel bad and make it up to her.” Lorna’s eyes shone with unshed tears as she remembered her children together and a part of me felt sorry for her unimaginable loss. Like one-fourth of me. The other three-fourths? Those parts of me were hoping that she wasn’t going where I thought she was going with this little trip down memory lane.
Giving her the benefit of the doubt, I sat back in my chair and replied, “I’m sure he did. I don’t have siblings, but I know they fight and make up on a regular basis as children if sit-coms are anything to go by.”
She took a sip of her coffee and nodded. “He was always sorry, and he’d apologize when he had a chance to calm down. Are you understanding what I’m trying to say?” Balls. She was really doing this? I knew she was about to hate what I was going to tell her, but I felt like it had to be said.
“Honestly, ma’am…First Ole Lady Lorna…that’s a crock of shit.”
Her mug clanked on the table as she set it down in surprise. She was the prez’s wife, so I was willing to bet that people didn’t speak all that frankly with her about her own family. But she was fixing to discover that I was a unique and beautiful snowflake and didn’t mind calling things like I saw them in the slightest.
“Maybe I misunderstood, milady, but it sounded to me like you were excusing Priest’s shitty history of behavior because he felt remorseful after the fact. Certainly, you weren’t raising your daughter to endure verbal or physical abuse so long as her abuser looked appropriately apologetic afterward?”
Lorna’s mouth opened and closed on repeat like a fish, and it was hard to keep a straight face while she floundered . Get it? Floundered . Gah, I crack myself up sometimes.
“No, that’s not…I was trying to say that he’s a passionate person who sometimes…”
“Abducts women and tortures them for information?” I helpfully supplied. “And you thought, what? That if he said sorry and looked really sad about what he’d done I’d be like aw, shucks, I can’t stay mad at you when you look so pitiful ? ’Cause I gotta say, lady, that’s fucked up.” I took a bite of my bagel and chewed slowly while Lorna processed my words. She grimaced like they gave her a tummy ache. Truth does that sometimes.
I continued, “That’s not to say that emotions don’t get the better of all of us sometimes. You’re right that we can get so caught up in our feelings that we don’t always consider the consequences of our actions. But if what you’re saying is true, it sounds more like a history of poor impulse control and anger management problems. I’m not a doctor or anything, but I read a lot of self-help books when I lived in a library for a while in Chicago. That was fun; if you ever have the opportunity to live in a library, you should take it. The head librarian thought I was a ghost.” I cackled at the memory of the stuffy-looking librarian burning sage and mumbling prayers when he saw the note I left on the break room cabinets in drippy red ink. Good times .
A knock on the doorjamb announced the presence of Ratched, who looked exhausted. I perked up a bit. It had been a while since I’d seen him.
“Hey, Ratched! Long time no see! Want a coffee and a schmear?” I wiggled my bagel at him, slightly charred and smothered in cream cheese, just how I liked it. Ratched gave me a tired smile. “Or maybe a nap would hit the spot?”
“Hey there, I heard we’re to call you Indigo now? That’s great.” I sat up straighter in my seat and grinned. “Duke sent me to fetch you. You’re needed in church to give a statement.” Lorna, who had risen and walked over to the sink, must have dropped her mug because a loud clanking rang through the kitchen before she twirled around to glare at Ratched.
“Only Crows are allowed in church.” She glared at me.
I shrugged my shoulders. “I mean, it looked like a conference room to me the last time I was there. I kind of expected some stained glass or a font or something. I was a little disappointed, to be honest.”
Ratched ignored my criticism and shrugged at Lorna. “Duke said to fetch her, so I’m fetching her. If you don’t like it, I suggest you take it up with him.”
I stuffed the remainder of my bagel in my mouth and put my mug in the dishwasher, then followed Ratched down the hallway. A second later, I heard the door off the kitchen slam and assumed that Lorna preferred to rip Duke a new one in the comfort of her own home.
“How ya been, Ratched?” He looked over his shoulder at me and shrugged.
“Same old, same old, you know? I’ve been working twelve-hour shifts at the ER, and there’s no such thing as a quiet day in the emergency room. I got off work and instead of falling into my bed, I came home to a shit show, starring you and my VP.”
I winced. “I’d say sorry, but it wasn’t a show of my own making.”
He sighed. “I know. Come see me in the infirmary after church, and I can give you a once-over and make sure you’re okay.” Ratched opened the office door, allowing me to step through before he followed and closed it behind him.
Ratched stepped past me and took his seat at the table. All eyes in the room focused on me as I stood there waiting for someone to speak. Duke sat at the head of the table in his usual spot, and the seat to his right where Priest usually sat was empty. Bones sat to Duke’s left, looking just as exhausted as Ratched. Cricket gave me a little wave when my eyes drifted over to him, which I returned. The other Crows at the table, young and old, simply sat and waited for the drama to unfold. Some looked at me with pity, curiosity, or, in the case of Pyro, naked loathing.
He and I firmly disliked each other, and while I tried not to make waves while I was a guest, I couldn’t promise I wouldn’t kill him in the future. He’d been an irritating gnat buzzing in my ear the last several weeks, spewing threats when no one else was around. I hadn’t said anything to anyone about the things he’d been saying to me because so far he wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle. Before Sheila and I left, I needed to tell someone how he’d been behaving, though, just so they knew what kind of man they had in their midst. Assuming they didn’t already know and simply didn’t care.
I snapped my focus back to Duke, whose blue eyes looked so sad and exhausted. Giving him a curtsy, I murmured, “You beckoned, President Duke?”
“We called church and discussed the actions of our VP. We wanted to hear your side of it.”
I peered around the room, noting who met my eyes and who didn’t among the Crows. “You did, huh? Well, I was sitting there minding my own business one minute, and the next, I woke up in the confessional.” I cocked my head to the side as I studied Duke, who gestured for me to elaborate. “Priest”—I put my fingers up in the air next to my head, making quotation marks—“‘tortured’ me. Sidenote: I don’t mean to sound bitchy, but if his job is to engage in active interrogation techniques, he may need to attend a refresher seminar or something.” Duke’s eyes flashed in anger, so I tried to explain myself. “Look, I’m not saying he’s bad or anything, I just think maybe he needs a few more arrows in his quiver if you know what I mean? Tasers definitely give you an ouchie, but there’s way more to torture than asking questions and electrocuting people. He seemed to lack a passion for the job, and we all know that job satisfaction is important in retaining gang members.”
Surprisingly, Bones agreed with me. “I noticed that as well.”
Duke spun to look at his sergeant at arms so quickly I’m surprised he didn’t hurt his neck. He was practically a senior citizen, after all. “Are you seriously agreeing with her, that she wasn’t tortured enough ? I specifically fucking told him not to take her confession, and you’re gonna say he didn’t do enough damage to her while he was disobeying me ?” Oh snap, Duke was pissed . Bones didn’t even flinch as Duke’s icy right eye started to tic.
His anger didn’t ruffle Bones’s feathers in the slightest. “Not at all. I don’t want chica loca harmed. I simply meant that we’ve all seen Priest’s savage side when he’s interrogating prisoners.” Bones looked around the table as various Los Cuervos nodded in agreement. “Did his interview with Indigo last night go the way his sessions usually go?”
Duke sat back in his seat, warily eyeing Bones. “You sayin’ he was holding back on purpose?”
Bones nodded. “I’m saying we’ve all seen how he extracts confessions from people, and last night was tame compared to the way we’ve seen him work in the past.”
Ace shook his head slightly before he rasped out, “Almost like he didn’t really want to hurt her.” His voice was scratchy like he hadn’t used it in a while. From what I’d learned over the past few weeks, I knew that old Ace was a man of few words, so the fact that he used them now held weight with the rest of the Crows. All except Pyro, of course.
Sniggering, Pyro flipped the lid off and on his silver lighter over and over. “So Priest turned pussy and lost his edge. As hilarious as that is, I fail to see why this is a club problem. The bitch’s van is done—let her leave and good riddance. Problem solved.” Bones, Cricket, and Duke glared at Pyro, who finally looked up from his lighter and blanched when he saw the livid look on their faces.
“The big deal,” Duke growled, “is that my VP deliberately disobeyed me and broke my word that no harm would come to Indigo while she was a club guest. Are you sayin’ my word means shit?” My eyes volleyed from Duke to Pyro with unrepressed glee. I wish I had popcorn. Watching Pyro put his foot in his mouth like this was the best thing I’d seen in a long time.
“Why don’t you do us all a favor and shut the hell up unless you’re spoken to,” Ace grumbled to Pyro, and I saw that there was no love lost between the two. They glared at each other for a moment before Pyro realized that no one was coming to his defense. He lowered his eyes back to his lighter, but not before shooting me a venom-laced look. Duke wasn’t done with Pyro, though.
“Who’s the prez of this club, Pyro?” Duke’s tone was lethal, and his voice had lowered an octave. I knew a murder purr when I heard it; hell, I had my own vicious voice when I was enraged and feeling particularly violent. Duke’s voice had that quality now, and I could tell that it was apparent to everyone else in the room from the way they all subtly leaned away from Pyro, trying to distance themselves from the splash zone.
“I said… who is the president of this fucking club ?” I was entranced by the throbbing vein on the side of Duke’s temple, so I missed whatever drivel Pyro uttered in an attempt to un-fuck himself. Duke was standing now, glaring down the table at Pyro’s position.
“I don’t give a rat’s ass if you or any other motherfucker here doesn’t like what I have to say. When I give an order, it’s to be obeyed. When I give my word, it’s as good as goddamn gold, and I swear to the Lord, the next time one of you steps out of line and forces me to go back on my word, I’ll make the Salt Lake City incident look like a trip to Disneyland.” A collective intake of breath by the men at the table punctuated Duke’s threat, and I made a mental note to ask what happened in Salt Lake City some other time. Whatever it was, it was bad enough that even Bones looked a little green at the mention of it. Sounded like my kind of story.
Silence blanketed the room as Duke resumed his seat, and surprisingly, it was Thor who broke it. “Are we going to discuss what happened with Petrov last night? Because I feel like that was a catalyst for whatever pushed Priest off the edge.”
I glared at Thor. “That had fuck all to do with me. I’ve never been to Allure or The Goldfinch before last night, and I’ve never met Spike or Riordan. They pulled us up to talk because they recognized you and Cricket as Los Cuervos.”
Thor at least had the grace to look apologetic as he disagreed with me. “That’s not what it seemed like to Cricket and me. Even Lennon said he seemed weirdly interested in you, calling you pet names and speaking to you in Russian like you understood what he was saying.” I shot hurt eyes Cricket’s way. He and Lennon had been talking about me behind my back? That kind of hurt my feelings. If they thought something was weird, why didn’t they just ask me?
Taking a deep breath in through my nose, I counted to ten as I held air trapped in my lungs. I was trying not to be angry, but the past twenty-four-plus hours had tested my patience. I shoved my hurt feelings into a box, and put that box inside another box, and then put that box in the back of my mind for later. When you were abused and tortured through your childhood, you didn’t develop healthy or normal methods of processing complex emotions. I learned after my escape that if I didn’t compartmentalize and process things on my own time, I was much more likely to black out and wake up bloody and bruised. You might think it’d be fun or cathartic or something, but since I never remembered anything during my blackouts, I never got closure or whatever I needed from the incident. The safest, and definitely less violent route, was for me to pack everything up until I could be alone, go through my thoughts and feelings, and decide how I wanted to react privately.
Exhaling, I turned my steely gaze to Thor. “You’re being a derpy duck again, Thor. I said I’ve never met Spike or Riordan, never been to Allure or The Goldfinch before you took me. Are you calling me a liar? ”
Holding his hands up in a show of surrender, Thor rushed to explain. “I’m not saying you’re a liar. I’m saying they seemed weirdly interested in you. In a personal sense. That’s all.”
“Chica loca.” Bones’s deep bass rumble called my attention back to his position at Duke’s side. “Are you involved with the Russian bratva in any way?”
I snorted a laugh; the Callahan family hated the bratva, and in my time as a Callahan asset, I had never faced off with a Russian. All sorts of people were involved in Uncle Roark’s sick games, sure… but never Russians. I didn’t question it then, because it’s not like I actually got any input or agency over my “work,” or you know…anything else in my entire existence. Now, though, I wondered if I had been kept away from dealings with the bratva for a purpose? If that was the case…what was the purpose ?
“No,” I answered Bones. His eyes searched mine while his fingers worried over a stone or something in his right hand. Duke watched Bones study me, silent and patient.
Bones turned to look at Duke as he nodded. “She’s telling the truth.” Pyro rolled his eyes and began to play with his silver lighter again— flipping open the top, igniting the flame, then flicking the lid closed again. Flick, snick, flip. Flick, snick, flip.
“Do you know why Petrov was so interested in you?” Bones still held my gaze.
“No.”
Bones gave Duke another nod. “Are you running from someone?”
My eyes narrowed on Sheila’s aesthetician. He was lucky she liked him so much because he was approaching dangerous territory. I valued the friendship we seemed to be building, but I didn’t fool myself into thinking he’d ever choose me over Los Cuervos. I wanted to think he wouldn’t turn me in to Uncle Roark, but trust was hard to establish and easy to destroy, especially when the stakes were literally life or worse than death. I wasn’t afraid to die, but I was afraid of being subjected to Uncle Roark again. Very afraid.
I struggled not to let that fear taint every aspect of my life, weaving its way into the fabric of my being and influencing every decision I made and act I committed. He knew that I’d be living my life unable to separate him from anything I said or did because the fear he instilled in every fiber of my being controlled me. That would give him—the world’s most psychotic narcissist—more satisfaction and confirmation of his superiority and importance than anything else could.
If I hadn’t learned to trust, make friends, be in relationships, and develop myself, I would have given Uncle Roark exactly what he wanted from me. Well, other than my pain. That seemed to be his all-time favorite thing. Controlling me was a silver medal, though. My problem now lay in this: if I told Los Cuervos about Uncle Roark, I would be putting them in danger. Concerns about them turning me in aside, if I put Los Cuervos on the docket for a Callahan family vendetta, I’d never forgive myself. Uncle Roark would do his best to eviscerate them just to watch me suffer while he did it. On the other hand, they were grown-ass bikers. Maybe they deserved to know some of my story and be allowed to make their own choice about whether to shelter me or not.
I rubbed my sweat-soaked palms on my sweatpants and made a choice. “Yes.”
Duke’s eyes bounced from my face to Bones’s. Tendons in Bones’s neck began to stand out, his jaw clenching in anger. “Are the people you’re running from the same ones who hurt you?” His voice sounded rough, like he was holding himself back by a thread.
A fine tremor worked its way through me now as I struggled to keep my body under control. “Yes,” I whispered.
A savage gleam entered his dark eyes, making them look almost black as Bones demanded, “Who?”
I held my eyes open as wide as I could to keep a tear from falling as my tremors turned into full-on shaking. One traitorous drop ran down my cheek. My voice, strained in a way I’d never quite heard before, sobbed out. “I can’t…” I choked back a sob. “He’d kill you all and make me wish for death long before he ever let me have it.”
I vaguely understood that people around me were talking now. Voices hummed at the periphery of my consciousness, but they sounded like the teacher from old Peanuts cartoons. Someone’s cold but gentle hands guided me to a chair, where they started checking my pulse. A blanket was placed around my shoulders. Ah, they thought I was going into shock. They were probably right, but I couldn’t seem to care. I couldn’t take my focus away from Bones’s obsidian glare. If I had, I’d have seen that Duke was studying the entire connection with intense scrutiny.
I inhaled sharply when Bones ripped his eyes from mine, turning them upon Duke. They muttered quietly, and Duke seemed to come to a conclusion about five seconds later when he banged his fist on the table, startling everyone in the room.
“Everyone except Indigo, Bones, and Ratched get the fuck out. NOW!” Duke didn’t have to ask twice. Ratched started checking my pupils, using the flashlight on his phone to blind me. He fussed around me a little more, clucking like a mother hen until he was satisfied I wasn’t going to pass out.
Duke silently passed a flask to Ratched, who gave it to me. A few healthy swigs of whiskey later, my belly felt warm, and my shaking had passed. Having fulfilled his purpose, Ratched left the room and the door closed softly behind him. I felt exhausted and wrung out, but I knew our conversation was far from over. No, I think it was just getting started.