Thirty
FANG
Loki crosses the yard, ruffling a hand through his hair as he walks to shake out the indents from his helmet. I lean my shoulder against the doorframe of the barn, arms folded over my chest while I wait for him to approach. Circus wasn’t the only one I tasked with a side-quest for the day.
“What did you find out?”
He stops a few feet from me and immediately slings his thumbs in his pockets, stance wide. “Enough that I think we ought to let Chaos know what you’ve uncovered.”
I lift my chin, narrowing my gaze to urge him to continue.
Loki sighs. “There’s truth in what both of them said,” he states, referring to Matty and his sister, Danica. “The girls they employ are legit workers, most made redundant when the law changed. But there’s an element to it that leans toward what the Devil’s Breed are doing in town.”
“Such as?”
He walks past me to retrieve a drink from one of the many fridges dotted around the barn’s communal space.
“Danica still wants to start a brothel. She’s been sniffing around the girls who’re still unemployed to gauge interest.” He cracks the top of the can and then joins me, standing in the wide doorway.
“No word yet on where they think they can set up this operation, but she’s got ties with Smoke already. ”
“How’d you know?” I study the side of the man’s face, his eyes hard, jaw even harder.
“Because Fleur overheard her on a call with Acid.”
“She sure it was him?” Fleur—the woman he talks about—was one of the more popular girls at a strip bar on the highway, which changed hands and cleaned up its image after the new laws passed.
The kind where you used to be able to get a happy ending with your beer and nuts.
“There can’t be any doubts about it.” Nice girl, but separated enough from the shady parts of the business that I’m not positive she’d confidently know the Devil’s Breed MC vice president’s voice.
“She saw the name on Danica’s phone before she picked it up.”
“The idiot has him saved under his fucking road name?” Rookie move.
He huffs, raising his eyebrows in agreement, before taking a swig of his drink. “Probably servicing the fucker as part of the deal.”
“Likely.” I run a hand over the back of my neck. As suspected, the roots of the tree run deep. What we’ve seen already are merely the branches that’ve caught the sunlight, the true mass of the operation yet to be uncovered. “What do you think her involvement with him is?”
“Not sure.” His thumb taps the side of the can. “Acid’s a tough one to cross, but he’s still whipped by Smoke. Whatever business she negotiates, he’s likely to be aware of it.”
My gaze drifts to the clubhouse, dark and imposing against the backdrop of sunlight glancing off wet ground. “You think Jenna might have heard a thing or two through her old man?”
Loki turns his head to look at me. “Possibly from her time working in their joint before she was shipped.”
I sigh.
“You want to ask her, or should I?” Loki narrows his gaze.
I glare at the fucker. “She’s my responsibility.”
“And yet you’re out here doing what exactly?” He stares me down.
“I just put the truck away. Thought I’d check the tires before I finished up.”
Loki lifts an eyebrow.
“Fine. I’m avoiding her.”
“Why?” He frowns. “What’s she done to you?”
“What makes you think it’s any of your business?” I snap.
Yeah, I’m still sore about finding him on the porch with her that first night. Still sore about how her shoulders visibly relax when she interacts with him.
How he can make her smile.
“It’s my business because I give a shit about what happens to these women afterward,” he says. “Not just now, but while they’re with us, too. When they try to carry on with their lives, I want to know we’ve done the best we could to prepare them for that,” he grumbles. “That’s what it is to me.”
“And this concerns my relationship with Jenna how?”
“Because you can’t help but fuck with people, Fang. With little fucking afterthought for what it does to them.” The asshole turns to face me properly. “The Amish girl?” He accuses. “Did you even think what that would do for her, sticking your dick where it shouldn’t go?”
“She wanted it to go there,” I counter.
He sets his drink down with a frustrated sigh. “Fuckin’ hell, Fang. Are you honestly that much of a selfish cunt?”
I push off the doorframe. “Excuse the fuck me?”
“Lord knows we all understand Reno is a real piece of work,” he cedes. “But you didn’t exactly put her in a position to do any better.”
“I had her in lots of positions,” sits on the tip of my tongue, but the murderous intent in Loki’s eye has me button the sarcasm for now.
“You knew she wanted to be your old lady,” he continues with little regard to his life. “And yet you strung her along until she got fucking desperate enough to throw a baby in the mix. Do you even think of that when you look at Molly? How your childish behavior created one?”
“Of course I fucking think about that!”
He pulls his head back.
“I have a goddamn heart, Loki. I’m capable of feeling guilt and remorse just the same as any of you fuckers.”
“Got a real weird way of showing that.”
A heated second passes, tension choking the air between us. I take a deep breath and utter, “Did you get up this morning with the sole intent of fucking up my day? Or was this just something that popped into your head on the way back here?”
He shakes his head, looking away with a leering smile.
“When are you going to grow up, Fang?” I hate that he stands a few inches taller than me.
“Learn to apologize for those fuck-ups you supposedly feel so bad about. Learn how to make amends.” He steps closer.
“You want to be a good father to Molly? Then learn how to lead by example and show her the right way to treat people. Especially women.”
“You want to bring my daughter’s name into this?” I match him, bringing us toe-to-toe.
“Pretty sure I already did.”
Visions scream through my mind of all the ways this could end: me with a fist in his nose, us in a goddamn brawl on the ground, Loki with his massive arm locked around my neck… Chaos with both our patches in his hands. Not worth it.
“I appreciate what you did for me this morning,” I state in a careful, level tone. “But that doesn’t give you the right to tell me how to live my life.”
“Somebody has to, because you sure as shit don’t seem to be able to figure it out on your own.”
I study the way he glowers at me, his fists semi-flexed at his sides.
Fighting between brothers is an offense, but goddamn, he makes it too damn easy to want to.
“We’ve known each other for years,” I say.
“You’ve watched me carry on like I do for a goddamn age, and this is when you decide to say something?
” I huff a derisive laugh. “You’re not even mad at me.
You’re mad because it wasn’t you who was made to look after her, aren’t you? ”
“Jenna?” He frowns.
“Yeah.” I straighten up, fold my arms. “You got a thing for her?”
“You really don’t know me at all, do you?”
I tilt my head. “I know you enough, don’t I?”
“If you did, you’d know better how to pick when I’m keen on someone.” He leans in. “Someone.” Fucker laughs as he moves back again. “Bet you didn’t even know I’m bi, did you?”
“Ain’t any of my concern who you wet it with.” I really couldn’t care less where his preferences lie. As long as they don’t lie with her. I swallow back the bitter taste of defeat. Fuck. I really do like the little troublemaker.
In a way that’s sure to cause a lot of trouble.
Loki fucking reads the come-to-Jesus moment as it passes over my face, smiling like the instigating shit he is. “Just go talk to the woman.” Fucker did this on purpose. Although I don’t doubt there was some truth to the old grievances in his words.
“I would,” I bitch, relaxing my stance to resume my earlier one against the doorframe. “But she’s not in the mood to talk to me.”
“Says who?”
“Says the way she looked at me when I made her cry this morning.”
Loki raises a hand to his chin, dragging the flesh down until his lower lip pops back into place. “Why the fuck did you make Jenna cry?”
“Wanted to get the truth out of her, and I figured bulldozing those defenses of hers was the way.”
“Did it work?” He picks up his drink again.
I nod. “Also made me realize the woman doesn’t have as much ill intent toward us as I first thought.” I glance at him out of the side of my eye. “She’s just doing what she thinks she has to to set things right. But shit isn’t exactly working out like she planned so far.”
“How do you mean?”
I sigh, looking out over the rutted and muddy yard. “She killed the girl Marty investigates. The reason for all that blood when we got there.”
Loki doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t need to. Like I told her, murder isn’t judged so harshly around these parts.
“But the dead girl’s daddy is one of the Blood Eagles.”
This has the fucker snap around. “The hell? You told Chaos this?”
“Of course I’ve told Chaos.”
“And what the fuck did he say?”
“Thinks we can use it to our advantage. Use Jenna.” I chuckle. “Girl doesn’t just know how to dig herself a hole. She makes sure she can’t get back out of it by pulling the damn walls down and burying herself in the muck.”
He snorts a small laugh.
“Jenna’s in some messed up fucking shit,” I tell him. “And she knows it.”
“So she has talked to you plenty,” he confirms. “Just won’t now.”
I nod.
“Why? Other than you being a cunt to her? What exactly did you say?”
“Might also have something to do with me trying to kiss her.”
He sighs, long and heavy. “And what the fuck was I just saying?”
“Did you hear me when I said trying?” I snap back, glaring at the prick. He better not take us back there. “Knew it wasn’t right, so I backed out of it when she made me.”
“And now what? She doesn’t feel safe around you?”
“I think she feels too safe around me. That’s the issue.
” We fight. Argue. Constantly. And yet, she still comes back for more.
“Contrary to what you believe about me,” I sass.
“I don’t want to push on and fuck her up more when I can’t make heads or tails of this myself. That ain’t fair to her, or me.”
He studies me with a renewed air of respect. “Tell Chaos you want to be reassigned, then.”
“I did.” I shake my head at the memory of our recent conversation. “And he threw me back in the deep end without any fucking floaties.”
Loki laughs quietly. “Sounds like him. Think perhaps he’s trying to force a lesson on you, too?”
“He said as much.” I’ve caused the man grief endlessly over the years with my bedroom antics. He’s long overdue for a metaphorical slap about the head. “Told me I need to learn how to be vulnerable. Problem is, I don’t know what that means.”
“It means stop hiding your feelings behind jokes and pranks on everyone. Stop acting like nothing bothers you. You want her to let her walls down? Try doing the same.”
I huff. As though it’s that easy.
“Talk to her,” Loki reiterates. “The right thing to do is to let her speak, and to listen.”
“I’ve done that.”
“You’ve heard her. Sure.” He turns the can in his hand. “But did you actually listen to what she had to say?”
I guess not.
Otherwise I wouldn’t be standing out here in the fucking cold air, wondering what I need to do to earn her trust. Pondering if I’m capable of such a thing.
And trying to work out why the fuck it even matters so much to me.