11. Chapter 11
BONER
Blue: Hey, Trouble. I dreamed of you last night.
Aaron: Oh yeah? Maybe it was the same dream I had.
Blue: We were riding on your bike along the beach, right on the sand, and I had my hands in the air. I felt so free that the next minute, I became a bird and took off into the sky.
Aaron: Yeah, no. In my dream, you were ridin’ my face. Woke up hard as iron, and my fist ain’t anywhere as pretty as your sweet mouth or pussy.
Blue: You haven’t even had my mouth on you yet.
Aaron: Yeah well, a man can dream. Literally.
Blue: I’m just about to start my shift at Eugene’s, please don’t turn me on!
Aaron: Can’t stop thinkin’ about puttin’ my mouth on you again. You got so nice and wet for me, baby, that I could just slide right on in to that tight little cunt.
Blue: I’m ignoring you now.
Aaron: Don’t ignore me and leave me here with this boner! You’re responsible, you gotta give me somethin’ to tide me over.
Blue: *image*
I stared down at the selfie Blue sent me in the mirror’a the ladies’ bathroom at Eugene’s Bar and wished like hell I was there with her and waitin’ at the side’a the highway for Pigeon to a take a leak on our way to our monthly check-in with our dealers in Vancouver.
But that was what you got when you were in charge’a the prospects.
Carson pushed outta the gas station with a bag’a Twizzlers, three’a them stuffed in his mouth.
“You get anythin’ for me?” I asked, brow raised.
He hesitated mid-step––it was always good to know I could be intimidatin’ when I set my mind to it––and then held out the bag’a red candy.
I snatched the entire thing from him and stuffed it into the back pocket’a my jeans before takin’ a rope for myself and chompin’ off the end. “Thanks, man.”
Carson scowled but didn’t refute my claim. He wasn’t exactly the most easygoin’ kid, but he went against the grain’a his nature to be cool with the brothers and his chores for the club. When he’d left football behind ’cause’a its association with his fuckwad father, he’d been set adrift, and if it wasn’t for Benny, King, and Cressida leadin’ him to the club, I wondered how dark he woulda gone down the rabbit hole’a his own mind.
It also drove him crazy that we hadn’t given him a nickname yet, even though the guys and I had all told him it had to come naturally. There was usually a story involved, some hilarious or fittin’ meanin’ that needed to spring to mind for it to stick.
It wasn’t somethin’ you wanted to rush.
Still, he was always the first prospect to volunteer for anythin’, which was why he was on this run with me. Pigeon was there ’cause it was his turn to ride out with me, and King had tagged along to keep me company lookin’ after the kids.
“You got that face on,” King noted as I chewed through the sweet rope. “You gettin’ through to Blue?”
Carson snorted. “Dude, you’re really askin’ when you can see the man’s got painted nails?”
I wiggled them at King. “She does a good fuckin’ job, thank you very much.”
King chuckled. “Yeah, ’cause you know so much about beauty.”
I ran a hand through the long top half’a my hair and batted my lashes at him. “True. Most’a my good looks are all natural, but I know more about it than you.”
“’Cause you got a crush on a beautician,” he quipped.
“Cosmetologist,” I corrected with a haughty sniff. “Don’t even know the fuckin’ lingo.”
King rolled his eyes. “Datin’ one and he thinks he knows everythin’.”
“Dude, you wrote poetry with Cressida for like…weeks. Don’t think you’re one to talk,” I argued as Pigeon finally came outta the station toward us.
“You think I still don’t write my woman poetry, you’re mad,” he countered. “You get a woman like Cress, you don’t take her for granted for a fuckin’ day .”
Yeah , I thought, lookin’ back down at the selfie’a Blue, lush breasts pushed together in a white tank, full sleeve of blue inked tattoos on her left arm and the piercings in her nose and upper lip. She looked like somethin’ outta a fantasy novel or the pin-up posters I’d hoarded at foster homes as a kid.
Somethin’ way too fuckin’ good for the likes’a me, but what did I care?
I’d work to earn her and fight to keep her.
“Hey, man, you think Lion would know anythin’ about getting an uncontested divorce?” I asked as Pigeon swung a leg over his bike and settled.
“What do you know about uncontested divorce?” Pige asked on a snort.
“What Google told me, dipshit,” I shot back, shovin’ him to show I wasn’t actually angry.
“Yeah, or you could call White,” King suggested, mentioning the club’s lawyer. “He’d have a good answer for ya.”
I shot off a quick text to White and Lion askin’ them both about it, then put my phone away to ride out with the boys. It was a grey June mornin’, the type’a weather that made locals call it ‘Junuary’. The blue tinted glass’a Vancouver’s skyline came into view, spires reflectin’ the dark clouds, and it started to rain the second we swerved into the downtown Eastside and our first stop’a the day.
Jelly Hock lived in a crumblin’ buildin’ with a Condemned sign on it even though there were no plans to knock it down and never would be. Jelly owned it and lent the various rooms out to his low-level thugs who peddled our product exclusively in the neighbourhood. He’d grown up poor and didn’t like to spend any’a the money he made on upgradin’ his life. Instead, he had a weird habit’a buryin’ it in Burnaby and Langley, in random locations he said he kept coordinates of only in his head.
But the man did like to eat, and when we entered the apartment, I expected to find him sittin’ at his kitchen table with a plethora’a of take-out containers and a mouth slick with sticky sauce residue.
Instead, I found the door to the apartment blown open, and Jelly Hock slumped over the table, pale cheek pressed to a rank dish’a days-old crab rangoon.
“Fuck,” I cursed, pushing the door wide open so the men behind me could see the situation. “Pigeon, stay on the door.”
“We go in, we could be cornered,” King argued as I stepped into the mess of an apartment.
“There’s a fire escape out the kitchen window, but if someone laid this as a trap, you’d think the meat would be fresher.” I moved to Jelly, grabbed a pair’a disposable plastic gloves from my pocket, and snapped them on one hand before checkin’ his pulse. His skin was hard and cold, a wavy texture I could feel even through the latex. “He’s been dead a minute.”
“Fuck,” Carson echoed, and not ’cause’a the dead body. He was at the fridge, readin’ the colourful alphabet letters arranged into a sentence.
White Raiders are coming .
“Poetic,” King scoffed, takin’ a photo with his phone before muddlin’ the letters up with his leather-covered elbow. “How the fuck did they know Jelly was one’a ours?”
“It wouldn’t be that hard to find out.” I closed Jelly’s eyes outta respect and moved away from the stank’a the crab and days-old body. “What’s strange to me is that no one fuckin’ noticed him in here before us.”
“Uh, Boner? King?” Pigeon called from the hall.
A moment later, the sound of sirens, growin’ louder fast.
“Fuck,” we cursed together before gettin’ the fuck in motion.
King and Carson went for the door, but I knew Jelly, and he hid valuable intel in the mini-fridge in his bedroom behind a fake panel, so I headed there.
“Boner!” King yelled.
“Go on, I’ll meet you by the bikes,” I replied, already racin’ into the bedroom and droppin’ to my knees in front’a the fridge. I flinched at the odour of rotten food inside when I swung it open, holdin’ my breath as I worked my fingers in the panel to pry its icy walls away. Food and beer bottles rolled out onto the floor at my knees, but I ignored it to collect the elastic band-wrapped roll’a papers and another’a cash in a small cubbyhole.
The sirens were piercin’ now, comin’ down the street a block or two out if I had to guess.
I shoved the papers into the back pocket’a my jeans opposite the fuckin’ candy ropes and sprinted through the apartment to the kitchen. The window was swollen in the frame from age and water damaged, firmly closed despite my gruntin’ efforts.
The sirens stopped.
“Fuck,” I cursed again, usin’ the barrel’a my gun to knock out the glass so I could carefully bend myself through the openin’.
The fire escape groaned and hissed under my weight, rusted and missin’ a few slats at my feet. So it wasn’t any surprise when the fuckin’ ladder wouldn’t descend more than two feet.
Inside, voices called loudly over the stomp of feet.
I dropped through the small square, grabbin’ the handle’a the ladder in both hands to use my momentum to pull it farther down. It dropped another foot and stuck with a screech.
Below me was a pile’a garbage waitin’ for pick up includin’ a dumpster’a cardboard and plastic to the right’a my feet.
“Fuck, this is gonna hurt,” I muttered.
The crackle of radio feedback sounded in the apartment above me, and someone hollered to another cop about a dead body.
I dropped.
Hopin’ I wouldn’t be joinin’ Jelly in the afterlife.
It was only two stories, but hittin’ plastics and cardboard was not a soft landin’, and the breath whooshed outta me like I’d been sucker punched. I lay there for a moment to catalogue my aches––nothin’ life threatenin’ and no broken bones saved a potentially bruised rib or two––and then scrambled to the edge of the metal bin to climb over.
“Hey!” a cop above me yelled, leanin’ over the fire escape. “Stop right there.”
I’d never been good with people tellin’ me what to do. Jumpin’ down from the dumpster, I set off at a sprint down the back alley before turnin’ right, headin’ to where we’d left our bikes two blocks down.
Behind me, sirens started up again.
Goddamn, it had been a minute since my last police chase.
I shucked my cut, tossin’ it behind a garbage can with a silent apology, and flipped the hood up on my grey sweater as I picked up speed.
My bike was the only one left, but that was the way it shoulda been.
It wasn’t every man for himself in the club, but it sure as hell was get the fuck away from the cops as quick as you can.
They didn’t exactly love The Fallen.
I swung my leg over the bike, startin’ the engine with a loud purr just as a siren whooped behind me. Thankful my helmet obscured my face, I gunned the throttle and took off through the streets of Vancouver.
I’d grown up in the city and still knew it well enough, thanks to all our business there to give the cops a merry little runaround. They couldn’t follow down some of the narrow lanes in the residential area I veered into, and then when they caught sight of me again, I was two blocks ahead, cutting to the left to head toward the seawall. They’d expect me to head right to get outta town, maybe disappear into the traffic leadin’ out to Burnaby.
Which was why I took the seawall, cuttin’ down off the street to take the pedestrian walkway on my bike, grateful it was a Thursday and the weather was shit so I didn’t have to contend with too many tourists as I flew around the curves and then cut back up to the road to head into Stanley Park.
By the time I was in North Van, there were no sign’a the cops on my tail.
Still, I didn’t pull over ’til I reached our next destination, a pretty house backin’ onto Grouse Mountain where one’a our biggest distributors lived.
Shelly Byers’s Mercedes SUV was in the driveway when I walked up, havin’ stashed my bike a few blocks away for good measure, but no one answered the door when I rang.
That was not like Shelly.
She was the kinda PTA mum who colour-coordinated her kids clothes and had a schedule for each member’a the family on the kitchen fridge. You told Shelly a time, and Shelly’d fuckin’ be there lookin’ like she stepped right outta some Brook Brother’s catalogue.
So where the fuck was she?
I texted King my location as I walked around the side’a the house, grateful Shelly lived in a posh neighbourhood with huge, treed lots seperatin’ each house from view’a the others. There was no movement in the windows and the doors were locked. But I could see a spill’a toys in the livin’ room that was totally outta character for Shelly.
“Fuck.”
Someone had got to her.
At the very least, they’d tried.
“You good, brother?” King asked, joggin’ up behind me with Carson at his back. “That was fucked back there.”
“Don’t worry about me. Shelly’s not here,” I said and watched King’s face close down.
“Shit, they’re really comin’ at us,” he muttered. “You check the house?”
“She’s not here. We can break in to check, but she’s got a good alarm system, and we’d have to get Curtains involved. I’d rather not hang around long enough to see if those fuckers set another trap for us. But give me a second here,” I asked, turnin’ my back on them to pace ’cause movin’ always helped me think.
I was good with people, which was an important skill when you were a member’a an outlaw organization filled with the kinda personalities that usually made people uncomfortable or terrified. So ’fore I’d been in charge’a the prospects, I’d been one’a the main brothers on the ground connectin’ with our network. Nova, King, and Buck were all good options too, but they were busy with other work for the club, and talkin’ to people was no hardship for me.
I’d always been able to talk my way outta scraps, and Curtains always fuckin’ hated that I had a memory like a steel trap.
Both things worked to my advantage in a situation like this.
’Cause I remembered once, over coffee at Shelly’s marble-topped kitchen island, she’d mentioned how happy she was with her cut lately. It meant she could buy that cabin her husband always wanted up in Whistler.
Ding fuckin’ ding, I bet we had a winner.
My phone was in my hand taggin’ the speed dial for Curtains’s number ’fore I explained shit to King and Carson.
“Sup, bro?”
“You helped Shelly set up that off-shore corporation last year,” I said, cuttin’ straight to it. “You able to access records’a purchases she made under the company?”
“Sure, could do it in my sleep. Why?”
“Just do it, brother. Look for any land or houses purchased in the past year near Whistler.”
I hung up without another word, knowin’ Curtains was already on it, and the results would be texted to me in the next few minutes.
“You think she’s hidin’,” King confirmed, noddin’ slowly. “Okay, let’s head up there now, and we should have the info we need by the time we get there.”
“You don’t think they killed her too?” Carson asked as we broke into a jog headin’ back to our bikes.
I snorted. “Shelly’s smarter than Jelly. She’s the kinda woman’s got a backup for her backup plan.”
“This is not lookin’ fuckin’ good,” King murmured as Carson fell back a step to avoid some trees.
“No, brother, it’s not,” I agreed, but some part’a me––the part that made outlaw a good fittin’ mantle over my shoulders––gnashed its teeth like an overaggressive dog on its leash. I was almost happy Rooster’s lot was comin’ for us ’cause I wanted any fuckin’ excuse I could get to go at him.
And if that had a whole lot to do with avengin’ the marks I’d seen collarin’ Blue’s throat a few days ago, well, so much the fuckin’ better.
The cabin was a pretty little pinewood number at the edge of a development near Lost Lake outside’a Whistler Village. Unlike her home in North Van, it was wreathed with neighbours, so I went in alone first with King, Carson, and Pigeon followin’ one at a time, slinkin’ through the shadows to surround the house in case’a any issues.
I went right to the front door.
The sound’a children’s laughter could be heard through the pane’a glass.
Shelly’s face, when she caught sight’a me through it, was brittle enough to crack in half.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” she hissed as soon as the door was open, slippin’ out to close it behind her.
She was barefoot in a little cardigan set that made her look like a Stepford wife, but there was watercolour paint on her cheek from one’a her kids, and she tended to curse worse than some’a my brothers.
I’d always liked the contrast in her.
“Hey, Shell,” I said affably, leanin’ a shoulder against the wood post. “You don’t call, you don’t write, so I figured I’d come see what the hell drove you outta town without a word to your dear old friend, Boner.”
“Jesus.” She shook her head, eyein’ the neighbourin’ homes ’fore reluctantly takin’ my hand to drag me inside to the first room on the left.
Apparently, havin’ me inside was better than bein’ seein’ chattin’ it up with a tatted biker even though I’d ditched my cut.
“What the fuck happened, Shellster?” I asked, softenin’ my tone ’cause I noticed her hands shakin’ as she closed the double doors’a the office for privacy.
She was pale when she turned to walk around the desk and took a seat, her usually immaculate nails chewed to the quick. When she finally locked eyes with me, they were bloodshot and ringed in dark circles.
“They came to my goddamn house, Boner,” she said through bared teeth. “Charlie and the kids were home playing in the back. He said some guys were watching them, ready to take action if I didn’t ‘hear him out.’”
Anger turned my insides into serpents, hissin’ and coilin’ in my gut.
Shelly was a drug dealer and a damn good one, distributin’ through a high-end network’a execs, stay-at-home mums, and bored university students, but she was still a mum and a good one at that. Fuck, she’d started this gig with us to pay for aides for her daughter with Down Syndrome.
“Who?” I gritted out.
“Said his name was Rooster. Called himself a ‘friend’ of the club.” She rolled her eyes and opened the drawer to pull out a pack’a cigarettes. After puttin’ one in her mouth, she offered me the pack, but I shook my head. “He wanted to renegotiate the deal I had with you. As in, drop The Fallen and take up with the White Raiders. I told the fucker I hadn’t even heard of his precious White Raiders, and he did not like that.”
She lit the cigarette, the cuff of her sweater fallin’ back to reveal a vivid bruise on her wrist.
Fuck .
“Shell.” I leaned forward and extended my hand, palm up, so I could examine it.
After a tremblin’ hesitation, she laid it in my hand and exhaled a long cloud’a smoke. “I’m fine. Thank God, Wes Potter drove by in his squad car because he forgot something at home. He saw these huge-ass fuckers talking to me in the yard and asked if I was okay. Obviously, I said no. Wes waited with me for them to leave and even checked the house. Charlie and I gathered our shit and drove up here as soon as it got dark.”
“When was this?”
“Last night. I knew they’d be back, and this morning I got a text from Vaughn. You know him? He works with Mags Marie over in Port Coquitlam? Apparently, they fucking got to Mags and killed her when she refused to work for them. Vaughn agreed to take over when they threatened him too.” She sucked in another deep drag from the cigarette. “What the fuck is going on, Boner? I did not sign up for this level of bullshit. My kids were home!”
“Hey, I hear you,” I said, low and smooth, gently pattin’ her arm above the bruise before lettin’ her go. “Seems they’re targetin’ our dealers like this. I found Jelly dead in his apartment.”
She scoffed. “Jelly was an idiot with tons of enemies. It could have been anyone who killed him.”
I arched a brow. “Yeah, if there wasn’t a pattern now that I hear they came for you and they got to Mags Marie. I’m real sorry about this. You know we’d never want you or your family harmed.”
Somethin’ in the line’a her shoulders relaxed a bit. “I know, Boner. I wouldn’t be working with you if I didn’t think you were a group of rebels with good hearts, but this is too much. I have to think of my family.”
“And I have to think’a mine,” I countered. “You can’t just stop workin’ with us, Shell. You run North Van, for fuck’s sake. It’d cause serious issues for more than just our chapter if we closed up shop.”
“Well then, what’re you going to do about these bastards?” she spat. “I want them dead, Boner.”
“You and me both,” I promised. “Let me think on it, yeah? We just got this info, so I need to talk to my Prez and the brothers about our course’a action. But we will not leave you hangin’, you get me? In fact, if you want, I’ll leave Pigeon here with you. Call him your cousin or whatever the hell and take him with you wherever you go ’til we get this fixed, yeah?”
She stared at me querulously for moment before tappin’ out her cigarette and pullin’ a can’a Febreeze from the same drawer she’d stored her smokes in.
“Fine, leave the kid. He’s a little awkward, but Midge loves his tattoos. I’ll keep shit going, but my family stays here with Pigeon. I’ll make trips back to the city as need be.”
“Agreed.” I leaned a hand into the desktop and chuffed her lightly under the chin. “Thanks, Shell. I promise, personally, I’ll see this doesn’t happen again.”
“The only reason I’m not getting on a plane to Mexico is because I know that, Boner,” she told me quietly, touchin’ me briefly on the cheek. “Now get the fuck out of my house.”