Chapter Twenty-Two
Raff
I got the text when I was negotiating with some shirtless, greasy-haired guy in the back of his pickup truck over some guns that wouldn’t even bank us that much money.
But I knew I couldn’t show back up in Shady Valley without a halfway decent haul.
And this was my last stop before doing the last leg of my trip.
I wasn’t even going to stop for the three hours of sleep I desperately needed. I was just going to drive the last thirteen hours straight.
I was sick of the road.
Sick of empty hotel rooms.
Sick of not having a passenger princess to shake her head when I belted out a power ballad or pointed out hilariously bad billboard ads or PSAs.
I was sick of wondering what Lula was doing, if she was missing me as much as I was missing her.
I needed to get my ass home to see.
“You’re gonna have to do better on those pocket pistols. Who the fuck wants guns that are only designed to be center-mass accurate at seven yards?” I asked. “One sec,” I added, reaching for my phone.
It was a text from Arty.
A text I had extremely conflicted feelings about.
Namely, excitement—for Lula—and dread for me.
Because I wanted her to get her money back.
I wanted her out of that damn motel. I wanted her to be able to enjoy her little pleasures in life.
But, fuck, I knew that once she was back on track, the chances of her giving me the time of day again were slim to none.
It turned out Drake wasn’t the genius he clearly thought he was.
It took Arty less than three days to get the asshole to click a link that gave him full access to Drake’s digital wallet.
From there, it was a quick matter to transfer the funds to another wallet and give access of that to Lula.
Who could then download an app to transfer the crypto to her bank account.
In my mind, I could see her over in Shady Valley, waking up to the best news she’d had in months. And my heart hurt that I wasn’t there to celebrate with her.
“I can do half on the pockets,” the guy said as he turned to spit the saliva that built up from him sucking on his snuff since we started talking.
“Then we have a deal,” I said, tucking my phone away and passing him the cardboard box to load the guns in.
I took it, handed over the cash, then waited for him to leave before I set the box on my hook, putting on gloves, then taking out each gun, checking to make sure they were empty, then loading them one by one into the hidden panels in the car.
Finished with that, I climbed in, took off the gloves, and made my way back to the highway, ready to fight the exhaustion and keep my stops to a minimum to see if I could shave a little time off the thirteen hours ahead of me.
What was I going to do or say when I got back? Yeah, that was the question I pondered the entire fucking ride—through traffic jams and construction zones and deer who seemed intent on suicide that had me nearly offing myself to avoid hitting them.
The problem was, as I pulled onto the main street in Shady Valley about fifteen hours later, I was no closer to coming up with a solution than I’d been when I’d started home.
What I was closer to was stinking, starving, and so tired I was a little worried I might pass out on the walk into the clubhouse from the car.
“Well, look what the cat dragged in,” Sway called as I moved inside. “Not you,” he added to Cat when his head lifted.
“Wow, you look like shit,” Saint said.
“Nice to see you, too, man,” I said, tossing the keys to him. “Car is full. I’m exhausted. If Slash happens by, tell him I need to talk to him. Preferably before Huck gets a hold of him.”
To that, Sway stiffened. “What happened in Golden Glades?”
“Shit,” I said, grabbing a mostly empty bottle of whiskey off the tray as I passed.
“You okay?”
I turned around, walking backward, and held up a finger for each word, “Stinking, starving, exhausted.”
With nothing else, I made my way to the elevator, then up to the second floor, where I stripped out of my clothes in the bathroom across from my bedroom and scrubbed the road off of me while I chugged the liquor, enjoying the slow, warm curl of it through my body and my mind.
A quick toothbrush and I walked stark naked across the hall and dropped into my bed, out cold before I could even slide under the covers.
But my sleep was riddled with weird, nonsensical, dark dreams spliced with bright flashes of memories shared with Lula. Until, eventually, both dreams collided and I woke up with a gasp, my heart pounding until I realized it was just a dream, that Lula was fine.
“Any reason you’re in bed, ass out, instead of telling me whatever it is that went down in Florida?”
“Christ,” I hissed, turning on the mattress to see Slash sitting in the chair near the door. “How long have you been here?”
“Two or three minutes.”
“What time is it?”
“Ten.”
“At night?”
“Yep.”
“Shit,” I said, starting to push up, only to have something sail across the room and smack me in the head—a pair of sleep pants.
Slash turned, and I pulled on my pants.
“Alright. Decent.”
“Get the impression that you’ve been keeping shit from me.”
“Yep,” I agreed.
“Alright. I’m all ears.”
“This isn’t my story, mostly. And the person is sensitive about it. So this can’t go beyond this clubhouse.”
“Pretty good at discretion over here.”
“I took Lula with me on the trip to Florida.” His brows lifted at that but he didn’t say anything. “She recently got herself conned out of a shit ton of money by a guy who she’d tracked to Miami.”
“And you were just being a good guy who had no ulterior motives at all.”
“I had many reasons, yeah. But when we got to Florida, we were staying at Teddy’s house.”
“The rich guy?”
“Yeah. I got a call from Arty, so I left Lula there sleeping. York was in the other room. But someone came in and attacked Lula, tried to kill her. York… handled it. The club handled the body—”
“I’m jealous of the crocodiles sometimes,” Slash mumbled to himself. “Is Lula okay?”
“Yeah, she got lucky.”
“I’m assuming it was the guy who conned her.”
“Yeah. He hired someone to do the dirty work, though. While Lula was healing, Arty gave us an idea for how he could raid this guy’s digital wallet and get her money back so she didn’t need to have any sort of confrontation with the guy. That’s what we agreed to.”
“And?”
“And that was it. I put Lula on a plane back here. I started my drive back here, stocking up as I came. I got the text this morning that Arty got the money.”
“That why the guys say you looked like shit when you showed up here? You drove through to try to, what? Get back here to tell Lula?”
“I did drive through, but no, Arty would have texted her too. I just wanted to be home.”
“I get the feeling that I’m gonna need to plan to start demanding some of the other guys start doing this trip more. You’re burning out.”
“Sometimes, it’s great.”
“By sometimes, do you mean when you have the woman you’ve had a thing for for years sitting in the passenger seat?
” he asked, shooting me a knowing smile.
“There’s leftover pizza on the counter and the guys just headed down to The Bog.
That’s some information I get the feeling you’d be grateful to hear. ”
With that, he headed out.
I should have anticipated he would be so chill about it. Technically, what I got myself involved in didn’t involve the club. I’d kept the danger away from us and Lula away from the business. A white lie wasn’t really something someone like Slash was going to get pissed about.
I got up, threw on some clothes, then made my way downstairs, grabbing a slice of pizza and heading out the door.
Because I knew Lula.
She’d be at work again already.
And I needed to see her, whether that was smart of me or not. Nearly four days apart was long enough for me.
“There he is!” Hail called when I made my way through the pub doors and out of the oppressive heat outside. “You almost look human again,” he added. “This might help,” he said, passing me a whiskey.
I picked it up and threw it back.
“Is that Rian?” I asked, spotting him walking along the back of the bar, then going through the swinging door. “At work?”
“Yeah, Cillian hasn’t been around,” Syn said.
“Has anyone asked about that?”
“Asked what?” Syn asked.
“What’s going on with Cillian?”
The guys shrugged.
“Alright. I’m gonna go ask. Slash would want to know if something is up in town.”
It was the perfect excuse to get into the back of the bar. And closer to Lula.
“Be right back,” I told them, walking over to the side of the bar.
Casey, the new bartender who might have been of interest to me a few years ago—but she was too young, too green, too bouncy and naive for me—shot me a sideways look. “Casey, you sweet thing, I need to come back there.”
“You know the rules.”
“I’m not touching the booze. I just need to speak to Rian.”
She stiffened as she passed someone their drink then moved over to the gate. “About business?”
“Yeah.” It wasn’t a lie; I was going to ask about Cillian.
“Okay. But don’t touch anything on your way past.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I’d only been in the back of The Bog a handful of times over the years and only once when it was open. People milled around. Glasses clanked. The air was heavy with steam from the dish pit.
I glanced to the left where I knew Lula’s office was located, but turned to the right where I knew I would find Rian.
He was sitting at his big brother’s desk, looking drained.
“It’s weird to work, huh?” I asked, leaning in the doorway.
His gaze flicked up as a deep breath escaped him.
“This shit is for the birds, man.”
“I bet. Is everything alright? Your brother? Business?”
“Far as I know, yeah. Cillian is just… busy with other shit. Not the kind of shit the club needs to worry about, if that’s why you’re here.”
“Okay. Good. Just checking. He’s good, though?”
“Yeah, he’s good,” Rian said as his phone dinged.
He lunged for it like a lifeline. It turned out it was one. “Oh, thank fuck.” At my raised brows, he shot me a smirk and got to his feet. “Conor is coming in to take over. I got something pretty and warm waiting for me to drop in.”
“Don’t let me keep you,” I said, moving out of the doorway and waving to the door.
He was quick to say his goodbyes.
And I was free of anyone seeing me walk across the back room toward Lula’s office, since the dishwasher had snuck out the back door to, I imagined, smoke, judging by the skunk scent I smelled as Rian pushed the door open.
I paused at the door, took a deep breath, grabbed the knob, then moved inside.