Текст книги "Walk Through Fire"

Автор книги: Kristen Ashley

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Текущая страница: 31 (всего у книги 32 страниц)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Hear?

Millie

“NO CARISSA, SHE’S too young, too new to the fold,” Tyra declared. “And no Tabby, because she’s too pregnant.”

“Hear you,” Elvira muttered.

“Agreed,” Lanie said.

I sat with my back to the arm of the couch under the window of Tyra’s office at Ride’s garage, my neck twisted to look out the window.

We were having our powwow as called by me through Tyra.

It was Tyra’s decision that it was only Lanie, Elvira, and me.

She was the president’s old lady. There was a hierarchy even if she did not one thing to demand it, so I knew that was her call.

Even so, I agreed with her decision.

“Millie?” she called.

I tore my gaze off the enormous forecourt outside, bikes parked in front of the Compound, our cars parked in front of the office, the noises muted coming through from the garage, and looked to Tyra at her desk.

Elvira was sitting on the couch with me, Lanie in a chair opposite Tyra.

It was three days after the incident and it had gone down like Valenzuela said it would.

Even though I’d reported to the police he was there and I’d witnessed all I’d witnessed, as Valenzuela said he would, a man came forward and confessed to the crimes.

He had all the timings right. He had all the activities right (not including Valenzuela and his assassin being involved, but he corroborated the Pedro hitting me, Carlos making the decision to kidnap me portion of my story).

He also had the gun used in the murders and gunshot residue on his hand.

Nevertheless, Valenzuela was collected, questioned, but he’d alibied out.

Not a prostitute.

His girlfriend, a woman by the name of Camilla Turnbull, said on record that he was with her the entire time.

They’d also found the prostitute I’d described and she’d said she was there but she’d also said the confessed shooter told her to leave prior to the macabre festivities, confirming all I said that went down. But she also confirmed the lie, that the guy who gave the confession was there, not Valenzuela.

Furthering Valenzuela’s story, there was nothing to indicate he was there.

It was a motel; the place was rife with fingerprints and DNA.

None of it belonged to Valenzuela.

Canvasing motel guests brought witnesses to me being forced up the steps and into the room. The prostitute’s attendance. Carlos and Pedro being there.

And the confessed killer was identified.

Dozens of witnesses to folks coming to and going from the motel, and no one reported a positive ID on Valenzuela or mentioned any other man being present.

Logan had refused to allow Zadie to be questioned. She was handling things okay and Logan was not fired up to let anything harm that.

Deb agreed. She was not fired up about any of this and not in a super good mood. But Logan had not been wrong. She didn’t get ugly about it. She looked after her daughters. She’d called and asked after me.

But she obviously knew the way of Chaos and knew her ex-husband.

She was no longer an old lady.

She was still toeing the line.

Anyway, Zadie couldn’t confirm Valenzuela’s involvement because he wasn’t at my house. So she couldn’t give any more to the story than what they already knew.

Valenzuela was careful. He’d totally covered his tracks. In fact¸ the totality of this was both eerie and scary as shit.

“Millie,” Tyra called again.

I jerked and focused on her.

“Sorry,” I muttered.

“Girl, you gotta get yourself some help,” Elvira encouraged softly, watching me closely. “You need to work things out in your head. The shit you experienced was extreme.”

I drew in breath and shrugged.

She was right, of course. I’d been kidnapped and witnessed two men murdered.

I was an old lady but I wasn’t made of steel.

But I was also handling it.

“Is it messing with you?” Tyra asked.

I nodded. “I wake up at night.” I then shook my head. “Actually, not sleeping great at all.”

“Is High taking care of you?” Lanie asked.

“Yeah,” I said quietly, because he was.

I knew there was rage burning in him down deep.

But in order to take care of me, he was burying it.

I didn’t see it. Not at all.

If I woke up in the middle of the night, he acted like his only reason for being was beating back the demons that woke me. Even during the day when I could control the flashbacks, he was watchful, careful, tender.

It was a balm that was soothing.

But even as potent as it was, I knew there would be a long wait to healing.

“Talked to Malik about this shit,” Elvira declared. “He says as good as the support you have around you is, in every case he’s dealt with, professional help is the only way to go.”

I feared if I admitted I needed a counselor, the wrath Logan was banking would start to blaze out of control.

I slid my eyes to Tyra.

She got me, knew my dilemma, the limited answers to solving it, and gave me a soft smile.

I looked back to Elvira.

“It’s sweet you’re worried but it’d help if we could focus on the task at hand,” I told her.

“I’ll do that. Sure,” she returned. “Only if you promise you’ll consider lookin’ after yourself the way you should.”

I could give her that so I nodded.

“Right, what we need to do isn’t gonna be easy,” Tyra declared.

She was right.

Meddling in the affairs of the brothers was tricky business. If those affairs were dangerous and they were dealing with them the way they felt they had to, it was a no go.

But if Logan was banking his rage, I knew his brothers were too. That was what they did. What one felt, the others reciprocated. What one endured, the others endured with him.

And when vengeance was earned, the others were there to mete it.

And I worried that Valenzuela knew just that.

“Millie, are you sure you’re in a place you can be in on this?” Lanie asked.

I leveled my gaze on her.

“Just consider living twenty years without Hop, then getting him back. No matter what happened to you in the meantime, would you ever allow yourself to be in a place where you might lose him again?”

“No,” she answered quietly.

“No,” I repeated firmly. “So, yes, I’m in a place where I can be in on this.”

“Okay, then,” Tyra butted in, and I looked to her to see her looking at Elvira. “I think our best bet it to start with Hawk.”

“Hawk ain’t gonna let us wade in on this either,” Elvira replied. “Valenzuela don’t like me much after I did that undercover shit with his business. Hawk’s also in his line of sight. He gets wind we’re wadin’ in in whatever way we could do that, he’ll shut us down to the point I wouldn’t put it past his ass to kidnap all of ours and lock us down in one of his safe houses.”

Every time he was mentioned, Hawk Delgado got more and more interesting.

“I don’t mean asking for his help, Vira. I mean finding a way to find out what’s going on,” Tyra said. “If we try to get anything from our men, they’ll figure it out.”

“You think Hawk keeps files on shit like this?” Elvira asked.

“I think you can find out if he does or if he doesn’t,” Tyra answered.

Suddenly, Elvira grinned. “You’d think right.”

Tyra sat back in her chair. “We’ll start with that. It may not come to anything but the more information we have, the better. In the meantime,” she looked to Lanie and me, “work your men. Go cautious. Be smart. And I’m not talking about pumping them for information. I’m talking about making sure they get what they’d be leaving behind if something disastrous happened.”

“I think they already know that, Ty-Ty,” Lanie noted, and Tyra looked to her.

“I know they do. Just make sure they don’t forget,” she replied.

“I get you all. I get you’re freaked,” Elvira put in. “Valenzuela is a threat. But Chaos has never gone stupid. Do you honestly think this guy is gonna get the better of the brotherhood?”

“A man took me,” Tyra reminded her, “and Tack walked through a hail of gunfire to get to me.” She lifted a hand and indicated me. “Valenzuela took Millie. Do I think Chaos would do anything stupid?” She shook her head. “Do I fear that emotion, which is all that guides the Club, love, trust, family, protection, brotherhood, could cloud things when they’re up against an insane but worthy opponent? Yes.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Elvira mumbled, visibly mulling that over in her head before she agreed. “I hear you. I’ll see what I can get on where they are.”

My eyes drifted back out the window.

“Millie?” Tyra called.

I looked back to her.

She tipped her head to the side. “Honey, you sure you’re good?”

I wanted to believe that Chaos had one last battle to win before they were clean and free forever and they were going to win that battle.

But Benito Valenzuela was a man who would go after what he wanted in a way he wouldn’t be stopped.

Unless he was stopped.

And as crazy as he was, that was a black mark I didn’t want on any of their souls.

“Tack’ll protect you, High, all the brothers,” Tyra said when I didn’t reply. “I hope you know that. What we’re doing, it’s just helping him accomplish that.”

“Logan followed a dark path,” I told them. They all looked at each other and from the way they did, I guessed they knew a bit about that path so I didn’t need to get into that and kept going. “It was because of me even if it wasn’t. I don’t want him on that path again, because of me, even when it isn’t.”

“Keep ’im off it, then,” Elvira declared. “Man’s gettin’ more than his fair share of blowjobs, gonna have his mind on his woman’s mouth, not on some motherfucker with a screw loose.”

A giggle erupted from me because that was the truth.

They laughed with me, theirs I could hear filled with relief that I was laughing at all.

And with that, I decided we were done. Not because I didn’t like spending time with them, but because I didn’t want to think about this anymore.

Not to mention, I had to go oversee some Christmas decorations being put up in an office suite.

“I gotta go,” I said, pushing up from the couch.

They all moved. I put on my coat, grabbed my bag, got hugs and another prompt from Elvira to think about talking with someone to get the tools to deal with what happened.

I took off with a heavy heart, wishing in all that was promising with Zadie coming around before I got kidnapped that we were still on that trajectory of a life of budding happiness that would bloom to carefree.

I knew it wouldn’t always be a trip through the tulips.

But the quick taste of having just that that weekend with the girls was sublime.

Hence, I got where Logan’s rage was coming from. I got it was about Valenzuela taking me, what happened, what I saw.

It was also that he took that away from all of us.

I just hoped we could get it back.

All of us.

Intact.

Elvira

The door closed behind Millie at Tyra’s office and Elvira looked to her girls at the desk.

“We all know you bitches can’t wade into this,” she stated.

Lanie and Tyra didn’t say anything but Elvira knew they knew. They were doing what they thought they had to do for Millie right now. But they knew their men would lose their minds if their women gave a hint of interfering.

“I’m callin’ in Shirleen,” she declared.

She didn’t expect an argument.

She didn’t get one.

“Agreed,” Tyra replied.

Elvira didn’t delay. She dug in her purse and pulled out her phone.

There was one person on this earth outside Millie and the members of the Chaos brotherhood who would stop at nothing to keep Logan “High” Judd clean, free, and alive.

So Elvira called her.

She didn’t expect Shirleen would decline her invitation.

She was right.

Millie

The next afternoon, I was sitting at my desk in my studio, my eyes to my computer screen, my fingers entering figures for a budget that would deliver a doable bar mitzvah for a kid whose parents wanted me to pull out all the stops but they didn’t exactly have the funds to pull that off when my door opened.

Speck, my protector for the day, stuck his head in and stated, “He’s good.”

Then he pulled his head out and a large black man so beautiful, I completely forgot how to breathe, walked in, smiling at me.

As he continued to walk in, my head tipped farther and farther back until he stopped at the other side of my desk.

At that point, my mouth was hanging open.

I did not care.

I knew this man was used to women making fools of themselves at the sight of him.

And anyway, I still hadn’t regained bodily function.

“Millie, it’s good to meet you,” his deep, smooth voice said. “I’m Elvira’s man, Malik.”

Ho...

Lee...

Shit.

No wonder she wanted her ball and chain on him.

“I... uh... I...” I swiftly got up and shoved my hand his way. “Malik, I can’t tell you what a pleasure it is to meet you.”

He took my hand and smiled at me again.

I licked my lips.

He let me go and stated, “It’s come to my attention you’re planning my wedding.”

Damn.

Fuck.

Shit.

“I... uh... I...”

I stopped talking because I had nothing more to give to that statement.

“Don’t worry,” he said, his voice deeper, smoother, like a lullaby. “I just have one thing to ask.”

He could ask anything, so I nodded.

“You plan a wedding that’ll make my baby happy. But before you do that, you plan a night where I ask her to spend the rest of her life with me that she’ll never forget.”

Instantly, I forgot how beautiful he was when I felt my eyes fill with tears.

“Really?” I whispered. “You’re gonna ask?”

“You help me do that right, yeah.”

“Oh my God,” I kept whispering. “I’m so happy.”

“Glad to hear it, sweetheart, but do me a favor and make Elvira happier.”

I nodded madly, now choked up but also grinning like a fool.

“Good we ironed that out,” he stated.

I kept nodding like a crazy woman.

And grinning because my girl was going to get what she wanted, I got to plan that, and it was going to be sublime.

He grinned back and again offered his hand.

I took it. He squeezed mine, let me go, pulled out his wallet, and said, “My card. You got a plan, call me.”

He handed the card to me.

My fingers closed around it. “Will do,” I promised.

He gave me another smile. I got happier that Elvira was going to have that for a lifetime, then he said, “Sorry this is short, but I got things to do.”

I nodded again.

He turned to the door and I moved around the desk to follow him.

When he made it to the door, he stopped at it and looked down at me.

“While you’re plannin’, one thing you could do to keep my woman in a good place is find help.”

I stopped smiling.

His voice dipped back to lullaby range but it was different this time.

“I know Chaos closes ranks when shit goes down. I know they take care of their own. I get that. I also know my woman is worried about you and I don’t like that. But the thing I hope you get is that no brother chooses a woman for old lady that he doesn’t wanna hand the world. You need it, High’ll want you to have it. That’s guaranteed and you know it. They also don’t choose women who aren’t strong enough to live their way of life. Which means they don’t choose women who are too weak to ask for help. Not dissin’ you, sweetheart. I get the need to try and con yourself that you can make it on your own. I’m just sayin’, why do that if you don’t have to?”

I felt my eyes narrow. “Did you come here to ask me to help you plan a pop-the-question night that will exceed Elvira’s wildest dreams or did you come here to deliver a lecture because you’re sick of hearing how your woman is worried about me?”

“Two birds,” he replied.

Elvira.

And her man Malik.

I liked her but I was beginning to realize she could be a pain in the ass.

“Just because you felt free to come here and lecture me, I’m not asking my florist for my usual discount on the suite full of roses at the Brown Palace that I’m gonna book for your proposal,” I declared.

“Sassy,” he said through a smile. Then decreed, “Old lady.”

“Damn straight,” I returned.

He kept smiling.

Then he quit.

“Get help,” he whispered.

“I will,” I whispered back.

I didn’t know him at all but the relief I saw in his handsome face was not about his woman’s peace of mind.

“Thank you,” he said, and before I could reply, he disappeared.

I stared at the door he closed behind him.

Then I smiled at the door.

Because I knew Elvira caught herself a good one.

And she was so going to get the best proposal in history.

High

High parked his truck and moved up the dark, deserted lane.

He didn’t carry a flashlight. It had been a while, but he knew his way.

The shadows in front of him moved but he just kept walking toward them.

It was no surprise, as he got closer, that Shirleen formed through the darkness.

This was their meeting place. This was where they went when bad shit was going down. This was where he got his briefings when she needed him to take her back. This was where he gave her hers when he needed that returned.

None of that had happened for years.

So her calling him there was a surprise.

And not a good one.

He stopped two feet from her and barked, “Talk to me.”

She did.

And she did it to bark back, “Do not fuckin’ blow it.”

“What?” he clipped.

“Boy, you got redemption. Do you know how hard it is to do good deeds, a hundred of ’em not comin’ close to erasin’ just one of the bad? Don’t answer that ’cause I know you do. You’re on that path. Do not stray.”

He threw out a hand, pissed, surprised, and blindsided, none of which he liked.

“What the fuck are you talkin’ about?” he asked.

“Your woman was taken. That is not good. She was found safe. You hold on to that and you bury the burn of vengeance so you don’t blow it.”

He got it.

And what he got took him from pissed to ticked.

“You keep outta this shit and you keep Nightingale out of it. It’s now all Chaos,” he warned.

It was.

Mitch, Slim, and Hawk were history. Tack had them on a string so they wouldn’t cotton on, Rosalie still in play, so as far as they knew, Chaos was keeping their shit and it was all still a go.

But Tack had sent Hound in.

So in the end, it would be all Chaos.

Shirleen got in his space and he didn’t move, staring down his nose at her.

“It is. No other way it could be. But you guide that, High. You guide it so the bounty you got when you got your woman back does not suffer. I know what happened. I know what she did. I know why she did it. Do not make decades of sacrifice all for nothing.”

He stared into her eyes through the dark, then he lifted his gaze and looked over her head.

She stepped away, murmuring, “You get me.”

He looked at her again. “What he did cannot stand.”

“No. And a hundred good deeds don’t erase one bad. You got enough bad, High. We both do. You take him down, you do that shit right. You’re never gonna have a golden soul, but your woman has one. Don’t tarnish it.”

He clenched his teeth, feeling a muscle jump in his jaw.

“Not gonna surprise you to know, she’s scared as shit what you’re gonna do,” she informed him. “Not gonna surprise you to know, she isn’t the only one. Your women make an art of standin’ by their men. Your job is to make that effort worth it.”

God, the woman was fucking irritating when she was right.

“You done?” he gritted.

“I get in there?” she shot back.

He said nothing.

She stared at him.

Then she whispered, “I got in there.”

“I’m done,” he replied.

She said nothing.

He turned around and started to walk away.

She called after him as he did.

“When I had nothin’, I had you. I’ll never forget that, High, and you got my love until my last breath for givin’ it to me. I want everything for you. Now you got it. Just need you to do one thing. Keep hold.”

He was ticked, cold, outside Denver, which meant far away from Millie, and he had a black woman bossing him around in the dark.

He did not want to give her anything.

He couldn’t do that.

Because she had his love too.

So he did what he had to do.

He kept walking but he did it lifting an arm and flicking out his hand.

*  *  *

He opened the door, walked into the house, heard the beeping of the alarm but stopped dead.

The kitchen was a disaster.

And Millie was at the stove.

“Do not freak out,” she ordered, not turning to look at him. “Things are not going great and when you know what I’m doing, you’re gonna walk right out and hit a Chipotle. But I want you to bear with me because I figure when I get this going, it’s gonna be out of this world.”

He closed the door, locked it, and turned to the alarm panel just in time to punch in the code before it sent a signal to dispatch.

Then he walked through the kitchen, seeing the remains of vegetables, bowls filled with a bunch of shit, all of it looking healthy, packaging and wrappers everywhere, what looked like wet, torn paper tossed aside and a glass of wine that had seen spillage so there were stains on the counter.

He stopped behind Millie and saw three pots bubbling, the stove splattered and smeared, and she was bent over a skillet with boiling water in it, a piece of paper also in it that she was poking with some tongs.

She must have felt him because she said, like she was concentrating on something else, not speaking to him, “I just gotta get one of these fuckers in the water and out of it in one piece so we can stuff it and maybe eventually have dinner.”

“What the fuck is it?” he asked.

She glanced over her shoulder at him, then back at the skillet.

“It’s rice paper.”

“What?”

“Rice paper,” she repeated in exasperation, grabbed an edge carefully, started to draw it from the water, reached out her other hand to take hold with her fingertips, and the thing tore down the middle. “Motherfucker!” she yelled, lifting the paper in her tongs and snapping it toward the counter where it splatted against several others of its kind and there it remained.

She reached immediately to a package and pulled out a round, thin, white thing, which she carefully slid into the water.

“Babe,” he called over her shoulder.

“What?” she asked, poking at the new piece with her tongs.

“What is dinner?” he asked.

“Homemade spring rolls,” she told the water.

He stared at her profile.

It was set and determined.

He took a slow step away.

Just as slowly, he turned his head and looked around the kitchen.

She was not working.

She was cooking.

The kitchen was not tidy.

It was a total, goddamned mess.

He looked to her.

She was not in high heels, a tight sweater, and a tighter skirt—sexy, but all class.

She was in loose-fitting pants that hugged her ass, girl slippers, and she had a thin sweater on.

Her hair was piled high on her head. It was not carefully arranged. It was slipshod and cute, curls escaping to brush her neck and cheeks.

“Babe,” he called.

“Hang on,” she said.

“Millie.”

“Hang on,” she repeated, and he saw her making another attempt to extricate the paper out of the skillet.

“Hallelujah!” she cried, whirling his way, intact paper dripping water to the floor between tongs and fingers.

The minute she stopped, it ripped down the middle.

She glared at it and shouted, “Goddamn it!”

High burst out laughing.

“This is not funny, Low. That’s like my seventh try! We’re never gonna eat at this rate.”

He kept laughing even as he declared, “I’m never gonna lose you.”

Her head jerked and he kept laughing since she was still holding the broken paper in her hand, looking adorable, her sweater from the front cut low, a vision he liked, as she asked, “What?”

“Never, baby, not ever. Never gonna lose you. Never gonna do shit to take away what I got back. Never gonna do shit to make it not worth it, all you gave to me. I’m not gonna go back there. That path didn’t feel right from the start. You at my side, it’s all kinds of wrong.”

“Low,” she whispered.

Top to toe he saw it written all over her.

She got him.

So, still chuckling, he got close to her and swept her (and her paper) in his arms.

It was wet against his chest.

He didn’t give a fuck.

“Stop worrying,” he ordered.

She stared up at him.

He let her go with one hand to take the paper and tongs out of her hands and toss them to the side.

The tongs clattered.

The paper splatted.

He just wrapped his arm back around her.

His Millie.

His girl.

The only woman he’d ever loved, the only woman he’d ever love.

He’d take her tidy, washing out her wineglass at night, getting cats who matched her house.

And he’d take her like this, cooking shit he probably did not want to eat and getting ticked as all hell doing it in a kitchen that was a disaster.

He’d take her however she came.

He’d take anything from her.

What he would not do was do shit that might make him lose her.

“Walked into a party, fell in love with you. Walked through fire when I lost you. Got you back. Nothin’, Millie, nothin’ will make me lose you. Hear?”

Her eyes were warm, but her question was hesitant. “Did someone... say something to you?”

They did.

She didn’t need to know that.

“The brothers are gonna do it right,” he told her.

They were, once he had words with Tack.

She studied him, doing it closely, taking her time, then she relaxed in his arms.

“Okay, Low,” she said quietly.

“Also not gonna eat fuckin’ spring rolls,” he told her.

She gave a slight jolt in his arms before her eyebrows drew together.

“It’s only partially healthy, Logan. The rest of it is all meat and sauce.”

“I hate spring rolls.”

Her brows stayed drawn. “It’s impossible to hate them. Everything in them is good.”

He looked to the side, then looked to her. “Sprouts?”

“They’re all water. They don’t even taste of anything.”

“Bullshit.”

“Logan—”

“Turn it all off. We’ll clean it up later. Now, I’m starved. We’re goin’ to Chipotle.”

“Logan!” she snapped. “I’ve been cooking for an hour.”

“Eat it for lunch,” he replied.

“You need to eat healthier,” she declared. “We both do.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s good for you and it’s a good habit to teach your daughters.”

“Think Deb’s got that covered, babe.”

She shut her mouth.

He had her there.

He let her go but grabbed her hand and dragged her to the door. “You got some tennis shoes or somethin’ to pull on?”

“Do I look like a woman who owns tennis shoes?”

He stopped and looked down at her. “You wanna get healthy and you don’t own tennis shoes?”

She looked to the wall.

He had her there too.

He started laughing again.

She looked back to him but only to glare.

“Babe, get some shoes,” he demanded.

“You go get Chipotle. I want spring rolls,” she replied.

“Get some shoes,” he repeated.

“Seriously, Low. This might be a disaster but it also might be really good,” she returned.

He pulled her close, bending his neck to get his face in hers.

“Get some shoes.”

“This is the bossy part I’m not fond of,” she announced.

He leaned back and lifted his brows. “You gonna send your man out in the cold alone to get his dinner?”

“And this is the heretofore unmentioned hot biker manipulation I’m not fond of.”

He again started laughing.

“Fortunately for you, I’m fond of that,” she said while he did it.

“What?” he asked, still laughing.

“You laughing.”

He stopped.

Then he remembered.

And once he remembered, he did something about it.

Because he’d come home but he hadn’t greeted his woman properly.

So he tugged her hand hard, felt her body hit his, and he saw to that.

When he was done, he was fighting going hard and had to keep doing it when he saw her face dazed.

“Turn off the shit, baby, get some shoes. Let’s go get dinner. Hear?”

“Hear,” she whispered breathily. Then she held his eyes and something drifted into them that, along with the sudden tightening of her body, made him brace before she said, “I found a counselor. I’m gonna go talk to her about what happened with Valenzuela.”

“You let me know when that shit goes down,” he stated immediately. “I’ll drive you.”

She relaxed in his arms.

She got tight again when he went on to declare, “You gotta know, we’re movin’ and we’re doin’ that soon.”

“We are?” she asked.

“Your neighbors suck.”

He’d told her about her neighbor witnessing her being taken and doing nothing about it.

So when he declared that, she relaxed again and added a smile.

“House hunting,” she murmured. “Fun.”

If she thought that, she was nuts.

He didn’t share that mostly because she rolled up on her toes, touched her mouth to his, then pulled out of his arms to do as he’d asked.

So they could eat it warm, they ate their burritos at Chipotle.

It was cold outside.

But the best she could do was flip-flops.

It was cute.

It was Millie.

And it had made him laugh.