Текст книги "Retribution"
Автор книги: Sienna Valentine
сообщить о нарушении
Текущая страница: 3 (всего у книги 13 страниц)
~ THREE ~
As she towel-dried the last of the pint glasses that morning, Eva said to Charlie, “Bartending isn’t so hard. Do people really go to school to learn this?”
Charlie scoffed a little. He took the glass from her and nested it carefully among the rest in the cupboard. “What we’re doing isn’t exactly bartending. No one’s asked for anything more complicated than a Jack and Coke in this place.”
“I suppose you’re right,” said Eva as she let her gaze wander over the few barflies posted up this early in the day. Uncle Owen had given them a heads-up about the regular drunks, the ones for whom there was no AA or miracle redemption left. Aside from feeling great sympathy, Eva didn’t mind them. They kept to themselves.
Charlie stood up and closed the sliding cabinet door. He looked down at the paper checklist sitting on the bar and crossed one off the list. “All right, I’m going to trim that oak behind the house that’s starting to pull up the rain gutters. Can you hold the place down for a little while?”
Eva gave a look out to the silent room. “I think I can manage.”
Charlie smiled and clapped a soft palm on the side of her face before he shoved the checklist in his front pocket and headed out the back door of the bar. Eva finished cleaning up the bar surface and threw her towel in the laundry pile in the back room. She spied the cordless phone hanging on the wall from the corner of her eye and yanked it off.
As she walked back around to the bar, Eva punched in the number for her best friend, Laura. She glanced at her watch with the phone to her ear, hoping she wasn’t calling too early on a Saturday morning.
“Hello?” From behind Laura’s voice, Eva could hear the sound of sizzling and some indiscernible song playing from her kitchen counter MP3 player.
“I can’t believe you’re actually home and awake on a Saturday morning. Fruitless night at Donatella’s?” Eva smirked, leaning on the bar.
Laura’s laugh instantly lightened Eva’s mood. “I suppose that depends on how you define ‘fruitless.’ ”
“You skank.”
“I miss you. Why did you have to bail to that stupid little place?” Laura whined.
Eva sighed and stared out at the quiet room. One of the barflies hiccupped with his whole body, making her curl her nose in disgust. “I haven’t even been gone a week.”
“It already feels weird, though. How is everything?”
“Also weird. The place isn’t bad, though. It’s on the edge of a really lovely forest, you wouldn’t believe how quiet it gets.”
Laura snorted. “Great, so now I have to worry about you getting eaten by a bear, or some shit, like you’re a cavewoman.”
Eva laughed. “This is rural America, Laura. I didn’t get dropped in the vast Siberian wilderness. Have you ever even been outside of Silverton?”
“Sure, to other civilized places, like New York or Seattle. Not to some Podunk village like Horlong where everyone’s a meth head or a diner waitress.”
“Howlett.”
“Whatever, it’s crossed off my map.”
Eva shook her head, smiling even as her heart ached with homesickness. “Well, you’ll be even more delighted to know that the bar I’m running is a dive.”
Laura gasped. “Jesus, Eva! I swear, I don’t know what’s gotten into you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” said Eva as she dug a nail at some imperfection in the bar’s glossy surface.
“Come off it, you know what I’m talking about. Eva-three-years-ago would have never agreed to just up and leave the city with her meathead brother to go run a dive bar in the middle of nowhere.”
“Yeah, well, Eva-three-years-ago was a much dumber woman.”
The sound of cooking abruptly ceased. Laura’s voice came louder. “You’re not trying to run from things, are you? From your pain? You know that won’t work.”
“No,” said Eva immediately. She had already had this conversation with herself countless dark nights, lying in bed, staring at the city’s light reflections on her ceiling. “I really just needed a change, Laura. I felt like I had rolled into a ditch I couldn’t crawl out of. Living with Charlie helped stabilize my life after I left Rick. But now that I’m stable, I need something else.”
Laura went quiet a moment. Then she said, “What is it you think you’re going to find in Howlett?”
Eva shrugged, even though her friend couldn’t see it. “Nothing. Myself. I don’t know. I’m not really looking for anything. I just… needed to not be there, in that city.”
Laura sighed. “I blame your books, filling your big, sweet brain with all these wild ideas about adventure and excitement. What you really need is some good old-fashioned dick.”
Eva laughed and flushed red, scanning the bar’s few tenants in embarrassment, as if they could hear Laura in her ear. “Are you saying I can’t have both?”
“Honey, who among us is so fortunate?”
Eva giggled. “Judging by my clientele so far, I’m not going to get either.”
“Why don’t ya pull on your boots and spurs and rustle you up a young stallion over at the local saloon?” said Laura in her best country accent—which was, in fact, a terrible country accent. Eva tried to keep her laughter down, covering her mouth as she rocked on a stool behind the bar. One of the barflies gave a fleeting side glance at her.
“I can see you’ve watched a lot of westerns in your time,” said Eva.
“Even a shit place like Howlett has to have a place to meet guys. Christ, what else is there to even do out there?”
Eva slipped out her own country accent. “Well, first we get up at the crack of dawn to castrate the bulls and clean the outhouse…”
“Ugh, I’ve already lost you.” Eva could hear the smile in Laura’s voice. “I’m just saying, if you’re out there for adventure, you should really go for it. You’ve had, like, a single one-night stand since you left Rick. You’re a young, hot, brainiac. Stop depriving the world of your sexiness.”
Eva began to reply as the front door of Swashbuckler’s opened, creaking. Sunlight swamped in. Two men with broad shoulders stood in the doorway for just a moment before they stepped inside and let the door swing shut behind them. Both had sharp, attractive Latino features and expensive leather jackets. The man on the right had his long, crow-black hair circled up in a bun at the top of his head in a style that struck Eva as out of place. That hipster look was popular in the cities. She immediately had a flash of instinct that these men were not locals.
Laura had been talking in her ear, but Eva heard none of it. She couldn’t tear her eyes off the two men at the door as she said, “Sorry, Laura, I’m going to have to call you back…”
“Man, you’re really going to lengths to avoid this talk, sweet cheeks.”
The two Latino men scanned the room silently before their eyes settled on Eva. She felt something sick and urgent shoot up her spine and to the hairs on the back of her neck. “It’s not that. We’ll talk later, I’ve just… got some customers.” They stared at her now. She could feel their gaze despite their sunglasses.
Laura didn’t seem to notice the tension in Eva’s voice. “Okay, honey. Call me this evening, I’m staying in tonight.”
“Will do,” said Eva. She dropped the phone from her ear and ended the call.
For a few tense seconds, the three of them just looked at each other from across the room. Eva had this strange urge to do something, even though she had no idea what that would be. Instead, she stood stiff like a deer in headlights until the men took their sunglasses off and moseyed slowly up to the bar. Eva came up to meet them.
The one with the bun on his head smiled at her when he approached, but the smile didn’t reach up to his eyes. “Hola, señorita.”
“Good morning, gentlemen,” said Eva. The other man with the close-cropped black hair stood behind his compatriot, silent. “What can I get you?”
The man with the bun smiled, a genuine one this time. “Ai, it’s a little early for us to be drinking, I think.”
Eva frowned. “Some coffee, then? I can put on a pot.”
“No, miss,” he shook his head and leaned onto the counter with his arms stretched out in a pose that made Eva think of the way Jesus looked in Da Vinci’s Last Supper. “We are here for business. I need to speak to your husband.”
It had been a long time since anyone asked for Eva’s husband, but even still, thinking of Rick made her sick to her stomach. It must have shown on her face; the man with the bun amended his request. “Or your father, perhaps?”
Eva said, “I’m sorry, is this your way of asking to speak to the owner of this bar?”
“Yes. We have business to conduct with the owner.”
Eva had to stop herself from rolling her eyes. Instead, she just looked up at the ceiling for a few brief seconds and took a breath. “You’re speaking with her.” For all intents and purposes, anyway.
The man turned back to exchange a glance with his compatriot. There was nothing subtle or friendly about it. “Is that a fact?”
Eva felt a growing anxiety in her stomach, and it made her impatient, made her tongue sharp. Rick had always punished her for it, but no matter how hard she tried to quiet it, it was just who she was. “Must not be very important business, if you couldn’t be bothered to find out who runs things.”
Darkness crossed the face of the man with the bun, a darkness Eva recognized. But it passed quickly and without comment. Soon his fake smile had returned, teeth polished and shining white. “On the contrary, it is very important business. And this is the first I have heard of a woman’s involvement here.”
“Recent development,” said Eva, cocking her head. “So, what is it I can do for you?”
The man watched her for a few seconds. She could almost hear the gears in his mind turning as he tried to decide what to do with this new information. He stood up and removed his arms from the counter. In a slow, deliberate walk, he moved down the length of the bar. Like an accompanying musician, his partner headed slowly toward the front door, standing in front of it like a human shield.
Blocking the exit, said some deep part of Eva’s mind. Or do I just read too many books?
Her chest felt tight as she watched the man with the bun move around the bar, past where customers were allowed to go. He came around it without hesitation and walked straight toward her. Aside from hopping over the bar itself, Eva had nowhere to run. She froze as he approached her.
He stopped in front of her, standing almost a head taller than she was and staring down at her with dark brown eyes. Dead eyes.
“The only thing you can do for me… señorita… is what all other women can do for me.” He took one of his hands and ran it down the pale skin of her left arm, exposed by the sundress she wore. Eva felt shocked at his touch but didn’t recoil. She stared at him with anger in her eyes, frozen. “So unless that is what you are offering…”
“It is not,” said Eva through gritted teeth.
The man smiled at her discomfort and moved his hand up to trace her clenched jawline. “Then you can deliver a message for me to the real owner. You tell him Ramirez will be back to speak with him very soon about a business arrangement, and I would find it unspeakably rude if he does not show his face a second time.”
Eva said nothing. She couldn’t find any words to spit at this man. Tears stung the back of her eyes and she focused all her energy on keeping them hidden.
He removed his hand from Eva’s face and abruptly turned away from her. He sauntered back out around the bar and toward the door. “Until we meet again, señorita. Don’t forget the message. And for your own good, I wouldn’t tell anyone else we were here.” The silent man held open the door for Ramirez and they both disappeared out into the dusty morning sunlight.
The door shut hard and Eva felt her body’s tension collapse. Her legs began to shake. She shuffled until she felt the stool underneath her and sat down. Tears began to pop out of her eyes even though she wasn’t crying. Through the blurry tears, she could see the barflies looking up from where they had hunkered down, staring at her with wondering, cowardly looks.
Just a few minutes later, Charlie came in from his work in the yard and went straight for the fridge in the bar’s back room, talking obliviously about the roughness of the job and the stubborn oak branches. When he wandered into the bar room and saw Eva, he paused mid-drink of Gatorade and came over to her.
“Hey, you look sick. Are you all right? What’s wrong?”
Eva felt like her blood was taking its sweet time pumping again, getting her brain working. Seeing Charlie broke the last of the spell the fear of the moment had cast on her. “I’m okay. But some… some men just came in here…”
Charlie looked around, confused, at the same barflies that had been there since ten a.m. “What men? Did they hurt you?”
“Two men—they wanted to speak with the owner. I told them it was me and they refused to believe me. They…” Eva thought of the fingers on her arm and face and shook her head. “I don’t know what they wanted, but something’s not right. They said they were going to come back tonight to speak with the owner, that it was very important.”
“Uncle Owen didn’t say anything about expecting business,” said Charlie.
She looked toward the closed door of the bar. “I don’t think Uncle Owen was expecting them, either.”
~ FOUR ~
From the blackness of absolute unconsciousness, Will heard the distant blaring of a high-pitched alarm. He tried to ignore it, tried to push it away into the swirling dark and return to silence, but the insistent rhythm continued without pause. His brain latched onto it and drew him out of sleep like a moth to a flame, and he groaned out loud as his body was pulled back into consciousness. Several parts radiated with throbbing pain, including his head and his fists, with his stomach growling with unabated hunger. Most urgently, he had to pee like a fucking race horse.
With his eyes half-open in the late morning sun, Will stumbled to the bathroom and relieved himself before he dropped back onto his messy sheets. He tried hard to fall back into sleep, but it was no use. His brain was awake.
He lay there in bed, his forearm over his eyes to shield them from the light. His thoughts drifted in and out of a haze that still felt a little drunk. Nonetheless, memories from the night before rattled around his skull like trapped rats, scratching at him, refusing to be ignored. Blurry eyes examined cut marks on his knuckles as he stretched his sore hands. They were still smeared with dried blood from the bar fight. The scars would soon be new additions to a growing patchwork of injuries he’d earned in the last couple years.
Will took a deep breath. From the half-open window above his bed came a cool, dewy breeze that made his skin feel relieved. He could smell someone’s Sunday morning baking in the air and the scent triggered an immediate sadness in him that almost overrode his shame.
After a few minutes he forced himself to roll over and take a swig of water from the bottle he kept perpetually filled on his nightstand. He drank half of it, and then pawed around for his phone, which he had again failed to plug into the charger before he fell asleep. He found it in the pocket of his jeans, crumpled up on the floor, ignored since he split from his MC brothers the night before.
Twelve unread texts and two missed calls; all of the texts were from Jase, as was one of the calls. The other missed call was from his president, Henry. Chief Black Dog.
The dull ache of shame spread through Will’s chest. He thumbed his screen to quickly scan Jase’s texts, messages that started only half an hour after he left Will and the bar fight, and grew increasingly angry and worried as the night had progressed.
You’re gonna drive right off the edge if you don’t get your shit together.
I sure as hell hope you went home. I’m not bailing your ass out of County in the morning.
Are you fucking kidding me? Can’t even text me back? What the fuck is wrong with you??
You better not be a goddamn minute late tomorrow.
Will toggled through them absently before tossing his phone onto the floor. Right now, the MC was gathered up to host an end-of-summer community breakfast, one of the many positive PR moves that Henry implemented on a regular basis to make sure LeBeau’s citizens remained happy and loyal to the club. Douglas brought out his enormous barbeques and overlaid them with griddles to cook up pancakes, bacon, and sausage for anyone who wanted to stop by. They laid out picnic tables and blankets, hired magicians and jugglers. Henry took a rare audience with members of the general public. Tommy Castillo, one of the younger members, had gone out of his way to learn how to make balloon animals for these occasions, and the kids adored him for it. Even Ghost found a way to adapt his decidedly unfriendly life skills by leading the older kids in water gun battles. It made the MC look softer than they were, and gave them a chance to make sure the town’s loyalty to them was strong, so they would forgive the next inevitable gunfight or explosion.
Will imagined that Jase was probably standing next to Douglas at the grills right now, wearing some apron with a stupid joke over his cut, trying to pay attention to flipping hotcakes and checking his phone at the same time, waiting for Will to call. Or maybe Jase wasn’t waiting anymore. Will was hours late. Jase had to be a fool to think he was still coming.
Will knew he would draw some deep ire for missing the event today, and not just from Jase. But he didn’t care. That tiny ache of shame in his gut was wholly drowned by the tide of anger that washed in when he thought about Henry and the MC. For the last two years, he had tried with every fiber in his being to overcome and forgive what had happened. But it was like Will had no control anymore—not over himself, and not over the events that happened to him.
The scent of baking in the air got stronger, and Will felt tears on his face. He wiped them away with anger. Like a cruel joke, the inferno that consumed his grandmother and her shop had smelled of cinnamon and sugar, smelled of her baking, and now he couldn’t stand the scent. It made him think of fire and pain.
As intrusive thoughts of the blaze tried to surface in his mind, Will pushed back, clamping them down hard with another memory: the look on the faces of the men who had set the fire as he pumped a bullet into their brains. Three of them. He could still remember them, kneeling on the gray concrete floor of the abandoned factory, mouths gagged, eyes full of hate and fear. His MC brothers and the hierarchy of the cartel had watched him take his vengeance. In the name of alliance and mutual benefits, a deal had been struck after the bakery fire, giving the cartel transit through the mountain pass with the MC’s blessing and protection, so long as they never set up shop in LeBeau or Howlett directly. Amended to that, Henry had demanded they turned over the arsonists for the innocent blood they shed.
Will could still feel the weight of the gun in his hand, heavier somehow in that moment than it ever felt before or since. He could remember the burn of righteous rage that tore through his veins. He could still remember thinking the world would feel better once this was finished. But after the rapport died and the gun smoke cleared, he had stared down at three cold and bloody bodies and felt nothing. Not relief, not justice, not catharsis. It was like he had stepped directly into a dark forest with no map or compass as soon as he fired the gun.
Anxiety raced down Will’s body as he lay in bed, his brain overloading with rotten memories and toxic feelings. He just wanted to go back to sleep. He rustled around a few moments, trying to find some space in the bed where he could feel comfortable, but it was useless. Angrily, he lifted himself onto his feet.
His agitation grew as he paced his room, as if he was caught in a labyrinth of thought he couldn’t escape. Finally the building pressure popped, and Will growled as he punched a hole in the drywall next to his bookshelf. The shelf rattled against the wall and spilled a few titles carelessly to the floor. His already-injured hand lit up in a fireworks show of pain, and while it hurt like a bitch, it also took Will’s focus off his mental anguish for a few precious moments. He felt blood running down his dry skin, knuckle wounds torn open just as endorphins rushed through his system to treat the pain, making his vision sharp and the ache in his muscles just a little number.
Will grabbed a dirty shirt from the floor and wiped the blood off his hands as he stared down at the pile of books. Even though they only joined a growing mess of clutter and chaos, he couldn’t bring himself to leave them there. Not his books. Making sure he didn’t have blood on his hands, Will picked them up with care and put them back on the shelf one at a time. Fingering the spines, he couldn’t help but long for the time when reading made him feel better. He was so anxious lately that he could barely concentrate on a magazine.
Will sighed to himself. Everywhere he turned, more pain seemed to await him. He wished he could just sleep through it all, that he didn’t have to go through the hassle of social exposure and protocol to lose himself in the warmth of a woman. He wished he could be drunk forever. All of his days felt dark, but some days—like today—got darker than dark.
There was only one place to go on days like this. At first he had fought it as a poor idea; now, he didn’t care. The land where his grandmother’s bakery once stood had been bought shortly after the fire, and on its ashes, a bar was built. It felt like fate to Will. He had found himself there more and more in recent months. Some days, it was like he ached for it.
Some nights, he wondered if he would die there, too.
As he shuffled for the shower, Will heard his phone buzzing and ignored it again. He didn’t want to talk to anyone today. Today, he just wanted to sit and drink.
After his shower, he found some moderately clean jeans and a white shirt to pull on, ignoring his cut that dangled from the living room recliner. He didn’t want to think about the MC today, either. He even left his phone lying on the floor of his bedroom as he left, and he didn’t even bother to lock his front door.
He simply climbed on his bike and headed out in the late morning sunlight toward Howlett, anxious at the idea of drinking away the darkness.
