Six
Fourteen Years Ago
Before she’d ever been old enough to question the idea, Ava had grown used to the random member asleep on the couch when she walked through the house to breakfast. On an autumn Saturday, she found the newest member of the Tennessee chapter sprawled across the sofa, under the Picasso print, his impossibly long legs hanging off one end, his face mashed into one of Maggie’s red pillows.
Mercy, she remembered his name with a bright note of excitement in the pit of her stomach. Mercy, who was so tall and who possessed such massive hands that needed growing into, and who had intriguing eyebrows she wanted trace with her fingertips.
Maggie was in the kitchen – the scents of bacon, hash browns and eggs rolled in thick waves through the house, the hissing of the skillet riding along the tides of smell – but Ava lingered a moment, her child’s attention captured by this big new stranger taking up the entire sofa. She moved closer to him without being conscious of it; she leaned toward him and then realized her feet were taking her even closer, until she stood right in front of his face.
What rich skin he had, sun kissed and resilient, gleaming in the incoming shafts of morning sunlight. His stubble and brows and hair, so dark by contrast, brought a sinister structure to his face. Even sleeping, he looked fierce and dangerous. Like Mr. Hogan’s long-tailed, pointed-eared dog that slept in the shade of his butcher shop awning. “Come away from him,” Maggie always said, taking Ava’s hand, pulling her in close and out of reach of the dog’s sleeping jaws. In this moment, staring at Mercy, Ava would not have been surprised to see her mother appear beside her. “Come away from him,” and then the gentle towing away.
Instead, Mercy inhaled sharply, and his eyes opened.
Ava waited for the startle to hit her – to jump back and gasp and flail behind her for the edge of the coffee table. But it didn’t come, and she didn’t shrink from him.
She smiled. “Hi.”
Surprise showed itself in his features. Without lifting his head, his eyes searched the room to either side of her. He took a big breath and let it out. Then he looked straight at her. “Hi.”
With all the curious, bald honesty of a child, she said, “Did you come here because you were really tired? Or because you were drunk?”
There was surprise again, as a rich, dark chuckle broke from his throat.
Ava kicked her chin up, not sure if she should feel embarrassed. “I know what drunk is.”
“I’m sure you do, sweetheart.”
“So which are you?”
He pushed up on his elbows, and then sat, swinging up to his full, impressive height. “A little bit of both, actually.”
Maggie’s bare feet whispered across the carpet. “Oh, you’re awake. You want something to eat? Is she bothering you?”
Ava started to protest, but Mercy beat her to it.
“No, ma’am. She’s fine. And yeah. Something to eat would be good.”
Maggie folded her arms, closing her long sweater over her yoga gear. Ava had never seen her mother completely without makeup; even first thing, Maggie had a layer of lip gloss, touch of eyeliner. Her wavy blonde hair was tied back and secured at the crown with a red cotton headband. Her gaze was trained on Mercy, that sharp, miss-nothing hazel stare that had sent many a club member running for the door.
“You’re from Louisiana, right? The new kid?”
A big as he was, Mercy somehow looked small as he reached for his boots on the floor and stepped into them. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Leave those off, please.” Maggie gestured to the boots. “Last time I let Ghost in the house with his, he tracked motor oil all over my carpet. Had to rent one of those Rug Doctors to get it out.”
“Oh.” Mercy’s cheeks colored. He set the boots aside. “Sorry.”
Maggie nodded. “So. Louisiana. You eat anything besides crawfish?”
His cheeks actually began to turn pink. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Come get a plate, then. Ava, let’s go. If you don’t eat better, you’re gonna dry up and blow away.”
**
It was the first of what would become dozens of breakfasts Mercy ate with the two of them. Because two weeks after that morning, the Carpathians struck again, even closer to home this time.
Ava, well into her adult years, would always remember the morning she and Maggie had gone to Stella’s Café for a special just-because ladies’ breakfast. Aidan had his driver’s license and wanted no part of anything parental at mealtimes. He was already off, out in the city somewhere glorying in his new Dyna and the simple joy of being let loose from the apron strings. Maggie had been in the living room when Ava woke, the kitchen cold and odorless, Maggie’s smile bright, her makeup perfect, her outfit of loose sweater and ripped jeans a giveaway that an errand was on the books. “How about breakfast out? Just you and me, no reason.”
Maggie helped her pick out black leggings, Converse sneakers, and her favorite unicorn sweatshirt, then braided her hair in two long plaits that slapped against her back as she jogged for the door, Maggie laughing in her wake.
Stella’s was owned by a pair of snowbirds, a Yankee couple who’d fled the bitter cold of upstate New York some ten odd years before. Julian and Stella, dark-haired and exotic, with their Italian complexions and harsh New York accents, had drawn their fair share of skepticism when they opened their café on Market Square. But then the doors had swung wide and the scents of homemade Italian food had flooded the sidewalk, and the customers had been drawn in against their will, pulled along by the scents hooked hard in their noses. Then, once butts were in seats and plates were clattering down on tables, Julian and Stella hadn’t needed to do a thing to ingratiate themselves with this Southern city; the food had done that for them.
Of the pair, Stella did most of the cooking, while Julian played manager, sous chef, and head waiter. His round-faced, perspiring exuberance for each day, and each customer, was set off smartly by his wife’s militaristic detail to order in the kitchen. The café, originally an end unit of a beige-on-beige retail strip, had been transformed on the inside with loving care. The walls were a rich gold fresco, buttery in the sunlight, almost ochre in the flickering of evening candles. Julian had installed the ceiling beams himself; they served no supportive purpose, but the dark timbers beneath the white plaster ceiling lent an Old World coziness to the restaurant. He’d then commissioned a massive stone fireplace that dominated the outer wall, and Stella had draped the mantle with garlic ropes, heaped it with jars of fire-roasted tomatoes, every variety of olives, hot and sweet peppers packed in rich Italian olive oil. The kitchen sat behind a bakery counter, and from it came Stella’s no-nonsense directives to her staff. The tables were small, round, inlaid with painted tiles, and afforded small pockets of privacy from one another thanks to a jungle of potted ferns and palms.
Out on the patio, Julian had ripped up the concrete, and laid heavy orange 14x14 tiles. Iron café tables surrounded a splashing three-tiered fountain, where children pitched pennies and made wishes during the warm months. It was the patio that Maggie and Ava preferred on their mornings out, and that was where they settled on the morning that would change the course of Ava’s life.
“My favorite beautiful ladies,” Julian greeted as he walked out onto the patio with black coffee for Maggie and cranberry juice for Ava. He hadn’t bothered with menus, and hadn’t needed to ask for a drink order.
An elderly couple at the neighboring table glanced over, curious about these two
Maggie, in her big sunglasses and the shade of lipstick Ava sometimes asked to wear just a little of, waved and pursed her lips in a self-deprecating smile. “The problem is all ladies are your favorite,” she said. “And you think we all fall for the flattery.”
Julian pressed a hand to his chest, feigning wounded. “That hurts, Mrs. T. I’m a faithful husband.”
“I know you are.” Her smile turned sweet. “And Stella’s got a meat cleaver with your name on it if you ever start thinking differently.”
His brows jumped. “Ain’t that the truth.”
Maggie laughed; her laughter had a bell-like quality, rich and reverberant, deep like a heavy church bell. Ava watched her banter with the restaurant owner, mystified and delighted by the way her mother always seemed able to charm and disarm. There was something subtle and endearing about Maggie’s confidence, a deft handling of humans that balanced her more direct bursts of authority. She was the most beautiful, enchanting woman Ava had ever seen in person. Her friends’ mothers always gave Maggie dark looks, and Ghost had explained to Ava, once, “They’re jealous, baby. Don’t worry about what those bitches think.” Then he’d told her not to say “bitch” until she was at least thirty.
“How are you this morning, Miss Ava?” Julian asked, and Ava’s cheeks warmed with pleasure to be spoken to as an adult. “I’m fine.”
“Driving the boys crazy, I bet.”
“She’s eight, Julian,” Maggie said. “Let’s not hope for that just yet.”
“Right. Well.” He clapped his hands together. “Let me bring you something special, okay? Stella’s just pulling fresh bread out of the oven.”
“That’d be great,” Maggie said.
When Julian had left them to the chattering of birds and other patrons, Maggie sipped her coffee and said, “Are you excited about starting school again?”
Ava’s frown was reactionary and instant. She was going into the fourth grade in two weeks, and every time she thought about it, her stomach tightened with dread. “No,” she said into her juice. “I hate school.”
Maggie’s lips pressed together; the little grooves around her mouth deepened. “But baby, you love school.”
She loved reading, and writing, and art, and talking about weather patterns and the migration habits of hummingbirds. But last year, in the third grade, she’d learned there was a big difference between liking education, and liking school.
“Not anymore.”
“Ava.” Maggie pushed her sunglasses onto her forehead, her eyes bright with worry. “You have to forget about what happened. Just throw it away and keep going.”
But Ava knew she could throw away all she wanted, and it would keep coming, the ridicule, and would worsen with time and age.
Back in the spring, just days before the big end of year party, the Knoxville Lean Dogs returned home from a two-week run up the east coast. They’d gone to Maine and back, making a delivery that Ava had been told she “didn’t need to know about.” It was something that had caused her dad to sit up nights, studying maps and talking about speed traps and police checkpoints with Hound and James. Whatever they were running, they hadn’t wanted to meet with any sort of law enforcement. Ava’s childhood was punctuated by bizarre games of Cops and Robbers, ones in which it was the unlucky child chosen to play the cop.
When she walked out of school that afternoon, it hadn’t been her mother’s battleship Cadillac Seville waiting at the curb, but Ghost on his Harley, in full Dogs regalia, flying his colors and wearing his fingerless leather gloves. In sheer delight, she’d squealed and run to him, leaping into his arms when he knelt to catch her. She’d ridden home on the back of his bike that day, thrilled and oblivious.
The next day, Mason Stephens had stopped her outside the cafeteria. He’d stood with his two best friends, Carter Michaels and Beau Ericson, his auburn hair parted on the side and arranged just so, his Ralph Lauren clothes spotless. Beau had been picking at a scab on his knee; Carter had been staring at the floor, shifting his weight from foot to foot, giving Ava a nice view of the top of his blonde head. But Mason’s eyes had been laser-focused on her.
“Teague,” he said in that nasal voice of his she hated. It was a whiny, sucking-up-to-teacher voice. “Was that you leaving school on a motorcycle yesterday?”
Every internal alarm she possessed went off. Danger. Danger. But she said, “Yeah. That was my daddy.”
Mason had smiled, a nasty smile. “Your ‘daddy’? He’s one of those Lean Dogs?”
Pride – oh, she was a proud girl, like her mama, and that always got her in trouble – swelled in her voice as she said, “He’s the vice president.”
Mason’s smile had grown nastier. “My daddy told me all about your daddy and his dogs. They’re trash. They sell drugs and guns and get people killed. When Dad wins the governor race, he says he’s gonna take all your dirty Dogs to the pound.” He’d laughed, delighted with the joke.
Mason’s father, Mason Stephens Sr., had plastered his face on every bench and bus stop canopy in the city, his winning, orthodontic smile plying the citizens of Knoxville for a vote in the fall. Politics was an area of study in which Ava had little interest; her family ignored it. Most of the Dogs, she knew, weren’t able to vote, thanks to a criminal record.
Mason’s words, so unexpected, had ripped across her skin, leaving a physical pain behind. She gasped. Stammering, feeling incapable, she said, “They’re – they’re not dirty.”
“Yeah they are. And you are too. Biker whore. That’s what Mom says – all you women who run with those Dogs are biker whores.”
At age eight, she was called a whore for the first time in her life. She would learn the hard way that it was far from the last time. It was also the first time the club caused her pain. Again, not the last.
By the time the end of year party arrived, Mason, a good politician like his father, had amassed a contingent of followers who joined together in chanting “no more biker whore” on her last day of school. Sobbing, she’d sought refuge in the girls’ room. Her mother had been called, and when Maggie arrived, Ava had heard her shouting all the way down the hall. With a volley of curses and threats, Maggie had let the principal and vice principal, and anyone else in hearing, know that she would sue “all their asses” if they allowed her “sweet girl” to be taunted and humiliated. A photo of the chief of police escorting Maggie to her car had made the next morning’s paper.
On the patio at Stella’s, Ava said, “Do I have to go, Mom? Can’t you home school me?”
Maggie’s smile was sad, and full of regret. “I wish I could, baby, but I’m not as smart as you. I don’t think I could teach you anything.”
“But they have manuals,” Ava said. “And work books. You could learn. Mom, you could–”
Maggie shook her head. “The world is a mean, scary place most of the time. Trust me, I know that. But if I let you hide from it…that’s not helping you. You’ll have to learn to live with bastards like Mason.”
Ava loved the way her parents didn’t baby talk her; they cursed and looked her straight in the eye and treated her like an adult. But in this moment, she wanted to be bundled up like the child she was and told she could seek shelter at home, away from the mean, scary world she wasn’t sure she wanted to be a part of anymore.
“It isn’t just Mason,” she said. “It’s everyone.”
“Well, that’s not true, because Leah’s always in your corner.”
One friend was plenty, but wouldn’t hold up against the onslaught of shame. How long would it be, Ava wondered, before Leah grew too embarrassed to be associated with her and drifted away to join the girls who weren’t called whores?
Their food arrived on heavy white plates and Julian set it before them with a flourish and the assurance that it would be heaven on their tongues. Stella had made for them berries in heavy cream, butter-slathered toast on her freshly made bread, and a hearty casserole of Italian sausage, shaved potatoes and sautéed peppers and onions.
Ava spooned sausage onto her toast and nibbled at the edge.
“You’re scowling,” Maggie said.
With an effort, Ava smoothed her brow. “Am I now?”
“No.” Maggie chuckled. Then sighed. “I hate it for you, sweetheart, I do, but I think–”
The vase shattered; that was their first indication that something was wrong. There was a pretty glass vase – squat, with octagonal cuts that scattered the light – full of fresh daylilies sitting in the middle of their small round table. The heavy yellow blooms bowed their heads toward the tabletop, the breeze stirring them. And then the glass was exploding in all directions; water sprayed across their faces; the blooms erupted into yellow showers of confetti.
The window of the café came down in a rippling sheet, raining onto the 14x14 tiles in brilliant droplets of glass.
Someone screamed.
Maggie was out of her seat and pulling Ava beneath the table with her before Ava registered the crack-crack of the gunfire. She wasn’t a sheltered child. She’d been in attendance the afternoon Ghost had taken Aidan up to the old Teague cattle property and showed him how to handle a gun. Ghost had put Ava in front of him and held his own hands around hers for a round or two, letting her get the feeling of the weapon’s powerful kick.
It was gunfire she heard now. She recognized it. Amid the shattering of glass, the toppling of chairs, the breaking of dishes, the screaming of patrons, the swearing of her mother, and the awful pounding of her own pulse in her ears.
Ava was pushed down to the tiles and Maggie covered her with her body, her hands holding Ava’s head tight against her knees. Ava felt the smooth warm bands of metal that were Maggie’s rings against the skin of her cheek. Under the table, where they hunkered, Ava could see broken dishes, crisp white hunks of jagged porcelain against the orange of the tile. The raspberries had landed with wet red splatters, almost like blood. The cream spread in wide arcs; lumps of sausage, nuggets of potato gathered in the grout lines. There was a column of tiny sugar ants making slow progress from a flower pot toward the spilled food, right beneath her nose. Her eyes latched onto them. Under the din of the shouting, the shattering, the endless automatic gunfire, Ava withdrew to a deep, safe place inside her head and concentrated on the ants: their fragile legs, the tendrils of their antennae, the orderly way they cared nothing for the chaos, only the food.
They were cute, if ants could be such a thing. Cute little black baby ants, all ready to lap up the cream and berries…
There was an awful squealing sound, and then Maggie was pulling her from beneath the table, out into the sunshine. Ava watched her mother’s boot cut a path of devastation through the ants, and wanted to cry out in horror. Instead, she lifted her head, scrambled to her feet in Maggie’s wake, and stood up amid the wreckage.
The patio tables were overturned, the white tablecloths unfurling in the breeze like flags of surrender. The entire bank of windows in the café had been destroyed, and through the yawning chasm, Ava glimpsed cowering patrons, the bakery counter shattered, the tables upended, white blossoms of damage on the honeyed, frescoed walls. Bullet holes. Outside, the tiles were littered with spilled food, daylily carnage, dropped bags. A blue sweater that caught Ava’s shell-shocked eyes.
The elderly couple who’d given them curious glances was on the ground. The man lay on his back, staring sightless at the sun, his wife bent over him, screaming in a high, thin, frail voice. A tide of blood crept outward from under the man’s shoulders.
So much blood. So much red, shiny blood.
“God,” Maggie said. “Oh, Jesus.” She pulled Ava into her side. “Don’t look, baby.”
But it was far too late for that.
Julian staggered out onto the patio, bleeding from a wound in his arm, his always-happy face twisted in anguish. He moved toward the elderly couple, praying aloud. Sirens screamed down the street. People were sobbing.
“Mama…” Ava said.
Maggie had her cell phone pressed to her ear. “A drive-by,” she said into it. “A goddamn drive-by.”
“That’s an automatic weapon,” Ava said.
Beside her, Mercy glanced her direction. “What?”
“The gun they used in the drive-by. An AK-47. That’s an automatic weapon,” she repeated the phrases because she’d heard them before, not because they held any meaning for her. She turned to the tall man beside her for confirmation. “Isn’t it?”
Mercy’s face worked through a hilarious sequence of confused and baffled expressions. Then he settled on a serious one, black brows knitted together. Ava wondered, for a pregnant moment, if he would pat her on the head and tell her not to worry about something like that. “Leave this to the adults,” like James would say.
But Mercy said, “It has that capability, sure. But you can fire a single shot at a time if you want. It’s versatile.”
Ava nodded. “But it was automatic today, at the drive-by, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah.” His tone was low and deep and gentle. She wanted to dive into it, like the black-surfaced pond up at the cattle property. “It was. They…um…they wanted to really scare folks, and they were in a hurry.”
She took a deep breath. “They were shooting at us, weren’t they?”
Mercy’s eyes, liquid black, softened, drank her in like he didn’t want to have to answer her, and wanted his gaze to do the talking. But again, he was honest with her. “It’s looking that way.”
They were in the clubhouse, the common room, on one of the black leather sofas with chrome legs. Ava’s sneakers dangled in the air above the floorboards, swaying forward and back as she flexed her toes. Her white shoelaces were stained with bursts of red and blue from the spilled berries at the café. Ghost and Maggie were talking in restless, red-tinged voices over in front of the bar. Maggie had tears glittering in her eyes, but not a one had fallen. Her denim jacket was splashed with cream. There were little chunks of potatoes on the toes of her boots. “…do something…” she was saying, her chest heaving as she breathed and talked and fumed. Her hands trembled.
Ghost curled a thick lock of her blonde hair around his hand. “I know, baby, I know.” His voice was soothing, but Ava saw the tension in her father, the fine tremors under his skin. He was so furious, and so composed.
Beside her on the sofa, Mercy sat with feet braced apart on the floor, elbows resting on his knees, large hands hanging between his thighs.
“Why’d you tell me the truth?” Ava asked him. “About the gun.”
He shrugged and the fabric of his shirt rustled as his wide shoulders lifted and dropped. “I never liked being lied to. I didn’t figure anyone as smart as you would like it either.”
It felt wrong, after what had just happened at Stella’s, but Ava smiled, just a little.
He smiled back, his teeth stunning against his dark skin.
Then Ava felt her face go slack again. “What’s going to happen now?” she asked. “You’ll have to find the people with the AK-47?”
Before Mercy could answer, a voice said, “Hey, don’t talk to her about that.” Hound smacked Mercy lightly on the back of the head as he strode into the room, Rottie in tow. “She’s a damn kid. Stop talking about guns.”
“Right,” Mercy said with a sigh.
“Ghost,” Hound said, as he joined his VP. “Shit, Mags, what’s going on?”
Maggie shook her hair back, composed herself with a deep, shaky breath, and recounted the tale of the drive-by at Stella’s to Hound and Rottie. Her voice shivered with nerves, her eyes were still glossy with moisture, but she didn’t shrink from the story. She told it plainly, honestly, not skipping any of the details, not even the wailing elderly woman and her dead husband the paramedics had zipped up in a black bag.
“Jesus,” Hound said. “The cops’ll be all over this, blaming us.”
“Don’t think I haven’t thought of that,” Ghost said.
Ava felt Mercy tap her shoulder. “Hey, come on,” he said. “You wanna go get a Coke?”
She’d long since figured out what the adults in her life were doing when they found reasons for her to leave the room during an important discussion. But Mercy had told her the truth, and he’d earned a special place in her tiny heart for that. She said, “Sure,” and followed him out of the clubhouse.
Mercy bought a Coke at the machine beneath the portico and handed it over like he was afraid his large hand would somehow hurt her much smaller one.
Ava sat down at one of the picnic tables and took a slow sip, letting the carbonation fizz against her tongue a moment before she swallowed. Mercy sat down across from her and stared out over the parking lot, toward the bike shop. His profile was regal, like it belonged on a coin. And a little cruel, if she was honest. She’d been raised by cruel-looking men; she found a certain comfort in the things other girls found frightening.
“You don’t have to stay with me,” she said, and Mercy’s head came around.
His eyes had amber striations in the slanted late-morning sun, full of a depth she hadn’t noticed before. “What do you mean?”
“I’ll sit out here and wait for Mom, but you don’t have to stay, if you don’t want to. I’ll be fine.”
His head tilted, in a way that reminded her of a dog.
“Nobody wants to be a babysitter,” she elaborated. “I get it.”
His deep voice softened to that gentle, patient note he always seemed to use with her. “I’m not babysitting. I like sitting out here with you.”
She lifted her brows to say really?
He nodded. “So.” His tone shifted again, signaling they wouldn’t spend any time talking about his motives. “Doesn’t school start soon for you?”
She made a face and sipped her Coke. “I don’t want it to.”
Instead of doing what everyone always did – instead of lying to her about how fun school was and how excited she should be – he mirrored her expression and said, “I always hated the idea of it. I’m not smart, not like you. ‘Course, being smart’s its own cross to bear, I ‘spose.”
“I’m a nerd,” she said with a sigh. And before she could catch herself, the whole Mason Stephens story was pouring out of her.
Mercy listened with silent fascination, scowling by the time she got to the end.
“I’m a biker whore,” she said. “The whole school thinks so.”
“That little shit doesn’t even know what a whore is. Somebody needs to beat his ass,” Mercy said, a darkness stealing across his face. “Did your mom complain to the school?”
She nodded. “Mason got detention.”
“Oh, detention, how terrible.” Mercy rolled his eyes. “Kid needs to get stomped. Whore,” he repeated, making a face like the word tasted bad. “Next time he says something like that, tell him he’s got a little prick. Tell him to go fuck himself.”
Ava grinned, thrilled at the idea of using such forbidden, grownup language in school like that. “Then I’d get detention,” she said with a laugh.
“Sometimes a little detention’s worth it.” He shook his head. “Listen to me. Forget everything I just told you. I suck at giving advice.”
Ava laughed again. “You wanna come to school with me? You could tell Mason those things for me.”
“Wish I could, fillette, but they’d have to arrest me. I’d throw that punk through a window.”
The very idea of it left her smiling until her face hurt.
Neither of them heard Ghost and Maggie approach and were startled at the same time. Maggie laid a hand on Ava’s shoulder, pushed her hair back and toyed with it out of mindless affection and comfort.
Ghost looked at Mercy, and Ava watched Mercy harden beneath her father’s gaze, snapping to attention like a military recruit, attuned to each flicker of his president’s eyelashes.
“PD wants them to come in and give statements. Follow them to the precinct, and then home. Stay with them until I get back to the house tonight.”
Mercy nodded. “Yes, sir.”
And just like that, the Teague women had a security detail.