Luke entered the shop with some trepidation, though he tried not to let it show on his face. The Reapers clubhouse had a much different atmosphere than his, not the least because it stank of burning metal and smoke. Herman Smith and his sons were all welders by trade, though they rarely took on work anymore. Since most of the club’s money was made through illegal activities, they were free to spend their time in the shop doing their own projects.
Dax in particular had always had a flair for metal sculpture, creating twisted and grotesque figures that the club used to adorn the bar area in the interior of the shop. It was an illegal bar, of course, but the Reapers never bothered with proper licensing or any of that. The only people who ever drank there were Reapers members, and those who knew not to mess with Herman Smith, so nobody ever informed the cops that there was an unlicensed bar operating out the back of his welding shop.
Luke found the towering, wrought iron sculptures menacing as he entered, but looked as cool and composed as a saint on the outside. He passed through a shower of sparks from one of Herman’s employees, who was welding up a gate and didn’t spare Luke a glance. Besides the skinny kid behind the welding mask, Luke didn’t see anyone else. That meant they either weren’t there, or they were at the bar.
When he rounded the corner and the bar shot into view, several sets of eyes snapped onto his face at once. But he was only there for one person. Dax and Klyde, always together, always frustratingly dense, shot out of their seats at his arrival, but didn’t cross the room. Herman was there too, his white beard longer and more unkempt than when Luke had last seen it. There were a couple other club members, too.
And there was Raven.
“What are you doing here?” bit out Dax from across the room, hands clenched into a fist at his side.
Luke put up his hands and smiled jovially. “I’m not here to fight. I just wanted to talk to Raven.”
Her dark eyes fixed on him, and her mouth twitched into a smile. If she thought he was there to mend the bridge between them, she was off by a long shot.
Herman let out a gruff noise from the corner, then slowly eased onto his feet and approached Luke. Though Luke was taller than Herman, it wasn’t by much, and the other man’s barrel chest stuck out further than Luke hoped his ever would. Beneath his shaved head, his bushy eyebrows clamped down in an expression of mistrust.
“You’ve been causing trouble for me, boy,” he growled.
Luke’s jaw twitched. Herman always insisted on treating Luke like he was just some irresponsible child, not the very influential and tough as nails leader of his rival club. The lack of respect the older man showed was demonstrative of his club as a whole. Nobody in the place had an ounce of respect.
“You’ve been causing trouble for me since the day I met you,” Luke replied. “But I’m not here to work things over with you. I’m here to talk to your daughter. My wife.”
He hadn’t called Raven that in what felt like years. She broke into a grin at him saying those words, and shot up out of her chair like a firework.
“It’s okay, Daddy,” she said sweetly. “I want to talk to him too.”
Herman gave Luke another appraising glare and then reluctantly backed off, going to sit back with Dax and Klyde and joining them in their angry assault of stares.
Raven sashayed over to Luke, her hips swinging and black hair streaming behind her. He remembered once thinking that she was beautiful. Now all he saw was vile cunning, and a face so sharp it could cut glass. She was nothing like the soft, beautiful Shayla, whose eyes shone like diamonds in the sun. She was the physical embodiment of the acrid stench of burning metal that filled the shop. Dangerous. Sharp. And hung on to you long after you’d left and tried to move on.
He resented her acting like this was a social call, but at least it was making it easier to get her to cooperate. She led him through a back door and out into the gravel courtyard behind the shop, littered with bits of scrap metal and rusty pieces of machinery.
Luke got straight to business. “Listen, Raven.”
He took a breath, trying to control his rage at her. God he wanted to punch her. He wanted to throttle her. She was responsible for so much of his and Shayla’s suffering, and now he had to play nice with her? It was bullshit.
“We’ve been married for some time now, but the alliance clearly isn’t working in either of our favors. I resent having to go back on my word, but I’ll be serving you with divorce papers soon.”
He tried to gauge her expression, but she was impossible to read. There was always a cold fury on her face, even when she smiled, but besides that she was a blank slate. Again, so different from Shayla, whose expressions mirrored the world around her.
“I understand,” said Raven, rather jarringly. “I had to expect that a lowlife like you would eventually recant your oath.”
Her wording irked him. His oath, as if he had pledged to her with a sword. He gritted his teeth, but tried to keep calm.
“The marriage was meant to stop fighting between our clubs and solidify the territory boundaries. We’re not fighting yet, but we will be soon if your members don’t stop selling drugs in what’s clearly my territory.” He clenched his hand at his side and leveled his gaze at her. “What is the point of staying married if the conditions of our union aren’t being upheld?”
She smirked, twirling a piece of her long, straight hair around her finger idly. “Well, there’s always the fact that we took vows to stay together until death did us part.”
Oh, and how he wished sometimes that death would part them.
“Thankfully we live in a magical time and place when divorce is both legal and commonly practiced.” Luke smiled back at her. “Don’t you love not being trapped by archaic laws?”
Raven’s smile never dropped. “Well, if that’s what you want, I certainly can’t stop you.”
Something was wrong. Why wasn’t she fighting him more on this? He expected screaming. Maybe even crying. But Raven had barely even raised her voice. Her only challenge had been more about the definition and terms of their arrangement than a protestation of his intent.
“Why are you not making this any harder on me?” he inquired. Hesitant to test his luck, he’d taken a moment to compose himself beforehand. In that time her grin had never wavered.
Raven cocked her head to the side. “Why shouldn’t I be obliging to my husband? Especially one who has been shown on TV to be such a nice guy.” She reached out and playfully cuffed him on the shoulder. It felt like a barely concealed punch.
“Because you’re never obliging.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “What are you up to?”
Suddenly, a ringing filled the air between them. Raven put up her finger, as if to gesture to him to wait a moment, then answered the phone with a smile. “Anthony! Hi!”
Luke’s stomach clenched. He’d known she was in cahoots with Anthony about the video, but what else were the pair planning? He had a bad feeling that he was about to find out.
“You have such great timing,” Raven said into the receiver. She looked directly into Luke’s eyes and smiled. “Yeah, I actually have Luke right in front of me. I know, right?” She continued to twirl her hair around her finger, laughing lightly. “Tomorrow morning? Of course. I’ll see you then.”
She hung up the phone and made a sheepish expression. “Sorry about that, hubbie. Duty calls.”
Luke laughed grimly. “So you’re fucking that dickhead now too?”
Raven batted her eyelashes at him. “Why? Are you jealous?” She sounded so innocent and sweet. Luke remembered how, at one point, he’d thought the toughness had been an act, and she’d been sweet underneath it all. Turned out to be the opposite.
He scoffed. “No. You’re right. I don’t care.” He turned to go, wave a hand dismissively at her. “I’ll see you in court.”
Raven’s arm shot out, her fingers gripping his hand tightly and pulling him back to face her. “I have a surprise for you though.” She snickered. “I can’t decide whether I want to tell you, or have you find out tomorrow on the news.”
Luke wanted badly to shake her hand off of him, but let her hang on while he figured out what she was planning. “Just tell me, Raven.” He glared. “I don’t want any more of your games.”
She pouted, released his hand, and crossed her arms over her chest. “I got so jealous of you and your little fifteen minutes of fame,” she said. “I decided I wanted my own. Anthony was such a dear, he arranged the whole thing. I’m going to have my own little exposé.”
Luke rolled his eyes. “Good for you.” She’d always been an attention whore. He might’ve been happy that she finally got what she wanted if she wasn’t such a pain in his ass.
She shook her head slowly and laughed. “You don’t understand, honey.” She licked her lips, slowly. “I’m going to tell Anthony and the whole world everything bad that you’ve ever done. Everything.”
Luke’s heart sank into his gut. No. He’d worked so hard to build up a reputation of credibility and restraint. He’d worked with his guys to clean up his part of the city. He’d done everything he could to make sure that his past mistakes wouldn’t drag him down in life.
He’d covered them up.
And now she was just going to blast them on TV like some sick psychopath intent on his destruction? He supposed that was what she was. He just didn’t understand why.
Luke gritted his teeth and walked up to her, bending close enough to her face to see the little imperfections and lines on her otherwise perfect skin. “Why do you have it out for me so much, huh?” His voice was a low and deadly snarl. “What’d I ever do to you? Why can’t you just leave me be?”
She blinked, and for a moment her facade dropped, ever so slightly. But it was enough for him to see. And in that moment, Luke felt he knew Raven better than he’d ever known her. He saw more of her than he’d ever seen.
But then the mask was back in place, and she was pushing him back with her hands hard against his chest. “Don’t come near me ever again,” she spat. “You disgust me. You’re just a shitty criminal who was bad at crime. You’re nothing.”
Luke looked at her with different eyes. Maybe not understanding eyes, but they must have been different enough for Raven to quickly turn and stalk toward the other side of the courtyard, up to the house that she shared with her brothers.
Luke took the side way around, not wanting to walk back through the shop and face Herman or any of his boys. He suppressed the urge to punch everything he walked past, especially the shitty sculptures that were so crappy even Dax didn’t want them around. Their hideous and wretched forms littered this little side aisle. Luke wondered how much time Dax actually spent making these godawful creations.
While not particularly fruitful, Luke’s visit to Raven had at least been informative. He was pissed that she was going to expose him on TV, but at least he’d have a chance to rebut her claims. Hopefully. Or explain himself a bit more. Maybe redeem himself? Anyway, it was the least of his problems. It was clear that Anthony was a force to be reckoned with, and Luke needed to figure out what to do about that recording before it was too late.
He reflected, as he straddled his bike and pulled on his helmet, how strange it was that it had never occurred to him that Raven even had feelings. No less that she had ever spared any on him. Even before he’d come to fully understand how crazy she was, he’d found her cold. Always so cold.
Would things have been different for them if she’d just let him know how she felt instead of hiding behind a mask of impassivity? Would things have been different for him and the way he felt?
Luke still hated Raven. He doubted that anything could have made him like her even a little bit, even back in the days when he hadn’t figured out the extent of her rottenness yet. But it was interesting to him to think that even Raven, with her fiery temper and dead eyes, was human enough to fall in love.