Chapter Eleven
Jarrett
My mind retreats to the recesses inside me to mull over exactly what the fuck happened back at the restaurant, while the rest of me stays rooted to the spot on the couch. My body is still tense, adrenaline coursing, ready for an assault that I know isn’t happening, but feels all too real.
I know something is deeply wrong with me. Something inside me is hard-wired completely wrong. And I can’t fight it.
I try to calm down. I try to focus on something positive.
And, in the end, I keep circling around her.
I’ve never seen this side of her before: open and caring. For a moment, she was something more than just a jagged-edged guarantee of a wild night and a brain-splitting hangover the next morning.
She’s fucking beautiful.
Even though she’s gone — out taking care of the shit I’m supposed to handle — I can’t stop thinking about her in ways I’ve never thought of her before.
My phone buzzes at me. There’s a text from Selena: the caterer’s in. This bastard’s food better be good, or I might ask you to hurt him.
And then, as it invariably does, my mind wanders further.
Why am I sitting paralyzed on this couch? Why am I unable to do something as simple as walk into a fucking restaurant kitchen? Why couldn’t I put this shit together on my own?
Of course, I know the reason. I’ve spent so much time avoiding it, doing everything I can to keep out of situations that set me off. When my whole life is fucking, drinking, fighting, things are easy. Simple.
Which is exactly why I should be on duty, guarding these weapons, instead of dealing with this party bullshit.
I spend hours on that couch, stuck in the trenches with my thoughts, hardly moving except to take a piss.
When I stop at the sink to wash my hands, even looking at myself in the mirror is painful.
This is who I am.
Fucked up on all kinds of levels.
A soldier who can’t even step into a restaurant without freaking out.
It’s shameful.
A thought enters my head. There may be a way out. I can put Selena to work on this — she’s a mother, she’s probably planned parties before for Jake — and maybe I can get myself in on the action.
I splash water on my face.
I shave.
I take a long, hot shower — sweating out the whiskey until I’m sure my system’s clean. Then I put on clean clothes, don my cut, and get ready.
It takes a long fucking time to get myself presentable, but by the time I’m done, not even the hardest-assed drill sergeant would find a fault with my dress.
And by the time I’m done, I’m clear-headed, sober, and calm. I’ve got a mission. A plan. A way to get in on the action, back where I belong.
* * * * *
It’s been too long since I’ve been to Grease’s place; A large house that’s almost two-thirds garage, with space enough for five cars if you park them right. He’s earned his nickname a hundred times over since he joined the club. More than one project that we thought was unsalvageable turned out right thanks to his skills.
The garage doors are open as I pull up in the drive, and he’s got a car up on one of the two mechanic’s lifts in his garage. He’s flat on his back, covered in grease and grime, working on one of the special side projects for the club. More than one expensive car rebuild has come together in his place — cars for rich people from all up and down the West Coast — and all the proceeds go right back into the MC. Grease doesn’t keep a single cut for himself, aside from the cost of parts and materials.
It’s fucking zen watching him work.
He slides out from beneath the car as I arrive, takes one look at me, and even at a distance of twenty yards, I swear I see him roll his eyes.
“Let me guess why you’re here,” he says. “You want off the charity job and in on this suicide mission?”
“You know me so well,” I answer. Despite the wary look he gives me, I come in for a hug. “I’m here because I have good news, brother.”
“Oh yeah?”
“I’ve got the party thing taken care of. I’ve got help on it, which means I’ll have the time to give you guys a hand with the weapons shipment.”
“What do you mean you have ‘help’?” he says, wiping his hands down with a rag.
“Selena is helping me put some stuff together. It’ll be handled.”
“Selena?” he says, eying me warily. “You mean the woman you tried to kill the other night?”
I nod. “Yeah, her.”
“So, you go from wanting to kill her, to trusting her, all in less than 48 hours?”
I don’t blame him for looking at me like I’m full of shit. If I were in his place, I’d do the same thing. But he doesn’t understand how things are between Selena and I. The hate is all tied up in the way we deal with each other.
I take a breath.
Convincing him is going to take some opening up. Unleashing some feelings bullshit. But I know that Grease is my best way in on this job. He’s our VP, and he’s as pissed off at Gunney for this weapons business as anyone else. Probably even moreso.
“Just because I wanted to kill her doesn’t mean that I don’t trust her,” I say, earning a confused look from Grease. “When I was in the Army with the Rangers, I wanted to kill half the guys in my unit. But I’d still trust them with my life.”
“Oh, so she served with you in Afghanistan, then? I had no idea. I guess that changes everything.”
“Don’t be an ass.”
“Then don’t treat me like I’m a fucking moron. Tell me why you trust her.”
I need Grease on my side. I need the VP to have my back, because I know there’s no way I could get Bear to see my side of things. He’s an ex-marine, and those jarheads have obedience to authority beat into them.
“She and I went through some serious shit in Reno. I borrowed the money for her.”
“What, was she your blackjack dealer?”
The way he says it and all the weight of assumption and disdain behind his words — that I’m some fucking chump, that all I can do is lose thirty fucking grand gambling, that I’m untrustworthy — pulls a red curtain over my eyes.
I grab hold of the closest tool, a heavy socket wrench, and hurl it across the room. It crashes into a rack of tools, sending hammers and wrenches and screwdrivers clanging to the ground.
“I swear to Christ, you need to listen to me.”
“Easy, Jynx,” he says, holding up both hands. “Talk to me: are you ok?”
Breathe, Jarrett. This is your VP. He’s a brother. A friend.
“I’m fine,” I lie. It’s easy to lie about this to him. I’ve been doing this for years. He’s not a soldier, I don’t expect him to understand.
“Then let’s talk about this like fucking rational adults.”
“Fine, just keep your snide comments to yourself, ok?” I say, waiting for his nod before I proceed. “This isn’t easy for me, talking like this, but I am here because it’s important. I trust Selena because she owes me her life.”
“Keep going.”
“When I was in Reno, she and I hooked up. Except it was more than hooking up. She’s the first person that could make me feel calm even when, inside, it felt like I was slipping into a war zone. She keeps me grounded, and at the same time, she can drink and fuck and fight like no one else,” I say, pausing to take a breath before I go deeper. This next part isn’t going to be easy. “I borrowed the money because she was in debt to a club in Reno. This club wiped out her brother’s MC and made her work for them — unless she could pay up. A hundred grand.”
“Holy shit, brother.”
“She and I pulled a job in Reno. We got 70 grand robbing the place she worked for. She knew when the club was due to pull in cash from some of the drug and prostitution they run, so we set it up so it looked like I robbed the joint while she was closing up. But we needed a hundred grand to buy her freedom. That’s why I borrowed the cash from the club.”
He puts his hand on my shoulder. “Then why the story about gambling?”
“Would you guys have lent me the cash if you knew it was for pussy? I doubt it.”
“You’re probably right. Fucking hell, you’ve got a set of balls on you for paying off those sons of bitches with their own money. That’s a nice touch,” he says, shaking his head. “Alright, so I get why you trust her. But why should I loop you in on this job?”
“Because the men that wiped out Selena’s brother’s club are the Devil’s Riders, and they work under the same club we’re at war with — the Bloody Jackals,” I say. Then, I lean in closer, my voice dropping lower. “Gunney got us involved in a war several states away. He’s our president, but is he really making the best judgment call on this? These guys are serious threats, fucking butchers on bikes, and it feels like he’s taking it lightly.”
He blinks. A frown pulls his mouth downward and his eyes go dark. “Do you think I’m an idiot, Jynx?”
“I think you’re smart. Smart enough to see when we’re not adequately protecting a major investment for our club in the face of some serious danger.”
“Say I agree with you. What’re the others going to do if you just show up at the transfer point like nothing’s wrong?”
I step closer. Look him in the eye. Slip a hand over his shoulder. “You think I can’t sneak around? Do you know the shit I’ve seen? That I’ve done? Weapons escort will be a walk in the park.”
“I think you definitely can sneak around — you’re here, aren’t you?” he says. “But you make a decent fucking point. Goddamnit. Keep your cell phone handy — I’ll text you the details later. But for now, I can give you the short and sweet briefing. You’ll keep this between us, got it?”
“Understood.”
“The weapons are coming in piecemeal. Nice, slow, and under the radar. They’re being stored at Roxy’s cabin outside of Rainier. Not in the cabin, but in a storage shed built into the woods about a hundred yards from the cabin. Bear and I have been keeping watch on it in shifts with Gunney’s guys. It’s secure — Gunney’s guys are pros, though a little on the ‘build a bunker and keep an arsenal’ side. Two weeks out — the same night of the charity thing — we move them south.”
“All the way to California? If you’re taking them that far, you’ll definitely need me on this. That’s almost seven hundred miles.”
Driving four truckloads of this kind of cargo that long of a distance is a special kind of crazy. There are so many places where things could go wrong, so many spots where police or enemies of the club could intercept the shipment. It blows my mind that a military guy like Gunney could have such a terrible plan.
Grease shakes his head and I heave a sigh of relief.
“No,” he says. “We don’t know the drop point yet.”
“Good,” I say. “If they have any sense, they’ll pick somewhere out of the way of everything. Small town with minimal law enforcement presence. Probably somewhere on the coast, Oregon likely, where they can give themselves an option of getting their cargo back to California by sea, or using the forest roads and logging roads as a way to keep off the radar.”
Grease nods, and looks a lot more sure than when I first broached the idea. “I’ll text you more about the watch schedule at the cabin and when I know the drop point. Even if we can’t work you in on the arms convoy, at least we can send you ahead of things. Use you to scout the way and make sure it’s safe. In the meantime, keep working on the charity thing, keep your nose out of the weapons stuff and away from the cabin, and, for the love of all that’s fucking holy, drop the bitching about the weapons shit, all right?”
“Makes sense, brother,” I say, suppressing my excitement at getting a chance for some action. “You can count on me.”
“You know, we might have to rethink your nickname when all this is over.”
I raise an eyebrow. “You’re kidding, right?”
“How can we call you Jynx if you never actually lost that money?”
“You know ‘Bear’ is not actually a bear, right? And ‘Preacher’ is too weird to be a priest.”
“I’m not so sure about ‘Bear’. I mean, how close have you looked at his family tree? He’s fucking huge. I wouldn’t be surprised if some pioneer woman ancestor of his had a little tumble behind the barn with a grizzly.”
“Fair point.”
“Remember, you keep this between us. If anyone finds out, this whole situation could fucking blow up in our faces.”
I hardly hear the words, though I know he’s right. All I really hear is that I’m back in action.
I grin.
Finally, my luck’s changing.
And I owe so much of it to her.
Maybe I can actually trust her.