KIWI

Four Days Later

“You’re in the wrong place, darlin’,” the gate man says to me as I pull up outside the Wicked Angels Headquarters just outside Tucson, Arizona. My gun rests in my lap, just in case I need to throw down. It’s not what I want to do. I need answers and there is a man inside this building that can give them to me.

“I doubt that. I need to see Big Daddy D.”

“And just who might you be?” I can tell the guy is a little irritated at the name I use. He is, after all, head Wicked Angel, eldest in the line of living Beaumont men and the reason the Angels are as successful as they are.

“Kiwi,” I tell him. Loki gave me the nickname long ago and it’s the only credit I have here.

After I got to a hotel just inside the Arizona border the other night, I unloaded my luggage, including the bag Kellen left for me in the trunk and dragged them inside. I should have kept moving, but the seedy motel was the perfect place to hide out for a few days. Get my head about me and pull myself together enough to do this.

Two days ago, I opened the bag from Kellen.

Two days ago, I learned the real reason Kellen wanted me out of the house and away from Roswell.

I’m dead.

At least as far as the Angels are concerned.

My brother, in all his infinite wisdom, decided it was best to pretend that I died in the same car crash as my parents.

This explains why I never saw another Wicked Angels member, except Loki.

“You don’t look like no Kiwi to me.” The man guarding the club leans into my window.

I catch one of the clubhouse doors swinging open from the corner of my eye. My eyes narrow in on the three men walking out. They’re headed toward their bikes until they see my car at the gate and turn in our direction. I’m doing my best to look at them and keep my eyes on the dick whose patch says Whistler, that’s giving me a hard time about getting in. I pull my eyes from him long enough to see that one of the three men coming our way is the one I’m here to see.

“What the fuck, Whistler?” one of the men walking towards us shouts.

“She wants to see Big Daddy, says her name is Kiwi.”

“Bullshit,” says the tallest, and biggest of the three of them. “Kiwi is dead.”

With my gun still in my hand, I open the car door, hitting Whistler between his legs. The three men scramble toward me as I climb out of the car.

“Like hell I am,” I snap at Big Daddy.

His eyes bulge in pure undiluted shock. Something I had expected, but hoped I wouldn’t see. I’d secretly hoped that I was only dead to the Roswell members, but apparently not.

Why would he send me here with this shit if he’d passed it around that I’d died with my parents?

“Jesus fucking Christ, kid,” Uncle D says as he shakes his head. “Open the gate.”

After a beat, the gates start to swing open. “Whistler, get out of there before she shoots off your balls,” someone says and my lips twitch with a smirk as I slide back into my car, putting my gun back in my lap.

The guys clear the driveway and I pull forward until I’m parked on the side of the clubhouse building. I take a deep breath, controlling the adrenaline spike I got when Whistler started giving me hell about letting me in.

I breathe in again, bracing myself for what’s going to happen next before I climb out of the car. Gun in one hand, briefcase and my purse in the other.

As I stand up my eyes roam over the four men standing in a semi-circle watching me. Whistler and Big Daddy are the only two I know. Seeing as none of them have weapons drawn, I tuck mine into my waistband along my back and kick my door closed before walking toward the group of men. I send a silent thank you to Kellen for teaching me how to shoot and manage a gun. After mom and dad died, he felt it was important for me to learn, even though I was only thirteen.

“What are you doing here, kid?” Big Daddy asks me. His tone is hard to read, a little gruff, a little confused and something else, concern maybe.

I hold up the briefcase. “Tryke sent me.”

He cocks his head. “Why didn’t he just come himself?” he asks.

Anger slices through me. One of the reasons I waited so long to come up here was because Tryke should have been honored by the club. All members of the club, including Tucson and Boulder. The anger makes it easy for me to slide my cold, hard demeanor into place. “Because he’s dead.”

“Fucking Christ, are you kidding me? When?” Big Daddy asks. Anger roars again, a biker is dead and they’re doing nothing to honor him.

“Four days ago,” I share. “Now, can we talk, privately, please?” I ask a little softer.

“Yeah, kid, let’s go.” He gestures for me to follow him.

He leads me into the clubhouse, holding the door for me. I duck under his arm and step inside.

There are several club members and half-naked women throughout the big, open common room. It’s hard to gauge its size compared to Roswell because it’s been so long.

There are two pool tables along the back side, a bar to my right and several couches lining the walls around the room. There are also several tables, high and low, with chairs and barstools scattered around the place. If you didn’t know better, you’d think it was a hopping nightclub most nights. Most night’s it’s probably hopping but you couldn’t pay me enough to sit on a couch in this place.

All the male eyes are on me as I walk behind Big Daddy toward some place quiet for us to talk.

My outfit isn’t leaving much to the imagination. I knew coming in here would be a mess to begin with, but I had to do something to either make them drool or ward off the crazy.

I went with the former.

I’m wearing leather pants with a corset top. My hair is done with wavy curls cascading down my back. I’m also wearing peep-toe, black fuck-me pumps and a gold necklace that’s tied to a locket my mother gave me when I was about seven. My intention was to present myself as hard-ass as possible. Whether or not it’s working, I’m not sure yet. I suppose the gun I got out of the car with is handling a lot of that by itself.

We step into a hallway that runs toward the back of the clubhouse and Big Daddy leads me into his office. His goons from outside try to follow us in and I slam the door in their faces.

“Those are my men,” D snaps.

I give him a hard look. “I don’t give a fuck. What I’ve got to talk to you about doesn’t involve them,” I snap.

The next thing I know, his hand is flying through the air and slamming into my left cheek, sending my head flying to the side. I put my hand on it, trying to soften the sting and I glare at him. “What the fuck, Kiwi?” He looks at me with concern and my hardened exterior softens some. “Are you done being a bitch or do I need to remind you of the rules, again?” he asks.

Sucking in a deep breath, I soften a little more. “Forgive me, but there are very few people I trust right now.”

He nods and takes a seat in the chair behind his desk. “What the fuck is going on around here?” he asks. He’s pissed. Good.

“What do you mean?”

He looks pointedly at me. “You’re alive, let’s start there.”

I shrug. “Honestly, I have no fucking clue. All I know is mom and dad were killed in a car accident. Once that happened, Tryke got hard, he changed. I didn’t understand it, I thought it was grief. But then none of the members came around anymore. I saw only Loki, Tryke’s best friend, and that was it. He got paranoid, built a safe room, rigged the house with cameras and sent me to a private school. He used the guise of a better education but now I see it was to keep me away from the family.”

“You have any idea why he was so paranoid?” he asks.

I shake my head as I set the briefcase and my bag in the chair opposite him and reach into my bag to produce a DVD that I’d burned of the other night. It killed me to watch it again, but I did. I hold it up., “I have no idea why he was paranoid, but it paid off. You can see for yourself what happened four days ago.”

“They got taped?” He narrows his eyes.

I cock my head at him. “Because Tryke was paranoid,” I remind him and then ask, “How well did you know Tryke?” Big Daddy is, after all, our uncle and the President of Wicked Angels Motorcycle Club.

“Well enough,” he says deadpan. “After your parents died, I wanted him in the President’s office, but he, along with a few other people, agreed that he needed some time to get the club under his belt. He was twenty-two at the time. He’d had his cut for what, two years?” I nod, acknowledging him. When Tryke got his cut, it was a huge deal in the house. “He was ready, going to make a run at Pres. From what I knew about it, he had more than enough support to make it happen. But other than that? I get the feeling I’m about to be schooled by my niece on the doings in Roswell.”

“Why was he going for president?” I ask.

“Because family first, and like your father, they respect the hell out of him. If there is anyone in that outfit that would make a better Pres, I’d like to know about him,” he says confidently.

I roll my eyes. “I’m not all that interested in clubhouse business, Uncle D. I just want to know who ordered the hit on Tryke.”

He puts his hands up in defense. My uncle may be the President of Wicked Angels MC, but he’s never shown me anything but kindness and love and I respect him for that.

“It certainly wasn’t me. Had I known that Rooster had plans on taking him out, I would have taken Rooster out.”

“Who’s Rooster?” I ask him.

He leans forward, putting his bare, tattoo covered forearms on his desk. “He took over Roswell after your father…”

I give him a hard stare. “You do realize that Tryke never accepted the fact that Daddy died in a car accident, right?”

He nods. “I do, darlin’. But until someone can come to me with hard, physical proof that it was Rooster or anyone else in the club, who ordered a hit or carried it out himself, my hands are tied. There ain’t much I can do.”

“But you’re the club president,” I remind him.

“Thank you for that reminder, doll. Yes, I am.”

“Then why not do something about it?”

He snorts, “Because we have rules, guidelines in place. Rooster was voted in, albeit because there were limited other options at the time and no one challenged his appointment, not even your brother. Rooster has to be voted out. And if your brother was killed because Rooster was feeling threatened, I need proof. If there are other extenuating circumstances as to why your brother was taken out, that’s different.”

“But he can’t just take someone out without coming from you, can he?”

He glares at me. “No, but it happens.”

“He was your nephew for crying out loud. You mean to tell me you’re going to sit there and do nothing about him being murdered? Hell, you didn’t know he was dead. I waited four days to come to you because I’d assumed you’d gone to Roswell for the burial and yet here you sit.” I challenge him and his face reddens. “I thought this club respected its dead.”

He stands up, sending his chair flying back. He slams his fist into his desk. “Do not challenge me, little girl,” he growls. “He obviously died for an acceptable reason for someone to keep me out of the loop.”

“So that warrants no funeral? No respect?”

“Enough,” he barks. “You’re making some pretty strong accusations here, sweetheart, and you’d better have some proof to back this up.”

“Maybe I do,” I say, holding up the briefcase. “I found this after Tryke was killed. It came with a pouch that had a note attached to it.”

“What did it say?”

I hand him the note from my purse, the one my brother wrote to me, and he reads it over then he looks up at me with murder in his eyes and I take an involuntary step back. “Loki?” he growls and I nod hesitantly.

“I overheard them a few years ago, after mom and dad…” I pause, trying to gain control of myself again. I swallow. “Tryke hid me from the club and the only person he let around the house after their deaths was Loki. I overheard them one night talking about how Tryke wanted Loki to be the one to do it. If it ever came to that. Once I understood that, I realized Loki was doing it to protect Kellen and me.” His name slips off my tongue and I bite it, hoping to stave off the tears.

“Do you know why they wanted him dead?” he asks as he reaches back for his chair, pulling it up and sitting back down. I let out a rush of relief. Sitting is good; it means he’s calming down.

“I have an idea. It might involve the briefcase or something else, but the other guy who came with Loki kept sputtering something about money and how they know Tryke stole it.”

Uncle D leans back in his chair and steeples his fingers against his lips. “It’s club business and I can’t go into detail about it, but there’s been some inconsistencies in that part of the business. We’ve not been able to break it down enough to figure out who’s behind it. If Rooster is saying that Tryke was behind it, he’d have the right to take him down without consulting me.”

“So, they become judge, jury and executioner with Tryke?” My uncle just nods and right now I hate him more than I hate Loki. “So, to cover their asses, to make it look like a good hit, they accused Tryke of stealing money from the club?”

My uncle laughs without humor. “Fucking morons.” His face turns red with anger. “I may not be there, in Roswell, but I know Tryke better than most and I know damn well he’d never do that. He has no reason to. He’s got enough money that he could get a major drug addiction and still survive.” I shudder at the idea of Tryke addicted to drugs. Sure, he smoked pot once in a while, but that’s it. All the guys did at one point or another. Beer, pot and cigarette smoke were staples in my house growing up.

“I assure you there were no drugs in his life and no reason for him to be skimming money from the club. We had everything we needed and then some. He dropped money on that safe room, those cameras, and security measures around the house like it was chump change,” I tell him. “We always had food in the house. I had clothes on my back and a substantial allowance that came without fail every week. He never griped or bitched about a lack of money and he even loaned Loki money from time to time. So, I can tell you, Tryke is not your thief.”

“Fucking idiots.” My uncle leans forward, putting his arms back on the desk. “I’ll get to the bottom of this and handle it.”

“I want at him first.” I narrow my eyes at him, conveying my seriousness. “I want to take him down.”

He just stares blankly at me for a moment. “You’re joking, right?”

“Don’t patronize me. Between my father, my mother and now my brother, I deserve my chance.”

My uncle shifts behind the desk, his hand coming up to play with his beard. Big Daddy is a big guy, about six-five, with broad shoulders and hips to match. At one point in his life, he was healthy and ripped. Too many beers and sitting around has changed that. He’s not unattractive, though the belly button length beard is a bit much. He thinks something over for a moment before he points to the briefcase in my hand. “We’ll come back to that, later. What’s in there?”

“I was hoping you would tell me. All I know is Tryke buried it, I found it with a note telling me to bring it here to you. Trust me; I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for that briefcase.” I take a deep breath, digging down to my toes for the strength I found when I finally left that hotel room. I stare at him. “He died for this briefcase,” I remind him as I set the briefcase down on the desk in front of him along with the DVD of Tryke’s murder.

“You got someplace to stay?” he asks.

“I’ll manage.”

“Stay here, at the clubhouse.” He gives me a look that says it’s not an invitation but an order.

“No,” I tell him sternly.

“You want a chance for revenge or not?” he asks me.

“You know I do, but not here, not like this,” I tell him. “I need time.”

“Fuck that,” he snaps.

“I’m seventeen,” I remind him.

“Fuck,” he groans. “For how much longer?”

“What day is it?” I cock my head at him.

“The sixteenth.”

“Three more days,” I tell him.

His eyes widen briefly before he relaxes. “Well, then I don’t see what the problem is.”

I put my hands on his desk and lean forward. “I’m not a club whore,” I remind him.

He smirks, “No? You walk in here looking like that and expect me to believe you’re not a club whore?”

I stand up and try in vain to cover myself. “I needed someone to take me seriously.”

“Oh, I’m listening, darlin’.”

“I can’t stay here,” I tell him.

“You don’t think we can protect you?” He raises an eyebrow at me.

“I know damn well you can protect me, Uncle D. But you have too many Roswell guys coming up in here too often. My brother did a damn good job of keeping me away from them for four years. Do you honestly believe I’ll let you ruin that with your over-protective big daddy complex?”

“Then go north, Boulder. Roswell has no business up there and no need to be there.”

“I’m going to my aunt’s in Colorado Springs,” I lie. The truth is I’m headed to Boulder. Headed to my uncle’s.

He narrows his eyes at me. “Your mother’s sister?”

“That’s where Tryke wants me.”

“Does your aunt even know you’re coming?”

I shake my head.

“Christ, Kiwi, have you even thought this through?”

“I have enough money to take care of myself and three days until I turn eighteen, then I can get a place of my own,” I snap at him.

“You’re family, Kiwi.” His eyes soften a little. He may be a Pres, a badass biker, but for the Wicked Angels, family has always come first.

“Forty-five minutes ago, you thought I was dead.” I narrow my eyes at him.

“That reminds me,” he drawls. “I thought you were dead because your brother said so. We buried your ass with your parents. How the fuck was I supposed to know we buried an empty coffin? Whatever Tryke was doing, he let very few people into that inner circle.”

“That son of a bitch!” I growl. My anger turns my vision red. “If that bastard wasn’t already dead, I’d kill him myself.”

“Whoa there, kitten, what are you talking about?”

I shake my head and start pacing around the room. “Will you just open that damn thing so I can get out of here?”

“Not until you tell me what the fuck is going on?” He stands up hard, pushing his chair against the wall behind his desk, again. Jesus, Lily, how many times you gonna piss him off in the course of an hour?

I stop, staring at him. “He brought home two urns. Told me it was easier that way.” Tears swim in my eyes and I bite my lip. I’ve held it together this long, I don’t need to lose it now.

My uncle shakes his head before shouting, “Whistler, Spike, get in here!” I jump at the loud boom of his voice.

“Yeah,” one of them says behind me, though I don’t bother to look to see who.

“Who can we send to Roswell?”

“Depends. What do you want done?”

“I want someone on the inside. We need to figure out what the fuck is going on down there,” my uncle explains to the two men who just came into the room.

“Then send someone from Boulder or somewhere else. You send someone from here and they ain’t gonna let them near anything.”

I try my best to ignore them talking about Wicked Angels business but they’re openly doing it in front of me. “Alright,” my uncle concedes. “We’ll talk about it later. Let me finish with Kiwi.” He sits back down and glares at me. “Your brother did the right thing,” he states stoically.

“What are you talking about?” I narrow my eyes at him in frustration.

“Club business.”

“Fuck that bullshit. You can’t drop a cryptic statement like that and not answer it.”

My uncle is out of his chair and rounding his desk faster than I can react. He has me pushed against the wall, his hand at my throat before I can blink. The impact knocks the air out of my lungs. I fight for breath, but he gives me nothing. I don’t fight him. “Listen, and listen good. Club business is club business and not meant for some little bitch, you get me?” he growls at me.

I fight for air again before nodding and he releases me. I double over, pulling in deep breaths, trying to right myself as he returns to his desk.

“What’s the combo?” he asks as if he didn’t just have me pinned against the wall.

I shrug while standing back up, straightening out. “The note says you’ll know what to do with it.”

“Well fuck,” he grumbles but he starts fiddling with the combination. It’s one of those turning wheel ones.

“How many numbers?” I ask.

His eyes look up from the briefcase and he responds, “Six.”

“Birthday,” I tell him.

“Whose?”

“How the fuck should I know?” I retort. His eyes narrow at me again and my heart skips a terrified beat in my chest, but he doesn’t move. “Try yours, mom’s, dad’s, Tryke’s, mine?” I throw my hands up in frustration. “Fuck if I know.” I go back to pacing around the room while my uncle goes to town on the lock.

After a few heartbeats he asks, “What’s yours?”

“February nineteenth, two thousand,” I tell him.

He fiddles with it some more, putting in my date of birth and pushes the button, the latches pop up. “Well, aren’t you a lucky charm,” he mutters.

I shrug and move around his desk to look inside the briefcase.

“Money? I thought you said he didn’t steal anything,” my uncle snaps at me.

I look closer at it. There’s something off about it. I don’t understand it completely, but the color is bad, the numbers askew. “It’s counterfeit,” I breathe.

“How can you tell?” He looks up at me, skeptical.

“Look at it?” I tell him. “You got a twenty?” I ask and he digs into his back pocket, pulling his chain wallet from its resting place and he goes digging for a twenty. After a few seconds, he produces one and holds it next to the bills. “See, the color is off, not enough to raise too many eyebrows when they’re all together and away from a real one.”

“Fuck me,” my uncle breathes.

“He died for a pile of fake fucking bills?” I snap.

My uncle just shrugs before he pulls a stack of the fake twenties from the briefcase and then the next thing I know, he’s pulling them all out. Beneath the row of bills are a bunch of metal plates. “They’re print plates,” my uncle says as he grabs one from the briefcase and beneath it is a manila envelope.

Again, he pulls the plates from their resting place before reaching for the envelope. It has my name on it. “Fuck me,” I breathe and my uncle looks at me as if I’ve lost my damn mind. I’m sure that I have. He hands it to me and I flip it over, unclasping it then opening the flap. Inside are a stack of papers stapled together with a note on top.

Lily-bean,

If you’re reading this, you’ve done exactly as I’ve instructed. Thank you for listening to me. I need you to do one more thing for me.

Attached to this note is all the proof that Big Daddy needs to track down the missing money. With a little investigation, he might be able to finish what I started and figure out who’s skimming off the top. I recommend he starts at the top.

I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you any of this, but the less you knew the better.

I owed it to mom and dad, but more to you. You deserve a life better than I’ve given you, go and find it, Lily-bean.

There’s no signature, but it’s clearly my brother’s handwriting. I pull the note from the stack of papers and I look at them briefly. They look like accounting ledgers. I hand them over to my uncle. “The letter says that this,” I point at the stack I handed to him, “is enough for you to track down the missing money and with a little investigation, you should be able to finish ‘what he started’ and find out who’s behind it.” I take a deep breath. “Loki may have killed my brother, but he didn’t do it without orders. I assure you of that. The other guy that was there with Loki got hit in the shoulder during the struggle, but Loki got nothing. If my brother was shooting, he’d have clipped Loki too. I think he did what he needed to do to make sure that Tryke died with a little dignity, considering he was being falsely accused.” I chew on my lip for a second before I add, “Loki might know more about this.” I nod at the briefcase.

“Why would he kill your brother?” my uncle asks, his voice is soft, sad almost.

“Because my brother asked him to,” I state simply. “My guess is that the guy who was there with him is working for someone else inside the club or maybe he’s responsible for the missing money or knows who is. They kill Tryke to cover their asses and Rooster takes out the one man vying for his position. He wins all the way around.

“But, if money continues to disappear, then they’ve still got a problem and Tryke wasn’t the right man. Thus, producing a reason for you to take down whoever ordered the hit. If the money stops disappearing and the books stay legit, the person who took the money to begin with…” I swallow, “is dead already, or they’re covering their tracks. But in the end, when they get in over their heads again, the money will start disappearing again. It’s an addiction, Uncle D. Whether it’s drugs or gambling, or just money in general, whoever is really behind this will not stop forever.”

“Jesus, how old are you again?”

I smile at my uncle. “I’m a lot smarter than the strawberry blonde lets on. I pay attention. I’m smart. Private school wasn’t just to get me away from club members’ kids.” I wink and go back to the other side of the desk.

“We’ll get to the bottom of this,” he says without a hint of promise, but more of a ‘don’t get your hope us’ kind of tone as he fishes blindly for his chair and takes a seat once again.

“Whoever is behind this, I want my crack at him. Whoever it is took out my parents and had my brother killed.”

“Revenge is an ugly game, sweetheart.”

“And it’s all mine.”

My tone leaves little to misinterpret and my uncle nods in understanding.