Fourteen
Smokey’s Family Diner was a confused restaurant. A freestanding building that had previously been a Shoney’s, it was a diner, yes, but also a buffet. Someone had repainted the interior in smoke gray and Tennessee orange, and the walls were plastered with UT memorabilia. The bakery cases up in the front were full of pom-poms, footballs and old photos. The food was mediocre and despite the paint and décor, the place just had an outdated feeling; when you were inside, you sensed the restaurant’s impending failure. It wasn’t a favorite among the Dogs, and that’s why Greg had picked it, knowing there was little chance they’d be seen.
Aidan walked in at twelve-ten, purposefully late, and spotted Greg in one of the orange-and-white-striped booths near the back, away from the buffet and the windows.
“I’m meeting someone,” he told the hostess. And judging by that someone’s total composure, the tables had turned since their last official restaurant meeting. Gone was the pale, sweating, shaking Greg from Stella’s, way back during his wannabe Carpathian days. The man waiting for him now wore clothes that fit – shirt, jeans and leather jacket – and his color was normal, his expression stony and hard to read.
With a sensation like a stone landing in his gut, Aidan realized he’d deeply miscalculated three years ago, when he’d assumed someone like Greg could never serve as a threat. Dimly, he wondered how many times in his life he’d made that mistake, and how badly it was going to haunt him in the future.
He slid into the booth and Greg greeted him with a nod. It was some consolation to see the bruise on Greg’s face, the blossoming shadows where Aidan had ground his face into the dirt.
“You’ve got a little something,” Aidan said with a smirk, touching his own face.
Greg’s smile was humorless. “You’re not gonna charm and joke your way outta this one, Aidan.”
Aidan sighed and slumped back in the booth. His shoulder was sore from wrestling Greg last night, and from what had come later with Sam. He’d skipped breakfast and the smell of whatever greasy shit they had at the buffet was making his stomach growl. “Okay, I don’t have the patience for your bullshit. What do you mean by ‘this one’?”
Greg had a plate of French fries in front of him and glanced down at it, dragging one through a puddle of ketchup. “This war.” His gaze flicked up, the way his chin was tilted giving him an uncharacteristically sinister look. “This isn’t like the last war. My new boss is nothing like my old boss.”
Aidan rolled his eyes – and his gut clenched. He affected bored when he said, “Wasn’t what happened with your last boss enough to convince you to get a nine-to-five and lay off trying to be a gangster?”
“That would make you the pot, and me the kettle.”
“Yeah, no. That would make me the guy set to inherit his old man’s club, and you just some idiot loser who makes bad friends.”
“Bad friends like you?” Greg wasn’t letting any of this get under his skin. He had control now. Poise.
“That wasn’t personal, just business.”
“So is this.” Greg reached into the pocket of his jacket and withdrew a folded sheet of computer paper that he slid across the table.
Aidan didn’t want to touch the thing, but he schooled his features and unfolded it, tilted it toward the light.
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Teague,
I know we’ve never met, but I’m a good friend of your son’s, from back in school. I’m real sorry about what he’s going through, and I want to let you know I’m here if you need me.
“What the fuck is this?” Aidan crumpled it into a ball and tossed it onto the table.
“I wrote it,” Greg said, calmly. “And put a copy in the mailbox at Dartmoor. At this point, at least your stepmother’s seen it. Probably even your dad, ‘cause I know y’all’s old ladies tell you everything.”
Though there was nothing in his stomach, he thought he might puke. He cleared his throat. “So you’re blackmailing me. What the hell for? I don’t have shit you want.”
“Not blackmail,” Greg corrected. “Insurance. You can’t lead Ghost to me because I’m supposed to be dead. How could you tell dear old Dad that you didn’t follow orders?”
A chill slithered down the back of Aidan’s neck, like one of his more sinister tattoos had come to life.
“And if Ghost did find out – like if, say, I told him about it.” Greg smiled. “What would happen to the traitor who didn’t do what his president told him to do?”
Traitor. The ugliest, most feared word in all of MC culture. The things that happened to traitors were unspeakable. In the Lean Dogs MC, traitors were dealt with by guys like Mercy, Michael, Candyman, and the English specter, Fox. Aidan recalled the black tackle box that Mercy called his “toolkit” and his gorge rose, palms filming over with sweat.
His voice was even, though, when he spoke. “You don’t know shit about my dad or my club.” He pushed up from the table and stood beside it a moment, looking down at Greg. “You should have stayed away, Greg. You really should. This time, there won’t be anything pretend about you getting killed.”
He left the restaurant and didn’t glance back once, striding quickly until he’d reached his bike in the parking lot. His hands were shaking so badly it took three tries to buckle his helmet.
Traitor.
~*~
Tango tried not to laugh, but he was too surprised not to. The carefully-styled man on the bench tipped his head back, blue-green eyes narrowed under the brim of his baseball cap, his smile wry. “Not exactly the reaction I was hoping for.”
Suppressing a chuckle, Tango dropped down onto the bench beside Ian, mimicking his posture with arms draped over the back. “Not a bad reaction,” he assured, “just a surprised one.”
Ian tilted his head in concession and his grin became more true. “I’m incognito,” he said, unnecessarily.
“I figured.” And if he was being honest with himself, Tango liked it.
When Ian had asked to meet him at the park, he’d expected to find the man at his usual foppish best, Bruce lingering in the shadows, maybe another plainclothes guard or two. Instead, he’d made two circuits around the walking track, dodging mothers with strollers, mumbling apologies when he nearly tripped them. Finally, his eyes had wandered across the lanky figure kicked back at a bench, and a sharp tug in his gut had told him what the clothes did not. The eyes played tricks, but the subconscious always recognized a lover. Some low pulse, a homing sound that sang in the blood.
His subconscious had been right.
Ian wore bootcut jeans that made his legs look ten miles long, Vans, t-shirt, and one of those designer leather jackets that looked casual and biker-ish, but probably cost a small fortune. All of it fit him well and highlighted his lean build. He’d bundled up his long hair and stuffed it under an orange UT cap. Tango hadn’t seen him casual like this in years, and it did things to his insides, stirred up old memories.
“No detail?” Tango asked.
“I am completely solo and at your disposal.”
Tango sighed and let his head fall back against the bench. At this angle, he could see where Ian had gathered his hair at the back of his head and pinned it up, the tail disappearing up the back of the cap. It was on the tip of his tongue to say that he shouldn’t be here, but he couldn’t go through with it. The sun was a warm contrast to the cool breeze, and he felt momentarily content.
Ian tilted his head back so they were eye-to-eye. “Have you thought any more about it?”
“About what?” But he knew.
“Leaving your club.”
Tango closed his eyes. “I can’t,” he said quietly.
“You’re afraid that you can’t,” Ian said in a gentle voice, “but you know deep down that you can.”
“They’re my family.”
“And what am I?”
Tango opened his eyes, struck by the hurt in the other man’s face. “It isn’t healthy for you either, you know, holding onto the past.”
“Is that what you think I’m doing?”
“I know it is. We can’t help but remind each other of what we used to be.”
Ian looked away from him and sat upright, his jaw tight. Paper crackled as he reached into his jacket. “I’ve brought you something.”
Tango sat up to join him, and was handed a printed out map, addresses circled in red pen.
“Ellison’s properties,” Ian explained. “Some are safe houses, some warehouses, some dealers and sundry employees. Anyone or anyplace affiliated with Don Ellison is on that map.”
Tango folded it carefully. “Thank you. This will be helpful.”
“Share it with your president. I have no love for the man, but I’m worried about you.” When Tango met his gaze, he added, “I only want for you to be safe.”
“I am,” Tango assured.
It tasted like a lie, and Ian’s small smile told him it sounded like one too.