Mark
“It’s not Ryan,” a bloody Ozzy said. He stood in front of me with bloody knuckles and a little blood spattered on his shirt, still panting from the adrenaline of whatever the hell he’d done to that poor mule.
Nora sat in the chair across from my desk, sulking. Her arms were crossed and she scowled down toward the floor. I couldn’t imagine a legitimate reason for her to be pissed off about anything. I wanted to talk to Ozzy first, before talking to her to see what the hell was going on with her.
“Are you sure he’s not leaking information or working for someone else?” I asked. I found it hard to believe that he’d had much opportunity to talk, judging by the looks of Ozzy.
“Don’t worry. We did our fair share of talking, too,” he assured me. “If he does know something or is in on anything, he will never admit it. But to be honest with you, anybody would have spilled information under those circumstances,” he boasted.
I wanted to laugh but the operation wasn’t supposed to go down like that. There wasn’t supposed to be violence. I looked back and forth between them. Ozzy looked at me like he was proud of what he’d done. Nora looked up at me with that same anger in her face, but there was a defiance there as well, as if she were telling me she didn’t care what I thought about what happened.
I sighed and rubbed my temples. “Okay. Ozzy, go get cleaned up.” When I spoke, my voice came out pissed and tired. I was not impressed.
“Hey, all I wanted to do was scare him,” he defended himself. “He’s the one who pulled a gun and took it to the next level.”
“He pulled a fucking gun?” I asked. “That doesn’t seem like the action of an innocent man.”
“No, but you should see him. He had plenty of opportunities to come clean, but he didn’t say a peep. I really believe he’s just doing his job. If he knew anything, he already told us.”
“Yeah, I got it,” I said, waving toward the door.
“Alright. I’ll be at the bar if you need me.” Ozzy walked out and closed the door behind himself to leave me in there alone with Nora.
I walked around and sat on the corner of my desk. I put a hand on her shoulder. She uncrossed her arms and put one of her hands on top of mine. She didn’t look up. She kept glaring at the floor.
“So, what happened?” I asked.
“Your boy stormed the room and started shooting the place up,” she snarled. “That’s what happened. Reckless bastard almost got me shot.”
“Wait, are you telling me Ryan drew a gun on you?” I asked. “That motherfucker,” I snapped. I started to reach for my gun.
“What are you doing?” she asked, looking up at me with those angry eyes.
“I’m going to handle this situation. He doesn’t get to point a gun at you and walk away with his life,” I growled.
She grabbed my arm. “Leave it. I’m sure he’s in bad enough shape. Ozzy certainly seems proud enough of himself to have beat his ass.”
The disgust in her voice was thick and palpable. I really started to wonder why she was so upset about how things had gone down. I wondered what was going on in her head, what she was thinking. I was starting to doubt her again.
“Are you upset that he beat Ryan’s ass, or what? I don’t get you,” I said.
“I don’t give a shit about Ryan,” she swore to me, recoiling. “How dare you even think that?” She got up from the chair and took a step back from me.
“Then what is it?” I asked. “What’s bothering you so much? You come in here with this sour expression on your face like you’re upset that your ex got his ass beat, and now you’re pissed at me because I said something about it? What else am I supposed to think?”
“Well, you go on thinking what you want,” she said, holding a finger up to me. “But remember that I’m carrying your child.”
“How could I forget?” I asked before she could say anything else.
“And yet you’re okay with putting me in danger?” Her face reddened and tears came to her eyes.
“You were fine. I’m sure Ozzy had it all under control,” I said in an effort to assure her. “I trust Ozzy. He’s a solid guy.” I reached for her to take her in my arms and try to comfort her, but she backed away again.
“It sure didn’t feel like he was in control. He blew my cover and got a gun shoved in my face. What the hell was he doing, coming up and knocking on the door? And then he kicked the door the rest of the way open when Ryan grabbed me. Was he trying to get me killed? He compromised the whole thing and put me in unnecessary danger. He put our child in danger!”
“I mean, you’re with an MC now. You’re with Shadow Reapers. As long as you’re by my side, there is going to be danger. I thought you understood that,” I said to her. “And furthermore, you were more than willing to go after him and get revenge for selling you like a piece of property. You got your revenge. Or are you upset that Ozzy got your revenge for you?”
“I’m upset because you obviously didn’t brief him on what we were doing before sending him to protect me. He did anything but protect me,” she continued to argue.
“If you can’t hang, go home,” I told her. My head was starting to split. I put my fingers back up to my temples to hold off the headache, but it was no good.
“You’re going to run me off?” she asked, hurt mixing in with the anger in her voice. “Because I can’t accept that my life was in danger?”
I looked her right in the eye, hardening my stare. I set my jaw and scowled. If I had realized that sending her out to talk to Ryan would have caused so much trouble, I wouldn’t have done it. I knew better for next time. I shouldn’t have sent her to do the job in the first place. It was obvious I should have sent someone else.
“Fine, if you’re going to run me off, and you don’t want me around because I can’t handle putting our child in danger, maybe I’ll go have an abortion and forget about the whole thing,” she shouted in my face.
She turned then to walk out the door, but I grabbed her arm and spun her around. Furious, I grabbed her by both of her shoulders.
“If you do something that stupid, understand this: I will throw you to my men. I will let them treat you like one of those disposable club girls. And when they’re through with you, I will execute Ryan so he can’t save you. I will take away your entire life if you take that child from me,” I threatened her.
She shrugged my hands off. “Let go of me, you pig. I don’t care about Ryan. I told you that already. And as for your men, you’re full of shit. That baby is the only reason you’re keeping me hanging around. Without that baby, I’ll hit the fucking road, and you’ll never find me.”
My headache was threatening to turn into a full-blown migraine. I closed my eyes while I listened to her. The dim light in my office was even too much to bear.
“All we are is a business transaction, Ryan, and this baby is our business. If you don’t care about protecting your investment, there is no reason for me to honor our contract,” she added.
“Go,” I said finally.
“What? No. You don’t get to kick me out of your office,” she argued.
“I can have you removed,” I said flatly – no humor, no anger. I was tired. I couldn’t think to say anything else other than to tell her to leave.
“Are you kidding me?”
I took a slow deep breath, trying to calm myself. I was trying not to show her how worried I was by all of it, but I was pretty upset that she’d been put in a dangerous spot. I didn’t regret sending her because of the way she reacted. I regretted sending her because it was a stupid move.
The truth was, I had feelings for her. They had been growing for a while. They grew stronger every time I had paid her a visit. I didn’t know what to do about them.
“Go home, Nora. Don’t hang around here if you can’t take it,” I said, the anger and rage leaving my voice.
I didn’t know what else to say. I wasn’t angry anymore. I didn’t want to fight. Everything she’d said was right, but I didn’t know how to backtrack and apologize. And having her stand there and remind me of that only made me feel worse.
She huffed and turned to leave again. She didn’t say anything on her way out of my office. She slammed the door so hard it bounced back open. The noise outside my office stopped as the members hanging out at the bar watched her leave in silence. No one spoke to her, and she didn’t speak to any of them. I heard the door to the clubhouse slam as she left.
I closed my office door after she was finally gone, and I went to sit down behind my desk. I needed to talk to Ozzy at some point about how he handled the situation. I also needed to apologize to Nora, but that was going to take time. I had to find the words and figure out how I was going to do it.
But first, I needed something for my headache. I opened the drawer of my desk and pulled out a bottle of ibuprofen and a mickey of Jack that I kept at my desk in case I needed a quick drink. I definitely needed a quick drink. I popped two ibuprofen in my mouth and washed them down with the room-temperature whiskey. I took another drink from the bottle after I’d swallowed the medicine.
I put my feet on the desk and leaned back in my chair. That motherfucker hadn’t been able to provide us with any information, and after roughing him up, we’d probably lost our connection with the Montreal supplier. On top of that, he’d threatened Nora.
Maybe I’ll kill him anyway, I thought. He’d certainly earned it. It would have been immensely satisfying to go ahead and take him out, get him out of the way. By putting a gun to Nora’s head, he’d gone from being a nuisance to being a real threat. That would have justified it to the guys when I ordered them to shoot him in his hotel room.
I smiled while I thought about telling the guys watching the hotel to kill Ryan. I imagined them walking up to his door and dropping him right there when he answered it, right in front of other guests and their visitors. No one would have said shit to the authorities because they knew who we were, and they knew they would have wound up exactly like the poor sap they had watched my guys shoot.