Unrequited (Fallen Aces MC #1) (9 page)

One way or another, on his terms or mine, I know I’ll never get out of this alive.

ELEVEN

King

Every man has his price.

The words of my father swirl about my head like the warm mid-summer breeze that whips through my hair as we turn off the I-29 toward our drop-off point. Every man has his price: me, Carlos, who’s paying us to do this fucking run, and the guy that we received the package from two hours ago who smelt like three-day-old piss and vomit.

The minute we rolled up to the guy’s shack, I knew something was off. Nobody in their right fucking mind would choose to live in such squalid conditions—not unless they were the kind of person who didn’t care about much at all in life, people included. He answered the door barefoot, wearing a stained gray tank and shredded black running shorts. His fingernails—
Jesus
—I still haven’t got my fucking appetite back.

But it was the smell.

When I was a kid, Dad found this owl that had died of natural causes, all curled up under one of the huge trees that bookended our front gate. He brought it home for us to look at—a rare chance to see a wild animal so closely—and it was my first experience with the smell of death. It’s not something you forget easily.

And this guy’s shack . . . it reeked of death.

I’ve never felt so compelled before to just turn around mid-conversation and leave. I drew a fucking sigh of relief when we finally did, both to be away from that creepy asshole, and because I could in fact breathe again without the odor of things rotting making me want to gag.

Road markers welcome us to Kansas City, the ‘heart of America.’ No prizes for guessing whom my mind’s on. It’s been three days since I left her—the longest seventy-two fucking hours of my life. I don’t regret telling her the truth, that we couldn’t carry on what we started without causing trouble. I mean, I either let down her or the club, and for me, I made that choice back when I received the papers telling me I owned my first Harley. What I do regret is that I had to make the choice with Elena.

We just click. Witty banter comes so naturally with her, and she gives as good as she gets. I feel like she was more than a one-night stand—she’d become a friend. Mixing those two together, lust, and camaraderie, has got me all kinds of fucked up.

I glance across to Twig’s bike as a pick-up buzzes past us, heading in the opposite direction. Strapped to the sissy bar is the box the creeper gave us. Worn down edges are held together by two wide bands of tape that circumvent the whole cube. Whatever’s inside holds a little weight to it, but it wasn’t too heavy when I strapped it on back at the death shack.

Apex doesn’t even know what’s inside. Twig’s none to happy about it, and me? Well, I don’t get to ask. I move my gaze up formation to where Apex leads us, stretching first his right and then his left leg off the pedal to presumably regain feeling in his feet. Everything about this run is shared on a need-to-know basis, and being a prospect, there ain’t much need and a hell of a lot less knowing where I’m concerned.

All I know is the job today is a simple in and out. Pick up and drop off. We take the goods from point A to point B without question and without interference.

The work Carlos has given us is supposed to pull the club out of the red. It’s no secret between the brothers that the Fallen Aces are in financial trouble. Question is, how did the club get to the point of there barely being enough in the kitty to rub two fucking coins together?

First impressions—they’re what counts. I’ve been told a hundred times already that I need to keep my head down and speak only when spoken to. I’d question why I’m even here on a run with two officers, but I already know the answer to that. Center patch. I’m here to prove my grit, and show I’m worthy of the honor.

I’m usually the quiet one, the guy who doesn’t like to cause unnecessary trouble. But I’m also that sneaky fucker who lurks in the shadows, seemingly as calm as a kitten but as dangerous as a fucking tiger. I might be an observer ninety per cent of the time, but I’m also fucking relentless when provoked.

So here I am.

Quietly observing.

Waiting to be provoked.

Our procession turns into a quiet suburban stretch off the main road, and we weave and wend through the streets. The steady growl of our engines ricochets off the clean, white walls of the well-kept homes around us. Our wheels roll on, and the manicured hedges of the yards soon give way to broken timber palings, and finally rusty chain link. The average re-sale value more than halves the deeper we go, the houses probably part of what was the original estate in these parts. Our procession slows, and with a tight wrist from Apex, we pull off to the side of the road one by one, backing our bikes against the curb, in order and evenly spaced.

Appearances. Everything in life boils down to appearances.

Without the deafening tones of the engines running in unison, barking dogs are clear as day, as is the distinct lack of any other sound. The street’s a ghost town. Smart fuckers are probably all inside, hiding behind nicotine-stained blinds, watching what we’re doing here. The creak of leather accompanies the three of us as we dismount, each man stretching his limbs out and groaning as joints pop and crack. We’re not here for a holiday, but after riding as long as we have today, we’re also in no hurry.

Apex jams his hands in the front pockets of his jeans and rocks back on his heels as he takes in the broken-down house before us. “Fuckin’ disgustin’.” He turns his head to the left and spits, not exactly helping add to the place’s street appeal.

I walk around my ride to Twig’s bike—a real nice Night Train—and unstrap the cargo as he pulls out a cigarette. My eyes roam the ripped off labels and tags on the box as I do, looking for some clue as to what it originally was. Why? No reason other than curiosity to know more about the people we deal with. I don’t get told much being a prospect, and I wouldn’t say the rule aggravates me, but I feel . . . vulnerable, I guess. When you’re ill informed, you’re ill prepared, and that’s not something that sits well with my nature.

“Got your shit together yet, King?”

I tuck the last strap into Twig’s saddlebag and hoist the box up. “Aye.”

“What do you think is in it?” Twig asks, cigarette bobbing between his lips. He dips his head toward the waiting flame.

“None of our business.” Apex takes the box from me. “Probably gear, something like it. The guy we’re doing this for is into class A shit, so who’d know what we’ve got in here exactly, or if it’s even pure.”

“You met this guy?” Twig asks, one eye squinting against the smoke that curls up the side of his nose.

Apex stares off down the street, clearly avoiding eye contact. “Nup.”

“Can’t believe we agreed to transport something without knowing what it fuckin’ was,” Twig mumbles.

“You think I’m that fuckin’ reckless?” Apex prods Twig in the chest with his free hand. “Assurances are it wouldn’t harm us, so unless it’s a tickin’ bomb I couldn’t give a fuck what we’re carrying, only that we’re being paid to do it.” He looks across at me, that ever-present scowl firmly set in place. “King, you have the bikes.” I swear the guy would have a coronary if he smiled.

Keeping my eyesight firmly on Apex as he wanders casually up the pathway of a dilapidated single-level dwelling, I hold my hand out toward Twig before he goes. He crosses my palm with his pack of cigarettes, following it quickly with the lighter.

“Thought you were giving up?”

“There’s a time and a place, and fuckin’ standing around with my finger up my ass while I watch the bikes isn’t it.”

“Fair enough, brother.” He hangs about and waits for me to return the pack and lighter before joining Prez.

The tobacco crackles as I take a long drag and squint against the setting sun. There are maybe six or seven more houses each side before the street opens out onto a four-lane highway. The area’s nothing like where I grew up amidst overgrown fields, broken down farm machinery, and a stone’s throw away from the nearby creek where I’d fish with a shitty homemade rod and reel. It might have been frugal, but it was real, and it was mine. Times like this, when I’m stuck in suburbia, I pine for it: the open spaces, the smell of rain on the horizon, and the hum of the tractor working the fields behind the house.

But things change, and we’d all be fools if we ever thought there was a chance of staying lost in paradise forever.

The resounding thud of Apex’s knuckles against the front door snap me from my reminiscing. Twig drops his cigarette butt and screws the toe of his boot into it as the front door opens. A middle-aged woman, hair pulled back with grays evident at the edges, looks out at the hulk-ish men on her front stoop. I kind of expect her to slam the door and call the cops, both the kinds of things my mother would have done if she’d been faced with large, leather-clad bikers on her doorstep. But the woman’s face falls, and her head drops, her chin touching her chest as she braces herself with a hand on the doorframe.

She was expecting us.

A man soon joins her, just as devastated to see the three of us taking up their front yard. From where I stand, I can’t hear what’s being said, but the gestures Apex makes, and the sullen nods they respond with lets me know that it’s somber. That ill feeling of ice washing over my flesh makes an appearance. Something’s off here. The whole thing just seems too . . . pedestrian.

Why would
three
of us have to deliver a couple of kilos of coke or the like? The math doesn’t add up.

I watch on as Apex holds out the box to the couple to take and the woman looks at it quizzically, as though although she’d seen him holding it, she hadn’t clued it was for them. What were they expecting if not a delivery? The man takes it off Prez’s hands and places it down on the lip of the doorframe to try and open it.

Apex turns to look at me and with a sweep of his hand, gestures I should join them. “Need your knife.”

The silence of the street strikes me as I pull the blade from its sheath and offer it to the man. The dogs have quieted since we arrived, replaced by the rustle of the leaves in the trees. The unrelenting hot wind that’s been plaguing us all day picks up, and somewhere a sprinkler starts its subtle
rat-tat-tat
. I’d call it the soundtrack to suburban bliss, but I get the feeling the day’s going to end anything but peacefully.

The tip of the blade pierces the tape, and the guy passes the knife back to me in order to pull at the tabs with his fingers. I catch the pop of the cardboard as it breaks the last seal, right as I slip my blade back in its sheath.

“Jesus!” the man yells, hands flying from the cardboard as though the material gave him an electric shock. “No. No, no, no . . .”

Holy shit . . .

Apex goes stiff to my left, muttering under his breath. He runs a heavily ringed hand over his beard and takes a large step backward as Twig moves forward to peer in the box. He turns rapidly away also, hands braced on the back of his neck.

What the fuck have we got ourselves into?

I kneel opposite the man who’s collapsed on his heels and covered his face with both hands. The scream that breaks from the woman when she finally steps forward isn’t anything I can describe; it’s not fucking human, that’s for sure, and tells so much more than words ever could. Blue fabric pools about her in my peripheral as she slides down the doorframe, her shoulder pulling against the wood while she howls.

My interest never leaves the grotesque contents of our delivery.

Reaching inside the beaten cardboard cube, I knit my fingers through the whitest blonde hair I’ve ever seen on a little girl—at least, what used to be a little girl. Her head is jammed against the side of the carton, her eyes staring blankly out over my shoulder. Nestled in the soft bedding of her long hair is the head of a younger boy. Fuck, he can’t be more than two years old—all chubby in the cheeks still, and apart from the bruising and hacked flesh where his head’s been sawn roughly from his body, flawless skin.

What the fuck is Carlos playing at?

The box goes flying, the contents strewn over these people’s entrance as the woman launches to her feet. I move rapidly out of the way as she growls and barges past my position, knocking Apex in the shoulder to run down the path at speed. Twig lunges for her but misses as she heads straight for our bikes.
Fuck.
An angry, frustrated roar rips from her throat as she shoots both palms out flat and shunts my bike over into Twig’s. “You assholes!” The machines tilt over with a creak and groan of metal on metal.

I cringe. God, do I cringe.

“Lady!” Twig yells, running toward her. “Hands off!”

Apex reaches her first. He wraps his thick arms about her middle and hoists her clean off the ground. She kicks and thrashes in his hold, beating his arms with her fists, and connects her heel to his shins. He carries her back up the path to where her husband stands in the doorway, shocked, the heads of what I can only assume are their kids at his feet.

“This is your fault, you spineless fucking asshole,” she screams at the guy, still wrestling against Apex’s hold. He drops her down before the front stoop, keeping her arms behind her back with one of his hands wrapped about her wrists, the other held up to Twig to tell him to put his gun away.

“You said they wouldn’t hurt them.” Her voice is deep and strained with her grief. “You said it would be okay.” Her body goes limp and slumps against Apex’s legs as she begins to wail.