But it wasn’t happening on Tango’s watch.
He surged to his feet. “Do you not know who I am?”
“Shut up,” Two said, not interested.
Tango went to the front of his cell, wrapped his fingers around the bars. “No, I don’t think you get it.Do you know who I am?”
They looked over at him, irritated, but distracted from Whitney for a moment. “The fuck are you talking about?”
“Those earrings were hooked to his brain,” One suggested. They laughed again.
“You ever heard of The Cuckoo’s Nest?”
You’d either heard of the Nest, or you hadn’t; there was no mistaking it for anyplace else. And clearly, these two had heard. They both stilled, the smiles dropping off their faces.
“I used to work there,” Tango said, and there was nothing true about the wordwork. His heart pounded as the memories crashed across him. He couldn’t talk about that place without thinking about Miss Carla, about the boys, about Ian, aboutall of it. “I was one of the features.”
The two guards moved toward him, slowly, a little hesitant, but fascinated.
“You never went in there, did you?” Tango asked. “But you were curious. You thought it was disgusting…but there was that little bit of fascination, wasn’t there?” He was aware of Whitney staring at him, and hated himself as he continued. “You wanna find out?” he asked. “You wanna see one of Miss Carla’s Dancing Boys? Take a good look.”
Thug One walked up to him, glaring down at Tango with utter contempt. He hawked and spat on the concrete. “Shut up, faggot.”
“How many little crying virgin girls have you terrorized?” he taunted them. “Doesn’t that get boring? More of the same, and same, and same. How’s that a challenge? How’s that sport?”
Whitney made a small distressed sound.
Tango delivered his challenge: “You wanna torture somebody? You wanna see who can take it? You start with me.”
Twenty-Nine
It wouldn’t be fair to Erin to deny her riding lessons because of Tonya. So Sam put on her bravest face and drove her sister out to Briar Hall one afternoon after school.
“I swear,” Emmie said, afterward, as Erin was walking Sherman around the arena to cool him down and Em stood beside Sam at the rail. “I had no earthly idea Tonya was pregnant. I would never have put you in that position.”
Sam shrugged, feeling hollow; it was becoming her constant companion, this empty spot in her stomach. “I know you didn’t. It’s nobody’s fault. Except for mine…and Aidan’s.”
“Men are idiots,” Emmie said, tugging at the brim of her baseball cap. She was dressed for her work day, in buff riding breeches, boots, and a sweatshirt beneath a down vest. “Even Walsh, who’s the most intelligent guy I’ve ever met – idiots, all of them.”
“No arguments here.”
Out in the arena, the sun glinted off Erin’s bright ponytail and the horse’s fluffy winter coat. It was a timeless, beautiful picture, girl and horse, loose sand of the arena kicking up beneath their feet. Erin was talking to Sherman, glancing over at him and smiling as she spoke. The big gelding rubbed his ear against her shoulder in answer.
“Sam,” Emmie said, and her voice was different, no longer her officious, no-nonsense instructor tone, but something more personal and feminine.
Sam glanced over at her.
Emmie’s expression was one of deep sympathy. “You might not want to hear this, and that’s your prerogative. I get it. But not very long ago I was the outsider, coming into this crazy biker world, and all the other women had been attached to the club for so long they didn’t remember what it was like to be exposed to the Dogs for the first time.” Her smile was wry. “Walsh and I got off to a rough start, you could say. When I married him, I did it because…well, let’s just say it wasn’t true love propelling us to the altar.”
Sam frowned, curiosity good and piqued. “But you guys are–”
“A perfectly matched set of little blonde salt-and-pepper shakers? Yeah.” She snorted. “But it doesn’t mean it wasn’t rough, and I wasn’t scared, and there weren’t a boatload of miscommunications.” She smiled, and it was eloquent of so many things. “I had a heart-to-heart with myself. And I realized that no matter our issues, I was completely in love with him, and in my life, love was hard to come by.”
Sam fidgeted with the flaking black paint on the fence rail beneath her hands. “I can’t believe he didn’t tell me,” she said, mostly to herself.
“Like I said. Idiots. Unfortunately, they can’t stop being idiots just because they love you. It’s part of the whole package, I’m afraid.”
~*~
