“Very well then.” The case was collected. “I’ll see you in hell, gentlemen,” Ian said, and left.
“That’s it then?” Aidan asked when they were alone again. “You’re just going to let them keep Kev. You really are.” The disbelief grew and grew as the words left his mouth. “You’re going to let him get cut apart, piece by piece. When you know it will break him. Even if they don’t kill him, he’ll never recover from this.Never.”
A moment hung heavy between them, bursting with dark memories of the night they’d stormed The Cuckoo’s Nest, Mercy sending bouncers flying as they fought their way to the stage. Tango had just been a heap of bones at that point, eyes glassy from the heroin, and Ghost had pulled him gently down off the dais and carried him out.
“Hate me all you want,” Aidan urged. “Kick me out, take my patches, shoot me in the head if that’s what’ll make you feel better. But don’t do this to Kev.” His tone became pleading. “He doesn’t deserve this.”
A beat. Two. Three…
“A president,” Ghost said heavily, “must always consider the greater good of his men. And he must accept that there will be casualties–”
Aidan didn’t wait to hear the rest. He left the clubhouse at a fast walk, and was jogging by the time he reached the parking lot, sprinting before he reached his bike. He didn’t know where he was going, only that he needed to be gone.
~*~
The silence was a mockery of the chaos inside his head. His pulse throbbed in his temples, an accusation on every beat. He kept seeing Kev’s face, when he was sixteen and strung out, a skinny little abused thing, crying in his arms as he carried him out of that godforsaken club. Ghost had made a promise to him then, that he would never let anything of the sort happen to him again.“You’re safe now,”he’d told him.“You’re with your brothers.”
And now he was at the mercy of a man who would think nothing of exploiting his weaknesses.
Ghost pushed up from the table and stalked out of the clubhouse, across the parking lot, through the cold bright dawn to the central office where Maggie’s parked CTS signaled her presence. The door was shut, because of the change of season, and when he entered, he was hit with the dry warmth of her space heater’s output.
His wife sat behind the desk in a thick cream sweater, her hair the color of the sunrise outside. “Hi, baby,” she greeted.
“Hand me the wastebasket.”
Frowning with curiosity, she did so.
And he threw up in it. It was nothing but coffee and bile, but his stomach wouldn’t stop grabbing. Finally it died to dry heaves, and then stopped. Exhausted from the effort, Ghost set the can aside and sank down against the door, until his ass hit the floor. He stretched his legs out and…sat. Just sat, and let it all course over him.
His throat was raw from retching, and it hurt to speak. “I promised that boy. I promised him, Mags, that I wouldn’t let anything like that happen to him again…”
She got to her feet and came to him, sank down beside him and put her arms around his shoulders. Her cheek was warm and smooth where she pressed her face to his. She smelled clean and feminine, her hair silky down the back of his neck.
“What can we do to get the money?” Her voice was firm and clear. His strong gorgeous girl, ready to do battle.
“I dunno, baby.” All he wanted to do was shut his eyes and fall asleep with his head on her shoulder. “I really don’t.”
~*~
Carter was sorting through the laundry baskets in the living room when Aidan arrived back at the apartment. It felt like noon, but was only nine, and Carter was just getting up, hair damp from the shower, shirtless and sporting nail-shaped crescents all down his back. Jazz had spent the night last night, and Aidan was glad he hadn’t been around to listen to them going at it through the paper-thin walls.
“What’s the status?” Carter asked as soon as Aidan walked through the door. His face was tight with worry. “Any news?”
“The status is that my old man’s a stupid stubborn heartless fuckhead,” Aidan said. “So fuck him.”
Carter stared at him, completely shocked.
“I’m gonna get Kev out myself, but I’m gonna need some help. This is totally off the books. A personal thing. The club isn’t gonnna be behind us. So I get it if–”
“I’m in,” Carter said. “One-hundred-percent.”
Aidan nodded. “Good.” They were going to need more than a two-man rescue crew, but it was a start.
Thirty-One
Time lost all relevance. It seemed like weeks had passed since Kev had said, “Whitney, shut your eyes. Turn away.” And then it had started, whatever it was they were doing to him. She hadn’t wanted to close her eyes; she’d wanted to be there for him, a bracing force in any way she could be, even if that meant witnessing his abuse. He had saved her; the least she could do was be there for him.
The two guards had gone into his cell and the first had hit him so hard across the face he’d gone down to his knees. They’d laughed. They’d torn at his clothes. One had taken him by the throat. And that was when she’d turned away. Because she’d seen Kev’s face, how completely dead it was, and she’d wanted to be sick.
