Ash: Devil's Crucifix MC (7 page)

In the chaos, I get one last look at her coworker, Jamie. I see the scar on his face above his eye, the little hint of a mustache that just won’t come in, and the ring on his finger that looks awfully familiar. Something begins to tell me that I have met this kid before. My stomach turns as I put the pieces together.

Dani breaks my thoughts into two as she says lowly, “Thanks for checking on me, Ash. But you better get the hell out of here.”

I reach up towards her hands and squeeze them gently before walking away past her mother who is on the phone with a police dispatcher and through a crowd that has gather to watch from a safe distance. Jamie calls something back out to me. But I’m already gone, my motorcycle revved up and launched out. I have a whole other person to find.     

I don’t think I’ve ever been this stunned in my entire life. Did that just happen? Did Ash Cooper just appear out of nowhere, tackle Jamie to the ground, have a verbal flirt-off with me, and then speed off on the shiniest motorcycle I’ve ever seen in my entire life? By the utterly shocked look on my mother’s face, the crowd gathering, and the little drop of blood on Jamie’s cheek -- I didn’t just imagine this.

No one moves. No one even breathes. We all just stand there with our arms out as if we are preparing for the next surprise. A ninja dressed in a polka-dotted suit could pop out from one of these cars and I don’t think anyone would care. All eyes were squared up on me.

“Come on…come on, Danielle. Let’s go home.” My mom pulls on my arm as Jamie finally stammers up to his feet.

He rocks and waves as if that hit push to the ground was something way more than it was. Ash barely touched him. He can’t be that strong.

“Danielle…” She is growing impatient with me. I can tell. She always does this thing with her hands on her hip and her pointed toe tapping when she gets exacerbated. I know I’m not exactly easy to handle, but when your own mother has a nervous tick about it, you know it’s bad.

Still, I stand my ground. Ash being here somehow has changed me. I’m not going back with my mother. I never wanted to go in the first place. It was her and Jamie’s idea that I be watched over like a little wounded bird in an incubator. But I’m fine. I stood up to Ash Cooper without any fear, and I can clearly operate without too much pain. Why do I need to be treated like a child?

I stare out towards the exit where Ash’s motorcycle just pulled out from when I whisper resoundly, “No, Mom. No.”

“Dani. Seriously. Listen to your mom. You’re not safe if you try to go out there on your own. I mean, that guy found you!”

I spin on my tennis shoe’s heels towards Jamie as I spit out, “He didn’t ‘find me,’ Jamie. It was all over the news which hospital I was at and that I was being released today. Anyone could have put two and two together. That guy isn’t going to hurt me.” I have no idea why I am defending a complete stranger to Jamie. But still, me not knowing him as much as I should doesn’t give this guy a right to tell me what to do! I scan the lot quickly, finding my car parked on the opposite side of my mom’s. I reach over to Jamie and grab my keys from his hands before walking off on my own.

Jamie calls after me, “Dani! Don’t be stupid! You can’t just go it alone! You have no idea who you are trusting here.”

I stop in my tracks, my hands vibrating with rage. I ball them in tiny fists at my side as I turn back and walk straight towards Jamie. He has a small smug smile on his face as his hands outstretched for the keys. But I hold onto the ring even tighter as I say, “You’re right, Jamie. You’re so right. I don’t know who I am trusting here. How could I possibly know the guy who jumped into a damn burning window for a stranger? Then again, how could I possibly know the guy who practically follows me around like some sad puppy? Tell me that, Jamie!”

Wow. It feels so good to unleash. After days of not being able to say a word or being too tired to protest, my voice is back and it’s stronger than ever. I’ve been dying to say those words to Jamie since the day I met him back at orientation. He deserves to hear it, and he certainly deserves to look down at those shoes with the most pathetic face I’ve ever seen a man make.

Part of it is my fault. I led this poor guy on, and I’ll fully fess up to that. It was months ago when we went out just the two of us. Eva, after meeting him at one of the department outings, decided she would spend all night listing off reasons why I should try giving this guy a shot. I, of course, wanted nothing to do with it. But six shots later and I was in the passenger seat of his Mustang as it cruised down to the beach.

I could have stopped it there, but I didn’t have the nerve to do it. This guy was supposed to be my coworker, and I didn’t want to rock the boat. He went in for a kiss as soon as we were in park. And by the time the headlights were turned off, his hand was properly shoved down my shirt, grabbing for whatever it could find.

And still, I didn’t say no. Blame it on the alcohol or just the full-on desire for a warm body post- massive break up, but I let him have it right there in the backseat of his car. It was fast -- over in less than five minutes, and he sure didn’t bother asking me what I liked or wanted. As soon as my panties were off, he was in, out, done, and over. As for me, I laid there completely disgusted at myself for just letting that go.

The months after, I would still be paying for letting him get into my pants like that. Word about us sleeping together got around quick, and it became this thing I couldn’t avoid anymore. It was Jamie and Dani now, the lovebirds of the department’s training. When Nate started calling us “JDamn.” I had had enough. I walked over to Jamie as he headed back to his car and told him to knock the shit off. There was nothing between us, and what had happened was a one-time mistake. Emphasis on the mistake part.

But standing here in this parking lot, watching him shiver away back towards the hospital clearly told me that this isn’t over for him. He is still jonesing for me like the day we went all the way in his car. Still, if today weren’t the perfect day to put him in his place and knock him down from his alternative view of reality, I don’t know what would be. When he got in with my mom and played home nurse with his patient? Heck no. This ends now.

He walks slowly back towards the roundabout of the hospital and slips into the back of a waiting yellow tax. Behind me, my mom, mortified at the scene I just caused, clutches her necklace as she calls out to me, “Danielle! Don’t talk to Jamie that way. That man has been nothing but kind to you and to me throughout this whole ordeal!”

“He’s been kind? He’s done nothing but get you coffee and pastries so he could practically stalk me, Mom! Don’t you see that? I turned him down once and he didn’t get it. He has no right to be trying to get in now while I’m vulnerable.”

She walks towards me with a voice as low as moving thunder. “I don’t understand you, Danielle. Anyone else would be appreciative, even if that person weren’t exactly our motorcycle hero dressed in all black. Did I treat you to be this cruel?”

“No, Mom. You didn’t raise me anyway. I just picked this up on my own.” There I go again. I am just jonesing to have it out with just about everyone today.

“Danielle Marie Stansville…I will not have it. I will NOT. I am your mother, and I am offering you a place to stay. If you don’t want to take it, you can drive yourself to the Piedmont Hotel. That’s where your insurance is giving you a voucher to stay.”

I don’t flinch when she finished. I don’t even make a sound. I just stand there waiting for her to give me the rest of the information. Eventually, she pulls out a piece of paper and scrolls down a few names and numbers from her phone.  

Her hand shakes as she hands it to me. At the top is the address to the hotel. I commit it to memory before folding it up and sticking it in the pocket of my hoodie. We both stare down the other until I say quietly, “I-- I don’t have any money or anything.”

She nods with a heavy head as she puts her hand into her white leather purse and pulls out a folder of documents. “While you were being cared for, I went ahead and had all your information copied and sent to the house. There’s a new drivers license, birth certificate, social security card, and key for your father’s safety deposit box. I went ahead and called your banks, too. The one with your father’s money in it sent you a debit card. I took out about $3000. I thought it would get you through until your insurance figured out what to do with you.”

I underestimate my mom constantly. I’m always thinking the worst of her because she’s nothing like me. I’m all my father’s child -- rough edges and all. But she is the kind of woman who thinks of everything. She’s a mom who knows how rough it is to be a mom, and I have to appreciate that about her. Even after I’ve screamed at her and embarrassed her in front of a crowd, she still shows me she cares.

With gritted teeth I take the envelope from her hand and then pull myself towards her, enveloping her in a long hug. I feel her head rest upon my shoulder as she relaxes in my grasp. “I’m sorry, Danielle. I’m so sorry this happened to you. I know you know what you’re doing. You were always the street-smart type girl. But promise me you’ll be careful. You call Eva or me if you need anything.” 

“I will, Mom. I promise.” I break free from her and head back to my car without looking towards her. I unlock the doors and quickly slide in before noticing the thick, overwhelming smell of smoke. My windows must have been down the night of the fire. It absolutely reeks. I eye my bag of money and credit cards as I wonder if it would be worth it to scrap the old sedan and get a new one…or at least pay for a professional cleaner to air it out.

Rolling down the windows, I adjust the seat back to my height and turn the radio back on my stations. Jamie left it on some sad country crap that I can’t stand to be around. I just want to rock out to something hard and fast, something that can transport me somewhere else. But nothing is sticking. Finally, I find an old CD rolling around under my seat. The music blares an all rock tune about riding the road, and I finally feel free to break out of the hospital and towards my new life.

The roadways open up as I follow my phone’s GPS directions towards the Piedmont. I’ve seen it before. It’s not one of those ritzy hotels by the docks, but what did I expect from an insurance policy I only pay a couple bucks towards a month? The old white building with the blue shutters has a long open driveway with the room’s windows facing inwards. The lack of privacy bugs me, but not as much as the sparse room with the old box television sitting on a scratched up wooden desk. Even the bed is a flashback to a much more worn-out period.

I look around the rest of the room and realize it’ll probably be weeks before I can get into another place of my own, and if I am going to survive this, I need something more than the basics. I walk over to the hotel safe where I have stashed my envelope of cash and IDs and pull out everything I need for a quick shopping trip. Clothes, blankets, shoes, food…everything is going to need replacing. Thank God for Dad’s settlement money. I haven’t had a need to touch it yet, but this had to be the time to do it.

I stuff a wad of the money down the new bra my mom purchased for me and another stack in my hoodie’s pocket before walking out the door. Nothing like carrying around cash to make you paranoid for your safety. I quickly walk out my door, locking it tight behind me, and towards my car parked just a few spots down from my hotel’s door. In my pocket, my fingers thumb through the cash, counting it out in case I missed it.

“One hundred, two hundred, three hundred, four--” My mind goes blank as the rubberband stack falls out of my pocket and out to the ground below. Parked just next to my car is a man in black staring daggers into me as he sits on a revved up motorcycle. 

“What do you mean you think you know who started the fire?” Remmy is uncharacteristically excited today. It’s like I just broke him the news he had won the lottery. Apparently, catching an arsonist is as big on his to-do list as being one himself.

“Calm it down. I need more proof first.” I sit back down in my desk and begin to unbuckle my shoes. It’s been a long, strange day, and I am not about to let this get any worse.

“Is that where you went today? I mean, I heard you took a personal, and I knew that was off, but I had no idea you were actually going after a guy. Why didn’t you bring backup?” Remmy’s voice is off the charts as he begins talking a mile a minute. He can’t get his words out fast enough, but after a long tick of me not answering him, he finally sits himself down on the couch and turns on the lamp behind his head.

“Listen, Remmy. I don’t want this getting out. If there is a burner out there with connection to this club, I want to keep it under wraps in case he’s got ears on the inside. I don’t think he’s acting alone, if you know what I mean. And since he’s hitting those buildings hard and fast, he’s getting some bum information, but, eventually, he’s going to find us.”

I quickly realize just how grateful I am that we separated all the troops out years ago. But there’s another part of me, a small human part, that also knows I’m a sitting duck. Living in this warehouse headquarters puts a target on my back. If you’re hitting a club where it hurts, you take down the head and let the body fall. If this guy finds out where we’ve relocated to, I am closer to the flames than I was when I was rescuing Dani.

“Should I put out the call for the enforcers? I’ve got a couple guys in Reno, but they can ride back. There are five more in San Jose working with the Palooza gang, but they could send back at least one or two for the cause.” Remmy makes a great Captain. Though he’s new, he knows exactly where his boys are at all times. It is like watching a master play chess with the plays being moved around in his head before they hit the board.

I sit back in my office chair, my head sinking into the leather as the metal front legs lift up and off the ground. I want to be tactful about this. I’m not going to just jump in and start a war over something I can’t exactly prove. The last time I did that two people got killed.

It was the night of my big arrest. Police were on my tail as I rode out with my big brother, Kenny, and his wife, Rhonda. I was on the run from the law after a heist at a rival’s drop off point. It was one of those shady pawnshop jewelry stores during the daytime, and I stupidly underestimated just how much security those places put up. After I took down one of the security guys with a swift knife to the gut, alarm bells went off almost instantly.

It was chaos -- nothing like I had ever seen before. And when those lights flash and sirens blare, it feels like your entire world is about to cave in. I was a rookie leader, someone who hadn’t really been tested outside of running the drug lines for the old gang. Now I was in the heat of it with a man reaching under the glass cabinets for his rifle. I had only one option -- bailing.

I managed to make it out before the first guy shot through the paper-thin walls of the old building. It barely missed my shoulder. After that, I couldn’t think. I needed backup. My number two at the time was my brother, Kenny. He was older than me, tougher than me, too. But he didn’t have the brains or the tolerance for the bullshit a president of a motorcycle gang has to put up with. That, and he was married. Being married meant having obligations, paying dues, holding back. Really, he was okay with being second in command; it took the pressure off of him for the most part.

However, when he got my call about the police on my tail and the man chasing after me with the gun, he dropped everything. He was only a few blocks away at a restaurant with his wife, Rhonda. She had taken them there to talk about starting a family; at least that’s what I heard later from her mother. He put aside that talk to come after me and cover my ass with Rhonda riding shotgun on his back.

We met up pretty quickly in an alleyway, but by the time I spotted them, sirens from the 5-0 were just feet from us. He pulled out behind me as we led the coppers through the narrow street corners and around the bends. He was a great rider. He could always keep up with me, but with two people on your chopper, making those turns wasn’t as easy as it was for me riding solo.

And that’s when I heard the crash. I was already around a third or fourth bend, at least a quarter mile ahead of him. I kept thinking that if Kenny and Rhonda could just go a little faster, they’d eventually catch up to me. They never did. The cops caught me about 2 miles later as I tried to piece together what had happened to my brother and sister-in-law. I was in disbelief trying to put together any other reason for that last scream, the bang of metal on metal, the squeals from tires.

I’d serve four months of hard time for that night, and I would spend every day of my life wondering what would have happened if I just took my time, put the guns down, and just went at the job alone. Sure, I’d probably have been caught. I may have even been shot by that psycho storeowner. But my brother and his wife would still be here.

I can’t put any of my men in harm’s way like that again. While I have an idea of who I am dealing with, I don’t know how far he’ll be willing to take this. He easily killed so many already, and one of my faceless brothers would just be icing on top of his revenge. No, I have to learn all I can on my own first before I can go in with guns blazing.

I put my chair back down on the ground as I respond to Remmy’s question, “Nah. Don’t call them back. Let them do their business. When I need them, we can get them here in a hurry. In the meantime, we’ll have some of the more experienced runners do watches on the neighborhoods and keep an eye out for the warehouse. I want double forces out there for awhile, at least until the fires have stopped for a good period of time.”

Remmy looks a bit put off, as if I didn’t give him the firestarter he wanted. Still I know I am making the right decision. It’s a hard one, but it’s the right one. “You got it, boss.” He says as he stands. Before he places his hand on the office doorknob, he does turn back for one last question, “I heard you sent Marco out for a watch. What was that about? Anything I should know of going down?”

I look down at my desk away from him as I lie through my teeth, “Nothing. Just wanted him to check out a lane we could use to get some coke to the docks faster.”

He doesn’t respond back or try to question my answer. Remmy slips out the door and leaves me in my silent office to think about why I couldn’t tell him the truth. Marco is out there watching Dani because I couldn’t bear to leave her without some sort of protection. Though she certainly looked like she wouldn’t take shit from anyone, that man got her once and may go after her again. She is exposed and in danger, and I am not going to let her get killed on my watch.

As soon as I left the parking lot of the hospital, I made the call to Marco and sent him to follow her. I doubt she even noticed him tailing her, he was that good. Still, I had a feeling I knew who was blowing up my phone while I was talking to Remmy. The unknown number just kept repeating over and over again until I turned it completely off.

Now I was ready to talk. I turn the phone back on and quickly dial the last number on my call sheet. Before she can speak, I start it off, “I hear you’ve met Marco…”

“What the hell is this? Why are you sending some stalker creep to watch over me? Do you know this guy is outside my hotel room right now?”

I sit up straight in my chair at the word ‘hotel.’ This wasn’t part of the plan. “I thought you were going to your mother’s house or something. You can’t be alone, Dani.”

“First of all, don’t ‘Dani’ me. We don’t know each other. You may have rescued me, but I don’t exactly trust you. And, secondly, I am a big girl and can take care of myself. I don’t need my mother, Jamie, or your henchman tracking me down everywhere I go.” Her voice is shrill, but it still reeks of that sexy self-confidence she displayed in the parking lot.

“Dani, it’s only temporary.”

“Temporary my ass!” she screams. “I’ve got a life you know! A job, even! I can’t exactly go underwear shopping with this hulk of a guy following me around the department store.”

“Sure you can. I’m sure Marco would love to watch you try on a pair of panties.”

“Gah! You think you’re smooth and slick, but I’m burnt and broken. And you, sir, Ash Cooper, don’t want to mess with a girl who’s burnt and broken.”

“No, I really don’t. That’s why I have Marco watching out for you. He’ll be there until about 2 or 3 AM and then I’ll send another guy. You want Tiger or Vin?” I can’t help but laugh a bit as I listen to her squeals.

“I don’t want Tiger or Bear or Lion or whomever you are sending my way.”

I shoot back quickly, “Then who do you want?”

There’s no pause, no laugh, no change of tone. She answers loudly, “You.”

“Me?” She’s caught me completely off-guard again. This girl has a way of making my heart stop with just one little movement or word. Does she know she had this power? I lean forward on my desk, trying to keep this conversation as private as possible. I have to wonder if Marco is within earshot of her.

“Yeah, I really want to speak with you. And I’d prefer to do it sooner rather than later. Tomorrow, actually.”

“I -- I can’t do tomorrow,” I stammer. The reality is, I can’t do any day. I was risking enough getting her her own detail, let alone going back to the scene of the crime again.

“What’s so important that you can’t come see me tomorrow?”

“Listen, lady,” I seethe, my teeth gritting together out of both annoyance and anger. “I’ve got enough fucking things going on without you to worry about. If you need to send a message to me, you do it through Marco or Vin. When I think it’s all clear, I’ll let you get on out of here to go wherever the fuck it is you want.” She needs to be scolded. And if I can’t do it in person, over the phone is just going to have to do. Though, I admit that as I bite into her, I can’t help thinking of putting that little round ass over my knee and swatting it with the backside of my stiff hand. She deserves to be sore for taking me on.

“You will see me. I already convinced Marco to give me your number. If you don’t think I can’t convince him to tell me where you’re hiding out, you have another thing coming to you. And you forget: I’m a firefighter. I have access to all kinds of information.”

“So do I.”

“Then come find me, Ash Cooper. Until then, tell your dogs to back off.”

There’s a click as the line goes dead. Her voice fades into the background as I replay her command over and over in my head: “Come and find me, Ash Cooper…Come and find me…”