Fire & Dark (The Night Horde SoCal Book 3) (29 page)

This whole month had been stuffed full of incompatible emotions and events. The hurt Hugo had done to Connor’s family and to his own had left rubble in its wake. Loss was everywhere. But in the middle of it was this: family. Togetherness and contentment. No one untouched by loss, but everyone coming together, and welcoming Pilar and her grandmother in as members of the family.

Senses of loss and gain struggled in Pilar’s heart and made her woozy.

“You okay?”

Pilar turned at the sound of Faith’s voice. Demon’s wife, Connor’s somewhat sister, came over and stood next to her, leaning on the fence, one foot up on a whitewashed board. The dog shifted to sit between them, maximizing his opportunities for ear-scratching.

“Yeah. Just needed to turn the volume down for a minute.”

She laughed. “We get pretty loud. How’re you doing with…us? This?”

“Good. I like your family a lot.” With the exception of her grandmother, and of Perez, with whom she had bonds of family or work, Pilar had trouble finding a way to talk to women. She didn’t like small talk or aimless chatter, and she wasn’t much interested in the things women seemed, at least from what Pilar could tell by her cursory attention, to be interested in.

She’d struggled at first today, helping out in the kitchen among these women she didn’t know well, trying to be part of their group without horning into conversations she had no context for. But she’d eventually understood that she did have context. She was already sharing things with them. Connor had brought her that context.

The other thing she’d realized was that these women were all different. A movie star. A model. A teacher. An artist. A social worker. And Bibi, mother and guide to them all.

None of them had anything in common. And all of them had everything in common.

So when Faith, after a few moments of quiet, said, “From what I can tell, you’re part of us now. You’re family, too. You and your grandma,” Pilar wasn’t surprised.

It was true.

~oOo~

“You think your mom’s gonna be okay?”

Before he answered her question, Connor shifted on the bed, sitting up and shoving pillows behind his back so he could rest on her iron headboard. Pilar settled against his chest and played her fingers over his belly. It had been a good day—as good a day as they’d had any right to hope for. Her grandmother had even enjoyed herself.

Especially with the little kids. Pilar had found her at one point sitting on a swing on the front porch, with three children around her, and she was telling the kind of folk tales she used to tell Pilar and Hugo when they were little. Some of those got pretty dark, but she’d been telling the more kid-friendly ones.

“Yeah, eventually. But I don’t know if she’ll be who she was. If my dad doesn’t wake up…” He sighed, and Pilar knew he was forcing that thought away. He couldn’t confront the idea that his father wouldn’t get better. “But today she remembered that she’s not alone. I think she’s getting stale, sitting with Dad all day. But getting her to leave or do anything else is almost impossible.”

“I understand that.”

“Yeah. I do, too. I think she’s mad that I don’t sit with her all day.”

“You’re there every day. Almost.” But he was back to his life, too—working, doing club business, being with her.

He shrugged and laid his cheek on her head. “I love you.”

“And I love you. Move in.”

“What?”

“You sleep here every night, even when I’m at work. You already live here. Just bring your stuff over.” He was quiet, and that surprised Pilar. She’d thought she’d made an obvious offer. Because he did already live with her, and he had since the day they’d talked after Moore had beaten him. “Connor?”

“I hate that I don’t have a place. My own mother had to move out to the desert to live with Demon and Faith because I don’t have anyplace to offer her. I don’t know how to feel about moving in here. I’m like a hobo. I’m thirty-six years old, and all I’ve got is a fucking dorm room. I could pack my whole life in the back of your car.”

She sat up and turned to him. “So do that. Move here. And we’ll look for a new place together, one that fits your mom—and your dad, too. In the meantime, have a spare room here, too, if you want your mom—”

“No. No, I don’t want to make her move again. She’s good out there. She’s got the kids, and Faith’s around all the time.” He picked up her hand. “You want to get a place together?”

“Sure. We’re seeing a future, right? So yeah. I want to stay in Old Towne, so I’m close to work.”

“That’s cool. I like it here. It’s different from the rest of Madrone.” His brows drew in and he cocked his head. “You sure about this?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“This is your last chance. If we make our life together like that, I’m not letting you go. My life, all of it—you’re stuck with it.”

“And you’re stuck with mine. All of it. Moore, the job, all of it.”

“Okay. Fair deal.” He grinned and held out his hand. When she shook it, he pulled her close and kissed her.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Connor sat down next to Trick. Trick’s hands were clenched together on his chest, and he was staring out toward the ocean. He looked like he was about to come out of his skin.

“Chill, man.”

“I hate this shit,” Trick muttered. “I don’t want to be thanked. It was a job. I did it. End of story. And it was four months ago.”

The murder of Allen Cartwright remained unsolved. No one had claimed credit, and the Feds had no viable leads. From what Bart and Sherlock could see, the Horde was not and had never been on the radar, and neither had Dora Vega. She had insisted that he was corrupt and had been trying to blackmail her. If that was true, then he had covered his own tracks exceedingly well. With no motive and no leads, it looked like his case would go cold.

La Zorra hadn’t returned to California since her last meeting with the Horde, so now they were conducting business on several matters. Bart, acting President while Hoosier was laid low, and Connor, acting VP, with Eight Ball, the Brazen Bulls mother charter President, and the Presidents of the Nevada and just-formed Eureka charters of the Bulls, had all sat down with her already and plotted out expanded business ventures, adding guns to the cocktail of drugs they were moving.

The new structure was complicated, and the exposure for everyone was greater—and on both sides of the law. It was impossible to centralize this much power without gaining notice from law enforcement and from other outlaws. People everywhere would be looking to take the Águilas Alliance, as Dora had taken to calling it, down. But the upside was hard to turn away from. So they were in. They’d just have to look sharp.

Bart had stepped up in the weeks—nearly two months now—since Connor’s father had been hurt. He was good in the lead. But he didn’t want it, and Connor was glad about that. His father still held that seat, and he would take it again. He would.

In the meantime, Bart’s leadership was a lot like Hoosier’s, and the club was in good hands.

When the business meeting had wound to a close, and everyone was standing around, eating and talking, Connor had gone looking for Trick, and he’d found him here, alone on the balcony of the hotel suite in San Diego. To every extent possible, Dora liked to conduct her meetings in comfortable style. She stayed in a nice hotel suite, and she always had food and drink for everyone.

It was a stark contrast to the way the Perro Blanco cartel had been run, back in the day. Julio Santaveria, the Perro boss, almost never met with his partners north of the border, and every meet Connor could think of had happened in some abandoned building, or out in the sticks somewhere.

“Come back in. Let her do her thing. Then we can get drunk and you can get laid.”

At that, Trick laughed and stood. “The Conman, all settled down and domestic. How are all the little girls going to learn their lesson about bad boys now?”

“Fuck you, brother. Get inside. The Queen wants to knight you or some shit like that.”

Dora was standing in the middle of the room, talking to Eight Ball, Bart, and Muse, who’d stepped into the SAA role for the time being. She smiled when Connor and Trick came in.

She held out her hand. “Mr. Stavros.”

“Trick is fine.” Trick shook her hand. Connor noticed that he’d squared his shoulders and picked up his military bearing, like an old habit that hadn’t died.

Still smiling, she released his hand and waved at one of her men across the room. He stopped at a table and picked up a box, about the size of a business envelope, but half an inch deep, then carried it to her. She took it and turned back to Trick.

“You did me a great service, Trick.”

He shook his head. “No, ma’am. I did the job my club asked me to do.”

Dora’s brow creased slightly, and she looked at Trick like she was trying to see something he wasn’t showing her. Connor felt a tickle of apprehension. Trick was calm, and he was goodhearted, but he was not one to shiny up the truth.

“Be that as it may, I am grateful that you did that job so well. It was important to me. I give you this to express my gratitude.”

Trick looked at the box but didn’t take it. “You paid us for the job, and I got my cut. I don’t need that.”

“I’m sure you don’t. But please take it. I put some effort into it.”

With a deep sigh, Trick took the box and opened it.

Standing at his side, Connor saw that the box contained a folded piece of paper. Trick glanced up at Dora, then took the paper out. There was a key in the bottom of the box, under the paper.

Trick opened the paper. While he read it, Connor tried to read his face. What he got was confusion—and disbelief.

“What is this?” Trick returned his attention to Dora.

“The deed to your grandparents’ home in Santorini. It’s paid in full, and the back taxes, too.”

“Losing that house killed my grandmother.”

“I’m very sorry for that. Do you think your grandfather would not want to live in it again?”

“No, he would. He thinks he left her there.” Trick looked down at the deed and then back up to Dora. “You bought my grandparents’ house?”

“I paid for it. I don’t own it. It’s in your grandfather’s name.” She put her manicured finger on the deed and pointed to the name.

For a long, long second, Trick was silent. When he looked up, Connor thought his friend might have been on the verge of tears. “Thank you. I…I think I want to hug you.”

Isidora Vega, the most powerful person in the entire country of Mexico, smiled. “I would like a hug.”

~oOo~

Three days later, an early morning just days before Christmas, Connor paced back and forth across the main entrance at the hospital. The automatic doors kept sliding half-closed, then open again, over and over. He was probably driving the person inside at the information desk insane, but he didn’t care. He couldn’t be still.

When he saw Pilar pull in on her Victory, he followed after her. As soon as she dismounted and took her helmet off, he grabbed her.

She pushed back from him. “What happened? Is he worse?”

“No. He…he’s awake.”

“My God! That’s great! How is he?”

“I don’t…I haven’t seen him yet.”

“What? Why?”

“The doc talked to me and…he’s not okay. He’s awake and ‘responsive,’ whatever that means—”

“It means he’s reacting to stimuli. Like light and sound. Voice. Touch.”

“Okay, that. But he’s not talking. They’re doing a bunch of tests.”

“But why aren’t you in there?”

“I can’t…on my own. I’m fucking freaked. What if he doesn’t know me? And Mom’s not here yet. Demon’s bringing her. Faith’s dropping the kids off with Riley and coming after.”

“Connor. Should you see your dad first, so you can talk to your mom before she goes in?”

“It won’t matter. She’ll want in there right away. She won’t slow down enough for me to talk to her.”

She grabbed his kutte in her fists and shook him a little. “He woke up and there’s nobody he knows around. Connor, think.”

Oh fuck. Fuck. He’d fucked up. “Damn, damn. I’m such a fucking idiot. I’m a pussy. Fuck!”

She took his hand. “Beat yourself up later. C’mon, let’s go.”

Feeling far too full for his head to contain, Connor let her lead him into the hospital.

~oOo~

In the nearly two months that he’d been comatose, Hoosier’s burns and other wounds had healed. His skin was scarred but intact. They’d taken him off the ventilator shortly after Thanksgiving. All his injuries had mended. Except for his head.

Part of his skull was still embedded in his belly; even though the rest of his wounds had healed, they’d left his skull open in case they needed to go back in, to minimize the trauma of further surgery. Connor still hadn’t gotten used to the sloped gap in his father’s head, or the idea that just below the skin of his scruffy scalp was his exposed brain.

He had taken to focusing on his father’s hands instead of his head when he was there with him. There was too much weakness about his head. Connor hadn’t been able to find hope there.

But when he and Pilar went into his father’s room, the first thing he saw was his eyes. They were open and alive, and for a second, Connor felt overwhelming hope. That was his father in the bed, back in his body. He went to him and bent over the rail to kiss his forehead. “Hey, Dad. Welcome back.”

Hoosier blinked but didn’t react otherwise.

Still, Connor thought his father did know him. Maybe. It was hard to be sure. The doctor had told them on the way in that tests had shown that Hoosier had full feeling in his body, his pupils worked, and he could follow simple commands.

But he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, talk, and he hadn’t reacted with any kind of emotion to anything anyone said. He couldn’t hold a pen—he could grasp it, but not in the way he needed to be able to use it. Like he’d forgotten how. And he couldn’t write. He seemed to have lost words completely, even the idea of them.

Connor didn’t know how much of his father had come back.

But then the door burst open, and his mother was there. “I’m here, Hooj. Baby, I’m here. I’m here. You stay with me now.”

Crying, she pushed Connor back and did as he had, leaning over the side rail and kissing her husband’s forehead. Connor watched as she made a fist around Hoosier’s chin—the way she always had, though normally she was taking hold of beard.

“I’m here, baby. Right here. Be with me, okay?”

And Connor’s father smiled.

Connor felt hands on his back. He turned and wrapped Pilar up tight. She clutched him hard, and they stood like that. He didn’t know what to think, whether he could stop being so afraid for his father, or whether there was more fear to be had, but he did know that the woman holding him now made him better and stronger.

~oOo~

“What are you doing?”

Connor glanced over his shoulder and saw Pilar wearing his t-shirt, and seemingly nothing else. Damn, he loved living with her. He had his own personal hottie on tap. Just for him. “Cooking you breakfast.”

“For serious?” She came to his side. “Oh.”

“What oh? These things are great.” He turned and put into the oven the tray of orange rolls that he’d gotten out of a tube. Then he pulled her into his arms and slid his hands under that t-shirt. Yep. Nothing else.

“I don’t think that exactly counts as ‘cooking me breakfast.’ But thank you.”

He kissed her. “We have something like fifteen minutes.”

“Barely time to get a good start.” She scratched her fingertips over his bare chest.

“No, I don’t want to…well, yeah, I do. I always do.”

“I know.” She grabbed hold of the waistband of his sweats, but he caught her hands in his own and held them.

“But I want to do something else first. I want to give you your Christmas present this morning, while it’s just us. Before we go and it’s crazy with everybody. I don’t want a bunch of gawkers when I give it to you.” They’d been to the Horde clubhouse party and the Station 76 party already. Today, Christmas Day, they were going out to Demon and Faith’s and then to the hospital.

His father still wasn’t talking. He just didn’t know how. But he knew his old lady, and he knew his son.