If I Should Die: A Kimber S. Dawn MC Novel (33 page)

“No.” She shakes her head before raising both of her hands and backing towards the window on the opposite side of the room as the exit door. “I don’t know what you think you know about these people. I don’t know what they’ve told you, but I’ve already warned you once. You don’t know these people. I told you ten years ago to run and never think of this place or Jacques Cain again. And you didn’t heed my warning. What happens to you and your sister is now on you. Not me. I’ve got what I came back for.” She holds up an envelope and smirks. And then she slides out of the window before jumping down.

“What the fu—?” I quickly make my way to the window but there’s no sign of her. Nowhere. No sign of anyone. Just a few of the brothers pulling off on their bikes, heading home after Chase Cain’s last ride.

And the door leading inside the room flies open, startling me, just before Jacques comes barreling in with a plate, a napkin, and a glass of something to drink.

“Hey, Pipsqueak. Made you some supper. Hope you like sweet tea. I tried, believe it or not. I tried. Now get dressed then eat.” He nods at my bag on the floor beside the foot of his bed, and instantly I jump into action and start getting dressed.

“Umm...your girlfriend was just here,” I tell him over my shoulder as I pull on clothes around the towel still covering me. “She grabbed an envelope off your desk and booked it out the window, though.” I point in the direction the crazy bitch went and scoop up my bag.

“What? When?” he asks as he sets the plate he brought in with him on the dresser next to the window.

“Maybe four seconds before you came in with dinner.” I glance at the plate between sliding a t-shirt over my head and shimmying some jeans up. “Looks good. I asked her about my sister, too. Sorry. Don’t know if that clashes with your policy and procedure shit, but you weren’t here, so I took it by the seat of my pants. Had to wing it.” I smile up at him while slipping my feet into some ballerina slippers.

“Fuck!” A second after he curses the profanity, his cellphone is to his ear and he’s barking orders at Dreads. “Dreads, circle the perimeter. With 'King' this close we don’t need any motherfuckers with no colors besides our red and ‘King’s blue anywhere near or around the compound. And tell ‘em to stop the fuckers if they don’t see
any
colors! That’s still in place, yeah?” He growls the last part out and then nods at whatever response he receives. “My girl said Rox just left. Ask one of our guys to link up with NYPD. See if we can get around putting out an APB. At least for the next few hours. Break backs if ya gotta, Dreads. This shit takes precedence. For greater, grander reasons than it likely seems, I promise, it takes precedence for the club, bro.”

Jacques Cain turns his back to me. And only then do I realize how small I am compared to him. To this whole mess, really. His massive shoulders sink with the weight of a burden I can’t even see. And it makes my heart, which has been so unusually light in my chest the last few hours, harden too, before it sinks a bit. “Thanks, man. Sounds good.” He sighs out a shuddering breath.

As I nervously pull the hair tie I keep around my wrist down around my hand, I chew another hole through my lip and twist my hair before tugging the ponytail into the hair tie. Once I have a semi-bun tied on top of my head, I skirt around him ‘til I’m standing beside him.

I catch his eyes moving to where my feet creep closer to him and almost chuckle. But then he sighs again. And this time I note how exhausted he is. He’s actually pretty damn near past. Especially after all the shit I’ve caused with all the stunts I’ve pulled. I hate myself for lollygagging and not just listening to him in the first place. And getting on that damn plane.

Then maybe my sister wouldn’t be wherever—

“We got a hot date in about an hour. And big...big motherfucking plans afterward,” he says as he lays out a blanket across his bed. When he’s finished he sits down on it and pats the seat beside him. Smiling up at me he motions to the plate still on his dresser. “Grab your plate. Come eat, Pipsqueak. I’ll talk.”

Once I’m settled on his bed next to him, he sets the plate he held for me in my lap. “Eat,” he orders again. And I do as I’m told and start gobbling up the spaghetti. Which is the first thing I’ve consumed since pizza with Ty. God, almost twenty freaking hours ago.

Time and thought thereof shakes me from my thoughts.
Time.
My eyes shoot to Jacques. “My sister? Has anyone else gotten anymore texts?” I blurt out around the wad of noodles in my mouth. When I realize what I just did, I duck my head and cover my mouth with the napkin he brought in with the plate. “Sorry,” I mutter after swallowing.

“It’s okay.” He chuckles and grabs a bite of garlic bread, then winks at me before talking around it. “No. No more texts. But as far as I’m concerned, the less we hear, the better. I spoke to Ty earlier. He said they’re expecting to be able to bring your mother out of her drug-induced coma tomorrow morning. The authorities will speak to her when they can. But I don’t want you to get your hopes up. I have a feeling any questions you may have are going to get answered here, long before your mother will be able to help you. I know you want your answers, Vagabond. But sometimes you gotta go about getting them a little differently than you originally planned. You know what I mean? I’ve told you there’s more than one way to skin a cat, haven’t I?” he asks, and I watch as his eyes look back and forth between mine.

“N-not really. But then again, you’re speaking in riddles...so how you expect me to follow—” I shake my head, almost at a loss for words in response to his. “As far as you’re concerned, the less we hear, the better? Who says that? And why?” I keep trying to square off with him. I move again to stand in front of him, trying to put us eye to eye, but he dodges me and steps back to the other side of his bed. “What’s this meeting shit you keep referring to? And this hot date? Who’s supposed to be in attendance, Jacques? Stop speaking in riddles and fucking talk to me. Goddamn it, I’m trying to listen!” I shout, abruptly standing before setting down my plate of spaghetti on his desk. “What the hell is going here? Are you going to tell me? Or not? I’m here.” When his dark blue eyes shoot back up to mine, I smile. And I almost get a smirk out of him, but his shutters drop down behind his eyes and he effectively closes me out. He lets out another sigh as his shoulders fall again for the second time in five minutes.

“I know you’re here. And I promise, Vagabond. As soon as I can, I’ll tell you. Everything. Okay?” He’s still on the opposite side of the bed and as our eyes remain locked, I slowly walk towards him.
Very, very slowly. I raise my hands when I’m close then reach for his when I’m close enough to grab them. “Is the meeting with 'King'? Is that what this is? Jacques?” I beg him.

I just want answers. I know what I said earlier, but I’ve changed my mind. I’ve tried to be good. I’ve done what he’s asked. And right now, I think it’s time I was rewarded. Right now, I think it’s time he gives me some damn answers.

His eyes search mine as his hands come up and cup my cheeks. My eyes flutter closed when the pad of his thumb barely skims across my bottom lip. “Anyone ever told you how toxic you are to their head? I knew it. I knew it the minute I was first sober enough to realize it. When I felt you against me—skin to skin. That morning. I knew then. Didn’t I, Vagabond?” he mutters in a husky, accusing voice.

And I never even felt the tears well up in my eyes. I look up at him, hearing his words, feeling them, each and every one, make their mark—then the tears are suddenly there and they’re falling. “I-I—” And then his mouth slants over mine, cutting off whatever it was...I can’t remember to tell you to save my life.

And you can kiss my ass—I’m sure the people on the first floor heard me moan. But I couldn’t help it.

I never fucking can with Jacques Cain.

***

I lay down. After Jacques kissed me like there was no God blessed tomorrow, and then looked down into my face, and gazed into my eyes before smiling and turning to leave—I did lay down and take a thirty minute nap. And I’m not sure if it was the ride or the emotions—as wide and different varying emotions as they were—that were felt on it, but when my head hit Jacques Cain’s pillow, I went out like a light. I don’t even think I remember closing my eyes.

I do remember the dreams, though. The same ones from when I was a child—the ones of us when we were kids—as they bombarded through my closing mental thoughts as I drifted to sleep. And as they each played out behind my closed, REM-dreaming eyelids, for the first time I can remember, I remember them—
him
with a fondness that I haven’t felt towards him since I was a small child.

And something terrible happens...right there in his room, somewhere between my eyes closing and being re-awoken by Dreads on Jacques’ bed thirty minutes later. Something big and terrible happens. That image of Jacques Cain, the same image I’d held onto with his mother’s necklace for so long, the one of him being my hero. The one who would save me one day. That image grew wings in the shape of hope inside my adult mind, and took off...rooting as truth again in my logic.
And somewhere in my dreams, I fell in love with Jacques Cain.

“Eve. Eve. Get up.” I feel someone’s hand grab my shoulder before shaking me. “Eve, wake up. Shit—” The hand shaking me shoves me then I’m flat on my back, looking up at Jacques’ ceiling when Dreads’ head pops into my field of vision. “Good. You’re awake. Time to get up. Your pops is here. I dunno where Jacques is. He got a call he had to take; some shit about Roxy. I haven’t been able to get ahold of him yet, though. But I will. Come on.” He grabs my elbow before yanking. “Upsie daisy.” He dusts his hands clean like I’m filthy and he just touched me, and I scoff. “No.” He shakes a finger in my face then points in the direction of the bathroom. “No attitude from you. Go take care of your business. You have five minutes. I’ll be outside waiting.”

“I thought you didn’t make orders, or what is it you said? You just do as you’re told?” I ask, puffing my chest out as I walk towards him like a ten-year-old. But I can’t freaking help it.

He chuckles at me and all that does is piss me off further. So getting nowhere near information, I do as I’m told and head towards the bathroom. I may not have had no full-time momma, but my grams didn’t raise no fool. I learned my lesson the first time I saw that second picture of Eden on Jacques’ phone. This shit is real. None of it’s fake. And I stopped taking everything I was learning from these men with a damned grain of salt. That damn picture more than put weight behind the reality of this situation. Fucking more than.

After I’ve brushed my hair and my teeth, I pee real quick, ‘cause I don’t want to have to piss in the middle of something important later. Then I check my reflection in the mirror and head out of the bathroom. Once I grab my smaller bag, I head out the exit door, leaving Jacques’ room. When I see Dreads, I smile and close the door behind me. “Do I lock it?” I ask.

But he moves around me, locking the main entrance to Jacques’ room instead. “Nah, I got it. Jacques has the key.” He nods towards the stairs. “Go ahead. I got your back when your boy’s not here.” He chuckles at me and I barely hold back the urge to cut my eyes at him.

“He’s not my boy. And it’s
what
you have
behind
my back that concerns me. Keep your paws up, buddy,” I tell him, then walk ahead. I continue yapping over my shoulder. ‘Cause that’s what I do. Especially when I need information. “Just so you know,
your boy
—” Okay, when I look over my shoulder this time, I cut my eyes at him, “—was keeping all this shit with ‘King’ hush-hush. So other than the fact that I know he’s my biological sperm donor, and he’s the president of another motorcycle club, I don’t know anything. Oh, besides what he refuses to believe, I also think Roxy and that asshole Ben have something to do this. With Eden missing and my mom getting hurt.” I have to swallow the lump in my throat and blink the tears away, but any signs of my little mental freak-out I have mid-way through their MC’s compound is a thing of the past when we both come to the ground floor, stepping off the bottom step.

“Our casa es su casa.” Dreads pulls me towards the bar before sadly smiling at me then winking. “Come on. Liquor first. Cure the thirst. Usually the rest of the shit works out after that,” he mumbles as he lines up shot glass after shot glass on the bar. “Ever had Patron?” he asks, winking at me. “Nah, never mind, I forget you’re a Charming Charlie’s native. I grew up down there. Did you know that?” he asks around another chuckle. “Sure did.” Then he shakes his head. And after a minute or two lost in thought, he begins re-emptying the contents of the liquor bottle into the little shot glasses.

After he slides me two, he grabs two himself and then we cheers all four. Smiling, he mutters, “Double fisted. Atta girl.” Then he laughs, and I will admit, I smile. Okay, I grin. His damn comment made me grin.