Salvation (9 page)

“Yeah,” he said.

“When Caspar tapped Rebel to work at the new place, he almost didn’t go. Because of me. But I told him it was better for him. He was so insular in Defiance, and the new place is closer to cities. To freedom. And I wanted that for him. I know the only reason he went was because Mathias swore he wouldn’t let me out of his sight.”

“Yeah, so what happened with that?” Bishop drawled.

Luna rubbed her throat. Smiled. “Mathias and Jessa are like newlyweds, you know.”

“Ah, Luna.” He wagged a finger at her and she shrugged.

“I had a good reason.”

“Yeah, you were pissed at me. All the times I tried to make you angry. To make you kiss me again. And all I needed to do was walk away.”

Instead of denying that, she kissed him again.

Chapter Thirteen

Bishop reluctantly left Luna sleeping—a note on the night table in case she woke up. If she didn’t before he got back, he’d rip it up and she wouldn’t have to guess that his
be right back
meant that he was on a job for Keller.

But hell, this was the reality of the situation. Luna being with him made things a lot easier in many respects, and made his conscience ache just a little too much in others.

He fucking dreaded having to explain all the shit that went down on and off the compound to her. But hell, even if he didn’t explain it, she’d get it, sooner or later.

“I just...something’s coming down the pike,” he told Declan now as they set off on their bi-weekly collection drive. The truck was a big black Humvee, military grade and outfitted and Bishop drove with the headlights off, which freaked the fuck out of Declan.

They had backup at all points, but Bishop insisted on not traveling with a caravan to collection points. “It’s more fun if they don’t know you’re coming.”

“Like tonight?” Declan asked now.

“Don’t know for sure. Same sense of impending doom I’ve had all week.” He pulled into the back of the hill.

“You’d think you’d be calmer now that your old lady’s here,” Declan said.

“You think sex solves everything.”

“Doesn’t it?”

Bishop snorted, but couldn’t argue.

Declan was readying a couple of flashbang grenades and he looked over at Bishop and grinned. “Got a whole new shipment of these.”

Yeah, together, he and Declan were pretty much the perfect storm, and not in a great way.

Bishop was the more ruthless, Declan smoother. They weren’t a match like him and Mathias—in fact, both Bishop and Declan both needed someone to even them out since they could easily take each other over the edge.

“We’re fucking twenty, man. We should be off somewhere jacking off,” Bishop commented.

“Yeah, like that’ll satisfy you far more than the time it takes to orgasm.”

“So we should run the world instead?”

“Part of it anyway. What the fuck else are we going to do?”

Bishop sighed, like all of this pained him greatly. “Maybe not human trafficking?”

“Ah, Jesus, a little time with the old lady and you’re all morals now? We support the LoV and our Albanian clients who supply us with the food we need. And most of the men and women want to go—they’re sick of it here.”

“And you believe that bullshit.”

Declan shrugged. “Bishop, it’s gonna happen with or without us.”

That, Bishop did believe. “Let’s get this shit over with.”

The No Ones owed money to Keller for supplies. They were a well-known one percenter gang before the Chaos. Post, they were even more fucked up. Their business was killing and fucking and they roamed the areas looking for people to steal from.

Keller wasn’t the police or their mother, but when they owed ridiculous amounts of money and refused to pay, he sent his men to collect, any way he could.

What Bishop and Declan would do was kill family members of the MC. Sometimes all it took was the threat of doing so and others, it took an actual bullet. Some of Keller’s men talked a good game but chickened out at the end.

Declan and Bishop never did. When they got sent out, the MCs knew they meant business.

Tonight, the No Ones were waiting for them. There were Molotov cocktails thrown out at them before they got to the perimeter, which put Bishop in a shitty mood.

From there, it was a fucking bloodbath. Even with Declan and other Keller back-up, it hadn’t gone down smoothly. He’d known it in his gut before the night started, tried to talk himself into thinking that it was because he was leaving Luna behind at the compound, but that wasn’t it.

Keller wouldn’t let anything happen to her. If he did, he wouldn’t be able to keep reeling Bishop in. At least that’s what he thought he was doing. And Bishop was content to let him think that.

But everyday he did this shit, he was falling deeper into the hole. It helped that he could still “hear” Mathias in his mind. His voice had always been Mathias’s voice, so it was hearing himself but with Mathias’s special chiding.

When he talked to himself, he signed. Because he knew that every time he fought or went on a job, Mathias felt him. He wasn’t suffering alone, and that made things both better and worse.

Chapter Fourteen

The next day, Bishop dropped Luna by the garage. He’d been summoned himself, by Keller’s right hand, a woman named Kammy.

He had to give it to Keller—he was smart to employ women the way he did. Defiance had started to do so, making them more a part of the process, and while it did bring a certain amount of emotion to a process that sometimes faired better with none, Bishop had to admit that he didn’t mind it.

But trusting Kammy? He trusted her about as much as he trusted Keller. Respected both of them, sure. But that was an entirely different thing.

She was waiting for him in her private quarters, a house with bulletproof glass and an escape hatch down to her underground space that co-joined with Keller’s. He’d been down to both for dinner many times, because hell, he’d never say no to a good dinner.

“Your woman...she’s smart,” Kammy told him now. She handed him a cup of coffee, her special blend and Bishop wasn’t fucking turning that down, no matter how little he trusted this witch in spiked heels.

So he smiled and sipped the coffee and he agreed that Luna was a good woman.

“About time she fucking came to see me too,” he muttered around a muffin he snagged from the big plate on her table.

“If you really wanted her here, you should’ve asked Keller. He lets you get away with almost as much as he lets me,” she said and he snorted softly.

“Like I told him, I kept asking, Luna kept refusing my bid for her hand. Guess it took some distance to change her mind.”

It was Kammy’s turn to smile. “I’ve known Keller since I was sixteen and he was thirty. I was waitressing in a strip club near his old mafia hangout in Brooklyn. I had a fake ID and real everything else and he took a liking to me. He’d come back, night after night, requesting I sit with him and have a drink and some dinner. That was all. For two years, he did that. Until I was legal. During that time, he taught me things—how to win people over. How to strategize. I don’t know why he picked me, but he did. And look at me today.” She waved her hand around her place.

He nodded, because what the fuck else to say? She was with a man running his mafia empire before the Chaos and she was here with him now. She had power here, but with one flick of his wrist, or the snap of his fingers, Keller could have her removed. Bishop had the uncomfortable feeling he’d be the one charged with doing that deed.

Then again, maybe Kammy was Keller’s one true love. Maybe he wasn’t as fucked up as he seemed.

“I wanted to let you know that Keller’s been thinking about what you told him regarding the LoV,” she told Bishop now.

“You know as well as I do they’ve caused more problems here over the past few months. It’s escalating.” And not just against him, although he definitely felt the brunt of it in fights, although granted, never as bad as the other night.

“I agree, Bishop. I think they’re pushing their luck. Zara’s gotten unconfirmed reports of LoVs taking advantage of women on the compound, although none of them have stepped forward. In light of this, Keller’s decided that they’ll no longer be invited to the fights. Not as participants or guests.”

Even though he was impressed with Keller’s decision, it still worried him.

“That shit with the LoV’s not going to make things any easier around here.”

“I thought you’d be pleased they wouldn’t be attacking you during the fights,” she countered.

“You don’t think they’ll retaliate?”

“Keller knows what he’s doing.”

Bishop had an uneasy feeling that Keller was wrong.

* * *

Luna assumed Keller would come by the garage, so she wasn’t surprised—and she was prepared to hear his voice drift over her while she lay on the wheeled board, dealing with the chasse.

“You’ve always been interested in fixing cars?” Keller asked her.

She slid out from under the car and looked up at the man who’d dressed more casually than she’d ever seen him, in jeans and a pullover. But he still radiated a power—she’d have been able to pick him out of a crowd just because of his presence. “My dad was a mechanic. I don’t know if I inherited it or if it was because he had me in the garage with him from the time I was in diapers.”

It was definitely a passion she’d shared with her father—they were both artists when it came to the cars and bikes they worked on.

“Probably a mix of both,” Keller agreed. When he’d come in half an hour ago, he’d been impressed that she’d gotten the radio wired and working, telling her that one of the mechanics told Victor there was no way to fix it. Now he told her, “Defiance must keep you working hard.”

“In Defiance, people are happy I can fix hard-to-fix cars and bikes, but it’s not like I’ll be lighting the world on fire with my cars. I don’t think anyone can today.”

“But here, your skills are more appreciated,” Keller told her. “And what if you could, as you said, light up the world? What would you do? Build custom bikes or cars? Because there’s more of a market for that now than ever. And I know people who’d pay handsomely for you to make them exactly what they want.”

She put her wrench down and took a breath, trying to stop herself from being excited for that opportunity. “I never thought I’d be able to do any of this for a living. Not before, but especially not after the Chaos.”

Keller pulled a chair over and sat, propping his feet on an old crate. “When it first happened, I was in New York. It wasn’t hit as hard as out here had been, but it was pretty damned bad.”

Luna thought about what Tru told her about New Jersey and the shore and figured them same must’ve held for Brooklyn. “Did you try to evacuate right away?”

He glanced at her. “We had bunkers.”

“Ah.” So Keller understood exactly how important Defiance’s tubes were. “I remember you met with Lance before the Chaos.”

“I was interested in investing. Lance refused.” Keller shook his head. “I can’t say I blame him. If things hadn’t happened...we would’ve bought him out, the company would’ve gone public. And then if the Chaos did happen, the banks would be wiped out, along with stocks and other regulated shareholdings, for the most part. A lot of what Defiance held would’ve been worthless. Maybe Lance knew.”

“The guys who founded Defiance were the kings of disaster prep,” Luna said, although Keller would know that. Even now, she remembered the drills she’d had to participate in as a very small child. Lance had done away with them, but it was a holdover from his own youth, a message passed down from father to son—always be prepared.

Her father had wanted a son. She guessed that’s why he spent so much time with her when she showed promise in fixing cars. She might not’ve been the right sex, but she could keep up the family traditions, somehow.

“I’m learning from their example,” Keller told her.

From what she’d learned. Keller’s compound was larger than Defiance. On any given day, there were upwards of six hundred people inside the gates, the majority of which called the place home. The surrounding areas and towns also benefitted greatly from the proximity, being this close to a major food and water supply.

Each surrounding town had two tunnels, where everyone evacuated to. The tunnels Defiance had built for Keller were far more elaborately constructed, although there still wasn’t room for all of his compound to stay down there for long periods of time. Not comfortably, at least.

“I break things up into old Defiance and new Defiance,” she told Keller now. “But then I have to break it down further. Pre—and post-Chaos. And probably, you’d expect me to say that pre was the magical time. Because when you get older, you filter the bad stuff out. Sometimes too much.”

“You don’t.”

“I can’t,” she said. “But for me, pre-Chaos was pretty bad. I just didn’t know how bad at the time. Everyone talks about the good old days but...I never had any control. I don’t feel like I ever will.” She shrugged, stared at her hands, wondering why she was telling Keller any of this. It wasn’t like he’d asked.

“My father liked to have total control. I can see the value in letting certain people take the reins,” he said now.

“Like Defiance.”

“Your men are smart. Correction, your men now are smart. I’ve got a lot more respect for this younger generation. They’ve got ethics. I don’t and Lance didn’t. I couldn’t trust him. But I can trust Caspar.”

“Can he trust you?”

Keller smiled. “He won’t, but he should. We need each other. I’m doing Defiance a favor. A big one.”

“But Victor...”

He waved his hand like he was brushing away an annoyance. “My son was acting like an MC member. Getting in bed with the LoV. They’re fucking animals.”

“You don’t like them?”

“Do you see any LoVs here?”

“No. But you don’t let Defiance in either.”

“Because they’re too smart for this place. LoVs are too stupid. I use them for cheap guards, and don’t get me wrong, they’re effective at keeping me safe, but I don’t trust them as far as I can throw them. I’ve always got my own men with me, and I use the LoV in small doses.” Keller grabbed a bottle of water from the crate in the corner and took a long drink while she tried to fit everything he was saying together.

“I’m sorry about your son,” she told him.

He sighed. “This isn’t an easy world. The tough survive.” He leaned forward, like he had something important to tell her.

“When I was six, I went out to dinner with my father,” he began. “It was a very big deal, because he was always involved in business. It’s not like he didn’t have time for me, but dinner out was business time. So I was dressed up. Sitting next to him in the back of an Italian restaurant that was exclusive, small and private. And he was asking me about school. He gave me sips from his red wine.” He smiled, closed his eyes for a second. When he opened them, they were troubled. “A man approached the table. My father said, ‘I’m out to dinner with my son. This is family time. Please, sit.’ Which didn’t make sense to me. A minute after the man sat, my father drove a knife through the top of his hand, nailing it to the table. He made a deal with the man, removed the knife and the man stumbled away. My father turned to me and said, ‘This is family business, Paul. There’s no way to even separate family from the family business.’”

She listened carefully as Keller gave her that glimpse into his troubled, violent life, telling her why he was the way he was. “You can understand Bishop because of where you came from.”

“Yes.” He studied her. “You’re surprised I didn’t kill Bishop when I learned he’d killed Victor.”

“Yes.”

“Bishop is a much better man than Victor. I failed my son. Coddled him. If I’d taken him to dinner and cut through a man’s hand, he wouldn’t have died the way he did. I’m certain of that.”

“People are born the way they are. No changing it,” Bishop drawled from the doorway. “Gotta stop with that guilt shit.”

But Luna understood it. Feeling that you could’ve fixed/done something, even should’ve, was way better than being helpless/knowing you did nothing.

“He really doesn’t have any regrets,” Keller said of Bishop, looking at him fondly.

“He doesn’t believe in them.”

“Do you, Luna?”

She thought about it for a long moment before telling him, “Yes, I have to.”

“Maybe more time with Bishop will cure you of that,” Keller said with a nod in Bishop’s direction.

* * *

Keller and Bishop talked for a few minutes outside the garage while Luna wrapped up some stuff she’d been working on. Truthfully, she was sorry to have to leave and she wasn’t sure why Bishop was here so early.

When she realized that she’d been working for nearly eight hours, she couldn’t believe it. The time did fly...and Keller coming to talk to her had made her both uneasy and more comfortable all at one.

“This place is really weird,” she muttered as she closed and locked the toolbox up. The key would go to the guards until tomorrow morning when she came back. She’d given them a list of parts she’d need and they’d promised her that she’d have them by early next week.

She didn’t want any more details than that.

“Luna, we’ve got to go,” Bishop called. He was calm, but there was something in his demeanor that had her taking him seriously. She grabbed her coat, gave the key to the guards and let Bishop take her hand.

The compound was in its usual party mode. Nothing seemed different and she was about to ask him if he was fighting tonight when he stopped dead and just stared into the distance. She waited next to him, heard him mutter, “Shit,” and then he was urging her along again.

The rain began as she was going down into the tunnel. The fat drops splashed around her, making the ladder slippery. She held on tightly, making it to the bottom as fast as she could. Bishop was right behind her, told her to head into his place.

She did...leaving the door unlocked behind her. It was only when he came inside that she realized he’d sensed the storm.

And she hadn’t. “I can usually tell when one’s coming,” she said now.

“Your mojo’s probably a little off here. Mine was too, at first,” he admitted. “I felt it hours ago. Waited as long as I could to come grab you.”

Thunder rumbled overhead, the sound angry, the menace enough to shake the well-placed tubes. She knew they were built to do that, to have a little give. She knew they were completely stable, even if the ground flooded. But still...”This is a bad one.”

Bish looked up at the ceiling and back down to her, then simply nodded.

She wrapped her arms around herself and stared upward too. For a while, they listened to the rolling thunder and the hard pelts of rain and hail hitting the ground. The lights flickered, a warning that the generators would no doubt shut down until the worst of the storm passed, just as a safety measure.

Bishop moved to light the oil lamp and a few candles before that happened. When the lights did go out, the softer lights from the flickering flames were actually more comforting than the harsh fluorescents.

Although the first storms that came with the Chaos lasted for hours—and some of them days—all the ones after that first week were of a much shorter duration.

She checked the clock and realized they’d been pretty much standing at attention for over an hour, and that the storm was actually getting more fierce, not improving. And she couldn’t see what was happening outside, which made every sound more frightening. Her imagination could easily get the best of her, and she couldn’t think that everyone’s would during times like this.