“Hello.” She stares at me and I form the millions of responses to the hundreds of ways she’ll ask why I’m here.
“Hi.” It would be good to speak more, possibly explain that I’m not selling magazine subscriptions.
“I’ve waited a long time for this.” A hesitant smile eases across her face and my lips turn down. Something isn’t right.
A man walks up behind her. He’s older, has gray hair, but what causes me to start backward in the same rhythm of my pounding heart is the black leather vest on his body.
There’s a honk. A long one. A loud one. The heel of my foot dips off the back of the stairs and when I pivot to run, my hands smack into the chest of a man. He’s Mom’s age and he has the same eyes and nose as her, but there’s a scar that slices along his cheek.
“Hi, Emily,” he says. “Why don’t you come in? I know Mom’s been dying to meet you.”
I swivel back to the woman, begging her with my eyes to let me go. The man behind her angles to respond to someone in the room and on the back of his vest are the words that cause me to tremble: The Riot Motorcycle Club.
“Come on.” The guy Mom’s age lays a foreboding arm around my shoulder. “Let’s catch up.”
Oz
WE’RE A FEW miles out from Emily and I can’t sit still. Eli’s pressed the truck to the max, but it’s still not fast enough.
“We would have been faster on the bikes,” I say.
I hate how calm Eli is. Since the moment Violet called and told me what had happened, he’s been too calm. His entire expression smoothed out like marble. “Emily’s not going to be in the condition to ride safely on the back of a bike.”
A deadly snake slithers inside me, raising its head as it coils tighter in my gut. “If you think they’re going to harm her, then why isn’t anyone else with us? Why the hell aren’t we calling the police?”
Eli slows at a stop sign, looks both ways as if we’re on a Sunday stroll, and then turns right. Even though we told Violet to go, she hasn’t. She’s stayed right where she called me from—a spot a few houses down from where Emily went inside.
He parks behind Violet and it pisses me off how unhurried he acts. Emily’s inside. Emily’s inside with the Riot and what really makes me mad is that Eli won’t tell me why. I informed him of the situation, he told me to get in the truck and we took off.
Eli didn’t tell anyone else. He didn’t call for backup. We drove for an hour and a half and until a few minutes ago, he stayed silent.
“Why aren’t we racing in?” I bite.
“Because Emily isn’t in danger. You and I might be. Even Violet isn’t in the clear, but they won’t harm Emily. Thirty bucks says she’s in there with milk and cookies.”
I don’t know how he figures that, but there are more important issues here. “How are we going to handle this?” The gun’s strapped to my back and I eye the one that’s on Eli’s hip. He’s a felon and legally he can’t carry, but that hasn’t stopped him.
Eli waves to the two men in Riot cuts that exit the house and watch the two of us. “We’re going to give them a few minutes to assess us and to let them figure out that we aren’t coming in fast and hard. Then we’ll walk up and knock on the front door.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“Were you expecting to go in guns blazing? You and Emily watch too much TV.”
There’s no way this is real. “How did she end up on the Riot’s doorstep?”
Eli circles the keys on his finger. “Meg’s father is the head of the Riot.”
It’s like someone opened a trap door beneath me. “You’re fucking with me.”
“Wish I was. It’s a long story. Long enough that I’m not sure I can remember all the working parts, but here’s the short of it. The Riot deals with some nasty shit. Illegal is in their veins and Meg got hurt by them in the process. In high school, her parents sent Meg to live with a grandmother in Snowflake to finish out high school and to heal from some emotional wounds.”
“And she met you.”
There’s an aching touch to the smile trying to form on his lips. “Motorcycle clubs were what she’d known. Grown up with. It was natural that she gravitated to us, but then she figured out that we were different. That we weren’t like the Riot, and Meg’s life began to change. Her parents were pissed when they found out about me and Meg and then they went radioactive when they found out she was pregnant.”
With Emily.
“Olivia and Cyrus had already fallen in love with Meg and insisted she move in with us when we told them about the baby. With the club’s backing, we promised to protect Meg and Emily from her parents and from her parents’ club and that was the day battle lines were drawn.”
“Did the Riot know that the Terror existed before then?”
“Maybe, who the fuck knows,” answers Eli. “We were starting to branch out into other states, but we were still flying under the radar. When the club backed Meg, the Riot became very aware of us. The Riot was pissed we never asked their permission to form, never asked for their permission to ride, and we sure as hell didn’t have their permission to keep their daughter and granddaughter.”
“How did they react to that?” I ask.
“For two years it never stopped. Our guys would be hanging out at bars and the Riot would hunt them down and beat the hell out of them. It became a game to them to see how many of our cuts they could collect and hang on their walls. They’d try to run our guys off the road. Cause problems for us at every turn.
“It took a toll on me and a bigger one on Meg. Twice she told me she was going to leave. She packed her and Emily’s stuff, but both times I talked her down. Then one night she got a phone call from her brother, asking if he could meet with her. Meet his niece. He told Meg it was a peace offering.”
I lower my head. Even I know nothing good would have come out of that.
“Meg went, not telling me because your dad had been beaten up bad the night before and I was at the hospital watching his back. Meg thought she could fix everything.”
Eli trails off and my hand tightens into a fist. I’ve never heard this. I’ve never heard that my father was taken down by the Riot so badly he was hospitalized. “What happened?”
“The bastard tried to take Emily. He hit Meg. Multiple times. Her own fucking brother hit her...in front of my daughter. Meg screamed and people heard her, so she and Emily got away, but then Meg came home and I saw the bruises on her body and I saw the terror on Emily’s face.”
I close my eyes. The rage I had felt the night before when I saw that guy grabbing Emily courses through me. “You went after him.”
Pure anger flashes from Eli’s dark eyes. “Fuck yeah, I did. That bastard hurt the woman I loved and my child. His club had sent my best friend to the hospital. Cyrus and the Terror wanted to wait a few days for me to calm down and then vote on how to handle this in Church. I wanted retaliation because every single time we called the police and the Riot faced a judge they got a slap on the hand because the police couldn’t or wouldn’t prove shit.”
This is what I was raised to believe: that Emily’s uncle had hit Meg and Eli had gone after him. They left out the part where this was linked to the Riot. They left out that Emily had always been a target. I was also raised to believe that... “Meg snitched. Dad said that Meg was the one that ratted you out.”
“She did. She told me that if I went after her family in retaliation then I was no better than them. She told me up front that she’d call the police on me and that she’d leave with Emily. Meg knew me. She knew how mad I was and she knew her brother. She knew one of us was going to end up dead and she couldn’t live with me dying. She also knew I couldn’t live with being a killer so when I left to meet her brother, she called the police.”
The police arrived to where Meg had pointed them, catching
Eli in the act. Meg fled with Emily that night and Eli served eight years in prison. This is fucked up.
“Why not tell Emily the truth?”
Eli chuckles bitterly. “Where would you start? Somewhere between learning the ABCs and 123s you inform your kid that her dad’s a felon and that her maternal grandparents would be, too, if the police got their shit together? Meg ran for her life. She ran to save Emily’s life. Shit, Oz, what Meg did that night saved our club from annihilation because if she had stayed, every single one of us would have laid down his life for her and Emily and that’s the game the Riot was playing. But by turning me into the police, Meg branded herself a villain. A snitch. She’s no snitch. She’s a hero.”
I hear him, but... “You gave up custody of Emily.”
“Meg begged me to give Emily up. Pointed out that the Riot wasn’t above kidnapping. I told Olivia and Cyrus to back off and to give Meg room to feel safe, but what I didn’t expect was her marrying Jeff and I sure as shit didn’t expect him to show at my prison with papers to terminate my rights. He could offer my two girls the world and all I could offer was a whole lot of hurt.
“Maybe Meg and I didn’t do it right. Maybe we made every wrong decision, but when I was released from prison and Jeff offered me the opportunity to see Emily at least once a year with the condition that I lie about the past, I jumped on it. Good, bad, ugly, call the decisions whatever you want, but it’s worth any price to see my daughter and to see her happy.”
Eli quickly glances away and I pretend that there wasn’t wetness in his eyes. “Why are you telling me this now?”
He cracks open his door. “Because I’m trusting you’ll keep your word and the moment Emily touches down in Florida you’ll tell her the whole truth.”
He’s out of the truck and a roar fills my ears. Those words felt too final. I’m out after him. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Eli knocks on Violet’s window and she rolls it down. Her eyes are red and puffy and she opens her mouth, but Eli holds up his hand. “Get out of here. Don’t make me say it again.”
Violet turns over the engine, and the two of us watch as she pulls a U-turn. As she passes us, I press three fingers to my leg, and pray that Violet remembers the signal she created when we were kids. She meets my eyes then drives away.
When she’s gone, Eli starts down the street again and I keep stride. “That’s your grand plan? Walk up the steps, ring the doorbell and then they’re going to hand over Emily?”
Eli steps in front of me and his entire tense demeanor tells me to shut up and listen. “You are going to do exactly as I say when I say it and you’re going to do exactly what I ask without questioning me. Do you got that?”
“Yes.”
“I brought you with me because Emily trusts you and I cannot have a repeat of last night. She’ll follow you before she’ll follow me and I need her to follow you out. Can you handle this?”
I can more than handle this. “Yes.”
He wraps his hand around my neck and stares into my eyes. “You’re a good man, Oz.”
Before I can respond, he’s crossing the yard, up the steps and ringing the doorbell. I follow, looking around for the two guys that disappeared, searching for the threat that has to be near. The door opens and my back twinges as if I have a rifle trained on my heart.
The guy that answers is a massive man. Gray hair. Clean-shaven and wears a Riot cut on his back. For the first time, my own cut feels like a second skin. He runs his eyes over me then studies Eli. “I thought we had this straightened out last week.”
I school my expression to hide the surprise that they’ve talked. Eli shrugs. “We did, but Emily’s headstrong like her mother.”
The large man releases a “Humph.”
“Consider this a bonus to our negotiations. You spent time with Emily and now I need to collect my daughter. She has a flight to catch this afternoon and airport security is a bitch.”
The man grunts out a laugh and extends his arm in a motion for us to enter. Eli glances at me from over his shoulder and then drops his gaze to the gun hanging on his hip. He then casually rests his hand near his piece. He’s telling me to be prepared.
We enter and a heaviness surrounds me as I play out the number of ways I can grab my gun before somebody else has time to point one at me and pull the trigger. My mouth runs dry. This is real life. Real life. Not a game. Not a show that can be turned off or rewound.
We walk through a dining room as we follow the man who let us in, and it’s not long before we gain two tails—men from the Riot bringing up the rear. The smell of bacon hovers in the air as we pass through the kitchen. Each step I take, I’m more aware of my skin, my blood, my bones.
A cold sweat breaks out along my neck. We enter a back living room and all the nerves quickly dissolve into a wave of protectiveness.
Emily raises her head and breathes out my name. “Oz.”
Emily
MY MOTHER’S MOTHER, my grandmother, adores kittens. A curio cabinet to my left is filled with ceramic kittens in various poses and the wall contains several oil paintings of kittens in various stages of activities such as chasing butterflies or playing with yarn. The cherry on this kitty-cat sundae is the live cat. It’s black with yellow eyes and it scowls at me from its perch on the end table. Its tail flicks left and then right with the beat of a second hand.
I’ve officially decided I like dogs. Specifically Lars.
Eli winks at me as he strolls into the room. Strolls. As if he, Oz and I are not in the nightmare they’ve described since Oz rammed into me outside the motel room.
Eli plops onto the couch across from the one my grandmother sits in. I’m in the chair in the middle experiencing a bad case of furniture tug-of-war.
I have an urge to hug Eli, to grab his hand and let him lead me away from this insanity, but I’m so terrified that I’m frozen. Literally. My hands are as cold as Olivia’s.
My stomach growls loudly and the entire silent room glances at me.
“You could have fed her.” Eli reclines on the couch and lays an arm along the back, reminding me of how Oz had done the same thing that night on the bench outside the room that became mine.
His thumbs hitched in his pockets, Oz watches me from the entryway between the kitchen and the living room. My uncle stands parallel to him a few feet away. Another guy hangs back toward the fridge. I swallow for the millionth time as my windpipe continually constricts.
“We offered,” says my grandmother. “But she declined. Would you like something, Eli? Coffee, juice, arsenic?”
“Naw, poison’s not my thing. Did Emily tell you that she has a flight to catch?”
“No. She hasn’t been talkative to be honest,” my grandmother says as my grandfather eases onto the couch next to her and rests his arms on his bent knees.
“She acts like she’s terrified of us,” he says in this mock lighthearted tone that gives me the chills.
A mock dismissive twitch of Eli’s wrist. “Can’t imagine why.”
“You’re the one with the felony record,” interjects my uncle.
Eli points at him. “Emily, if you’re going to watch TV to make an assumption on someone’s life then think of any tragic TV show that involves drugs. Ten bucks the horrible ending is what happens to him in five years.”
“You asshole.” My uncle is on the move, Oz steps forward, his hand reaching for his back and both Eli and my grandfather raise their hands while staring emotionlessly at each other.
Oz backs off and so does my uncle while I suck in air so I don’t puke.
“You okay, Emily?” asks Eli.
I slowly angle my head toward him. Is he kidding? I’m not even close to okay.
“I don’t want the deal,” my grandmother whispers.
“What does that mean?” I ask.
/>
My grandfather laces his fingers with his wife’s. “Why did you come here, Emily?”
“It’s okay to answer them,” Eli says with a kindness that causes pain.
“I...” I clear my throat. “I wanted to know why Eli hurt...” I pathetically gesture to my uncle. “Him. I wanted to understand.”
Eli peers over at Oz and I swear Oz nods just slightly. Eli nods back and then focuses on my grandparents. “The deal we reached stands as it is. Emily’s going home to Florida and you’re going to leave Emily and Meg alone.”
The hair on the back of my neck sticks up. He told them we live in Florida.
“We weren’t at the motel to hurt Emily,” my uncle says. “We were there to protect her.”
“From what?” Oz demands.
“From you. Meg turned Eli in for what he did to me. She’s a snitch in your eyes and we sure as hell weren’t going to let Meg and Emily walk into your territory and hope you guys were in a forgiving mood. We called Meg at the motel and told her we knew she was there and that we were watching her back.”
The phone call Mom received that sparked her and Dad’s late-night conversation in the bathroom. But still, I’m very confused. I wipe my hands on my jeans and will away the fuzzy sensation that suggests fainting.
Eli’s shaking his head. “See, that’s where you’re fucked up in your thinking. The Terror doesn’t operate by the same rules you do. It’s not eye for an eye with us. We operate by our code while respecting the laws surrounding us.”
“The Terror are wannabes,” my uncle spits. “Men who can’t hack the real way of life.”
“No, they’re men of integrity.” Eli pats my knee. “You reminded me of that, Emily”
Eli stands. “Meg left you and she left me. Fifteen years ago we struck an agreement and I was under the impression we decided to uphold that agreement last week.” He digs into his pocket and tosses his keys to Oz. “Remember what we talked about?”