Page 10

CHAPTER TEN

S aint…

“We need to talk. No bullshit, no games.”

My eyebrows went up as Velina’s no-nonsense voice came over the airwaves.

“Oh, yeah?” I asked and tried to keep my tone easy and uninterested.

“What part of no games did you not just understand?” she asked, sounding both tempestuous and impatient.

“Slow your roll, there, Turbo, What’s got your underwear wedged up your butt?”

“First of all,” she said. “I wear thongs. I figure if my underwear is going to get wedged up my ass crack anyway, I might as well buy some that’s meant to be there.”

I lost it and started cracking up. That had been unexpected, but shit, she was a quick study. She kept talking, never missing a beat.

“Second of all, I talked to the detective handling my brother’s case,” she said and she didn’t sound happy about that at all.

It figured.

“Yeah, and what’d he have to say?” I asked nonchalantly.

“Basically told me without telling me that Garnett’s case was a low priority and that no humans were involved.”

I recognized the term – no humans involved , and yeah – that about summed it up. There were a lot of us out here that fell under that category. Outlaw bikers, druggies, hookers, homeless, headcases – pretty much anyone who was considered the dregs of society. Those of us who fell through the cracks, or like us, wedged ourselves right on through deciding it was better to reign in Hell than it was to serve in their idea of heaven.

A gilded cage was still a fucking cage, man.

I grunted.

“Sounds about right,” I said and sighed. The truth was ugly, and the truth was that to the majority of the citizenry – our lives didn’t matter. It was just more cost-effective for us to kill each other rather than suck up taxpayer money and resources by sending us to prison.

“Yeah, well, it’s bullshit,” she said fervently.

“You noticed,” I said with no little sarcasm.

“Meet me at the Café du Monde on Veterans,” she said. “I’m already here.”

I snorted. “You think I’m at your beck and call?”

“Knock it off,” she said moodily. “We’re on the same team on this, and I think we can help each other.”

“Oh, yeah? You think you can help me?” I couldn’t keep the amusement out of my tone or the grin off my face. She had a brass set of ovaries, alright.

“That douchebag detective had more sympathy for Garnett’s piece of shit druggie abusive mom rather than Garnett,” she said and then lowered her voice. “I’m glad he shot her in the face.”

I froze.

Fuck me. She knew. Louie had told her… fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck! What else had he told her?

My tone was cold as ice when I said, “I’m on my way.”

“Thought so,” she said, sounding dangerous.

I ended the call and immediately phoned Hex.

“We got a problem,” I said as soon as the line connected, but before he even had a chance to speak.

“What kind of problem?” he asked, cutting through the bullshit.

“Louie talked to his sister.”

“How bad?” Hex asked.

“She knows it was Louie who did his mom,” I said.

“Shit,” Hex swore softly. “What does she want?”

“Me to meet her at the Café du Monde on Veterans in Metairie,” I said. “Said she talked to the detective on Louie’s case this morning. Seems all fired up about it – wants to help me, she says.”

Hex voiced my exact thoughts on that when he scoffed.

“Her, help us? How the fuck she plan on doing that?” he demanded.

“Beats me. What do you want me to do?” I asked.

“Meet her,” he said. “Gather more intel and bring it straight to the chapel. I’ll make some calls, see if we can’t put tabs on her.”

“Sounds good,” I said. “Let you know what I find out.”

“Uh-huh, you do that,” he said, ending the call.

I sighed and set the phone down by my hip, lying there, watching the ceiling fan of my bedroom spin lazily above me. I’d tied one on pretty hard the night before, trying to drown out those haunting green eyes of Velina’s framed in the silky fringe of bangs and longer pieces of her dark brown hair. She did a thing with it, where she’d dyed it red, which didn’t look like much on her dark natural hair until the sunlight hit it and sparked it like she’d spun rubies into fire and woven it through the strands.

I whipped back the covers and sat up, wincing at the aches and pains and how my stomach roiled with the sudden motion.

I lived in Metairie – right down the street from the big park with the lake, just a few blocks over from Veterans. I knew which Café du Monde she was talking about. I wasn’t but three minutes from it, but she could cool her heels for a bit while I put myself through a shower and at least whipped some mouthwash through my mouth to get rid of last night’s bender.

Swear to God, my mouth tasted like dog shit smelled at the moment. The shower helped the throbbing in my head. I brushed my teeth while I was in there, swished some mouthwash when I got out, and found last night’s jeans on my bedroom floor. I pulled on a fresh tee with the sleeves cut out of one of my drawers and pulled down my cut from the hook on the back of the bedroom door. I left my jacket at home. I wasn’t feeling like a safety Nazi. I was feeling like a rebel – only I had a big damn cause set up in front of me, and that cause was protecting my fucking club.

I didn’t think it was more than fifteen minutes from the time I hauled my big ass up out of bed to the time I pulled in the lot at the Café du Monde. It was mid-afternoon and pretty empty. Not even so much as a car in the drive-thru.

I could see her through the windows at a front corner table, her phone lying flat and a cup next to it. She had her chin in one hand, elbow propped on the table, and the other rested on the table. She stared off into space, her index finger on the hand resting on the table, tapping out her nervous and impatient energy with the even measure of a metronome – albeit one on crack.

It didn’t miss a beat, but the pace was pretty frantic.

I went in and held up a finger at her when she straightened, going for the counter myself.

“Coffee, black,” I said.

“What size?” the older woman behind the register asked me.

“Fuck, better make it large,” I said.

“Coming right up, your total?—”

I held out a five. “Keep the change.”

“Thank you, sir. I’ll have that right out.”

I stood and waited while she poured and took the paper cup with its cuppy condom cardboard sleeve thing from her with a muttered “thanks.”

Velina was turned sideways in her seat, watching me over the back of her chair as I threaded my way through the empty tables to her. I hooked a boot in the leg of the chair opposite her and pulled it out from the table with a clattering screech.

“Thought you’d never get here,” she said.

“Yeah, well, I was at home,” I said, perfectly content to let her assume it was a ways a way.

She harrumphed and said, “So I got your attention.”

“Seems ol’ Louie’s been talking out of turn,” I agreed carefully.

“Don’t be pissed at him,” she said, immediately coming to her brother’s defense. “While he told me, he didn’t tell me who else was there or involved, if anybody. Just said he’d been the one to handle it and talked out some of his feelings about it.”

“Yeah, and what were those?” I asked, mildly interested but pretty sure I already knew.

“Never mind that,” she said. “Anything Louie told me, he told me in confidence, and I’ll take his secrets to my grave.”

The look in her sparking green eyes was dead-ass serious, and I nodded slowly.

“Let’s say that I believe you,” I said. “You got me here, now what?”

“The cops aren’t doing shit about my brother’s case,” she said. “What are you doing?”

I scoffed a laugh and shook my head. “That’s club business,” I said automatically and expounded on it by telling her, “Even if we were doing anything, it’s not something to be talked about. Especially with a citizen like you.”

“So, you’re not doing anything,” she said stubbornly, seemingly ignoring the insult about her being a citizen.

“I didn’t say that,” I shot back and she gave me a look like don’t be stupid. “Better question is what do you think you can do that we can’t? ” I demanded.

She leaned back in her seat and looked contemplative before saying, “First of all, I’m not a citizen. I’m his sister. Second of all, I can get in.”

I frowned.

“Get in? Get in where ?” I demanded.

She looked at me, blinking several times, and finally said, “You can’t seriously be that thick.”

I shot my eyebrows up and leaned forward.

“You want to infiltrate the Bayou Brethren and do exactly what? ” I demanded.

“Well, I can either broker what I learn to you or the cops. Take your pick,” she said, leaning back in her seat.

“Why am I your first pick?” I asked.

“I thought you said you were Louie’s family,” she said.

“We are.” The two words were resolute, and I glared at her, daring her to argue the point.

“Well, so am I , and I know the likelihood of getting any kind of real justice for my brother is higher with you lot than with the cops and the system.”

I shook my head. “You don’t want justice. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be sitting across from me right now.”

“Not so thick after all,” she quipped, and I scowled. “You’re right,” she said. “I want revenge.”

We sat across from each other, the silence dragging out as I thought furiously about it.

“Look,” I said. “Despite my better judgment, I actually like you, and what you’re proposing is fucking crazy. You know that, right?”

She lifted a shoulder in a blasé shrug and looked almost bored, like she saw the whole me trying to talk her out of this shit coming a mile away, and she had no designs on entertaining me or my bullshit.

“You really are related to Loup Garou,” I said finally. “He did some crazy shit, too.”

“Like what?” she asked.

“Walked straight up to a cop in the Quarter and headbutted him once – got charged with an ag-assault, pled down to a drunk and disorderly. Spent ninety days in jail for it. Was some funny shit, though.”

“He had a laundry list of charges. The detective read some out for me, like he was trying to convince me somehow that Louie’s case wasn’t worth solving because my brother was some kind of a piece of shit. That pissed me off,” she said. “He wasn’t a piece of shit. He was an abused kid who got turned into a fucked-up adult who was just trying to find his way in a world that showed him and told him at every turn that it just didn’t give two shits about him.”

I stared at her and was pretty sure I was getting a chub. The passion in her voice, the fire in her eyes, and the cold, hard look on her face… all of it was leading to one conclusion – she was a warrior queen and she was out for blood – sure, that part, but the part that was important to me?

She got it.

She was, at the very minimum, starting to understand that for kids like Louie, he didn’t choose the life. The life chose him .

It was like that for a lot of us.

“You’re right,” I said, nodding slowly and evenly. “The world didn’t give a fuck about Louie. Doesn’t give a fuck about me, or you either – and in this world? My world? You’re even less than that. This life will chew you the fuck up and spit you the fuck out, little girl.” I shook my head. “Whatever you’re thinking, I’d stop if I were you before you get yourself into some deep shit.”

She snorted. “Too late for that,” she said and stared at me pointedly.

Damn. She had me there.

“Touché,” I said. “You got our attention, and not in a good way. But what you’re proposing is nucking futs .”

She smirked and said, “I know it sounds ass backward, but look. They don’t know me from fucking Adam,” she argued. “So gimme the crash course, tart me up, and turn me loose – it’s either that, or I do it myself. At least with some pointers from you and yours, I have an icicle’s chance in hell.”

“Shit, Hell would have to freeze the fuck over in order for me to get on board with your crazy, woman.”

She laughed then and shook her head.

“Of all the crazy shit I’ve thought or done, believe me, this seems like the one time I feel completely and comfortably sane .”

“Then you’ve really lost the plot,” I said.

“Look, if you’re worried about me being slapped around, raped, or getting hooked on something or whatever – you can stop. I’m a big girl. I’ve been through some things already. There’s nothing they could do that hasn’t been done before.”

She maintained eye contact, and I said, “They could kill you.”

“Yeah, done that too,” she said, and I raised an eyebrow.

“I drowned when I was eight. Was clinically dead for nine minutes. The medics and the ER docs got me back, and I got lucky. No permanent effects.”

“I don’t know about that last bit,” I argued, and she cracked a smile.

“Everything has risks,” she said. “Louie’s never had blood show up for him in his entire damn life. I know something about that. I know he’s gone, and thus this won’t really change his track record, but I’d still like to try.”

“We gotta run this by Hex and LaCroix – the rest of the club,” I said, coming to the decision that she was going to do it, come hell or high water.

She was either brave or stupid – likely a stiff combination of the two.

“Why?” she asked.

“Because, like any family, Daddy and Mommy have the final say on what the kids get up to,” I said, my voice laden with sarcasm.

“Okay, fine,” she said.

I sipped my coffee, the bold and rich flavor flooding my mouth, that bitter zing of chicory just hitting mighty fine in that instant.

“Ugh, is that black?” she asked.

“Yeah, why?” I asked.

“Nothing,” she said, shaking her head. “I just use cream and sugar because I like myself.”

“Yeah, well, I’m a psychopath, and I like things simple.”

She snorted. “Not so much a psychopath,” she said. “You seem worried about me and what I’m doing too much to be a psycho.”

Tou-fucking-ché.

Damn, she was good at that.

“I don’t like it,” Chainsaw said almost as soon as I’d got done talking.

“Well, now, hold on a minute here,” Hex said, looking thoughtful. “Let’s have a look at the whole big picture.”

The table was quiet for a moment, and LaCroix was as unreadable as ever.

“This could present a real opportunity,” Axeman declared, and I nodded.

As much as I hated to admit it, I’d come to the same conclusion.

“I’m with Chainsaw,” Bennie said. “I feel like we’ve already let Louie down a metric fuckton, and letting his sister do this?”

“We didn’t even know he had a sister until she showed up,” Cypress said. “She’s fine and all, but in the real of it, who is she to us other than just another fuckin’ citizen?”

“Harsh,” I said, and he gave me a look like so? I couldn’t help but chuckle. I’d had the thought myself. Shit, all of this was moving faster than greased lightning for my tastes.

“Sounds like she’s got Louie’s tenacity,” Collier said, and I nodded.

“Stubborn and crazier than a shithouse mouse,” I said.

“She got Louie’s dumb, too?” LaCroix asked simply. I looked at him.

“No,” I said, cutting right to the point. Was she inexperienced? Yes. Dumb? No, not at all.

“Set this up right, the inexperience could help weigh in her favor. Gonna have to take the long road goin’ in that way,” Hex said.

“Get outta my fucking head,” I said, and he nodded. We did that sometimes – thought along the same lines at the same time without meaning to. We’d taken to telling each other to get out of our respective heads when it happened. No more needed to be said.

There was a lapse in talk at the table as we each retreated inside our heads to think through all the implications.

“Pros and cons, boys. Pros and cons,” Hex said.

“Pro – she finds out what the fuck pissed in these asshole’s Wheaties for us,” Axeman declared.

“Con – she gives us up, gets raped, tortured, and killed all for nothing,” Chainsaw argued.

“She knows the risks,” I said. “Either she does it with us and our backing, or she goes it alone.”

“Jesus.” Bennie blew out his cheeks and tipped his head all the way back to stare at the ceiling as though it was some kind of Oracle that could pull the will of the divine out of thin air.

“We take her to the swamp witch,” LaCroix said evenly. “Get her blessed and send her with all the right juju.”

“I’ll just stick to prayin’ if you don’t mind,” I said.

“Shit, sounds like we gonna need all the help we can get if we go through with this, non?” Cypress said, and he was staring off into space, the wheels and gears turning inside his skull.

“For?” LaCroix asked.

He noted the hands that went up around the table.

“Against?” he asked.

“It passes by simple majority,” Hex declared.

It was far from unanimous, though.

“She seems to have taken a shine to you,” Hex said, grinning and I scowled at him.

“Fuck you,” I declared.

“So, it’s decided, then,” LaCroix muttered. “You’re her handler.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, but I didn’t have to be happy about it.

“This is one hell of a Hail Mary pass,” Chainsaw said.

“If anyone might be able to pull it off, I think she could, though,” I said.

Bennie frowned at me. “You voted against it,” he said, and I nodded.

“I guess I like her,” I said, which took a lot for me to admit, but there it was.

“This is fuckin’ crazy,” Bennie muttered.

“Yeah, yeah, it is,” I agreed.