Head Above Water (Nightshade MC Book 4) (3 page)

Chastity was behind the bar, her phenomenal, and fake, tits out on display. Normally, Monroe would have felt a little stir at the sight of the girls in all their glory. He was a tit guy, though he never turned down a nice ass. She stood a little straighter when she saw him. “Hey Monroe, you want the usual?”

“Just get me a beer for now,” Monroe turned to scan the room. Everyone seemed to be having a good time. The women weren't dancing anymore, but one of them was moaning loud enough to be heard over the music. He turned back to the bar, picked up his beer and took a long swallow. He took the beer with him into the kitchen and out the side door. He reached into his pocket for his cigarettes, remembered he was out. It was just as well. There had been too many cigarettes, too many drinks, in the past few days. What he really needed was to eat a good meal, go home, shower and sleep in his own bed.

At this point of the party, Monroe doubted that he'd be missed much if he took off. He headed back inside and out the front to where his bike was parked. He pulled away from the curb, decided that he needed Chinese food in his life, so he headed to the best Chinese place in town: Mama Jade's.

When he got there, he started to sweat the second he stepped inside. Even with the door open and a fan on, it was probably twenty degrees warmer than outside. Jade herself was behind the counter; she smiled at the sight of him. “Where have you been, Monroe? You want the usual?”

“Yes, please,” he replied. “I've got to grab some cigarettes, I'll be back in a few.” From experience, Monroe knew that it would take about fifteen minutes, enough time to head to the corner store. It was one of the few places in this neighborhood without bulletproof glass protecting the clerk.

The owner was behind the counter when he walked in. Tom was a big man, built like a tree. He had a square jaw and always offered a smile, but he was certainly not someone to fuck with. The week he'd opened the store about five years before, two guys figured him for an easy mark; they'd both been in the hospital for weeks. After that, no one else really tried. “What's up, Monroe?”

“Waiting on some food from Jade's. How about you?”

“Same shit, different day, my friend,” Tom replied. “What can I get you?”

“I need some rolling papers, a pack of smokes and whatever you've got for a headache.”

“Rough night?”

“Rough couple of days,” Monroe answered. He headed to the first  aisle, found the small selection of medicines and stared at the boxes. The bell over the front door chimed; he paid no attention until he heard the person who walked in greet Tom. He recognized Drea's voice, turned to see her looking over the small selection of ice cream. “Hey Drea.”

She started at the sound of his voice but tried to hide it when she turned to look at him. “Hi, Monroe. How are you?”

“Good. You?” Monroe had a lot of experience reading people, and she was coming across as nervous.

“Great, thanks.” There was something forced about her tone. She smiled, but it didn't really reach her eyes. “I'm just grabbing some ice cream before I've got to get my food.” Monroe watched her closely; her shoulders were rigid and her hand shook slightly as she actually grabbed the container.

“Where did you order from?” Monroe approached the counter, stood behind her as she stepped to the counter to pay.

“I'm trying the Chinese place across the street.”

“That's where I ordered from, too. It's the best place in town.”

“I guess I'll find out,” she took her bag from Tom. “Bye guys. Have a good one.”

“I'll walk with you. My food should be about done.” Monroe opened his wallet, handed Tom a twenty and shoved his purchases into his pockets. “What did you order?”

“Sesame chicken, why?”

“It's called making conversation.” Monroe walked ahead of her to the door, held it open for her. She gave him a look he couldn't read as she stepped out onto the street.

“Why are you making conversation?” she asked, once he followed her out the door.

“You're awfully cranky tonight, aren't you?” Monroe opened the pack of cigarettes and took one out. “Do you want one?”

“No,” she snapped. “And if I'm cranky, that's even more reason not to have a conversation with me.”

“Whoa, there's no need to get hostile, Drea. We're going to the same place. We know each other. Is everything alright with you?” Monroe knew the answer to the question before he asked it. He couldn't help but wonder if her sudden bitchiness was a result of her cousin being in town.

“Great. Fine. Never better.” It was so obviously a lie. It was written all over her face as she shoved her hair behind her ears and started to walk away from him.

Monroe decided to call her on it. “You're a really shitty liar, you know that, right?” He didn't expect Drea to whirl around and face him.

“I'm just making conversation,” she told him, her voice cold. “Being polite when I'd much rather tell you to piss off. Excuse me, I need to get my food and get home.”

“Is that because Frankie's visiting you? Are the two of you having a nice little reunion? Or is he the reason you've got a stick up your ass tonight?” Monroe was sure that she'd get pissed at that, and she didn't disappoint.

Anger flared through her eyes, but she didn't snap back at him. Instead, she eyed him for a moment. “If you wanted to ask about Frankie, you should have started with that.” Her voice was calm, cool and collected. “How'd you know he was here?”

“People talk, especially when the name Gagliardi is involved,” Monroe answered. “There's lots of talk going around.”

“You got something to ask? Ask it.” She folded  her arms over her chest in a defensive gesture that told him he'd gotten under her skin. It had been his intention, but he hadn't expected the sweep of regret when sadness settled on her face.

“Is it true that you're re-opening the porn business?” he asked bluntly.

“So what if I am?” she asked finally.

“You might have wanted to mention that, especially after what happened the last time,” Monroe said.

“Fuck you,” she said so softly he wasn't sure that he'd heard her right.

“Drea...”

“Oh, no. Don't Drea me. Don't backtrack.” She shook her head. “I'll give Nightshade what Gagliardi did, not a penny more. Now, piss off.”

Monroe let her go; he'd pushed too hard and too far. He'd meant to get her to open up, but she'd stalked away from him with a look that suggested she'd like to fill him with holes. She entered the restaurant, emerged a moment later and left without looking in his direction. With a sigh, Monroe pulled his phone out of his pocket, dialed Buster's number and let the call ring through. “What's up, Monroe?”

“I just ran into Drea,” Monroe answered. He gave a quick breakdown of what had happened. “I pushed too hard. I'll go and talk to her tomorrow after she's cooled off a bit.”

“Not the best idea,” Buster told him. “Let's have someone who hasn't pissed her off go and talk to her.”

Monroe knew that Buster was right. “Yeah, alright. See you tomorrow.”

Chapter Three

Drea let the front door of Love and Lace slam behind her. She turned off the alarm, flipped the open sign and went about the morning ritual of getting the place ready. The lights went on, and so did the coffee pot, she checked the messages to find none and, finally, she woke the computer/cash register up from sleep mode. If today went like a normal day, it would be slow for the morning and most of the afternoon. Slow wasn't good. Slow didn't pay the bills. Love and Lace didn't pay the bills. Drea's inheritance paid the bills, and she'd burned through almost all of it.

Her phone began to ring inside of her tote bag. She fished it out, saw it was Sarah's number on the screen, and smiled. “It's about time that you called me back, bitch.”

“Frankie told them, right? He told them that it's all going to be taken care of, right?”

“What's going on, Sarah?” she asked, even as the question made her realize that her Sarah knew why Frankie had come to Detroit, but hadn't warned her. It was a stinging blow, but she swallowed it down and focused on the nervousness in Sarah's voice.

“What's going on is Matt is missing. He hasn't been home in two days! He doesn't answer his phone. I tried to track it with the lost phone app, but it's nowhere to be found.”

“Did you go to the cops?” Drea was pretty sure that she knew the answer, but if Sarah had panicked and involved them, the whole situation had just gotten about a million times worse.

“Of course, I didn't call the cops,” Sarah snapped. “Frankie says that you're going to help them. You'd better help them, Drea, because I you don't...” she trailed off at the sound of a scream in the background. “I've got to go, the kids are miserable little shits. They want their father and so do I, Drea. So do I.”

Drea stood and stared at the phone in her hand until the bell over the door rang. She turned, plastered her retail smile on her face, but let it fade at the sight of Buster standing there. It wasn't the first time that he'd been in her shop; he and his wife were fans of lacy romantic-style lingerie. The look on his face today told her that he wasn't there to shop; more likely he was there to pick up the conversation that she'd cut off with Monroe the night before. “Hey, Buster. What's up?”

“You got a minute?” he asked. “I think that we need to talk.”

“Talk or threaten?” Drea looked out the front window and saw that Einstein and Bones were at the curb.

“Talk,” he replied.

“If you just wanted to talk, you wouldn't have those two standing outside doing their level best to look intimidating.” Drea didn't want to have this conversation with Buster, not now or ever. She was willing to pay to play, give Nightshade a stipend, but she really didn't want them involved any further than that. Certainly she didn't want them to think they had any sort of say in what she did or how she did it.

“For the record, it's not working. Since you're here, I'm assuming that Monroe told you my terms and you don't like them.”

“The only reason Nightshade took that money from your father, blood money, was because we were led to believe that he was untouchable. In order to keep the peace, we took it and stayed out of each other's way the best that we could. We will not do that this time. If you pick up business as usual with the porn, we're going to have a problem.”

“What it is that you consider business as usual, Buster?” Drea was slightly embarrassed when she realized that he must have known the full extent of her father's enterprise. She was more pissed off at the implication that she would simply let things go back to the way that they were.

“I'm talking about the women he trafficked so that he could exploit them and profit from it,” Buster said bluntly. A look that could only be described as disgust crossed his face. “That can't happen again,” he added as if she'd need to be convinced.

Buster didn't know her, none of Nightshade really did, so she shouldn't have felt deeply offended that he thought she'd do despicable things just to make a profit, but she was. “Let me ease your mind. Anyone who works for me will be doing so willingly, of their own choice, and only if they can be legally employed. I give you my word.” She didn't expect him to take it.

“No offense, Drea, but your word doesn't mean much to me right now. Seems to me, after everything went down the last time, you'd think twice before running around behind our backs.” His tone made it clear that Nightshade hadn't forgotten what she had cost them.

She hadn't forgotten either. She'd set in motion the events that led to Danny Benson dying, leaving behind a very pregnant wife and a child who would never actually get to meet their father. Collateral damage was something she hadn't considered. If she was tasked to make the choice to kill Carlos again, knowing what it would cost innocents, she'd likely have made a different decision, but she couldn't go back.

“I had a decision to make and I made it. You know now, so what happens next?” With Sarah and the kids in danger, she'd done the only thing that she could. Truthfully, running her plans by Nightshade had never even occurred to her. She was now partners in the porn business with Frankie. He'd handle the day-to-day things; she'd make all the final and financial decisions. It was most likely the biggest mistake of her life, but even if it all went to hell, Drea would known that she'd done everything she could.

“That depends on you,” he replied as he stepped closer. “If you're telling the truth, if you're on the up and up, everything will be fine. If you're lying, you will regret it.”

“Here's the truth. I will give Nightshade ten thousand a month, just like Gagliardi did, and everyone will be a consenting adult. If we're clear, you need to go. I've work to do.”

“I'll go when I'm good and ready,” Buster replied with obvious annoyance. “There's something else that you need to do as far as your business is concerned. There's a series of tapes, distributed by your father and filmed by your brother, that should never see the light of day again.”

“I know the ones you're talking about,” she replied. Drea had forced herself to watch every last one of them, even though it had made her physically ill more than once. The implication that she'd release the tapes pissed her off more than him believing that she'd go and start purchasing people. Didn't he remember what Carlos had done to her?

“I want you to hand them over to us.”

“I can't do that,” Drea replied. “The master tapes have been destroyed. I destroyed them along with the digital files.”

“Nothing digital is every really gone,” he pointed out.

“No, you're right about that. I can't take them off of the internet, or people's home computers. I can tell you that I smashed and burned the hard drives. It's the best that I can do.”

“And again, we're supposed to just believe you?”

“Fuck you,” she shot back, even though she knew that it was a weak retort. “Believe what you want, Buster.” A sudden and unexpected rush of tears burned at the back of her eyes, but Drea would rather have shot herself in the face than let them fall. Weakness wasn't something that anyone respected, Uncle Tony had taught her that, yet here she was about to turn into a blubbering idiot. “I'm not a monster, not like they were.”

Buster stared at her without response long enough to make her uncomfortable. He stepped forward, and she was sure that the situation was going to go completely downhill, but instead he smiled. “I do believe that.”

“Fantastic,” Drea retorted dryly. “Not to be rude, but I really do have things that I need to do.” Specifically, she needed to find Frankie.

“Before I go, Caroline's got a birthday coming up. She's planning a party. I'm sure that you'll get an invitation.”

Of course he wouldn't want her at that, which was a shame. Caroline was a sweetheart; all of the Nightshade women were, actually. “Don't worry, I'll make sure that I'm busy that night,” she assured him.

“That's not what I was going to say at all. I was going to say that I hope you'll be able to come, because Caroline likes you,” Buster replied. “She'll want you there. There's no reason why you shouldn't come, Drea, especially if you're telling me the truth right now.”

“I am. If I'm free, I'll be there,” she told him.

“Good,” Buster smiled, it even almost reached his eyes. “See you around.”

<#<#<#<#

Frankie was staying at a hotel near the Riverwalk. It was small, but nicer than he should have been able to afford if he was as broke as he claimed to be. Drea let it slide, choosing instead to focus on the more pressing issue of Matt.

“Hey, Drea. What's so important?” Frankie's hair was rumpled as if he'd been sleeping. The bed was also unmade.

“Where's Matt?”

“I don't know. At home? At work? I don't have his schedule down,” Frankie sighed. “Did you really wake me up to ask about Matt?”

“Matt hasn't been home or to work in a couple of days. I talked to Sarah. She's worried.” Drea was starting to get worried, too. She'd called hospitals to check if they had Matt, or any John Doe, matching his description. She'd even called the medical examiner's office just to be sure. He'd simply vanished. “Looks like he got grabbed. Care to tell me what you know about that?”

“I had nothing to do with anything about Matt getting grabbed. Are you fucking sure?” Panic was all over Frankie's face, which made Drea inclined to believe that he was telling the truth. “Maybe there was an accident or something?”

“No, Frankie. There was no accident. What was he up to? If anyone knows, it'd be you.”

Frankie sat down on the edge of the bed, crossed his arms over his chest and sighed heavily. “He had this chick on the side, some woman he met when he was working at that delivery company.”

Matt had worked at that delivery company five or six years before. Drea's mind struggled to get around the fact that he'd been cheating on her friend essentially as long as they'd been together. “Do you know her?”

“Yeah, why?” Frankie asked skeptically.

“You're going to call her, see if Matt is there,” Drea replied. “Does Sarah know?”

“He's not exactly discreet,” Frankie shrugged his shoulders. “I'll call her, but she might not answer. She doesn't really like me all that much.”

Drea bit back a sarcastic comment. Her tongue should have been permanently split for all the times she'd bit down to keep an even keel. It was like  being a teenager all over again. “Just make the call already.” She ignored the pounding throb behind her eyes.

The mistress really didn't like Frankie; Drea could hear the nasal tone of her voice from across the room as she cursed Frankie up, down and sideways. Under any other circumstances, it would have been amusing, but all she could feel was the pressure in her head moving down to her shoulders as it became clear that Matt wasn't with her.

“What now?” Frankie demanded.

“Now, we call the powers that be and see if they've got him.” Drea wasn't looking forward to the call because if they didn't have him, they were going to have many questions about where he could have gone and what could have happened. Loose ends were not acceptable.

“Wait, if they don't...”

“Yeah, Frankie, I know what'll happen.” Drea didn't see another way.

“Before we do that, let me go back home. Let me talk to people we know, figure out what happened. If anyone can find him, it's me.” Frankie rose to his feet. He ran his hands through his hair, a nervous tic. “Probably by the time that I get there, he'll be home already.”

“We're on a clock,” Drea said slowly. “It doesn't matter if they have him or don't, either way it looks bad if we don't tell them he's missing.”

“Give me until tomorrow night. If I don't find him, I'll go to them myself,” Frankie offered. “I know that I've fucked up a lot of things. Let me do this. I won't fuck it up.

“Alright, go. Keep me updated,” Drea told him. It was a long shot. She had a feeling that Matt was beyond getting found, more like someone walking their dog would find him in a field or marsh somewhere.

“I will,” he promised. “I've got to say, this is kind of nice, us getting along. My father would have liked to see this.” It was the first time that Frankie had spoken to her of his father without extreme bitterness. “I need to pack and find a flight.”

“I'll leave you to it, I've got to get back to the store,” Drea told him. Really, she just wanted to go home and climb into bed, but she couldn't because there was too much to be done.

In the time that she'd been with Frankie, Drea missed a delivery for bikinis with tiny LED lights sewn into the fabric. She crumpled the delivery notice up, unlocked the front door and stepped back inside. She put on a pot of coffee, settled down and waited for someone to come in the door.

It was a long wait. No customers came in. The phone didn't even ring. All Drea could do was sit there and think about how for the first time in a long time, she was so lonely that it actually hurt. Something had changed inside of her, she didn't know what, but lately all of her emotions were just so close to the surface, she had almost no control over them. Like nearly breaking down in front of Buster earlier. Maybe it was exhaustion; she couldn't remember the last good night of sleep she'd had. It could have been the stress; Drea was pretty sure that she was getting an ulcer. Or maybe it was just that she'd finally stopped believing her own lie that she didn't need anyone.