Loving Nicole (4 page)

“Yo! Boss, we got that information you asked for,” Torch calls, claiming my attention. With one last glance at my woman, I turn around.

I have this damn feeling in the pit of my stomach. I can’t explain what it is, but it feels like I’m a bundle of nerves and my skin is crawling, like I’m being watched. It’s instinct. A skill honed in blood and death when I served overseas. It’s never let me down, so I know there is shit about to hit the fan. It fucking pisses me off. Ever since Irish’s betrayal it’s been one thing after another—like the motherfucker put a damned curse on the club. It’s made worse, because I miss the fucking traitor. Every-fucking-day, I miss him. What kind of screwed up shit is that? I’ve never admitted that to anyone, not even Nicole. What man leads others and misses a traitor, like he was still a brother? It wars in my brain. There are days I want to shed tears for the fucker. His screams haunt me, and then there are other days I want him back here, so I can fucking kill him again.

I look around at the sour faces in my office and hell, I know my day is only going to get worse. Earlier, the boys had found footage of a stranger prowling around the outside of the fence surrounding the club. The man seemed to be taking pictures. He stayed in the shadows and used a zoom lens, so he never got close enough for us to get a good picture of him. I was hoping when Torch told me he had information for me, we had somehow managed to find out who the fucker was. From the look on the faces around me, I’m thinking that’s not happening.

“Spill it.”

Frog, Freak, Torch, and Hawk are sitting around the table and not a damned one of them looks happy. Again, I feel sadness. None of my brothers I bled and fought with are here. Bull is back from the rehab, but he’s not the same. Hell, he’s not even here at the meeting. No one has seen him today. He leaves early and doesn’t get back until late in the night. When he is here, he talks to no one. I’m going to have to deal with it soon. I can’t allow it to get to the point it did with Dance…

“Well, one of you motherfuckers start talking. I got shit to do,” I growl, more because I can’t seem to shut my brain down these days.

“Yeah, like finding a monkey suit,” Freak returns.

“Screw you, I didn’t hear you telling Nikki no.”

“Woman sucked my dick like a Hoover, didn’t have the brains left to say no,” Freak jokes.

I slap him on the back of the head, not arguing, because that’s pretty much how Nicole gets her way.

“So, what the fuck is going on?”

“Someone was prowling around the Den last night. First we thought it was just a drunk wandering around in the parking lot, but not many drunks in this area that we don’t know.”

“True.”

“Sure aren’t any drunks around here who wear expensive suits,” Freak adds, punching some buttons on his keyboard and the screen zooms in on an older man, maybe in his late forties, with a suit and hat on. His steps are sure, not drunk at all and everything about him screams that he is on alert. He keeps glancing over his back to see if he is being followed. His head is tucked close and aimed at an angle that’s next to impossible to get a good view of his face.
Shit.

“Can you get a look at his face at all?” I ask watching as he walks toward Nicole’s old Mercedes that Dani drives now.

I made Nicole switch to one of the club’s Tahoes. The safety rating is better and it has more room for the baby; plus, it’s four wheel drive. She bitched and moaned, but gave in eventually.

“There’s a sketchy picture of his face, as he walks back to the club. This camera is on the outside light overlooking employee parking,” Freak answers.

“What’s he doing?”

“He’s putting a note on the windshield of Dani’s car, you can’t really see it,” Freak says.

“Maybe he’s just trying to pick her up? Lot of those men get attached to the dancers,” Frog joins in.

“Possible, though Dani’s not mentioned anything happening that was unusual.”

“Bitch wouldn’t,” Torch says, and Freak throws an elbow into him.

I don’t understand it, but Dani and Freak seem to have formed this weird platonic friendship. Or at least I think it is. Hell, as jealous as Nikki is, if it isn’t, we’ll find Dani dead in a ditch somewhere. That bitch is
not
one to mess with.

“I would have gone with the stalker fan theory, but watch what the son of a bitch does here.”

As soon as Freak gets the sentence out, we watch as the man squats down and monkeys under the car.

“Lo-jack?”

Freak motions to Hawk and Hawk hands me a small black box. A tracker, and a pretty expensive one. We’ve used them from time to time in the club. So much for hoping the club had dealt with enough drama for a while.
Fuck
.

“It could still be a crazy stalker,” Hawk says.

“To afford that kind of technology?” Freak questions and he knows exactly how expensive the little toy I’m holding costs. Our club has spent a crap-load on them in the past.

“So, he’s a crazy-rich-off-his-ass Stalker,” Hawk responds, but you can tell he’s not convinced. I’m not either.

I keep watching the screen, holding the tracker in my hand. The guy makes it through the parking lot almost to the front of the Den and raises his head briefly. Freak freezes the image on the screen. It’s piss-poor quality but you can see him even through the shaded, grainy picture. Trouble is, I don’t recognize him at all.

“Is he the same guy that was sneaking around the outside gates before?”

“The build is def’ the same. I’d say it is Drag, but there’s no way to be sure,” Torch responds.

“Beef up security. Have the prospects watching like their lives depend on it. Fuck, if we have some more shit hitting the club, their lives
will
depend on it.” I growl and stomp out of the room.

I’m pissed. I think Nicole knows what’s going on. I just don’t understand why she hasn’t talked to me about it. I’m going to have to have some words with her about it all. It pisses me off even more that once again it is her girl causing drama. I hope I’m wrong. I really fucking hope that I am, and Dani is not about to cause another fucking shit-storm to hit the club.

That dread I’ve been feeling clawing at my gut? The one where it feels like there are shoes hanging over my head about to drop? That feeling tells me I’m not wrong.

Nicole

T
he thing about
dreams? They never seem to work out like you want them to. I’m in the middle of Mountain Bridal, with my best girls around me (save Carrie, who will be back this weekend) and I’m miserable. I’m
miserable
because Dani has retreated back into the woman who begged me for help all those years ago. I’m
miserable
because I tried to spy on my future-husband. I’m
miserable
because in a round-about way I lied to him. Most of all, I’m completely
miserable,
because there is this wall between Dragon and I now. A wall
I
put there. A wall
I
need to break down and smash into a hundred thousand different pieces.

I can’t, not until I can draw Dani out of this place she’s withdrawn to. I can’t even touch it right now though, there are too many around us. Trying will only bring disaster, because Nikki and Lips will hear. If I tell anyone what is going on, it will be Dragon. I just wish I had already done it.

“I still think you should let the boys wear leather. It could be cool. Kind of a
‘Grease’
wedding with them in their leather and us wearing pink.” I look at Lips for like the twelfth time.

“My wedding is not going to be an Olivia-Newton-John musical. Not to mention, Dragon is a million times fucking cooler than John Travolta.”

“True dat,” Nikki chimes in. “Besides, it took me way too fucking long to convince Freak to wear a suit.”

“How did you convince him?” Dani asks. She’s sitting alone, holding herself away from us. It’s a bad sign. One that means I have a very limited time frame in which to talk with her. All the girls except Nikki, who is on a round like pedestal at the moment, have been fitted. There’s a lady going around putting pins in Nikki’s dress, while we watch. I’m so ready for this fitting to be over. I would never admit it to Dragon, but I’m starting to regret demanding a big wedding. I don’t even know why I did. I just wanted something big to mark my marriage to him. It might be a fucked up fairytale, but it was
my
fairytale and I wanted it to be celebrated. I was stupid. I should have dragged Dragon’s ass to Gatlinburg, Tennessee, found a chapel, married him and been done with it. Every day that we get closer to our wedding my panic increases. I have this fear that I never will get my happily ever after.

“I threatened to tell the world what his real name was,” Nikki says bringing my head back around to the conversation.

“I figured it was blow jobs, that’s how I did it with Dragon.”

The woman pinning Nikki’s dress looks up and blushes, then buries her face in the pink satin. I look over at Dani, she half-way smiles. It’s something.

“Oh, that probably didn’t hurt.” Nikki agrees. “Well that, and the private party we had with Crush.”

“Fuck me! You little hooker!” Lips responds.

Nikki flips her off. “Like you haven’t taken a ride on the Crush train.”

“Not in a long time. Six is not a sharer.”

“Sucks for you.” Nikki pipes up.

“Not so much. Six knows how to work it. Can’t deny it though, Crush did some magic shit.”

“Girl, you don’t lie.”

I’m looking over at Dani and notice the conversation has grabbed her attention. It surprises me to see the distaste on her face. I know for a fact that since Dani has broken away from Michael, she has no problem having threesomes, or what-the-heck-ever else. I don’t understand it exactly; it doesn’t jive with the young Dani I met. Still, it’s further proof that the Dani that survived Michael is not the Dani that I once knew. He took everything from her, most notably her innocence.

I notice the girl that is pinning Nikki’s dress is blushing like crazy. The boys of the Savage MC would eat her alive, it would probably be the best thing that could happen to her. Maybe I should introduce her to Frog? That boy needs a new name. I don’t understand most of the names the boys have. Dragon, of course, but the others leave me shaking my head. He told me once that Dancer got his name because he used to be a big street boxer. I shudder to think how Frog got his.

“I need a drink,” Dani speaks up, rising off of the chair, in the corner, she’s been brooding in.

“Sounds good girl, but if I don’t get back, Six will send out a search party.”

“Freak too,” Nikki adds, “we’re supposed to go to Tennessee today to pick up some shit that the boys ordered.”

“I’m out of here,” Dani says already heading to the door.

“I think I’ll join Dani. Lips, can you have Crusher come back and pick us up?”

“Yeah, where’d he go?” She asks.

“He said something about all the dresses and pink was making his cock fall off,” Nikki says.

“Can’t have that.”

“Girl, you ain’t lying,” I hear Nikki agree before I run to catch up with Dani, who just went out the door.

“Hold up, Dani!” I grumble.

She stops on the sidewalk and turns to look at me.

“Dragon will flip if you don’t show up with the other women.”

“We need to talk.”

“I’m getting a drink.”

“Then we’ll talk over drinks.”

Dani gives me the what-the-fuck-are-you-talking-about look and motions at my stomach.

I roll my eyes.

“I’ll have chocolate milk.”

Dani looks up at the sky. “This is what my life has come to. We’ll go to Weavers, I doubt the Den or Pussy’s even has chocolate milk.”

I grin, “Hey girls, tell Crush to pick us up at Weavers,” I yell back through the door of the shop, then reclose it and wrap my hand around Dani’s. We walk down the street and, if the shadow of Michael wasn’t over us, I would love every minute of it.

“You okay?”

“Not really,” Dani responds honestly.

I don’t say anything. What could I say? I totally relate. We walk the rest of the way in silence. When we make it to Weaver’s, we take a seat at one of the tables outside. A waitress comes and takes our orders. I order a foot long hot dog and a large chocolate milk. This is what baby Dragon has reduced me to. I smile. It’s
awesome
.

Dani orders a diet soda. It drives me crazy. The woman is like a size four, maybe smaller by this time, because she keeps losing weight. If I was as skinny as her ass, I’d live on nothing but doughnuts and chocolate.

We’re quiet. Dani is running her finger over the Styrofoam cup of her drink, deep in thought. I’m afraid to get into it. The waitress brings my hotdog and I smile at her. When she leaves, I decide to dig in—in all ways.

I grab the hotdog, ignoring the way the chili drops on my hands as I take a bite. I put it down, wiping my hands off while I chew.

“No more notes?”

“No.”

Well this conversation is going nowhere fast.

“We need to tell Dragon.”

“No. We. Do.
Not.
”

“Yes, we
do
. He needs to know there could be trouble on his doorstep soon. He can’t protect us, if he doesn’t know.”

“He can’t protect us anyway,” Dani argues.

“Yes, he can.”

“No, he can’t.”

“Damn it, Dani. Dragon needs to be prepared. There’s too much to lose.”

“I know that, Nic. Don’t you think I know that? Fuck. Don’t you get that I live daily with all the losses I’ve had since I met Michael Kavanagh?”

“Dani…I don’t mean…”

“I
know
what you mean, Nic. Fuck, I
know
what I’ve cost you. I do. I wake up with nightmares about it. That’s
why
I want to leave now. To protect you and little Dragon. Fuck, even to protect Dragon. I don’t want any of you to get hurt. Michael is my problem. You guys didn’t choose this.”

“You didn’t exactly choose it either, Dani.” I defend because she didn’t. Even the fucked up choices that she’s made, I couldn’t say I wouldn’t have made the exact same ones. Hell, maybe even worse ones.

“I made the choice to bring you into them. I shouldn’t have.”