We drifted for a long while. I had settled on my side, tucked into his side. He had one arm around my back, the other lightly roaming and caressing me, soothingly and teasingly all at once, and I knew we were not done. Eventually he slowed down and lifted his hand to my face, tipping my chin so he could catch my eyes with his own.
"Sienna, I need us to be really clear and on the same page about what we were talkin' about earlier. I know you think you gotta take care of shit with Joey Ronn. But I'm tellin' you, I need you to step down. I get that you want to be involved with takin' him down. I see you got reason, and you deserve to have a piece of him. But this is seriously bigger than that-I haven't figured it all out. But until I do, you have to promise me you'll drop your plan, whatever it is, and lay low while I sort it. You got me? You with me on this? You gonna step down?"
I held his gaze for a long minute, reading his eyes, which were holding mine openly, deeply, seriously. I said the only thing that made sense.
"Okay, Dom. I'll step down."
He practically squeezed the life out of me then, as he tucked his face into my neck and pulled me back on top of him. I squealed a little to get him to ease up. He laughed, and did.
"Good, babe. That's the right choice." He pulled back from me, and I rested my forearms above his shoulders on the bed so I could look into his face. "I promise you, Sienna, I'll let you know when somethin' is gonna go down, and I'll keep you informed when it's safe for you to be. But I'm keeping you safe, first and foremost. You gotta understand, I got a stake in this, too. So I won't drop it. It's priority for me, too. It will be sorted, and Joey Ronn will go down. But you are not doin' this alone anymore, and you are not in charge of the action. Okay? I am. We clear?"
"Yeah, we're clear, Dom. But I don't fully get it. What's your stake in it? I mean, outside of me, what's going on that you gotta figure out, that I don't know?"
"Baby, I don't wanna talk about that, not right now, not tonight. I'll tell you sometime, but for tonight it's been enough, yeah? Can we give it a rest and just be, now?"
"Yeah, Dom, we can do that. We can give it a rest. No more tonight." And I offered him a little sad smile.
Then he kissed me, softly and sweetly, and his tongue slipped between my lips and met my own, and they danced together lazily and briefly. And soon after, we drifted easily into sleep.
Chapter Eight
Dom
My phone buzzed in my back pocket, and I reached down to read the text.
Pres:My office, compound. 15 min.
It wasn't a group text. Well, this would be interesting.
I'd been hanging out in the main room at Hardcore, watching over Sienna, doing the normal thing. If one could call serving time at Hardcore normal. But at least it allowed me the obvious benefit of being able to keep an eye on my woman, making sure she was good, that nobody was hassling her.
Since she was busy talking to some guy I'd seen around a few times, I figured she was okay with him, doing her job, safe enough. Still, it never hurt to have backup. I headed over to Knuckles, who was at the bar, chatting up the hot bartender.
"Yo, Knuck, I gotta take off for a few. Watch out for my woman, yeah?"
Knuckles looked out to locate Sienna, then glanced back at me with a nod. "Sure thing."
"Thanks, man." And with a final look at Sienna, who was not taking note, I took off.
I hadn't talked to Clav one-on-one in many weeks. Time was, we were buddies. We'd hung around the compound together a lot over the last six years, since I joined the Storm. Sure, he was of the older generation, had been in the MC for decades. Best friend to our old Pres, Duke, who had passed along from a heart attack several months ago. Duke was a great man, a fine president. He always did right by us. I figured he'd be turning in his grave if he knew how far we'd sunk down the tubes since his passing.
Clav had seemed the natural choice to take on the lead role after Duke died. Shit-poor reality was biting us all in the ass.
After that night with Sienna, when she told me all about her sister and the porno lot, I knew there was something really dark going down with Clav. From her description of the two MC guys on the lot, it was obvious that she had seen Manny and Clav there; they were those two guys she had described. And from her description of the time, the weekend of the big snow in late February, I also knew that that was one of the last times anyone had seen Manny alive.
So if both her sister and Manny Fidel died that weekend, it only made sense to presume that their deaths were somehow linked. There was a tie there, but I didn't have enough information to figure it out yet.
In the last few days, I had been raising the specter of Manny some, asking a couple of my Storm brothers if they had ever been out to the porno lot to serve as security for Ronn out there in his little porno world. I also was trying to figure out exactly who had seen Manny last, and where.
So maybe I was raising eyebrows among the brass with my questions. Maybe people were talking. As far as I was concerned, I didn't give a shit. Manny was the best friend I'd ever had, and I felt like shit for not having tried harder earlier to get some serious answers. But now I was done laying low. With the knowledge from Sienna about her sister, it was past time I kicked up the dust. The smog of silence was killing my soul.
But Clav, our esteemed President, him I had not yet talked to. And now I knew that he had been there that day. He was likely the only one who really knew anything. Fuck, he was probably involved in it. I determined that tonight would provide some answers. The way I saw it, even if he was the Pres, he owed me honesty. For Manny.
When I rolled up on my bike, the compound was mostly dark. Damn, this place was turning into a ghost town. It was a fucking shame. I was a little surprised that Clav even used his office anymore. I hadn't been here in weeks. I might have gotten a little nostalgic, but this was not the time to dwell.
I let myself into the main building, which was still dark, and flipped some switches for light. Looking around, I saw that nobody was in there. I headed back to the hall off the bar and saw from under the door that the Pres's office did have light. I rapped on the door with a knuckle, calling out, "Yo, Pres, it's Dom."
"Get your ass in here and sit. Shit." And we were off to a great fucking start.
I went in, shut the door behind me, and took in my options before choosing to avail myself of the more comfortable couch, rather than one of the chairs facing the desk. This might have thrown him off; he was sitting at his desk, leaning forward on both elbows, looking about ready to rail into me from a beleaguered position of authority. I was not going to take that shit. I hadn't done anything wrong.
I decided to set the tone on a more even keel. "Yeah, sure, I'd love a drink. Johnnie Walker, if you got it." I knew he had it.
He looked at me a minute, pursing his lips. "You watch yourself, Dom." Still, he got up, fixed me the drink, and brought it over to me at the couch. He took the armchair, and we studied one another for several seconds while I sipped.
He looked tired. His salt-and-pepper head of long frizz was tied back in a low ponytail, his mostly gray beard hanging down off his chin a few inches. His eyes had dark circles hanging underneath, and the lines on his face seemed more deeply ingrained, especially the ones between his brows, like he spent all his time lately frowning something fierce.
Sienna had not been far off; the man scowled an awful lot. Didn't used to be like that. There was a day not so long ago when his laughter had rung out loud and often. I guess it's lonely at the top, especially when you lose your best friend. I knew something about that, myself.
Remembering that, and the way Clav had forced us into this indentured servitude for Joey Ronn, I steeled myself. I was not here to give this man compassion or pity.
"I overheard some shit about you earlier today, Dom. You need to know. That shit you pulled last week with Fielding is comin' back to bite your ass."
This was news, though I can't say I was too surprised. I had figured that there would be some blowback at some point. I guessed we had reached that point.
"Lay it on me."
"I overheard Joey Ronn and Fielding talkin' in Ronn's office at Hardcore. Fielding wants your new woman, and he wants you dead. Ronn's worried about body count. Fielding said he'd settle for a trade-your head or your woman's bod."
Wow. Shit. I had not thought that Sienna would play in on the blowback, but I guess I had overestimated the complete shit-ball that was Fielding.
"You got anything more than that?"
"I don't know if you understand what I just said. You get what he wants? Not just a onetime use. Fielding is not fucking around. He doesn't want to just fuck Sienna and be done. On the DL, Dom. Plain language." He leaned in. "Fielding is a sick fuck. He's talking about takin' her for a sex slave."
My jaw literally dropped, and my eyes widened. No way was this shit was for real.
"So A) he puts a hit on me; or B) he wants … " I couldn't even say it. It was unthinkable. We were in 2017, right? In America? What. The. Fuck.
"Yeah, he wants. And he's not fucking around." Clav looked at me hard, like he was trying to impart some further knowledge and understanding with his eyes, which his mouth was unwilling to say.