Page 14 of Rough Road

Baseball players had their traditions. Letting the beard grow. Not washing the jersey. Keeping the cleats from winning year to winning year. But when things went bad, there were haircuts and hot shaves, new jerseys, new equipment, something that made them believe this would be the change that worked. Grier needed one of those. Something to break his string of bad luck.

He’d managed to catch a few hours’ sleep and now he needed to work on the things that kept the club going, the shipments and the payments and the assignments. But all he wanted to do was find Fiona and London, bring them home and spend every day making this up to his wife and daughter.

He’d put Carl and Jim on the street to rattle cages, shakedown whoever they could find. Hamilton stood beside him at the bar, Autumn wiping the counter on her side. Hamilton nodded to her as she served Sage a beer. “Not the same without Jez back there.”

Grier nodded. “I know. Couldn’t save her either, could I?” His blood burned with anger and he clenched his fist on the bar.

“I’m not saying that.”

“True though, right?” He narrowed his eyes into a glare. “Everybody’s thinking it. You’re thinking it.”

Sage gripped his shoulder. “Nobody believes Jez dying is your fault.”

He shook off Sage’s hand and turned. Probably not smart to pick a fight in a room full of guys who’d hated him for a while, only liked him because he’d married up, and probably now hated him again. But he needed this, to clear his head the only way he knew how. He needed to throw a punch, take a punch, get the bad out to make room for the good. And no time like the present. He pushed back his stool and shoved Sage.

Sage put up his hands and backed away. Then Hamilton stood and walked out. “Goddammit. Get back here.”

This time, the hand on his shoulder whirled him around, and he swung his fist in a wide arc that caught Kye on the chin. A man who understood. Kye swung back his fist landed against Grier’s jaw, and Grier jerked backward. They exchanged swing for swing, pushing each other further into the room then back toward the door until they exploded through and ended up on the concrete outside.

Kye leveled his shoulder into Grier’s midsection and shoved him into the wall. “You need more?” He moved back, his breaths in short puffs that matched Grier’s.

“I messed this all up.” Grier wiped a stream of blood from his lip with the back of his hand.

“And now, you’ll fix it.” He opened his mouth and stretched his skin. “Had to aim for my face.” He walked back toward the clubhouse. “Come on. Let’s get cleaned up and figure out what to do next.”

Grier had thought a fight would get the anger out, help him to clear his head enough he could form a plan, and he would know what to do. Sadly, it solved nothing. “Go ahead. I’ll be there in a little while.” He wanted to get out of there, find a place that didn’t remind him of her and her perfume and all the things about her Tyler Sedotal was probably busy trying to destroy.

He climbed on his bike before Kye could stop him then zoomed out of the lot. He needed time. The business would wait long enough for him to return. He drove through Southie to the old neighborhood, where he’d grown up in a group home after running away from the last foster home. Not that the group home was better. But he’d found a way out of there, been smart enough to figure out how to stay in school and still not have to go back there.

The old group home had been converted to a dance studio that was no longer open. The windows, high on the walls, were boarded up and the whole place was enclosed by a makeshift fence. He sat out front staring, remembering the time the O’Hally brothers had locked him in the basement with the old, creaking boiler and no light. He’d been ten and stuck down there for two days before anyone found him. He also remembered the day Kye showed up. Thank God for Kye. Together, they were unstoppable, but then he’d been fostered out. He still came back for Grier, though, helped him get out of there.

For a dollar, maybe less, Grier would’ve set the old place on fire, but it was mostly concrete and block so it would just become another eyesore in a neighborhood with way too many eyesores. He stared at the building and through a crack in one of the boards on the front window, he saw light. Like electricity light.

He crossed the street on foot and made short work of climbing the fence. A long time ago, he’d gone inside, when it was a dance studio. Walls had been knocked down, the old dirty gray paint had been covered in stark white with red accents, and the dingy carpeted floors had been stripped and covered with a high sheen hardwood. They’d taken out the day room and made it into a shop with racks of sequined costumes and those little skirts ballet dancers wore. Rooms, where he’d endured all manner of torture, had been transformed into a place where kids learned to twirl and tumble. But Grier hadn’t been able, even with all the transformation, to see anything but his own memories.

He stayed in the shadows of the building and crossed to the back of the building. The grass was damp on the side and he slipped into a tiny trench full of water and got a boot full of sludge and mud. He couldn’t imagine why he’d decided to do this, morbid curiosity maybe, but he moved through the side yard and stopped at the corner of the building and counted. Twelve bikes, three guys outside smoking, one black SUV, and one way out. The math didn’t favor Grier, but damned if he was leaving. Not until he knew who was inside this place. He shot a text with the address—one he still remembered—to Kye and Sage. Then he snapped a couple of pictures—bikes, guys, the license plate, before he crept back around the building to his bike.

There were no clubs in this part of Southie. This was gang territory because those guys didn’t mind the “up and coming” aspect of the neighborhood. Motorcycle clubs like the Demons didn’t favor so much traffic near their business center. Too risky to run big trucks full of stolen merchandise and black-market drugs down such widely traveled streets. And it wasn’t like this was some sort of secluded hideout. This was so close to downtown Southie he could smell the garlic from Alfredo’s Italian Kitchen.

If Grier would’ve had any Spidey senses, they would’ve been tingling. He didn’t want to leave, but he needed intel and he needed to set up on the other side of the building. Not like he could do anything for Fiona, but at least when she returned, he’d be able to tell her he’d done what he could to save her business. No other club was coming to town. Not now.

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Fiona’s face would never heal if she couldn’t figure out a way to get him to stop hitting her. Every time she looked in the mirror, she had a new bruise or something else that needed stitching up. Now that he’d stopped trying to sleep with her, he’d taken to using her as a punching bag, and it was starting to piss her off.

She looked again in the mirror at her face. Only her eyes appeared to be hers. Nothing else matched the woman she’d been a week ago. And, God as her witness, she would make him pay. She imagined the look on his face when she took the first shot. The thought gave her comfort and she blew out a slow breath. Anything bigger or faster than the shallow inhales and exhales might have killed her. But at least he hadn’t taken London or hurt her.

London slept quietly in her seat with Fiona on the floor next to her. He’d taken the chair and the rug and now she had the hard floor and the mirrors and nothing else. Someone brought her food a couple of times a day—energy shakes with lots of protein and a straw since she couldn’t open her mouth wide enough to eat—and she had plenty of supplies for the baby. So, there was that.

The door swung open and Tyler stood, same sick smile as usual on his face, same angry eyes glaring at her. “Stand up.”

Easier said than done but she used the bar and pulled herself to her feet.

“You think you’re pretty smart, don’t you?” Normally, Fiona would have answered with a reply that would have let him know she was certainly smarter than him, but she couldn’t speak at all anymore. And sarcasm would only make it worse. “Password protection. And my guys can’t crack it.”

Of course they couldn’t. They were little better than circus clowns who’d lost their circus.

She nodded and he jerked his head toward the door. “We’re going into the office and if you try anything—” he picked up the baby chair, “—I’m gonna take it out on her. Do you understand?”