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“Um, well, not to me, but they might’ve to Zoe. Maybe if we combine forces…we can shut these perverts down.” She held his gaze, knowing this was a big thing to ask but the stakes were high enough, right? “Bronx…? Can’t you put aside your differences for a short while for a common goal?”
She could tell he wasn’t sure. Maybe she was asking too much. She didn’t know what water was beneath that bridge between them but in all honesty, if she hoped to have Bronx in her life at all, she had to hope that they could mend fences because she wasn’t going to give up her best friend simply because their guys couldn’t get along. She stepped closer and looped her arms around his neck to plead as sweetly as she was able. “Please?”
He was wavering, she could feel it. But he was also pissed off about it, too. Well, he’d just have to find a way to get past it.
***
Being a serial foster kid, bouncing from one house to another, you start to recognize the usual suspects as well as the signs of someone who’s used to shifting from one place to another without batting an eye. Bronx knew Jax and Hunter — would you believe at one time they’d been friends? — and their association went all the way to junior high. They’d had a lot in common — shitty childhoods had a way of bonding people — and for awhile they’d been thick as thieves until that one summer night when everything had gone to hell.
Bronx gently disengaged Delainey from her grip around his chest and walked to the refrigerator to grab a beer. “We used to be friends,” he told her, surprised at himself for sharing but then there was something about Delainey that unhinged his jaw. “We were real close for a time, around junior high. We had a lot in common and I guess that saying birds of a feather, flock together, was true for us. There was a group of us, little bad asses for sure, and we were trouble all around town. People saw us coming and and they immediately started muttering under their breath with nothing nice to say. I guess we deserved it, but you know, sometimes we did stuff just to live up to the hype.”
“People can be intolerant and ignorant,” she murmured, settling in to listen to his confession. “But you were just kids. Someone should’ve realized that.”
“Well, don’t paint us out to be little saints because we probably deserved half of their scorn. The thing was, we were kids. We didn’t know shit about life but we thought we did. Hell, we thought we knew everything. And there was no telling us what to do either.”
“Sounds typical of boys that age, right?”
He chuckled, even though this part of the story wasn’t funny. “Yeah, pretty much. Add alcohol, a little pot, and a whole lot of anger and you’ve got a pretty volatile mix all bottled up in a little kid’s body. We didn’t care about a lot and I think a few of us had real death wishes because in our lives, shit was bad.” Delainey winced with sympathy but remained silent as if she knew he needed to say this in one fell swoop or else he’d lose his nerve. “So, yeah, we did a lot of stupid shit just to feel alive or just to go numb — we lived in extremes.”
He drew a deep breath. “All right so, yeah, let’s get to the point, right? One day this guy named Sammy managed to score us some booze and we went out to this abandoned warehouse where we knew we could fuck around and not get caught. It wasn’t a safe place but hey, kids like us, we lived with danger every day so we didn’t think about just how stupid it was to be out there. It was Sammy, Frankie, Jax, Hunter and me that day and I’ll never forget how fucking hot it was. We climbed through a broken spot in the wall where it’d rotted out and spent a while exploring the place. It was dirty and disgusting — a young boy’s paradise, right? — well, we got bored and started drinking. At first, it was all good. But then Frankie started talking about weird shit, saying he wanted to climb to the top of the highest beam and jump. We laughed at first but then Frankie said something to piss me off — hell, I can’t even remember what we were talking about — and I got mad, telling him to fucking do the world a favor and jump. I didn’t think he’d do it so I dared him. I knew he’d puss out, which is why I told him to do it. I wanted to shame him so he’d stop talking shit. But the fucker…I don’t know…he did it. He climbed to the top and then…he jumped. Like fucking swan dived straight to the motherfucking floor. His body made this sick splat and then he just sort of started oozing. Fuck…it was pretty raw. Of all the fucked up shit I’ve been through…that ranks up there pretty high and that’s saying a lot.”
Delainey looked stricken. “Was he…dead?”
He barked a short, ugly laugh. “Yep. It was lights out Frankie. No more dealing with whatever made you hate your life.”
She covered her mouth in horror. “He was just a kid. What happened after that? Did you call the police?”
“Jax and Hunter they wanted to, but I bugged out of there. I wasn’t getting caught in that warehouse for nothing. So we all bailed. Someone — probably Jax — made an anonymous call and the cops came. It was ruled an accident when it was discovered Frankie had alcohol in his system. I mean, it was an accident so that much was true and I didn’t see how telling the cops that we were there with him was going to do much in our favor, you know? None of us were innocent. I wasn’t the only one egging him on but I was the one who really pushed it. It’s my fault he’s dead.”
“You were just a messed up kid, Bronx,” she tried to tell him but he knew better. “You can’t shoulder the burden of that night for the rest of your life. Frankie shouldn’t have climbed up the beam. He made a bad choice and it cost him his life. You can’t be held responsible for someone else’s actions. Just as you can’t be held responsible for whatever terrible thing happened to you at the hands of an adult who was supposed to protect you.”
Bronx shook his head. “Yeah, I wish I could believe that. Maybe if I wasn’t so messed up I wouldn’t have been egging him on but trying to talk him down. What the fuck was wrong with me? Maybe my mom was right…I’m just a bad seed, you know?”
“No you’re not,” she disagreed vehemently. “Stop that, right now. You got dealt a bad hand, that’s all. Don’t make it into something it’s not. No wonder you’re buried under guilt and shame. You should be thankful you’re not more screwed up with everything you’ve been through.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” he muttered with an exhale, setting his beer down. “So, after Frankie died, Jax and Hunter were transferred to a new foster home in another school district and Sammy moved away. Our little band of bad asses disbanded after that.”
“So the reason Jax and Hunter don’t like you…is because of what happened to Frankie?”
He shrugged. “Yeah, that was the start I guess. And then over the years we just kept adding to the bad blood, especially when I went with the Dogs and they went with the Kings. Now it’s just a given that we hate each other.”
“But why?”
“Because that’s just the way that it is.”
“That’s stupid. You guys had something terrible happen when you were kids. You all needed therapy, not motorcycles,” she said. “With everything that’s happened, don’t you think it might be time to mend that fence?”
He graced her with a short look. “Honey, most times your naive nature is pretty cute but right now it’s just irritating. No, we can’t just mend the fence. We ain’t gonna ever be friends again and that’s just the reality of it. First of all, there’s too much bad blood between us; second, our club members can’t spend more than two minutes in each other’s company before all hell breaks loose. How’s it gonna look if the leaders start tipping back beers together and watching football like it’s all fine and dandy?”
She shrugged. “I guess it’ll look like you guys realized your grudge is stupid and it’s time to grow up.”
Unreal. She had no clue. “Babe…stick to what you know or else you’re gonna get your pretty ass in hot water real quick. Me, Jax and Hunter…ain’t never gonna happen. Ever.”
And with that, he walked out of the kitchen and into the bedroom because he needed some breathing space. He didn’t kn
ow how she got him to confess all that shit about Jax and Hunter but Delainey was something else. Now, he just wished he’d kept her in the dark because he could see the wheels turning in her head. She just wanted everyone to get along but that ain’t the way his world worked. Besides, all this noise was just an irritating distraction from the real problems in his life. Someone was trying to kill him and if he didn’t get the shipment to Jaime on time, he’d have more than one person etching his name into a bullet. The past would just have to remain in the past — he had the future to worry about.
***
Zoe knew Jax and Hunter were going to be pissed as hell that she went snooping around in their past again but this was important. She waited until both men had kissed their son goodnight and returned to the living room where she was nervously tapping her pen against her notebook, trying to formulate the best plan of attack. Should she just come out and admit what she’d been up to or beat around the bush, maybe feel out their mood? Naw, the best way to remove a bandage was to just rip it off so she blurted out, “I went to 2219 Bluebell Lane today with Dee and those terrible people are still fostering kids!”
Jax stopped and scowled. “What did you just say? All I heard was Bluebell Lane and that in itself was bad enough.”
Hunter answered for her, his voice steely. “She said she went to 2219 Bluebell Lane and found out that good ol’ Georgie and Millie are still fostering kids. Now, why did you do that exactly?”
“Because it’s not right what happened in that place. How many kids have they hurt? How many lives have they ruined with their perverted little secrets? I can’t stand by and let them continue what they’re doing. Dee and I…we’re trying to find a way to stop them.”
“Woman, can’t you keep your nose out of other people’s business for just one damn minute?” Hunter asked in a terse tone but she didn’t care. She’d risk Hunter’s anger for a cause this important. And besides, he was going to be even angrier once he heard the rest of the story.
“There’s more,” she said, lifting her chin. Jax looked exasperated and motioned for her to continue. “Dee’s boyfriend, or maybe he’s just a friend…he’s a Dog. As in, like the alpha Dog, I guess. He’s the leader.”
“Are you telling me motherfucking Bronx Harris is the guy your friend is shacked up with? Oh, this just gets better and better. Fuck that. The guy is poison. Tell your friend to dump him like a bad habit before she gets hurt. Chances are he’s using her for something because that’s his way.”
