Taming Blaze Read online

  father, but not in the way I’d thought he was. No, he was now connected to him in a way that might be really dangerous for him and his club. Fear gripped my chest. “Did my father ask you to kill Billy?”

  “What if he did?”

  “I’m not kidding around. I’m asking because it’s important. Are you going to kill him?”

  “Not personally, but yeah, it’s a job.”

  “So the club is going to kill him.”

  Blaze shrugged. “It’s a job, sweetheart.”

  Anger boiled up inside me. “Stop calling me sweetheart. It’s patronizing.”

  “Well, I'm just a stupid biker who doesn't have the extensive vocabulary you have, so I guess I just wouldn't know what the word patronizing means. Sweetheart.”

  Obviously he knew what patronizing meant. I wanted to smack him. Smack him for bringing me here. Smack him for being a member of his stupid club. Smack him for getting involved with my father. And above all, smack him for not being smart enough to understand when he was being set up.

  “Let me spell it out for you in small words,” I said, my words punctuated with all the rage I’d been building up inside. “Billy is not just some guy. He’s not a college freshman from Iowa with a couple of farmers for parents. Do you know what his last name is?”

  Blaze just stared at me, the muscles in his face flexing as he clenched and unclenched his jaw.

  “His last name? It’s Randolph.” I could hear my voice getting louder now, and I struggled to keep it under control. Keep calm, I told myself.

  Blaze’s face paled.

  “Does that ring any bells, sweetheart?” I asked.

  “Randolph. Are you sure?” He was suddenly much less cocky now.

  “Yes, I’m fucking sure. Do you understand what I’m talking about? The Randolphs. Your club was tagged with killing Billy Randolph. How do you not know who he is?”

  “Mad Dog agreed to it. We didn’t have the details yet.”

  “Is your club in the habit of agreeing to shit without having all the facts?”

  Blaze sighed. “It’s probably already done.”

  “How would the club do it without knowing who he is?”

  “Mad Dog is not exactly up on politics, you know. Even if they told him Billy’s name, I’m not sure he’d put two and two together.”

  “No one in the club watches the news?”

  Blaze shrugged. “They’re not brain surgeons. I wouldn’t trust them to figure it out. It was just supposed to be a hit on some college kid.”

  “Just a hit, right? So this is the kind of shit you do all the time? This is who you are?” I was angry with him for being exactly who I feared he was.

  “What do you mean, this is who I am? Your father is the head of an international smuggling operation.”

  “Yeah, and?”

  “You think he doesn’t kill people? And besides that, what the fuck do you think he smuggles? You think he’s smuggling clothes?”

  “I don’t want to hear it.”

  “No, you don’t, do you? You think your dad is some innocent guy.”

  “Of course not. I know who he is.” He had no idea. Blaze was accusing me of being blind to who my father was, but I knew my father was a monster. He was a monster, but he couldn’t do the things Blaze was insinuating.

  “No you don’t, little girl,” he said. “You don’t know who he is at all. You think I’m not a nice guy? You think us doing a hit on Billy is a not nice thing to do? Your dad is a million times worse. He’s in a class of his own.”

  “I thought this was your first time doing business with him. You have no idea what he does.”

  “No? Your dad smuggles people, sweetheart. All that shit you have- that shit you’re wearing? The hot car you drive? It’s paid for by women, maybe even kids. You know what those they're doing? They’re sure as shit not coming here to be adopted into some rich family. They’re bought. By people who are into that kind of thing. That’s where your dad’s money comes from.”

  “You don’t know that.” He didn’t have any way of knowing that. My father might be a criminal, but that - no, that was beyond him. It had to be. The problem was that when Blaze made the accusation, I knew in my gut it was something that my father certainly had the capacity to do.

  Blaze smirked, and I wanted to smack the stupid smile right off his face. I didn’t have to take his shit. I might have to stay here, but I didn’t have to make nice with him.

  Dani was back in the bedroom pouting, and I was stuck here out on the couch, unable to get what she said out of my head- the little comments she had made about my reading. She sounded genuinely surprised I was able to read. She was just as stuck up as I’d thought she would be. So much for being Mr. Nice Guy. I had cooked dinner, bought wine - what the fuck was I thinking, trying to impress her? Screw that. I didn’t need to impress her.

  I had lost my temper with her. The shit she'd said about me going legit, being smarter than what I was doing - I guess it hit a sore spot with me. What I'd said about her father trafficking people? Even if I had my suspicions, I didn't know for sure it was true. I had just said it to hurt her, and it obviously did. Now I regretted it. It was a low blow.

  But what she’d said about the deal with Guillermo, the hit he’d ordered - that’s why I was out here now, waiting until she was asleep to deal with it. That had the potential for our club to be in some serious shit if we went through with it. Or if we didn’t go through with it. I knew there was something off about Guillermo. Something about him didn’t feel right. This shit left a real bad taste in my mouth.

  If we carried out the hit, we’d be targets for the Randolphs, who had limitless money and power. If we didn’t do it, I’m sure Guillermo would take us out, kill our families. That was how guys like him operated.

  He had said the Furia MC had basically betrayed him by setting up some kind of deal with the Armenians. So he had to be planning on enforcing consequences for their disloyalty. My mind raced with the other possibility. Or, he was still aligned with the Furia and we were just the patsies for his dirty work. Either way, I wasn’t liking the outcome here.

  I peered down the hallway at the closed door. There was no light under the frame and Dani had drank almost an entire bottle of wine. She was probably passed out by now. I needed to get in touch with Mad Dog.

  I rode down the road ten miles to the spot where I knew cell coverage began again, and made the call on a burner cell phone to Mad Dog’s burner number. Mad Dog needed to be aware of this. He'd have to bring this to the table. I wasn’t there in person, but the members needed to vote on this. They needed to know the potential for serious shit happening if we did this hit.

  “Yeah.” Mad Dog’s voice was hoarse. It was late, but I doubted he was sleeping. It was more likely he was getting his dick sucked by his some girl at the club or by his Old Lady. It was a tossup which one.

  “It’s me.”

  “You at the safe house?”

  “Yeah, Boss, I’m at a safe house.” This was a safe house of sorts. What he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. It was just my safe house instead of the club’s safe house.

  Mad Dog chuckled. “You entertaining yourself? She’s a hot piece, that one. I’d get me some of that.”

  “Jesus, Mad Dog, it’s Guillermo’s daughter. He’d cut your throat.”

  “I’d die a happy man.”

  “Put your dick back in your pants,” I said. “I got some serious shit going on here. Did you guys take care of the business with the college kid?”

  “We’re going to be on it soon. I’ll send Axe up with a couple of the guys. He’s good at that kind of thing.”

  “Do you know who the kid is?”

  “Some kid. Randolph or something.”

  “Yeah, man. Look him up on the internet. His family is not just some random college kid’s family. It’s like doing a hit on one of the Kennedys.”

  Silence. Then, “Fuck, man.”

  “Yeah. You need to make sure th