Stephanie Tyler - Vipers Run

I knew the feeling, so I simply nodded. But I could never talk about Ned with the affection that Tenn did for his brother, no matter the names he’d called him. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“Sweetheart, you knocked on my front door holding Bernie’s gun, you showed up in his car and you were panicked.”

“Have you heard from him?”

He swallowed hard and shook his head. “Why don’t you get cleaned up and lay down for a while, ’cause you look like hell.”

I stared at him and he broke into a faint grin. I decided I liked him. I even let him help me up and into a room down the hall. He pointed to the bathroom, said, “I’m guessing you don’t have any clothes with you.”

I shook my head, determined not to cry again. At least not in front of him.

“We’ll figure it out, Calla.”

When he left, I went into the bathroom and stripped down. I’d been battered. I’d been through an inner war that I’d waged and I didn’t know if I was winning or losing, but I was definitely on the edge of one or the other.

I stood under the warm spray of the shower and let it rain down on me. My tears mingled with the water; the sounds hid my sobs. It was because of Bernie, because of what I’d lost in the past already, and it was for sure because of Christian Cage Owens.

I’d asked him the impossible and he’d promised it to me. Promised. Was I a fool to believe him? Because I felt like I’d be a fool not to.

Tenn had laid out some clothes for me—shorts and a T-shirt and socks. Brand-new underwear. Tenn was prepared, and I began to wonder how many people in trouble Bernie sent his way. And how most of them were men.

There was also more tea, with whiskey on the side, plus a plate of cookies. Despite my misery, my stomach rumbled. I nibbled on a cookie, sipped the tea after forgoing the liquor, as I looked around the softly lit room.

I noticed it then, propped in the chair across the room. The picture I’d taken from Bernie’s office. I went to it, picked it up and studied it as I padded back to the bed.

“You okay, Calla?”

I glanced up to see Tenn in the doorway. “I’m not sure.”

“I left the door open in case you had another panic attack.”

I believed him. “You were talking to someone named Eddie earlier.”

“Yeah, he works for me. I sent him and the others away, though. It’s just us.”

“Okay.” I stared down at the throw rug, noting how it contrasted with the dark floors, then looked at the picture again.

“That feels like a lifetime ago,” Tenn said, and when I looked up he was checking out the picture.

“Was Cage in the Army with you and Bernie?”

He tilted his head. Didn’t answer.

I still believed that “C. Owens” was Cage. “I told Cage something and he said . . . he said he was coming back for me. He promised. And I hate him for that, because everyone always breaks their promises.”

I said it so fast that I thought maybe Tenn didn’t even understand. Even though I knew what I said, I was confused, and unwilling to tell Tenn what exactly I’d told Cage.

He didn’t ask anything else and his expression softened. “You can stay here.”

I was already planted against the pillows, planning on doing just that. “I sound ridiculous, I realize.”

Tenn shook his head. “You don’t. What Cage told you isn’t ridiculous—not if you know him. Sounds like you do.”

I couldn’t deny that, but I wasn’t sure if I’d dreamed the whole thing up.

And for the next couple of weeks (and I only knew the length of time when I’d come out the other end of the tunnel) I stayed in bed. Cried. Slept. Dreamed of a dark-haired man with rough hands and a rougher voice telling me he’d protect me.

Even as I mourned him, mourned my other life, mourned everything I’d lost, I held on to Cage’s promise. I didn’t care if that was stupid, because not only was it all I had, but it was all I wanted.

I’d slept around to get rid of the ghosts of my past, but I’d never felt anything remotely like I did with Cage just talking to me. His voice did more to me than any man’s hands ever had.

It was impossible to fall in love with someone from a ten-minute phone call. Impossible to fall in love with a man who’d been dying as we spoke.

Impossible.

Somehow, I’d managed the impossible.

Those full two weeks later, I got out of bed only when Tenn threatened to forcibly shower me. After a turn under the warm water, I did feel better. And then Tenn lured me out into the open with the smell of food, the bastard. Normally, he’d bring it right into my room, but today he was Mister Tough Love.

I went out into the living room with my hair still wet and found a couple of guys there. They didn’t pay me much attention, but they weren’t rude or anything. I continued along until I found Tenn in the kitchen.

There was a tall, slim boy there too. Maybe seventeen or so, I guessed, and he was sitting alone at the table, writing in a notebook. Whether he noticed me or not, or if he was so absorbed in the writing, he didn’t let on.

“Sit.” Tenn pointed to the enormous helpings of eggs and bacon and pancakes he’d put on two plates, all for me. And then he pushed a big cup of coffee in front of me.

“I feel like you’re going to give me bad news.”

“I am. No more sleeping for weeks.”

“Yeah, I got that message.”

Tenn leaned against the counter and glanced out at the small crowd in the other room. I took those few moments to really study him.

He was tall. Rangy. But somehow I knew he could be deceptively agile if needed. The young man got up and wandered away, muttering to himself.

“That’s Kev. He’s writing a book,” Tenn explained.

“Do the others work for you too?”

“Yes.”

“And what kind of work do you do?” I asked. “Same as Bernie?”

“Ah, no. Definitely not.” He wrapped a hand around a mug, dwarfing it. “Some of them are escorts.”

“Escorts,” I echoed, and he nodded. “You run the business from here?”

“Nope. I keep my places separate.” He pointed across the street and gave me a half smile and I tried to reconcile the image of him running an escort service. Which he obviously knew, because he added, “We also do some porn, but it’s mostly webcam stuff. A couple of my guys are getting a good following, though. It’s filmed here, but the guys stay across the street for the most part.”

He wasn’t saying it to shock me, or maybe he was, but I still managed, “Escorts and porn, huh?”

“Not a bad way to live. Money’s good.”

“So you get a cut and what do they get?” I asked.

“Something most of them haven’t had their entire lives—protection,” Tenn said, his voice slightly fierce even though he was still smiling.

“I believe you,” I said quietly. “Just wondering why.”

“Why not?” he countered. “Money’s good. I keep the porn side for the guys only. Easier that way, and they’re more than happy to get paid for something they’d be doing anyway.”

“All of them?”

“Everything I do here is safe, sane and consensual. If they aren’t happy, I can spot them pretty quickly. And they don’t belong either here or in the business. Sex is supposed to be happy. Freeing. Good stuff. And the escorting’s a different business altogether. I’ve got bodyguards for both sexes. Everything happens in my place of business, and if it doesn’t, there’s going to be one of my guards there watching.”

I blinked. Tried to imagine Bernie with Tenn, but it fit. Because Tenn was fiercely protective. And none of the guys I’d seen looked upset or any the worse for wear. “Are you in any of the films?” I asked, in an attempt to lighten the mood.

“I’m the brains behind the operation,” he said. “Someone’s got to watch out for them. But private performances? Now, that’s a different story.”

“Cage . . . was he working for you? With you?”

“Are you asking if there are any of his performances on tape?” I blushed and he laughed, a rich, throaty sound, and then let me off the hook. “He works with my brother.” His gaze fell somewhere over my shoulder for just a second and then landed back on me. “They’re part of an MC. A motorcycle club.”

“Like a gang?”

“Not a gang. A club,” he emphasized.

“I’m guessing there’s a big difference.”

“I’m guessing you’re going to want me to explain it to you.”

Escorts. Porn. Motorcycle gangs. What kind of life had Bernie been hiding behind his ramrod straight posture and easy smile? I guessed we really all did have secrets. “Wait a minute—you totally sidestepped the whole question about Cage and private performances.”

“I have to respect the privacy of my performers.”

Oh my God. “Let’s talk about the club versus gang thing.”

For the next twenty minutes, he explained what had to be a very simplified version of MCs. How they had ties to the military. How some of them were one-percenters—aka serious criminals—and how the others, although not as hard-core, were still equally as dangerous.

He didn’t tell me exactly what the MC Cage was a part of did, but obviously I was somehow involved in bad MC business.

“I think that’s enough of a trip into MC Land for the day,” Tenn said. “You’re safe here, Calla. Me and Bernie and Cage—and my brother—we know what we’re doing.”

He was still talking about Cage in the present tense. Maybe it was false hope, but I took it as a good sign.

“Thanks, Tenn.”

“Welcome. We’re going to be doing a little filming. Private room and everything’s soundproofed, okay?”

I nodded. With a squeeze of my shoulder, he left and I tried to wrap my head around the whole MC thing. Bikes. Leather. Angry men who drank and scared towns and did drugs. It fit with the violence Cage had encountered and it scared me. For him, for me, because what had I been inadvertently caught up in?

I wanted to believe him, to believe in something, but I was dragging a heavy past behind me, one that was strewn with lies and more broken promises than I could handle.

Because of Cage and his promise to return—for me—I was balancing, walking the tightrope above my fears, refusing to look down. Because the drop was steep, and I’d been left with nothing this time. I was rebuilding from zero. I had a roof over my head. I could take Bernie’s truck and his money and leave. Start over.

But I couldn’t get Christian Cage Owens out of my mind. I dreamed about him, kept hearing his voice cover me like a rough, heavy blanket. I’d heard the fierceness in his voice. He would come for me.

Would I be making the biggest mistake of my life by going with him?

* * *

Later that afternoon, Tenn left me in the house with the alarm on so he could go check on the escort portion of his business. He left me a throwaway cell phone with his number programmed in and he pointed out where he’d be—literally across the street.

The area was so quiet. He had to have picked this place on purpose so there would be no neighbors complaining about what he did for a living.

“You’ve come a long way from boarding school and private colleges,” I muttered to myself. Mom and Grams would have a fit. My father probably would too, although he knew I was working for Bernie and he hadn’t said anything.

Speaking of my father, I’d left him hanging. I didn’t know if he’d heard anything about Bernie, and Tenn hadn’t offered any information on him. I was treading lightly here, knowing that I was being kept in the dark about certain things. But I wasn’t being sold into white slavery—and Tenn wasn’t asking me to work for him in any capacity.

I turned the prepaid cell over in my hand. I didn’t want Tenn to know who I was calling. It was public record that Jameson Bradley had a daughter named Calla, but it wasn’t like I ended up being talked about in the news. Not the way he was. But then I spotted a fax machine with a phone and picked up the line to hear the telltale dial tone. He wouldn’t be tracking this the way he would a cell.

And thank you, Bernie, for teaching me things like that.

I found the piece of paper I’d written my father’s number on the night I’d run—I’d pulled it out of my jeans and hidden it, since it was the one thing of mine Tenn hadn’t discovered and thrown away.

It must’ve been a number leading directly to him, because he picked up on the first ring and said, “Calla?”

“How did you know it was me?” I said, and quickly realized that the number he’d given me was only for me. I put a hand over my chest and tried to breathe.