Vindication: A Motorcycle Club Romance (19 page)

~
NINETEEN ~

Ghost

He didn’t think it was a good thing for a hospital to
be bustling, but that’s exactly what it felt like when Ghost stopped in to
visit Tommy two days before Bridget’s plan was set to go down. Ghost had
actually been stopping in every single day since they returned to LeBeau, but
every single day, the stern nurses at the front desk of his ward shooed Ghost
away.

Visiting MC brothers in the hospital
was always tricky. They weren’t technically family, and even in a place this
small, the doctors and nurses didn’t always understand or sympathize with what
was going on. So Ghost and the others had been mostly barred from visiting
while Tommy got out of the worst of it and started to become more conscious
every day. In the meantime, Tommy’s beautiful and strong sisters had kept the
men updated, delivered notes and presents, and promised to let them know the
minute they could visit. Ghost had gotten their text while he was lying in
Bridget’s bed eating cereal and watching TV, after she had already left for the
Academy. He threw his clothes on rushed over.

Ghost made his way around the busy
hallway and swerved right by the front desk without stopping. One of the
nurses, probably out of habit, called out after him, but she was quickly
corrected by another. Ghost didn’t even slow down.

When he got to Tommy’s room, Will and
Jase were already there, hovering around his bed. Tommy was looking infinitely
better than he had the day Ghost saw him last. The color had returned to his
skin, even though half his face was buried under mountains of white gauze, and
the rest was glittered with superficial cuts that were still red and healing.
Like Will, one of his arms was in a sling, and the casts on both his legs made
the blankets bulge in funny ways. He was surrounded by machinery and had two
separate IV lines running into his veins.

Despite all that, Tommy’s whole face
lit up when he saw Ghost come into the room. Warmth spread though Ghost’s chest
in a way that was so unfamiliar, it almost stopped him in his tracks.

“Ghost!” said Tommy. “Dude, I’m so
happy to see you!”

“Thomas the Tank Engine!” said Ghost,
throwing his arms wide. The door shut softly behind him as he entered the small
hospital room. Jase moved aside to let Ghost get close to Tommy, and Ghost
leaned down to give his brother a gentle squeeze. “You look positively radiant.
What have you been doing to yourself?”

“I think that’s the painkillers,” Tommy
laughed.

“Lucky dog,” said Ghost. “How are you
feeling?”

Tommy shrugged, and there was pain on
his face when he did it. “Good, I guess. I’m glad to be awake. For a while
there, I thought I was just going to be in and out of sleep forever.”

That actually sounded horrifying. He
put a soft arm on Tommy’s shoulder. “You don’t know how good it is to see you
awake and talking, kid. I thought I was going to find a pile of beef jerky on
the side of that highway.”

Tommy laughed, but a couple of tears
popped out anyway, and Ghost instantly felt bad about the gallows humor. He
found a tissue and handed to him. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m trying to work on
that… feelings… thing… that you guys do, you know, without the jokes and
stuff.”

“I like your jokes,” said Tommy as he
wiped the tears off his face. “I’m just not feeling like myself right now, been
crying over everything.
Abuela
brought me homemade carne asada and I
started crying over that!”

From across the bed, Will piped up,
“Counterpoint—your
abuela’s
cooking is actually worth crying over on a
good day.”

“Here, here,” said Jase.

“I’m trying to be serious here, you
guys, Jesus! Some professionalism!” said Ghost with mock indignity. Jase and
Will snorted and tried to shut up. “What I’m trying to say, Tommy, is that you
scared the fucking hell out of me lying there on the side of the road, and
goddamn it, I love you bro, and I’m really glad you’re okay.”

The room was silent, but heavy after
he finished. His three MC brothers exchanged glances with each other in
speechless surprise.

Finally, Ghost couldn’t take it.
“What?” he said, looking to each of them. “What, how badly did I just fuck that
up? Super badly? Like, the worst ever?”

“No, man,” said Jase with a sideways
nod. “That… actually wasn’t fucked up at all.”

“Really?”

“That was downright adorable,” agreed
Will with an amused but genuine smile. “I think our Ghost is growing up, guys.”

“Oh, goddammit, I knew I should have
just stuck with the jokes,” said Ghost as they laughed.

“No, it was nice!” said Tommy. “I
love you too, bro. Thanks for sticking up for me and making sure everything
turned out how it should have. I know nothing will ever go wrong with you
around.”

“Jesus, no pressure!” Ghost said,
raising his hands. “Just perfection. Got it, guys!”

They broke into laughter. The moment
was interrupted when the door to the room swung open, and a few familiar
figures darkened the doorway. It was the Dogs from Eagleton who had been on the
run, and leading them was Lucero. His eyes looked dim and distant, and his
posture was far more defeated than the last time Ghost saw him, but he still
had that angry look permanently etched on his face. Ghost wondered internally
if he had begun treatment yet.

The mood in the room got tense. Will
stood up from the chair he sat in on the far end of the room. Ghost locked eyes
with Lucero, ready for a challenge.

But Shaun stepped forward. “Hi, guys.
I hope we’re not bothering you. We heard Tommy was awake, and we thought we’d
stop by and visit, since we’re heading straight back to Eagleton after the operation.”

Ghost exchanged looks with Will, who
looked to Jase. None of them felt particularly alarmed. The tribunal had sealed
Eagleton’s fate, and they’d only be hurting themselves if they tried to take it
out on LeBeau now.

“That’s Tommy’s call,” said Ghost.
“What do you think, bro?”

“Sure,” said Tommy. “Come on in,
guys.” He waved to the Eagleton men.

From outside the hallway, one of
Tommy’s shift nurses was trying to peek over the shoulders of the tall bikers
in the doorway. She pushed through them with a huff. “I’m sorry, Mr. Castillo,
but you can’t have this many visitors at once. Some of you are going to have to
leave.”

“Really?” said Tommy, disappointed.

“It’s cool, we’ll have plenty of time
to come back and visit,” said Ghost. “Let Eagleton have their time. We can head
out.” He nodded to Will, and Jase joined them heading for the door.

The bikers exchanged slightly tense
pleasantries as they moved past each other. When Ghost passed Lucero, both men paused
and looked at each other, and the rest of the room stopped to look at them,
ready for a fight.

“Well, Lucero,” said Ghost. “You’re
still a piece of shit in my book. But at least you’re man enough to be here and
look in Tommy’s face, and that means something.”

Lucero’s jaw clenched, and Ghost
could tell he wanted to bite back dreadfully, but he controlled himself. He was
probably under a very tight leash with his club. “I don’t give a fuck what you
think, McBride.”

“Makes sense,” said Ghost. “And you
were totally on board with the plan, so that also makes me want to bash your
face in significantly less.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not a fucking
monster. Who says no to helping out an abused kid?”

“Who indeed,” said Ghost. He slid by
Lucero toward the door. “I guess you can rest easy knowing you’re not the
biggest
piece of shit in the world.”

Jase rolled his eyes and pulled Ghost
toward the door by his cut.

“Bye, guys,” said Tommy. “Good luck
Friday.”

“We’ll video it and show you how it
went! Go viral, and all those other cool things kids say!” said Ghost.

“No, we most certainly will not,”
said Will, shaking his head and pushing Ghost out the door.

As it fell shut, Ghost’s voice rang
out from the ward, “Yes we will!”

~
TWENTY ~

Bridget

She hadn’t felt this feeling in so long. Not since she
spent nights watching the true night sky twinkle above the dark cold desert,
and woke up to the sounds of hellfire. Bridget knew this particular brand of
anxiety, and it was the same kind she got in warfare. The feeling clashed
heavily with everything else her senses were taking in: the quiet of the
Academy after hours, the comfort of her favorite outfit and boots, the familiar
faces and voices of Muriel and Henrietta as they made small talk near the
office door. Bridget tried to take ease in the fact that she wasn’t really
about to enter a war zone, and even if she was, she had the home field
advantage. The thoughts soothed her only a little.

She knew Ghost would understand
exactly how she felt in that moment, and she wished badly that he was there
with her. She wasn’t afraid of doing her end of the job alone, but she knew
damn well she’d be having a much better time doing it with his charming, goofy
smile staring back at her. But it was alright. Ghost had a different job to do
today.

Yesterday, with Muriel and Bridget
hovering at her sides, Henrietta had made a call to the house of Stephen Cary,
and spoken with the man himself. Their plan had been carefully devised. Months
ago, when Toby first started showing signs of extreme anxiety, Bridget had tried
diligently to get ahold of the Carys and arrange a meeting to address her
concerns about their son. She left messages with household staff and voicemails
at Mr. Cary’s office, but no one ever cared enough to call her back. The
silence made sense now, of course. But it also told Bridget they would have to
employ a little trickery to get what they wanted out of him.

“He’s not going to come if we call
about Toby,” she had said with disgust. “We need to give him a reason to come.
We need to give him a reason to care. So, what does he care about?”

After a few minutes, they had all
decided unanimously: money.

Henrietta pulled up the family’s
tuition records. They were rich enough that there had never actually been a
real problem, of course; Bridget bet the Carys didn’t even monitor their own
monthly spending anymore. But it gave her enough data to come up with a
convincing lie about a failed wire transfer and some problem with the IRS
related to the family’s last tuition payment. It was the only play they had, so
they ran it. Henrietta delivered the news to Stephen Cary and asked him to
bring the family over to the school the following evening so they could discuss
it. He was so furious, Muriel and Bridget could hear him screaming through the
phone receiver, and he didn’t even question why Henrietta wanted the family to
come.

“You better fucking believe we’ll be
down!” he had shouted and hung up. The women exchanged heavy glances and
Henrietta hung up her office phone.

That evening, they had huddled
together in Henrietta’s office for a final brave push before the Carys arrived.
Bridget sent the news to Ghost via text that everything was still set to go,
and put him on stand-by for his part of the plan. A bunch of emojis returned,
and she just laughed and told the women they were set.

Muriel gave both Bridget and
Henrietta a hug before she grabbed her jacket and purse. Bridget held her
shoulders and said, “Thank you so much for helping with this.  You’re a great
friend.”

“Always,” said Muriel with a tense
smile. “You were right. We are their guardians. I’ll always help.”

Bridget kissed her cheek and Muriel
turned to leave, hurrying out to the parking lot for her next task. While
Henrietta waited in her office for her guests, Bridget did one last quick run
through the school to make sure no one was lingering around after hours.
Getting the children out after the final bell was nothing, but they had worked
incredibly hard to get every single staff member out. Henrietta had finally
settled on a bullshit lie about fumigators coming for a quick overnight spray.
Bridget was unwilling to take any chances on anyone else’s lives tonight, and
emptying the place was the only way to be sure.

Bridget was a hallway over when she
heard the unmistakable sound of the heavy front doors opening and closing.
Quickly she headed back toward the office just in time to get a glimpse of the
Cary family far down the way, heading for the headmistresses’ office. Stephen
Cary, a short man in a tailored gray suit, stalked ahead of his family with a
red and angry face. Behind him, his wife, Miranda, walked, holding Toby’s hand.
Miranda was a former beauty queen, but there was no light on her lovely face.
Toby wore a thin gray jacket with the hood up, like he was trying to hide, and
clung closely to his mother’s side.

Bridget’s breath caught in her throat
as she saw the bodyguard from the natural foods store trailing in behind them,
a scowl on his bandaged and healing face.

Oh, fuck
,
she thought.
What if he recognizes me?
She hadn’t considered Cary would
bring a bodyguard to a meeting at his son’s school—none of them had. She
realized this was probably her fault for confronting the housekeeper like she
did. Cary probably upped his security needs afterwards.

But there was no stopping the plan.
It didn’t matter much now if the bodyguard recognized her; she had the Carys
right where she wanted them. It was just a question of how ugly this was all
going to go down.

Bridget waited until the Carys were
in the office until she quietly made her way down the hallway to join them.
Being Toby’s teacher, they felt they could justify her presence—which was good,
because she wasn’t about to let any of this go down around Toby without being
there. Aside from his family, everyone else involved in this little scheme was
no better than a stranger to him, and Bridget refused to build a plan that kept
her out of the way. She wanted him to have as little trauma from all this as
was possible.

Miranda Cary had taken a seat near
the door, sitting in such a way that made her already thin frame seem even
smaller, like she was purposely trying to take up as little space as she could.
Toby stood in front of her, wrapped in her arms, his chin drooped on his chest.
The gray hood covered his face and as best as Bridget could tell, he was trying
to ignore everything going on around him. Stephen Cary, predictably, stood and
leaned over Henrietta’s desk aggressively. The bodyguard had tucked himself
into the corner near the bookshelf.

Bridget didn’t make eye contact with
any of them as she slid into the office and stood next to Henrietta’s chair.
Stephen Cary had been in the middle of a verbal lashing, and he stopped with an
incredulous expression when Bridget’s arrival interrupted him.

After the sound of his raging voice,
the silence was deafening. Already Bridget felt like she was getting a taste of
just the kind of horror show Toby and his mother lived in. Stephen Cary stared
at her like she was a mosquito, silent, waiting for her to grovel or apologize
or explain herself.

But she didn’t. Bridget’s face was a
blank mask as she returned it, looking into the bastard’s eyes with her own
thousand-yard stare. She could almost smell the stench of his internal
cowardice, trying to intimidate a woman he didn’t even know. But she didn’t
give him the satisfaction. She’d won a thousand battles like this with men
much, much tougher than Stephen Carey would ever be. Like an alpha, she held
his gaze until he diverted away first, and then she grinned downwardly to
herself.

“As I was saying,” Stephen Cary
continued, turning back to Henrietta. “I don’t understand how you fucking
people can be so stupid as to fuck up a recurring wire transfer. I thought this
place was supposed to be giving my fucking kid a leg up in the brains
department, and you’re telling me this is what’s happening at the top?” He
rapped his fingers and knuckles on the desk ask he spoke, and it was stupid,
but all Bridget could think about was the way dictators gave their rousing
speeches.

Bridget was blown away by how aggressive
his language already was. Educators dealing with angry parents was a tale as
old as time, but typically, there was some ramp-up to this level of bitterness.
Not with Stephen Cary, apparently. Everyone around him was either serving him,
or in his way.

“Mr. Cary,” said Henrietta. “
We
didn’t have anything to do with the integrity of the wire transfer. We simply
receive it, and this month, your bank informed us that they could not make the
transfer. As such, your son’s account is technically in a delinquent state.”

“This is absolute fucking horseshit!”
yelled Cary. He threw his hands into the air, and both Miranda and Toby
flinched so imperceptibly that Bridget almost missed it. It made her blood
boil. “Delinquent? Do you know who the fuck I am? I buy and sell ten times what
this shithole school is worth every
day
!”

“Mr. Cary…”

“I don’t want to hear your fucking
excuses!”

Cary raged on, and Henrietta took it.
Her job had two parts: to lure Cary inside the school, and to stall him until
Ghost’s end of the plan was in place. She knew she was in for the verbal abuse,
and judging by the look on her face, it was rolling off her back like water.

Bridget dared a glance at the
bodyguard in the corner. She felt her breath catch in her chest when she realized
he was staring at her, eyes narrowed. He was trying to figure out where he
recognized her from.

She looked away quickly, trying to
stay calm, and covertly checked her phone from her back pocket. No messages.
Fuck,
Ghost, hurry up.

“You need to get this fucking bank on
the phone right fucking now.”

“Mr. Cary, with all due respect, this
isn’t really my responsibility to fix. I’m happy to provide whatever
information about our deposit accounts that your institutions require, but I’m
not going to fix this problem for you.”

Stephen Cary picked up the black
phone on the desk and shoved it out toward Henrietta. The headmistress pitched
back, startled, and both Miranda and Toby tensed up and froze in horror.
Bridget had to stop herself from springing forward to knock the phone out of
his hand and block him from Henrietta.

Even though he hadn’t taken a swing
at her, the move was so aggressive that everyone in the room, even the
bodyguard, had frozen. Bridget watched Stephen carefully with cold, angry eyes.

“Call the bank,” said Stephen Cary in
a low, dangerous voice. “Get this settled,
now.
”

Henrietta’s face flushed red.

Bridget couldn’t keep her cool
anymore. She stepped forward hard. “You need to put that fucking phone down and
step back from her desk right this second.”

A whimpering sound escaped from
Miranda Cary’s throat. She clutched Toby tighter into her chest. Toby stared in
fright at Bridget. He wasn’t frightened of her; he was frightened for her.

Stephen Cary turned his hateful gaze
to Bridget, and she met it with steeled wrath. He stood up straight with the
phone still in his hand, cord wobbling. “What the fuck did you just say to me?”

“Put the phone down, and step back
from the desk,” said Bridget, louder this time. “You’re not very good with
boundaries, Mr. Cary.”

“Who the
fuck
does this bitch
think she is?” spat Stephen as he dropped the phone on the desk carelessly. The
bodyguard stepped forward like he had given an order, and that’s when Bridget
saw the realization dawn on his face.

“Boss,” said the guard, and raised a
meaty finger. “This is that same bitch from the parking lot! The one who
brought the bald guy!”

Fuck.

Bridget’s eyes raced from the guard,
to Cary, and back again. Both of them stared at her with violent hatred burning
on their faces. Henrietta, Miranda, and Toby all looked on in horror, pale with
mouths agape.

Gears were turning in Stephen Cary’s
mind; Bridget could see it on his face. He wanted badly to beat the shit out of
her right then and there, but he was too smart for that. And he knew he
couldn’t even talk about what he knew about her without exposing himself to the
accusations of abuse. But his face told her everything. He knew exactly who she
was; he knew her agenda; and he suddenly knew he’d just walked into a trap.