His Property (Iron Bandits MC)

Which, I realized, she basically had, living in her car in freaking Arizona. Lucky for her, it was only March, and the heat of summer hadn’t hit yet. But what she was doing with Peter was insane. Arizona would cook them up in the summer if they weren’t living in a real domicile with air conditioning. Plus, it was dry as fuck here, and she must have been suffering some level of dehydration.

First things first, I decided. “Eat up. We can talk after.” She nodded, and we applied ourselves to the food. It didn’t take long—after my day, I nearly inhaled a half of the pie in short time. She only ate half as much, but we were both done and ready for beers within minutes. Then I got down to business.

“How long you been living in that piece of shit pile of junk out there, Ellie?” I asked, trying to keep my anger from boiling over with just the thought of it.

“Not long, really. Just a few days. We’ve been on the road for most of it.”

“On the road. Huh. Coming from where?”

“Oregon. Portland area. I went back up there when…” she drifted off. I gave her a moment, but nothing else came out.

“When…?” I raised my eyebrows at her. The woman had some problems telling a story.

“Oh! Yeah, um, actually, I left Tucson really soon after Keith…” This time I knew she wasn’t going to go on. And I knew what she was going to say, but wouldn’t. So I finished her sentence for her.

“…after he was killed.” I forced myself to say those words. I never let myself avoid them, or use euphemisms that sugar-coated reality. I saw her flinch, but I didn’t have it in me to coddle her grief. I had too much of my own grief. And anger. I had a lot of anger about it.

“Yeah. After that.”

“How did you know him?—I don’t mean, I mean, obviously—” Fuck. I was babbling. I just wanted the full story.

Lucky for me, Ellie seemed to automatically know what I meant, and she cut me slack. “You know where he lived, that neighborhood? I was bartending at the Red Trick Pony, you know it? He’d come in sometimes, we’d chat. He was cool. We got along. Your brother—he was a really good guy, you know?...He was a really good guy.” Her voice faded off and it was clear she was drifting in a memory.

“Yeah, he was. So, what, you and he were together then? For how long? ‘Cause, I gotta be frank with you, he never mentioned you to me. Sorry if that hurts, but it’s true. So seeing you today, and with the baby, it’s all…it doesn’t make much sense. I need more. I know for a fact my brother was careful.”

“Yeah, well…I’m not surprised he didn’t mention me. Except maybe as a friend? I don’t know. We really were just getting to be friends. You know, we got on well, and just casually, at the bar. But, uh…” She took a deep breath, then looked me right in the eye. “Okay, this is a long and weird story, and I need you to just bear with me through it, okay?”

“Got all night, Ellie.” Why in the hell was she being so hesitant? It was all I could do not to yell out, “Just start talking, woman!” But that seemed like it might be counter-productive. I shifted my jaw around to ease my tension.

“Okay. So, it started in Portland. I don’t want to give you all the nitty-gritty, but I left there about a year ago, the first time. Well, not quite a year. In May, last year. Came here, to Tucson, got a place, got a job, started working, met Keith. That much you know. Thing is, I ended up bringing extra baggage with me, that I did not intend to bring. This guy—Brian—he’d been someone I knew, or had known, back up in Oregon. We had dated briefly, but things got weird, and then bad, and I broke it off really quickly, but he…”

“Let me guess. He didn’t want to let you go. Was he stalking you? He followed you here?”

“Yes, and yes. And one night at the bar, at the Pony, he saw me talking and laughing with Keith—nothing was even going on—but Brian, he got upset about it. And he got in Keith’s face, which was just stupid of him—you know how big your brother is—ugh, sorry! …was…” Her face started to crumble, and she turned away.

“Yeah, Ellie. I know. It’s okay. Go on.”

She took a minute, then picked up again. “Well, Brian was spouting off a bunch of ugly shit about me, just verbal vomit about Keith being my next victim and me being a … you get the idea, right? Just a whole lot of unpleasantness. And Keith, even though he really didn’t know me, he got protective, and he stood up and just loomed over Brian—who’s not that small, he’s way bigger than me, but still, nothing compared to Keith—and Keith just laid into Brian. Didn’t take much, and Brian was on the floor. It’s all kind of jumbled now, in my head. I’m not sure how long Keith was hitting him, but by the end of it, Brian’s face was all messed up, and he was humiliated. I’ll be honest, I was kind of glad to see it, and I was super grateful to Keith. Brian had it coming. He’d had it coming for a long time. I was really, really grateful to Keith. It was the first night in a bunch of months that I felt…safe.”