Through The Weeds (Nightshade MC Book 2) (11 page)

“He's been getting high and you failed to fucking mention it?” Buster barely managed not to shout. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that the crowd had given him a wide berth. Good, it would make it easier for them to leave. “Everyone out, now.” He waited until the crowd was gone, returned his attention to Ace. “Explain yourself.”

“He likes to party. I'm not his father. It's not like I caught him doing lines with his cornflakes on a daily basis. I was keeping an eye on him, and if I'd had any serious concerns, I'd have brought them to the table.” Ace shifted his weight. He knew that he should have brought any concern, not just serious ones to the table.

“You fucked up. There's no two ways about it.” Train broke into the conversation.

“Alright, fine. I fucked up. I should have said something, but shit, there's not one of us who hasn't gotten fucked up now and then.”

“It's done. Nothing that we can do about it now. Besides, you're not the only one who fucked up. He fucked up. He's the one running his mouth about his brothers. He needs to answer to that. We give him a chance to explain because that's our way. We find out about the drugs and the shit he's been saying. Where's Rock?”

“Sacked out in one of the other rooms,” Train replied.

“Get him up. Ask him what he knows. He's close to Edge, might be trying to protect him. Did Danny go home?”

“Yeah, said he was going to try to knock up his wife,” Ace replied. “You want me to call him?”

“I'll call. You get Edge down here.” Buster took out his phone, dialed Danny. “Sorry to interrupt but we've got a situation.”

“Right now?”

Buster smothered a laugh because the question told him just what he'd caught Danny in the middle of. “Right now,” he confirmed. “I wouldn't call you in if I didn't need you.” He ended the call as he heard footsteps on the stairs.

Edge followed Ace down. “The fuck is this? I was sleeping. Anyone got a smoke?”

“You want to tell me what the fuck is up with you?” Buster asked.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Edge walked over to the bar to grab a pack of smokes. “All that's up with me is I'd rather be asleep than whatever this is.”

“Train's up there searching the room right now.” Buster moved to stand in front of Edge. “He gonna find anything up there that he shouldn't?”

“I don't know what the fuck you're talking about or why you dragged me out of bed in the middle of the night.” Edge stood toe to toe with Buster, not giving any ground. “I'm not a prospect anymore. I'm a fully patched member, and you will respect that.”

“You are a fully patched member, and I suggest you remember the responsibility of that patch,” Buster told him. “You think about that long and hard while we wait for Danny to get here.”

Danny arrived only moments after Train came down the stairs with a black zippered pouch in his hand. Inside was a treasure trove of pills, cocaine and, just too keep things interesting, a small wax paper baggie of heroin. No one had spoken. Edge squirmed in the chair. “So, what? I get high now and then. It's not a big deal.”

“Not a big deal? Were you high tonight?” Ace demanded. “You were jittery as fuck during the meeting with Miller, tried to take your sister's head off and then came back here and went to sleep. What did you take? What were you on?”

“Let's be clear, Edge. This is your last chance to tell the truth.” Buster walked over to where the man sat. “We're trying to have a civilized discussion here. Would you prefer we take a different route?”

“You've got to talk,” Rock chimed in. “Come on, this isn't you. You'd never hit Jillian, not after all the beatings that she took getting between you and him. You never wanted to be like him.”

“Don't talk about my father.” Edge lunged at Rock. Ace stepped between them and sent Edge stumbling back with a hard shove. “Don't fucking touch me.”

“What the fuck were you on?” Ace bellowed. His jaw was tight, his fists clenched and his anger obvious. “Start talking or start bleeding.” Edge might have thought it was an idle threat, but Buster knew it wasn't. When he stayed silent, Ace started to swing. He paused between each hit, gave Edge

chance to talk, but he didn't.

Buster wasn't sure if he stayed silent out of some sort of stubborn pride or because the pain was just too much for him to speak. Nothing lethal, of course, just a good old-fashioned beatdown. There was blood on Edge's face, and he was favoring his right side heavily. Ace lowered his hands when Edge hit the ground.

“Take him back upstairs.” Buster cleared his throat. “Make sure he doesn't choke on his teeth and tie him up. He's going to start jonesing when he wakes up, the pain is going to make him want it even more.” He looked over to the kit still on the table. “Get rid of that shit.”

“Hold on a second, Buster,” Train said. “I think we should pay more attention to that shit. Now, I recognize just about everything in there. The pills are mostly downers, Ativan and things like that. There's a couple pain pills, those blue ones are Oxy 30 mg. Strong shit. Of course, you've got the coke. And the heroin, but I don't recognize that powder.” He opened the kit and took out a small blue baggie. “Doesn't that make you curious?”

“You know a way to figure out what it is?” Buster asked.

“I might. I know this junkie. Oldest junkie I've ever seen, swears that he's done every drug in the world, twice. He licked some sort of frog one time to trip. Now, that's dedication.” Train chuckled. “Got to wait until it's light out, don't want him shooting me because he can't see me coming.”

“Find out as soon as you can,” Buster told him. “And when he wakes up, we find out just how long this all has been going on.”

“I think I might know something about that.” Danny, who hadn't said much, spoke up. “The night that we got ambushed on the Miller run, the night that Edge got hurt and earned his patch, he had Oxy in his boot. Said he'd thrown his back out or some shit when he was fucking Allison. He said it wasn't a problem. I believed him. I should have said something.”

“Yeah, there's a lot of that going around tonight,” Buster replied. “Just so we're all clear, the next time someone is hiding drugs in their boots or indulging a little too often, something needs to be said. Something needs to be done before we get where we are. Right now we cannot afford to be down a man, even with the prospects, but we are. So, we're going to get his system clean, and where we go from there is up to him.”

“I'll stay with him. Make sure that he's locked down tight,” Ace offered. “Rock, give me a hand with him. Get his feet. Sorry that I knocked him out before you could ask him your questions, Buster.”

“Don't apologize. We've got plenty of time for questions.”

<#<#<#<#

Buster felt the sun pounding down on his face. The heat was rising. It was going to be a scorcher, he could tell. And Caroline had picked a restaurant with tables on the sidewalk for breakfast. He'd driven past the place several times, never stopped to try it. He checked his phone. She was late, only by a few minutes, but he was taking it as a very bad sign. Maybe she wasn't even going to show.

And then he saw her. She waved as she noticed him notice her. He was content to just watch her. He liked the way she moved and the way that the thin-strapped dress she was wearing moved with her. It wasn't a slinky number. It flowed around her but gave him a nice view of her chest. Buster felt a stir as he rose to meet her. “You look beautiful.”

“Thanks. I need to do laundry, so it was this or my bathing suit.”

“Either way, you'd have looked just as lovely as you do now.” Buster watched her blush as she sat down. “How's your day been so far?”

“Jillian came back. Packed a couple of bags and left again. Said that she's going to go stay with Jake. Said that she needs some time, that Jake told her she shouldn't make a rash decision.” She shrugged her shoulders. “It surprised me a little, but I still think that he's a douche. Anyway, how has yours been?”

Buster recalled watching Edge writhe on the bed as if he were having seizures. “Nothing much has happened so far. I've got to admit, I was surprised that you decided to come.”

“So was I.” She began to toy with the bracelets that she was wearing. “I wanted to know if you talked to Edge.”

“I haven't gotten an answer from him yet,” Buster replied. It wasn't a lie. “He's pretty miserable after last night.”

“And you let a hangover stop you from asking him?” She narrowed her eyes. “If it's just some club stuff and you can't talk about that, just say it. Remember?”

“It's some club stuff.” Buster waited for a follow-up question but there was none. Instead, she reached for the menu. “You have plans today?”

“I'm going to the garden for a while. I've got some books I downloaded ready to be read.” She shrugged her shoulders. “How about you?”

It was likely that the majority of his day would be spent in a room that smelled like vomit, trying to get anything he could out of a man who would feel like he was being torn apart on the inside. “We've been doing some renovating at the bar. Figured I'd spend some time at that.”

“Sounds like a busman's holiday,” she teased.

“It is, just a little. What about later? Like dinner time? Got any plans then?”

“Two meals in one day? Careful Buster, I might start to get the vibe that you want to be serious.” She studied the menu as if it held the secrets to the world.

“I don't know about serious, but I know that I like you.” Buster decided to be straight with her. “Last time I had a serious girlfriend, it was a while ago. A long while ago. And I haven't been looking. I haven't liked anyone the way I like you in a while.”

“I was engaged not that long ago. The lawyer? He was my fiancé. I had the big ring and everything. Anyway, I loved him, or thought I did, trusted him. It wasn't love, and I was stupid to trust him. While I planned our wedding and future, he started fucking and fell in love with my best friend.” She looked down at the table. “I stayed in bed so long, I lost everything that I had. Everything. I ended up back at my parents' house. I thought I'd die.”

“He was an asshole.”

“Yeah, he was. That's not the point or why I'm telling you, though at this point, I don't know what's possessing me to spill all of this shit. Anyway, it took a long time before I could get out of bed and start living again. Once I was on the mend, my parents decided that they were going to live their dream and go to Florida. They wanted me to go with them. Instead, I moved into Detroit. Ended up at Baked and then I met you. And I felt something. It's why I called you when Wayne flipped out.”

“Caroline...”

“Let me finish. Please. Let me finish.” She set the menu down. “And you came and you made it clear that you felt something, too. And you say that you didn't bag me as part of some challenge, but then you tell me that you don't know about serious. So, what is it you want? A fuck partner? If that's the case, breakfast is on me, because I'm not built like that.”

“And how are you built, Caroline?” Buster asked.

“I'm still figuring that out, but I guess I want to know that there's a possibility, not a guarantee, of a future.” She signaled for the waitress. “We should order. I'm hungry.”

The waitress came over, took their orders and promised to return right away. Buster used the time to think, to consider what she'd said. The possibility of something with Caroline appealed to him more than he'd have thought that it would. It stirred something inside of him. She stirred something inside of him. And even though she was sitting right across from him, he knew that it was going to be a hard task to get her to try for that possibility with him, because of what Edge had said.

The waitress returned with their coffee and a glass of water for Caroline. Buster took a sip; the coffee was just how he liked it, strong and black. He watched with some amusement as Caroline added sugar and a precise amount of cream to hers. She noticed his eyes on her. “Sorry, I'm pretty particular about my coffee. Too much cream and I might as well be drinking milk. Unless it's Irish, in that case, I'm pretty heavy-handed.”

“I'll remember that. Might not offer to fix your coffee for you, though. I'd probably get it wrong.” Buster smiled over at her.

“Probably,” she agreed.

“I'm probably going to get a lot of stuff wrong if we try for a possibility.” Buster didn't see a point in dancing around the issue that they needed to discuss the most.

“Probably,” she repeated, but this time she smiled, and it gave him hope. “The stuff that Jillian told me keeps echoing in my mind, Buster. I can't even try to deny that.” Caroline tapped her nails against her coffee cup. “I also can't deny that I feel something for you. It made me feel stupid to hear about the challenges. I do not like feeling stupid. Not at all. I just don't understand why Edge would lie.”

“Edge has some issues. Issues with drugs.” Buster wasn't going to give her specifics but he needed to give her something. “And it's becoming a problem, which is all I can say.”

“That doesn't surprise me. Their father was heavy into drugs.”

“What do you know about their father?” Buster asked.

“He was as crazy as a shit house rat. Like those people who bury bunkers in their back yards while waiting for a nuclear bomb, solar storm or some other extinction-level event,” Caroline replied. They both fell quiet as the waitress approached with their meals.