chapter Eleven
Criminal
That evening…
I sat tucked into the corner of my frou-frou, fluffy, girlie, cutesie couch in my countrified, quirky living room and watched Raiden, who’d just gone to the kitchen to get his second beer, fold his long body at the other end.
The pizza was annihilated, that always awkward sliver of a slice the only piece left. Raiden had got it from the place in town so it was the best and I was hungry so I tucked in, forgetting (momentarily, like always) about the little stomach pouch I needed to get gone.
It was a minor miracle, considering all that was on my mind, but I’d managed a two hour nap.
Then the phone started ringing.
Apparently, the town of Willow had decided they’d given me enough time to cope, that time was up, so all and sundry called to check if I was okay after the Bodhi and Heather debacle. This invariably segued into digging for gold, thus most of them asked if it was true, since I was seen at Chilton’s, Rachelle’s, the Deluxe and at church with him; if I was seeing Raiden Ulysses Miller
It was not lost on me that things were moving fast with Raiden, but regardless I knew very little about him. However, I sensed he was the kind of man who would not be fond of people in his business. So although I confirmed what me being seen all over town with Raiden stated, since it was the truth, I didn’t get into any details. After that, I explained the last few days had been trying, I was exhausted and I needed some time to process it all.
Luckily, the folks of Willow were kind, so they left it at that. Unfortunately, there were a lot of residents of Willow I knew since I’d lived my whole life there, so that message didn’t get relayed quickly enough before others picked up the phone and called.
Therefore I had the phone to my ear when I opened the door to Raiden holding a pizza box in one hand and a six pack of Fat Tire in the other.
He grinned at me.
I rolled my eyes, let him in and did my best to get rid of my caller as Raiden dropped the box on the coffee table in the living room. He sauntered to the kitchen like he’d lived in my house since birth, came out with two plates, napkins and two opened beers. He’d already dug into a slice by the time I beeped the off button on my phone and joined him.
All this activity meant I didn’t have time to freak out about the upcoming talk with Raiden, which was good.
What was bad was that he drank and ate. He asked about the call, the rest of the calls (once he’d learned of them) and my nap. But he did not do what I’d hoped.
And that was launch right into the conversation we needed to have that included me freaking, then dealing with learning about whatever he did for a living.
So I gave it until there was only that awkward sliver of pizza left and Raiden got up to get another beer, asking me if I wanted one. I was sipping, keeping my wits about me. Raiden was taking long, manly pulls, therefore I had half a beer left and I declined.
He got his beer and was putting it on the coffee table, not going for the last slice, which I decided indicated he was done eating, so I also decided it was time.
As he was settling back in the couch, I prompted cautiously, “Raiden, you were going to tell me some things.”
He wasn’t fully back, and at my words he stopped, his head turned to me and he studied me for long moments that made me fight to keep myself from squirming on the couch with worry and impatience.
Then he sat back and spread his arms out. One he draped on the armrest, the other on the back, claiming my frou-frou, girlie sofa so thoroughly with his sexy, masculine vibe that for a second my mind blanked.
Then his deep voice announced, “I’m a bounty hunter.”
My mind came back into the room.
Was that it?
A bounty hunter?
Sweet relief swept through me.
Sure. Raiden had been right. Being a bounty hunter was unconventional.
It was also totally cool.
Therefore I grinned huge and cried, “That’s totally cool!”
He took in my grin, his face blank, and shook his head.
“No, Hanna, not the badge carrying, having arrest warrants, extension of law enforcement kind of bounty hunting. Cash under the table, getting a f*ckuva lot more money kind of bounty hunting.”
I didn’t know what to do with that since I had no idea what he was talking about.
“I don’t get it,” I told him.
“I hunt fugitives and they definitely act outside the law,” he explained. “But, when I find them, I don’t deliver them to the police so they can do jacked shit, get caught, get bonded out, do more jacked shit, go on the run, get caught, then some bondsmen bonds them out again so they can do more jacked shit. I deliver them to people who are willing to pay a lot of money to have them delivered.”
This didn’t sound good, but I still didn’t get it.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” I said softly. “I’m still not following.”
He didn’t move and his eyes never left my face as he kept talking.
“Then I’ll explain. Right now, I got several jobs goin’, the primary one bein’ Knight’s. He’s a buddy of mine. He’s got an enemy who keeps gettin’ bested but won’t let his grudge go. Knight had some shit happen to his business because of this guy and he asked me to do him a favor. A favor he’s payin’ me to do. And that favor is find the man who infiltrated his business, injecting dope into it. This guy is doin’ a favor for the other guy who’s tryin’ to f*ck with Knight. But when I find him, I won’t turn him and any evidence I have as pertains to his criminal activities into the police. I’ll deliver him to Knight and walk away. When I do that, what Knight does with this guy and the shit I give him is not my business. I just walk away. I always walk away.”
This didn’t sound good, either. In fact, it sounded worse, and the stuff before it already sounded bad.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to know and was leaning towards not wanting to know, but still, I asked, “So this Knight person asks you to find someone. You find him and give him to Knight, he pays you in cash then your part is done?”
“Yep,” he answered.
“And you don’t just do this for Knight. It’s your job and you do it for other people?”
“Yep.”
“Is that legal?” I queried.
His body moved minutely. I almost didn’t catch it, but I did and then he sat there looking at me like he had been. No change, except I felt it.
He was tense.
“Strictly speaking,” he began, paused, then finished, “no.”
Oh God.
“I… you… is it…?” I stammered, pulled myself together and went on, “Are you telling me you’re engaged in criminal activities?”
The tension started pouring off him in waves, making me tense. Big time tense.
In fact, wired.
“Strictly speaking,” he began, paused, then finished, “yes.”
Oh God!
I’d put my plate on the coffee table, which was fortunate. It freed me to lift my feet to the seat of the couch and curve my arms protectively around my shins, hugging my legs to my chest.
Raiden’s eyes dropped to my posture. He closed them slowly, then opened them and looked at me.
“Told you yesterday, years ago, I tracked down my Dad. To this day, I don’t know how it came to me how to do it. We hadn’t heard from him in two years. He lived two hours away. I had no resources, no experience, no money, not that first f*ckin’ thing to go on, and I was a minor. But it took me a week to find him. It just came natural, askin’ questions to the right people, bein’ smart about it, turnin’ over rocks. Same went for when I drove my ass up there and found his house empty. Didn’t know that town, didn’t know his MO. Still tracked his ass down at his bitches’ houses. Same went for me breakin’ in. Bought a lock at the hardware store, examined it, f*cked with it for hours until I figured out how to pick it. All this came natural. Some people are good with numbers. Others good with their hands. I’m good with this shit.”
None of this made me feel any better.
Raiden wasn’t done sharing.
“I went into the Marines and I did it as a career choice. What I mean by that is I never intended to get out. Had no Dad who could help guide the way, never had any dreams of wantin’ to be a cop or a fireman or an astronaut. But I examined my life to that point and knew where I was comfortable. I figured I needed discipline and someone to guide me, tell me what to do. I was good on a team, playin’ sports, gettin’ coached. I thought that was a natural progression. Once I got a directive, if I was trained how to do it, I went all out. And I was right. At first, the Corps worked for me.”
His face changed, went hard and his eyes started burning.
“Then it didn’t,” he stated.
I understood why and understanding it killed me, but I stayed silent.
Raiden continued talking.
“I got out and remembered trackin’ Dad. Figured I’d be good at bounty hunting, better at it after what I learned in the Corps. So I looked into that. Didn’t like the way it played out. It was part of a system that was totally f*cked. Lots of rules. Lots of paperwork. But absolutely no reason to any of it. It was a dysfunctional cycle. To be successful, I had to write bonds, put my own f*ckin’ money on the line and live a life filled with lying scum, most of them intent on f*ckin’ me over. A buddy from the Corps came to town. We went out for beer, I shared this shit with him, he told me about a man he knew named Deacon.”
When he stopped and didn’t carry on, I asked, “Deacon?”
“Bounty hunter, like I am now. But a cold motherf*cker. A six foot two, two hundred twenty pound wall of sheer ice. He got into it like I got into it. His wife went missin’, the cops couldn’t find her, so he descended into a world that was not his to find her. What he found was that he fit in that world. It was on the periphery, but he had talents in it, he had a place, so he stayed.”
“Did he find his wife?”
His gaze, already locked on mine, bonded with it.
“Yeah.”
Whatever this Deacon person found was not good and I didn’t want to know.
Luckily, Raiden didn’t tell me.
Unluckily, he continued to tell me other things.
“My buddy hooked me up with Deacon. He’s a loner, but he’s also the best in the business. Lots of work, not enough of him to go around. The thing was he didn’t have anyone he respected enough to punt business to. He must have liked the feel of me ‘cause he took me on a couple jobs before he let me loose and started referring work to me. I did the jobs, established a reputation, got more work. So much I had to recruit and train a crew. I did. All the men left from my unit in the Corps who got out like me and found, also like me, they didn’t fit back into the world they left when they entered the Corps. But they fit into this other world.”
Suddenly, it came clear to me.
And it broke my heart.
“Raiden, this sounds like—”
“Save it,” he bit off, interrupting me. “They don’t know all this I’m tellin’ you, but they know me and I figure they can guess. Not the specifics, but enough to tweak them, so I got that shit from Mom. Got it from Rache. Didn’t listen to it from them either. I live it, Hanna. I get it and I know my place, where I’m comfortable, where I fit and this is it.”
“I’m not sure you’re right,” I told him carefully.
“You watch a friend you thought would be a friend for life—who’d stand up at your wedding, who you’d name your kid after, who you’d watch go gray while listenin’ to him bitch for the next forty years about his wife spending too much money—get blown to f*ckin’ bits by a landmine, babe, you’ll be in a place to say. Since that shit will thankfully never happen to you, you aren’t.”
My heart broke more, but after that I stayed silent.
“You know all that, I’ll give you the rest,” he declared. “All of this is sorted. Knight’s a buddy because Knight’s connected to Deacon, Deacon connected me with Knight and Knight did me a favor. I get paid cash. None of that is on any books, but Knight’s got a business and he cleans my money. I use a bogus partnership with him, which means I use his accounts to pay myself, my boys, make investments and pay taxes. It’s all above board and legal as far as the government knows. We do legitimate jobs that have no results in a way no one will ever cotton on that the jobs we do are not legitimate. IRS takes their cut, turns the other way. I got an address. I vote. I got a license. Plates on my car. An honorable discharge from the Corps. As far as anyone’s concerned I’m a respectable citizen, a veteran and a small business owner and the shit me and my crew do is buried so deep under that respectability, it’ll never be dug out.”
“Paul Moyer said you were off the grid,” I blurted, and his eyes got scary sharp before he appeared to relax.
“Paul Moyer talks smack because he wants to sound cool. For all intents and purposes, I operate off the grid, but I’m not off the grid. You meet Deacon, you’ll understand off the grid. That is not me. I come home for a few days at Christmas, but don’t reestablish life in Willow after gettin’ out, he knows what went down with my unit, Moyer thinks he knows his shit and runs his mouth. He doesn’t know his shit. He doesn’t know anything.”
“You said this was unsafe,” I reminded him.
“Men who want men hunted and are willin’ to pay tens of thousands of dollars to have them delivered, and the men who are runnin’ from them tend not to be people you wanna ask to dinner,” Raiden remarked.
This was very, very true.
God.
“This scares me,” I admitted.
“Yeah, but you’ll get used to it.”
He seemed very sure.
I was not.
“I don’t think I like this,” I told him, my voice small. “Any of it.”
Raiden didn’t move.
But he did speak.
“Then you need to understand why I do it.”
This meant there was more, and I really did not want more.
He gave it to me.
“Everything, every living thing on this earth, from plants to animals to humans, has a natural order. It’s absolutely crucial to keep that order, Hanna. I’ve been in the thick of chaos and it is not a fun place to be.”
Raiden went quiet and I nodded for him to go on, my heart clenching and the pizza in my belly sitting there in a nauseating lump.
He went on.
“The men who hire me keep order in their worlds. Each one of them rules their own empire. If something breaks free of their rule, chaos can result. In the worlds those men rule, if they keep control, it is very rare there’s collateral damage. But someone steals from them, someone conspires to overthrow them, hell can break loose. And when those fires burn, baby, they take out anyone in their path.”
Weirdly, this made sense so I said, “Okay.”
“When chaos can result, they call me in. I rein it in but I don’t extinguish the threat. I’m not a moron. I know when I deliver a man who f*cked one of these guys over they don’t sit him down in group counseling and work out their issues. But I don’t give a f*ck. I control chaos. No wife or mother or kid or girlfriend or just a person on the street who was in the wrong place at the wrong time gets pulled in to make a point, carry out a threat or used as shield, then I did my job and got paid huge to do it.”
This made sense, too, and was kind of honorable in a twisted, criminal underworld kind of way.
I did not tell Raiden this. I just stared at him.
So he continued.
“That’s my work, and the way you’re lookin’ at me I see it hasn’t penetrated yet that in the natural order of things it’s good work. I got a code. I don’t hunt women no matter what shit they pull—and they can pull some serious shit—but that is not my gig and never will be. And if the man I’m huntin’ is twenty or younger, I don’t take the job. At that age, they can pull their shit outta that life, turn themselves around. I don’t ask questions. I don’t counsel my prey. I tag and deliver. The kid might be pullin’ shit, but I won’t know that and I won’t live with it on my conscious that he’s off tryin’ to find a better life and I was responsible for dragging him back in.”
Raiden went quiet.
“Is that it?” I asked, thinking that was at least something but not much of a code.
“Nope,” he answered. “I don’t do side jobs, deliverin’ shit if they know I’m headin’ somewhere, which would usually be dope or firearms, but it could be anything. I do not touch any of their business because no matter what it is it’s tainted, and that is not part of my life. I am not muscle. I gotta get physical on the capture, I do that. But I don’t inflict injury unless it’s unavoidable. I am contract only and not on any payroll. It is known wide I’m not looking for employment. Now they don’t even offer no matter how good I do what I do and they want me on their crew. As for what my crew and I do, we do one thing. The job and only the job. There is not a menu of services available. We don’t accept add-ons no matter the amount they’re willing to pay. And unless I trust a man—and there are few I trust outside my crew, Deacon and Knight—I don’t grant favors and I don’t ask for them.”
Raiden again stopped speaking.
I said nothing.
So he asked, “You got any questions?”
I shook my head but told him, “I think I need to process this.”
He studied me a moment before his eyes warmed, his voice dropped and he ordered, “Then come here and process it closer.”
My throat clogged. I shook my head, but swallowed and forced out, “I think this is the kind of processing you need to process alone.”
A look that was hard to witness moved over his face.
He understood me.
That killed too.
“Hanna, come here,” he whispered.
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
Why not?
“Raiden, you just told me you’re a criminal and I’m not sure I’m down with that or if I’ll ever be.”
And I wasn’t.
And that’s why this was killing me.
“I’m not a criminal.”
“You participate in criminal activities,” I pointed out. “With understanding and intent.”
“I do shit that’s considered illegal,” he amended.
“It isn’t considered illegal, Raiden. It just is,” I told him.
“And who do I hurt?” he shot back, and my mouth clamped shut because that was actually a good question. “Who do I hurt, Hanna?” he pushed.
I said nothing.
What I did was push back into the couch when Raiden leaned toward me, putting his elbows to his thighs and kept talking.
“I don’t push dope. I don’t run guns. I don’t pimp women. I don’t steal. I don’t con. I don’t blackmail. I don’t squeeze people for protection money. I do not act as an enforcer. My business never touches the lives of honest citizens. The people I deal with made their choices, the wrong ones, and I’m a consequence of those choices. I didn’t force their choices. I do not do one f*ckin’ thing that contributes to their business or the shit they do. They f*ck up and wander into the real world where there’s a possibility that they can make decisions that will put good people doin’ their best to live decent lives in jeopardy, I reel them back in so that shit does not happen. I’m not tryin’ to convince you that that shit always bleeds. Sometimes it’s contained, but there’s always the possibility that someone could get tweaked, panicked, do something entirely f*cked up where someone innocent pays, and what I do stops that before it could even start.”
He was scaring me. All of this was, but still, I found the courage to note, “Raiden, it’s clear you’re determined to do what you do and you have your reasons, but, honestly some of it sounds like rationalizations.”
“Yeah?” he asked. “You stopped Bodhi and Heather from f*ckin’ you up the ass. You let that play out, I would have stopped those shipments from goin’ out with your afghans and I would have eventually traced all that shit back to the man who’s instigating it. Now he’s gonna find another Bodhi and Heather who will likely find another Hanna Boudreaux they can f*ck up the ass and she might not be as lucky as you.”
Oh my God.
That totally made sense.
“People do a lot of shit,” Raiden told me. “You’re so insulated by family, friends and Willow, thank Christ, you’ll never know all the seriously jacked up shit people can get up to. And I didn’t tell you that about Bodhi and Heather to make you think I’m on a crusade to shut down drug dealers or any kinds of other scum. The men I work for, I don’t make judgments and I don’t get involved. But when shit bleeds and I staunch the flow, that jacks up job satisfaction and it does it huge. You want it straight up, odds are Bodhi and Heather were good people who got caught up in something they couldn’t control. They were squeezed. They were forced to make a choice. I don’t know what happened and I don’t give a f*ck, but I’ve seen a lot of people, and those two do not have black souls. But they jacked up somewhere along the way, felt the consequences and that’s fair. What isn’t fair is they roped you into that shit and I don’t get to feel good about disentangling people like you often. It happens enough that I like what I do enough to keep doin’ it until I have the money to quit doin’ it, kick back and have a decent life where I answer to no one and I can just breathe.”
He stopped speaking and I said nothing.
We held each other’s eyes.
This went on a good, long while as my mind turned over what he said, everything he said, and a lot of things he didn’t say.
I had to admit, all of it made sense. It was his sense because Raiden had untwisted some scary, twisted stuff and forced it to make sense, but he did it in a way that it even made sense to me.
It was what he didn’t say that penetrated, dug deep and settled with the intention of staying awhile.
Maybe forever.
As I thought this he watched my face, and I knew he knew when he sat back and ordered quietly, “Now, Hanna, come here.”
I didn’t decide to do it. I couldn’t actually believe I was doing it even as I did it.
I let my legs go, curled them under me, put my hands to the empty seat between us and crawled his way.
The instant I got close he leaned toward me and his arms sliced around me so tight my breath constricted. He hauled me to him, his hand at the back of my head forcing my face in his neck and I felt him bury his in mine.
“Jesus, f*ck,” he whispered, relief dripping heavy in those two words.
I closed my eyes, and again I didn’t decide to do it, but still my arms shoved into the cushions of the couch so they could round him.
He shoved his face further in my neck and squeezed tight.
I let this continue because he needed it, and maybe I needed it. Then I couldn’t let it continue because I didn’t need to pass out.
“Raiden, I’m finding it hard to breathe,” I rasped.
His arm loosened.
“Are you with me?” he asked my neck.
Oh boy.
Oh God.
Heck.
“Yes,” my mouth decided for me.
His hand in my hair fisted and he repeated, “Jesus, f*ck.”
Grams was right. She always was.
Raiden was dangerous.
And I knew I shouldn’t. She warned me to be careful.
But for some reason I didn’t understand I couldn’t stop myself from being that woman who tried to withstand hellfire.
No.
I knew the reason.
It was because I wanted to know nothing for the rest of my life sweeter than the love Raiden could have for me.
It was also more.
I wanted him to know nothing for the rest of his sweeter than what I could give him.
“I think I’m in trouble,” I told his neck.
“That feeling will fade,” he told mine.
“I think I’m scared,” I kept going.
“That’ll fade too.”
“Just saying, you might be in a little bit of trouble, too.”
His head came up, his fist loosened in my hair so mine could go back and he caught my eyes.
His were still amazing.
The relief in them was not hidden.
He’d been worried.
Raiden Miller was so totally into me.
God.
Grams was so totally right.
How did this happen?
“How am I in trouble?” he asked.
I didn’t tell him what he knew, but obviously, from what he said, refused to do anything about.
That he was damaged and he needed fixing.
I also didn’t tell him I was going to do it.
I wasn’t going to do it because he was Raiden Ulysses Miller, a beautiful boy that turned into a gorgeous man I’d been crushing on for forever.
No, I was going to do it because he was Raiden, a gentleman, a hero. A man who, as a boy, went through terrible things and came out amazing because that was just who he was and he deserved someone who cared enough to put the effort in to fix him.
I didn’t want to change him. What he did was who he was and however that progressed I knew he was the kind of man that I would have to leave that alone.
That would be up to him.
But I was going to right the damage because I cared enough to put the effort in.
Instead, I told him, “I’m totally Peggy Sue, Raiden, and you do what you do and obviously you intend to keep doing it, but you should know I’m going to ignore that and keep right on being Peggy Sue.”
“Thank f*ck,” he replied so immediately I blinked.
“Sorry?”
“You gotta know my work because you gotta know me,” he explained. “Now you know it. But from now on, it doesn’t touch you. So you keep bein’ you because that’s you but also because that’s exactly what drew me to you, baby.” He grinned. “That and your long-ass legs and that sweet ass, and, bein’ honest, your great tits and fantastic f*ckin’ hair.” I rolled my eyes, his grin got bigger and he kept talking. “But, back on track, bottom line, I wouldn’t want it any other way.”
I liked that. All of it, including the stuff about my legs, booty and the rest.
So I smiled.
Then I relaxed.
Raiden felt it.
And I felt him relax.
Then he wasted no further time and kissed me.
It was nice, but too short.
I would know why when he broke it, looked me in the eyes and stated, “Now that’s done, time for a tour of your house. A tour that’s gonna end in your bedroom.”
His words made me shiver.
I was about to have sex with an amazingly gorgeous, criminal underworld bounty hunter with questionable ethics that at least made sense to him, even if they didn’t entirely make sense to me. He was dangerous. He was damaged. He was into me. I instinctively knew this was not the end of my world shifting because Raiden Ulysses Miller entered it.
And still…
I could not wait.