Tempt My Trouble (Knights of Mayhem Book 1)

by K. A. Ware

  “She’s not makin’ any fuckin’ sense,” Jester growled.

  “Fuck,” Rabbit groaned, grabbing her head. “You don’t understand,” she gritted out. “He’s fucking delusional and completely obsessed with her. He thinks they’re together, that she likes being with him and the fucked-up shit he does to her. He blames me for taking her away.”

  Jester crossed his arms over his chest and stared down at her. “We get that part, babe. Need the rest of the story.”

  “Relax,” I warned, not liking his tone. If he didn’t stop acting like a fucking asshole, I was going to shove my foot up his ass.

  He didn’t even blink, keeping his focus on Rabbit.

  She kept her eyes firmly closed, rubbing at her uninjured temple. “When I got home, I didn’t know anything was wrong at first. I ran upstairs to pack and get Amanda, but she wasn’t in her room. I forgot to lock the front door and Gunner showed up. I told him I’d be down in a minute…I didn’t fucking know.”

  She took a few deep breaths, calming herself. “I heard a noise, so I grabbed my gun. I was going to run when I saw Gunner’s body, but then Amanda screamed for help. I couldn’t just leave her.”

  “Hey,” I said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “There’s no way you could’ve known.”

  Rabbit sat up a little straighter, wiping at her face. “He made me put down the gun and zip tie myself while he held the knife to her throat. When I couldn’t get away, they dropped the act. He hid me when Stella came home, and Amanda pretended I was hurt to get her into the kitchen. That’s when shit started spiraling.”

  She stared off, worrying her lip for a minute before continuing. “He grabbed Stella, and Amanda was trying to get him to tell her where her mom was but he told her she was already dead and then fucking shot her. He was standing right next to her. She didn’t even have time to react,” she whispered. “After that, he came at me. Stella wasn’t tied up, so she kept trying to get him to leave. She knew he wouldn’t kill her, not when he just got her back, and he couldn’t carve me up and keep a hold of her at the same time.”

  Butcher had picked obsession over revenge. As sick as it was, I was happy that he had. It meant Rabbit was still alive.

  “That’s everything?” I asked.

  Rabbit nodded. “Yeah, they left maybe ten minutes before you showed up.”

  “Okay, hang tight. I need to talk to the guys, and we’ll get you cleaned up,” I said, moving to stand, but she stopped me with a hand on my arm.

  Her big brown eyes, glossy with tears, stared up at me. “You’re going to find her, aren’t you? She can’t go through that again. You have to help her.”

  “Babe, breathe. We’re gonna find her, it’ll be okay,” I said, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

  Grabbing Jester’s arm, I led him into the hallway where Z and Crow were wrapping Gunner’s body in a plastic tarp.

  “I didn’t hear any bikes,” I said, one eye on the old man’s pale face where it peeked out from the plastic sheeting.

  Jester stepped into my line of sight, bringing my attention back to him. “Z said it sounded like we needed to come in quiet. Guess he was right.”

  “No shit,” I said, running a hand over my scalp. “Look, I’m going to take the tow truck and get Rabbit back to the clubhouse. Can you guys handle clean up and bring my bike back with you?”

  “That’s fine. I’ll have Butter bring the flatbed, and we’ll get the bitch’s car outta here, too,” he sneered, eyes flicking back toward the kitchen where Amanda’s body was growing colder by the minute. I understood why she did it but didn’t make her any less of a traitor.

  “You sure the three of you can handle it?” I asked.

  Jester lifted his chin. “Yeah, we’re good. She needs to get out of here, this shit’s gonna fuck with her head. Chains put a call out, rest of the boys are meeting at the clubhouse. You’re gonna want to get there and lay it out.”

  I knew what he was saying. This wasn’t retaliation for our hit on the Sinners. Therefore, it wasn’t our mess to clean up. What happened here was old shit, left to fester and rot. If I wanted the weight of the club at my back on this, I needed to lay claim to Rabbit. Commit to sticking a property patch on her ass and making her problems our problems.

  It was sooner than I planned, but I’d do it. If we lost Stella, I’d lose Rabbit, and I’d walk through fire before that happened.

  “You need to rest,” I growled, staring down at my stubborn fucking woman.

  Rabbit glared at me from the bed. “My sister is out there. I need to help find her.”

  “You just got carved the fuck up, all you need to do is FUCKIN’ REST!” I roared, leaning down into her space. We’d been going at it for the past twenty minutes, and I’d about had my fill of bullshit for the day.

  When we got back to the clubhouse, Mick called his sister Annie, an ER nurse, to come fix Rabbit up. There was nothing she could do for her face other than a few butterfly bandages along her cheek. The slash across Rabbit’s chest required stitches. Annie suggested she go to the hospital and have a surgeon close her up to minimize the scaring, but Rabbit wasn’t having it. She didn’t care about a scar, she had a one-track mind, and it was focused solely on her sister.

  As soon as she was cleaned up and Annie had finished tending to her wounds though, she decided it was time to go fuckin’ play detective.

  “I can’t just SIT HERE!” she screamed right back.

  How could you love someone and want to fucking strangle them at the same damn time?

  I gripped the back of my neck, squeezing at the tense muscles. “You can and you fuckin’ will even if I have to cuff you to the damn bed myself. I can’t focus on finding Stella if I’m worried about you. The guys are on it, and we will find her, but I need you to stay out of the damn way!”

  “When have I ever been the type of woman to sit in the shadows and do what she’s told?” she shot back.

  “Love your fire, babe, but it’s time for you to learn your place.”

  Her head jerked back in shock. “You don’t mean that,” she whispered.

  No, I didn’t, but I also didn’t have time to waste arguing with Rabbit when there were more important things to do.

  “I just dropped a pile of your shit on my club’s doorstep, and they agreed to take it on because you’re mine. Do you understand that? Mine. My responsibility, my ass if you get in the way. Let me handle this.”

  “That’s not fair! I can fucking help!” she screeched.

  “You know what’s not fair? That I lost a brother today and you can’t shut your mouth and give me a moment of Goddamn peace!”

  Her face fell, and I wanted to reach out and take the words back. I wanted to hold her and tell her that it wasn’t her fault, but I didn’t. I let the hurt fester, using it as fuel. I couldn’t think about that shit right now. If I thought about what we’d lost, and what we might lose if we couldn’t find Stella, I’d fucking crack under the pressure of it all. I had to push forward, keep going until we found her. Then I’d be able to breathe. Then I’d be able to grieve.

  “Can you please leave? I don’t like you very much right now,” she said, turning away.

  What the fuck?

  Didn’t she see I was doing all this for her? To protect her?

  “Feelin’s mutual, babe,” I bit out. Turning heel, I stalked out of the room, letting the door slam behind me with a satisfying crack.

  The adrenaline of the past few hours faded away, and a bone-deep exhaustion settled over me. The fear of thinking I was going to lose Rabbit, the guilt of unwittingly sending Gunner to his death, the stress of trying to find a single psychopath in a city of millions, all of it weighed heavily on my shoulders. If this was what holding the gavel felt like, I was starting to second guess my ambitions.

  Shit between Rabbit and me would work itself out. I didn’t doubt that. If we didn’t find Stella, though, even if we found her just a little too late, Rabbit would never be the same.

&n
bsp; No matter what, I needed to come through for her. Failure wasn’t an option.

  Twenty-Seven

  FINLEY

  I didn’t care what the fuck Baz had to say. I wasn’t going to sit idly by while my sister was at the mercy of a fucking psychopath. I had my weak moment back at the house. It was over now. I had to focus on finding Stella.

  Waiting a few minutes after Baz had stormed off, I cracked open the door, peeking out into the hallway. All clear. Quietly, I slipped out, hoping like hell Baz wouldn’t come looking for me while I was gone.

  A door at the end of the hall opened, and Z stalked out, his head down as he turned something over in his hand.

  “Z!” I whisper shouted, not wanting to be heard beyond the hallway. If Baz came back and saw me out of bed, he’d throw a fucking hissy fit.

  He stopped walking and lifted his head, slowly turning around like a fucking robot. The guy seriously gave me the fucking creeps, but he was the only one around, so he’d have to do.

  “I need your help,” I said, hurrying to where he stood. He didn’t move or say anything. He just stared at me.

  Taking his silence as my cue to continue, I took a deep breath before launching into the reasons he should help me go around Baz’s back. “Look, Baz is being a dick. I’m not going to sit around while Stella’s out there. I need to talk to Frogger. I need him to find something for me, on the computer, I mean.”

  God, I’m seriously fucking this up.

  “It might help us find Stella, please,” I said, trying to appeal to his sense of compassion. If he even had one. It was at that moment that I realized he was holding a black pistol loosely by his side.

  Following my gaze, Z holstered the weapon and crossed his arms over his wide chest. “What do you need him to find?”

  “Just a phone number,” I said, hating how nervous my voice sounded. I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I was trying to find my sister not committing a crime. If Frogger had to commit a crime to get what I needed, that was on him.

  His expression didn’t change, completely unimpressed by my hedging. “Who’s number?”

  I licked my lips, wishing there was another alternative. If I did this, I was worried I’d be unleashing a Pandora’s box of shit that would never be able to be put away. “I need to get a hold of my mom.”

  Z’s jaw snapped shut, and his nostrils flared as his fists lowered to his sides. “The fuck you wanna talk to that bitch for?” he growled, waves of potent anger rippling off him.

  I gasped, stumbling back a few steps in my shock.

  What the fuck?

  He prowled toward me, his long legs easily eating up the distance I’d back peddled. “After what she did?”

  Less than six inches separated his face from mine, as he stared me down. The dark pools of his eyes boring into my skull like he could reach in and rip out my thoughts.

  “You know?” I breathed.

  “Yeah, I fuckin’ know,” he snapped. The vein in the side of his neck bulged and his face began to turn an angry shade of red.

  “Baz told you? About her?” I asked, incredulous.

  How could he do that? I knew he had to tell the club about our connection to the Sinners, but he promised he wouldn’t go into detail. How could he just turn around and break my trust as soon as he got it? It didn’t make any sense.

  Relaxing his stance, Z pulled away, so he wasn’t in my face. “Don’t start losin’ your shit. Baz didn’t tell me about your mom.”

  If Baz didn’t tell him, then who?

  My brows furrowed together as I tried to find another explanation, but couldn’t. “Did—was it Stella?”

  “Doesn’t fuckin’ matter. I know, so answer my question. Why the fuck you wanna talk to that bitch?”

  I’d already lost two fights with bikers today. I wasn’t even going to try anymore. Filing the information away to decipher another day, I rolled over.

  “She was connected to the Sinners for a long time. She might know where Butcher would’ve taken Stella. I’ve got to try at least. It’s been four hours. We need to find her.”

  Z considered my logic, his black irises dancing as he thought over my words. Finally, he lifted his chin. “Come on,” he snapped, brushing past me.

  I had to hurry to keep up with his long stride. Stopping at the third door from the end of the hall on the opposite side of Baz’s room, he rapped on the door with his knuckles. “Frogger?”

  “Come in,” a muffled voice called out from inside.

  Z looked over his shoulder and jerked his head for me to follow as he pushed inside. I stopped at the doorway, taking in the room.

  Instead of a bed, like Baz, Frogger sat on the edge of a futon that was pushed up against the wall next to the door. Short bookshelves holding computer towers and gaming consoles lined the far wall below the biggest TV I’ve ever seen. It nearly took up the entire length of the wall.

  To the left, a Game of Thrones banner hung above the dresser. On the opposite wall, a floating shelf displayed dozens of action figures and bobbleheads. Two seriously authentic looking lightsabers were mounted on the wall above the trinkets. Baz hadn’t been kidding. Frogger was a fucking geek.

  I knew bikers came in all shapes and sizes with any number of quirks, but nerdy biker was a new one.

  Frogger craned his neck, catching sight of me in the doorway. “Oh, hey, Fin. How you feelin’?”

  “I’m fine, I was hoping you could help me get a number,” I said, taking a step into the room. I needed to get out of the hallway in case Baz walked by.

  “Depends, what for?” he asked, looking back at the screen as he typed away on the wireless keyboard balanced on his knees.

  “I need to call my mom, but I don’t know the number. Can you help me or not?”

  Calm down turbo. You catch more flies with honey and all that shit.

  My nerves were frayed, and my patience was hanging on by a goddamn thread, I didn’t have much in the way of a bedside manner to muster.

  “You should probably wait until we find Stella to do that. Don’t want her callin’ the cops and complicating things,” he said dismissively, not even looking at me.

  “She’s not going to call the cops,” I argued.

  Frogger tsk’d and shook his head, still not fucking looking at me. “You don’t know that.”

  I turned to Z for help, and he sighed, finally breaking out of his robotic stoicism. “She’s a junkie, not gonna call the cops, man. She might know where that asshole took Stella,” he offered.

  Frogger’s hands stopped moving, and he glanced up to Z, the two of them having some sort of silent conversation with their eyes.

  Sure, he’ll look at the serial killer, but not me.

  “Fine,” Frogger said, pulling up a new window on his giant screen. “Need a name and date of birth, social if you’ve got it.”

  “As a matter of fact, I do,” I said, smiling for the first time in what felt like years. I’d started preparing my mother’s taxes when I was fifteen. Her social security number would forever be burned into my brain.

  Thank Christ for shitty mothers.

  Frogger really was a genius because a half hour later I walked back to Baz’s room with my mother’s latest phone number scrawled across a tiny piece of notebook paper.

  Sitting in the middle of the bed, I pulled my phone from my pocket and punched in the numbers without giving myself time to think about it.

  “Hello?” Her voice had been roughened by years of chain smoking, but I’d recognize my mother’s venomous tone anywhere.

  “M—mom, it’s Norah.”

  I tried not to pay attention to how big the moment felt by staring at the new bedspread I’d bought for Baz’s room. I didn’t ask, but I could guess how many whores had graced his sheets in the past. When we started splitting our time between the club and my place, I decided they needed to be replaced.

  There was a long pause, and I was about to repeat myself when she finally spoke. “Norah, baby! Oh, my God, I ca
n’t believe it’s you. Honey, it’s been so long,” she cooed.

  Either I caught her during one of her manic episodes, or better yet, she was putting on an act and working an angle.

  “Look, I’m not calling to catch up. I need your help.”

  “Oh,” she snapped, dropping all pretenses. “So I’m good enough to call when you need my help, but the rest of the time you act like I’m fucking dead? That’s just great, Norah. Real nice.”

  It was too much. I was stressed and on edge, my head full of every possible fate that could befall Stella and my heart crumbling under the weight of my worry. Something in me snapped and a side of myself I rarely saw came tearing out of my mouth.

  “Listen, you fucking cunt. If you don’t stop running your goddamn mouth, I’m going to bring the weight of the entire Knights of Mayhem club on your fucking head.”

  That shut her the fuck up.

  There was no way I had the right to invoke the name of Baz’s club, but I was past caring. I needed her scared. It was the only way she’d cooperate.

  “Butcher took Natalie, and all the boys know how you pimped her out to him when she was just a kid,” I seethed, laying it on thick. “If you want to keep breathing, I suggest you listen and tell me what the fuck I want to know.”

  “Shit, what do you think I can tell you?” she asked, her voice wavering slightly.

  She was fucking disgusting, so worried about herself she couldn’t muster up even a word of concern for her youngest daughter.

  “Do you know of anywhere in Portland Butcher would take St—Natalie?” I asked, just barely catching myself. I was already giving Charese way more information than I’d like, she didn’t need my sister’s new name, too.

  She laughed. Fucking laughed. “Is that where you little shits have been hiding? Should’ve known better, couple hours and a few hundred miles isn’t gonna keep you safe from that crazy fucker. Honestly, thought I taught you better than that.”

  If this bitch kept running her mouth, I was going to have Frogger find whatever shithole she was living in and show up on her doorstep to strangle her with my bare hands. “Do you know where he could’ve taken her or not?”