by Jessica Ames
Frigid fingers claw at my belly at the thought.
Sick prick.
Sinking onto the floor, leaning back against the bed, I finally let my tears come. This is not how my life is supposed to go. I’m not destined to spend the rest of my life a prisoner. Hollowness fills my gut and I feel numb as I swipe at the tears coursing down my cheeks. Crying won’t solve anything, but I need to get out all my fear, my frustration, my helplessness. I need to cry for the loss of the one man who may have genuinely loved me for me, not because of some sick need to possess me. I cry because my last image of him was seeing him shot. And I cry because I’ll never see him again.
His last memory of me will be a woman who betrayed them, who lied and who brought this trouble to their door. It taints all the good that happened between Nox and me. Sasha won’t remember her best friend, but a snake in the grass. It’s those thoughts that hurt more than anything Isaac can do to me. Nox will never know how sorry I am that I never got the chance to tell him I love him, that he captured my heart. The way he held me, made love to me is like nothing I’ve ever felt before. I don’t want to forget a single moment of our time together.
I glance around again, swallowing through the thickness in my throat. This is my life now.
I shake my head. No. I’m not that scared little girl anymore. I’m not giving up. If Isaac wants me, he’s going to have a fight on his hands, because I don’t want him. I want my life back. I want to live without having to look over my shoulder, or change my name. I can’t keep running. I’m so tired.
I’d rather die than live a life pretending to be his wife.
I don’t know how much time passes while I sit on the floor of my old bedroom, my heart heavy, my brain completely empty of all thoughts but Nox, but the light coming through the curtains is starting to darken when I hear a key jangling in the lock.
Fear clutches my belly and I scramble off the floor. I have to bite my lip to stop the moan falling from my mouth as pain shoots through me like a red-hot poker, but I don’t want to be caught sitting down, looking scared. Whoever comes through that door, I want to face head on.
Isaac strides into the room, turning and locking the door behind him before he faces me. His expression is soft, which instantly puts me on alert. He’s never soft about anything, especially me.
He moves over to me, and I match his movement step for step as I back pedal to get away from him, but my legs catch on the bed and I sit down heavily on the mattress.
Before I can get up again, he’s in my space, standing between my legs. His fingers move to my hair and he pulls it free of the tie.
“You look better with it down,” he tells me. From anyone else, that would be a compliment. From Isaac, it’s a backhanded barb about how he thinks I look trashy with my hair up.
He dips his head and takes my mouth. It’s not like when Nox kisses me. There are no butterflies, my legs don’t wobble, my heart doesn’t soar. All I feel is trepidation and nauseous. I shove him away as soon as his lips touch mine, then I brace.
Denying Isaac anything is not a good idea.
I peer up at him, my heart thrumming in my chest as he reaches out and snags me by my forearms. His face contorts, the devil behind his perfectly crafted mask coming out to play, and terror claws up my spine.
“You’re mine! My wife. Start acting like it,” he hisses at me.
I shake my head, trying to remove his bruising grip on my arms. “I was yours once. I thought I loved you, but you destroyed everything between us.”
I expect a hit, but it doesn’t come. Instead, he shoves me roughly back and I stumble, sagging against the bed.
“They’ve poisoned you against me.”
I want to laugh at his words, but my anger is too prominent.
“It’s nothing to do with them. It’s you! You think I didn’t know about the other women? You think I enjoyed it every time you thought I stepped out of line? With every punch you hit that love out of me. You took me, hurt me, you fucking destroyed me.” I shake my head. “That isn’t love. It’s cruel obsession.”
His hands drop to his waist. If I didn’t know him, know the ugliness inside him, I would say he’s attractive. His slicked back dark hair, eyes that are a deep brown, and an all year-round tan look good. His jaw is what you would call chiselled, and is covered in a hint of scruff that makes him look like a male model. He’s removed his suit jacket and is wearing a white shirt, the sleeves rolled up, exposing his clean forearms. He doesn’t have a hint of ink on him, or he didn’t the last time I saw him naked, unlike Nox, who is a walking work of art.
“Stop being dramatic, baby. Can’t you see that I just wanted what was best for you? That I was just trying to take care of you. You love me. I took nothing from you, and I gave you everything.”
There they are. His sweet as honey lies. They would have worked in the past, but they don’t now. I’m wise to his methods of manipulation. Absence taught me the tricks he used to get what he wanted. Plus, I really don’t care about making him feel better. In the past, I didn’t want to hurt him, I believed everything he said, so I’d back down. It was a weakness he used for his own benefit. It won’t happen again.
“You just saw me as another one of your possessions. A trophy to hang off your arm.”
I shouldn’t anger him, but my rage is so heightened I can’t control it. He used to have a hold on me, keeping me so scared I could hardly think for myself, but living with Sasha, tasting Nox… it’s changed me. I’m stronger than I’ve ever been and I’ll die before I let him destroy me again.
He moves so fast I barely register it until I’m wrestled onto the bed, his heavy weight coming down on top of me, his fingers wrapping around my neck in a grip that is so bruising, my vision starts to fade at the edges.
“You’re my wife. Mine.” He pushes my head into the mattress until pain lances through my skull. “Did you like being his whore?”
Nox. He’s talking about Nox.
“I never touched him and he never touched me. I worked at the bar. They gave me a place to stay. That’s all.” But I can’t stop from sticking the knife in deeper. My words are the only weapons I have left. My lips curl into a sneer as I meet his blazing eyes. “I’d rather all those bikers took me than you.”
Rage flares in his eyes and my stomach lurches as he squeezes harder on my neck. I can’t breathe past his hold and panic flutters in my belly as I claw at his hands, trying to unseat them. He doesn’t flinch or move, just keeps squeezing as darkness creeps into my vision before it finally pulls me under.
When I come around, night has stolen in, and the room is dark. I’m alone, still clothed, thankfully, and lying across the middle of the bed. My neck throbs and it feels as if I swallowed razor blades. I sit up slowly, rubbing at the column of my throat, trying to disperse the pain.
At least I’m still breathing. I’ll take that as a win.
I fumble in the dark and manage to find the switch for the bedside lamp. It floods the room with light and chases some of the shadows away, but the demons still linger on the edges, taunting me.
On shaky legs, I get to my feet and stumble over to the window, pulling the curtain back. There’s no way out. I can’t escape.
Tears prick my eyes and I stare out of the window for so long that my eyes start to get heavy, but then in the dawn light, something catches my attention. Movement.
A sea of people are breaking into the main grounds. There’s so many, I can’t count them all.
As they get closer my breath gets caught in my throat as tears burn my cheeks. I pick him out easily from the crowd. I could recognise him anywhere.
Nox.
28
Nox
As soon as my shoulder is patched up, Rav gets on the phone to the other Untamed Sons chapters. We have clubs scattered around the whole UK, so we call each one and see who can spare men. If Isaac Blackwood wants a war, we’ll fucking give him one, but it will be the full force of the Sons coming down on him. Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol
and Cardiff empty their clubhouses and ride to London. Newcastle, York, Leicester and Glasgow too. We call up a few local support clubs, who agree to join us, and call in a couple of markers with the Devil’s Dogs, another club local to the area. Maverick, their president, isn’t fucking happy about getting involved, but a marker is a marker and he’s a man of his word.
It takes most of the day and into the early hours of the morning for everyone to arrive. Seven hours for the Glasgow boys to get here, five for the Newcastle brothers. They ride nonstop, not even taking a break at one of the many service stations they will have passed on the way down. I’m grateful as fuck, because the whole time I’m waiting, I can feel my sanity fraying. Blackwood has had Lucy for too long now, and as dawn looms on the horizon, my fear turns dark. He’s had her all day and night. There’s a lot of damage he can do in that time, and that makes me want to roar with rage.
I’m standing outside the clubhouse, looking at the rows and rows of Harleys. I’ve never seen the parking area so full before. The street outside the clubhouse is also jammed with bikes filling every inch of available space. If I wasn’t so fucking on edge, I might have taken a moment to appreciate seeing this many hogs all together.
Grub, Birmingham’s VP, is standing talking with Rav and Howler, President of the Manchester chapter. Growing up in the club and now as a patched member, I’ve got to know most of the men of our other chapters well over the years. Grub has been a constant feature, coming to cook outs, taking runs to London, doing whatever the mother chapter demanded. He’s a loyal brother. He’s also one of the oldest members in the Sons. He’s got to be pushing seventy now, but he looks closer to fifty. His salted hair is long, worn in a ponytail at the nape of his neck and his beard is bigger than Rav’s. For an old guy, he looks in good shape, with no hint of a gut, and a frame that suggests he still keeps himself fit. He’s wearing a leather jacket, his kutte over the top declaring his affiliation to the Sons and to Birmingham. Howler has Manchester on his.
Seeing this many brothers coming to our aid fills my stomach with warmth.
“How you holding up?” I jolt as Daimon comes to stand beside me, leaning against the wall.
“I’ll feel better when we’re on the road.”
“You ain’t riding, are you?”
As if my shoulder knows we’re talking about it, it throbs suddenly. Fucker.
“I’m going in the van with Kyle.”
Humiliating as that might be, I don’t give a shit how I get there, as long as I do. Rav had been adamant about me not getting on the back of a bike, and I wasn’t going to argue it with him. I can hardly lift my arm and I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck. I would be a danger to myself and my brothers right now and with this many bikes riding in formation it would be fucking stupid to even try. Besides, I have no idea what state Lucy will be in, but if she can’t be on the back of my bike, I want to be with her in the van.
Daimon seems to relax at my admission. “We’ll get her back, brother.”
I nod. We will, but in what condition. I stop my thoughts dead, not wanting to go there right now. I don’t need that kind of darkness filling my brain. I need to be focused on Lucy and getting her back.
“Pretty much everyone is here,” Day remarks.
We’re the national chapter, so if Rav calls, they come, but I like to think it’s more than that. We’re a brotherhood not just in our club, the London chapter, but across all chapters. I would die for Grub as much as I would for Day.
“Yeah.”
Rav’s voice raises, drawing my attention. “Time to roll, boys.”
Finally. My stomach twitches and my throat clogs as I push off the wall. Daimon does the same, but I stop him before he can walk away.
“Don’t get yourself fucking killed, yeah?”
His lips twitch. “You neither.”
He walks over to his bike and I watch as my brothers from across the country mount up before I head over to the van and climb in. Each chapter has their own recovery van, their prospects driving them, in case something happens to one of the bikes. Hopefully nothing will, but it’s best to be prepared.
I pull my seatbelt on and adjust my kutte.
Then the bikes roar to life, like a great symphony. I relish the sound. It’s a balm to my soul, and it has me grinning. I turn to Kyle who is watching the scene with a flash of excitement in his eyes.
“The Sons ride,” I tell him.
His mouth pulls into a smirk and I feel the pride hit me in the chest like a wrecking ball. This is what I stand for. This is what I joined the Sons for—brotherhood.
The first bikes move out of the parking area and onto the main road. With a group this size, it would usually take a little time to get everyone into position, but there isn’t time for that, so Rav heads the column, Fury on his tail, Day, Levi and Whizz following. Titch, as Road Captain, waits behind, watching as more brothers from other chapters follow.
It takes just over ten minutes for the clubhouse to empty out and for the bikes lining the road to join the procession. The vans go last and I feel an itchy need to get there faster than we are.
We ride through allied territories, probably cleared by Titch before the first rider mounted up, and we head towards Isaac’s property. My knee jiggles as I stare out of the side window, my thoughts focused on Lucy.
I pull my gun from under my kutte and check it’s loaded.
“Lucy yours?” Kyle asks. He runs his hand over his hair and his teeth scrape over his lip piercing, moving the ring around.
I like him. As prospects go, he’s solid and unflappable. I have no doubt the fucker would have my back if shit went down, and more importantly I trust him to have it. He’s a big bloke with dark eyes and dark skin. He’s also a hell of a fighter, which is how Sin, our former VP, found the kid. He was fighting in underground fight clubs from the age of sixteen and he was fucking good at it too. If he hadn’t patched in, the kid could have gone far in that world, but Kyle knew what he wanted and that was the Sons. He took the prospect patch as soon as he turned eighteen and has been a fucking asset to the club ever since.
“Yeah, she’s mine.”
I don’t mention the fact the club didn’t officially give me their support to claim her. This, what we’re doing right now, is a huge endorsement from my brothers.
“We’ll get her back.”
I nod. “Yeah, we will.” There’s no alternative. We have to get her back, because the thought of living without Lucy is not one I can stomach.
It feels like it takes forever to get to Isaac’s house. We stop the bikes in a field close to the house and my brothers fade into the trees, walking in the direction of the property.
I fight my way to the front, just in time to see Fury stab his knives into the security guard in the booth next to the gate. Blood sprays up his face. There’s a hole in his forehead.
I turn forwards and focus on the lit-up house.
My heart sinks. Blackwood’s house is a fucking mansion. It’s huge. How the fuck are we going to find Lucy in this place?
As we approach the house, I see movement. Blackwood isn’t a coward. He steps onto the porch area with a few men, far fewer than we’ve brought. Leon and Elijah are at his side. Good little dogs.
“Get off my property,” he demands, as if we’re going to listen. I’m not leaving here without Lucy.
I snort as I move to stand next to my president, my gut’s blazing with righteous anger.
“Bring Lucy out and we’ll leave.”
“Lucy? Oh, you mean Natasha.” He stares at me like I’m shit under his shoe. “I thought I shot you.”
“Aim better next time,” I growl out.
And in one swift movement, I pull my gun from my holster and aim it. My breath is loud in my ears as I pull the trigger. The bullet finds its mark, but unlike Blackwood, my aim isn’t shit. It hits its target, only it’s not Isaac it hits. At the last second, Leon pushes his boss down and my bullet hits him right between the fucking eyes. Hi
s body turns boneless as he slides to his knees before eating the concrete.
There’s a moment of silence as Blackwood pulls himself free of the body, his white shirt now splattered with blood.
Then all hell breaks loose.
29
Lucy
I watch from the window as Nox raises his gun and fires. There’s no hesitation, no uncertainty, and for a moment I glimpse the hardness beneath the softness he’s always given me. It scares the shit out of me, even as it leaves me breathless that he’s come for me.
My heart leaps into my throat when Isaac and Leon go down in a heap of bodies. Then everything goes crazy. A cacophony of gun fire reverberates into the air, loud cracks and pops as if it’s the fifth of November punctuated by shouts from the men. Bodies are moving everywhere and screams punch the air.
I try to swallow down my fear as I track Nox’s movements, holding my breath as he ducks and shouts before jumping back up. He evades the bullets flying, but he gets lost in the mass of kuttes rushing around the front lawn.
Panic grips my heart as I watch the firefight taking place, helpless to do anything. I tear my eyes from the window and rush over to the door, trying the handle again. It doesn’t budge, so I tug it back hard, my ribs screaming in pain. Still nothing. I slam my palm against it, shouting until my throat feels raw.
I glance around the room for something I can use to break down the door, but there’s nothing. Frustration roars through my veins, my blood turning to ice as helplessness washes over me.
I hurry back over to the window and peer down at the full-blown battle taking place. Spots of dark red patches cover the ground. Fear creeps up my spine as I search the faces, not seeing Nox among them and unable to tell who is winning. If anything happens to Nox, I won’t survive it.
The sound of a key in the lock has my head snapping around and Isaac steps into the room. He looks dishevelled, his usually slicked back hair falling loose around his face, and his eyes are wild. It’s not that my gaze goes to, though. It’s the large spattering of blood covering his pristine white shirt.
