Carbon (Blackwings MC Book 4)

by Teagan Brooks

  “I’m home, and all is well. Thanks for checking on me, Chase,” she said softly.

  We ended the call, and I started gathering my stuff. My girl was not okay, and I was going to find out why. In less than five minutes, I had my shit packed and was climbing onto my bike.

  Dash was coming through the gate as I was about to pull out. “Going somewhere?”

  “Yeah, I’ll be back in a day or two unless I’m needed before then,” I answered.

  “Where you headed?” he asked, raising a brow.

  “Better if I don’t say,” I said flatly.

  He shot me a knowing grin. “Have fun and tell Harper I said hello,” he said before he revved his bike and rode past me. There was no way he missed the look of surprise on my face at his words. Fuck it. I’d worry about that later.

  I rode hell-bent for leather all the way to Harper’s place. Damn, she really needed to move closer. It wasn’t that far, but it was too far when something was wrong, and something obviously was.

  The first thing I noticed when I pulled into her driveway was that every light in the house was on, as well as her porch light and floodlights. The outside lights I could understand if it was dark out, but it wasn’t.

  I climbed off my bike and strolled to the front door. I rang the doorbell and waited. No answer. I rang it again and knocked twice. Still no answer. I knocked loudly and called her name. Nothing. After listening for a moment and hearing no sounds of movement inside the house, I lost it.

  I beat on the door once more for good measure before I raised my booted foot and kicked the fucker in. Then, everything happened so fast. I crashed through the door. A gun went off. I grabbed the shooter by the throat, knocked the gun out of their hand, and slammed them to the ground, following them to the floor. My fist was flying, halfway to its intended target, when I realized it was Harper beneath me.

  I jumped to my feet and pulled her up with me. “Fuck! Are you okay? Did I hurt you?”

  “N-no, you didn’t.”

  “What the fuck was that, Harper? You fucking shot at me? I could have killed you,” I roared. I was pissed—not about being shot at. I had been grazed or missed by bullets more times than I could count. I found it sort of morbidly fascinating that so many people missed a target as big as me. What had me raging was the fact that I could have seriously hurt her coupled with the obvious fear on her face.

  “I didn’t know it was you, you big beast!” she yelled right back, even as she clung to me.

  “You would’ve known it was me if you would’ve answered the damn door! Or looked out a fucking window! What the hell is wrong with you?” I didn’t intend for my words to come out as harsh as they did. She was scared, and I felt a primal need to protect her and eliminate the threat.

  Her reaction was not what I expected. “I’m fucking scared, okay? I was already scared, and you scared me more!” she screamed as she pulled away from me, tears streaming down her face. “I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

  “Baby,” I said softly, reaching out to cup her cheek, “I’m fine. Why are you so scared?”

  She leaned into my palm, and her face crumpled even more. “Someone broke into my house while I was in Croftridge. The police said it appeared to be personal,” she cried.

  “Why do they think it’s personal?”

  “Follow me. I’ve cleaned up some of it, but I still have a good bit left.” She turned, and I followed her through the house as she showed me the damage that was done to her home.

  When we got to her room, I surveyed the area, rubbed my eyes, and looked around the room again. “Peas?” I asked.

  “I know, right? If it hadn’t happened to me, I might find it funny, but at the moment, I keep finding the fuckers everywhere. And let me tell you, you can’t vacuum up mushy peas. No, they have to be picked up by hand!”

  “So, let me get this straight. Someone broke into your house, painted dots on your living room wall, broke a bunch of picture frames, and covered your bed in peas?” I asked, not believing the words coming out of my mouth. “Anything else?”

  She chewed on her bottom lip before answering me. “The picture frames...only the ones with pictures of my parents and Duke were broken.” She shrugged. “It’s probably just a coincidence.”

  “I don’t think so. I think someone is trying to send you a message.” I pulled out my phone and continued, “I’ve got to call the club and let them know what’s going on.”

  “No!” she shrieked and tried to grab my phone.

  I yanked my phone away in time and held it above my head. “What the hell, Harper? You know I can’t keep this from them, and you shouldn’t want me to. Your safety is at stake here. We need to make sure you’re protected.”

  “If you call the club, they’ll want me to come back to Croftridge. I can’t do that. I just took two weeks off work. I can’t take any more time off right now. Plus, Duke and Reese have been through a lot of shit recently. I don’t want my brother to worry about me. He needs to focus on his family right now. I have a gun, I’m getting a security system installed, and I called the police. I want to handle this like normal people would,” she explained.

  “How do you think Duke would feel if something happened to you? How do you think I would feel, Harper?” I pounded my fist on my chest and stared at her.

  “Nothing is going to happen to me.”

  “You don’t know that! Do you think Reese thought a crazy woman would try to kill her and kidnap her son? Do you think Ember thought a madman would try to sell her into human trafficking and then try to kill her and her father? No! They didn’t!” I roared. I was furious with her. What in the hell was she thinking? There was no way I was letting her stay in her house unprotected.

  “Fine. I get it, all right? But I still don’t want you to tell the club. What are my other options?” she asked, her tone much calmer than I expected.

  I pinched the bridge of my nose and sighed. “I honestly don’t know. I can stay tonight and tomorrow night. We’ll have to figure something out after that. Have you already arranged to have a security system installed?”

  “Not yet. I was going to call Judge, but then you showed up,” she said, rolling her eyes.

  “You realize your cousin is in the same club I am, right?” I asked.

  “Seriously, Chase. I was going to tell him that there had been some break-ins in the area and ask if he could come install a security system for me,” she scoffed.

  “No time like the present.”

  She called Judge and asked him to install an alarm system for her. He told her he would be there the following day to get it done while she was at work. Quite frankly, I was a bit surprised that he hadn’t already installed one for her, but I didn’t comment on it.

  After she got off the phone with Judge, I helped her finish cleaning up the mess that had been made of her house. She wasn’t lying; those fucking peas were everywhere. Once we had everything cleaned up, she offered to cook dinner for me, but I knew she was tired. I could see it in her eyes.

  “Baby,” I murmured against her skin as I nuzzled her neck. “As much as I’d love that, you’re exhausted. Go take a shower, and I’ll place an order for delivery.”

  “Mmm, that sounds wonderful,” she breathed and turned her head to capture my lips.

  She squeaked when I lightly swatted her ass and turned her by her shoulders. “Go,” I ordered. “I’ll fuck you after dinner.”

  “Promises, promises.”

  As I waited for her to finish in the shower and for the food to arrive, I sat in a chair in her living room and stared at the wall. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what the damn dots meant. I even took a picture of the wall and did an image search, but I couldn’t find anything like it.

  The doorbell rang, interrupting my thoughts about the dots on the wall, but I was glad the food had arrived. I didn’t know about Harper, but I was fucking starving. Swinging the front door open, I fully expected to find a delivery gu
y standing there with my bag of food. Instead, I came face-to-face with an attractive woman who appeared to be around the same age as Harper.

  She took a step back at the sight of me. I was used to that reaction; most women did the same thing when they saw me. I was bigger than most men with a few visible piercings and an abundance of tattoos, all of which translated to scary for most females.

  The girl blinked a few times and cleared her throat. “Uh, is Harper here?”

  “Who wants to know?” I asked gruffly.

  “Hilarie,” she said, her eyes darting around wildly.

  “She know you?” I asked.

  “Yes. We work together, and we went to school together,” she said nervously.

  “Just a minute,” I said and closed the door in her face.

  I turned around to get Harper, only to find her coming out of her bedroom. “I thought I heard the door. Is the food here?”

  “No, some girl named Hilarie is at the door asking for you.”

  She huffed and started stomping toward the door. “You didn’t let her in?”

  “Fuck no. I don’t know her,” I snapped.

  She brushed past me and yanked the door open. The girl was still standing there. Guess I needed to work on my intimidation tactics. I thought for sure the girl would have turned tail and ran as soon as I closed the door.

  “Sorry about that, Hilarie. Come on in,” Harper said, holding the door wide open and gesturing for the girl to enter. “This is my friend, Carbon. He’s a teensy bit overprotective. Carbon, this is my friend and coworker, Hilarie.”

  I met Harper’s eyes and mouthed “Friend?” with my eyebrows raised in question. I wasn’t her damn friend, and she knew it. She shrugged and turned back to our uninvited guest. “What brings you by?”

  “I just wanted to check in with you. I haven’t seen or talked to you in over two weeks. How was your trip?” she asked.

  “You could have called her and asked that,” I interrupted.

  “Carbon,” Harper snapped. “Stop being so rude.”

  “It’s fine, really,” the girl said. “I was on my way home and saw your car in the driveway, so I stopped. Am I interrupting something?”

  “No,” Harper replied at the same time I said, “Yes.”

  Harper cleared her throat. “We’re waiting on our delivery order. You want to join us for dinner?”

  I glared at the girl, willing her with my eyes to decline the invitation. It was subtle and brief, but I swear she smirked at me before she told Harper she would love to stay for dinner. It was official; I didn’t like this bitch.

  I followed them into the kitchen and took a seat on one of the barstools while the girls sat at the table. As I stared at Hilarie, I felt like I knew her from somewhere, or at least had seen her before. Oh hell, I hoped I hadn’t fucked her. I had been through a lot of women in my past, and the majority of them were easily forgettable.

  “How do you two know each other again?” I asked, studying the girl’s face.

  “Hilarie and I went to college together, and now we both work at the crisis center,” Harper explained.

  “So, you met at school?”

  Hilarie answered that one. “No, we didn’t have any classes together. We worked at the same bar while we were in school. That’s how we met.”

  Ah, that’s when it clicked. I’d seen her before and thankfully, had not fucked her. She was a stripper at the club where I met Harper. I snapped my fingers. “That’s why you look familiar. You had different hair, but you were a stripper, too. Ginger, was it?”

  Hilarie’s cheeks flushed. “Yes, that was my stage name. The hair was a wig. I don’t miss that at all.” Both girls laughed at her statement, but I had no idea why.

  “So, you work at the crisis center, too, but you two never had any classes together? That seems strange,” I prodded; something was off about this girl.

  “That’s because I’m a licensed clinical therapist and Hilarie handles the finances and marketing. We have completely different degrees. Now, could you stop with the interrogation? You’re acting like an ass,” Harper snapped.

  I placed my hand on my chest and pretended to be offended. “Excuse me for trying to get to know one of your friends. Clearly, I’m not wanted, so I’ll be in the living room until the food gets here.” I got up and obnoxiously stomped to the living room. In a way, I hoped they would talk more freely without me hovering over them in the kitchen. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but something about Hilarie made me feel uneasy.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Harper

  “Sorry about him,” I said to Hilarie. “I don’t know why he’s acting like that. I wouldn’t say he’s usually sweet, but he’s normally much less of a dick.”

  Hilarie waved her hand in a dismissive motion. “Don’t worry about it. I’m sure I’ve inadvertently pissed him off by interrupting his plans for the evening.” She winked and waggled her eyebrows.

  “The only plans for this evening are dinner and bed. I’m freaking exhausted. I could use a good 15 hours of sleep before the work week starts.”

  “Why are you so tired? Didn’t you just get back from vacation?” she asked.

  I sighed, “Yes and no. I went to visit my brother and his new baby, so I wouldn’t exactly call that a vacation. A lot was going on the whole time I was there, so I didn’t really get any downtime.”

  Hilarie straightened in her chair and gave me a pitying look. “I’m sorry. You deserve to have some time off that you can actually enjoy.”

  “I did enjoy my time off. I got to spend time with my nephew as well as my brother and his girlfriend. It just wasn’t relaxing,” I corrected.

  She opened her mouth to say something, but Chase walked in carrying a bag of food. The smell quickly filled my kitchen causing my mouth to water. When I got up to get plates and silverware, Hilarie stood, too. “I’m going to have to take a rain check for dinner. I just remembered that I still have laundry to do before tomorrow. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  I walked her to the door to see her out. When I returned to the kitchen, Chase had gotten the plates and utensils and was in the middle of dishing out our meal. I absolutely loved Hibachi style food and was blessed to live in an area where I could have it delivered to my front door, which I frequently did.

  Chase and I ate in an uncomfortable silence. I had no idea how he was feeling, but I was a little irritated with his behavior. He was a total ass to Hilarie for no reason.

  When I was finished eating, I rinsed my dishes and placed them in the dishwasher. He followed right behind me and did the same. Once everything was put back to rights, I silently checked the locks on the doors and padded to my bedroom. Our issues would have to wait. I was simply too tired to discuss it. It was all I could do to get changed into my pajamas.

  “You going to give me the silent treatment for the rest of the night, baby?” Chase asked from the doorway of my bedroom.

  “I just want to go to bed, Chase. I’m exhausted, and I have a full week of work starting in the morning,” I explained.

  He prowled toward me, placing his hands on my hips when he reached me. Leaning down, he nipped at my earlobe. “You going to let me sleep in here with you?” His lips moved slowly down my neck and back up to my ear as his warm breath caused goosebumps to erupt on my skin.

  My traitorous body melted into his. “Yes,” I breathed. His response was to scoop me up and deposit me on the bed. He crawled in behind me and wrapped his big arms around me. A few hours ago, I was sure I wouldn’t get any sleep that night, but with Chase cocooning me with his big body, I quickly fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  The next morning, I woke feeling refreshed and ready for work. When I was ready to leave, Chase met me at the front door, also dressed and ready to go. Damn. The man was sex on a stick, and he was looking at me with a hunger in his eyes.

  Shaking my head to clear my naughty thoughts, which did not work whatsoever, I asked, “What are you doing?”

 
; “Are you new? I’m taking you to work,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “Seriously, Harper? One, because someone broke into your house and trashed it in the weirdest fucking way ever. Two, because Judge is coming to install your security system, and I didn’t think it would be wise for him to find me piddling around your house.”

  I hadn’t thought of that. Who could blame me? I was tired, and my mind was a jumbled mess. I still hadn’t fully processed everything that happened with Duke and Reese while I was in Croftridge, and here I was with my own bullshit starting.

  Chase drove me to work and told me he would be around, but I wouldn’t be able to see him. I wasn’t sure how he was going to pull that off, but I didn’t ask. He insisted that I tell no one, not even Hilarie, that he was outside keeping an eye on the place. I didn’t like it, but I agreed.

  I couldn’t help myself. Every chance I got, I was peering out a window to see if I could catch a glimpse of him. When lunchtime rolled around, Hilarie asked me if I wanted to join her for lunch at a restaurant down the street. I wasn’t sure how to answer her because I didn’t know if Chase would be able to follow me without being seen or not.

  I was trying to stall and come up with an answer when none other than Chase came through the door. “Hey, baby. You ready to go to lunch?” he asked with a bright smile on his face. “Hello, Hilarie. Would you like to join us for lunch as well? You do have that rain check to cash in.”

  Was he high or something? This cheerful man standing in my office was most definitely not my gruff and grumbling Chase. He must have seen the confusion on my face because the big beast winked at me and continued to smile at Hilarie.

  “Uh, sure,” she stammered out. “Are we ready to go now?”

  “I’m ready whenever you two ladies are,” Chase said cheerfully. He was starting to freak me out. He looked like one of those people who appeared to be happy all the time, but you just knew that they were really a closet psychopath waiting for the perfect opportunity to burst into the world.

  I shot him a stern look and grabbed his hand. “Let’s go.”