She and King passed the men holding guns. They were wearing the same leather vest in red, white and blue, all sporting a skeleton with angel’s wings and a ‘1%’ patch on the shoulders. She’d barely taken all that in before she and King had stepped inside the clubhouse. It was quiet and dark and she paused, feeling like she’d just walked in to a cave.
“King.”
The voice made her jump and she cursed under her breath.
A man was standing there, staring at her with naked hatred in his black eyes. She remembered Jack’s lessons in ignoring intimidation and she gazed back, focused on a point in the middle of the man’s forehead. He shifted a bit, turned.
“Trigger’s waiting.”
King nodded and they followed the man down a long hallway, past what looked like bedrooms. They made Gabi think of the crash rooms at Curves; God knows, they smelled the same.
The man stopped in front of a door and tapped on it twice. A voice inside answered and the man swung it open, stepped aside. Gabi followed King in and the man shut the door behind them. She heard him shuffling around outside and assumed he was the guard.
“Good to see you, King.”
Yes, that was the voice from her nightmares. Lazy, amused, almost kind. But it had an undertone, a dark wave that would break over you the second you turned your back to the ocean and scanned the beach. She wasn’t about to turn her back on this man.
“Trigger.” King’s voice was detached and cold.
“And Gabi Torres,” Trigger said. “How nice.”
King stepped a bit to one side and Gabi and Trigger locked eyes for the very first time. His were ice-blue and just as cold, his face was battered and hard. It was an unforgiving face and she gazed at it, finally being able to actually see the man who wanted her dead. He was every bit of horrible as she’d imagined.
She said nothing and his eyes flashed.
“Sit.”
She and King did and she leaned back a bit, watching Trigger.
“So.” He smiled like she imagined a snake would smile at a bird with an injured wing. “You came.”
Gabi nodded.
“Did you think that I’d shoot you down in the parking lot?” His tone was conversational. “You and your friends?”
She shook her head, marveling at how bang-on Jack had been when he’d said that Trigger would try to earn her gratitude for not picking her off the second she left the van.
Fuck you, Trigger. I’m not thanking you for anything… shove it up your ass sideways.
“Because I could have, you know. I still could.” Casually, he set his gun on the table between them. “Know why they call me Trigger?”
She nodded.
“Why, cunt?”
Ignoring the insult, she answered him without emotion. “Because you shoot people between the eyes without hesitation. You’re said to be very fast and very accurate at it.”
He paused, a bit taken aback; she sounded like she was reading the phone book aloud. “Yeah. That’s right.”
King kept his face impassive but he was mentally high-fiving Gabi. Yeah, she was going to handle this just fine. Trigger, maybe not so much and King knew for sure the man was confused and rattled when he turned to King.
“Your gun,” he ordered.
King put his on the table too. “OK, man. We’re here. What do you want?”
“I want to be convinced.” He stared at Gabi. “Win me over, bitch.”
OK, I’m up. Don’t screw this up, Gabi… more than just your life is riding on this.
“I won’t tell anybody anything and I mean never. As far as I’m concerned, this room is like a – a bank vault and I’m depositing the secret here in your clubhouse. And here it stays – with you.”
Trigger cocked his head at her. “Yeah?”
“Yes.”
“You a big drinker?”
“No.”
“You don’t get shit-faced and bawl and spill your fucking guts all over the place?”
“No.”
“Never?”
“Never.”
“What do you think I’ll do to you if you talk?”
“You’ll take great pleasure in showing me how you got your name.”
Startled and a bit pleased, Trigger actually grinned at her. Damn, he was kind of starting to like the little bitch. She was a hot piece of ass, no doubt about that, and he’d give a lot to see her tied up to his bed, spread-eagled and blindfolded. Fuck, he’d make her beg him to stop hurting her before he’d fuck her hard enough to make her bleed even as he came inside her.
“Damn right.” He pretended to think about it, but the game had long since lost its appeal. The guys from Boston were due to arrive in a few days and Trigger had dragged on this whole red herring of trading Warren for long enough. Now he had to look like he was actually eager to get the kid back. “OK, King… how do I get Joker’s cousin from you and your fucking people?”
Gabi fought to not heave a relieved sigh, to stay outwardly unemotional. It looked like her part was over and she was confused and surprised that it had been so easy. She’d thought for sure – and so had King and Jack and Aidan – that Trigger was going to verbally assault and torture her, but he’d barely given her a slap.
Is that it? Really?
King was equally wrong-footed but he didn’t show it. “We meet at that underpass near Curves and I give him to you.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow night. Nine o’clock.”
“Good.”
Gabi blinked as the men stood up, casually tucked their guns in their jeans and turned to the door. After days and days of freaking out and worrying and imagining the worst, this was how it was all going to be resolved? So quickly and easily? She scrambled to her feet too, followed King past the still-glowering guy with the dark hair and dark eyes lurking outside the door, down the hall and out to the parking lot.
If the guys and Lilly were surprised to see them back so soon, they certainly didn’t show it. ‘Poker face’ didn’t even begin to describe King’s people as they stood there in the parking lot, facing down a dozen guys with guns like they were a bunch of fluffy baby animals. Even Aidan seemed to have tapped in to some coolly professional side of himself and barely acknowledged that Gabi was standing there in the sun, whole and safe.
Tank opened the back door of the van and helped Gabi climb in. She collapsed in to the closest seat, her legs feeling a bit wobbly as the adrenalin started to wear off. Aidan got in next and came to her right away. He knelt in front of her, cupping her face in both hands, searching her for any signs of damage. He’d dropped his disinterested exterior and looked anxious and angry.
“OK?” he said roughly.
“Yeah.” She gave him a small smile. “I’m OK.”
Lilly and Tank were there now, backing in to the van while keeping their own weapons trained on the silent men watching them go. The front doors slammed shut and Knox was up there with King, also eyeing the MC closely. They pulled out, King still glaring at the men in the parking lot, not uncoiling at all yet. In his experience, things often went to hell just as you lowered your guard, relaxed your defenses. Just when you thought it was all over.
Tank studied Gabi. “How’d it go, chère?”
She exhaled, liking his warm voice. Tank was from the Louisiana bayou and he had the Cajun accent and vocabulary to prove it – his vowels were all stretched out like molasses and he peppered his speech with rough French. In his most unguarded moments, the man was kind and protective and Gabi could almost forget that he was, in effect, the size of a tank.
“Good, I think. King and Trigger arranged a time and place for the trade.”
“Yeah?” Lilly glanced up at King, saw his hard face. “Soon?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Oh.” She looked relieved. “That’s damn good n
ews.”
“Yeah.” Gabi held Aidan’s hands tighter. “I think it’s almost all over.”
Chapter Eleven
Honey got off the phone with King and stretched out her slim shoulders. She drank the rest of her coffee and then walked upstairs to the largest bedroom. She knocked.
“You awake?” she said through the door.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Back up, then. You know what to do.”
She heard movement inside and she waited until he pushed the bell. King had it installed in to the farthest wall – a good twenty feet away from the door – and it was the easiest way to tell where a person was in the room.
Honey shoved the door open with her foot, her gun out and pointed at the floor. She didn’t expect Warren Kane to jump her, but hell, you never really knew what a guy being held hostage might do. They got all kinds of stupid ideas in to their fool heads and they sometimes forgot that even if by some goddamn miracle they managed to get past Honey, they still had to deal with someone downstairs. Today it was Tex on the door and the man wasn’t the slightest bit shy about blowing a bullet in to someone’s kneecap.
Sure enough, Warren was standing against the far wall next to the bell button. Honey stepped in to the room and kept her eyes pinned on him. She’d spent most of the past week and a half here with the man, and she had to admit that he still puzzled her in many ways.
For a guy who was Donovan ‘Joker’ Kane’s flesh and blood, Warren didn’t seem all that fearsome. He was, in actual fact, a nice kid. Not the brightest bulb in the box, to be sure, but a decent human being… which was the one thing that Donovan most definitely was not.
King had spent several days talking to Warren, hard and tough at first, then he softened up when it became clear that Warren was just a patsy. New to Denver, not even patched in to the Fallen Angels, he’d just done what he was told. He’d gotten fucked over in the whole thing and once that fact became clear, King and his team had laid off.
Warren stared across at Honey, actually happy to see her. He wasn’t used to being alone so much and even though King had provided him with a TV and lots of things to read, Warren missed conversation and contact. He was the youngest of nine kids and silence and solitude were alien concepts to him.
“Miss Honey,” he said in a drawl.
“Warren,” she replied. “You’ll be leaving us tomorrow.”
He studied her. He still didn’t totally understand what any of this was about: all he knew was that it had to do with that waitress at Curves. Trigger wanted her for some reason, though nobody had actually told him what it was. He’d been questioned over and over, expected to provide information that he didn’t have, but he’d been given very little in return.
“Tomorrow?” he said.
“Yep.” She gave him a smile and he smiled back, thinking that the tiny blonde with the killer eyes and body was just his type. “So you relax one more day and then you’ll be back at the clubhouse.”
He nodded, not totally happy about that, wondered why he felt that way. Honey saw his hesitation and she narrowed her deceptively soft baby-blue eyes at him.
“What?” she said.
“Ma’am?” he said, startled.
She paused. His manners hadn’t diminished one bit in the whole time that he’d been their reluctant guest and that intrigued her. He called every man he came in to contact with ‘sir’, called herself and the other female King’s Men member ‘ma’am’. And not snarking, either, that was for sure. The kid had just been raised to be polite and she mentally complimented his mother. Wherever she was.
“What’s wrong?” she said. “You don’t seem all that happy that you’ll be going back to the Fallen Angels.”
“Oh, I am,” he reassured her. “I mean, Joker’s done a lot for me, giving me the chance to be a Prospect.”
Honey wrestled with herself for a few seconds. Oddly, she found herself torn between wanting to just leave the kid to whatever fate awaited him with Trigger and his boys, and wanting to put him on a bus back to Kentucky with a stern warning to not talk to strangers. Warren was so – oblivious, somehow. Honey seriously doubted that he had any real idea what he’d be agreeing to if he patched in with the Fallen Angels and she felt strangely honor-bound to tell him before she watched him delivered in to their hands.
She made her decision. “Sit down, Warren.”
He did. She leaned back against the door and looked at him some more, taking in his large body, blond hair, blue eyes. He was a good-looking kid in an outdoorsy, wholesome kind of way and she hated to think how completely Trigger and Ace and Kane would destroy this sweet, almost pure part of him.
“Listen.” Honey paused. “You don’t have to go back to the Angels, you know.”
He looked puzzled. “Ma’am?”
“What I mean is, you have a choice here. If you want, you can just get back on the bus and go home. You don’t need to stay mixed up with Trigger MacGee and his ilk.”
Warren blinked. “But I do. Joker’s been real good to me, giving me this chance.”
“This chance for what? To get yourself killed in some drug run gone wrong? Or in a stand-off with the cops on some back road somewhere? Or by some rival club from out of state? Come on, kid… use your goddamn head. You know that the Angels are bad news. Right?”
He looked away now.
“Warren.” Honey kept her voice gentle. “I don’t know your story, OK, but I can tell that you’re a decent young man. Why are you even here?”
He shrugged, still not meeting her eyes. “Got no future back home. I barely got my high school diploma and in my home town, there’s no work. The mill closed two years ago and so did the factory and now there’s just nothing. Joker has a good life out here – a house of his own, a bike, money in the bank.”
“You know what he does for that money?”
Warren acted like he hadn’t heard her. “And he has a family. Trigger and Ace and all the guys call him ‘brother’. They have his back, they watch out for him.” He glanced at Honey. “I got five sisters and three brothers but none of them have ever had my back when I needed it. Not once, Miss Honey. I want that.”
She sighed. “There are other places to get that.”
“Maybe. But Joker and Trigger and the boys are offering it to me now.”
“And you’re willing to take all the shit that comes with being part of that kind of family? The crime and violence? All the illegal stuff and constantly being watched by the cops? And there’s no way out once you’re in… you patch in and that’s it. You give your whole life to the Fallen Angels and you can never, ever leave.”
“Yeah, I can.”
Honey stared at him, astonished at his naivety. “You think?”
“Sure. My cousin Mirrie did.”
Honey frowned. “Who?”
“Donovan’s… I mean, Joker’s sister. She was born and raised in the Angels and she walked away almost five years ago, I guess. Cut off all contact, doesn’t talk to any of us anymore. They let her go.”
“Where is she now?”
Warren shrugged. “Dunno.”
“Huh.” Honey contemplated that. “I had no idea.”
“So, you see? I can get out if I want to.”
“It’s different for women, OK? Mirrie may have been born in to it and she’d have been considered club property, but she never patched in – women can’t, you know. So I guess she somehow convinced the club to relinquish their ownership of her ass.” Honey didn’t want to even begin to think what Mirrie may have had to do or promise for that to happen. “But for men who put on the cut? It’s for life and that’s non-negotiable.”
Warren shook his head. “There’s always a way, Miss Honey. People are reasonable.”
Christ Almighty, she wanted to smack him; she also wanted to hug him in his innocence. Maybe a small part of her r
eally wanted to knock him out and throw him on a bus back home before he made the biggest fucking mistake of his life.
“Trigger isn’t ‘people’, Warren. He’s an animal.”
“Well, I already started the prospect process and I always finish what I start.”
Seeing that he wasn’t going to back down on any of this, Honey bit her lip. “Promise me something. Please.”
“Sure I will.”
She took a piece of paper from the table, took a pen from her jeans pocket. She wrote on it, folded it, set it on the table near the door.
“That’s my cell number,” she said. “If you want out, or if something bad happens and you’re in a jam, you call me. No conditions and I don’t give a fuck what you may have done between now and then. I’m no saint myself, kid, and I know how shit can sometimes go down. But if you decide that you want some back-up, or you need a place to hide from trouble, or you want a ride to the bus station, you don’t even hesitate to call. You hear me? I’ll come and get you wherever you are and no questions asked.”
He stared at her. “Thank you, ma’am.”
“You’re welcome.” Feeling like she’d done all she could do, knowing that it wasn’t anywhere near enough, she turned to go. “I’ll bring you some dinner soon. Steak OK with you?”
Warren grinned. “Tex is cooking?”
“You know it.”
“Then hell yeah, I’m OK with steak. The man’s a born chef.”
“He is,” Honey agreed and left the room, trying to ignore the pangs of worry in her chest. She stood outside the locked door now, sucked in a few deep breaths, collecting herself a bit. It wasn’t so easy, though.
Honey knew – knew with everything that she had and she was – that when Warren walked out the safe house door tomorrow, she’d never see this sweet, giving, naïve boy again. If they ever crossed paths in the future, she be facing down a hardboiled MC member who’d be under orders to shoot her on sight. She shut her eyes knowing that if it came to that, she’d blow a hole in his chest without even blinking – and then she’d carry him in her heart forever after.
Killer Curves (Dangerous Curves Book 3) Page 16
