by Bella Jewel
She’s a smart girl, I’ll give her that.
Smart as fuck.
“You’re right about that. You tell me where we start with Bennett and we’ll go from there.”
“I’ve tried tracking him, tried locating his phone, but he’s smart. He’s so damned smart. He knows people are looking at him and he knows that he’s going to get away with whatever he’s doing. Because of that, we need to be smarter than him.”
“How do you suppose we do that?”
“We need to put someone in his life that he trusts, someone who has nothing to do with any of us, someone who is basically a person he meets on the street and can lure into the trap.”
“You want us to find a random girl, throw her in the mix, and hope he falls for it?”
“Yes,” Zariah says blandly. “Yes, it’s the only way we’re getting in. Magnolia was unsuspecting, and it worked. We need to do the same thing, only this time we need that person to be on our side, giving us information.”
“It’s a risk to her life.”
“Yes, it is, but we’ll do everything we can to keep her safe.”
“Have you got anyone in mind? Guessin’ since Bennett works with you, he’s going to know all your close family and friends.”
“Not all of them ...”
“I’m listening.”
“I have a step-sister, our parents broke up years ago and she doesn’t live here. I don’t speak about her, not to anyone, but we’re super close, and I’ve already had a chat to her. She’s willing to do it.”
I study the woman, the cop, standing in front of me. I have a choice right not to fully trust her, or to send her on her way. I don’t know if I’m making the right choice letting her in, but I do know we have to do something. “Call her,” I say. “Send her my way. What are we goin’ to do about this body?”
“Leave it with me, I’ll have it covered. Your club won’t come into it.”
I nod.
Not going to ask how she’s going to do that.
I’m just going to trust her.
“Let’s get this sorted then.”
She nods and stands.
Here’s hoping I’ve made the right choice.
“GET IN HERE,” I MUTTER to Briella, calling her into my office after Zariah has left.
Hesitantly, she stands and follows me in. I close the door behind her and turn. She needs to get one thing straight, what she did today was fucking stupid. It was stupid and it nearly cost her her life. Thinking about how close that bullet got to her, thinking of the fact that I could have walked out and found her lifeless form, makes me sick to my stomach. The idea of losing her makes me sick, and she needs to know it doesn’t fly around here.
“I’ll tell you this once, Briella, and I need you to get it through your stubborn skull. What you did today will never fuckin’ happen again. You risked your life and the club’s lives, you risked so fuckin’ much runnin’ out that door. I don’t need to explain to you how clubs work, you know because you were fuckin’ raised in one. You do not fuckin’ go against orders. You do not risk everyone for your own feelings.”
She drops her head.
I know she’s regretting what she did, hell, I can see the fear lingering in her eyes even still. She knew she nearly died, and she knew it was stupid.
“What I say goes, do you understand me?”
She nods, and whispers, “I’m sorry, Flick. I never meant to put anyone at risk. I never meant to put myself at risk. I understand what I did wrong and I won’t do it again. It’s just ... the idea of her body lying there, in the dirt ...”
“Sometimes life ain’t nice, it’s fuckin’ ugly. Sometimes you have to do shit you don’t like. None of us liked that girl layin’ in the dirt but we also knew there wasn’t a choice at the time. We knew someone was watchin’ and we knew it was dangerous. You gotta trust me, and you gotta understand I make calls based on the safety of this club, respect it, yeah?”
She nods, closing her eyes briefly. “Yes, sir.”
God dammit, the way she said that, it sends shock waves right to my fucking dick. I love nothing more than a woman who is willing to give herself to me fully, and that’s exactly what Briella just did, she just handed herself over to me.
God dammit.
I need her.
I step forward and take her around the waist, pulling her closer to me. Then I tell her the truth, the whole fucking truth, because she deserves to know how that made me feel. “What you did today scared the fuck out of me, and for a moment, for a single moment, all I could think about was losing you. And it killed me, it fuckin’ ripped parts of me apart that I didn’t realize needed you so fuckin’ bad.”
Her eyes soften and her cheeks get a little red, and looking up at me, seeing her face, I know that there will never be a single woman in this world that’ll ever mean more to me than the woman standing right in front of me. The woman I love with my entire fucking soul.
“I love you, Briella. Know that.”
“I love you, too, Flick,” she whispers back. “I’m sorry I scared you.”
“You can make it up to me ...”
“Oh yeah?” she smiles slyly. “How can I do that?”
“By finishing what we started earlier.”
“Ohhh, that.”
“Yeah.” I grin. “That.”
She puts her hands to my chest and pushes me backward until I hit the desk. “I guess it’s my turn to return the favor, huh?”
She drops to her knees and I stare down, watching her with the kind of fascination that I can feel to my fucking core. I watch her undo my jeans, I watch her slide them down, I watch her free my already hard cock and wrap her pretty little hand around it. Then I watch her close her mouth around the tip and suck. She starts off slow, sliding her mouth up and down, taking only the head into the warm depths. I growl and my fingers tangle into her hair.
Then she starts going lower and lower, her hands cupping my balls, her mouth consuming my cock. It kills me to know that she has gotten so much better at this over the years, and the idea of someone else’s cock being in her mouth makes me wild with anger, but knowing she’s mine now makes it a little easier to deal with.
“Keep sucking, baby,” I growl, tightening my fingers in her hair and pulling her down so she’s taking my entire length. She gags a little, and it only makes me harder. I thrust my hips, making her whimper with pleasure or pain, I don’t know, but she doesn’t stop. She sucks my dick like a fucking warrior, her hands roll my balls around, and then one frees itself to curl around my shaft where she starts to stroke.
Fucking magic.
Her mouth is fucking magic.
I growl as I feel my cum rising higher and higher. I want it on her. I want every drop of it on her face, soaking into her skin.
“I’m goin’ to cum all over your pretty fuckin’ face,” I rasp, jerking my hips in a frantic motion as she sucks harder and harder until I can’t take a single fucking second more.
I take her face in my hands, ripping my cock from her swollen lips. As she looks up at me, I unleash. Strand after strand of thick cum falls onto her face, and the sight is something that’ll forever make my dick hard when I think back on it. She looks like a fucking angel staring up at me, my release on her skin, her lips red and puffy, her eyes lusty.
I fucking love this girl.
From her head to her toes, inside and out.
She’s my god damned queen.
5
BRIELLA
I walk over to my sister’s grave and lean down, staring at her headstone. The headstone that is perfectly positioned next to Mom’s, the two of them forever resting in peace beside each other. A tear rolls down my cheek, followed by another, and then another. Until a flood of tears has me strangling back my sobs. It’s still so raw, so damned raw and sensitive. The fact that I’ll never see her again, never hear her laugh, never confide in her or tell her my secrets.
Movement beside me has me lifting my head, and I see a man
kneeling at a grave a few headstones down. He looks to be about the same age as Alarick, maybe a little younger, and he’s staring at a headstone, his eyes scanning over it, his fingers occasionally going out to graze the words. I wonder who that is? Is it his wife? Maybe his sister or mother? A friend? A father? God, a child?
He looks up when he notices my eyes on him and, for a moment, our gazes lock. He stares at me, and I see he’s an incredibly good-looking man. Dark blond hair atop his head, messy and curling at the ends. Eyes that are almost yellow, because they’re not quite green and not quite brown. He has a thick beard on his face and is wearing a tight black tee and a pair of jeans.
To look at, he’s very appealing.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” he says to me, nodding at the headstone. “Who are you here to visit?”
“My mom and my sister.”
“Both of them?” he says, standing and walking over. “I’m very sorry.”
“Yeah, me too. What about you?”
He stares at the headstones, and then says in a low tone, “My daughter.”
“Oh, gosh, I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah, me too,” he repeats and then nods at the spot beside me and says, “Do you mind?”
I shake my head and he kneels down beside me, staring at the gravestones. “Were you close with them?”
I nod. “Very much so.”
“Do you mind me asking what happened?”
“They were both murdered.”
He looks to me. “I’m sorry, that’s horrific.”
“Yeah, it really was. The worst part is we still don’t know who did it. Well, we do but we can’t find that person and ... it’s complicated.”
“Have you got good police help?”
“Not exactly,” I say, hesitating. “It’s a really long story, and it’s super tricky to explain.”
“You’d be surprised what I’ve heard over the years.”
I smile. “I have no doubt. What happened to your daughter?”
“She died in a car accident, three years ago.”
“I’m so sorry, that’s horrible.”
He nods, and then looks up at the sky. “It’s about to rain, can I escort you to your car?”
“I’m going to stay a little longer,” I tell him, giving him my most appreciative smile. “I want to talk to them a little longer.”
“Of course,” he stands and looks down at me. “Thanks for making my visit a little less horrible, ah?” he pauses, clearly wanting me to say my name.
“Briella,” I tell him.
“That’s a very pretty name, Briella.”
“Thank you.”
He nods, and then turns and disappears into the large cemetery. I look back at the headstones and spend the next half an hour sitting in the rain and talking to my family, telling them everything that’s happened, and how much I miss them. When the rain becomes a little too heavy, I stand to walk off, but glance over at the headstone the man was kneeling in front of.
I walk over and stare down at it, confused.
Maybe I’m looking at the wrong one?
I look to my left, and right, but both headstones belong to older men. The one I’m standing in front of belongs to a man, also. Who died in his ninetieth year of life. There is no way it’s a girl young enough to be that man’s daughter. Confused, I walk up and down the entire row, there are no females except a few older women right at the end.
Was that man lying to me?
Why would you come into a cemetery and lie to someone?
Confused, I walk back to my car, shaking my head the entire time as I try to figure out what the hell just happened. I’m not sure I understand it at all.
I glance behind me, suddenly feeling very uneasy. The rain keeps pouring down harder, and I don’t feel safe. At all. I’m scared to go back to my car, I’m scared to move. Whoever that man was, he was lying. Maybe for good reason, maybe he has a mental disorder, but either way I don’t feel confident right about now that I’m in a safe place.
I turn back to the grave and scream when I see a figure standing behind the headstones of my mother and sister. My screams turn into muffled cries when that person becomes clear as they move closer to me.
It’s King.
For a moment, all I can do is stare at him, tears rolling down my face. I thought he was dead, hell, I thought he was a hallucination recently. I didn’t know what to believe, I didn’t know a damn thing except that I had seen him and didn’t know what it was all about.
Now here he is, standing before me, looking exactly the same as he did before. Only this time his eyes are tired, and he’s got more than a little grey in his big beard. Still, it’s King, and I can’t help but lunge forward and throw myself into his arms. He catches me with a loud grunt and hangs onto me so tightly I can’t breathe freely, but I don’t care. God, I don’t care.
I’ve missed him.
I made so many mistakes when it came to King, so many assumptions, so many things that I should have just believed in.
“I didn’t know if you were real or not,” I whisper, tipping my head back and looking up at him. “I didn’t know if what I was seeing was you or if my brain was damaged after the surgery.”
“It’s me, but I can’t stay long. Briella, that man you just saw, he’s fuckin’ dangerous and you need to get out of here right fuckin’ now.”
“What?” I blink, confused.
“I’ve been keepin’ an eye out on you, watchin’ you and the club, but as far as anyone knows I’m still dead. Shouldn’t even be standin’ here, because if he sees me it’s all over, but I wasn’t goin’ to risk your life. Would rather die a thousand times over than lose someone else I love.”
“You’re not making any sense ...” I say, shaking my head in confusion. “I have so many questions and ...”
“Not now. I’ll answer your questions, I promise you, but not now. Right now, you’re in danger. That man you were speaking to is Dax. The man running the entire monster show you and the club are gettin’ yourself tangled up in. If you go back to your car, he’ll be waitin’ for you. The only reason he isn’t now is because there are cameras in this cemetery.”
“What?” I gasp. “I don’t understand. That was Dax? What ...”
“He’s angry, and he’s goin’ to send a message to that club. His message would have been you. You need to tell Alarick to back down, that he doesn’t know what kind of fuckin’ monster he’s dealin’ with here. That man will kill everyone he loves if he keeps lookin’ into this.”
“I don’t ...”
King’s eyes go over my head and focus in on something. “Briella, get out of here now. Now. Go.”
“King ...”
“Now,” he commands, pointing to a line of thick trees in the complete opposite area of my car. “Go past those trees, you’ll find a road. Catch a cab home. Tell Alarick this has to end. Do not tell him I’m alive. Dax is coming back. Go now.”
I do as he tells me, and I run.
I run toward the trees, and I don’t look back.
I do not look back.
“I NEED A RIDE,” I SAY puffing into the phone, soaked, standing on a street corner after running for god knows how long.
“What’s wrong? Why are you panting like that?” Cohen asks, after taking my phone call when I couldn’t reach Alarick.
“It’s a long story, but I need to see Flick urgently. Do you know where he is?”
“He’s in a meeting. I’ll come get you and bring you to him. Where are you?”
I give him my location and hang up the phone. Even though I’m in public, my eyes still go over every person, looking for Dax, wondering if he’s going to be here, wondering if he’s close by. I’m probably not a great distance away from the cemetery, not really, considering I went the long way around.
I tuck myself against a shop wall and wait for Cohen to come and pick me up.
He arrives ten minutes later in his large, black pick-up. I rush over and jump into the front s
eat, and he takes one look at me and asks, “What the fuck happened?”
“I saw him, Cohen. I saw ... Dax.”
“What?” he asks, his voice raising a few levels. “What do you mean you saw him? Where?”
“At the cemetery. It’s a long story, I need you to take me to Flick, you can hear it there.”
Cohen turns the truck around and we head back toward his house, where he tells me to message Alarick and ask that he meet us. He feels it’s safer than the clubhouse right now. So, that’s what I do. I message Flick, after all the other many messages I’ve sent in the last half an hour, and tell him to meet me at Cohen’s house. No doubt when he gets out of whatever meeting he’s in, he’s going to see my messages and know that something has gone wrong.
We arrive at Cohen’s and go inside, where he gives me a towel and I hug the shit out of Germy, who makes me feel immediately better when he gives me big slobbery kisses. Only then does the front door swing open and Alarick comes bounding in followed by Mykel and Samson. He stops when he notices me, and exhales. A breath I didn’t realize he had been holding.
“What happened?” he asks, striding over and stopping in front of me.
The first thing he does is look me over, no doubt checking if I have any injuries of any sort, and then his eyes meet mine and I can see he’s a little more relaxed.
“I saw Dax.”
His eyes don’t stay relaxed for long. “What did you just say?”
“I saw him. I was at the cemetery visiting Mom and Magnolia when I looked over and saw this man kneeling by a grave. I didn’t think too much of it at first, just that he was mourning over someone. He came over, introduced himself, and honestly, he was super friendly. Then, he went, but ...”
Shit, I have to lie here. I can’t say King warned me. I can’t say that it was him that saved my ass.
