Losing It All

by Wilde, Kati

  Oh shit. I flatten myself even closer to the ground, angling my face down so that only the dark hood points in the direction of the clubhouse. Because the biker who just arrived is heading this way—a big man with a short black beard.

  Did he see me?

  My heart thunders. I dare another peek. Oh god, and now he’s not alone. I recognize the other biker who comes out of the clubhouse and joins him. The one who asked me all the questions.

  Blowback.

  Frantically I pull my sleeves down over my pale hands, bury my pale face in my crossed arms. Nothing here to see in the shadows behind this cabin. Nothing here to see.

  Oh god, I hope they aren’t heading toward my cabin. Let me get away before someone comes to check up on me. Just let one plan go right, just let me get away.

  “You coming in?” the bearded biker calls out. “Or are you waiting for a fucking invite?”

  Because someone is still out here, I realize. Maybe even sitting on this cabin’s porch, and who would have seen me the minute I sneaked into the lot. Oh my god. Holy shit. That would have fucked up my plan really quick.

  My breath catches when I hear the reply. Because it wasn’t just someone. It was Stone.

  “Planned to come in,” he says, and my heart twists. His voice sounds…dull, almost. Defeated. “Unless I need that invite?”

  “I figure we’re squared away. Unless you’ve got more to say?”

  “I said my piece.”

  “And I heard it real loud and clear. We fucked up. But you can help make sure it won’t happen again if you’re all in.”

  “I’m all in, Prez.” Stone’s short, rueful laugh holds a bitter edge. “I’m just not all here.”

  “Fair enough. For now, we’ll take what you’ve got to give. And Blowback’s got something for you.”

  That man says, “Creek’s ready for the girl.”

  My heart freezes. What? Is the girl me? And who’s Creek?

  “Is he?” Stone again, his voice flat and hollow.

  “We’ve just got to set up a meet and hand her over. Then she disappears.”

  Disappears.

  No. That can’t mean— No.

  Stone wouldn’t hurt me, let alone have me killed. He wouldn’t. He’s a good man.

  My pulse thumps sickly in my ears as the prez says, “The way I see it, Papa isn’t going to be looking for anyone who isn’t a danger to him. All those fighters came from outlaw clubs, so they aren’t likely to head to the cops. Plus most of them killed someone in the Cage and they might have to confess to that. So they won’t be thinking the outcome would be worth going to the law with what they know.”

  “From what I can tell, they don’t know shit,” Stone says. “Papa didn’t exactly parade himself through the barns.”

  “So he’ll just be after this girl. And if word reaches him that we’ve got her? Even if we handle whatever firepower he throws at us, it’ll put eyes on us that we don’t need. Other clubs and the cops will be looking at us real hard. So our best option is just to get rid of her. Unless she’s finally talked to you?”

  “Not a damn word.”

  “But you think she’ll talk to the cops?”

  “Yeah.” Stone gives a bitter laugh, and hot tears leak into my sleeves when he adds, “Pretty fucking sure that was her intention all along.”

  “So handing her over will be a win-win, sounds like. That deal Blowback made means you still get first shot at Papa. This girl vanishes into thin air and no one will ever know she was here.” The prez’s voice deepens. “Unless you’ve got another reason to keep her around? You’ve been spending a hell of a lot of time in that cabin lately.”

  There’s a long silence, with my heart pounding so thick and slow. Then Stone replies with a flat, “No reason. She’s just a girl I met in a bar—and I’m done trying to get answers from her. So set up that meet and we’ll get this shit over with.”

  I don’t hear anything more, desperately muffling my sobs against my arms while my shattered heart bleeds into the ground. Vaguely I’m aware that the three men head off toward the clubhouse, and that I’m alone out here, and I should get up and go. That I need to keep moving. Need to stop crying. Because Stone’s not worth my tears and broken heart anyway. He’s not the man I thought he was.

  And Matt’s waiting for me.

  It’s only the last that gets me going. Tears silently streaming down my cheeks, I get to my feet, trying to make my brain work again. To make anything inside of me work again. The bikes are even bigger than I realized, their consoles and controls more complicated. Until my gaze lands on a smaller motorcycle sitting in the shadows.

  It looks older. And a lot simpler.

  So that’s the one. With my sleeves, I wipe the tears from my face—then toss away the dog tag engraved with Stone’s number. I don’t need to contact him again. He’s not the good man I believed he was. So I’m not apologizing for shit. And as for what I’ve stolen…

  I’m done with paying him back.

  27

  Stone

  Unlike the executive board meetings, there’s no alcohol allowed at the monthly club meetings. Afterwards, yeah. Pretty traditional to get trashed. And that’s all I’m looking forward to while sitting and listening to Old Timer give a rundown of the club’s finances. Just filling up this giant fucking hole with something else. Can’t be my girl. Can’t be any other woman. I don’t even know if I give a fuck about Papa anymore.

  There’s just nothing left. Except getting real drunk. Drunk enough that having nothing won’t hurt so bad.

  “What the fuck you doing, prospect?”

  Gunner’s rifle crack of a question cuts through the fog of misery in my head. Bottlecap’s standing at the back of the room. Where he shouldn’t be. Prospects aren’t allowed to sit in on club meetings. Instead they were all assigned to security. Now fifty patchholders are staring him down.

  The boy’s looking real uneasy but lifts his hands, like there ain’t no help for it. “Thought Blowback should know that Stone’s girl is stealing his ride.”

  Holy fucking hell. I surge to my feet and start for the exit but no one else moves a muscle, except for fifty heads swiveling toward where Saxon is standing up front. The prez pinches the bridge of his nose like he’s getting a headache.

  “All right,” he says. “Ten minute break.”

  Then I’m fighting my way through all the assholes trying to get to the door. Even at the front of the pack, I’m too damn late. The sound of an engine roaring to life greets me as I tear outside. Christ, she’s all the way across the lot. Looking so fucking tiny on Blowback’s vintage Sportster. My heart’s up in my throat when she throttles it too high before popping into gear. The front tire rears up at the same time the back tire peels out. For a second it looks as if she’ll eat asphalt right there, and I don’t fucking breathe again until both wheels are down and the bike stops fishtailing.

  Then she’s nothing but a taillight heading down the driveway. A bunch of fuckers behind me break into cheers, laughing it up. Because, hell. It ain’t their ride. It ain’t their girl. And that was a sweet display of gumption and a near-miss that any biker could appreciate.

  “She wasn’t wearing a helmet,” Bull says beside me, frowning after her. “It’s illegal in this state to be riding around on a stolen bike without one.”

  Maybe I’ll laugh at that when I catch up to her—and if her fool skull’s not cracked open. She’s not going too fast yet, though. I can hear the engine whining hard in first gear before she manages to punch it into second.

  Heading for my ride, I shout to Bottlecap, “Is that gate closed?”

  It is. An answer that might have eased the tightness around my chest if I were more certain that she knew how to use the brakes better than she did a clutch.

  Ain’t no fishtailing here. I pull out smooth and fast, with Gunner falling in right behind me. I hear a few more engines fire up but all my focus is fixed ahead. I’m real familiar with this stretch. She isn’t, an
d it’s dark, and there’s a million fucking deer just waiting to slam into her.

  My headlight catches a bike lying on its side up ahead. Right in front of the gate. My chest hollows out until I realize that she isn’t on the ground with it. Must have slowed down and bailed.

  And climbed over. She’s just a shadow racing ahead. I’m not waiting for the prospects in the security room to pull their heads out of their asses. I skid to a stop, leave my bike on the kickstand, and haul ass over the gate.

  Then it’s just a foot race. She’s quick and had a small head start, but I’ve got longer legs and more staying power. My boots are also loud as fuck. As I start closing in, she looks behind and screams out a hysterical denial, putting on a burst of speed—while that sound she made nearly trips me over my feet.

  Like she was really, really afraid. Of me. Though she never has been before. Not in all this time.

  But she is. As soon as I catch up, get my hands on her, she starts screaming. And fighting. Really fucking fighting. Not sexy fighting. But desperately, crying and kicking at me, making me snag her wrists so she stops scratching and then pinning her to the ground when she goes for my balls. And she still keeps fighting, keeps sobbing.

  “Angel girl,” I tell her hoarsely, then narrowly jerk back in time to avoid a headbutt that would have busted my nose. “Stop this.”

  “Then let me go!” she screams, then breaks into sobs, turning her face toward the ground and begging, “Just let me go. Just let me go. You don’t have to kill me, please please, just let me go.”

  “Kill you?” It’s a gut punch. “Never in a million fucking years.”

  “I heard you!” she cries out, struggling again. “I heard you.”

  “What’d you hear?”

  “That you’ll make me…disappear.” Her voice cracks on the word and she goes still, tears sliding down her cheeks. “Please don’t. Please. Just let me go.”

  “Ah, angel. No.” Releasing her wrists, I slide my hands into her hair. I can barely get a word through my raw throat when I tell her, “You heard us talking about handing you over to the feds. Into witness protection.”

  A wary gaze fixed on my face, she goes utterly motionless, then shudders beneath me. Again. And again, sobs still hitching through her chest. “The feds?”

  “The FBI. Who’ve set up something with the Marshals. They’re all keeping it real quiet so it doesn’t leak to anyone in Papa’s pocket. It’ll be like you’ll just vanish, so he can’t find you.”

  Her lips tremble, that wariness gradually transforming to hope. “Really?”

  “Yeah.” Gently I wipe the tears from her cheeks. “Really.”

  Her eyes close and she begins silently crying again, but her body softens beneath mine, and there’s no mistaking the relief in her now.

  Seeing her happy is the only thing that keeps my heart from tearing out. Though it nearly goes when she whispers raggedly, “Soon?”

  “I told Blowback to set up the meet. We’ll see if he has yet.” I sit back, holding out my hand. “He might be a little pissed. You stole the bike he spent a whole lot of time restoring.”

  “Oh. Whoops,” she says as I pull her up.

  “He’ll get over it.”

  If it ever really bothered him to begin with. He shows up with Zoomie, riding behind her, and hardly glances at his bike—which is no longer lying on its side, thanks to Gunner, who’s got all the motorcycles out of the way and the gate open.

  I tuck my girl in against my side as we walk back in that direction, then glance down. Double socks. “How are your feet?”

  “Feeling like all those barefoot-running advocates are liars.”

  Good. Because it gives me an excuse to swing her up against my chest and carry her. My throat nearly closes up when she links her arms trustingly around my neck. “Give me a list of what you need before you go. Shoes, clothes, sizes. Because fuck knows what the cops will give you to wear. I’ll have Bottlecap go pick it up.”

  And because the only way I’m going to get through this is by getting shit done.

  Getting shit done for her.

  “Thank you.” She bites her lip, looking up at me. “I’m sorry that I stole some of your money.”

  “Don’t you say sorry to me.”

  “I’m sorry that I believed you would kill me.”

  My voice is raw when I say, “I never gave you any reason to believe otherwise.”

  “Yes, you did,” she says softly. “Everything you did said that you were a good man. I’m so glad that I wasn’t wrong.”

  That fucks up my chest and ends the conversation there. With me carrying my girl, whose name I don’t even know, to find out when I have to let her go.

  I reach the gate and set her down. Just Gunner, Zoomie, and Blowback here. “She heard us saying that she was going to disappear.”

  “Ahh.” Zoomie nods in understanding as she looks to my girl. “If that meant what you thought, there wouldn’t be any conversation about it.”

  “Okay,” she says. “Good to know. When people don’t talk about killing me, that’s when I run. I’m going to be in such good shape.”

  This fucking girl and her mouth. She just doesn’t stop making me crazy about her. Even now. When it kills me to ask Blowback, “Did you already set up that meet?”

  “But even if you did,” she interrupts quickly, “can we set it up with someone else? I only want to talk to either George Martinez or Luke Harris, both out of the Las Vegas branch.”

  The fuck? Zoomie and Gunner exchange glances but Blowback doesn’t blink. “The meetup is with Harris.”

  “You said Creek. I heard it.”

  “That was Luke Harris’s road name when he was under. So it’s the name that we all know him by.”

  “Oh. Okay.” All at once those happy tears are in her eyes again, and she turns and throws her arms around me hard, so hard, pressing her face into my chest. “Thank you. Thank you so much for this.”

  “Yeah.” Voice thick, I hold her close. But I don’t know for how long. “Did you set the time yet?”

  He nods. “Tonight at midnight. Motel in Klamath Falls. You taking her?”

  Tonight. Fuck no. Ah, fuck no. I stare at him frozen, because I can’t fucking do it. I can’t let her go.

  Then she looks up at me, those emerald eyes filled with hopeful tears. “Will you? I’d rather go with you.”

  “All right.” Because I’ll give her anything she needs. I take her hand, lead her to my bike. “Load up behind me. We’ll head back to the cabin and get you packed up.”

  She laughs. “I don’t have anything.”

  Yeah. Me, either.

  28

  Stone

  Right now, some asshole out there is probably saying to someone else, “Be careful what you wish for.” They maybe ought to have said it to me. Because just a little while ago, I was wishing that I’d let my girl touch me more.

  Now her arms have been wrapped tight around me for two hours, but only because I’m taking her on the ride that’ll end with me never touching her again. Never seeing her again.

  Every mile, I think of heading in another direction. Taking her with me. Then I remember her happy tears, her relief. And I keep going straight.

  The motel’s about as nothing as nothing gets. Creek’s in the room at the end of the building, bottom floor. I don’t park right in front but a little ways down the lot. Like some pathetic high school fucker hoping to get a last kiss from a date, so he makes sure there’s a bit of a walk between his ride and her front door.

  She unwinds her arms from around me. And that’s it. Got what I wished for. Won’t be getting more.

  She’s the first off the bike, standing beside it while she pulls off her helmet. And Christ, she’s so fucking pretty. It’s a cold night, so we’re both dressed for the ride, thermals and all. Her cheeks are flushed and she’s got brown hair now, because that red is so damn noticeable. Her teeth are pinching into a bottom lip that’s almost smiling…but those emera
ld eyes aren’t smiling at all.

  Her gaze searches my face. “Thank you again.”

  Fucking killing me. “Don’t thank me yet.”

  I haul my ass off of the bike and unstrap her pack. A few changes of clothes are in there, some girly stuff for her hair and face. Aside from the new riding gear she’s wearing, she’s got nothing else.

  She begins shaking her head when I pull a thick fold of cash out of my coat. “That’s really not—”

  “It’s real fucking necessary. You got ID on you? Bank cards?” I shove the cash into her pack along with an untraceable burner phone. “You got any options if shit goes south?”

  “No,” she whispers.

  “Yeah, you do. This cash, and me. You need any goddamn thing, you get in touch. You hear me?”

  Her eyes are glittering when she nods. “I’ll pay you b—”

  “Don’t. I don’t want a fucking thing from you.”

  That was too harsh. But I can barely fucking breathe. And it just gets worse when she nods again, then takes the pack and holds it against her chest, her arms wrapped around it like she was holding onto me a few minutes ago.

  “Okay.” She looks past me, her chin wobbling before she firms it. “I know you just want to get this over with, and I can probably handle it from—”

  “Who said I want to get this over with?”

  “You did.” Her voice is thick. “Because I’m just a girl you met in a bar. So you don’t have to—”

  “Hold up right there.” Fucking hell. I’m not letting her go thinking that. I grab the pack, use it to drag her closer. “That entire conversation you heard wasn’t what it sounded like. We weren’t looking to kill you. And that shit I said at the end was just me trying to convince myself that you leaving wouldn’t mean a damn thing. That it’d be easy to let you go. But it ain’t easy, girl. It ain’t easy at all.”