“Oh, well, Jack says that they don’t trust each other now,” King said. “But, yeah, that’s where we want them to finish. It’s the only way that we get justice for Gabi and Maria.”
“You sure, man?” Jax asked. “This is how it has to be done?”
“Jack’s looked at it from every side and more than once,” King said gently. “If he tells me that it all starts with the Fallen Angels knowing about Mac and Mirrie being back together? Then that’s where it all starts. That’s the beginning of the end of these fuckers.”
“You sure about this, Matt?” Jax said. “Totally sure?”
“Yes.”
Mac stared at the floor, thinking hard. King watched him, almost holding his breath as he waited for Mac’s response. Christ, this was delicate. As Jack had explained to him, it was like dominoes: each piece had to fall just right for the next one to tumble over and down on to the next domino. It was like setting something in motion, something that seemed to be thinking and acting on its own, but it was really just reacting to what had nudged it in a certain direction. It was an astonishing combination of mathematics and psychology… and Jack was the best at it.
Finally, Mac looked up at King. “You’ll make sure Mirrie and Spider are safe every step of the way?”
“Totally.” He clapped his friend on the shoulder. “And you too, man. I mean, I don’t want you to go anywhere. It kinda kills me to admit it, but I’d miss your fucking lip.”
Mac gave him a small grin and nodded. “So… OK, then.”
“OK, then?” King repeated. “OK, we get the news to Trigger and Ace?”
“Yeah.”
“How?” Aidan said to King. “How are you going to tell them? You gonna just walk on in to the Fallen Angels clubhouse and make an announcement? Buy a round for the house to celebrate the happy couple?”
“Thought about it, but nuh-uh.” King ran his hands through his dark hair. “I have another way.”
“How?” Aidan said again.
King gave them one of his ‘don’t-fuck-with-me’ smiles. “Honey’s on it.”
**
Clarice ‘Honey’ Potts adjusted the redheaded wig and gave herself a final appraising look in the rearview mirror. Wrap-around dress, silver bracelet and minimal makeup. Satisfied, she stepped out of her car, slammed and locked the door. Despite the lack of cleavage and eye-liner, the bikers standing around smoking in the diner parking lot started to wolf whistle and holler at her.
She faked bashfulness and ducked her head a bit as she passed them. Really, she knew that she could kick any one of their asses with her size-six high-heeled boots, but she wasn’t in ass-kicking mode tonight. Tonight was all about quiet and sweet – two words that nobody would ever use to describe Honey.
She opened the diner door and scanned the booths. Sure enough, there he was. He was alone and eating a piece of pie, as he always was when that one woman worked. Jack said that he thought of the woman, Annie Matthews, as a kind of surrogate mother. Honey knew that he was alone in so many ways, so she hadn’t been surprised to hear that he’d sought out a warm, non-threatening older woman to chat with.
Honey approached the booth, slid in across from him. Surprised, he looked up.
“Hi,” Honey said in a low voice. “You remember me?”
He blinked those clear blue eyes, ran a large hand though his tousled blond hair. She noted that he looked tired and stressed-out and her heart tightened up a bit. Yeah, the kid was still in way over his head; she hoped that what Jack had planned would change that for him.
“Miss – Miss Honey?” he said. “Is that you?”
“Shhhh,” she said. “Keep your voice down, OK? And yeah, it’s me.”
Warren Kane almost fell sideways with the shock, but by some miracle, he managed to hold it together. He hadn’t laid eyes on Honey in almost three months and he’d thought he’d never do so again. The fact that she had actually tracked him down had to be bad news. Briefly, wildly, he wondered if she was there to kill him.
“How are you?” she asked him now. “How’s it going with the club?”
Warren dropped his eyes. “Oh, you know. OK.”
She studied him some more, knew that he was lying through his teeth. He’d come to Colorado from Kentucky at the invitation of his cousin, Donovan Kane, to prospect for the Fallen Angels. As anyone but Warren would have predicted, he’d landed himself in a shit-load of trouble almost immediately and had ended up as a reluctant guest of King’s Men.
Honey had gotten to know Warren a bit during his enforced and extended stay in the safe house, and she’d been taken aback at his sweetness and naivety. He’d honestly believed – at least for a while – that he’d have the choice to leave the Fallen Angels if he wanted to one day. Reality had smashed the kid between the eyes pretty damn hard, though, and looking at him now, Honey knew that it had fully sunk in.
No, Warren Kane was trapped in the MC and he looked like a man who really wanted to rethink his life choices. Well, Honey was here to help him do just that… and she hoped hard that he’d take her up on her offer.
“Warren.” She looked around quickly. “I want to you do something for me.”
Intrigued, he cocked his head at her. “OK.”
“Your cousin Mirrie is living with a man named Shane MacIntyre now. I want you to tell Trigger that.” She held his eyes. “Make sure you tell Trigger personally.”
“Whoa, what?” Warren shook his head, bewildered. “Mirrie’s back in Denver?”
“She never left, actually. Listen, I don’t have time to explain everything, OK, but you need to do exactly as I say. It’s really important.”
“Why would I tell Trigger that Mirrie’s living with some guy named Shane MacIntyre?” Warren asked slowly. “Why would I tell Trigger anything at all about Mirrie?”
Honey sighed. “Because it’s the only way to keep her safe from the MC.”
“What?” Warren said again, getting angry now. “How can putting her on Trigger’s radar keep her safe? Seems to me it’d do the exact opposite. Seems to me it'd get her beaten near-to-death again.”
“Not this time.”
“What do you mean?”
Honey paused. “Warren, do you think you can trust me?”
He stared at her.
“I know it’s a big question,” she said. “But can you try?”
“To trust you?”
“Yeah. Can you trust what I’m asking you to do?”
He leaned back and she was shocked to see a look on his face that had never been there before: suspicion.
Dammit. He’s seen too much in the past few months to just take me at my word anymore… what the hell have those boys done to him?
“Just like that, huh?” he said. “Just trust you because you say so?”
“Warren.” Honey decided to kick things up a notch. “It’s not just for Mirrie. King wants to help you too.”
That flash of mistrust again as Warren remembered the man’s massive tattooed forearms and heavy silver rings. “King?”
“Well, of course, King. He’s the one who sent me here.”
“He wants to help me?”
“He does.”
“Why?”
“Because he likes you. He knows that you’re in a tough place and he’s found a way to make it a bit easier.”
Now his face showed something else, something pure and honest: his face was bright with hope. Honey’s chest hurt to see it, because it was the surest sign that this young man was dying to get away from his current situation.
“Can King get me out of the MC?” he asked in a quiet voice.
“Not yet.” Honey saw the disappointment in his eyes. “But he can make things better for you. Safer, easier, less violent.”
“How?”
“You’re close to being patched in, right?”
/>
Warren blinked in surprise. “Yeah. It’s supposed to happen in the next few days, maybe even tomorrow. How’d you –”
“We keep a close eye on the Fallen Angels, believe me.”
Right away, he looked uncomfortable. “So… you know about some of the things I’ve done to advance as a prospect?”
“Yes.” She held his gaze. “I know everything.”
He flushed. “I’m – I didn’t want to hurt those people or burn down those businesses.”
“I know.” She fought down the urge to take his hand. “Warren, we know. King, Tex, Knox, Tank… we all know it wasn’t your choice.”
He nodded, looked away.
“Trigger’s close to patching you in,” she continued. “Really close. It’s fast, I know, but being Donovan’s cousin is a big help and the fact that you kept your mouth shut when we had you held hostage is also working in your favor.”
He gave a faint smile. “Awesome.”
“No, it’s good,” she said, surprising him. “King wants you patched in.”
“Why?”
“Because something’s coming, Warren. Something big. And when it does, you want to be in the Fallen Angels, OK? You want to be part of that group.”
“What’s coming?”
“That I can’t tell you. I’m sorry.”
Warren fell silent, studying Honey closely. Finally, he said, “Does King think that me telling Trigger about Mirrie and this guy will seal my patching-in? Maybe even move it up?”
“Yeah,” she said, a bit surprised that he’d pieced it all together. “Exactly. You tell Trigger about what I said and I can promise you, he’ll thank you for it. For Trigger, there’s no bigger reward than making you a full member.”
Warren grimaced. “He’s a real asshole, huh?”
Surprised and delighted, Honey laughed. “Oh, yeah, kid. He sure the hell is.”
“So, OK. I’ll do it. All of it. I’ll trust you and I’ll trust King and I’ll tell Trigger. But you promise me that Mirrie will be safe?”
“On my own life.”
“That’s good enough for me, Miss Honey.”
She breathed freely again. “You’re good people, Warren… it’s all going to be OK. I promise.”
He nodded and felt better than he had in six months. “So what exactly do I tell Trigger?”
**
Trigger MacGee slammed in to one of the clubhouse crash rooms, cursing. Ace glanced up and arranged his face in a look of concern and interest.
“What’s wrong, man?” he said to his President.
“Fucking Miranda Kane. That’s what wrong. That goddamn cunt.”
Right away, Ace’s heart rate accelerated. If there was one name that he never wanted to have uttered in his presence ever again, Mirrie Kane’s topped the list. Along with…
“And fucking MacIntyre, too.” Trigger spun and punched the wall. “Fuck!”
Ace had the overwhelming urge to close his eyes, to just play ostrich. Whatever the hell Trigger knew about these two, it was a serious potential minefield for Ace. He’d successfully crossed it more than once – he’d managed to keep the situation under control with blind, stupid luck – but luck had a funny way of running out. Maybe this was the time that he was going to get blown to bits?
“What about them?” Ace asked, not even the slightest bit anxious to hear the answer.
“According to Warren, they’re fucking together again is what!” Trigger punched the wall again. “Can you fucking believe it? I mean, we were clear, were we not, when we told the bitch to stay the fuck away from him?”
“We were clear,” Ace agreed.
“I thought so. And she said she would. Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Nobody gets to walk away from us,” Trigger said, a glint in his cold blue eyes. “Nobody and especially not women who are club property.”
“I know.”
“We still own her, whether she wants to admit it or not.”
“Right.”
“So.” Trigger pulled himself up to his full height. “We need to remind her of this fact.”
Bang on cue, the terror roared through Ace’s body. Fuck! If anything happened to Mirrie, then Liam was going to send the gun to the cops. And who knows? Maybe he’d even let the world know that Ace was as deep in the closet as it was possible to be and if that happened, Ace was a dead man. Hell, he probably wouldn’t even get to jail for killing Wheels Jordan. His gay ass would have disappeared off the earth long before he ever saw the inside of a courthouse.
OK, he had to gain some control over this situation and right the fuck now.
“How do we remind her?” he asked, trying to stay calm. “What are you thinking, man?”
Trigger shrugged and headed for the door. “Not sure yet. But it will definitely involve both of them – her and MacIntyre.”
Ace went for casual, almost disinterested. He even took a sip of beer. “You want to kill them?”
Trigger turned and stared at his VP in surprise. “Of course. That’s a fucking given, man.”
Ace watched his President slam back down the hall to the bar, hollering for Rawls to give him a fucking bottle of JD, shouting at Doors, Fife and Joker – also known as Donovan Kane – to find MacIntyre and Mirrie right now. Ace heard Joker’s raised voice, heard the angry questions. If anyone was going to make it a point of honor to find Mirrie, it was her brother.
The terror had settled in Ace’s chest now and frozen him solid. He was sure that there’d be no putting Trigger off from making sure that nothing but harm came to Mirrie and MacIntyre this time, and Ace had no more cards to play. No ace in the hole, nothing up his sleeve, no smoke-and-mirrors, no bargaining chips. No fucking moves. Game over. Game over all the way, baby.
Well, actually – that wasn’t strictly true, was it? He had exactly one move. It was the only one and as he contemplated it, he knew that it had been a long time in coming.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
He threw back his beer and stared straight ahead, his mind whirring and twisting. He needed to plan this carefully and he had to know what Trigger was up to. He needed to stay in control, but it was like trying to balance on a tightrope while holding an elephant in his arms.
Ace wondered if this time was the time that he’d go crashing to the ground at maximum velocity; if so, he hoped it was all over quickly. But if truth be told, he knew that was too much to hope for.
Chapter Thirteen
Three days later
Spider gave the front counter a final wipe-down and switched off the espresso machine. He looked around, checked that all the windows were closed and locked. He went in to his office to grab his jacket and he heard the door open, heard heavy footsteps on the wooden floor. He went back in to the café.
“I’m sorry,” he said politely. “But we’re clo-”
The rest of the word died on his lips. Standing there – as big as life and twice as gorgeous – was Ace.
“Oh, my God.” Even though he’d been waiting for this and he knew that he had to act shocked to pull it off, Spider still almost fell backwards with the real shock of seeing him. “Oh, my… what are you doing here?”
“Hey, Liam.” Ace almost smiled, kicked the urge down hard. “How you doing?”
“I’m – I’m…” Spider looked around wildly, half-expecting the rest of the MC to leap out at him and kick his face in. “What’s going on?”
Ace turned the café lights off and the room was plunged in to shadow and gloom. “Nothing good.”
Spider blinked and took another step backwards. “Why are you here?”
“To tell you what’s happening. You need to give Mirrie and MacIntyre a heads-up, Liam, OK?”
“Why?” Spider stared at him, still unable to believe that Ace was here and doing precisely what Jack had said he
would. “Why?”
“Because Trigger knows they’re together again. He’s fucking furious and he’s gonna make his move tonight. You need to let them know and you need to get them to King’s Men, OK? Just get them someplace safe until I can figure out how to make this all go away.”
“Holy fuck,” Spider whispered.
“I know.” Ace’s dark eyes were dead of any and all emotion. “So do it fast, alright? Do it now.”
“I will.” Spider pulled himself together. “I’ll – I’ll call Mirrie.”
“And the gun?” Ace forced out the words. “You’ll – you won’t send it anywhere?”
Spider looked up sharply. “That’s what this is about, huh? It’s got nothing to do with stopping the murder of two innocent people, does it? Oh, no. It’s all about saving your ass. Right?”
Ace hesitated. “Well, yeah. I mean, I don’t want to go to jail…”
“You deserve to go to jail,” Spider hissed. “You killed a man. More than one, actually.”
Ace shook his head tiredly. “Liam, c’mon. No need to have this conversation again, OK? I just want to know that you’ll hang on to the gun.”
“As a thank you for your selfless act?” Spider spat out. “For getting Mirrie and Mac out of harm’s way?”
“Yeah. What’s wrong with wanting a reward for putting my neck on the line and blowing up my President’s plans?” Now Ace was getting angry too. “Do you have any idea what Trigger’d do to me if he knew that I was here? That I was keeping those two enemies of the MC safe?”
“Oh, let me guess.” The contempt dripped from the words. “He’d – kill you?”
“Slow and painful.” Ace gave him a tiny smile. “He’d make sure that I begged for him to kill me… and then he’d deny me the relief and reprieve and carry on until he drove me insane. It’d go on for days, Liam. It’d go on forever.”
Spider stopped, amazed at the stab in his heart at the thought of Ace being tortured and hurt. Dammit. He still loved the man and for just a few seconds, he let himself remember Ace in his bed, in his arms, trembling in the throes of an orgasm.
Oh, shit. No, no, no. Don’t go there.
Gentle Curves (Dangerous Curves Book 4) Page 13
