"Can't," he says finally. "I have one more person to see tonight. Then we can go."
This time when he hands me the helmet, he doesn't pull it back. I take it from him, and realize my hands are shaking. What is this? Is it just due to the adrenaline rush I got from our hot and heavy make-out session? Or am I afraid of what awaits us down the road?
Every stunningly masculine feature of Flint's dark face appears to have pulled back together to form a mask of malicious determination. I pile onto the back of his motorcycle and grip his midsection, hoping to convey to him through touch what my hopeless pleas could not. He's going to let me continue riding with him, but there is a price I'm going to have to pay.
I just wish I knew what that price was.
CHAPTER 8
FLINT
I am being torn apart.
I can't keep this up. I can't keep juggling the lives of the two men that live inside me: one dead, the other surviving as a shell of his former self. I don't know if what I'm about to do is noble anymore.
But I have to do it. The men responsible for nearly destroying me—the men who continue to destroy the company I invested my soul in from the top-down—need to answer for what they have done. And they are too powerful for anyone else to reach. I still have money, and I still have connections.
Time to put them to good use. I may not be in a position to save the world anymore, but I am in a position to save it from men like them.
Ana clings to me as I tear through the streets of Omaha like a demon. Several times I think I see the flashing red of a rotating light, but any police activity quickly recedes into the distance, and it's just the two of us once more. If Ana suspects our narrow brushes with the law, she says nothing and only squeezes her arms harder around me.
She's becoming a good rider—physically and instinctually. I'm finding it more distracting than ever having her tag along on back, but it has nothing to do with a novice's missteps. All I can think about is her hands, her arms, and what they would feel like to have them wrapped around my shoulders as I take her. Our roles would be reversed for a change; she would straddle me from the front, wrap those sinfully long legs around my hips and clamp them behind my surging back as I take every filthy thought I've ever had about her out on her in a way I have no doubt she would enjoy.
I angrily push my thoughts of roughly fucking Ana aside. My mission starts tonight. Every piece has fallen into place. I can't afford to be distracted. It will take every ounce of nerve I have left in me to do this.
And then, if I survive the night, I'll have to do it two more times.
The address Keating passed off to me takes us down a well-lit side street into a residential neighborhood. Luckily for me, Keating has never been a fan of Richards. I didn't like the man's ideas about the 'direction' he was trying to push the company, but I had never been heavy-handed enough with the employees I considered to be my most trusted friends. I paid for that trust, and paid dearly.
Tonight, Richards' long overdue repayment is in order.
I cut the Sportster's engine as we near the house on the end, and the bike rolls to a stop in the driveway. I see a light on in one of the upper windows, but the curtains are drawn, and there is no indication that whoever is inside has heard or even noticed our arrival. I've already confirmed with Keating that Richards lives alone, and prefers it that way. He will be alone tonight.
I leverage my weight off the bike. Ana's arms slip from me, but I can tell that she wants to hold on. She still wants to talk me out of the confrontation I'm about to have; she senses the black circumstances, and wants to avoid violence. She's perceptive that way.
She slides down off the bike and follows me across the driveway until I put up a hand to stop her. "No," I command. "You stay here. You wanted to ride with me, and now you're going to have to play by my rules. This isn't your petty attempt at blackmail, and it sure as shit isn't the pool hall. You'll be in danger if you follow me, and I want you to stay put."
"What are you going to do?" Her voice quavers on the question. I turn away. The light cast by the streetlamp is bright, and if she's discerning enough, she might just catch a glimpse of the telltale bulge in the side of my jacket pocket. I had pulled the gun from the saddlebag before she followed me out of the bar. I've been waiting years to arm myself and take Richards out.
I move around the side of the house and vanish from her view. If she ultimately decides to follow me, at least I can use her hesitation now to my advantage. I steal quietly through the yard and push open the back kitchen door. It yields at once beneath the press of my gloved hand, gliding on soundless hinges as it swings open. I let myself inside.
I turn the corner out of the kitchen and move swiftly up the stairs. Athleticism has its uses outside of riding well and looking good, and the ability to be soundless in my own right is one of them.
I find the door to Richards' bedroom. I breathe in a deep breath, squeeze my eyes shut, and banish all thoughts of the terrified woman waiting outside for me. Now is not the time for remorse. I yank the door open.
Richards is standing in a white bathrobe, freshly showered; in one hand he holds a stack of papers, and in the other he swirls a glass of red wine. He has halfway raised it to his lips by the time I rudely admit myself into his bedroom. His hand stalls, and the glass slips from his hand. It falls through space, agonizingly slow; I watch it hit the expensive carpet and spray its equally expensive contents across the white fiber. A wine stain on his rug is about to be the least of Richards' worries, but it will nicely compliment the particular redecoration I have in store.
"No." His voice, and the accompanying denial, are torn from him; he doesn't even seem cognizant of the fact that he is speaking. His terrified eyes fix me as if he is convinced he is looking at a two-dimensional ghost of a man he once knew, rather than the flesh and blood man himself. "Halligan. He killed you. By the river. I saw him kill you! The papers said you were dead!"
"Don't trust everything you read." I raise the gun and level it at his head. Richards backs himself up; the backs of his knees hit the side of his bed, and he falls into a seated position atop the mattress. I lower my arm by inches.
"Oh, God. Jesus. You can't kill me, Carter." He reaches a shaking hand up to push his spectacles up the bridge of his nose. "I wasn't… I didn't… I was complicit, okay? But I never wanted to go along with it! And I never actually thought we would go through with it. I thought it was all an intimidation tactic; to scare you into…into…"
"Take off your glasses," I command. No emotion, just base directives. I will wait until he complies. I have all night.
Then again, maybe I don't have as much of the night as I hoped. As the man sobs, and his fingers flex to follow orders, I hear the floor give a telltale creak in the hallway behind me. I don't turn around. There is only one other person it could be, and I don't want her to see the homicidal expression on my face.
"Flint." Ana's quiet voice comes to me out of the shadows. "It's getting late. I think we should head out now."
For a moment, I have no idea what she's on about. Can't she see that I'm holding a gun to a man's head? That I'm about to pull the trigger? I have to pull the trigger. This man stole everything from me, and he got away with it. Nothing in his excuses now speaks to the human in me…or rather, the fragments of what are left.
And I can't let Ana speak to me, either. I have to remain strong, and hold my arm steady. I tighten the muscles around my elbow, until my arm is one long, deadly line, terminating in the instrument of death that will deliver the final bullet into Richards' skull.
"Flint." Ana again. "You don't have to do this. Please. I know you don't want to do this."
A tremor in my arm. I suppress it. "Go back downstairs, Ana," I reply in the same even tone of voice as the woman is maintaining, even though I feel a war raging within me. "You don't need to see this."
"You don't, either," she insists. "Come on. Let's get out of here."
"You don't know who this man is
, Ana!" My voice breaks as my tone rises, and suddenly I have lost control. My hand is shaking, and I stiffen my entire body in an effort to steady it. "You have no idea what he's done! He's a liar and a murderer, and he has to pay for what he is! This is bigger than you. It's bigger than me."
"No." Her voice is firm now, almost sharp. "This is personal. This is murder, Flint. Either you commit to it now or you don't, but don't try to dress it up as something nobler than what it is. There is nothing noble about taking another man's life. You should know that better than anyone."
This can't be happening. I stand resolute, in the middle of a man's bedroom I have every business to be in, but as she speaks I feel my resolve start to crumble. The fiery-red haze of fury that frames my peripheral slowly starts to recede. I reach for it, desperate for the fuel I need to stay angry, but it escapes me in the wake of Ana's calm reasoning.
I never turn around to face her. I stare at Richards, whose anxious eyes flicker between me, my gun, and the beautiful woman who has ascended the stairs like his own personal guardian angel to speak to me from the hallway. The seconds drag on into minutes. None of us moves.
"Everything on the desk," I say finally. "Your laptop. The papers. I want all of it. Pile it in that briefcase. You have five seconds," I continue, waving the muzzle of my gun to indicate the man's briefcase. Richards launches himself from the bed and rushes to comply, sweeping everything up into his arms and off the desk and stuffing it into his case.
"The bottle of wine, too," Ana instructs from behind me. For the first time since her arrival at the scene, I turn my head to fix her with a hard look over my shoulder. She appears unrepentant for her suggestion; she shrugs her shoulder a little at my glance, and when I turn back around, I see Richards corking the bottle and stashing it alongside everything else. He seals the briefcase and passes it to me. He is trembling so hard that he nearly shakes it open. I wrench it from his hand and pass it off to Ana.
"You're going to tell the others I'm coming," I conclude. "Good. No more resting easy for any of you. And that goes especially for you, Richards. If you think I'm done with you, you are sadly fucking mistaken."
"Please," he begs. "I didn't do anything. I swear to God, Flynn, I didn't do anything!"
I fire a single shot into the carpet. He shrieks and leaps back onto the bed, clutching the headboard as if the room is sinking around him and he's hanging onto the last lifeboat. The bullet leaves a black, smoking hole in the carpet, but I'm unconcerned with recovering it. I'd covered my tracks well in advance in preparation for this night.
I leave him a broken and sniveling man, as I turn and grab Ana roughly by her arm. She makes a low noise in her throat, but she offers nothing more in the way of protest as I drag her down the stairs and out the front door this time.
I holster my weapon and cross quickly to the Sportster. The gun is still hot, and sears the flesh of my navel where I've stashed it, but I barely feel anything.
No. That's not the truth of the situation, not at all. I can't lie to myself about what has just happened. Richards' murder—and the plans for revenge I have been making for three years—are over just as quickly as they began. I failed in my mission, and I let myself fail.
Because of this woman. Because of Ana. Because I've let her ride behind me for two days—a longer stretch than I've ever let anyone stay with me before. I let her in, and it cost me everything as a result.
What do I have left?
My brain feels so full it's about to rupture. I don't risk speaking, unless everything I'm feeling comes pouring out before I have a chance to sort and filter it: all of the rage, the disappointment, the sorrow. The relief. I can't dwell on it. I won't.
I start the Sportster. Ana is barely settled in behind me with the suitcase tucked securely between our bodies before I am roaring out of the driveway and back out onto the road.
We ride in silence, and no one stops our escape: no policemen, no one from Green Star. None of the goons that seem dead set on pursuing Ana like a pack of hungry wolves. We're free from it all again, if only for the span of this ride…but I feel heavy. As if chains I didn't know I was wearing are settling their full weight on me now, biting into my flesh and threatening to hold me down forever. I don't know who I am anymore, or what I'm meant to do. I don't know if I should give over to my anger, or if I even want to direct it at this woman, this obstacle, who has thrust herself in my path. I don't know where to turn.
We drive to the Ritz-Carlton, and I brace myself for another confrontation. I can't go on like this; we can't go on together like this. Something has to be done.
CHAPTER 9
ANA
I wonder if I should feel afraid of Flint Carter.
We stand slightly apart in the elevator of the Ritz-Carlton as it ascends floors. He stares straight ahead, and he doesn't speak to me. I know he is aware of my presence. I wonder what he is thinking.
In my hands, I clutch the suitcase that he took from the man's house. My duffle bag is slung over my shoulder. Flint has brought nothing with him, save for the gun, which I suspect he stowed in the waistband of his jeans. Again, I wonder if I should feel afraid of him.
But I know that I do not.
What could have possibly come over me? Was it the alcohol? As much as I continue to want to blame the drinks I had tonight, there is no possible way I can still be intoxicated now. When I followed Flint into the house, I went like a sleepwalker: calm, almost dream-like. When I found him standing in the room with his gun raised, it was almost as if someone else were speaking through me. Never in my life have I known the exact right words to say in any given situation, but somehow they had found me, in that moment anyway. I don't know if I can claim to have saved a man's life. At the end of the day, all I know is that I saved Flint Carter from making a potentially huge mistake.
The elevator doors open and disgorge us out onto the top story. I follow Flint to our room, saying nothing. Even if I'm not afraid of him, I feel afraid to speak. I'm afraid of what our next conversation has in store for me.
But I can't put it off any longer. He swipes our card, and the door opens beneath the aggressive wrench of his hand on a princely room that looks as if it should belong in a far-off palace, and not in some hotel in Omaha. I set my face so my astonished expression won't show. I follow him into the room.
I turn away from him only momentarily to set the suitcase and my duffle bag down on the couch. The span of the sofa is longer than our entire bedroom back at the motel. The effect of all this lavishness is new to me, and I won't deny that it's slightly dizzying. I had yet to experience Flint's true wealth firsthand, but now I see the sort of life that must have been stolen out from beneath him. Thinking about the potential of his past, once and forever destroyed by the man whose life I just helped to save, finally spurs me to turn and face him.
"Flint." I can't think of anything else to say but his name. There is so much longing in that one word that if this were any other situation, I would feel embarrassed.
He refuses to turn and look at me. He is gazing out the large window inset into the wall. Beyond him, the city winks and glitters. A yellow moon rises far above the scene and hangs in the night sky, the sort of silent spectator that would let a murder unfold on a quiet street without interfering. I take a small step toward him.
"Flint, I'm sorry." My voice falters, but I push on. "But I meant everything I said back there. And I wouldn't have interfered if I didn't think…if I didn't know it was the right thing to do. And I don't mean the right thing for him. That man—whoever he is—he doesn't mean anything to me. Not like you've come to mean to me."
I pause. I'm not sure I should have said that. Flint remains remote.
"I don't know how long you've been planning this. I don't know how many people you…plan to visit to see your mission through. But Flint, you're better than this. There's a way to see justice done that won't destroy lives in the same way yours was destroyed. You don't have to change yourself into the weapon. You d
on't have to wield one, either. You don't have to hurt yourself this way, Flint."
Another step carries me closer. I can't tell if he's watching the approach of my reflection in the window; his eyes are completely lost in the shadow cast by his deeply furrowed brow. Another step. He doesn't drag his eyes away from the window.
I encircle my arms around him from behind and hold him close. I press my breasts into the familiar alcove of his back, and push my cheek up against the skull patch that dominates his back. Flint wears death as much as he carries it with him. How am I supposed to reach a man who has known nothing else for the past three years? Three years is a long time. I should know better than anyone.
He stands as rigid as a statue in my arms…but it's all right. I didn't even expect him to let me get this far. I breathe out in a deep, long exhale. My movements are slow as I reach around to his front. I don't want to startle him, or convey that there is anything mysterious about my intensions now. I find the sharp outline of the gun holstered beneath his shirt, and I allow my fingers to slip beneath the cotton fabric. Slowly, I begin to push his shirt up.
He is still wearing his leather jacket, but if he allows me, I can remove that as well. He turns slowly in my arms as I carry his clothes up and over his head. He goes almost limp, but not completely boneless; it's strangely like tending to a child who is too exhausted to protest or do anything more for himself. The leather jacket drops to the floor, and the T-shirt follows.
He stands bare-chested in front of me once more. His dark hair, rumpled by my ministrations, hangs loosely in his eyes. He watches me dully as I run my hands down the smooth swell of his chest, tracing every contour of muscle on my way down. My hands alight on the gun, and I extract it slowly from his pants. I place it on the desk beside the window.
BILLIONAIRE BIKERS: 3 MC Romance Books Page 7
