by Zoey Parker
I nodded. He was obsessed with punishing him for something that happened long enough ago for neither of them to remember it. “Isn’t it enough that he made Eric spend all that time in prison? Seven years is a long stretch for a young man. Can’t he let it go at that?”
“No, because he knows Eric will keep coming at him. Know what I mean? He started it, and now Eric’s gonna keep trying to end it. He messed up bad when he tried to kill Eric years ago.”
I shook my head. It made no sense. “None of this seems worthwhile to me. Why do you do it?”
“We do what we have to do. My president wants me to do something? I do it. It’s what I owe him. I owe it to the club.”
I would never understand that.
“Hey.” Another one of the men walked into the room. “Enough talking in here. Gareth wants you gone. Your shift is up.” He looked at me, and his eyes weren’t as kind as the Viking sitting in front of me. “No reason to let the two of you get too friendly.”
The Viking stood and left the room without looking back. My heart sank—he was my chance, I knew it, and he was walking away. Gareth was too crafty. He probably knew the Viking was soft-hearted. He really did think everything out a few steps in advance. Like a chess match. I wondered if he would be any good at the actual game, but I knew he would never give it a chance. Men like him didn’t play chess. They played poker. Chess was for nerds and losers.
My new guard sat in front of me. He looked like a rodent, down to the beady eyes, so I decided to call him Rat. He wasn’t nearly as kind or talkative at the Viking—a much better guard for me.
“Do you know how long I’ll be here?” I asked.
“You’ll be here as long as Gareth wants you to be,” he spat.
Okay. So much for that. I closed my eyes and allowed myself to drift off for a little while. It was easier than staring at Rat. I felt his eyes on me nonetheless, boring holes into me. I hated him. How could a man sit in front of a tied-up woman and not do anything about it? I didn’t have anything to do with this world. I didn’t hurt anybody or get anybody in trouble. I didn’t deserve the sort of treatment I was receiving.
But I was a tool, like the Viking said. Gareth was using me as a trap for Eric. Poor Eric. He didn’t deserve this either.
Would he come for me? I thought he might, but I didn’t know how he would do it without putting himself in terrible danger. Part of me hoped he wouldn’t, even though I knew it probably meant death for me—or at least torture of some sort. I didn’t want to be the reason he got killed. I didn’t want to be the end of his club.
It’s not your fault. The voice in my head sounded like Eric’s—strident, powerful, confident. You didn’t do any of this. It started a long time ago.
I imagined him in front of me, having a conversation about it. It was easier than seeing my reality, than thinking about the way life had turned out. Imagining Eric was the only thing keeping me sane.
I looked at him. “If it weren't for me, you wouldn’t be in danger right now.”
“If it weren't for me, you wouldn’t be either.”
“It’s not the same. I’m a problem for you. As long as I’m around, you’ll be vulnerable.”
“If I hadn’t gone to the auction in the first place, I wouldn’t have found you. I went to start shit with him. If I left him alone, I’d be all right. But I wouldn’t know you.”
I imagined his smile, and I smiled at the thought of it. I knew it was just my subconscious making up this conversation, but it made me feel good. So few things did at that moment.
Where would we be? Not in the closet at the Reign of Chaos clubhouse, of course. We would be at Eric’s house. Maybe in the kitchen, as I cooked for him. Or in the living room. Or in the bedroom.
I sighed, thinking of being in the bedroom with him. I would have given anything to be with him, even if all we did was talk. I thought back on all the sweet talks we already had in bed, when we weren’t doing anything but sharing ourselves with each other. I wondered if I would ever have that sort of experience with any other man. If I lived through the kidnapping.
No, don’t think about that. I pushed the thought aside and immersed myself as deeply as I could in my memories.
If I concentrated hard enough, I could smell his cologne. A woodsy, masculine scent. I could almost feel his warm skin beneath my hands, which were presently numb from being tied together behind me for so long. No, don’t think about that. Think about good things. The way his skin felt. The way it tasted.
I wondered if he had ever opened up to another woman the way he opened up to me. I was glad he felt comfortable enough to do that. I was glad I could be that person for him. And I was glad he was my first—even though it all ended with me tied to a chair, hurting, sore, with an aching head and an aching heart.
I remembered what I thought when I waited for who I thought I was Eric to come into the house. I was ready to accept him into my life with open arms, no holds barred. I was ready to admit that I had feelings for him and wanted us to be more than just…whatever we were. Mac convinced me that while I had to be careful, what mattered was how we felt about each other.
How damned tragic that it had to end the way it was ending. Just when I knew how I felt, or thought I did, this happened. Life was so unfair. Didn’t I know that, though, thanks to everything I’d been through with my mom?
I thought about her, too, and a little whimper escaped my throat. I stayed still and listened for Rat’s reaction, to see if he took pleasure in my distress. He was silent. At least he wasn’t laughing at me—I didn’t know if I could handle that.
What was happening with Mom? Was she all right? Asleep? Awake? In pain? I should have been with her.
I opened my eyes. “Can I make a phone call?”
Rat sneered. “Where do you think you are? A hotel room?”
“Even prisoners get one phone call, don’t they?”
“This ain’t jail, sweetheart. You don’t get rights like they do in jail. Sorry about that.”
“My mother’s dying. She’s in end-stage lung cancer. Please. I just want to check on her. You can talk to the nurse for me, I don’t care. I’m just dying to know how she is.” Tears filled my eyes, and I didn’t bother trying to hold them back. I wanted him to see how serious I was, that I wasn’t making it up to get his sympathy. “I don’t care about anything else right now. Please.”
He stretched his legs out in front of him, crossing them at the ankles. “I’ll ask Gareth for you. When I feel like it.”
I wanted to scream and claw his eyes out. Instead, I swallowed my rage and nodded. “That’s reasonable enough. Thank you.” I knew he had to make it look like he was in control—hell, it wasn’t an act. He was in control, they all were. Even if he felt a little sorry for me, which he might have, he couldn’t jump to my request. That would make him look weak, and make it look like I had more power than I did. I was starting to understand the way these people thought. It was a little scary.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Eric
“We have to go. We can’t leave her there.”
Spike looked at me, and he was very calm. His face was almost expressionless. “I never said we were gonna leave her there,” he said. “I just don’t want you rushing in half-cocked, is all.”
“I wasn’t planning to,” I said. “I know that would be suicide.”
“How much more time do we have?” Slash asked. He only got out of the hospital an hour earlier, and went straight to the clubhouse as soon as he heard there was trouble.
“Ten and a half hours,” I said. “Plenty of time, but every fucking minute that passes is one more minute when they could be hurting her.”
“You think Gareth would go back on his word like that?” Spike asked.
“You think he wouldn’t? Come on. He’s the least trustworthy person I ever knew. He’s always got some kind of motive behind his words. I wouldn’t put it past him to let his crew have a field day with her just to show he could.”
<
br /> “Don’t let the way you hate him get in the way of your common sense,” Slash advised.
“For a man on pain meds, you have a lot to say,” I muttered.
“It’s funny—they make me chatty. I always heard they made people sleepy, but that’s not how I feel at all. If it weren't for the broken leg, I’d go over there with you.”
“That’s the last thing we need,” I said. “But it means a lot that you said it.” I knew Slash would walk through hell for me, and I would for him. Then I remembered. “Speaking of pain pills, did Pete and Joe go to the hospital?”
“Yeah, they went for scans or whatever it is they do for the brain. They look fine. They’re ready to go back out and make Gareth pay for what he did.”
“They’ll get their chance,” I muttered.
“You need to take it easy,” Spike replied.
“You need to let me be the president, man. Okay? Just let me do what I think is right.”
Spike didn’t seem to mind that I flipped out on him. He was giving me a lot of space to vent. “I get it, brother. It’s your club now, not mine. Just trying to give you a little perspective is all.”
I looked at the two of them. “I know I need to take my time. I know that it means more for him to take care of her so I keep up my end of the arrangement, since I could get him in deep trouble with the recording. This is long-term shit. He could go away for a long time. He’s gotta be careful.”
“Gareth’s not a stupid man,” Spike said, nodding. “He already thought it all through, I’d bet. He knows how important it is to keep his guys away from her. He won’t hurt her. If he does…”
“Yeah?” I asked when Spike trailed off.
He looked at Slash, then at me. “If he does hurt her, it’ll be in front of you. He’ll want you to see it.”
My blood ran cold when I realized how right Spike was. I exhaled sharply, my nostrils flared out. I felt like a bull. I wished it would be as easy as goring him and getting it over with. I needed him out of the picture. I couldn’t spend the rest of my life wondering what else he had in store for me. I couldn’t be afraid to let somebody special like Michelle into my life, for fear that he would take her away from me. That was no way to live.
I had to cut him out once and for all.
“What are you gonna do with the recording?” Slash asked.
“I’m sending it to the police,” I said.
“Won’t Gareth want you to hand it to him? So he knows it’s safe?”
“I didn’t say I would send the original over.”
Spike smiled. “You made a copy?”
“Of course I did. I have it recorded on my phone, too, so there’re three versions of it. I’ll give him one of the copies and send the original to the police. I can’t let him get away with the shit he’s done. He needs to go away for a long time. Permanently.” I knew it wouldn’t be permanent, not really. But it would be for a long time. He had a ton of black marks against his name, and who knew how much more they’d rack up against him after they found out he was selling underage girls.
I winced as Spike poured alcohol over my arm to clean the bullet wound. I had fought with him over getting the bullet out—all I wanted to think about was Michelle, and how to get her—but he pointed out that she might not like having a boyfriend with only one arm. If she even wanted me to be her boyfriend at all after all this shit went down.
Lucky for me, Spike was an old pro at getting bullets out of body parts. Not really something to be proud of, but it came in handy. I closed my eyes and braced myself as he went in with the probe to find the bullet.
“Stay still,” he murmured.
I turned my head away and stayed as still as I could. It wasn’t the pain—pain I could handle. It was the feeling of something moving around inside my arm.
“How many do you think we should take?” Slash asked.
“Who’s we?” I opened one eye to look at him.
“Sorry. I keep thinking like I’m going with you. It’s easy to forget.”
“Even with your leg in a cast?” Spike asked.
“I just wanna be part of the action,” Slash said. “I can’t help it.”
“I know, brother. I hate that they’re the reason you can’t be with us. This is for you, too.” I closed my eyes again while the probe moved around in my muscle. I felt it hit something.
“The bullet,” Spike said. I hated that he was taking so long to get it out. I had to get to Michelle. Part of me wondered if he was deliberately taking his time, not just because he didn’t want to hurt me. He wanted me to think things through, too.
“To answer your question,” I muttered through clenched teeth, “I think we should go all-out. I wanna have as many of our guys outside as possible. I don’t know what Gareth’s gonna try once we get there.”
“He might be luring us all into a trap,” Spike said. “Think about it. Wouldn’t it be great to get the whole club down there, then blow the place up or something?”
“Would he blow up his own clubhouse?” I asked.
“Like you always say, I wouldn’t put anything past him.” Spike’s voice was as tight as mine.
“I don’t love the idea of going alone.” I winced as the bullet slid out of the tunnel it made in my bicep. “So I’ll take a dozen with me. They can sit across the street until I call them in.”
“Don’t think I won’t be there,” Spike said, and I heard his grin even though I wasn’t looking at him. “You need somebody at your back.”
“Thanks.” I waited while he stitched me up, and every stitch took me one step closer to Michelle. I’ll be there soon, baby. I’ll get you out of there.
###
Once Spike had me patched up, I met in the main room of the clubhouse with the rest of my gang. They all looked ready to go. I was touched by how much danger they were willing to put themselves in for me. Michelle didn’t mean anything to them—only Pete, Joe, and Spike had ever met her.
I remembered when she asked me questions in bed, about why I joined the club to begin with. I knew she didn’t understand the big deal, why I would want to be part of something that was so violent and dangerous. I wished she could see what I saw when I looked out over their faces. They were ready to go into battle for somebody they had never met, because of me. That was what it was all about. The unspoken brotherhood. I didn’t even need to ask. They were ready to go no matter what it meant for them.
“I want a dozen of you with me on this,” I said.
“Only a dozen?” I didn’t know who asked, but I nodded.
“If we all ride in, he’ll know we’re coming from a mile away.”
“He already knows we’re coming.” A few heads nodded.
I sighed. I didn’t want to have to put it this way, but they were forcing my hand. “If this is some sorta trap, I don’t want all of you with me. I would rather leave a lot of you here. What if this is his way of getting us all in the same place, at the same time?”
Now the looks on their faces were a little less confident. Now they looked like they wondered what the fuck they were getting themselves into.
“I understand if any of you don’t wanna come along. I really do. This isn’t the sort of thing you signed on for. I get it. I don’t even expect any of you to come, honestly, and I know Michelle wouldn’t. So don’t feel like you have to.”
All of them stayed there, just where they stood. “Whoever you want, we’re ready to go.”
“Even if it means you might end up, I don’t know, blown up or something? I mean, this is Gareth we’re talking about. He’s psychotic. He sent one of his own men in here so that I would kill him. Who knows how far he would go?”
“Don’t worry about it.” That was Pete, and he looked determined to rip somebody’s head off. “We’ve got your back. Just tell us what to do.”
I nodded. “First…” I looked at Suzie, who stood behind the bar with a stunned look on her face. I handed her a large manila envelope. “I want you to take this to the p
olice station. Don’t tell them who you are, or who I am, or anything about what’s inside.”
“I don’t even know what’s inside,” she whispered.
“Then it won’t be a problem.” I grinned at her, and she smiled through her fear. “Come right back here when you’re done, okay? Stay in contact with Slash. Let him know when you get to the station and when you’re leaving. If he doesn’t hear from you, he’s gonna send people after you. So make sure you keep him posted.”
“I will.” There was so much in her face—I always had the feeling she liked me as more than a friend, and now that I was with Michelle there was no chance for that to develop. I felt sorry for her, but I knew her feelings wouldn’t stand in the way of doing what I asked her to do. She was loyal, just like everybody else there.
