“No, thank you,” I answered. “I think I’m just going to go to sleep.”
Kate walked over and pulled me into a giant hug. “I’m so glad you’re okay. If you need anything or want to talk, I’m here for you.”
“Thank you.” I was overwhelmed by the kindness they both showed, but grateful for it even if I thought I was undeserving. I slipped out of Kate’s arms and walked back to the stairs to go up to the room I was staying in. I pulled back the covers, laid down in the bed, and cried myself to sleep.
The next morning a light knock on my door woke me up. I was surprised I managed to get any sleep, although I did have some nightmares that interrupted my slumber a few times. Dragging myself out of bed, I walked over to the door and was surprised to see Wolf on the other side.
I hadn’t spent much time with him, but I did have some memories of his father, Falcon, from when I was younger. The club had suffered a great loss when Falcon and his wife were killed in a horrible accident a few years ago. Wolf reminded me a lot of his dad. They were both outgoing, never shied away from a good time, and above all else, were loyal to the club. But right now, that fun-loving guy was nowhere to be found. Instead, he looked emotionally drained. He had dark circles under his eyes and I could guess he didn’t sleep at all last night either. I was sure the other guys looked similar.
“Viking’s asking for you.”
He didn’t wait for a response from me; instead, he turned on his heel and walked down the hallway. I didn’t want to keep Viking waiting, so I brushed my teeth and hair quickly and grabbed a couple of painkillers before I went out to search for him. I checked in the main room and didn’t see anybody, so I headed toward the kitchen. A couple of voices speaking in hushed tones forced me to stop before I entered the room.
“We need to send her back to Reno.” I recognized Colt’s voice right away. It wasn’t a surprise he was ready to send me packing. He wasn’t happy I moved here in the first place. But, that knowledge didn’t make his words sting any less.
I entered the room, acting as though I hadn’t heard Colt. Both him and Viking turned toward me, and I noticed they were the only two in the room. That put me a little more at ease. I didn’t want an audience for whatever Viking wanted to discuss. Especially if he was going to send me back home.
I took a good look at both of the men. Colt’s hair was in disarray, and his brow was furrowed as he sat there in deep thought. Viking didn’t look much better. His shoulders were slumped as though he was carrying the weight of the world. And maybe he was. Not only did he lose a brother yesterday, but now it was his responsibility to find out what happened to Fitz. I knew he wouldn’t rest until he found all the answers.
“Hey, darlin’. I talked to Torch last night,” Viking said. “He’s heading down here soon. He wants you to come home. He’s pretty pissed that you were almost killed and doesn’t think you’re safe here anymore.”
“What?” My voice wavered, the panic threatening to take over my body.
“You can’t be surprised,” Colt started, but Viking interrupted.
“Torch might be right. We don’t know what we’re dealing with right now and we need to figure out what happened to Fitz and who’s involved. Our resources will be focused on that task.”
I completely understood Viking’s matter-of-fact stance and even agreed. I was a distraction they neither needed nor wanted. But if I went back home, I would never be able to break away from the monster waiting for me there. Going to New York wasn’t an option either since that’d put Phoebe back in Torch’s line of sight. So if there was any chance for me to stay here, I needed to tell Viking the truth about Torch.
“Can I talk to you? Privately?” I asked, looking at Viking.
“Whatever you need to say, you can say in front of me,” Colt answered for him.
Viking nodded his head in agreement with Colt. It looked like I was going to have to do this in front of him as well. I prayed they both understood why I hadn’t said something before, but more than likely they would both be pissed off. Or in Colt’s case, more pissed off than he already was.
“Yesterday, when Fitz told you we were coming over so I could speak with you, it was about Torch. There’s something you need to know before you send me away.”
I told Viking the whole story just like I’d done the morning before with Fitz. I didn’t leave anything out, including the more embarrassing details that made me look like an idiot. Neither man could hide their anger at what I was saying, but whether at me or Torch, it was hard to tell at this point. I prayed they believed me and didn’t send me back to a death sentence.
“During our last conversation, Torch mentioned having a source that told him I was spending a lot of time with Fitz. He thought I was more focused on hooking up with someone than getting him information. He threatened me and said if I didn’t start giving him something he could use, he would come up with a different plan.”
“Do you think he had anything to do with what happened yesterday?” Viking asked. His body was tense, and he looked like he was going to explode at any second.
The question caught me off guard. I hadn’t thought of it before, but there was a possibility Torch might know something about what had happened because he made it clear he was watching me, but it never crossed my mind he could be behind the shooting. But he had threatened me, and now Viking had me questioning what really happened. Could Torch be involved? Would he be stupid enough to take out one of his own club members?
“I’m not sure. I can’t imagine what Torch would gain by doing something like that.” But then I thought a little bit more and a shudder ran through me. “Maybe Fitz wasn’t the intended target. Maybe I was.”
How many times did Torch threaten to harm me in the past? Maybe he was tired of waiting on me and decided to tie up his loose ends. Or perhaps the sociopath finally lost his mind.
“Fuck!” Viking roared. “If he’s behind this, he sure gave a good show when I was on the phone with him earlier. Give us a bit so we can talk about this. I don’t know what’s going on, but you might be in just as much danger as we are.”
While I was relieved to have finally told Viking the truth, the fact that I was still in danger wasn’t remotely comforting. As I left and looked back at Colt, if looks could kill—I’d be dead already.
14
Colt
As soon as Ember left the room, I turned to face my president. “Fuck! Do you believe her?”
“She has no reason to lie to us, Colt. And she looked scared out of her mind.”
Ember told us so much at once, I didn’t even know where to start. Part of me was ready to drive to Reno right now and kill Torch with my bare hands for betraying the club. All I wanted to do this morning was find out if Ember had any information about what happened yesterday, and now we had a complete shit show on our hands.
“She brought this on herself,” I said heatedly. “She should have never hooked up with Torch. What kind of woman sleeps with a married man? Torch isn’t that smart; if he wanted to betray the club, he would have fucked up somehow and exposed himself at some point. He’s been able to prolong staying in the club by attaching himself to her.”
Viking gave me a hard look. “For fuck's sake, Torch may have just tried to kill her—and if he’s got eyes on her, he might have done it to keep her from telling us about him.”
I backed off a little. “Maybe—”
“You’re going to have to deal with the shit Jenna and your mom did to you at some point, because I think you’re letting that cloud your judgment right now. Did you not hear the part where she said she was being blackmailed into helping him and was forced to pretend she was with him?” He paused to let that sink into my thick skull. “I know you act like an asshole and pretend you don’t give a shit about anyone, but even you can’t be okay with that. Her loyalty to her family was at the root of her actions. It's something all of us understand and live by.”
Viking was right, just like Mac had been back a
t the hospital. Shit from my past was always finding a way to fuck with me. But all this info was hitting me fast and hard and I hadn’t had time to process what it all meant. It didn’t help that my feelings about Ember were all over the place and now a sliver of guilt was forming that my ego didn’t want to acknowledge. I’d thought I knew what kind of woman she was and to have it blow up in my face, it ticked me off. Not at Ember so much, but at myself.
My opinion of her should have risen from the ashes, but I was still enraged by Fitz’s death because she was tied to that undeniable fact in every way.
At this point, I knew my pride was getting in my way. She wasn’t Jenna, and now that I knew she’d been forced into playing a role, that messed up my opinion of her even more. But at the moment, I couldn’t get over the fact that she was there when Fitz died and in some way, she played a role in it, however directly or indirectly. How did I let something like that go? I was pissed at everything and everyone.
Then a memory hit me, Fitz’s comments about Ember’s behavior when Torch was around, how it wasn’t normal. I’d missed it because I was mad at Ember for something she’d had zero control over.
“Fitz had a bad feeling about him, you know. I thought maybe he wanted something more with Ember and that was making him see things that didn’t exist, but now…” I let that thought hang in the air. He must have been waiting for her to share something with him to confirm his suspicions. Too bad she seemed hell-bent on keeping her secrets. “What are we going to do?”
Viking took a long minute before answering. “We need to think of a way to keep Torch from hauling her ass back to Reno. We also need to come up with a plan to find out what he’s up to. He asked Ember to get information for a reason, whether he was behind the shooting or not. Figuring it out is going to take some time and patience.”
“How’s he keeping tabs on her?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Could just be something he made up to keep her under his control, which wouldn’t be difficult considering she’s been emotionally abused by him for months. The fact that she hasn’t cracked yet speaks volumes,” Viking said soberly.
“If Torch actually had something to do with Fitz’s murder, we can’t just sit here and not do anything about it.”
“That’s not what I’m suggesting, but we need to be smart about this. For now, we keep what Ember told us between the officers of this club. We need to make sure Torch is acting on his own. With him claiming someone is watching Ember, we can’t be too careful. We’ll watch him when they come down for the funeral and then decide what to do. In the meantime, the only way I can think of to keep Ember here is if one of us claims her as his old lady.”
I scoffed at his suggestion. “Which poor bastard are you going to task with that?”
He looked at me like I was an idiot, and I knew what he was going to say before the words came out. “Seems to me like someone already has a property patch sitting around unused—”
“Absolutely fucking not!” I immediately said.
My protests fell on deaf ears. “It has to be an officer since no one else can know. Wolf and Viper would if I told one of them to do it, but Wolf’s not exactly happy with her either. And it doesn’t make sense to ask Viper since you and Ember have a history—”
“We don’t even like each other.”
“Get over yourself and remember that Ember’s the one that’s actually been through hell.” Viking pointed at me, the anger in his voice growing with each word. “You’ve gone out of your way to be a dick toward her. Don’t think I haven’t noticed. Can’t say the same for Ember.”
“You just made my point, Viking. No one is going to buy that I suddenly changed my mind and decided to claim her.”
“Better make it believable then. Or else we’re all fucked.”
With that hanging in the air, Viking left me staring after him knowing there was no way out of this.
I couldn’t believe I was going through with this.
The last thing I wanted to do was get mixed up with some chick again, especially one who seemed to be a magnet for trouble. But again, Viking was right. We needed to buy some time and get some answers, so I focused on that. We’d dealt with threats against our club before, but we’d never had to worry about one of our own. This was new territory, and we needed to be on top of our game.
I walked over to my closet and reached up on the top shelf feeling around for the box I’d shoved up their months ago. I tossed it on my bed and stared at it for a few moments like the damn thing was going to explode if I touched it.
It was the one thing I’d asked Jenna for when we split. I let her keep our apartment, allowed her to sell off her wedding ring, and didn’t ask for any of our furniture or other possessions I’d paid for. But this? I would never let her keep it.
I ripped the lid off and saw the soft, black leather sitting inside. Holding it up in front of me, I study the words “Property of Colt” on the back. When I gave this to Jenna, I planned on her wearing it forever. I didn’t take the commitment of a gift like this lightly. To me, the patch was a more significant vow than the ones we said on our wedding day. I’d been filled with so much pride when I first slipped it over her shoulders. I was in love and couldn’t wait for the world to see that she was mine. What a fool I’d been.
I’d stored this away, never planning on looking at it again. Now I was giving it to someone, and it didn’t mean a fucking thing. I understood the reason Viking asked me to do this, but that didn’t mean I was happy about it.
I liked my no commitment lifestyle now, and I had no desire to give it up anytime soon. This was going to put a damper on my random hookups. Sure, I could continue to fuck around if I wanted to since this was all a big farce, but it would ruin the illusion we were trying to create and I knew it had to be believable. As much of an asshole as I was, I never tolerated cheating in a relationship. I’d seen it destroy too many lives, mine and my dad’s included, and never wanted someone to look at me with the same judgment I handed out to cheaters. Honor was something I had, and I wasn’t about to fuck that up.
I laid the garment over the chair in the corner of my room and headed to the shower to clear my head. The Reno chapter was coming into town, and we needed to prepare for Fitz’s funeral.
The next few days were going to be a clusterfuck.
15
Ember
It was getting late, and I realized I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast yesterday. My stomach was rumbling, but I didn’t feel like eating. Deciding I needed at least a little something in my stomach so I could take more painkillers, I padded down the stairs for the second time today.
The clubhouse had been quiet throughout the day, the sound of doors opening and closing were all I heard. The banter and constant bustle I was accustomed to was notably absent. I prayed no one would be around now.
I was relieved to see the kitchen was deserted. With any luck, I would make myself a sandwich and get back to my room before anyone noticed me.
My fate here was still up in the air. Viking seemed to believe me, but I was still anxiously awaiting word from him on whether he was going to allow me to stay or not. Until then, I didn’t want to draw any more attention to myself.
Finding some ham and cheese in the refrigerator, I proceeded to make myself dinner. I peeked back in the fridge to find something to drink when I heard heavy footsteps approaching. Without looking behind me, I knew it was Colt. I had no clue how I was able to sense his presence, but it unnerved me.
I pulled out a bottle of water and turned around, bracing myself for whatever cruel thing he was going to say. Nothing I’d said earlier brought about any compassion; in fact, he seemed even angrier. He could cut me down with just a few words or a look, so I didn’t expect that to change any time soon. I also knew I needed to stop letting him treat me that way. Before, I’d had no choice, but things were different now, at least for me to some degree. I knew the truth and Viking believed me—that’s all that mattered and I’d ha
ve to remind myself of that when things got tough.
“Hey, got a second to talk?” he asked, his voice surprisingly soft.
“Sure,” I responded, so taken aback that I took a seat at the island.
He didn’t start talking right away, so I took a bite of my sandwich to stop myself from speaking first and keep my nerves in check. I didn’t want to say anything for fear it would piss him off before I had the chance to listen to what he wanted to say.
“Why didn’t you tell us about the shit with Torch before?” he asked.
I understood why he was asking the question. They deserved to know if someone was betraying the club, but I needed to protect James and Phoebe too. “When I moved here, I was hoping to find some way out of the mess back home. I just needed to know that James and Phoebe were safe, and I felt like I needed to earn your trust before any of you would believe me over a brother.”
He seemed to mull that over in his head. I wondered if he believed me or not, but I did know that nothing I said would change his mind. He had to decide for himself what he wanted to believe.
“Viking and I talked earlier; he wants to help you. He also thinks we need to find out what Torch’s end game is before we go after him.”
I was surprised by his sudden openness with me.
“What’s he going to do?”
Thinking about their need for revenge made me fearful for my brother’s safety. Torch was James’ best friend and VP. What if they thought James was involved somehow?
“Well, first off, you can’t tell anyone what you told Viking and me. We’re going to talk to the officers only since we don’t want Torch getting the drop on us. That means not telling your brother about any of this.”
That was an easy promise to make. I’d kept everything from my brother up to this point; it wouldn’t be a problem now. Besides, sharing my story twice in the last couple of days was more than enough for me. I didn’t have a desire to rehash it again with anyone else. Plus, in prison, James could do nothing and him knowing about Torch could make matters worse for everyone on the outside.
Colt (Desert Sinners MC Book 2) Page 9
