by Malcom, Anne
Though I had a feeling he was closer to a demon than a god.
He winked at me as he took it.
Claw glared at him, then me. “Well, then you have to sleep with me to find out.”
I rolled my eyes, turning to grab some glasses from the sanitizer. “I don’t have to do anything, it’s a free country, remember?”
Something darkened in his eyes. “Baby, you’re in Sons’ country, nothin’s free here.”
A chill settled in the base of my spine at his words. That same foreboding that had come and gone as I got deeper in the lie, deeper in the danger if the truth came out.
“Claw!” Hansen yelled. “Get your ass over here, Jagger’s comin’ back from his run soon, we’ve got shit to figure out.”
Claw gave me a wink and sauntered off to the table of men.
I watched and considered going over in the guise of clearing empties from the table in order to hear what they were talking about. But it was too obvious, plus the bar was busy. It was still open to the public, public being men who wanted to patch in, or pretend to be tough, or women looking to have a good time or trying to escape a bad one.
I made drinks on autopilot. The bar work was oddly calming after my ‘work’ having consisted of something a lot more complicated than pouring beers for over a decade.
I idly wondered about this ‘Jagger’ character. The men and women had talked about him on and off since I’d been here. He was one of the only two surviving members of the club massacre this past Christmas. Hansen, the new president, was the other.
Scarlett was the only club girl that survived. Which hadn’t surprised me. She was someone who I thought might have already survived a lot of horrors that would’ve killed a lesser woman, or man.
She wasn’t the only woman connected to the club that survived. There were old ladies turned widows. Fatherless children. All of whom were ‘taken care of’ by the club.
The rest of the club were either transplants from other chapters, Nomads or new patches.
It was obvious this was a club that wasn’t scarred but still bleeding from an unfathomable loss. But clubs like this didn’t stay bleeding for long. Their wounds scabbed over. They drew more blood. And my research had told me that it was someone involved in high profile human trafficking that was responsible for the killing. A retaliation for something this chapter did? A deal gone wrong? Sure, that could’ve been it, but it didn’t seem to me that these were the kind of men to be involved in human trafficking. Though smiles and twinkling eyes could hide a lot. And monsters never seemed like monsters.
So it was possible.
But as I’d done research on not just the club, but those connected to them, I’d seen that Rosie, the biker princess, daughter to a founding member and sister to a president, had disappeared for a year a few years ago. I couldn’t locate any more information about that time away, but from what I’d found out about Rosie, I doubted she was sunning herself in St. Tropez. And she wasn’t the only one who was involved in things that could ruffle international feathers. Lucy, her best friend and a friend of the Amber club, was a prominent investigative journalist—I’d admired her for many years, broke a story that got her stabbed on the side of the street.
And these weren’t even women married to patched members.
It didn’t have to be a beef originated in New Mexico. As I’d seen, one chapter was a small part of a whole, which made them strong. But it also made it harder to pinpoint where it all originated, and easier for the enemy in question to strike unexpectedly.
Someone the club was yet to locate.
And this Jagger character was off on some kind of recon mission by the sounds of it. Along with a few notable members of the Amber chapter, where I personally thought this war had originated.
The only reason I was here, and not another, more conventional war zone—or at least what the public was desensitized into thinking was conventional—was not because I’d lost the stomach for it. Because I had grown unable to handle seeing deaths of strangers and friends alike, or because I knew it was only a matter of time before I wouldn’t be seeing death, I’d be meeting it.
It was because of my sister.
My family had always supported me. Though all of them had made it very clear how much they hated where I’d chosen to take my job. Or where my job had taken me. Every email from my mother or father had some kind of subtle yet pleading message to come home.
It was selfish of me really, putting them through over a decade of that. Of wondering whether they’d wake up to news of my death, rather than me reporting on others. It was cruel. And I loved my family fiercely, would do anything for them. Anything but that. Other than come home to safety and familiarity. Because I had to go and stare death in the face. Because it was staring at me no matter where I went anyway.
But my latest trip home was when my sister announced, quietly and with glassy eyes, that she was pregnant for the third time.
After two miscarriages.
And years of trying.
Thousands in IVF.
“I waited this time,” she said, smoothing her hand over her shirt, and the now prominent bump visible through the tight cotton. “We’ve never gotten this far.” She paused, eyes glittering with a pain that had settled in those topaz irises since she and James had started trying three years ago. Something shimmered, shook, rippling that sadness. Not quite chasing it away, but battling it just the same.
Hope.
“This time’s different,” she said, voice firm. “I know it. And I’m not going to bring my baby into a world that has a high chance of you not being in it.” She snatched my hand and placed it on the fullness of her belly. It was warm, comforting. Something pulsed in my oh-so-very empty womb. “You’re going to meet your niece,” she said.
I glared at her, or at least I tried to, through my happiness. “This is emotional blackmail.”
She nodded. “I don’t care. I’ll do anything and everything in my power to get my baby sister out of a war zone.”
I gritted my teeth. My mother’s tears, pleas, my father’s stoic silences with worried eyes and my brother’s shouts hadn’t swayed me in the past. But the warm roundness of my sister’s belly, of my niece growing inside her, it cut through it all.
I snatched my hand back though I ached to leave it there. “You’re always a bitch until you get your own way.”
She grinned. “So you’re staying.”
I chased away the panic that came with the reality and nodded once. “I’m staying.”
So I stayed.
For my sister.
For my unborn niece.
For my mother.
Father.
Brother.
But not for myself. And not for the love of my life that I buried almost fifteen years ago.
First, I went back home. To Castle Springs, where I had my apartment with the dead plants and lack of personality.
Where I went for a handful of weeks at a time between assignments.
Hometowns were a funny thing.
Thomas Wolfe said you can’t go home again.
And that wasn’t quite true for me.
I did go home. I could’ve stayed there. Surrounded by my family, mountains, sunshine. In a town that hadn’t realized the world had changed into something dark and scary. A town where people still kept their houses unlocked and children rode their bikes down the street without fear. That’s exactly what going home was for me, welcoming a life without fear.
A safe life.
I could still freelance. Write lifestyle pieces. My best friend was an agent in New York, who always got me in front of the right people.
If I’d stayed, I likely would’ve met a safe, reliable man, with family values and no dreams of leaving the town he grew up in. He’d give me a nice life, because most men were raised right in Castle Springs, Alabama, a town with Southern values as strong as its sweet tea. I’d give him babies, and I’d live in an empty kind of happiness.
But i
nstead of that, instead of empty happiness, I came here, chasing bursting sorrow and pain. Because as much as I loved my sister, my family, the uncomplicated peace of my hometown, I wasn’t designed for it. I feared it would kill me quicker than any war zone could. Whatever parts of me were left.
“Caroline!”
The shout jerked me out of my stupor.
I glanced to Henry, the heavyset, tattooed manager of the bar. Not a patched member, but a friend of the club they’d employed to run the place. He was gruff, used fuck as a comma but was reasonable and had a quick dry wit.
We got along well.
“Get your fuckin’ ass movin’, I told you to get the fuck outta here twenty minutes ago,” he continued shouting. “You’ve been workin’ until close all week, I’m commanding you to have a life.”
I grinned at him. “You’re not a genie, you can’t command shit.”
He raised a bushy brow. “If I was a genie, think I’d be in this fuckin’ shithole? Now go. Before I change my mind and decide to grant one of Claw’s wishes.”
I rolled my eyes but did as he asked. For appearances more than anything. I didn’t have a life outside of this job, because this job, this story, was my life. Apart from daily calls to my sister, and usually my mother, father, or brother.
I spent as much time as I could at the bar for obvious reasons, but to stave off the loneliness too. The quiet. I wasn’t used to it. Though you couldn’t call hanging out at my crappy apartment ‘quiet’ since I heard the couple beside me screaming at each other, both when they were fighting and making up. There was always a far-off siren, or a close up one. City noise did little to drown out silent explosions, gunfire, screams, that could be heard nowhere but on the inside of my head.
Despite the fact I was at the bar, with the club for a story, it was giving me something I didn’t get in my quiet hometown with my family.
Chaos.
The dangerous kind.
But was there any other?
I winked at Claw, gave a serious looking Hansen a wave and kissed Henry on the cheek. “If you’re so convinced you’re a genie, then I’ll buy you an outfit.”
His chuckle was throaty and raspy, showing the pack a day he smoked. “You find one in my size, I’ll wear it.”
I made a silent promise to myself to scour the internet for just that, Henry was a man of his word.
I got my purse and jacket from the small back office that I was pretty sure was just a converted broom closet. I slung my jacket over my purse as I exited to the back parking lot. I was still getting used to the balmy New Mexico air. Even though it was nearing midnight, the air had a dampness to it, the sun still lingering in the breeze.
The parking lot was oddly silent for the night, though this was the back entrance, so not as busy as the front. I heard some muttered curses and shouts from the front where a lot of men and women lingered by the Harleys smoking, since Henry—despite the fact he was a smoker himself—had a strict no smoking policy. I was glad of it too. I hated smelling of stale cigarette smoke in college, no matter how much I washed my hair.
I didn’t feel unsafe as my heels drowned out the rowdiness of the bar. I may have been in a dangerous situation if the Sons found out what I was doing, but for now, I was a fringe part of the club, and that meant I was protected. And more importantly, I didn’t really mean enough to hit deep.
“You tell me who was in on the hit, or you die.”
The cold promise filtered through the air from the alley to my left.
My keys tumbled to the ground.
Not from the death threat.
From the voice.
The one that came straight from the grave.
My feet moved before my mind did.
To the alley.
Toward the voice of a dead man.
Chapter Three
Jagger
He knew the piece of shit wasn’t going to talk.
That’s why he’d dragged him from the SUV he’d had him in the trunk of to the alley. Plan was to wait for the new bartender to leave and get this asshole into the bar so the club could interrogate him. They didn’t usually do such things in civilian environments, but they owned the bar now and he needed a fucking drink.
He’d heard the new bartender was a piece. He thought idly about hitting that as he pistol-whipped the bloodied and bound man in front of him. He could do with some fresh pussy. A month on the road chasing ghosts and stale leads made him antsy. He’d had no one to kill and no one to fuck. He needed at least one of the two on the regular to keep him even. Or as close as he got these days.
Jagger heaved the man up so he stood. Leaned on one foot really, since he’d already kneecapped him trying to get info. The man was crying now, tears, saliva, and blood mixing together on his swollen and blackening face. Jagger felt no pity. This was one of the men responsible for killing his whole chapter. He hated him even more for the fact he couldn’t even handle a beating yet somehow he helped take out some of the most ruthless motherfuckers he’d ever met.
“I don’t know anything,” the man sobbed. “I was hired, man. I got paid a lot of money to turn up at the club, Christmas day. Same as all the other guys.”
Jagger tightened his grip on his piece. “And where are the other guys?”
“I don’t know! None of us knew each other. Everyone hired, same as me. Knew what had to be done, everyone had specific instructions. I was meant to take out the old guy—”
Jagger cut him off with a bullet to the skull.
It was impulsive. He should’ve waited for more info. Hansen would ride him for that. But his fury, his fucking pain got the better of him. And that thirst, that need for the kill could no longer be held down. In the midst of that, he’d fucked up.
Bad.
Because the man in front of him didn’t fall to the ground. He fell on top of the woman who’d been standing directly behind him. Who had been staring at Jagger like she’d seen a ghost.
And a glimpse at those almost amber eyes told him she had.
Him.
Caroline
It didn’t happen fast.
When people experienced trauma, and they said ‘it happened so fast I can barely remember,’ they’re usually lying through their teeth. Mostly to themselves. Because if you convince yourself that all those horrible things happened too fast to see, they’d be too hard to remember. You could pretend that they didn’t sear into your bones, becoming mangled scar tissue.
I didn’t pretend.
So it didn’t happen fast.
Not the second I entered the alley and watched a man in a Sons of Templar cut haul a bleeding and bound man to his feet and shoot him in the face.
I didn’t know if the man was too focused on the killing to see me until he pulled the trigger or if the shadows afforded me enough concealment that it wasn’t until the corpse he created literally knocked me off my feet that I became impossible to ignore.
But I knew he recognized me. After I recognized him. Because I recognized him immediately. Even before I saw him. Even with my rational mind telling me that the owner of the voice that brought me to the alley couldn’t be him. That dead men didn’t talk.
It turned out they did.
And they killed too.
Without hesitation.
I saw that in his eyes when time slowed down. Time may stop for no one, but it slowed sufficiently for death.
And he was death. This man with cold, striking eyes. Chiseled jaw. A jagged and ugly scar marring a classically handsome face. The face of a boy I used to know.
A boy I used to love.
The boy I buried fourteen years ago.
Though that wasn’t even true, we’d buried an empty coffin then and I’d just thought that his real grave was unmarked, covered over by countless other skeletons, flesh decomposed until his bones were nothing but dust.
I’d thought about it a lot over the years, taunted myself with the details, searched for him in every rotting dead body I encountered over
my career. I’d known I wouldn’t find him in the place he died, wouldn’t see him in the face of a decomposing corpse, but never did I expect to find him in a dirty alley wearing a different face and a Sons of Templar cut.
Bile filled my mouth as the body thudded into me with the power of a bullet ripping through its skull.
Funny, how I thought of this person as an it, less than a second after the bullet left the gun. There was most likely still brainwave activity, but I was already dehumanizing him in my mind. Because that was the only way to survive seeing death on a regular basis. This wasn’t someone’s son, someone’s brother, someone’s father. No, this was an ‘it’ with gray matter instead of brains.
Gray matter that hit my face, along with a warm splatter of blood.
I was knocked down more out of shock than anything else.
Not shock at the gunshot, nor the mere proximity of death.
I was used to that.
But it was the proximity of life.
The ground came hard and fast, without sympathy for my plight. My teeth cracked together as my head thwacked against the concrete.
The pain was intense, or at least it should have been.
It was exactly three seconds before the body was hauled from me and strong hands settled on my skin.
I was no longer numb.
“Peaches?”
The voice was rough, gravelly, deeper, more tortured than I remembered.
The voice, the single word hit me likely with the same impact of the bullet that had ended a man’s life. It didn’t open my skull so gray matter spilled out, though. It opened the heart I’d patched up and protected with other people’s suffering. It tore that open and my soul poured out, mixing with the blood and brains at his feet.
I was in his arms and up before I thought more on it, before I could respond, but not before I cataloged every inch of this man’s face.
Liam’s face.
Though there was barely anything of Liam left there. Not just because of the scar that cut through his features, marring his mouth into what looked like a permanent grimace. That was the least of it. It wasn’t the lines at the edges of his eyes, the sharpening of his features or bulky muscles, the beard that the terrible scar cut through. Not even the tattoos that covered every inch of skin visible from the neck down.
