by Malcom, Anne
It was time to make sure those families had a chance to be happy in the future.
That meant war.
Blood.
He should have expected this.
Macy wasn’t one to stay out of the loop.
It would’ve made him happy in any other circumstance, her waltzing in here in some hippy getup, hand on her hip, some of the old light back in her eyes.
But because happiness was a memory that was never going to be a reality, it didn’t.
“I didn’t tell you, ‘cause no one was meant to know,” he said, hoping that would be the end of it.
This was Macy, of course it wasn’t the end of it.
“Well I know, and Hansen has informed me not only that we have her in the clubhouse, but we’re holding her against her will,” she said, voice sharp.
“She’s a journalist, Macy,” Jagger replied, voice hard.
Macy scowled. “Um, yeah, I know.”
“You know?” he asked, genuinely surprised. The way she said it made it seem like she didn’t know from her husband telling her business that was meant to be strictly club-only, but she knew some other way.
She nodded. “If I’d seen her and not at home attached to a breast pump, a screaming child, and a toddler who needs attention, then I would’ve recognized her straight away. But I’ve been sequestered to the land of dirty diapers and milk vomit.” She waved her hand. “Oh, and I love my sons and everything, they are the joy and light of my life—though I am grateful that their father is taking care of them today before I started ripping my own hair out.”
Jagger wanted to chuckle. He really did. But he didn’t have a reason to laugh right now.
Not that he ever had for the past decade and a half.
But he’d gotten pretty good at pretending.
There was no fucking pretending with her around.
He just hoped that his president didn’t tell Macy anything more about Caroline. Then again, if he had, Macy would not be approaching shit like this.
When she was a club girl, he’d gotten as close to her as he could’ve with a woman that wasn’t Caroline. Liked the bitch a lot. She was kind. Funny as fuck. Almost a distraction.
But it was always Caroline’s face he saw when he sunk his dick into anyone.
Macy wasn’t different in that respect.
She was different because she stuck around after the fact. Watched movies with him. Shot the shit. She was warm. He liked that feeling of warmth. Especially when everything else about him was as cold as the fucking grave they’d buried his dog tags in.
Macy didn’t know about his past. Not for lack of asking. So he knew that if Hansen had betrayed his trust—which he wouldn’t have—then she would not be approaching the conversation the way she was.
He was glad as fuck for that. He was afraid of what he might say to Macy, what he might do if she tried to bring up Caroline. Their history.
“You would’ve recognized her?” he asked instead of dwelling on that shit.
“You honestly didn’t watch any of her broadcasts?” she said, gaping at him. “Seriously? She’s one of the most famous conflict journalists around.”
“Don’t watch the news,” he replied, cracking his knuckles. He was doing his best to act like that singular piece of information didn’t spear him right to his very core. The thought of her being famous for being in danger filled his blood with acid.
Her. The girl who cried and almost fainted when he’d fallen off his dirtbike and cut open his arm. She cried because she couldn’t stand the thought of him in pain and almost threw up because blood sickened her.
And she was in the middle of war zones where all they saw was pain and blood.
Jesus.
Macy rolled her eyes, obviously unaware of what was going on inside his head. Unusual, since she was perceptive, but she was on a roll. And even the most perceptive bitch on the planet couldn’t guess at their story. “Of course you don’t. Men,” she muttered. “Well, she is famous for many reasons, because she’s a top reporter, of course. One of the bravest out there, men or women. She goes embedded sometimes, sure. But her top stories have been her risking her life without backup or with a small private security team. Then there’s the fact she’s a knockout. And there’s another little thing.” She held her thumb and forefinger inches apart. “No matter where she is in the world, what war torn country, site of famine, disease or disaster, she’s always wearing blood red lipstick.”
He froze. No, he’d already been frozen before, when Macy started talking about Caroline risking her fucking life being in war zones. Embedded was bad enough. Soldiers couldn’t guarantee a reporter’s safety as much as they could guarantee their own. He’d seen more than one reporter lying amongst the dead in a bomb blast. War didn’t care if you were fighting or witnessing. Everyone died the same. Whether they had a gun or a fucking tape recorder in their hands. Whether they were there to help or harm. Bile scratched at his throat. “Red lipstick?” he repeated.
She nodded rapidly, grinning. “Badass, right? She’s never told anyone exactly why, it’s a mystery. Could you ask her why?”
“Fuck,” he muttered, slamming the last of his whisky before standing up. “You happen to know what the fuck Chanel and the shade Pirate means?”
She grinned wider, looking slightly unhinged. He reckoned the lack of sleep, screaming newborn and pressures of the club had a lot to do with that. And the fact she was Macy. “I fucking knew it was Chanel,” she said by response. “I’ve been searching for years. But of course it’s Chanel. Elegant. Timeless.”
“Mace,” he clipped.
Her eyes cleared. “Yes, I know what it is,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Men,” she muttered again. “I’ll get you some. Well, not for you. For you to give to her.” She gave him a look. “Because I’m guessing I can’t go in and give it to her, chat about beauty routines and how her hair stays so shiny wherever she is and how much I admire her bravery and talent?”
Jagger shook his head once.
She sighed dramatically, not worried that her husband was in charge of keeping one of the biggest conflict journalists in the country prisoner. Likely because she knew her husband. Trusted him with her life. And the lives of others. So she trusted that he’d keep Caroline safe.
Jagger thought about the naked pain in her eyes. The fact that his mere presence had turned her into one raw nerve.
He thought about running his eyes over her body, how even with that pain, his hunger, his need for her was almost feral. A hunger he knew he couldn’t hold off for long.
So no. Caroline was not safe.
Macy rolled her eyes. “Okay, I’ll go get it. And some for myself while I’m at it.” She regarded him. “Only if I get to meet her. At some point soon.”
He sighed. He knew it wouldn’t be as easy as one head shake. “You know that you can’t do that, Macy.”
“Why? Because you’re all pretending that you’re actually going to do something to make her disappear? Despite the fact I’d make Hansen disappear if he did anything to one of the most important voices in journalism, and despite the fact you are all badasses willing to do ugly things for the good of the club, I know you’re not gonna to do this ugly thing. So cut the crap.”
He gritted his teeth. He couldn’t risk Caroline meeting Macy and letting something slip like she had in church. That speech.
Fuck.
He’d been held captive and tortured by some of the most evil bastards to walk this earth. Pain he didn’t even know existed was born for him there.
But that shit, sitting at that table, that trumped all that shit put together.
He couldn’t have Macy hearing that.
More importantly, he couldn’t have Macy hearing that, having it hit her kind and soft heart and doing something stupid like help Caroline escape. Because that was exactly something Macy would do.
And despite what his president said, he didn’t plan on Caroline going anywhere. Not now. Not ever.
Chapter Seven
Caroline
A prospect came in and delivered me breakfast.
Eggs, bacon—crispy to the point of charred, because that’s how I liked it—whole meal toast and peanut butter. Because whoever had put the plate together knew that I like peanut butter and eggs on toast.
He screwed up his face as he watched me bite into the bread.
I chewed and swallowed, grinning. “It’s not like I’m eating cockroaches on toast,” I teased.
He shook his head. “It’s just weird.”
I grinned. “I’m weird and proud of it.”
He moved to snatch my chin and snatch my attention. As if he didn’t already have it. “I’m proud of you. Never stop being weird. You’re the most magnificent weirdo I’ve ever known.”
I didn’t eat the toast.
But I guzzled the coffee, despite the fact it tasted like my past, and like Liam kissing me with a smile on his face.
I needed caffeine.
The prospect was not the same one who let me in the gate. He was hulking, older, in his thirties at least, and silent.
He didn’t say a word about the ruined room.
Or a word in general.
Then again, I wasn’t exactly much of a conversationalist either.
He left me alone in the room I’d yet to straighten up. I ate on the floor. I liked being amongst the mess. It felt honest. Much more honest than that stupid order that had masked it all when I came in.
I could tell I was becoming slightly unhinged. Not at the fact I was imprisoned by bikers known for killing their enemies brutally. No, because of Liam.
I knew I needed to get myself together. To hold onto my trademark cool.
It felt lost. I needed that lipstick.
The one that Liam had thought I wanted to fuck my way out of the clubhouse.
The accusation burned like acid. That the simple request of lipstick could be translated to that in his mind. That he could think that of me. Granted, that was the kind of persona I created to get myself into the clubhouse.
But this was Liam.
He was supposed to know me.
No.
This was Jagger.
He didn’t know me.
I didn’t know him.
* * *
I was left alone, pacing in Liam’s room for four hours. I had planned on keeping it as ruined as possible, but sheer boredom got the best of me and I did my best to straighten it up.
I put the mattress back on the bed. Piled the sheets I’d somehow managed to rip into the corner, along with the ruined pillows. The comforter had survived my assault so I placed it neatly atop the bed.
I replaced all of the drawers. Though they didn’t fit right anymore and all looked crooked. I liked it better that way. I went through every single one, trying to discover who this Jagger was. Trying to find a hint of Liam.
I found soft overly laundered tees. Underwear. Worn jeans. Belts. Shoulder holsters for weapons. Sweats. Basic male grooming instruments. A couple of loose bullets. The box for an iPhone.
But no personality.
No mementos.
Not until I searched his bedside table. Full of condoms. I swallowed bile at the thought of that. He was a man, and though I’d thought he was, he wasn’t dead. I wondered how many women there’d been since me. If they were better. More experienced than I’d been.
Two books on poetry surprised me.
I leafed through them.
Something caught my eye before I put them back.
The poetry books fell to the floor.
My shaking hand lifted a single white feather.
He was packing his bags.
I didn’t want to watch him do that.
Packing made it real.
Like it hadn’t been real before.
It had been.
That was the problem. Since he’d announced it, it was inescapably and brutally real. A truth I couldn’t escape, couldn’t ignore.
He stopped as I walked into the bedroom, as if he sensed my presence. He always did that, like he was somehow hyper aware of me. I wondered if that awareness would cross oceans.
I glanced to the backpack on top of the messy bed. “You know, they’re not gonna let you get away with a bed like that in the army.”
He rolled his eyes in response. “Yeah, well, it’s only for a small amount of time. You bet your perfect ass that I’ll be right back to this when we have our home together and you’ll have to nag me every day.”
I rolled my own eyes. “I don’t nag.”
He grinned, crossing the room and grasping my hips. “Of course not, my perfect, beautiful, Peaches.”
I glared at him.
He kissed my nose.
I closed my eyes at his touch. At his proximity. It was never something I took for granted. Got used to. But it was something I considered a part of me. I was never complete until I was in his arms. I didn’t even care if that was lame and anti-feminist of me. It was the truth.
And the truth was that I wouldn’t be whole for months, years, depending on how this went and it was staring me in the face in the form of a backpack.
I let out a breath and pulled myself from his arms.
He hesitated before letting me go, as if he too were hesitant to pass up a moment when we were in touching distance.
But he let me go.
He’d eventually have to let me go, so I supposed it was good practice.
I took the object out of my pocket and laid it on top of a tee.
His heat hit my back, chin on top of my head, hands covering mind. Liam fingered the pure white feather. “What’s this?”
“The day I met you, I knew that it was an important day. The most important day of my life,” I said. “Even though I was too young to properly understand it, or even know what it meant, I just knew you were going to be someone to me.” I paused. “Everything to me. So I wanted to have something I could hold onto. Remember the moment with. I wanted to package that feeling into something I could look at later. Even if my thought process wasn’t that complex at the time.” I stroked the white feather, slightly worn with how many times I’d held it. “So I found this, just lying on the sidewalk next to a crushed up Coke can.”
He was silent, though his arms had tightened around me. His lips on my hair.
“I want you to take it. To take the importance of that first day with you. And to bring it back with you.”
Liam turned me around. He clutched my face. His eyes shimmered. “I’ll carry it everywhere. Through whatever happens. I’ll never let go of our past. And I’ll bring it back, ready for us to start our future.”
It was dull now. Not pure white anymore. As if it sensed that nothing between Liam and I could ever be pure again.
But he had it here.
In a life he’d built without me. A life that he’d seemingly designed to make sure never involved me again.
I wanted to feel hope with that.
But hope was dead here.
* * *
By the time the prospect came in with lunch—a can of Coke, a turkey sandwich, and a candy bar—I had stopped staring at the feather. I’d managed to clean as best as I could. A pile of trash sat in the corner, all the things I’d ruined, including an expensive looking TV I didn’t even remember ripping off the wall.
He placed the tray on the bedside table.
Something rolled around beside the Coke.
My heart stopped.
It was a tube of lipstick. Black, with a distinct double C in gold on the top of the cap.
I picked it up with the same shaking hand that had cradled the feather hours ago.
I glanced up to the man who’d been silently staring at me as I gazed at a tube of lipstick.
“Thank you,” I said genuinely. Though giving thanks to someone enabling my captivity was kind of stupid. But he was a prospect, even if he had an opinion on keeping a woman hostage, he didn’t get a seat at the table. That was the whole point in prospec
ting for a club like this. To see the way of life, to understand there wasn’t a say in whether it happened or not, but to participate in it, no matter how ugly it got.
Something told me that life had already gotten plenty ugly for this man, and delivering meals to a woman locked in a trashed room was nowhere near the worst thing he’d done.
He didn’t reply to my thanks.
I didn’t expect him to.
He just picked up the barely touched breakfast tray. “You’ll get some of your shit later on today,” he said, his voice was thickly accented, Scottish if I wasn’t mistaken.
That surprised me. Not just the fact he was speaking to me but the fact they were letting me have some of my own things.
To be buried in?
“If I get a say in it, can I request nothing short or tight?” I asked, clenching my hands around the tube of lipstick. “Jeans and tees would be great.”
He eyed me. “Doubt you’ll get a say in it,” he replied.
I grinned. It might’ve surprised him, but his face displayed nothing. “Can you see if you can get me a pen and paper? I promise I won’t try and use it as a weapon or anything.”
He didn’t reply.
Just walked out.
But another three hours later, he returned with a bag of jeans, tees and a pen and paper.
He didn’t reply to my thanks then either.
* * *
I didn’t stop what I was doing when he walked into the room.
I didn’t react either.
Not outwardly at least.
“What are you doing?” Liam asked after a beat that I imagined he’d been watching me for.
I could ignore him.
Lie.
“I’m writing the things I’m grateful for today,” I replied, neither ignoring him or lying.
