by Malcom, Anne
Swiss moved.
Claw put two shot glasses and a bottle of tequila down on the bar.
“I think I’m in love,” Swiss murmured.
“You like eating pussy?” she asked him, sauntering over to take his seat.
His eyes glowed. “Breakfast lunch and dinner, baby.”
She grinned. “Me too.”
“Fuck, now I’m in love,” Claw decided.
I rolled my eyes and moved to sit beside her.
“It took weeks for them to decide they didn’t want to kill me and now you’ve got them declaring love after two minutes,” I said, pouring the tequila.
“We still haven’t decided,” Claw said with a wink. “It depends how favoring your depiction is of me in the story.”
“Movie,” Emily corrected. “Without seeing all of this.” She gestured around the room, her eyes moved to the men, despite being a lesbian she had a healthy appreciation for the male form. “And all of that. It’s definitely a movie.”
“Perfect,” Swiss breathed. “Idris Elba will play me.”
Claw frowned at him. “Dude, you look nothing like Idris Elba.”
Swiss glared back. “Idris Elba is a fucking icon and he can turn himself into anything and anyone. And yes, I do, I’m tall dark and handsome.”
“You got one of those right, and it ain’t the last one,” Claw muttered.
I grinned at them, they were almost kind of cute. You know, if I hadn’t seen them ruthlessly torture all those people.
Emily grinned and turned to face me while they bickered amongst themselves.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” I said.
She grinned. “Of course I’m here. Where else would I be?”
I shrugged. “When I told you everything and you just hung up, I thought—”
“I was a totally thoughtless and callous bitch and you planned on making a voodoo doll out of me?” she asked.
I smiled. “Something like that. But now I look like the bitch for thinking it.”
She took a shot and nodded for me to do the same. I did, because I needed it and drinking and talking with a girlfriend was a salve to almost any wound.
“Yes, you do,” she agreed. Her eyes went up and down me again, likely cursing my boyfriend jeans and simple white tank. I did have Gucci sneakers on though. I went online shopping. A girl just had to have a little Gucci in order to survive the club. And a bulletproof vest.
None of that worked with Liam.
But now I decided I didn’t want it to.
“You look good,” she deduced. “Not your outfit, of course, it’s a fucking train wreck but you, you look good.” She did something very rare and out of character and had me scared she was going to declare she had some kind of inoperable tumor. She reached over and squeezed my hand. “But you, you look better. Better than I’ve ever seen you. Not happy. But like...at peace or something.”
I swallowed my tears because I knew she hated it when women cried. “I’m in the middle of a biker war with my dead fiancé and I’m at peace.”
She laughed, letting go of my hand. “Well, of course, did you expect it any other way?”
I swallowed my tequila and the words I was going to say.
I didn’t expect it any other way because I didn’t expect to find peace at all.
That was the real secret behind why I chased war. So I didn’t have to feel the failure of never being at peace.
* * *
“Come on, one more song,” Emily pleaded.
Her hair was only slightly messier than perfect, her eyes were glowing, makeup still flawless. Somehow. After three hours, a bottle of tequila and somehow negotiating Claw and Swiss into not only letting us go to a karaoke bar but to come with.
Claw had even sung.
True story.
Journey, “Don’t Stop Believing.”
“We’ve done two, and it’s late and Liam is back from...whatever and he’s pissed that I’m not there and he’s on his way.”
“Even better!” Emily clapped, ushering me on stage. “He can see you on stage. I can see him from the stage, judge him, punch him when we’re done, and it’ll all be good.”
I paused. “Wait, what? Did you just say you were going to punch him?”
She gave me a ‘well, duh’ look. “Of course. His story is sad and tragic and he’s been through so much but also, fuck that. He hurt my friend, he needs to be punched.” She then resumed tugging me on stage to a small amount of cheers that came from Claw and Swiss since no one else was in a karaoke bar in a small town on a Thursday after midnight.
I was drunk on tequila, with that kind of buzz you can only get with a truly special friend. The kind where you feel happy, safe and that no bad could possibly be as bad as you thought it was.
I was feeling that when the song started.
I was feeling it all the way up until the shooting started.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Jagger
He was pissed.
He was pissed that he had to go and make peace with the fucking Russians, pretend he believed their bullshit about the cousins acting on their own and not emptying a clip into the whole fucking lot of them.
He didn’t of course. Because that wouldn’t be smart.
Starting a war with the Russian Mob was about the last thing they needed right now. So they’d played nice, took the apology and the free guns—every single one of which were all tested—and then he got the fuck out with the knowledge that they would kill every last one as soon as the shit with Fernandez was over.
But then thinking about the shit with Fernandez being over pissed him off even more.
Because that would mean the threat was gone. Hopefully, the DEA would be off their ass and things would go back to whatever passed for normal.
That would mean Caroline would go.
He could live under all sorts of hopes and fairytales that it would work if she stayed, but it fucking wouldn’t. He knew it wouldn’t because asking her to stay would be asking her to give up her family. The family she’d risked death for climbing out a window. The family she’d cut herself to the bone for—almost fucking literally—without thinking. She’d have to leave them behind, or at the very least lie to them every day.
He was willing to ask her to do a lot, because he was no longer an honorable man. He would demand she never set foot in a fucking war zone again. He would ask her to live a life of violence, deaths, and being dragged into interrogation rooms by cops trying to bring them down.
He wasn’t so noble to give her up if it was just that.
But it wasn’t.
He’d never go back to Castle Springs. And she had a whole family there.
So yeah, that pissed him off.
Another ugly truth that was unavoidable.
The truth was a bully. Gregory David Roberts was right about that.
It terrified him. The thought of having to let her go, now he’d had her again. Now he’d had her for the first time—had those parts of her that hadn’t existed before. He’d fucking fallen in love with her all over again.
And he would love her till the day he died.
And that would be a long and miserable stretch of time without her.
He arrived back at the club craving her touch, her heat, her fucking smell so he could bury himself in her, away from those truths.
But she wasn’t there.
She was at a fucking karaoke club.
After midnight. Drunk, by the looks of her text.
While they were in the middle of a war with a man that made it clear he had no problem killing women.
He tasted acid.
And rode hard to the bar.
He arrived just in time to kill one of the men who Claw and Swiss had missed. One of the men that had opened fire on his woman.
Caroline
“Oh my god,” Emily chanted, looking down at the blood gushing from her shoulder.
I put my hand on the wound calmly.
“You�
��re going to be okay,” I told her.
“I know I’m going to be fine,” she snapped. “It’s just a flesh wound. “That’s not what I was talking about. This is totally gonna get a movie deal. If it bleeds, it leads, baby.”
I stared at her under the harsh fluorescent stage lights. “You’re fucking insane, you know that, right?”
She nodded. “Multiple therapists have told me, not in so many words.”
“Just so you’re aware.”
I kept my voice even, calm. It was my battlefield voice.
Inside, I was scared to death.
Not just because we’d just been shot at while singing “C’est La Vie” by B*Witched—I’d been shot at before, but not as...personally as this. It was the fact my best friend was bleeding in front of me and I was staunching the flow. Yes, it was just a flesh wound. But it was a wound. On my friend. Because of the club.
And then I was even more terrified because I thought about the entire club being shot up. Everyone. Who else did they get?
Swiss and Claw had gone into full, psychopath badass mode. They’d killed two men seconds after they started shooting. The third ran out.
Swiss had gone to cover me and Emily.
Until she shooed him away. “Go, chase the bad guy, I’m fucking fine.”
He gaped at her. Checked me over. “Seriously, fucking in love,” he muttered, jogging back to the bar, gun in one hand, cellphone in another.
I prayed whoever he was calling picked up.
My eyes locked with green ones.
Green, furious and terrified irises.
He ran over.
Pocketed his gun.
Looked down at Emily, then at me.
“Are you hit, Caroline?” he asked, voice cold, robotic.
I guessed I was covered in blood so it was hard to tell. “No,” I whispered. “No,” I said stronger the second time.
Emily looked between us, must’ve clocked the way Liam’s shoulder’s sagged at my words. I wasn’t expecting it, therefore she was able to push my hand off her bullet wound, stand up and punch Liam in the face.
He definitely wasn’t expecting it either, since he stumbled back and almost fell off the stage.
“Emily,” I shouted, standing and bracing her as she stayed standing on wobbly legs. “You can’t just punch Liam after you’ve been shot! What if you hurt yourself?”
I wasn’t too worried about Liam, he’d surely been punched before, and he did kind of deserve it.
She shrugged and winced with the movement. “I told you I was gonna do it. I’m a woman of my word.”
Liam wiped the blood from his mouth. He was still taut, tense, with that cold fear I had been feeling gripping him. “I like her,” he said finally.
* * *
We couldn’t take Emily to a hospital, for obvious reasons. I argued this fact, but Emily was the one who fought me on that.
“Let them do it their way,” she demanded. “I want to see how the outlaws deal with it.”
I rolled my eyes.
Elden’s mouth twitched.
The entire club had turned up at the bar.
The entire, unharmed club.
It was a relief.
They took care of the bartender, and the sheriff when he arrived. Luckily somehow our favorite detective hadn’t been around.
They dealt with the dead bodies. Hansen tended to Emily with a rudimentary first aid kit since he’d been a medic in the army.
She talked animatedly the entire time, not giving off any stress over what happened.
Liam had all but been glued to my side.
But he didn’t touch me.
Now we were back at the club because there was only so long you could stay at the scene of the crime even if you owned the local police force. Oh, and the small fact my best friend had a bullet wound.
Hansen had seemed competent with the battlefield treatment, but he said he’d call in a doctor who was in town and a ‘friend of the club.’ He’d given Liam some look on that, Liam’s eyes had flared ever so slightly but then they went back to me.
Claw groaned. “Are you sure you like pussy? Because I swear you were made for me.”
Emily winked. “I was made for everyone, honey. And I was definitely made to like pussy.”
He groaned again.
Although Emily was still charming everyone with her brash New York temperament and sheer volume of curse words, she was getting pale and I was getting worried.
“Where is this doctor?” I demanded.
Something moved in Liam’s eyes as he focused on someone behind me.
I turned and relaxed. The doctor had arrived. I only relaxed for a split second because it became apparent that the doctor had come for Emily, but the woman had come for Liam.
She was pretty. I noticed that first off and I hated the stab of jealousy that came with that. Even in the middle of the night, wearing black jeans and a tee, she was pretty.
Beautiful, even.
And she was a doctor.
A friend of the club. Who came and tended to bullet wounds in the middle of the night.
Who smiled at the members like she knew them.
“Hey,” she said to me, smiling warmly.
She looked up to Liam. Then at the space between us. Understanding dawned. But she still smiled warmly.
Fuck. She was nice too.
“I’m Sarah,” she said, focusing on Emily.
Emily, on the other hand, had been focusing on her since the moment she walked in. Even a fricking bullet wound wasn’t stopping her checking out a beautiful woman.
“Emily,” she replied, smiling. “Here I was thinking that it was such a shitty thing getting shot, but now it doesn’t look so bad.”
Sarah put on gloves and then inspected what was under the bloody bandage. “It’s not so bad. A flesh wound. Didn’t hit anything important.”
“That’s what I told them,” Emily replied, giving me a meaningful look.
* * *
“Okay, you’ll have to wear a sling for a couple of weeks, take antibiotics in case of infection, see your doctor to get the stitches cut out. As long as you’ve got someone to see who will do it without...asking questions?” Sarah said, taking off her gloves and beginning to clean up.
I had watched Emily shamelessly flirt with her the entire time she was stitching up her bullet wound. Despite the fact she was obviously straight and in love with my...Liam.
I wanted to hate her for that fact alone. But I didn’t. Because I didn’t hate women for reasons like that. It was ugly and toxic and went against everything I stood for. Also because, despite the fact it was obvious Liam and I were...together, she treated me with kindness and respect. The same with Emily. And she stitched her up.
So I didn’t hate her.
In fact, I felt a little pissed for her, considering her and Liam had obviously been something and he didn’t say a fricking word to her. Didn’t even look at her.
Then, when Hansen had beckoned him and the rest of the club to church, he’d moved, kissed me full on the mouth, right in front of her and said, “I’ll be back, Peaches, don’t go anywhere that isn’t within hearing range.”
And he walked off. I gave Sarah and apologetic smile.
She pretended to be focusing on stitching Emily’s wound. Or maybe she was actually focusing on stitching Emily’s wound. But she was a woman. And a doctor. For the Sons of Templar. I sensed that she could stitch a bullet wound and go through emotional turmoil at seeing the man she loved kiss another woman and act like she didn’t exist.
“Honey, I live in New York,” Emily said, answering Sarah’s earlier question. “Doctors have seen a lot of weirder shit than a stitched-up bullet wound. But I’d be happy to fly you over, for a personal consultation.”
I couldn’t help but admire Emily’s stamina.
Sarah smiled. “I think I’ve got my hands full with the personal consultations,” she replied, giving a meaningful look around the clubhouse. “But you can
always call me if you have any concerns.”
Emily grinned. “I will.”
Sarah looked to me. “I’ve just given her some pretty heavy painkillers, so it would be a good idea to get her to bed soon.”
“Yes, it will be a good idea,” Emily piped in.
I glared at her, mouthing ‘stop.’ She rolled her eyes, but her movements slowed as the drugs kicked in.
Sarah squeezed my arm.
For someone who wasn’t big on human contact, I didn’t have a bad reaction to Liam’s ex squeezing my arm.
“You okay?” she asked. “Things like that get...heavy.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I’m kind of used to heavy.”
She glanced to the door. “I can see that.”
She gave me another squeeze and helped me get Emily up.
“It was nice to meet you,” I said, truly meaning it as I started to walk Emily toward the hall.
“It was really nice to meet you too,” she said, truly meaning it.
Fuck. She was nice.
“She had nice tits,” Emily murmured.
Jagger
“What do we know?” Hansen all but barked at the table.
He was tense.
They all were.
Another hit on this club, on fucking women.
It was not going down well, to say the least.
Hansen had three prospects along with Blake and Hades and his place. And his security was a fortress.
He was taking no chances with his wife and children.
Jagger didn’t blame him.
Caroline was in the next fucking room and he was coming out of his skin thinking about that small distance. Thinking about how close it had been to her bleeding, not staunching the bleeding of her friend.
He wished he could kill them all over again.
Slow.
“No tats, no affiliations on the bodies,” Claw cut in. He was pissed. Beyond pissed. This happened under his watch. And Swiss. They would answer for it. When Liam was sure he wouldn’t kill them.
“Think they’re likely paid guns,” Swiss cut in. “Paid to watch, look for opportunity to hurt the club.”
“Well you fuckin’ gave it to them, didn’t you, brother?” Jagger seethed, unable to help himself.
