by Debra Kayn
"I'm not letting her out of my sight, and I can't keep her here. She's damn lucky to have made it to Federal without them catching her." Jacko glanced at the windows, wanting to get her somewhere safe. "They'll know to look for you at the apartment, and there's no way in hell I can find another place to rent with my record."
"I've got a place." Cam pulled out his phone and tapped the screen. "I bought the motel outside of town."
"What the fuck?" Stache whistled under his breath. "When?"
"Last month. I don't need all you assholes hanging around the house twenty-four/seven. Christina needs a home. A real home without catering to Moroad. I let the club's attorney buy it under a fake business name. The motel needs lots of work and half the rooms have a ceiling that leaks when it rains, but it'll do." Cam slid his phone into his back pocket. "I texted Johnson and Bear. I'll meet with them and tell them to move into the motel tonight. They've been shacking up with Rich and Lola to keep a roof over their heads. That'll give you extra security."
"Are you sure the motel sits out of the way of the sheriff's regular patrol route?" Jacko patted his pocket for his pack of smokes. "It's only a half mile out of town on the River Road."
"We won't have any problems with the sheriff or Bantorus MC. If we do, leave it to me. Pick the best room that isn't going to cave in on you, and I'll get the supplies you'll need. I planned on cleaning the place up and making enough repairs the members released from prison have a place to go when they're free, and now we'll step up those plans. When you pull into the motel, there's a walkway between the two buildings that leads to an area big enough to hold meetings and it's backed by the Bitterroot Mountains. Park your bike behind the building, watch your back, and you'll buy yourself some time until you come up with a plan to get rid of the threat." Cam walked to the door.
Jacko lifted his chin at Stache. "Bro, hang around for a few and give us an escort after I talk to Amy?"
Stache slapped his shoulder. "I'll be outside, man."
The door shut. He walked over and grabbed his duffel bag. He'd prefer to take Amy farther away than outside the town's border.
"I've gone past the motel on my rides. It's a dump." Jacko took in Amy's set jaw and silence. "Until I can figure out what to do with you, you're going to have to rough it."
"I've been living in strangers' cars with only the clothes I had on, bathed in freezing river water, and lined up on a sidewalk every day with other homeless people to receive the free peanut butter sandwich and a carton of milk. I don't care what shape the motel is in as long as...I'm not alone." Her voice grew quiet until she only mouthed the words.
He tossed a shirt in the duffel bag, realizing her attitude came from fear. She was scared shitless, and she had a right to be afraid.
He understood being alone and solitary confinement. He'd experienced the punishment more than once in his life, locked away, talking to himself to keep from going insane, then feeling like he'd lost his mind. He came out of solitary uncomfortable around others, not knowing who to trust, wondering if life would be better if he stopped and simply forgot.
"I'll take care of you, Momma," he whispered.
She nodded and glanced away. He zipped up the bag, held out his hand, and walked her to the door. He'd do whatever needed to be done to give her back the life she deserved and maybe then, she could move on without her sister by her side, and figure out how to live a happy life.
Chapter Four
The motel consisted of two buildings. Seven dilapidated rooms parallel to the road and another eight rooms down the side of the property. The whole complex formed the letter L with a walkway in between. Amy followed Jacko through the door of the last room farthest from the road and in the corner where the two buildings met.
The musty scent of mold hit her nostrils. She opened her mouth to breath and then clamped her lips shut afraid of airborne toxins.
"It'll do." Jacko threw his duffel bag in the corner and reached for her plastic sack containing the extra set of clothes Katie gave her.
She stepped over to the double bed. "Which room are you staying in?"
"This one."
While glad he allowed her to stay with him; she assumed he'd take one of the other motel rooms. She glanced at the bare mattress. Stains decorated the floral print material, and it wasn't hard to figure out the tang of mold permeating the room came from the bed.
"Cam will bring us some blankets." Jacko hooked the edge of the yellowed curtain— probably originally white when new— with his finger and peeked out the window. "Here comes Bear and Johnson."
"Moroad members?" She brushed against the mattress and jumped away, schooling her disgust.
"Yeah." He reached for the door. "Stay inside."
He left without waiting for a reply. She escaped from the vicinity of the nasty bed and peeked out the window. Four more bikers rode into the parking lot and between the two buildings, disappearing out of her sight.
She let go of the curtain and brushed her hand off on the butt of her jeans. Sleeping in strangers' cars seemed cleaner than the motel even though Jacko picked out the best room.
A large, brown spider ran across the orange and blue shag carpet. She screamed, throwing herself toward the door, scrambling for the handle, and stumbled outside into Jacko's arms. Behind him stood six mean and scary men.
"Sorry," she said, rushing her words out of her mouth to cover her embarrassment. "There's a spider in the room. Big. Brown. Someone needs to kill it."
Jacko thrust her at a man with a big, bushy beard. She landed against his barrel size chest. It was still too close to the room with the spider, and she fisted the biker's shirt, anchoring herself outside. "Sorry. I'm sorry. I don't like spiders. Like really don't like spiders."
"He'll kill it." The man's voice gave her goosebumps at the fierceness in which he stated his opinion.
She let go of him and stepped farther away from the room. A shiver went through her. Thanks to the spider, her shower from earlier no longer made her feel clean. She wanted to strip out of her clothes and jump into the river to rid herself of the filth and bugs.
"Here." Cam handed her a duffle bag. "Christina, she's mine, packed some things up for you to use while you stay here. She said the other women would get together and buy you the rest of the stuff you'll need tomorrow morning."
She grabbed the straps and barely had a hold of the heavy bag when Cam let go. "Thanks, but I don't have any money to pay you back until I figure out a way to visit my bank in Montana. I don't have my purse or identification and the bank branch in Federal won't let me access the money unless I can prove who I am. I tried, and they wouldn't budge on their rules."
Jacko walked out of the room. "It's dead."
She studied his face. His gaze remained on her. His mouth remained tight. His body remained at attention. She glared. He was lying.
"Where is it?" she asked.
Jacko frowned. "The spider? It's dead."
"Then there's a dead spider somewhere. I want to see it."
"Fuckin' women," Cam muttered. "It's a damn spider. It ain't going to kill you."
Jacko's lips thinned. She yanked on the duffel bag and held it tighter. There was no way she could step inside the room until she witnessed the spider's dead body with her own eyes.
"I stepped on it." Jacko ground his boot against the asphalt. "It's gone."
"You're lying." She backed away. "I'll sleep outside."
Leaving the men, she walked between the buildings and into the dark, overgrown grassy area next to the foothills. Since Jacko found her by the river, time sped up. She'd come to Federal to tell Jacko about her house burning down and the note. Instead of staying with him until she figured a way to get the two-thousand dollars she'd saved out of her bank and find a new place to live, she'd uprooted Jacko from his apartment, took charity from the club, and faced her future days living in a rat-hole motel room.
A rat-hole motel room that consisted of a room full of spiders and a dirty mattress.
She sank to the grass, sat cross-legged and planted her elbow on her knee, propping her chin up on her fist. At least out in the dark, she couldn't tell if a spider walked by her.
Her chest constricted, and she clamped her teeth together to keep from crying. The sudden reunion with Jacko validated her loss of Sarah. Beautiful, happy, loving Sarah.
No one should ever die at the hands of men who only wanted to abuse, use, and torment their victim. Now they wanted her.
She inhaled deeply, painfully, and forced the bitter reminder that if it weren't for Jacko, her sister would still be alive and with her. They'd both be living together in their childhood home, probably laughing. She'd still have a job. She'd still have her family, though small, her sister was enough.
While she never blamed Jacko for what happened, she detested his lifestyle. Despite treating Sarah like a precious doll, Jacko neglected to understand Sarah was too young and impulsive to belong to a man who spent most of his life in prison. He only fed her thrill for excitement, and Sarah had deserved better.
Jacko approached her and sat down on the ground, laying back until he stared up at the night sky. She never came out and asked him for help, which she was prepared to do. Her presence demanded he step forward and take care of her problem.
"I'm sorry," she said.
Jacko hooked his hands behind his head. "Bear's running over to Country Mart and buying a can of bug killer."
"That's not what I'm talking about." She blew out her breath. "I never meant to show up and lay all my problems at your feet."
Jacko lifted his head and gazed at her.
"Okay. I did." She flopped her hands against her legs. "I didn't know who to ask for help. I was scared to go to one of my coworkers and explain why I believed men from the Mexican mafia were after me. I never told anyone about Sarah."
"Why not?"
"Who would believe me?" She shrugged. "I didn't want to explain how my sister died."
Jacko let his head fall back to the grass. She stifled a yawn. There were many times she wanted to shout to the world what happened to Sarah. Call the mayor, the senator, the president, the news stations, and explain to them the dangers of women getting stolen out of the United States and taken overseas and treated inhumanely.
"I don't know, Jacko. I guess between you warning me not to talk about Sarah's situation and then after she died, I wanted to pretend the whole thing never happened. I could go on trying to convince myself she wasn't dead." She hugged her upper body. "Most days, I almost succeeded, until I went home to an empty house. Now, I don't even have a house. Maybe I should've gone straight to the police."
"What stopped you?"
"The contents of the note they delivered to me." She shook her head. "Why do they want me?"
Jacko sat up. "They're not going to get you."
"I'm not some young, innocent girl they can sell to a rich older man for him to break." Anger forced her to keep talking. "I'm almost twenty-nine years old. Sarah was twenty-two years old when they took her. She never thought of the dangers in the world, because I protected her. She believed the best in people, until that night. The thought of her finding out how ugly people can be to another human being makes me—"
"Stop," Jacko said.
"I wish it had been me they took, not her. She didn't deserve the way her life ended."
"Shut the fuck up," Jacko muttered.
Her gaze snapped to his. "Well, she didn't. I was stronger than her. Sarah wanted to go through life trusting everyone. I'm leery of everything and rather stay home than go party."
He pushed to his feet, walked to the edge of the clearing, and ignored her. She turned away from him and came face to face with Cam. She glared, daring him to tell her what to do. It wasn't his club who lost someone. Sarah was her sister, her only living relative. Nobody had a right to tell her how to feel.
"Bear sprayed the room. Give it about a half hour to air out and you can go inside." Cam lowered his voice. "You coming here was the worst thing you could've done to him."
"Him?" She leaned forward and continued. "Because of Moroads involvement with Reds and Los Li, I've lost my sister, my house, and if I don't figure out what to do fast, I'll end up dead."
Cam growled and stepped forward. For a split second, she regretted opening her mouth.
Jacko stepped in front of her, facing Cam. "Reds wear red. Blues wear blue. Have you ever asked yourself why Moroad doesn't wear Moroad if Moroad was a color? Man, it would be sweet to have at least a shirt with the club colors to wear under our vest. I need clothes. Fuck. I need a lot of clothes. I had none to give Amy when she asked. What kind of life do I have when I can't let someone borrow clothes? I get out of prison, and I have two fucking pairs of jeans and two black shirts."
"Jacko," Cam muttered under his breath.
"That's it." Jacko laughed, crossing his arms, and hooking his hands under his armpits. "I only need new black shirts. Maybe white ones, too."
"Your underwear is white, brother." Bear lit a cigarette.
"Wrong." Jacko uncrossed his arms and held his hands stretched out to his sides. "Black underwear."
The conversation continued with Jacko announcing everything he owned, which wasn't much. Amy studied Bear and Johnson looking at Jacko as if his babbling was normal. They couldn't honestly believe Jacko cared about his clothes. She'd done his laundry when he hung around the house with Sarah. Even back then, he never gave a thought about what he looked like or how rank his clothes smelled.
"Time for bed." Jacko sighed loudly, and half turned to look at Amy. "Spiders are gone. You're bunking with me."
"I..." She closed her mouth and nodded.
Jacko's behavior grew more strange as the night went on, and they hung around the Moroad members. She couldn't understand the change in him.
At the river, he'd acted like a messed up meth head. When they ran into the shop owner, he'd faked a good mood. Even in his apartment, he paced and mumbled as if he was talking to someone other than her, and there was nobody else there.
Maybe going to bed would fix whatever mood made him seem unreliable. He certainly wasn't talkative or flamboyant around Sarah, and Amy decided she preferred the more serious and strong Jacko she used to know.
Within minutes, Cam rode away from the motel, leaving Bear and Johnson behind. She stood outside the door of Room 4 and watched Johnson go in Room 8 and Bear in Room 2. If anything happened, and Jacko freaked her out, she'd know where to run for help.
She backed up a step and bumped into Jacko. On second thought, his MC brothers thought he acted perfectly normal. They probably wouldn't help her.
Jacko grabbed her elbow and escorted her into the room. "Get in bed."
She gazed at the sheet-covered mattress, surprised someone put two blankets at the foot of the bed. "How are we going to do this?"
"What are you talking about?"
She turned to him. "We're sharing a bed?"
"No." He unzipped his duffel bag and removed a stocking cap. "You're going to sleep and I'm going to be outside."
"Wait." She stepped forward. "You're not going to leave me here alone, are you?"
Jacko ran his tongue across his bottom lip. She mimicked him and caught her lip between her teeth. She didn't want to be here, but she also wanted Jacko with her, in case anything happened.
"I'll be right outside having a smoke. I'll come in and crash on the floor later," he said.
She shivered, thinking about the dead spider, the filth, and God knew what else staining the carpet. "Gross."
"I've had worse. There's more cum and piss on a prison floor than there is in this dump." He walked away, shutting the door softly behind him.
She stepped over and peeked out the window. He stood several feet away from the room, lighting a cigarette and doing what he'd promised. Exhausted and emotionally spent, she stared at the curl of smoke circling his head. Sarah had fallen in love with the last man Amy pictured for her sister.
Jacko suddenly m
oved, bouncing in place on his toes. She moved her head closer to the window and squinted. His right hand flexed and repeatedly stretched as if he squeezed one of those stress balls they sold on the counter at most retail stores.
She had no time to wonder what he was doing when he whipped his gaze toward the window. Dropping the curtain, she hurried over to the bed and grabbed a blanket. Afraid to remove her clothes, she lay down and covered her upper body. Something terrible happened to Jacko in the last five years.
Maybe he got into a fight in prison and suffered brain damage or the years locked away had emotionally broken him. Whatever happened left him unreliable and downright scary.
Chapter Five
Jacko walked the cobblestone path away from the building and glanced up at the sky. He'd stayed too long. The sun was already at the top of the mountain peak.
Not wasting anymore time, he rode the backroads to Federal and arrived to find Amy standing beside Bear outside the motel room.
He thought Amy would sleep later, and now she'd have questions he refused to answer.
His timing couldn't have been worse.
The reminder of a woman who looked like his Sarah, but was alive and scared, played with his head. There were times he caught a glimpse of Sarah in Amy. The way she raised her brows when she talked. The fluttering hand at her shoulder before she talked when she weighed her words. The constant reminders of his past hurt
Amy needed to stay gone. Somehow, he needed to find out if Los Li planned to attack. When Sarah got abducted, he'd thought Los Li made a random attack against Moroad. But, because they came after Amy and left a note, he had to face the facts.
Los Li had a personal vendetta against Jacko. They were coming after him or attempting to hurt someone close to him in retaliation for the men he'd killed.
He rode past Bear and Amy and parked behind the motel. Johnson tended a campfire and lifted his chin.
"Early morning." Johnson poked the fire with a stick. "There's donuts in your room if you want to grab breakfast."
