Eve froze for a second. This was rapidly going downhill. “What?”
“I dare you to go out there and take his bike for a spin. You’ll recognize it; it’s the one with flames in the form of serpents on the tank.”
Eve was so shocked by the suggestion of stealing Lind Addams’ bike—even for just “a spin”—that she didn’t even feel like commenting on the tackiness that had just been described to her.
“I can’t do that.”
“Of course you can’t,” Kelly said, her devilish smirk matching her sister’s. “Just like we said.”
Something flared up in Eve then—a sort of pride that might have to do more with the heavy drinks she had downed than with any real pride at all. If she had been sober, she might have walked out. Instead, she found herself downing the remaining of her third (fourth?) whiskey in one go and standing on unsure legs.
“Fine,” she said. “I’ll take the Viper’s bike for a spin.”
One thing the twins didn’t know was that Eve knew how to ride a bike. Her older brother was an enthusiast, and he had made sure to teach her. She even had a license for it.
Five minutes after she had ridden off into the night on a massive Harley Davidson, all hell broke loose.
CHAPTER THREE
Lind Addams was seething. Everything that could go wrong that night had gone even worse. The deal was a no-deal. It had been a ruse, a pretext to get the most influential members of the Diamondbacks all in one place and make them watch as the foundation of their club unraveled. They wanted them to watch as their leader was murdered and all that they knew and cherished went down with him. They wanted Lind to watch as his best friend died.
He supposed it could have been worse. After all, he had caught the glimpse of the gun before it went off and Alec was safe. After all, none of them had gotten seriously hurt. After all, the hell that broke loose only brought on one hell of a fight, faceless enemies, and a hurt pride—because really, how could they have been so stupid?
It had sounded good. The Cobra had become one of the most proficient nightclubs in the area and getting in on the business had sounded like a good idea. Too good, Lind had said, but Alec and the others had not listened. It had seemed odd to Lind that Gary Merchant would suddenly want to tap into the Diamondbacks business and enter the market of high-end drugs. But the club was always looking for new ways to make money, and Alec and the others had decided to give it a go.
“Let’s hear them out at least,” Alec had said.
As it turned out, Gary Merchant did not just want to talk. He swore up and down that he had no idea that something was going to go down. He swore that he wasn’t involved. He swore that he had not told the Mexican cartel that they would be there, with their guard down. He swore he had been jumped and played just as they had.
The Diamondbacks weren’t convinced, and God help Gary Merchant now.
And God help whoever had stolen Lind’s bike. Because as if a set-up to his club and an attempt on the life of his best friend were not enough, Lind had found his precious baby had also been tampered with. He seethed now, as he suffered the humiliation of riding on the back of someone else’s bike, clinging to someone’s waistline as he scoured the neighborhood.
He had no hope of finding his bike tonight, not with everything that had already gone down. The thief was probably long gone, and who knows how much time had passed from the actual theft before Lind was finally free to get outside and discover the glaring absence.
He was just about to give up when Jacob suddenly swerved to the left and took a sharp turn. Then, he stopped.
There, on the grassy surface of a large flowerbed by the side of the road, lay his bike. And next to it, half-sitting and half-slumped, lay a woman.
Lind was off Jacob’s bike before the man had even set foot to the ground. He ran up to the scene, somewhat astonished at what he was seeing. He had been picturing many scenarios, but this sure wasn’t one of them.
“Is she all right?” Jacob called out.
“Looks like,” Lind said, flipping his Harley back up and running examining hands and eyes over its metal parts. “There doesn’t seem to be much damage.”
“I meant the girl, asshole,” Jacob said, as he walked up.
“Oh.”
Lind turned around. He watched as Jacob knelt in front of the woman who had stolen his precious Harley and made an already bad night even worse. He let Jacob do this examination since he was much more attuned to the human condition than he was, anyway. He watched as Jacob’s expert hands examined the girl for injuries.
“She seems fine,” he finally declared.
The woman stared dazedly at them for a few minutes before she finally seemed to come back to herself. She batted Jacob’s probing hands away and drew herself up onto shaky legs.
“Get away from me, you perv!” she cried.
Jacob stood with his hands in the air in a placating gesture. It was a hard task for Jacob to appear unthreatening, what with his over six-foot frame and massive muscles. After all, they called him the Lumberjack for a reason.
“Whoa,” Jacob said. “No one’s going to hurt you, sweetheart. We were just making sure you hadn’t gotten yourself hurt.”
“I’m fine,” the girl said.
She had a cut on her forehead that was bleeding profusely, but otherwise she looked unscathed. Her dark eyes were clear when they met his, and that was when Lind recognized her as the woman who had been dancing on the nightclub’s stage when they had first entered that goddamned nightclub.
“You work for Gary, don’t you?” he asked bluntly.
She must have spied the fresh fury in his eyes, because she took a step back.
“Yeah,” she said after a moment. At least, she wasn’t stupid enough to deny it.
“Did he tell you to steal my bike?”
She blinked at him, confused. “Uh…no. I…I did that on a dare.”
Jacob burst out laughing. “Well, I’ll be—” He wisely cut himself off when Lind’s eyes shot daggers in his direction.
“Listen, sweet cheeks, I’m not in the mood for any more bullshit tonight,” Lind said, advancing menacingly. He reached out and grabbed her shoulders. Hard. “Where were you supposed to take my bike? Was it just a stunt for some extra humiliation?”
The woman’s eyes were wide by now. “No. I…really…I made a dare with some friends. We were drunk, it was stupid. I’m sorry. I—”
Lind cut off her cascade of excuses with a rough shake. “Shut up,” he said. “What did the cartel offer your boss to betray us?”
The fear on the girl’s eyes was suddenly replaced by utter confusion. “What?”
“The Mexican cartel. They tried to kill us tonight. They wouldn’t have known we would be at your club unless your boss or someone else told them. What’s in it for Gary?”
“What are you talking about?” She wrenched herself free, suddenly enraged.
Lind advanced again, but Jacob jumped forward and grabbed his arm, effectively stopping him from moving any further.
“Hold on, Lind,” he said. “I’ve got the feeling she may not know what we’re talking about.”
“How could she not know?” Lind snorted. “That shit was kinda hard to miss.”
“What shit?” the woman asked. Worry flashed across her face, and as her features softened with it Lind could not help but notice that she was beautiful. “What happened? Is anybody hurt?”
“I sure as hell would hope so,” Lind said darkly.
She sucked in a breath. “The girls…”
“The girls are fine,” Jacob reassured her hastily. “We don’t hurt women and none of them were caught in the crossfire.”
She had such a lost look on her face that Lind was forced to relent. “You really have no idea?”
“No,” she said. “I guess I must’ve stolen your bike before it all went down.”
Lind scowled at the absurdity of that statement. A working girl had stolen his bike. It was too humiliating
to even contemplate.
She seemed to pull herself together then. She drew herself up to her full height and looked at him straight in the eye. “Tell me what happened.”
It was a demand, and even though he wouldn’t have been able to tell how or why, Lind found himself giving in to it.
“Let’s go get a cup of coffee,” he offered. “We’ll tell you then.” He did his best to ignore Jacob’s shocked look.
She watched them carefully for a few moments, clearly trying to gauge whether she could trust them.
“He told you the truth,” Lind said, nodding toward Jacob. “We don’t hurt women.”
She still stared at the both of them in turn for a little while longer. Finally, she decided that they weren’t about to take her off somewhere and leave her at the bottom of a ditch.
“Fine,” she conceded. “But keep in mind, I’ve got a gun in my purse.”
Lind smirked. “Who doesn’t?”
CHAPTER FOUR
Her name was Trinity. There was no question that wasn’t her real name, but Lind couldn’t afford to care. Once she had made a trip to the bathroom in the diner where they stopped and cleaned herself up, her beauty became all the more striking. She had a round face with soft feature and the skin of a peach. Her hair was golden blonde and a few errant curls escaped the tall ponytail she had resorted and fell in front of the largest, deepest eyes Lind had ever seen. The irises were dark brown, like pools of liquid chocolate. Her frame was slim but strong, telling tales of sensuality and power.
Under other circumstances, Lind might have gone for it. He was certain she could give him a night to remember. But this wasn’t the place, and it sure as hell wasn’t the time.
Over coffee and cake, they told her about Gary contacting the club to propose a partnership. His business was flourishing, he had said. More sophisticated clients walked in every night, and he wanted to offer them the kind of high-end recreation that they could find in the fancy clubs of downtown Los Angeles. He knew the Diamondbacks had been establishing strong dealing relationships and that they were also expanding to high-end drugs. He thought it might be the perfect opportunity to expand together.
So, they had agreed to meet at his nightclub…where they were promptly ambushed.
“How do you know those who ambushed you were part of a cartel?” Trinity asked. Her full lips curling around the brim of her cup did things to Lind that he wasn’t ready to admit to.
“They have been on our trail for a while now,” Jacob said. “They don’t like that we’re getting more involved in the drug scene. We’ve tried to make things work with them, but so far it hasn’t worked out great.” He paused. “And after tonight, I can’t imagine it ever will,” he added as an afterthought.
“A couple of the people who shot at us tonight are sure members of the cartel,” Lind said.
“That doesn’t seem very subtle,” Trinity observed.
“They didn’t want to be,” Lind said. “They wanted us to know who they were.”
“I still can’t really see Gary giving you guys up,” Trinity said. She held up a hand to stop their protests. "Wait, let me finish.”
Once again, Lind didn’t know why, but he let her. And so did Jacob.
“You said it yourselves, Gary is new at this kind of thing. There’s no love lost between us. He’s just my boss, and I’m just an employee. So, I say this with the most objective attitude…Gary is not a backstabber,” she said. “He’s just not smart enough to be.”
Lind and Jacob exchanged a look. In retrospect, it made sense.
“Who, then?” Jacob wondered aloud.
Trinity shrugged. “Could be a number of people.”
“Like who?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “And I don’t want to know. Leave me out of it.”
“Oh, but we can’t,” Lind said.
Trinity’s chocolate eyes snapped up to him. “Excuse me?”
“Sweetheart, you’re so in it that you could drown.”
“What are you talking about?” she protested. “I told you, I know nothing about what happened. I stole your bike before hell broke loose.”
“Exactly,” Jacob said quietly, just now coming to the realization that Lind had figured out the minute she had told them what she had done and, most importantly, when.
She looked between them. That lost look coming back to her beautiful, delicate features. “What do you mean?”
“You stole the Viper’s bike just before the cartel came in with guns blazing,” Jacob said. “It will look suspicious to our club and to your boss…provided that he really wasn’t involved.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Trinity said, but she didn’t look too convinced. “I’ll talk to Gary and tell him I had nothing to do with it.”
“And, of course, he’ll be inclined to believe you,” Lind said. “Especially given the amounts of love not lost between the two of you.”
“You’ve said it yourself, you’re just an employee,” Jacob said. He let the rest unsaid, but Lind could see that Trinity heard it loud and clear.
She slumped back in her chair, looking stunned and afraid.
“I just…I guess I’ll have to disappear for a while.”
“I guess so,” Lind said.
“We have just the place for you.”
Lind’s head whipped around so fast that for a moment he feared he might have pulled something in his neck. He stared at Jacob in shock.
“No,” he said pointedly, “we don’t.”
Jacob rolled his eyes. He punched him in the arm and stood. “Give us a minute, sweetheart.”
Reluctantly, Lind followed him outside. He took a cigarette out of his pack and watched as the smoke swirled in the night air.
Jacob batted at the tendrils. “You’ll get lung cancer,” he protested, as he always did.
Lind rolled his eyes. “Shut up and tell me just what the hell that was in there.”
Jacob shrugged. “Well, it’s not like we can leave her.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Because she’s in danger. Gary Merchant may not be a backstabber, but he sure isn’t a saint. When he hears that one of his girls has stolen the Viper’s ride moments before his deal was literally shot to hell, he’s going to go after her.”
“So?”
Jacob arched a reddish-blond eyebrow at him. “So, we can’t let that happen to an innocent woman.”
“She stole my bike,” Lind grumbled. “She ain’t that innocent.”
Jacob smirked, knowing he already had Lind. “Whatever,” he said. “Still, we just can’t let her leave. And besides, she might be useful.”
“Useful how?”
“She works in that nightclub. She knows everyone. She knows their habits, their characteristics. She may be helpful in figuring out just whose heads have to roll for this.”
Lind thought about it. “She does seem pretty smart…” he conceded. Trinity had proven observant, and they sure could use an observant eye to a reality that they knew little to nothing of. “Do you believe her story?” he asked.
Jacob thought about it. “I do,” he finally said.
Lind nodded. “So do I,” he admitted, reluctantly. “Are you sure about this?”
Jacob shrugged. “She could be our best shot.”
“We’ll have to lie to the club,” he said. “When Alec hears about one of Gary’s girls stealing my ride moments before he got shot at,” he said, quoting Jacob’s words, “he’s going to suspect her.”
“Then, we keep our pretty little secret until things have blown over,” Jacob agreed.
Lind hesitated. “I don’t like lying to Alec. He can always find me out.”
Jacob laughed. “I’m sure you’ll find some tale to spin until the time comes to tell him the truth.”
Lind scowled. He hated this. He hated lying to his best friend and to the club. He hated games. He wasn’t a man of games; he was a man of action. Games and schemes were more Alec’s territory—and Jacob’s,
who wasn’t second in command for nothing.
“You’ll be fine,” Jacob said, clapping his shoulder. “Now, let’s go tell our little bird the good news.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Eve woke up with a killer headache. She rolled over onto her stomach and groaned, burying her face into the pillow. The sunshine streaming in through the white curtains of the window was searing behind her closed eyelids. There was a pounding in her temples. It took her a while to find the will to move. She dragged herself slowly out of bed and gingerly walked out of her bedroom…
Untouchable: A Dark Bad Boy Romance Page 25
