by Zoey Parker
“You tried to rape me.” I spoke low. I knew I should have kept quiet, but he wasn’t going to blame me for getting himself cut off from Tanner. That was his own doing.
“Yeah, and for that Tanner here threw away years of friendship! Do you know how many times I got my attorney to keep his ass out of jail? Too many fucking times! And this prick,” he nodded to Dean, “this little prick was so fucking easy to buy off. Do you see how easy it is for me to make you disappear?”
“Hurting me isn’t going to make your face better. If you really want Pierre to have my internship, he can have it. It’s not worth this, not worth anyone getting hurt.” I didn’t look at Tanner. I needed to be strong, and if I looked at him, odds were I would crumble. I’d never seen him vulnerable. He was always the man in control, the man everyone else looked to for what to do and how to do it.
“Fuck Pierre. That kid can get his own fucking internship. All he does is bitch and moan about what he wants but can never earn shit for himself. When he said your name, though, when I heard your fucking name, it clicked; I asked him to describe you and I knew it was you. That white blonde hair of yours. Only took a few calls to figure out you were the same bitch who made this happen.” He pointed to his face again and I looked away. Not because the scabs disgusted me, but because of the raw hatred he held in his eyes.
“What are you going to do with me now?” I whispered. I needed time. More time to figure out a plan. Michael had no idea where I was. For all he knew, I was tucked away at the clubhouse.
“What do you think, bitch? We’re gonna have our fun with you first.” Dean’s breath carried the scent of raw onions that made my stomach turn.
“Where’s Asya?” I jumped beneath the tape, not getting far, but was able to move the chair away from him enough to angle my eyesight to him.
His lips curled over his teeth and he laughed. “Home in bed.”
“If you fucking hurt her—”
"Hurt her? Why would I do that? I just tucked her away for later use.” He laughed again. A nasty, toe-curling laugh.
“I don’t understand, Dean. Why would you do this?”
“Money.” He shrugged. “Mr. Leonard has gotten me out of a few scrapes, more than one that Tanner caused while I was playing his errand boy. I owe him some favors, and he pays fucking better than Tanner or the fucking Fallen. I remembered you from when you dated Colton. That fuckface didn’t know how to handle your ass. If you were mine, I wouldn’t be tolerating all that hoity-toity shit. You would have known your place.”
“Asya never mentioned you were in a motorcycle club. She would have told me.”
He laughed again. “Yeah, well, I didn’t need her all up in my business. Until I knew if I’d keep her as my old lady or not, I just kept her on the outside.” Obviously, Dean had lost his mind somewhere along the way. How could Asya not have noticed the tattoo? Didn’t he have one of his club on his body somewhere like Michael did?
“A double life,” I mumbled to myself. “Fucking pathetic,” I spat at him. “You are fucking pathetic to follow this asshole!” I’m not sure what came over me, but the burning anger in my chest exploded.
His response was quick and hard. A closed fist hit my jaw, the copper taste of blood spilled into my mouth. My lip had split, blood dripped from my lip down my shirt and onto my tongue. “Fucking bitch!” he yelled, and fisted my hair, dragging my head back.
“Touch her again and you’ll die slowly.” Tanner’s voice came across calm and collected, as though informing him of the weather.
Keeping his hand in my hair, Dean looked over at Tanner with a laugh. “How? By you?”
I tried to yank myself away but his fist connected with my cheek, this time cutting the inside of my mouth on my teeth. My teeth rattled and I worried he’d knocked a tooth loose, but the hot pain that scorched my face took priority.
Just as my vision started to clear up, I heard a pop. Dean grunted and let go of my hair. “Fuck!” he yelled, gripping his calf. “Where the fuck did that come from?” Before an answer could be given, another pop and Daniel was thrown back away from Tanner. Hitting the wall behind him, blood spread across the chest of his tan shirt, his eyes wide with surprise. His gun hit the floor at the same time he did.
Tanner stood up then and leaned over his desk, glaring at Dean. “No, fucker, by him.” He pointed to the door.
Chapter 27
Michael
She was alive. Hurt, but alive. My heart started beating again when she finally moved, turning her head toward the door. I kicked away the gun lying beside Dean, just out of his reach, and got to her. Her cheek was already swollen, and blood continued to drip from her lower lip.
“Michael,” she whispered when she saw me, her head titling to one side. “I left the clubhouse.” Her confession made me smile, on the inside. On the outside my muscles were tense and my blood boiled.
“I see that.” I wiped the blood away from her lip and looked down at Dean, who was still holding his leg and trying to scoot his ass out of the room.
Seeing her with his hands on her like that brought back too many memories of finding her in her room huddled in the corner after her stepfather had gotten a hold of her. I had promised this woman that it would never happen again. I would protect her from all the bad shit. And here she was getting punched in the fucking face by this asshole.
“I’m gonna take care of this, don’t move.” I cut away the tape from the chair and peeled it away from her. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Dean squirming his way out of the room. Tanner watched him, too, not making a move to stop him. I had five guys standing outside, I wasn’t worried. A few more were positioned at the entrance of the warehouse. He wasn’t going anywhere. “Stay right here, Lauren.” She nodded, the fear in her eyes from when I first entered the room morphed into something colder, withdrawn.
“Where you going?” I heard a voice outside in the hall. A garbled yelp told me Tony and Johnny had helped our little friend up off the ground.
“Don’t you leave either.” I pointed my knife at Tanner.
“I’ll stay right here.” He nodded and sat back in his chair.
I walked out into the hallway, already hearing Dean’s moans and groans from the fists being thrown into his gut and face. They both stopped and let him slide to the floor when I approached them. Squatting down, I used my knife to raise his chin, making him look at me through his already swollen eyes. “You hurt my girl,” I said in a low voice. “You hurt her friend. You tried to kill her not once but twice. It was you in that fucking car, wasn’t it?”
“She wasn’t supposed to die. I was just trying to send a message.” He was lying, I could see it in his face, a dying man grasping at the last string of hope. As much as I wanted to be the one to end him, to take the life out of his body the way he tried to do to my Lauren, I needed to get back to her. I needed to be sure she was safe.
“Mike.” Colton’s voice called to me from down the hall. “The fucker’s mine.” He joined our little group, squatting next to me, looking over Dean’s face. “Good, still awake.” I’d seen that smile of Colton’s before, and it always sent a shiver through my body. He had ideas for Dean. Ideas even I couldn’t stomach. How Lauren ever ended up with Colton was beyond me. Two total opposite sides of a spectrum they were.
“Guarantee me this asshole won’t see the light of day again. His last breath happens today.” I still held Dean’s chin up by my knife, letting it dig into his skin just enough to prick it and bring out a few drops of his blood.
“The club had a vote. He won’t be seen again. They are waiting back at the clubhouse. First, we need to make sure all his club tats are gone—I think they voted to use fire for that. Then we’ll start his punishment for acting without club permission, and joining up with assholes like Leonard. And if he’s still breathing after that, I will personally rip his throat out for touching a single hair on Lauren’s head.”
I’d heard of the Fallen rules for kicking out a club member. If
they were lucky, they were allowed to cover their tats with ink or have them removed on their own; if they weren’t lucky, they met up with the club for removal.
Through garbled speech Dean tried talking, but Colton put his finger to the bloodied lips. “Shhh…no talking. It’s better this way.” He laughed. He brushed off my knife and looked toward the open door. “She okay?” he asked.
“She will be. He got a few punches in before I could get to her.” I folded my pocket knife and slipped it into my back pocket.
“I’ll clean up this mess; you go take care of that one. And, Mike, make sure Mickey knows Dean acted on his own. We never had anything to do with him coming to him with those threats.”
“I’ll be sure to pass it along.” I stepped away while Colton picked up the piece of shit off the ground and threw him over his shoulder like a bag of potatoes.
“You aren’t going to tell him about the change in leadership?” Johnny asked as we watched him walk down the hall.
“Nah. Our club, our business,” I said. “I’m gonna get my girl and head home. Can you handle Mick, or do you need me there?”
“No, we got him. Man’s getting old; he didn’t even argue with me when I told him we’d be doing the vote this afternoon for his seat. I think all of this wore him down, showed him how fucked up things can get.”
“Good to see those leathers back on you, man.” Tony grinned at my kutte.
“Yeah, see how much you like it when I’m sitting in the VP chair and kicking your ass for missing your dues payment!” I left them and headed back to Lauren.
She sat in the chair right where I left her. Her eyes were downcast, her hair covered her face.
“She’s not talking,” Tanner said from his chair. “I didn’t send that message, Michael. You know that.”
“Yeah, I know. Doesn’t make you any less responsible for this shit. You should have protected her. You never should have gotten her involved with your shit.”
“Yeah. She needed the cash, wouldn’t just take it from me. I had to give her something to do so she earned it. At first, she just delivered small packages, next to nothing really. But she got comfortable and I did, too. But you’re right, I should have kept her away from Leonard. What are you going to do about his son?”
“Pierre? He’s being dealt with.” I scooped Lauren up in my arms. “C’mon, baby, let’s get you home and cleaned up.”
She rested her head on my shoulder and let out a small whimper when her cheek touched me. “I didn’t listen to you,” she confessed. “I should have.”
“Yeah, you should have,” I agreed as I made my way to the door. “Tanner, I assume you’ll clean up that mess behind you.”
“No worries.” He waved me off and looked behind him at the heap of a dead man.
Chapter 28
Lauren
Michael paced outside his bedroom door, waiting for me to wake up. I was already awake, but I wasn’t ready to talk with him yet. I almost died. He could have been killed. Two men were already dead, maybe three. I didn’t know what he meant by Pierre was being taken care of, but it didn’t sound like he was being offered a job at the garage. And all of that happened because I took a job delivering packages.
I could blame Michael. Since it was him I was looking for when I met Tanner, I could say it was his fault. But that wouldn’t be the truth. I wasn’t just looking for Michael when I went into all those bars years ago. I was searching for myself. Who I was, who I could be.
Not an escape artist, that was for sure. I still couldn’t wrap my brain around Dean. Asya was okay, Michael promised me, and he even let me talk to her briefly on the phone after he cleaned up my lip and made me sit with an icepack on my cheek for a while.
We didn’t talk about my leaving the clubhouse. I tried to apologize, but he just brushed off the topic. The muscles in his neck tensed then he’d tell me to leave it for another time. He had to be mad at me, I knew it. Hell, I was mad at me.
I’d put myself right in the hands of those guys. They had every intention of killing me. My body still shook from the memory of Dean’s breath on me, his spit landing on my skin.
So much had happened in such a short amount of time. My body felt used and worn out; my mind felt the same way. I heard his phone ringing and him pick it up. He was talking to someone from the club. They were holding a vote I heard. I guess Mick actually let them take his seat.
When he ended the call, he opened the bedroom door, peeking his head in. I didn’t pretend to be asleep that time so he opened the door all the way and came in. “You’re up.” He scooted me over on the bed and sat next to me, checking my lip and my cheek.
Both burned a hell of a lot but I pushed his hand away. “I’m okay.” It wasn’t my first punch to the face.
“Uh-huh.” He rested his hand on my stomach. “Do you know how many years I aged this afternoon? Seeing you tied up in that chair and that asshole’s hands on you?” I know he meant to sound rough, but the emotion shook his voice.
“I’m sorry, Michael.” The tears came to my eyes again. “I made a really big mess. Two people are dead because of me.”
“No. Those guys are dead because of what they did, not you.” He wiped my cheeks, being extra careful of the sore one. “Johnny just called. He was voted in as president. Mick backed down no problem. Admitted to meeting with Dean and being threatened. The club didn’t vote him out, but he won’t be holding any sort of seat again.”
I wasn’t sure if the information was supposed to make me feel better or not. “What about you?”
“They voted me in as VP.”
I took a deep breath. “What does that mean?”
“It means Johnny and I put the club back in order. Stop all the illegal shit and stay legitimate. My garage stays separate, but I’ll be running the club garage, too. Tony will take over most of my duties at my garage, and I’ll oversee it.”
“Is that what you want? To be back in the club full-time?”
“I think it’s a good move. I’ll be on the payroll at the club garage, and with the income from my own, I’ll be doubling my earnings. With Mick’s illegal shit out of the way, the cops will stop harassing the club and we can get back to doing what we love to do. Ride our bikes and our women.” He grinned wide with his smart comment, and I tried to match him but my lip hurt too much and I ended up grimacing. “Fuck, sorry, babe.”
“It’s not your fault. If I had stayed at the clubhouse, I wouldn’t have gotten punched in the damn mouth.”
“That’s true.”
I closed my eyes, trying to build up the strength in myself to ask what I needed to ask, but fear gripped me. “What about me? What happens to me?”
“To you? You’ll finish school this summer, take on your internship, and get that job you want.”
“I mean…” I looked up at him, unshed tears blurring my vision.
“You mean with us? I told you already, I’m not going anywhere. You’re gonna move in here. I offered Asya a year’s rent to cover you, but she wouldn’t take it. Said she was moving to California with her mom. “
“Dean really hurt her,” I whispered.
“Dean hurt a lot of people.” He rested his hand on my shoulder until I looked at him. “I know you hate the term old lady, so how about you just be my wife instead?”
My heart nearly stopped at his question. “What?” I couldn’t have heard him right. “Michael, you don’t know what you’re saying.” I tried to shove his arm away but he only gripped me harder.
“I know exactly what I’m saying. I don’t want to take any chances losing you again. So you’ll just have to make an honest man outta me.”
“I tend to come with a lot trouble, Michael. I’ve gotten you sent to jail, sent three men to their deaths, and got my roommate attacked and tied up like some barn animal.”
He gave a little laugh. “You do bring excitement to the party, that’s for sure. But none of that matters, Lauren. All I want is to be with you, wake up to you, go to sl
eep with you, read the paper with you. I love you, Lauren Robertson, and if you don’t snag me up…well, I’ll just tie you up to my bed until you change your mind.”
As a threat, it was tempting.
“You just love being a hero.” I grinned.
“That’s true, too. But I also love fucking that body of yours. I love taking long showers with you. I love arguing with you. I love spanking you. I love seeing that face you make right before you come. But all in all, I just love you.”
“I love you, too, Michael. Are you sure you’re ready for something like this? Marriage?”
“Only with you, Lauren. Only with you.”
