“Now you’re up to speed.” Ace grinned, and it was an actual, real smile. One with feeling; one that made Ace look human. “The second after you got off the phone with her a few days ago, she reported to her boss, and he told me. I came up here today figuring that you two would be looking for a way out.”
“And do we get it?”
“How’s about you go down there and get your girl, and we can all talk about your options? She has to be wondering what the hell’s going on, so go set her mind at ease, yeah?”
Without another word, Warren spun, wrenched open the door, turned on the lights, dashed down to Shay. He found her twisting and writhing on the bed, pulling at the cuffs in vain. When she saw him, she cried out.
“Warren! Oh, my God… are you OK?”
“I’m good, baby.” He dug through his pockets for the handcuff key, his fingers shaking. “You?”
“I’m OK,” she whispered. “But I heard shots… I thought…”
“Yeah, well.” He unlocked the one cuff, and right away, her hand shot out to grip his t-shirt. She clung to him, desperately needing to touch him, to make sure that he was real and whole. “We had a bit of drama in the kitchen.”
Free now, she sat up, wrapped her arms around him, shaking hard. He held her as close as he could, just inhaling the sweet, pure scent of the woman that he loved. He stroked her back, up and down, soothing her, and her trembling tapered off, then stopped.
“Your brother?” he asked at last, already knowing the answer.
Shay shook her head, said nothing. But he understood.
“Fuck, baby. I’m sorry.”
“I know.”
He leaned back a bit, trying to get a sense of how she was doing. “Can you walk?”
She nodded, still shaky and pale but looking better, and he helped her to her feet.
“Did you – did you kill someone?” she asked him. “Is someone dead up there?”
“Kirk is dead,” he said, steering her to the stairs, watching to see if she swayed. “But I didn’t do it. Ace did.”
“Ace killed Kirk Jensen?” she said, totally disbelieving, starting up the steps. “Ace?”
“Yep.” He held on to her hips, supporting her as he followed her upstairs. “He’s the rat, and he’s the one who was feeling intel about Kirk and his associates to the authorities. We all need to talk, alright?”
“Uh, yeah. I’d say that we sure as hell do.”
He grinned at the spirit in her voice, then they were in the kitchen.
Ace was standing there, calm and unruffled. “Shay.”
“Ace,” she said, matching his cool, though she was seconds away from a full-on heart attack. For some reason, she made a small stab at politeness, which was ludicrous, considering the circumstances. “Nice to see you again.”
“You too, sweetheart. Let’s sit, yeah?” Ace gestured at the living room. “I have a few things to share with you and loverboy here.”
Shay shot Warren a look that clearly said, loverboy? He grinned, shrugged, and she rolled her eyes.
“So the cat’s out of the bag, huh?” she said, settling on the sofa next to Warren, gripping his hand.
“Totally.” Ace sat with a sigh, rubbing his sore, bruised chest. Fuck, getting shot sucked, even when wearing a top-of-the-line Kevlar. Thank Christ Kirk had specialized in shots straight to the heart; if he’d preferred head shots, Ace would be warming his toes in hell right about then. “And I want to help you.”
Warren and Shay stared at him in silence. Waited as Ace just looked at them for a few seconds, his dark eyes inscrutable. Finally, he spoke, and when he did, he was surprisingly quiet. Gentle. Concerned. Like a parent talking to a beloved child, or a mentor counselling a younger, more naïve follower.
“I know what it’s like to want out of your own life,” Ace said. “I know what it feels like to be somewhere so fucking wrong, you’re itchy all over… so itchy that you almost want to rip your own fucking skin right off your bones.” He paused, took in their astonishment. “I know what it’s like to be in the wrong goddamn place, and I know what it’s like to be willing to do anything to change it. Anything at all, no matter what it costs you in the end. I know that whatever you have to pay, it’s worth it… and it’s worth it because you’re free.”
They swallowed, kept listening.
“I know that you’ve regretted joining the Fallen Angels since day one,” Ace said to Warren, then he turned to Shay, “and I know that you’ve run as hard and fast and far away from the Highway Hellions as you possibly can. I know that you two have found each other in this sea of ugliness and violence, and I know that when that happens, you hold on to the person that you’ve found with everything that you have.” He dropped his eyes to his hands. “I had a person like that once, and I let them go, and I’m sorry for it every single day.”
“Why’d you let them go?” Shay asked softly, hoping that she wasn’t pushing.
Ace met her gaze. “Because I couldn’t be in the Fallen Angels and be with them.” He took a deep breath. “Be with him.”
Stunned, shocked, they stared at him.
“You – you’re –” Warren choked out at last. “Him?”
“Yeah.” Ace quirked a small smile at their thunderstruck expressions. “I was with an incredible man and in the whole of my thirty-seven years on earth, I’ve never been happier… I was living my real life, you get me? When I was with him, I was honest about who I really was – and I could only be that way with him. I’ve only ever been that way with him. But then I got tapped for the VP position, and I had a choice. I could stay with the MC – the only family that I’ve ever known – and keep on pretending to be straight, and throw our relationship and our future together way. Or I could leave my whole life, and be with him openly. We’d have had to run, of course. Run and start again.”
“So why’d you stay?” Warren asked. “Didn’t he want to run?”
“He begged me to run.” Ace made the confession in a quiet voice. “He begged me to choose him, to choose us. And even though I wanted to, wanted it more than I wanted my next breath, I fucking chickened out. I – I chose the club. And since I did, I had to break things off with him, to keep him safe. To keep us both safe.”
“My God,” Shay breathed. “Where is he now?”
“Here in Denver. We don’t – we don’t talk.”
“I’m sorry, man.” Warren found that he was, actually, truly sorry. “I can’t imagine.”
“Yeah, well.” Ace pulled himself together now. “So, that’s why I want to help you get away. I want you two to do what I didn’t all those years ago… but I know that you can’t do it on your own.”
“Honey said that she’d help us,” Warren said, then contemplated what Ace had told him about being in contact with Honey and King. “But I imagine that you know that already?”
“Yep. We’ve made all the arrangements.”
“Who’s ‘we’?” Warren asked.
“Me and King’s Men. Together, we’ve worked everything out over the past seventy-two hours, and you two now have a whole life to just walk in to. If you want it, I mean.”
“If we want it?” Shay exclaimed. “Of course we want it!”
Ace glanced at Warren, asking the silent question. In response, Warren held his eyes, answering in the affirmative with everything that he had.
“OK, then,” Ace said. “Listen close now.”
They nodded, rapt.
“Warren, you leave your cell here, and you two take Kirk’s SUV. You’re gonna switch it out for another vehicle.”
“Where?” Warren asked.
“I’ll write down the place. It’s a storage space that the MC uses to keep about a dozen vehicles. They’re all registered in other states, and they’re totally legal. Two days ago, King registered a new one for you, so nobody in the club even knows a
bout it.”
“Registered to who?” Warren said. “Me and Shay?”
“No. To the people that you’re going to be from now on.”
“We have new identities all set up already?” Shay gasped. She’d been so sure that this was something that they’d be doing on their own and on the run, and she’d been bracing herself for all the shady people they’d have to deal with and pay to get new names. “Really?”
“Yeah. Thanks to King’s Men, you have new identities, a car registered to those names…” Ace paused, gave them a huge smile. “And thanks to the Fallen Angels treasury, you have a very healthy joint bank account in those names. And by ‘healthy’, I mean you have four-hundred-thousand dollars to get you started in your new lives. Buy a house, start a business, help your Mom back in Kentucky, use it as a safety cushion until you get yourselves together… whatever. Just use it smart, huh?”
Too shocked to speak, they just looked at Ace, then turned to stare at each other.
“Your I.D.’s and two burner phones are in the glove compartment of the new car,” Ace carried on, seeing that they couldn’t seem to find their voices quite yet. “Along with papers, bank account information, credit cards, car keys. Everything’s in there. You get to the storage area, you leave Kirk’s SUV, and you find the car with the Oregon plates. It’s unlocked, so don’t worry about breaking in. Oh, and King says that you’re to consider the car a gift from him.”
“And then?” Warren asked, a bit dazed. Fuck, just ten minutes ago, he’d watched Ace shoot Kirk, now Ace was handing them almost half-a-million dollars and a whole goddamn life. “Then what?”
Ace shrugged. “Then you get in to the car and you drive, man. You drive and you don’t fucking look back, you hear me? Go to Oregon. Find a nice place that you both like. Start again.”
“What about work?” Shay asked in a hushed voice. “I’m a teacher – will my new identity stand up to a background check?”
“Not an extensive one,” Ace said, and she heard the regret in his words. “I’m sorry. You’re out of teaching for good, sweetheart. Safer that way.”
“Oh.” Shay stared at her feet. “That’s OK. I’ll – I’ll figure something out.”
“We’ll figure something out, baby,” Warren said. “We’re in this together, remember.”
Shay nodded, blinked back tears. She knew she was being stupid, but the thought of never teaching again hurt her. In the grand scheme of things, though, it was a tiny sacrifice – one that she was fully prepared to make.
“My students?” she asked, already knowing the answer. “My friends back in Montana?”
“Those aren’t people you can really trust, so they’ll all need to think you’re gone,” Ace said, trying to be gentle. “Can you live with that?”
She nodded. “You’re right that I’m not close to anyone. I haven’t been for a long time. I think – I think they’ll all forget me soon enough.”
“You sure, Shay?” Ace said. “‘Cause once this is done, it’s done. It’s not one of those things that you take back. Not ever.”
“I know. I’m sure.”
“And my family?” Warren asked now.
“I’m not saying a word about where you’re going to Joker or Sands,” Ace said. “As for Mirrie and your Mom… you’ll be able to contact them, with no problems. I mean, be careful, clearly. Tell them to get burners, don’t let them come and see you for a few months. But you can stay in touch.”
That surprised Warren. He’d asked the question without any real hope, sure that, like Shay, he’d have to just up and disappear without a word. He’d been convinced that he’d have to cut off all contact with everyone, and for their own safety and his. Ace’s certainty that they’d be OK intrigued him.
“How’s that?” Warren demanded. “Why can I stay in touch with them?”
“Because,” Ace said, his voice heavy. “I’m going to put the word out that I killed Kirk, and that I killed you two, and that I buried all three of you up here in the mountains. I’ll never say where, though, so everyone will just have to accept my version of events. Especially since none of you will ever resurface again.”
“And will you?” Shay said. “Bury Kirk in the mountains?”
“Yep.” Ace’s eyes glinted. “He’ll never be found, I can promise you that.”
“How are you going to get out of here?” Shay said. “If we take the car?”
“I’ll call for a ride. Don’t worry about me, sweetheart.”
“How can you admit to all of this, and do all of this, and stay safe?” Warren asked. “Nobody’s going to give a shit about us, but you can’t say that you offed Kirk Jensen and not expect push-back. You’re a dead man, Ace. You have to know that, right?”
“Don’t worry about me,” Ace repeated calmly. “I’m walking away too.”
Warren stared at him, puzzled. “…From the club?”
“From everything. By killing Kirk, I’ve just burned my whole fucking life to the ground, Kane. I’m going in to hiding, then I’m going on the run.” He paused. “And you know what?”
“What?”
Ace’s smile split his face in half, made him look younger, happier. Lighter. “I’ve never been happier. I’m free, guys… free to start again. Just like you.”
Chapter Seventeen
Ten minutes later, Ace stood in front of the living room window, watching Warren and Shay pack their backpacks in to Kirk’s SUV. He didn’t step outside, didn’t say one more word to them, but when they turned to look at him, he raised his hand in a wave, wished them well with everything that he had. And when they waved back, all he saw was gratitude. Gratitude and love.
God, he hoped that they made it.
He watched them drive away, then he turned to look at the body on the kitchen floor again. Yeah, he’d made his choice, and he didn’t regret it. He was never going to regret it. Even if he ended up alone forever and sweeping the floor in some fucking dive bar in Wyoming to pay the rent on his shitty one-room walk-up, then he’d do it. He’d do it knowing that for the first time in a long, long time, he’d done the right thing by someone else.
That had to count for something, didn’t it? Even just a shot at living a normal, decent life?
He walked in to the master bedroom, slid open the drawer under the bed. He sat, dialed the number. No, normally he wouldn’t call from this phone, since he wouldn’t want his brothers to know that he’d been in touch with King’s Men. But none of that mattered anymore.
“Yeah?” said the voice at the other end.
“Jack?”
A pause. “Where are you calling from, Cuddy?”
“From the cabin.”
“Warren and Shay?”
“Gone.”
“Gone where?”
“Oregon.”
Another pause, and Ace heard Jack talking to someone. There was the sound of the phone being handed off, and then King’s deep growl was in his ear.
“What the hell happened over there, man?”
“What we planned, and what you asked me to think about doing,” Ace said. “It just happened before we thought it would, and not at all in the way that we expected.”
“So Jensen’s dead?”
“He is.”
“It’s a mess?”
Ace found himself grinning at the understatement. “It’s a fucking disaster area, Kingston. I mean, it’s totally beyond saving. It’s all over.”
“You didn’t have a choice?”
“None.”
“Why didn’t you call sooner? When you were on your way up there?”
“No time. Kirk just showed up at the clubhouse, dragged me in to his car, and we were off. No way to make contact without him noticing.”
“OK, you can fill me in later.” King sighed. “So your cover’s blown? You need protection?”
&
nbsp; “Yeah.” Ace sucked in air, braced himself for the shouting. “And so does Liam.”
“What’s that now?” King’s voice was sharp. “Why?”
“Because according to Kirk, the boys are tearing up my apartment and clubhouse space as we speak.”
“And?” King was unnervingly quiet. The calm before the storm, Ace was sure. “What are they gonna find?”
Ace swallowed. “A flash drive.”
“With?”
“Photos.” Ace shut his eyes. “Pictures of me and Liam. Some of them are very…ummm… personal.”
“Fuck, man,” King exploded, and the storm descended on Ace in all its wrath. “How could you be so goddamn stupid and careless? What the hell were you thinking, keeping something like that with all that’s been going on these past few months?”
Ace opened his eyes again, feeling his own anger build. “I was thinking that I wanted to keep one small part of him with me, Kingston. I was thinking that I needed to see him sometimes… to just remember being with him. To remember when I was happy, even if it was just for a little while, and even though I royally fucked it all up.”
King sighed again, and Ace felt him soften. Maybe the guy had a heart beating under all that ice and stone after all? Hell, maybe Kingston even loved someone himself, not that Ace could imagine for even one second the man being that vulnerable with or about anyone.
“OK, OK,” King said. “It’s done now. You think they’re going to find the drive?”
“I don’t know. I hid it well, but are we really going to take the chance?”
“No way.” King’s tone was final, and Ace felt relief flood his entire body. “We’ll go get Liam from the café, take him to a safe house.”
“God, thank you.” Ace was glad to be sitting, since his legs were actually shaky from the adrenalin drop. “You got a place for me, too?”
“Uh, yeah.” Ace clearly heard the word ‘dumbass’ at the end of that statement. “You’ll be hiding out with Liam.”
Ace’s heart stopped dead in his chest. “Wait. What?”
“Did I stutter?” King said impatiently. “I’m short on manpower right now, and it makes zero sense to guard two separate safe houses. You and Liam will be housed in one. Together.”
Dark Curves (Dangerous Curves Book 6) Page 24
