by Jayne Blue
Dom kept a protective hand on the small of my back. I found I liked it there. Years of training made me want to pull away. Keep up the performance, show them nothing real. But Dom changed all of that. These men and women were his family. They cared about me because I was with him. It had nothing to do with what I did for a living.
“Hey, stranger,” Zig said, sipping his beer. “We thought you’d gone feral on us.”
Dom lifted his head and let out a credible wolf’s howl. “Aroo!”
This earned him a round of laughter and good-natured slaps on the back. “Don’t mind them,” Ariel said. “They’ll crow for a while then they’ll all be ready for a nap by about ten o’clock.”
“Somehow I doubt that,” I said. Ariel pulled out the stool next to her and offered it to me. Dom gave me a wink and moved down the bar so he could talk to Shep, Chase, and Zig. The weight of my cell phone in my purse pulled at me. I’d had it on silent for almost four days. I was almost afraid to look at it.
“Did Domino take good care of you?” Ariel asked. Her tone was kind and genuine.
“It’s so beautiful at the cabin,” I said. “I wanted to stay forever.”
“It’s on my list of projects,” she said. “Mama Bear wants me to go out there with her this fall. Bear built something solid for her, but he’s not much of an interior designer.”
“Oh, I’ll bet you’ll come up with some wonderful ideas. You know, I have some contacts who could help out with that. Get you some good deals on furniture and even some artwork.”
“I might just take you up on that,” she said. She gestured to the girl behind the bar and ordered each of us a beer. Dom caught my eye at the end of the bar. His eyes creased with laughter. He looked so happy. My heart warmed, hoping I had a little something to do with that.
As our beers arrived, Ariel handed me mine. The bartender gave her a wave. Wendy, her name was Wendy. She’d recognized me the other day but had kept a discreet distance. Now I saw her cheeks color as she looked me up and down. A fan. But she let me have my privacy.
My eyes traveled to the smaller TV screens right above us. Two were tuned to the same game as the crowd watched in the rear of the bar. The third had on entertainment news. Wendy had the remote in her hand and was about to change the channel at the request of some more vocal patrons at the other end of the bar.
“Wait!” I shouted, my heart dropping. My own face flashed on the screen. Then a new picture of Dom and me came on. It was grainy, taken from a distance with a high-powered lens. The photographer caught us in an embrace at the entrance to my neighborhood, just outside the gates. The crawl beneath the screen read: “Quinn Larsen’s new mystery man may have a troubled past.”
I picked out a few words from the glamorous female entertainment reporter. “Friends and family are worried. Quinn Larsen has canceled several appearances in the last few days …”
Dom was at my side. “Wendy,” he shouted. “Turn that shit off.”
Wendy stood frozen with the remote in her hand. “Quinn,” Dom said.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I should have known this would happen. God. Can’t I just get one break?”
More pictures of me flashed on the screen. They were from some of my more racier movie scenes. Then they showed a spread I did for a men’s magazine two years ago. It was tasteful, but I’d been wearing a skimpy bikini. That had been Noreen’s idea. All part of her quest to remake me from the girl next door everyone knew from Crosspointe to the sex symbol that brought people to the box office.
Dom went rigid beside me. A low noise rumbled through him, almost like a growl. “Dom,” I said. He looked about ready to smash something.
“Dom!” Zig got to him next. “Chill out, man. That ain’t shit. That’s just how they sell movie tickets.”
“This is bad,” he said. “Bear’s gonna lose his shit over this. We don’t need this kind of attention right now.”
My face dropped. “Domino. I’m so sorry. I never meant to …”
His expression changed immediately, going from barely contained fury to concern. “Baby. No. I didn’t mean that. This isn’t your fault. This has nothing to do with you.”
“Come on,” Ariel said. “Why don’t we see if the room in the back is cleared. Let’s move this little party back there. Better yet, what about heading back to the club?”
I pulled my phone out of my purse. It was time for some damage control. As I expected, I had about a hundred texts and several dozen missed calls. Most were from Noreen, a few from my mother. They were both worried about their meal ticket. Rage bubbled inside of me, but Dom’s steady presence beside me helped keep me calm.
I called Noreen first. She answered immediately, shooting rapid-fire questions at me I could barely understand.
“Go in the office,” Zig said, guiding me by the elbow. “You’ll be able to hear better in there. Gina had to run to the store.”
As Noreen shouted in my ear, Dom and Zig passed a look between them. I let Dom lead me into the back office and shut the door.
“Stop!” I finally got a word in edgewise. “Noreen, you work for me, not the other way around.”
“Don’t kid yourself,” she said. “You want to take off. You want to slum it with some biker thug, it’s more than just you that has to deal with it. You have commitments, Quinn. Your management team has been putting out fires for days.”
“Three days,” I said. “Three damn days, Noreen. I needed a vacation. I deserve one. I’ve done just about everything you and my mother wanted for the last ten years. I’m still doing what you want.”
“Your little field trip to Port Azrael is not what I want. It’s the worst thing for you. I’ve kept quiet. I figured it would be better to just let you figure it out yourself. It’s not you, Quinn. I know what I’m doing. You want your fuck-you money? You want to eventually be able to do your passion projects? There’s a way to get there. This isn’t it. It’s too soon. You have to trust me.”
Dom stood in the doorway, immovable. His stony expression would have brought grown men to heel. I put up a finger.
“And you have to trust me. I’m not a little kid anymore. I can make my own decisions.”
“Really?” Noreen asked. “So sending that group of criminals over to the Ransom Building was your decision? Dammit, Quinn. If you were having trouble with him, your first call should have been to me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Don’t play dumb,” she said. “There’s footage from security cameras of them going up the elevator. The Hollywood Tattler has it. They’re sitting on it because of about a dozen favors I called in. You know how many years it’s taken me to build up that kind of capital? It won’t hold for long anyway.”
“I’ll ask again. What are you talking about?”
Noreen let loose a stream of obscenities that blew my hair back. When she calmed down, I brought the phone back to my ear. “Security footage,” she said. “Three of those bozos in their leather cuts walking into Oliver Ransom’s office. They scared the shit out of him. Rumor is he checked into a spa on the French Riviera to deal with the trauma. You’re lucky he doesn’t sue your ass. As it is, he’s called in favors and bounced you from every project you had in the hopper. You better hope Night Terrors IV breaks records. It’ll be your last paycheck ... maybe forever.”
My heart turned to stone. Doubled over, bracing myself against the desk. When Dom made a move toward me, I lifted a hand to halt him.
I had no idea. Dom hadn’t said a word. He’d gone to Oliver Ransom’s office? Everything about the last few days took on a different meaning. I’d seen the look of fury in his eyes when he saw the bruising on my arms. Noreen was right. I was stupid, but not for the reason she thought. I’d been naive to think Domino would let that slide.
“He can’t do that,” I said through heavy breaths. “I have contracts.”
Noreen broke into a shrill laugh. “He’s Oliver Ransom, honey. We’re fucked right now. Do you underst
and that? I tried to clean up this mess. When he caught wind of it, he started messing with some of my other clients. I’m done, Quinn. Done.”
“Noreen.”
“You want to make your own decisions, make them. But I’m not going to let them drag me down with you, sweetie. This is where I get off.”
She hung up on me. I should have been angry. Panicked even. But as Dom stood before me, looking like some warrior carved in stone, calm settled over me. Calm and a fair amount of fury.
“Dom,” I said. He came to me. The door behind him stood open. Zig and the others looked our way.
“You should have told me,” I said. “Going to Ransom. I know why you did it. A part of me loves you for it. But it’s made things very difficult for me.”
“If you’re looking for me to say I’m sorry, I won’t. That fucker doesn’t get to touch you. Not ever.”
“Well, you got your wish,” I said, a bitter laugh erupting from me. “He’s in the process of derailing my entire career.”
“You didn’t want it,” he said. “That’s why you came to Port Az in the first place. Admit it. You needed a change. And dammit, Quinn, as strong as you are, you need somebody to look out for you. Somebody who actually gives a damn about what happens to you.”
I was angry. Though his motives might be more pure, Dom had just done to me what everyone else in my life did. He made decisions for me without including me in them.
“I can’t do this right now,” I said, hating the way he looked at me. “I have to go home. I have to see what I can salvage.”
“Quinn.” He reached for me. I stepped around him into the bar.
“Just ... let me go, Dom. I need to think. I need some space.”
I was torn in two. I wanted to go to him. I wanted to let him fold me in his arms and tell me everything would be all right. But it wouldn’t be. I still had another life.
My memory of what happened next stayed in freeze frame. Dom’s face going cold. His head slowly turning toward the front of the bar. A shout from one of the other Saints. I think it was Chase. A blast of heat and smoke.
Firecrackers went off. The bar mugs hanging on hooks shattered, spraying glass everywhere. The windows at the front of the bar exploded. Screams filled the air as a hail of bullets rained over us. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop.
“Get down!” someone screamed. I think it was Zig.
Dom grabbed me, shielding me with his body as he pulled me to the ground.
Chapter 18
Domino
My vision tunneled as glass sprayed over the bar. There were other noises. There had to be. With almost two hundred people fleeing toward the back room and bullets still coming in, the sound of chaos should have been deafening. But the only thing I heard was Quinn’s scream.
I got her under me. She looked up at me with wild eyes. I felt her heart beating wildly against mine as I pressed my body over hers. She was warm. Alive. But nowhere near safe.
“Dom!” Chase yelled. He had Ariel beneath him as well; her long red hair spilled over the ground. My heart split, I didn’t think Ariel was moving. Then she did. She wriggled partially free, probably so she could breathe.
I put my lips to Quinn’s ear. “Baby, stay down.”
“Dom, don’t!” I was already up, still squatting low. I upended a round table and put it in front of Quinn for a shield. Meeting Chase’s eyes, he nodded and covered Ariel as she scrambled beside Quinn and hid behind the table.
Shep, Chase, Zig, and I regrouped in front of the women. “Where’s Gina?” I asked Zig. His nostrils flared as he looked at me, wild-eyed.
“Not here,” he said. Right. He’d said that before. Shep put a hand on Zig’s shoulders.
“Anybody hit?” Shep called out. There were screams coming from the back, but they didn’t sound like anyone hurt. They sounded like panic.
“Wendy!” Chase yelled. She’d been behind the bar, closest to the exploding glass. She didn’t answer. Chase moved. As Ariel shouted for him to be careful, Chase leaped over the bar. His choked sound cut through me.
“She’s hit,” he said. “In the chest. Wendy, look at me, honey. You stay with me.”
Shep and I stayed low but went for the front door. I saw movement behind me. Ariel and Quinn crawled out from behind the table.
“Stay back!” I shouted. Shep was on one side of the bullet-riddled front door, I was on the other. We heard screeching tires and retreating tail lights.
“Anybody see anything?” Shep hollered.
“No!” Louie, one of the bouncers, knelt just a few feet away from him, sweat dripping slowly down his nose. “Not a damn thing.”
“She needs a doctor, Domino!” Quinn’s shout seared through me. As adrenaline fueled me, her voice kept me grounded. She was okay. Quinn hadn’t been hit.
I ran to the end of the bar. Quinn had Wendy’s head in her lap. Ariel pressed a towel to Wendy’s chest but it was already soaked completely red as she reached for another one. Ariel looked back at me, eyes wide with fear. Her lips had lost all color and she parted them to speak but no words came out. Instead, she just shook her head slowly as a single tear fell from her eye.
“Fuck!” I banged the back of my head against the wall.
“We go to ground,” Zig said. As club secretary, he was our ranking member. “Until we know what the fuck this was about, get everybody back to the clubhouse. Louie, you know what to do. P.A.P.D.’s going to be crawling all over the place in a couple of minutes. We need to get our people out.”
Louie nodded. He was a member of the DiSalvo family and one of Zig’s wife’s cousins. He was still shaking, but the guy had a level head and was already starting to take charge of the rest of the staff. They had the bar patrons herded in the back room.
“I’m not leaving her!” Ariel cried. She locked eyes with Chase. “W-Wendy’s bad, Chase. She’s real bad.”
Chase whistled and gestured with his finger. Two of the waitresses stepped cautiously toward him arm in arm. “Shelly,” Chase said. “You gotta be with Wendy. Keep the bleeding under control as much as you can. Keep talking to her. Anybody call 911?”
“I did,” Shelly said, nodding.
“Good girl.”
“Come on,” Zig said. “I don’t want to end up cooling my heels at the police station. They’ll know where to find us when they need us. For now, I want everyone safe.”
Shelly and the other waitress took over from Ariel and Quinn. Quinn’s shirt was stained with Wendy’s blood. She came to me. I gathered her to me. Her skin felt so cold.
“You should put her on a plane,” Chase said. “Get her the hell away from this.”
I met Zig’s eyes. More than anything, I wished it were that easy. “Baby,” I looked at Quinn. “I need you to trust me for a little while. I’m going to get you out of this, but I need you to do everything I say. Don’t ask questions.”
Her chin quivering, she nodded. Quinn held onto me so tight. I looked over her head at Zig. “Until we know what this is about, Quinn stays with me. Those assholes have our picture plastered all over the internet and television. If anyone’s trying to rattle our cage …”
Zig put up a hand. He knew my mind. If this was the Hawks or some other threat to the club, Quinn wasn’t safe. Someone might try to use her to get to me. Until we knew what was what, I didn’t plan to let her out of my sight.
Zig led the way followed by me with Quinn tucked under my arm. I held her head close, shielding her as we ran out the back toward the bikes, guns drawn. Chase was right behind me, doing the same to shield Ariel. Shep brought up the rear, walking backward and scanning in every direction.
I tossed a helmet to Quinn and she quickly climbed on the back of Bear’s Harley. We peeled out in the same formation as we left the building. That day, that ride was the longest fifteen minutes of my life. We weaved through traffic and took to the sidewalks when we couldn’t. Quinn’s tight grip around my waist kept me from losing my shit altogether.
So close. That had bee
n too fucking close. If Quinn had been sitting at the bar with Ariel like she had been a few minutes before …
My heart started to ease as we made the turn up the dirt road toward the clubhouse. Bear already had some of the probies stationed near the entrance. Even if Zig hadn’t called and got the word to him, Port Azrael was a small enough town he would have heard anyway within minutes.
The probies closed and locked the wrought iron gates behind us as we roared up the drive. Rufus was outside, barking his head off and baring his teeth. The damn dog also knew shit was going down.
The front door of the clubhouse flew open and Mama Bear stood in it along with Axle. We exchanged hard looks as I helped Quinn off the bike and rushed her inside.
“Come on, honey,” Mama bear said, sliding an arm around Quinn’s shoulder. Quinn held my hand in a vise grip. She looked at me as Mama tried to peel her away. I caught Mama’s eyes then cupped Quinn’s face with my hands.
“Go with Mama Bear,” I said. “I need to meet with my crew. This will all be over soon. I promise. Don’t be scared.”
“I’m not,” she said, gasping. “Not for me. I’m worried about that bartender, Wendy.”
Mama made a small, choked sound. “It’s bad,” I said. She needed to know. I knew her healer’s instincts would kick in. She’d want to go to her. Of course, that was out of the question.
“Let the boys talk,” Mama said. Quinn let her pull her away from me. Gina and Maya came out from one of the back rooms. Gina must have headed straight here. Good girl. Mama gave me a nod over her shoulder, reassuring me she could handle things with Quinn just fine. I felt a heavy hand on my back.
