by Violet Blaze
Glacier and I exchange a look. Just after my friends showed up, he got a call from Royal. Apparently, one of the club's dealers spotted the other cartel asshole they were looking for outside a bed and breakfast near Trinidad Head late last night. The idiot didn't bother to call and let anyone know until first light, but it doesn't matter. My husband, he's the club's enforcer and he has to follow up on the lead.
“When do you think you'll be back?” I ask as he looks down at me with lust and affection burning behind the paleness of his blue gaze.
“I'll make it sooner rather than later,” he says with a smooth lilt to his voice that makes Loren shiver again. “If you go anywhere, take your gun and wear my jacket.”
I smile crookedly.
“I will,” I say, reaching forward to the coffee table and grabbing my laptop. I managed to write about a thousand words while Glacier was on the phone making inquiries this morning. I still can't decide if my hero's going to be a true psychopath or … if he's going to have a gentle heart underneath all his ice like Glacier.
“Serenity,” he says, just before he heads out into the garage. I look back at him. “I love you.”
“Oh my god!” Aletha squeals, clamping her hands over her mouth as I blush like crazy, probably the worst blush I've ever had in my life. And I do not blush very easily.
“Shut up, Aletha,” I growl as Glacier winks at me and ducks out the door.
The next time I see him, he'll be covered in blood.
Jack's facial expression is beyond fucking priceless.
I want to rip it right off his goddamn skull.
“If I were a lesser man,” I say, casual as can be, noticing that Smoky's giving me this shut the fuck up look that I'm ignoring, “I would kill you for the way you treat your daughter.”
“You're a real piece of work, you know that?” Jack snarls, like a rabid dog. “There's something so wrong about you that it makes my skin crawl.”
“And why's that? Because you don't love your daughter as much as I do?”
Jack comes at me, but our sergeant at arms is ready for it, putting a stop to the fight before it can even start. I smack my gum and stare at Jack as he growls under his breath and throws Smoky off, pacing in a tight circle in front of the clubhouse. It's all men on deck this morning, trying to snuff the little cartel weasel out of his hole. I got the information I needed from his buddy, Francisco, but it's not enough. We need that other piece of trash to drop on the FBI's doorstep. Then and only then will this whole nightmare truly be over.
“If you're disowning your daughter,” I continue as Smoky groans and rubs his hand down his scruffy face, “then I suppose I don't owe you the courtesy of not talking about how good I fucked my old lady last night. That's all she is, right? Just my wife now.”
Jack makes this sound that I find disturbingly satisfying.
“I don't give a shit what the two of you do in your own home,” he spits, turning away towards the sea of men on bikes, the roaring of engines filling the misty air. I grab my crossbow and swing the strap over my shoulder. “Just my leave my wife and me out of it. You wanted my daughter? You got her. I'm done with this goddamn conversation.”
“Call her,” I snap, and my voice gets dark enough to draw Jack's eyes back over to me. “Or I swear to Christ, for the disrespect you and your wife show me, I will kick your ass. And Jack, without Serenity around to hold me back, I can hardly be held responsible for what I'll do.”
“Why should you give a fuck if I call Serenity?” he snaps, running his hand down his beard, lifting his chin in challenge. The word treasurer sits over the front pocket on his cut, the leather rustling in the breeze.
“Do you know why I fell for her?” I ask, tilting my head to the side, not caring that most of my brothers are staring at me like I'm some sort of freak. That part of this equation isn't new. The reason they're staring at me is though, I'm sure. Most of them have never seen me with a woman, and now I've got a wife. Must come as quite the shock. “Because she had that same look in her eyes,” I point two fingers at my face, “like somebody that was cast off, written off, forgotten. A tool, an extra, an aside.” I drop my hand and smile wickedly. “I taught her to ride a bike,” I say, not bothering to keep my voice low, “two years ago. That was when I first saw light in darkness, Jack. And I tried to stay away from her, but the beast will have what it will, and she, she's got my leash.”
“You have a leash?” he scoffs, looking at me like I'm less than nothing to him. But he's scared of me; I can see it written all over his face. Good. He should be. Because for the way he and Fauna treat Serenity, I could kill them both. “I find that hard to believe. Well, maybe not so hard. You put a bitch on a bike, so I guess maybe you are whipped?”
I laugh, so loud and raucous and caustic that nobody has the guts to laugh at Jack's joke or say a damn word about Serenity and her bike.
“Whipped? Oh, Jack.” I drop my head and grin, running my tattooed hand up my neck. I know he can see the word DEAD, can see the silver of my wedding band. “I kill men with my bare hands. I make them bleed their truth in red, and I paint with their pain. Don't make the mistake of thinking my love for Serenity makes me weak. On the contrary, I'm twice as dangerous now as I was before. I have something to live for, to protect. And if I want my old lady to ride a damn bike, who are you to tell me otherwise? Are you going to stop me from doing it? Kick my ass? Or maybe you want to take my colors and spend your nights pulling teeth from skulls?”
I pause and look around, smiling a shark smile at the men around me. Smoky sighs dramatically.
“No, I didn't think so. My wife holds my monster, so you should consider yourselves lucky. But if she were to give the word …” I drag a finger across my tattooed throat. “Let's just say it wouldn't end well for you. Call her, Jack, and don't make me ask you again.”
“You blokes ready out here?” Royal asks, coming down the clubhouse steps with Mick and Dober at his sides. He looks around at the suddenly quiet courtyard and immediately glances in my direction, taking note of my smile and shivering slightly. “Fucking hell, Saint. What's going on out here?”
“Nothing much at all, Pres,” I say, saluting him and making sure the dark hell of my smile and my gaze is still focused on Jack. He glances away sharply and doesn't say a damn thing.
“Jesus Christ,” Royal says, shaking his head before sliding his hand down his face and then ratcheting up a sharp grin for our gathered brothers. “Let's get out there and find this fucker, so we can be done with this shit and clean the FBI out of Trinidad. You know what you're supposed to do. Now bugger off and get it done.”
He turns to look at me as I lean casually back and stare at him.
“I can't wait to bring this damn chapter to a close,” he says and I nod, thinking of all the brothers we lost to the cartel last month, about my prospect, Sketch, lying in a hospital bed, about our dead brother, Landon, that Royal had to take down himself. I think that'll haunt him forever. But at least now I have some idea of how he's dealing with the pain. With Serenity in my life, I can think I can put all of that behind me, maybe even my own horrid past.
“Then let's do it,” I say with another grin, “let's find this son of a bitch so I can go home to my fucking wife.”
Before Jack climbs on his bike, he looks back at me one last time and I get the idea that later, he might just call his damn daughter back.
We have every available brother in the Alpha Wolves MC out looking for Tiago Razo, but it's like looking for a needle in a damn haystack—at least for everyone else. For me, it's about picking up the right scent.
“I can't believe it's fucking dark out,” Royal snarls as he climbs on his bike outside of one of the seedier strip clubs. Got to make our rounds at all the bars and dives in town obviously. But I don't think we'll find Tiago here. “This should've been done hours ago.”
“Mm. Tell me about it,” I breathe, glancing at my phone. Serenity and her friends are heading out to Lost Coast Park to dri
nk which is fine by me. I won't cage or leash her; I'm the only one that needs a collar here. But as soon as I'm done, I'm joining her, pulling her into my lap and tossing back a beer. I don't think I've ever actually craved anything in my life quite like I'm craving that. How interesting. “I have a hot young wife that needs to be satisfied, so the sooner we find this piece of shit, the better.”
“Look at you, Saint. You're almost bloody normal now,” Royal says as the radio at his waist crackles and he answers it. Just more bad news. No sign of the snitching cartel fuck. At least we know now where their sex trafficking operation is being run out of, some shit hole in San Bernardino. Maybe Special Agent Heather Shelley will be able to find her sister? I have no idea, but I wish her the best of luck. I might be a monster, but there are other breeds, other strains of beast that I find deplorable. The men who run this cartel happen to be more than worthy of my ministrations and my knife.
I'm a monster who kills monsters.
“Oh, almost,” I say as I take a deep breath of the cool night air and try to put myself into the mind of a rat like Tiago Razo. If I were scurrying in the underbelly, where would I hide? I think for a moment and then feel a frown cross my face. “I think we should check the house,” I say and Royal gives me a look over his shoulder; he knows exactly what I'm talking about.
Last month, the cartel managed to sniff out our little hideout at the cemetery. Since Smoky and I nabbed Tiago's buddy, there's a chance he might come looking for him—if only to put a bullet in his head and silence him. Might be a long shot, but it's worth checking out.
“Lead the way,” Royal says, slipping a helmet on his head and kick-starting his bike.
I must have good intuition because when we get to the house, it's clear that someone's been snooping around. Of course, the pantry and the trap door are shut and locked, no sign of any entry there, but somebody did smash the mirror and the glass shower door out upstairs.
That's when I figure it out and the thought flashes this completely foreign idea of terror straight through me. I bend down and pick up Serenity's torn panties from the floor, sliced neatly up the side by my knife. My words, when I speak them, are frigid hell.
“He's going to go after my fucking wife.”
I wear Glacier's colors out when we head to the park, the nine mil he gave me tucked into a purple purse that swings by my side as we walk up the hill to our favorite tree and Loren lays out the usual blanket.
“It depends on the club,” I explain to Tom and Otto as they examine the leather jacket and the patches on the back of it, staring into the eyes of the snarling wolf's face in the center of my back. “Some clubs, old ladies can babysit their man's colors, but they can never wear them. Some clubs, it's like a sign of … I don't know, ownership or something. Sometimes, women wear jackets that say Property of with their old man's name on the bottom.”
“Ownership, property, I'm not liking this, Serenity,” Loren says he kneels down on the blanket and starts unpacking all our shit. We've got an iPad for movies and tunes, some beer, whiskey, chips, bags of miniature candy bars, some weed that I probably won't smoke. I like to be clearheaded and sharp around Glacier, take all of him in—in more ways than one.
“That's not why I'm wearing it,” I tell him, sitting down with crossed legs and glancing up at the swaying tree branches above our heads. “In this area, the Wolves control everything, the whole underground. It's one of the reasons they let their old ladies fly their colors. It lets everyone else know that if they touch her, they'll fucking regret it later. It's a form of protection. In some areas, it might be bad news, like if there were warring clubs or something. But up here, it's just us, just the Wolves.” I pinch the shoulder of the jacket. “This keeps me safe.”
“So you won't, like, get mugged or raped or something?” Aletha asks breathlessly, leaning close to me and grabbing my left hand so she can rub her thumb across the sapphire setting in my ring. It's an oval, surrounded by tiny diamonds. I wonder if he chose it because we both have blue eyes? Anyway, even though I didn't really want a ring, it's pretty, simple, classic.
“Basically, yeah.”
“Let's get fucked-up,” Otto says, lighting up a joint and leaning back into Aletha's lap while Tom and Rayna snuggle on the opposite side of the blanket. I glance across the space between me and Loren, thinking how crazy different it is tonight than it was last time we hung out here.
I smile at him.
“Don't be sad for me, Loren. You know me. If I didn't want this, I wouldn't be a part of it. Nobody could ever make me do something I didn't want to.”
“Even that weird … whatever bathroom sex,” he whispers between the two currently snogging couples on either side of us. Otto takes breaks between kisses to smoke the joint, but both sets sort of just get going and leave Loren and me out as usual. Makes no difference that tonight's my supposed 'bachelorette party'.
I smile.
“Even that,” I promise him, scooting forward and plopping down on the blanket next to him. “I know it bothered you, and it should've. I know what it looked like, but it wasn't that. Glacier just … he needs to be touched and loved, and I like touching and loving on him, so it works out okay for us.”
Loren smiles tightly as I tug on the red fabric of his hoodie.
“You're a really good fucking friend, Lor. Honestly, I didn't think you'd talk to me after … you walked in on all of that. But you did. I mean, just like that. We didn't even really have to hash things out.”
“Yeah, well,” he says, bumping his shoulder gently against mine, “I care about you, Ren. And even if you don't love me, I still love you, and I want you to be happy.” He pauses and looks over at me, brushing dark hair from his face. “If this guy … Saint or whatever, if he makes you happy then it's worth it.”
I wrap my arm through Loren's and lean my head against his.
“He makes me happy,” I promise, and my words couldn't be anymore truthful. “I promise you, if he ever stops making me happy”—which I highly doubt could ever happen—“then you'll be the first to know, okay?”
“Okay, Ren,” he says and then grabs a pair of beers from the surface of the blanket. “Drink to your underage wedding then?” I laugh and take one from him, letting him pop the top off with the opener on his key chain. That moment, sitting there with my friends, a wedding ring glinting on my finger, it's one of those perfect slices of time, so pure they can never be recreated. You just have to enjoy them while they're there and hold them in your heart forever.
We're clinking our bottles together when I notice some guys stalking up the hill towards us. I don't really worry about them at first. Usually when we hang out here and somebody shows up, they're just trying to score some weed or a free beer.
But then I notice the way they're walking, like they've got a purpose.
“Shit.”
“What's wrong?” Loren asks as I rise to my feet, my purse held at my side. I dig my fingers into it and wrap them around the hilt of the gun. Growing up in the club, I damn sure know how to use it.
“Can we help you?” I ask, ignoring Loren's question as he rises to his feet next to me. Otto's the next to notice that something's wrong, and he stands up, too. Aletha just chugs her beer obliviously while Rayna and Tom round second base. “Hello?”
The man in the front of the pack—there's three of the assholes total—lifts up his hand and fires off a shot before I can even register what the hell's going on. It all happens in this crazy surreal sort of slow motion, stealing my breath away, flushing me with terror. My fight or flight instinct kicks in and I raise my own gun up, shooting the man on the right directly through his left eye. It's not even purposeful, really. I just … react in that moment and it happens.
Aletha screams bloody murder as both Loren and the man I just shot collapse to the ground at the same time. Blood speckles the night air like droplets of still rain, looking for a split second like they're frozen against the backdrop of a starry sky.
“
Run!” I scream as the third man fires off a shot that hits Otto in his right arm, making him stumble backwards like he's drunk. I fire off another few rounds, but I'm shaking so badly with adrenaline that I actually miss the two live men and hit the fallen body of the third. I think I just killed somebody. That thought runs through my brain in a loop, but I don't have time to stop and examine it.
Loren is on the ground by my side and I didn't see where he got shot and my mind is racing like crazy, trying to figure out a way out of this.
Fortunately, my friends aren't fucking idiots and they listen to me, scrambling to their feet, taking off across the dewy grass and leaving me, Loren, and Otto behind. It's not an act of cowardice; they simply don't have any way to defend themselves, and it's better they run now than get shot, too.
“You'd best back off while you still have the chance to run,” I say, lifting a finger and pointing at my jacket. I'm so … confused right now. What kind of idiot would attack a club wife like this? But then I think about my mom and … Mom got shot; Mom got shot; Mom got shot.
This guy, he's from the cartel. This is the man that Glacier's been looking for all fucking day.
And somehow, he found me here.
“My husband will cut your balls off,” I say, my voice steady, my heart pounding. Next to me, Loren groans so at least for the moment, he's alive. “Literally.”
“You, let's go,” the man in the front says, gesturing with his gun. “You come with us, and we'll walk away real easy right now. Don't make me put a bullet in your friend's face.”
My heart is throbbing right now, and I have no idea what to do.
Make your last stand where you stood all along. That's what my dad used to say. Basically, what that means is don't fucking go anywhere with anyone. It's the first basic rule of self-defense and survival. If these guys mean harm—which they clearly do—and they're willing to shoot innocent kids, what good will come from me leaving with them? Nothing. Nothing at all. More than likely, I'll be raped and killed.
