by Jodi Linton
She slid the barrel between Price’s eyes. “Did you tell him about the Sinners being back in the drug market? That our club is ready to shed its goody-two-shoes image and end our dry spell of not selling cocaine on the streets?”
She could only hope. Acting like the club was dealing cocaine again meant one thing: a false front in the drug market, giving her room to push the Sinners’ muscle around in the biker world. Luckily her father had an old debt owed to him by a local drug dealer, and Em offered to wipe the guy’s slate clean if he’d act like she was buying drugs from him. Should she worry that not even her club knew about her under-the-table deal? No. Not like it would’ve changed a damn thing. Taking her club into the legit world of fixing classic bikes had lost them street cred. Street cred she now needed in order to get in the good graces of the local motorcycle clubs so she could acquire inside tips and find out who murdered her fiancé. Not even a Sinner would be granted a plea bargain…not even herself, if she discovered anything she did led to his demise.
Hell, I don’t deserve happiness. Everything or everyone that crosses paths with me I destroy.
Price gulped, the red bull’s-eye tattoo straining on his Adam’s apple. “I swear, Em, I didn’t mention anything about the Sinners to the Vipers. Not a goddamn secret.” His upper lip trembled. “We okay, Connors? I did good, right?”
Speak the truth and you’ll be set free? What bullshit.
She might be the child of a thug, but she never really condoned the lifestyle. In fact, Em had been trying to put the club on the up-and-up ever since her old man fell ill, but all life-altering changes had their fair share of hiccups. Just right now couldn’t be one of those Pollyanna moments. Right now she bled thug through and through. It had become a requirement if she wanted to stay alive in this dirty, backstabbing world.
“Thanks, Price, for being upfront.” She leaned in slowly. “Still. You ratted on the club, and rules are rules.”
Kill or be killed. They’re all gunning for me. What can I do?
Her fingers trembled against the trigger.
I can do this. I have to.
Glancing through the mass of leather, Em locked in on her vice president, Logan Black, his hazel gaze a silent plea to reach within herself and find the woman, not the monster her father had created. To find that foolish woman who’d never shoot a man in cold blood. Sadly, that woman had died ten months ago, along with her tender soul, when her fiancé, the man she was going to spend the rest of her life with, was shot in the head and dropped in a ditch. She started down this dark, twisty path, and now there was nothing left but a hollow product of her original self.
“Shit, Em,” Logan said, parting the crowd of leather. “Give me your motherfucking gun.”
She kept her arm still, gun muzzle pressed into Price’s skull. “When did a club president need her vice president to take out the trash?”
Carefully her vice president slipped his hand around the gun. “When the reason my president has to even be taking out the trash is because of me. Jesus, Em, let me get my revenge. I’m the one who shared the information about him ratting out the club. Price is my kill.”
Price looked at her, and then his shaky gaze drifted to Logan. “I know things, you know? Lots of stuff. Damaging stuff, Em, and if you let me go, I’ll never go behind your back again. I’ll spill. Help you become the head MC president in all of Houston. Sounds good, huh?”
The garage fell silent. Em sucked in a breath, the gun still wedged between her and Logan’s hands, scowling at Price’s pea-green-tinted flushed cheeks. Waiting for the proverbial angel and devil on her shoulders to whisper their advice, she glanced at her vice president. Logan blinked, the concern apparent on his tense face. Had she known this morning might end in a gun showdown would she have been so eager to roll out of bed? Had she understood that today might actually require her to become a real MC president and wield the power of her patch would she have ridden onto club grounds? She didn’t have those answers. Besides, they held no weight. All that mattered was a gun, one man’s words, and her revenge. An eye for an eye always won out. Her decision was made the moment Price said, I know things, you know? Lots of stuff, because only a fool would turn down such information, and Em considered herself one step ahead of the next fool in line to take on the Dirty Sinners patch.
“Em…” Logan tightened his grip around the gun. “Why don’t we put Price’s fate to a vote?”
Her hand slipped slightly on the gun as she allowed Logan’s words to take hold. It was time to become that real MC president. She would hear Price out, let him dig his own grave deeper, and if what he had to say wasn’t satisfactory, her gun and his head would be experiencing this same song and dance very soon. A slight hesitation on her part gave enough of a window for another to step forward in the quiet garage.
She spun just as Price choked out a plea. “Fuck. Please, no.”
Then a gun fired, the hard snap, making her entire body vibrate in disgust.
For a moment Em’s blood froze as his brain matter flung onto the red brick wall like a Rorschach image. Price spasmed, blood pooling in every direction from his massacred head. Then he stilled.
“Motherfucker.” Logan barreled past her. “Who the hell do you think you are, taking matters into your own hands?”
Hammer, the oldest club member, dropped his gun, eyes glazed over and shoulders stiff, and grunted unemotionally. “What?” He shrugged. “I figured the two youngins needed a lesson in rat etiquette. We don’t let snitches live.”
No one said a word, but Em felt every single look questioning her president status, branding her with distrust.
Harden up, Connors. Handle this fuck-up. A true president would get the situation under control.
Logan barked out a warning. “You stupid old man. How about we teach the old-timer a lesson in club status, huh?”
Swallowing the fear busting at her nerves like an open flesh wound, Em stepped over Price’s limp, pale body and barked an order at her men. She needed to prove a point that she still was in control. “That’s enough, Logan.” She cut a glance at her vice president. “Make sure to scrub the cement with bleach. I don’t want any piece of that sack of shit fouling up my garage.”
“I’ll send some guys on a ride out to the docks to dump his body in the bay.” Logan knelt down by Price and rolled his eyes shut with his thumb. “No need to worry about cops sniffing around the Sinners, either. I’ll make sure to tie up all Price’s loose ends.” The vice president cocked his head, gesturing at two club members huddled near the storage room. “Y’all grab the trash bags and get this body wrapped up. Hammer,” Logan barked, his voice a gruff base, thumping authority Em desired to possess, “meet them out back and help get rid of our problem. Then come and scrub the garage floors.”
Em snapped her spine straight, the frustration she felt toward another fuck-up churned angrily in her gut. Very slowly, she inhaled a sharp breath. “If anyone needs me, I’ll be in my office. Otherwise, Logan’s in charge of this cleanup.” She could feel the natural urge to flee the scene creeping into her bones. Taking hold of her reaction, she turned on the old-timer MC member and said, “And, Hammer, you do something stupid like that again, and it’ll be your brains that are being mopped up.”
Logan gave her a curt nod as he straightened his leather cut.
Then she marched off to her office, not taking the time to look back at the mess or her men. Most importantly, she couldn’t stand to see the concerned look on Logan’s face a second longer.
Once inside her office with the door locked, she’d barely managed to crank the volume up on the radio before a wave of tremors shivered down her spine. She’d just watched a man get murdered. He was an insufferable fool at best, but he was still a man.
Badass, my butt. It’s about time I hardened up. Stop acting like some fucking girl. A princess.
What type of lover couldn’t seek justice against the people responsible for her fiancé’s death? Em knew exactly the type…h
er. Next time she’d do it. Next time her finger would pull the trigger.
Hands greasy in sweat, lips parched and thirsty, she swallowed the tears begging to escape in a torrent of screams. Axle, the old man, had been right. Taking on the club changed a man…or woman, for that matter. Needing to collect her thoughts, she quickly rushed into the adjoining bathroom and splashed cold water on her face. The residue of death scorched her flesh. Turning the water to a scalding heat, she stuck both hands, palms up, under the stream. The burn suppressed a torrid of painful memories. Memories of watching her dad brutally beat men with his bare fists during her childhood or those moments when he decided who lived to breathe another day.
You’re a criminal, honey.
Bloodshot eyes mocked the glazed-over expression occupying her face. Fuck. In a fever, she stripped off her shirt and shed the leather pants sticking to her legs like a second skin. After wiping down her naked body, she threw on a change of clothes she kept stocked at the clubhouse and began to fiercely scrub under her crimson-painted nails. Her cream-colored flesh blistered red as water rushed over her knuckles. The gold bracelet, her only possession from her deceased fiancé, shook about her wrist.
She hadn’t been able to let go of the present he’d given her on her twenty-third birthday. Now, every day, it was a reminder of the beautiful lie her life had turned in to. A cold chill slid down her spine. Frustration socked her in the gut at the knowledge she was no more help than some stranger when it came to solving her fiancé’s murder. Their assailant might have concealed his true identity by blindfolding her that night, and yet she’d never forget his smell and the sound of his voice. Or the rancid taste of his mouth against her lips. She’d overheard her attacker talking on the phone to some Vipers MC member just before he pulled the trigger and killed Wes. In her gut, Em knew someone high up in the motorcycle gangs put the hit on her lover. Her revenge ran deep, and it would bleed dry the day her bullet found a home in his killer’s head. For the past ten months she’d been tracking down leads, and they all seemed to point at Cyrus Benedict, the Vipers president, and she would kill the bastard to gain justice for Wes. Why hadn’t her father left the Dirty Sinners to Logan? He was better cut out for the job. If he had, she would have never crossed paths with her fiancé or gotten him killed.
Drying her hands, she stepped back inside the room decorated in old family photos, club memorabilia, and her father’s retired leather cut. She rounded the desk and picked up a photo featuring the club elders. Her thumb tapped the glass, skimming a nail across Price’s face. Slowly but surely she’d keep her promise to her dead lover. She tossed the frame in a nearby trash can before zeroing in on a Post-it note branded in a coffee-cup-ring stain on her desk. Scribbled in her terrible penmanship was a phone number and the words Call Abby Harper so boldly she felt the urge to chuck another memento in the trash.
How many people could she string along before the house of cards tumbled down on her ass? Em sure wasn’t about to stick around to find out. She had a plan. The same one she’d made the day her lover had been laid to rest in the cold, hard ground—although all participating parties might not have seen the same blueprint.
The phone rang, startling her. Dropping the note on a stack of unanswered invoices, she picked up the phone and answered, “It’s me, what do you need?”
“We have a visitor. You want me to send him packing?” Logan replied.
As she stood inside her office, nothing seemed any different from the horrific years her father ruled the club in blood, guts, and anarchy. She was a product of that shit. And this morning proved she had quite a long way to go before putting the past behind her.
Brought back by a gruff, throaty sound, Em turned her attention to the phone as Logan added, “He specifically asked to see you.”
An unwarranted shock of pride that he’d known who ran the show rippled through her.
“Em…” her vice president belted over the line again.
“Tell him I’ll be right there.” She disconnected the call and took a moment to sweep her office.
Noticing the blood-splattered clothes she’d just worn still lying about the office floor, Em scooped them up and stashed the garments in a nearby locked drawer. She walked over to the window and parted the mini-blinds with a finger.
Resting a hip against a Harley parked behind the garage’s tow truck was a man baring an uncanny resemblance to her old lover, from the way he carried himself to the stern look on his face. She recognized the package. Shady and dangerous to the core. It scared the shit out of her that the one type of man she tried to steer clear of happened to ride onto her club grounds like some knight in shining armor on the day she’d watched a man get offed under her roof. Windblown, sun-kissed locks fell haphazardly against his hard darkened jawline, as if a woman had just run her fingers through them. There was a slight crook to the pleasant smile slanting across his mouth. Lower, lower. Her gaze dropped as she soaked in his broad shoulders, masculine frame, and bad-boy stance that had called to her like a moth to a flame. She shouldn’t allow his body to be on her mind, but there it was and streaming in live feed. He slipped a pair of aviator sunglasses down his nose, glancing a little longer than necessary around the property. Widening his stance—long, dark, denim-clad legs—he shrugged off the black leather jacket and whipped out a devastatingly handsome set of inked guns. He might ooze “I’m sexy and I know it,” but still the man was a stranger. Best to keep her head on straight.
Remember that, honey, when you’re fantasizing about the handsome stud’s hands on your body. Everyone has an ulterior motive, even the sexy stranger taking up precious Dirty Sinners’ space.
As she crossed by the mirror, she saw one unruly brown curl plastered down the side of her cold, sweaty cheek. She tucked it back into place, then pushed open her office door, feeling the sunlight bathe her midriff.
Showtime, Connors.
Chapter Three
Photos have a way of skewing reality.
Cade leaned back against his Harley and slid the aviator sunglasses down his nose. Words escaped him. When he told the hotheaded biker at twelve o’clock, who seemed ready to throat punch him, that he needed to speak with Em Connors, Cade never suspected the burning reaction he was experiencing right now. This new feeling was a different kind of danger, because it seized him from the inside, and all he could think about was the spectacular vision of Em Connors shaking her hips toward him. Jesus, it’d been a bad idea to go into this undercover gig after a ten-month sexual dry spell, because the photo hadn’t done Em Connors justice. She was exactly what he’d tried to distance himself from. Sexy, badass chick, who called the shots in a man’s world. He could do this. It was just a job. She was just another case.
He crossed his arms and watched her scowl slightly falter into a frown. “Em Connors, I assume?”
She ignored his question.
Damn. “That’s okay. I’m not much of a chatterbox, either.”
This time he noticed a small smile. Against his better judgment, Cade focused on the femme fatale—her long, perfectly formed legs wrapped in leather pants and her voluptuous chest covered in a tight black tank—strutting farther out into the sunlight. She didn’t appear to be a hardened criminal but a siren luring men to their every want, desire—or death. Focus, asshole. You’re here to nail Wes’s killer. He had expected Em to be a stunner, but he never anticipated the sudden urge to drag her home and into his bed. With silky dark curls cascading over her shoulders, kissable crimson-stained lips, and decked out in black leather, Em Connors was every biker’s wet dream, including his. Too bad she’d spend the next fifty years or more behind bars once he got done with her.
Lace-up, knee-high boots stopped in front of him, and his gaze instantly rose to her piercing eyes. She shifted on her feet. “You my mystery caller?”
Stop staring at the blue-eyed babe, Cade. Besides, she’d nail your ass for even thinking she’s a babe. Yet he couldn’t get past the warmth in her gaze. Fuck. It contra
dicted everything about the cold, empty woman in the photo Roland had shown him.
He whipped his sunglasses off and kicked away from the bike, forcing himself to look somewhere else, anywhere but at those aqua eyes. “It seems I already made an impression,” he said, letting out a low whistle. “Tell me, was it my bike, my leather cut, or my good looks? I’m willing to put money on all three.”
Good one, Jackson. Real motherfucking casual.
“Someone is full of himself, I see.” The sarcastic undertone in her voice wasn’t lost on him as she moved closer. “Are you here to be a comedian, Outlaw, because I don’t like my time wasted, and you’re using up plenty of it. For your sake, I hope you have a good reason for stepping foot on Dirty Sinners’ turf.”
He used one of his signature smiles on her, the kind that always got the chick to leave with him after one beer. “Last night at Throttle I ran into a biker who said your club was looking for a second mechanic. I’m here to apply.”
She leveled him with a glare, obviously not giving a fuck about the charming smile he’d just pulled from his undercover toolbox. “Well, if they let you into Throttle, you must be a trustworthy biker.” Her brow arched as her gaze traveled down his body, then back up toward his face. “They’re known for their upstanding clientele.”
Beautiful and a smart-ass. He could work with that. Just the kind of woman he’d want in his life. But this chick would not, could not fill that gaping hole inside him.
Cade puffed long and hard on his smoke as he drank in the sexy woman shooting daggers his way. “Depends on who you’re asking. Some folks might beg to differ on the ‘upstanding’ part.”
She let out a quick laugh, then flipped her long dark curls out of her face. “What if I ask around? Will other clubs vouch for you? Because my club doesn’t take too kindly to hang-arounds,” she said while gesturing at the big guy crunching his knuckles. “Just ask my men. They’ll back me on that one.”
