by Unknown
“Okay, I’m not pansy-assed because I think that’s some sick shit, asshole. I guess I should have just left once I had the information Bone and I needed about the Jackals. Lesson learned. You Bandits are some hardcore bastards, aren’t you?” Dog uttered as he turned away from Tom and walked over to sit down in a chair at the table with Iron by the back door.
Iron grinned, shaking his head at Dog’s whining, mouthing ‘fucking pussies’ to Animal while Dog’s back was turned. Pansy had gone out to get the tarp to put the body in so that they could take it outside and burn it. That was easier than burying him after all. Tom didn’t deserve the courtesy of a burial anyway; trash was thrown out, not cared for.
“Yes, we’re hardcore, but that wasn’t even sort of hardcore. Your club’s getting soft if you think so.” Animal sat down with Iron and Dog, who looked back and forth between him and Iron.
“Fuckers, we’re not getting soft. Maiming the fucker wasn’t necessary. He was going to die. Why did you need it to be like that?” Dog said, his face a little disgusted.
“Huh, guess we just don’t do shit the way you guys do. Must be all those old ladies making you sons of bitches all made of hearts and flowers. I hear most of you have them now,” Iron told him chuckling.
“Fuck, that doesn’t make us soft, dickhead. Our women make us fight harder and we might take a few less risks because we want to come home in one piece to them but that’s all it does. Besides didn’t I hear that Reaper now has an old lady and a kid? Bet he’s the soft one.” Dog chuckled.
“Hah, I can see even your spy network is soft. Sarah is almost as deadly as Reaper is and I’m telling you if you ever fuck with her or her family you will regret it. I watched her shoot a man full of two-dozen bullets and he was still breathing till that last one to the head. He screamed even louder than Tom did tonight. I’ve never seen anything like it. She shot him, then cauterized the wounds to keep him from losing too much blood and passing out so he felt every bullet and when she kept sticking her fingers into the wounds to see how bad they were.” Animal paused, a slight shiver of remembered revulsion going through him before he continued. “Talk about tough, that woman has fucking steel in her veins and she don’t play when it comes to torture.” Animal snorted as he leaned back on two legs in the chair, laughing with Iron who was also there the night that Sarah had tortured Buck, a former Bandits member who’d betrayed them.
“What the fuck? A woman fucking tortured a man that way? I don’t believe that shit. You have to be fucking with me, right?” Dog asked, his face clearly filled with disbelief.
“Nope, I was there too. Trust me, Sarah didn’t make Reaper soft in any way other than that he makes damned sure to keep her informed because she would likely shoot his ass in the nuts if he didn’t,” Iron told him, pouring drinks for the four of them, filling each glass with a little bit of whiskey to celebrate the death of the fucker who’d hurt his woman.
“Holy fuck. I can’t believe that Reaper found a woman who can be just as cold and deadly as he is. I would have thought that wasn’t possible. He has a reputation even with us as a lethal fighter who will shoot you as soon as look at you. And now you’re telling me that not only is that true but he now has a female counterpart who’s just as dangerous.” Dog took the whiskey, looking up when Pansy came back into the warehouse with the plastic tarp. Pansy threw it down a little ways from the body and came over to the table, lifting the whiskey to his lips.
“What are we talking about?” he questioned after a long swig.
“Reaper and Sarah. And that the Devils are all a bunch of pussies,” Iron said, setting his empty glass on the table.
Animal chuckled when Dog scowled at him and growled, “We are not pussies. You assholes are just fucked up is all.”
“Sure, it’s us, not you and your soft squeamish ways. Yep, I’m sure that’s what it is,” Animal said, taking the last swig of his whiskey to Dog’s angry cussing about them and their fucked up ways of doing things while they all laughed at him.
Chapter 20
Sarah handed Sammy the next box of supplies that she had inventoried in the storage room at Ink Bandits. Sammy shoved it onto the shelf with an absentminded sigh. Having waited for three days to hear from Animal regarding what was going on with the search for Tom, today she was a bit out of sorts and if she hadn’t promised to help Sarah with this inventory she would likely be at home moping. Instead she was here, taking things off the shelves for Sarah to count and catalog while Sammy paid the least amount of attention to the task.
She just wasn’t in the mood for this today because she wanted to know if Animal and his friends had found Tom yet. It was a relief to think that when Animal returned there could be no doubt that Tom was dead and he was never returning to hurt her again. It would be a load off her mind because that had been a fear in the back of her mind from the day she managed to climb out of the hovel he’d left her in and get herself to a doctor. Sammy was never sure if he had meant for her to die in that little room in a building across town or if he wanted her to live with the knowledge of what he’d done to her. She didn’t think she wanted to know the answer to that question really, the more she thought about it. Sammy took down another box, handing it to Sarah.
“Enough with the complete silence, Sam. What the heck is going on in that head of yours today?” Sarah asked after taking the box from her and opening it. She glanced briefly at Sammy before she began to unload the items to count and categorize.
“Nothing, I’m fine,” Sammy told her, trying not to allow her true feelings of unease to show. It wasn’t that she didn’t want Tom dead because after what he had done to her she didn’t really think his lack of breathing would make her bat an eyelash. She did however have mixed feelings about her being the reason they went after Tom. She didn’t think it was her fault. Tom, after all, was the one who had fucked with a woman who had soon after gotten mixed up in an MC and everyone knew that MCs didn’t fuck around when it came to punishing those who hurt one of their own.
Tom made his choice when he decided to make her a victim, but she was a little apprehensive that she was the reason Animal had to kill a man. She also didn’t want to know the details of the inevitable conversation between Animal and Tom. She had a feeling that it was going to involve a lot of Tom screaming for Animal to have mercy, which she knew he’d never receive. Animal wasn’t the forgiving type and if you violated his rule set, you ended up paying for your sins when he dished out the revenge he felt was warranted for your crimes.
“You don’t think for a second I believe that, do you?” Sarah asked, her eyes meeting Sammy’s as she turned from the ink she had been counting from the last box Sammy had handed her.
“What?” she asked, trying to look innocent as if her mind wasn’t racing a hundred miles a minute with scenarios that endangered Animal, Pansy and Iron and it being her fault. What if Tom had friends and Animal or one of the others ended up getting hurt or worse, dead. Not that she truly thought that could happen to any of those three men. They were a law unto themselves and those three were nearly as deadly as her best friend turned out to be.
“Sammy, I know you and I can tell that your brain is racing around with crazy ideas. It’s one of the things I love about you, but right now I’m not too fond of it. Normally it’s not hyper focused on a shitty man who doesn’t deserve the time you are putting into worrying about his death,” Sarah said, laying the clipboard down and turning to face her fully, her arms crossed over her chest and her eyes narrowed.
“I’m not worried about his death.” Sarah raised an eyebrow and Sammy sighed. “I’m not!”
“Then tell me what is making you so pensive.” Sarah stared at her, leaning back into the table she was standing in front of. Sammy sighed huffily and sat down on the crate behind her, laying her head back against the wall. She didn’t want to tell Sarah she was worried about sending Animal into danger and him getting hurt over her because even she knew that it was a stupid worry. Animal could an
d would take care of himself. He wasn’t going to end up hurt and she was being ridiculous thinking about it.
Having taken all she could of Sarah’s silent demand for answers, Sammy threw her arms up in frustrated annoyance and cried out, “I don’t like that Animal had to go after him because of me, okay! It’s not right.”
“That’s why you’re moping around here like a droopy puppy? Seriously? Sammy, that’s ridiculous. If it wasn’t him, it would have been another person from the club because Reaper wasn’t going to allow something like that to slide. This had nothing to do with your relationship with Animal, you know that, right?” Sarah said as she sat down next to her, pulling her into a hug.
“If you hadn’t met Reaper and become a part of this club, they never would have gone after him and that makes this my fault, Sarah,” Sammy voiced the true reason she was so upset over this situation with Tom.
“Ha, don’t bet on it. If someone from that club had found out about what happened to you the outcome would have been the same whether I was with Reaper or not. Animal and Pansy own part of Spangles as you know and I can promise you that neither of them would have allowed that to go on in their club even if it did involve some random woman they had never met. It’s bad for business if women can’t feel safe there, so no, it’s not your fault,” Sarah told her as she sat back beside her, her head leaning against the wall next to Sammy’s. She pulled her legs up, hugging them. The pose was almost laughable because it made her seem like a child and Sarah was far from that in so many ways. Sammy laughed a bit at Sarah before she finally spoke.
“Don’t try to make it seem like this was an inevitable outcome, Sarah. It’s not one. Who would have found out about what happened to me if it wasn’t for me knowing you and you being Reaper’s old lady?” Sammy asked on a loud sigh.
“Um, Mark for one. Sammy, you know he would have told Animal if you weren’t already part of the MC because he wouldn’t have let that slide. I’ve met him and he’s just as overbearingly male as the rest of this crew is. I’m actually surprised he isn’t part of the MC because I would have expected him and Lucian to be members,” Sarah told her, with slight disbelief over the two men she mentioned not being in the club coloring her words.
“Mark wouldn’t have known anything and you know it,” Sammy insisted, trying to reason with Sarah.
“Really? You told me a few weeks ago that you tried to have him help you get over the trauma of that night, didn’t you?” Sarah demanded.
“Yes.”
“Exactly and if a submissive woman he was familiar with suddenly becomes afraid of the very thing that made her scream in blissful pleasure a few weeks before, what do you think would have happened?” Sarah asked her, with raised brows and a knowing look that annoyed the piss out of Sammy because she was right, damn it.
“Fine, he would have found out that way,” Sammy agreed, because Mark would have investigated the issue and likely would have talked to Lucian, Animal, and Pansy about it, which would have ended with her being questioned by those men and her inevitable confession about Tom. Sarah was right about that but it still would have been her fault and she would feel the same way she did right now sitting here in this room with her friend. She just didn’t want to be the cause of so much trouble. Sammy didn’t like that someone besides Tom might get hurt and she would be the one to blame, all because she liked to be tied up and dominated.
“Oh geez, you’re still blaming yourself, aren’t you? Sammy, this is Tom’s fault, not yours. He hurt you and he deserves whatever he gets and you can stop feeling guilty. If it wasn’t Animal going after the bastard, it would have been me. You know that the personality I wore a year ago wasn’t really me and I can promise you that if this had happened before I met Reaper, I would have gone after Tom over his hurting you in a heartbeat. It wouldn’t matter how desperately I was holding the truth of who I was in check. You and Josh were all I had, don’t think for one moment that I wouldn’t have handled it. It’s that simple. No one messes with my family, which is why I fit in with Reaper and the MC so well. I get their family first mantra,” Sarah exclaimed.
She was up on her feet pacing back and forth as she let out her impassioned speech and Sammy wasn’t surprised that she was so adamant that she would have gone after Tom herself because knowing Sarah like she now did, Sammy didn’t doubt for a second that the woman was being truthful. Snorting out a rueful laugh, she realized that no matter how she diced it, Tom would have died by the hand of one of the people who cared for her because when you were part of a family, that was how things worked.
She couldn’t say that if she was faced with an injury to Sarah, Josh or hell, even Animal that she wouldn’t go after that person with a vengeance despite her lack of abilities. She would kill for any of them, she realized, a bit shocked by the discovery for several reasons. The first one was that she could contemplate such violence and the second was that Animal was included in that thought. That was the moment she realized that she had made a mistake over the past few weeks of enjoying fantastic sex with Animal and she ended up blurting it out.
“Oh my God, I’m in love with him!”
Sarah looked confused as she stopped her pacing to stare at her in open-mouthed surprise before she stuttered out, “Wha––wait, who are you in love with?”
“Animal. Oh God, Sarah, I’m in love with him. What the hell am I going to do now?” Sammy asked, banging her head into the wall and wondering how the hell she could be so freaking stupid as to fall in love with a man who had made it very clear he just wanted sex and nothing else.
“I don’t understand the issue here? Aren’t you two like dating or something? I mean it’s not the end of the world, right?” Sarah asked, looking even more confused by her panic.
“No, you don’t understand. It’s supposed to be just sex, we agreed. We said nothing but sex and I agreed and then I go and fall in love with him. Sarah, what am I going to do?”
“Oh, damn. I see. Yeah, that could be a problem, but maybe your feelings aren’t one-sided? Maybe he cares for you too,” Sarah said as she sat back down beside her.
“Ha, no, that won’t happen, I can promise you. He isn’t the type for that as you said yourself on more than one occasion,” Sammy accused, her eyes narrowed on her friend’s face, noting the grimace that she let pass over it for a brief moment.
“I know, but he is really possessive of you. That’s always a good sign, right?” Sarah asked smiling slightly.
“Sarah, he’s just an Alpha dog. He doesn’t want anyone playing with his toy until he gets bored with it. That’s all that little scene with Torch was.” Sammy ran a hand over her face before turning to Sarah again, ignoring the pained look and wondering again what the hell she had been thinking getting involved with Animal. She needed her head examined because lately she had been making one bad decision after another, the least of which was going into a ‘sex only’ relationship with Animal.
“Well, maybe he still cares. It might not be love but who knows, maybe he wants to be with you long-term too?” Sarah didn’t look very convinced but Sammy appreciated her trying to cheer her up instead of crowing from the rooftop about how she had been right and Sammy’s relationship with Animal was a mistake. Damn, she hated when Sarah was kind instead of bitchy over shit like this; it always made her feel like an evil witch because she knew if the shoe was on the other foot she likely would be saying I told you so.
“We both know that’s unlikely. Look, let’s just get back to the inventory. It’ll work itself out. When he leaves I’ll just be a little upset for a while but I will survive it. It’s not such a big deal, it just shocked me a little bit.” Sammy got to her feet grabbing the clipboard and holding it out to her. She didn’t want to think about how much it would hurt when Animal called this farce of a relationship off. Nor did she want to dwell on what kind of pain seeing him with another woman would cause her. Nope, they needed to focus on getting this job out of the way and to hell with this bullshit.
&n
bsp; “Sammy––” Sarah began, but Sammy held her hand up, not wanting to think about the inevitable outcome of her love life anymore. She needed to lose herself in a mindless task and not worry about what was going to happen when Animal decided things were over between them.
“No, let’s just get this done, okay.”
“Yeah, okay,” Sarah finally said to Sammy’s relief, taking the clipboard and moving back to the ink bottles she’d been counting before the realization that Sammy was thinking too hard had come over her.
Chapter 21
Sammy was just climbing out of the shower to head into her room when she felt as if she were being watched and glanced to the right at the door to her bedroom. Animal stood there with his hands on the doorframe staring at her. She wondered what was going through his head in that moment. She felt her hand holding the towel closed tremble at the sight of him after her realization yesterday. She was unsure how to react to him now that she knew she was in love with him.
Animal moved into the room coming towards her and she took an involuntary step back because the way he was moving was predatory, almost stalking. His face was covered with a dark frown and he looked hungry. She wasn’t sure why but she suddenly felt nervous, almost frightened.
“Hey, so I guess you’re back,” Sammy managed to utter as he followed her, backing her into the dresser.
“Yep,” came Animal’s curt reply while still moving towards her. His hands were now on either side of her gripping the wood of the dresser. He buried his face in the crook of her neck and inhaled deeply, letting out a growl. She was shaking at this point, unsure what the hell was going on with him. He was acting odd. “Fuck, you smell good.”
Sammy whimpered when his lips caressed her shoulder, his teeth nipping at her. His hands came up jerking on the towel and she released it, allowing him to rip it away, throwing it on the floor behind him. Sammy gasped when he suddenly pulled her into a kiss that was at once a show of possession and a savage claiming. His tongue thrust into her mouth and his hands moved to grip her ass, lifting her to sit on the edge of the dresser and pushing her legs apart.
