Outlaw in Black: A Motorcycle Club Romance (Immortal Souls MC) (Midnight Angels Book 2)

by April Lust

  Roger followed her, and she was just about to scale the steps up to Xander’s apartment, where there was a lock to keep Roger out, but he pulled her by the back of her hair and slammed her against the wall. Olivia yelped, but before she could make any other noise, he slapped a hand over her mouth.

  “I wouldn’t scream if I were you,” Roger whispered, clasping his hand harder over her mouth. “Xander ain’t here to help you, and none of his fucking lackeys are, either. If you scream like a bitch, the other boys might start getting ideas,” he warned.

  Olivia started trembling pathetically. Stop shaking. Stop shaking. It’s going to be okay. You’re going to get out of this situation, she said to herself. But her heartbeat kept pounding hard in her ears, no matter how hard she tried to calm down. Don’t show him you’re scared. Don’t give him the satisfaction.

  “Are we gonna scream or not?” Roger whispered, pressing his arm harder onto her shoulder, pinning her to the wall. When she didn’t respond, he pushed harder, and she almost bit into his palm in pain. She finally nodded her head in agreement, and he pulled his hand away from her mouth but kept his arm on her body, keeping her still.

  “What do you want from me?” Olivia asked, trying to keep her voice as steady as possible.

  “I told you already. You, interfering in club business? It ends today. You go away, and things go back to normal,” Roger said.

  Olivia scoffed in disbelief despite her fear. “You’re jealous that Xander is stepping up and you think getting rid of me will reverse time? Is that it?”

  “Worth a shot,” Roger said, tightening his grip on her shoulder, making her hiss in pain.

  Come on, don’t be a scared little girl. You can handle this. You can get out of this, she coached herself. “I’m not scared of you, little boy,” Olivia spat, practically baring her teeth at Roger.

  He tightened his grip some more, digging his nails into her skin. “Yeah? Well, you fucking should be. You’ve been playing dress-up the past few months, but it ends now. You stop fucking around with our lives, or I’ll have to fuck with yours. And believe me, it won’t be pretty.”

  “Oooh, big talk from somebody who can’t even handle a money drop on his own. Save it,” Olivia said, and she tried to reach down to her pocket to grab her phone, but Roger’s other hand restrained hers, pushing it against the wall. She looked to the side, trying to see if anybody could see her from behind the wall, but she was tucked out of sight. Roger’s fingers dug deeper into her skin. Olivia whined a little, tiny broken noises leaving her mouth before her brain caught up and ordered it to shut up. She couldn’t show weakness, not now.

  “Listen the fuck up,” Roger hissed under his breath, his eyes darting around behind the wall, probably looking to check if anyone was watching them. “I’ve got ten guys in the club sick of your fucking bullshit, sick of Xander bossing us around like he has any goddamned authority whatsoever. It’s going to stop today, or something’s gonna happen.”

  “Like what?” Olivia asked, trying to sound nonchalant, like she was just in utter disbelief that he could be capable of anything real.

  Roger shrugged, but then kept talking. “Lots of accidents happen out there on the road, lady. You never know. You can hit a rough patch, a pothole, or maybe just go a little too fast and hit the pavement. Or maybe you make a turn without looking both ways and—BAM!” Roger slapped the side of her body, making her jump in surprise and pain. “That’s the end of it.”

  “You’re going to kill us?” Olivia asked, once again trying and failing to sound casual and unbothered. “Me and Xander, if we don’t do what you want?”

  “Maybe. Or maybe just him. That’d solve my problem right up. But guess what? It’d be fine with me if you disappeared on your own terms, miss. Entirely up to you.”

  “So you’re saying if I don’t leave the club, you’ll kill Xander?” Olivia asked between gritted teeth. Come on, Xander, please, come back, turn around, come back to the club, look for me, come back to see what he’s doing, please, she inwardly begged. But then another thought struck her. What if Roger wasn’t lying about the ten guys? What if Xander came back and saw this and started a fight, and then the other guys jumped in, and then—

  Her inner prayer suddenly reversed itself. Stay away, Xander, please. Don’t see this. Don’t see this. She couldn’t trust that he wouldn’t start a huge fight that could get them both killed.

  Instead, she went limp and loose in Roger’s grasp, collecting her thoughts together and facing him with as calm a face as she could muster. “Why shouldn’t I just tell Xander what you’ve done? He’s got lots of guys loyal to him here. He’s got Uncle Jerry. He could kill you.”

  Roger shrugged. “And how do you know that anybody other than Xander and Jerry would believe you? I could just say you came on to me the second that little Xander went away. Wouldn’t shock anybody, seeing how you dress.”

  Olivia made a face, utterly disgusted. “As if. You can’t be serious.”

  “Who would believe you?” Roger asked.

  “Ezra would,” Olivia said without thinking.

  Roger laughed, using his free hand to hold his stomach, like it was the most hilarious thing he’d ever heard. “Oh, that’s funny. The weakest little bitch in the club would believe you. Big deal. You don’t know who’s on my side. You don’t know who’s ready to kill Xander in a second if he doesn’t shut up. But…” Roger leaned in, breathing on her neck, making Olivia cringe and squirm. “If you disappear, he’ll go back to being a lieutenant. He’ll be safe. Doesn’t that sound better?”

  Olivia swallowed heavily, all her muscles tensing up in a last attempt to flex out of Roger’s grasp. “How do I know you’re even capable of doing anything? You don’t even fight with the boys,” she argued, reaching for any excuse she could find to make Roger crumble and admit he wasn’t for real. This couldn’t be happening. She had just made a home here. It couldn’t fall apart like this.

  But Roger shrugged again, completely unbothered even as his grip tightened on her arm. “I don’t play around, don’t go around wasting my energy on shit that doesn’t matter. That’s the difference between Xander and me.” He leaned in until their faces were almost touching, breathing on her skin.

  Olivia squirmed and groaned under her breath in disgust, feeling her heartbeat pick up again in terror. She had never felt this scared before in her entire life. She willed her fingers to stop shaking, but it was no use.

  “Anyway, it’s fine if you don’t believe me. Just stick around and watch. See what happens to loverboy if you don’t get out of the picture.”

  Roger squeezed hard onto her arm, nails piercing her skin, and Olivia had to bite her lip to keep from crying out. Her eyes flooded with hot tears, and she blinked rapidly, trying to get them to recede, but it was no good.

  Roger smirked, bringing his hand up to hold her chin and make her look him directly in the eyes. “Not so tough now, are you?” he whispered before letting go of her and stomping away.

  Olivia fell back against the wall, but her muscles were still tense. It was like her body was telling her to break into a run, get as far from here as possible. She buried her head in her hands and breathed deep and hard, over and over. Stop shaking. Stop fucking shaking, please, she begged herself.

  Her body refused to obey.

  Okay, okay, so what are my options? She could tell Xander right away and probably start a fight with Roger. If Roger were lying, Xander might still kill him just for trying to intimidate her. And if Roger were telling the truth…

  So maybe she wouldn’t tell him, just in case. Could she hang around, doing the same things as usual, without telling Xander? Again, Roger might have been lying out of his ass for all Olivia knew. Other than Danny, he might not have anybody on his side. That’s still two grown men, Olivia’s inner voice argued. Even if everybody else is on Xander’s side, they could do a lot of damage.

  Goddammit. What could she do to make sure nothing bad would happen, to make sure nobody
got hurt? She couldn’t turn to the police in this situation. The closest thing to a cop around here was Uncle Jerry, who kept getting sicker with each passing day. And anyway, Olivia figured, only Xander had a problem with Roger. She didn’t even know if Uncle Jerry would take her word over his.

  So what could she do to protect the club from Roger? To keep Xander away from doing something idiotic?

  Before her brain could land on an answer, Olivia was jerked out of her head by the sound of a motorcycle rolling to a stop in front of the bar. Her muscles sprang into action: she quickly went into the bathroom to wipe at her eyes with a wet towel and adjust her dress so it didn’t look like she’d been flattened against a wall.

  It was like she could sense him the minute he walked back into the building. It was Xander, she knew. She gripped the sides of the bathroom sink hard and breathed deep again, trying to anchor herself before she stepped back through the door to look out into the main room of the clubhouse.

  Xander was standing there, looking a little bit annoyed but otherwise okay. Olivia stared at him standing there, smiling down at one of the young guys sitting at the bar. He looked so…free, like for a brief moment all of the weight he’d been carrying on his shoulders for the past years had melted away into nothing. But just for a moment.

  What do I do?

  Then Xander laughed, low and deep, his eyes twinkling for a second before he threw back his head in harder laughter. And Olivia knew the answer.

  She exhaled heavily and walked forward, plastering a half-smile on her face as she approached Xander. “Hey, what’s up? Did you finish the check-up of the girls so fast?”

  Xander sighed and shook his head. “Forgot my wallet. We were going to grab breakfast on the road, the boys and me.” He smiled a little at her and cupped the side of her face. “Say, you wanna eat with me before work? We could go get pancakes.”

  Olivia felt this stupid feathery fluttering sensation in her chest, staring up at him to see all the shining light that his eyes held. He was so warm, so sweet, so flirty and soft, softer than she’d ever seen him before. For a moment, a brief, beautiful, fucking asshole of a moment, she thought the Roger thing might have been an awful nightmare, and Xander was the sun bringing in the redemptive truth of morning light. But it was too good to be true. Olivia saw something move over Xander’s left shoulder, and her eyes flicked involuntarily to meet Roger’s across the room. He smirked at her meanly and toasted his drink in her direction. It was real. There was no escape from this.

  By this point, Xander was looking down at her in concern, stepping closer and dropping his voice as he said, “What’s up? Everything okay?”

  Olivia could picture herself falling into Xander’s body, letting him catch her as she told him every single detail. Or, alternately, she could see herself grabbing his shoulders and shaking him, screaming at him to run. She could see it like it happened. But the decision had already been made, deep inside her. So instead Olivia just nodded and said, “Yeah, I’m fine. Just late for work,” before turning away from Xander and heading upstairs to grab her overnight bag from Xander’s apartment. And even though there was a voice in her brain telling her Turn back, turn back, turn back! Go the other way! as she walked back down the steps toward Xander, she just smiled up at him, her lips feeling dry and raw and tight over her skin, like the words she’d swallowed were futilely fighting their way out. “I gotta head out,” she said, her voice shaking a little on the last word.

  If Xander noticed it, he let it go. “All right. I gotta go, too. The ladies aren’t going to check on themselves.”

  Olivia nodded and grabbed onto Xander’s elbow. “Let’s walk out together.”

  He smiled at her and leaned over to kiss the top of her head.

  She clenched as hard onto his arm as she could without hurting him, suppressing the urge to smash him into her body and never let go. “I’ll miss you,” she whispered.

  Xander turned to grin at her as they passed the threshold of the bar and stepped out into the mid-morning air. “It’s only a few hours. I’ll see you tonight.”

  “Yeah,” Olivia said, her throat going hard as bone as she worked to keep her voice steady and calm. Tears pressed again against the back of her eyes, but this time she focused her energy on keeping them inside. Again, Xander didn’t seem to pick up on it. “I’ll see you soon.”

  Xander turned toward his bike, but before he could swing onto the seat Olivia pulled him back, leaning forward to lightly kiss him. Xander returned the kiss and deepened it, cupping the back of her head gently. For a second, Olivia felt safe. But only for a second.

  “I’m so proud of you,” Olivia murmured into his mouth, stroking the side of his face. “Please don’t ever forget that.”

  “Okay, weirdo,” Xander said with a smile as he pulled away from the kiss. “See you tonight.”

  “See you,” Olivia whispered as Xander switched on his engine and waved goodbye to her, rolling out into the horizon.

  Olivia watched as Xander rode away, the black rectangle of his bike getting smaller and smaller on the horizon as each second went by. She stood there, staring out into the sun, until Xander’s little black dot faded from her sight.

  Olivia walked over to her car, pressing her head hard onto the boiling surface of the shining metal. She wanted to be burned. She wanted this moment to be branded into her skin, to remind her of that special feeling she got when she kissed Xander Bellows a minute before.

  But it didn’t work that way. She stepped into her car, her thighs painfully rubbing against the hot seats, and when she looked in the mirror, she couldn’t read Xander anywhere on her face or neck or arms. Her skin had forgotten him as easily as it had touched him. He was gone. Xander is gone.

  Olivia cranked her engine to life, turned her car in the other direction, and set off for the highway, putting as much distance between them as possible.

  It was the laughter. If Xander hadn’t laughed, who knows what she would have done? She would do anything, fight anyone, to keep Xander’s smile safe.

  But sometimes fighting means being brave enough to walk away.

  Chapter 8

  “Where are you?” Xander sent the text and stared at his phone for several long seconds, hoping to hear the little chirp sound that would signify Olivia’s response. But it didn’t come.

  He sighed loudly and gestured to the bartender for another drink. He was feeling loose enough already, honestly, but he needed something to distract himself. Olivia had never been late before. Things happen. Maybe an assignment ran late or she got a flat tire or something, he tried to argue with himself. Xander checked his phone again. No messages.

  “Hey, Ezra,” he said as the younger man passed by him on his way to the bathroom. “Have you seen Brennan around?” He always referred to her by her last name in front of other people. He was aware it was silly, but he worried that if he said her first name it would be obvious how whipped he was, how he felt about her. And he wasn’t ready for anyone to know that, not even Olivia herself.

  Ezra stopped walking and shook his head. “No, I—wait, well, sort of,” he said. “I noticed her driving away like a bat outta hell yesterday.”

  Xander didn’t know what to make of that. Olivia tended to be a more responsible driver whenever she wasn’t on a bike. When he let her sit up front on his bike, she would skid so fast on the dirt Xander would even get a little scared sometimes. But as far as he could tell, she was a responsible driver in her own car, paranoid a cop she knew would pull her over and embarrass her at work over it.

  “Was anyone else around who might’ve spoken to her before she took off?” he asked Ezra.

  Ezra shrugged. “Nah, I don’t think so. Don’t remember who else was hanging around, anyway.”

  Xander wondered for a moment why Ezra only ever seemed to pay attention to Olivia, and not anyone else, but he dismissed the thought a second later. He’d just have to text her again. There was no way he could guess why she was speeding away yeste
rday, not without more witnesses to piece together the clues.

  “Do you need help? I can come meet you,” he texted her. There was no response.

  Xander sighed deeply and put his phone away. Maybe she was focused on her assignment, some troubled kid who really needed help. Olivia was so invested in helping people. It was probably his favorite thing about her. She was so passionate and intense. If she were wrapped up in helping somebody else, he couldn’t even blame her for it.

  Still, it was boring, sitting around and watching the other boys drink and joke and laugh. After another minute or two sitting down, he went up to his room and lay down on his bed. He stared at the blank screen of his phone and groaned, wanting to bang his head against a wall. Xander hit the call button and pressed the phone against his ear, waiting for a long second for the dial tone to sound. It rang like normal instead of going straight to voicemail, so it wasn’t that her phone was dead. Maybe it was on silent. He called two or three times, but there was never any answer.