by Franca Storm
Shit.
Maybe finding out about the plan Slade had roped me into on the downlow had pushed him over the edge, pushing him to do something so awfully desperate.
I started pacing back and forth trying to figure things out.
No. He wouldn’t go alone. He had to be with the club. They must’ve just brought their mission forward without telling me. Purposely not telling me.
The plan had been to have me close by if Nik freaked out when he realized he’d been double-crossed. If worst came to worst, I was to be a distraction so the club could break through a standoff and then get away.
But, by them going without me, there wouldn’t be any barrier.
There wouldn’t be any second chance, no backup.
The door to Cole’s clubhouse room flew open, the shock of it tearing through my troubled thoughts.
In rushed another person just as panicked as me.
“Lucy,” I breathed. “What are you—”
“Can you believe those overprotective, caveman fuckups did this to us?”
“Tell me,” I urged, trying to cut through her obvious rage. “What do you know?”
“More than either of them think.” She ran her hand through her purple waves and sucked in a breath clearly trying to calm herself. Her gaze was intense as it shot straight to mine. “I wasn’t willing to take the risk even if they were. I took precautions.”
I stepped forward, my urgency taking me over. “What precautions?”
She reached back and pulled a phone from her back pocket. After a few seconds of swiping, she flipped it so I could see the screen. “This.”
I studied the display.
A red flashing circle was traveling rapidly across a map of the neighboring city and towns surrounding Warlow.
“I tagged Mason,” she told me.
I cocked an eyebrow. “You did what?”
She shrugged like it was no big deal. “He thinks I don’t know that he tagged me with the thing a while back so he could watch my back in that sweet, yet also infuriating way all these MC boys have got going for them. I knew, but I pretended I didn’t and kept it on me just so he could have the peace of mind he needed. Then, when he started disappearing to cloak and dagger meetings in the middle of the night, I figured he was planning to do something I wouldn’t like. You know, like getting himself fucking killed? So, yeah, I put the tracer thingy on him, attached it to his cut before we went to bed tonight.” She rolled her eyes. “Good thing I did, huh, because look at what the idiots have done. They’re riding headlong into major danger.”
“They think they can handle it.”
“Yeah, well, desperation can make people assume a lot of things.”
Guilt lanced through me. “It’s my fault.” I rubbed my hand over my bump. “Cole wouldn’t be doing this if it weren’t for me, meaning Mason wouldn’t be endangering himself right now either.”
“No, Nat,” she said. “This was always slated to happen. This whole thing with Nik Stone was going to come to a head at some point. You were actually the one thing that offered up a way for them to hit him without it leading to their certain deaths. A distraction. Nik’s weakness.” She winced. “But now, they’ve gone without you and—”
“They’re in trouble,” I finished for her.
Worry clouded her blue eyes. “Yeah. Big time.”
Talking all of this out with somebody instead of letting the panic build by keeping it to myself had actually helped to clear my head. Logic had prevailed, squashing my emotion.
And, now, I knew what I had to do.
I stepped back from Lucy and rushed as fast as I could to Cole’s bedside table. I hastily opened the top drawer of the unit. Relief coursed through me as I found what I’d hoped I would, what he’d shown me the first time I’d ever been in his clubhouse room years ago.
A quick-access pistol safe.
I hauled it out and deposited it on the bed.
“Is that what I think it is?” Lucy asked, coming over.
“Yeah,” I confirmed.
“Do you really think there’s actually anything in there? He would’ve taken his gun with him.”
“He has two. This one always stays here. Always.”
“What? How do you know that?”
“Because I know Cole, the parts of him that he doesn’t show anyone. He’s still in survival mode. All these years after your parents’ deaths and living on the run, he hasn’t been able to put it in the past. He’s always on high-alert, hyper-vigilant. He doesn’t feel safe. He doesn’t feel like he can ever really let his guard down and rest. This is his last line of defense if everything went to hell and the club was attacked at its stronghold without any prior warning.”
“Shit, that’s some heavy paranoia.”
I shook my head sadly. “Not in the world he and I live in really. Maybe his is a little… enhanced. But it’s for good reason.”
I could see her taking my words in and the sadness that crept over her features cut at me. It didn’t surprise me that she hadn’t been aware of how deeply scarred and broken Cole was. He kept her at a distance, kept her out of club business, out of all of it. It was what he thought he needed to do to protect her and safeguard the remnants of her innocence. He wanted light for his little sister not a life surrounded by suffocating dark. He bore the burden for her. As admirable and noble as his intentions were it’d had the unintentional effect of severely straining their relationship, of causing extreme tension between them.
“Well, maybe once Nik and the Strikers are put down he can finally rest,” she said. “And you and the baby will help a lot too.”
“I agree. But for that to happen he needs to live through this. They both do.”
She bit her lip, fighting to reign in her emotion with knowing the two people she cared about most in the world were in very real danger. And then, impressing me, she sucked in a deep breath, folded her arms across her chest and asked me, suddenly all business, “What’s your plan?”
I returned my focus to the safe and punched in the six-digit code. I heard it unlock, then whipped it open and pulled out Cole’s Glock. I double-checked the magazine, ensuring it was fully loaded, then snapped it back into place.
“We’re going to do the saving this time.”
23
~Cole~
“HOLD POSITION.”
I gritted my teeth at Slade’s command coming in loud and clear via my earpiece. That rumbling bark of his sounded more aggravating than I’d ever known it to be before. Of all the times he’d forcibly reeled me in over the years, this was the hardest to take, no question.
“I’m guessing that was specifically aimed at you,” Mason’s voice sounded in my ear next.
“Hell, it’s always fucking aimed at him,” Liam piped up.
“No surprise there,” Van agreed.
“Goddamn wrecking ball,” I heard Tank chuckle down the line.
Fuckers.
Sure, they had a good point, but tonight wasn’t the night for it.
This was unlike any other mission I’d run with the club before.
This time it was real fucking personal.
It was a struggle to keep my emotions in check and for reason and patience to prevail.
And what made it all the more dangerous was that it wasn’t just me who had a personal stake in this.
So did Slade and Mason.
If one of us lost it, everything could go to hell and escalate into a fucking bloodbath in a matter of seconds.
Of course, given my rep, they all thought I was the most likely one to snap, to break position, and to fuck everything up in a fit of rage.
But I had my money on Slade.
The guy had been wound so tight for so long, a snap was definitely on the cards. Nobody could sustain that level of control forever. And if anything was gonna do it, I was hedging my bets that it would be this mission, him coming face-to-face with Nik Stone once again.
I swallowed down my anxiety and the rage buildin
g every second that went on by as we waited for things to get started, the result coming off as a bad case of impatience.
I was rooted to the spot with my back flat against one of the trees lining the south side of the truck stop in the middle of nowhere, miles outside any town or city.
Perfect killing ground.
Slade had wanted a location that would both prevent any collateral damage and eliminate the possibility of witnesses. Nik had been down for the lack of witnesses too so they’d managed to agree on this neutral ground for the supposed handover.
Thanks to Mason that wasn’t actually gonna happen. My woman wasn’t gonna be used as a ruse against that madman and his psycho club.
But we were playing a dangerous game by purposely not following through with our end of the deal. We had to tread carefully, everything had to go according to plan, all of us had to fall in line, and nobody could fucking well lose it.
So, yeah, despite how pissed I still was at Slade and the entire situation and the fact that my anxiety was spiking, I was determined to hold it together. And, right now, that meant holding my fucking position.
I took comfort in the fact that we knew what we were doing. We were all seasoned with this sort of thing, which, for once, was a blessing. We’d gotten here in enough time ahead of them to take position, we were all armed to the teeth and fanned out strategically, completely hidden by darkness and the heavy foliage lining the edge of the truck stop.
Not to mention, Slade had decades of experience under his belt with dicey situations like this and he’d always come out on top, he’d always survived even the worst of situations.
This was it, anyway. One last hurdle and all this bullshit would be over with.
After fucking forever we’d all be safe.
Well, as safe as we could be living the life we did with the club. As much as we’d been trying to go legit, with the burden of the Strikers threat hanging over us for so long, we hadn’t been able to take it all the way. For instance, we were still doing stuff like this, ready to carry out a goddamn massacre.
Yeah, not exactly legit stuff.
But this was supposed to be the last time and I had to believe it really would be.
For Natasha’s sake.
For the sake of my unborn child.
I had to hope for a better life.
Hope, alone, wasn’t enough, though, so I had to do anything I could to make that a reality. Like taking out this motherfucker, Nik Stone.
I just had to hold it together a little while longer and stay on my fucking leash, basically. Then, I could get to dealing with what really mattered. Making a good life for my family.
I swallowed it all down and eyed the unmarked sedan parked in the center of the lot. The only cage in the area. The rest were our bikes all parked off to the far right side. Every window was heavily tinted making it impossible to see inside. Thank fuck, because there was nobody in there. We just needed to buy time.
A ferocious rumble accompanied by the screech of tires cut through the still night, sending a surge of adrenaline through me and jumpstarting me into battle-readiness. I watched as a couple of trucks sped into the parking lot flanked by at least half a dozen bikes.
Nik Stone dismounted his bike and glanced all around taking in his surroundings, trying to feel them out in that creepy-ass way he always did.
Slade reacted quickly, clearly trying to prevent Nik from outing any of us. He stepped out from his concealed position at the rear of the abandoned gas station, and strode out to meet him.
I tensed, my muscles locking, my breath catching, as the Strikers members surrounding Nik reacted, every single one of them pulling their pieces and training them on Slade.
A snicker came from Nik. “Jesus, chill,” he called to his guys, raising his hand behind him and signaling them to stand down. A mere second later all the psychos flipped their safeties into place and holstered their weapons. I caught sight of that cocky fucker, Rick, and for once that normal confidence of his and that sickening swagger was nowhere to be found. He was as freaked and on edge as everybody involved in this shitshow mission. Well, except Slade and Nik. The two of them never showed shit.
“Long time,” Nik spoke to Slade.
Yeah, it’d been a long time since any of us had seen him up close. He had others do his dirty work and, given how many enemies he’d made over the years, he spent most of his time safely entrenched in the Strikers MC compound.
Despite the hardass bravado he put on to everybody around him, he was nothing but a coward at heart.
But that made it all the more shocking that he’d actually come in person to this supposed handover. I wasn’t sure how much of what’d driven him had been the idea of coming face-to-face with his long-time enemy, Slade, again, and how much had been about his desperation to have Natasha back.
I took in the asshole who’d caused me and my woman so much fucking trouble and pain over way too many years.
Thinning dark-gray hair hung down just shy of his shoulders, framing his face that’d taken on several more age lines since the last time I’d seen him. He was dressed in all black, from his worn jeans to his shirt and cut, still the tall, hulking figure he’d always been. Those creepy black eyes of his were rife with an intimidation factor that would have lesser men pissing themselves. But as he met Slade, he couldn’t compare with his intimidation factor. Unlike him, Slade didn’t need armed men to bolster him. We were just a precaution, on standby, basically. Nah, his own ferocity just emanated from him cutting right through anything coming from Nik.
It didn’t mean he wasn’t still the dangerous fucker he always had been though. It was his mind that had always been the troubling thing about him. He would point and shoot his club muscle in strategic directions. He’d never had to rely on his own brawn to win a fight.
He jerked his head at the sedan. “She in there?” he demanded of Slade.
“Deal’s a deal, ain’t it?” Slade responded, the lie coming easy to him. Smooth bastard.
Nik stared at him for a moment, the tension mounting. Then he pulled an envelope from his leather jacket pocket and handed it to him. “That’s all the shit I got on your boy and the rest of you.”
Slade snatched it from him and shoved his hand into the envelope, rifling past the thick wad of papers to what was beneath. He pulled out a handful of flash drives.
“That’s every copy. We got nothing left, no files, no hard copies,” Nik informed him.
Even though they were enemies, there was a code in our world that should’ve ensured Nik was telling the truth, that his word was solid.
But there was no way we were gonna trust in that. When you dealt with crazy you couldn’t expect logic to ever win out.
Slade tucked the envelope away into the back of his jeans.
“When you take a liking to a woman there just ain’t no letting go for you, is there?”
Oh no. I tensed, my hand going to the butt of my gun holstered at my hip.
Nik took a step closer, a nasty smirk on his face. “You wanna go there?”
“Prez, what you playing at?” Liam’s voice sounded down the line.
Slade didn’t show any sign of hearing Liam’s warning. Damn, he was good at keeping his game face on, no matter what.
He even had the balls to fold his arms across his chest when he should be palming his piece at all times, given how precarious the situation was to begin with and how him going off book here with what we’d planned was quickly escalating it.
“Yeah. Yeah, I do,” he told Nik.
“Fuck, Slade. Don’t. We talked about this. Don’t fucking do this,” Liam warned again.
What the fuck had they talked about? What was happening? What was Slade’s game here?
“Lisa was mine. You were the one who fucked all of that up and brought all that pain down on her when you stole her away.” Nik seethed.
“You demented shit. You guys broke it off, then I made a move. Not before. There weren’t no saving what you had,
cuz it weren’t never nothing to begin with. But you don’t get casual. All these years later and you’re pulling the same old shit with Nightshade.”
“You’re the one holding her against her will on your fucking territory. I’m here to pull her out.”
“Yeah? Outta the goodness of your heart?”
Nik’s eyes flashed dangerously. “Nah, cuz she’s mine. Always was. Always will be.”
Slade shook his head, his incredulousness matching mine. “She hates you. All she’s wanted is to be free of you. The second you showed your true colors she’s been running. She ain’t playing hard to get, you psycho. Just like Lisa weren’t. They were afraid of you. Both of ‘em wanted you gone.”
“Nightshade’s mine. I just gotta remind her of that,” Nik said, getting in Slade’s face. A twisted smile played on his lips, as he added, “And Lisa got her reminder, didn’t she, brother?”
“Fuck,” Liam sounded down the line again. “Get ready to move on my signal, brothers.”
A bunch of confirmations rang in my ears.
But they sounded so far away now, my focus shifting with a jolting suddenness at Nik’s fucked-up words, actually hearing his threats and twisted intentions for Tasha in person.
My body was shaking with a brutal influx of adrenaline, my heart hammering wildly. That hyper-vigilant mindset that always came over me when I was about to go into battle set in. That rage I’d tried so hard to hold back lately took hold of me.
I was out for blood.
Nik Stone’s blood.
And this time I wasn’t gonna stop.
“Cole?” Liam’s voice sounded. “Cole, answer me. Do you fucking well copy?”
No, I fucking well didn’t.
I was done with this bullshit. Sitting on the sidelines. Taking orders that I didn’t believe in. Endlessly waiting. Days ticking on by with Tasha still in danger.
Yeah, I was beyond done with all of it.
Pulling my gun, I broke cover, starting to bolt out into the open.
But I was beaten to it.
