by Franca Storm
“In motion?” Rick asked, looking stunned. “So, this plan of yours involves taking direct action? No more intel-gathering and playing it smart and cautious?”
Her eyes hardened. “We’ve waited long enough.”
Rick and I exchanged a look. What was happening? This approach wasn’t what she was all about.
Instead of reacting to it right off the bat, I wanted more details. Maybe there was a solid reason and more to it than she’d had a chance to explain yet. So, I said, “You’ve got our undivided attention. What’s this plan?”
She slapped her hands to the counter. “I’m going to take out Nolan.”
What. The. Fuck?
Rick shifted his weight. “You’re… what? You mean, kill him?”
“Of course.”
“How?”
She looked frustrated and snapped back, “A bullet to the chest, brain, throat, artery. Maybe a blade. A close-range detonation. Or—"
“All right,” Rick said, holding up his hand. “I get it.”
Yeah, this weren’t happening. “Nolan is mine,” I rumbled.
“You’re far too personally involved. It clouded your judgment once. I can’t risk it happening again.”
“Willa,” I growled.
“Slade! What does it matter who takes the kill shot as long as the target is eliminated?”
I clenched my fists on the counter and seethed, “What does it matter? You ain’t that ignorant.”
“All right, let’s take it down,” Rick tried to intervene.
“This is what needs to happen,” Willa insisted in that usual stubborn-ass way of hers. “And if you can’t see that—”
I shot to my feet, “Enough! You don’t know me anywhere close to how well you think you do if you really believe that. I never came to you for Nolan in the first fucking place. Our business only included the surviving Strikers MC members.” I shot a look at Rick. “Outside of Rick.”
“Well, you should have. He’d be taken care of already and this alliance with Blake Freeman would never have happened.”
“Yeah? With your extreme long-haul approach?” I scoffed. “It would’ve been years in the making before you even laid a finger on him.”
“Why come to me at all then, if that’s how you feel about my approach?”
“Because Freeman weren’t an immediate threat like Nolan. Takes time to build a club. That slow burn thing is right up your alley. Him joining up with Nolan changes all that and gives the kid access to some major resources. It pushes up the timeframe in a big way.”
“Those resources of Nolan’s are exactly why he needs to take priority right now. He’s the gasoline to Freeman’s small spark. He doesn’t have an heir apparent, nobody to carry on his legacy when he’s gone. So, taking him out will be the end of Indulge, his entire empire, and his connections, as well as taking away the support and crutch he’s giving to Freeman.”
I shook my head. “Nah, you need to get on Freeman. Find out who he’s trying to recruit, then we deal with them one by one, redirecting them or neutralizing them in other ways without going for the kill. Isolate Freeman, then we move in. I’ll take Nolan. I just gotta wait until he’s off the Strikers MC compound turf, so I can get at him and take a clean shot.”
“For sure,” Rick said, eyeing Willa. “The Prez of Steel Titans ain’t got no hope of getting nowhere near that compound. You, on the other hand, none of them know your deal. Sure, they’ve heard of Shadow, but there’s no intel to make a positive ID on you, nothing that’s gonna lead to you.”
“I’m well aware,” Willa said. “And that will come. Obviously. But, first up, is Nolan. With him in the picture, Freeman is automatically far more dangerous. This is what’s happening. All right? Are we clear?”
She pressed her palms to the flat of the table and I eyed both of us in turn.
To his credit, Rick didn’t hand his balls over to her and just agree blindly like I thought he was gonna end up doing. He actually shook his head at her. It was because he knew how stupid this idea of hers was, just as much as I did.
“No, we ain’t clear,” I told her. “This ain’t happening.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me,” I said, pushing my stool in and stepping back from the counter. “You two get to work on figuring out who Freeman’s been trying to recruit, any patterns that are emerging. Then we’ll look into them individually and see how we can stop them from coming on board this stupid-ass Strikers Rising nightmare.”
“Where are you going?” Rick asked.
“Getting ready to move on Nolan the second he leaves that goddamn compound.” I turned to go, but before I could make it out of the kitchen, Willa rushed around and stepped into my path, blocking my way.
“We’re not done here, Slade.”
“Sure, we are. I just laid out the real plan.” The sane plan. Jesus Christ.
“You do not dictate to me!” she yelled, finally losing her cool all the way.
“Looks like you need me to.”
She sneered. “You just can’t stand not being the one in control, huh?”
“All right, sure, I do like calling the shots. I’ve been a leader for way too long not to enjoy that part of it. But that ain’t what this is about right now. And, for the record, you take the cake when it comes to all of that, no question about it.”
“What are you talking about? What the hell else would it be about?”
“Two things.”
Folding her arms across her chest, she shifted her weight and demanded, “Okay, I’ll play. Tell me, all-knowing biker President, what am I missing here?”
I held up one finger. “First off, me.”
“You?”
“That’s right. You ain’t comfortable around me after what’s gone down between us.”
Rick got up from his stool and crossed to the door. “I’m gonna sit this part out,” he said, as he passed on by us and took off down the hall.
I eyed Willa head-on and continued, “You can’t stand these close quarters we’re living in any more, because you’re afraid of the truth of it all. You ain’t ready for none of it. That’s been made crystal clear. You want out of this situation, out of this safehouse, far away from me and the connection we got going on between us.”
Scoffing, she said, “Wow. You really think a lot of yourself.”
I ignored her typical lashing out and went on anyway, holding up two fingers, as I told her, “Second, this is a prime example of the cracks I’ve been warning you about. You’re being reckless here, big time. Desperate.”
She shook her head vehemently. “Bullshit.”
“You’re so far in denial, you can’t even see it, even though it’s obvious to everybody else.”
“Stop!” she yelled, slamming her hands into my chest.
The suddenness of it was enough to move me, knocking me back into the wall behind me.
She was on me in the next second, fisting her hands in my tee. “I know what I’m doing, Slade! I’ve been doing it for a long time! I’m the best! I’m not cracking, okay? I’m not!”
Rage was all she was showing me, but it didn’t take much to see what else was there, the things she was trying to hide behind those sexy, deep-blue eyes of hers.
Fear.
Pain.
Grief.
Desperation.
I grasped her fists that had a white-knuckle grip on my tee. I kept my voice calm and easy as I told her, “Ain’t saying none of this to hurt you, darlin’. I’m trying to help you, to fucking well spare you. I don’t want you ending up like me. You’ve still got a spark in you. There’s still hope for you.”
She released her grip on me and stepped back, her gaze hard, her walls going back up so damn quick, it was enough to give me whiplash. “Hope is for fools. There’s only the fight.”
“If you believed that, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation right now. You wouldn’t be reacting so intensely. You’re standing at a crossroads and you’re terrif
ied to choose a path, because you know things ain’t never gonna be the same. But you also know you can’t stay where you’re at no longer. You’re trapped. And that’s where all this rage is rooted.”
Her eyes locked with mine, grief and misery coming off her so strongly it was hard not to react, not to reach out and try to comfort her.
But she wasn’t ready for that.
It weren’t much of a surprise when she broke eye contact, shook her head to herself, then took off silently down the corridor.
“Fuck,” I muttered, scrubbing my hand over my face.
“You never settled it.”
Jesus!
I spun to see Rick had come up behind me, out of fucking nowhere.
“Wow. Never seen you so off guard before. You really do love her.”
“Nobody’s using that word, asshole.”
“Sure,” he said, with a roll of his eyes. He folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the wall as he eyed me all curious.
“What?” I snapped, not in the mood for it.
“Like I said, you never settled things with her. She never agreed to stand down on her Nolan plan. What if she takes off in the middle of the night to execute it?”
“I’m a light sleeper. I’ll hear her trying to leave.”
He smirked. It was the kind of smirk that told you he knew something you didn’t know. Goddammit. I hated the smug side of him. “Nah, you’ve got a contingency in place. In fact, you engineered it.”
“What are you getting at?”
“You’ve gotten to know her real well over the years and then being stuck in close quarters here day in and day out.”
“Is there a point coming any time soon, fucker?”
“You know she don’t do nothing if she ain’t real close to being one-hundred-percent sure that it’s the right way to go, without knowing she can control it for the most part.”
“Yeah, that was made clear damn quickly.”
He nodded. “Right. And you used it tonight. You planted doubt in her, about her plan. Just calling it out in the vehement way you did had her questioning it. You know she won’t act now with that there. She’ll find another plan, another way to go with this whole thing, maybe even your way.”
“I did what was needed to protect her. She ain’t thinking right at the moment. Is this you trying to call me out on it for manipulating her, or some other irrelevant bull?”
Shaking his head, he said, “Nah, I’m not calling you on it. Nothing like that.” He pushed off the wall, his smug smile fading and a seriousness taking over. Even his tone was real earnest as he shook his head and told me, “You might’ve just saved her life tonight.”
I frowned.
“I mean, this ain’t like her. I’ve never seen her this way. She don’t do reckless and unhinged. She’s always so calm and cautious, able to think three steps ahead and see the way through even the worst and most complicated situations.” He blew out a breath. “You’re right about those cracks. She needs to get away from all of this.”
“She’s real stubborn, though.”
“She’ll do it,” he assured me.
“How do you know?”
“Because, at the end of the day, she respects logic and reasoning more than anything else. She’ll see the truth to what you’re saying and that the only obvious solution is getting out.”
“Let’s hope so.”
He grinned. “By the way, you two stubborn asses were made for each other.” He turned and headed back down the corridor to his room. “Don’t fuck it up, Slade!” he called over his shoulder.
Easier said than done.
Weren’t fucking it up with her all I’d been doing?
16
~Willa~
HE WAS IN HIS ELEMENT.
Leaning against the open front door, I watched Slade for a while.
He was over by the garage working on his bike that he’d had Ricky haul up here a couple of nights ago. Since he’d been here, he’d spent a lot of time walking through the surrounding forest in order to de-stress and clear his head. Now that his bike was here, that was where he went to do that. It was his peace.
I frowned as I mulled that thought over.
What was my peace?
It’d been all about my work for so many years, I hadn’t really explored much else. Hobbies and interests kind of eluded me. And I didn’t really do leisure time. Everything I did had a purpose. I didn’t do things just for fun. I was all about efficiency and accomplishment.
Damn that bastard for being right. I was an intense person, exceptionally tightly-wound.
But being that way had made me successful and it had also kept me alive. I wasn’t ashamed of it. I’d never seen anything wrong with it either. Until recently.
Until Slade.
The big, bad MC president had ridden back into my life and turned everything about it upside down, challenging what had been the status quo for me for a hell of a long time. Too long.
The evidence was stacking up so quickly. There were cracks beginning to form. Denial was no longer a viable option.
Sucking in a breath, I pushed off the front door and strode out through the porch toward Slade in front of the open garage twenty feet away.
I’d only just made it down the steps when he startled me by calling out, “Finally worked up the nerve, huh?”
Great. So, he’d known I’d been standing back and watching him for quite a while then.
“We both know I’ve got plenty of nerve.”
He chuckled, the tone clearly verging on bitter, which had me cringing and feeling more at ill at ease about what I was planning to do than I already was. “For sure,” he said, offhand, not turning to look at me and still keeping his attention on his bike.
Come on, Willa. You’ve never been a chicken-shit. Don’t start now.
Just do it! Say it!
My words came blurting out, painfully raw.
“I’ve never gotten close to anyone.”
They hung there heavily, making my fists and teeth clench against the sheer awkwardness.
Slade stilled, stopping work on his bike altogether.
It had gotten to him, I was certain.
I just didn’t know in what sort of way.
Time stretched.
I couldn’t take it any longer and, before I knew it, I was going on, “With the work I do it has never been feasible. I’ve always seen it as a huge security risk, a point of extreme vulnerability. Plus, I’ve never had the time to invest in any sort of relationship.”
The words hung there once more.
But, fortunately, it wasn’t as lengthy the second time around, and Slade actually turned around and looked my way. He gave a nod, telling me, “I get that, darlin’.”
“You’ve done the same,” I stated, wanting him to say more, needing him to give me something.
I was out of luck, though, because his response was merely, “Right.”
“You’re making me work for it here.”
“There ain’t much else I can do.”
I frowned. “What does that mean?”
Shifting his weight and blowing out a weary sigh, he explained, “I’ve been the one to put it out there and all you’ve done is shut me down and thrown up a shitload of denial. If there is even a ball, it’s in your court all the way now.”
“If?”
“Yeah, I mean, this thing—whatever the fuck it really is between us—just ain’t right, is it? The timing’s all wrong. We’re in different places. I’m done with the thrill of this kind of life, just trying to shed the burden of it all now. But you’re still right there getting off on it all.”
Oh. “No.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “No?”
“The timing isn’t wrong,” I clarified.
“How’s that?”
Dammit. It was time. Admitting it out loud was the first step after all, right?
I sucked in a breath, then steeled myself, as I forced the words out, “I am… tired.”<
br />
“Yeah?” he asked, clearly still skeptical that I was going to put it out there all the way and fully shake off all the denial that I’d been clinging to like a lifeline.
But I was going to.
It was time to find a better lifeline now, a better life. A real, fulfilling life.
“You were right about the cracks, about the dark starting to take me over. And, yeah, it is a rush for me. Kicking ass and helping people when all hope is lost for them is something I get a lot of… job satisfaction from. I can do things that the law can’t, that very few people can. But if I’m not at my best, all of that will be put in jeopardy. My clients’ lives, my own life.” I ran my hand through my hair. “It’s hard to admit, that’s why I’ve been doing my best to deny it left and right, even to myself, because without my work, I don’t know what I am, who I am, or what I have to give to the world anymore.”
At my confession, Slade finally softened.
In fact, he actually smiled, his eyes even lighting up.
Crossing to me, he spoke, “I felt that way about leaving the club when I first realized I was gonna go that route.”
Interesting. “And, now?”
“I realized that it’s just another fork in the road, not a dead-end, not the end of the path. And stepping into the unknown, or something else, is kinda exciting. Freeing.” He smiled kindly as he moved closer. “Change don’t have to be something negative. It’s all about how you look at it. And it’s about what you’re veering away from. In both our cases, I think we can agree that it’ll be a positive change, a necessary change, too.”
I couldn’t help grinning.
“What?” he asked, amused.
“So, wisdom does come with advanced age, huh?”
“Advanced age?” he said, mock-offended. “You know, this advanced age comes with a shitload of experience.” He eyed me lewdly. “In many areas.”
“I thought that was your excessive amount of practice.”
He gave me a look, knowing I was calling him a whore. He shifted his weight. And then I watched all sense of humor evaporate, a sober intensity taking over as he spoke, “Like I said, I ain’t never been with nobody like that before, the way we were.”
