His to Protect: Midnight Riders MC

by April Lust

  I thought about that text message, the one he had sent to Cole. The one I had found and spiraled out of control over. Son of a bitch, they’d planned the whole thing out. He’d led Cole away from me, knowing that he would never let me go to the hotel alone when I got that phone call.

  I glared at Skull. “I guess he has no idea we’re here either. Right? That you intend to do something to me?” I was trying as hard as I could to push the fear aside, so my voice would sound stronger than I really felt. I couldn’t tell whether or not it was working.

  He shook his head, now looking worried. “No, he doesn’t. But I’m going to tell him. He has to know why I’m going to do this. Why I need to.” He took his phone with him and stepped outside.

  What did he mean, why he was going to do this? Going to do what?

  Then my eyes fell on my other two captors, and the guns sticking out from the waistbands of their jeans. I had a pretty good idea what he had in mind for me. He wasn’t playing around or trying to scare me. He really meant to kill me.

  Chapter 20

  Cole

  I rode as fast as I could in the direction of the hotel. Was Alena there yet? How long had she been there? If Teresa was right and Alena had gotten an hour’s head start, I might still have a chance to get there before anything bad happened. I doubted I could catch up to her no matter how fast I rode or how many cars I swerved around. She would be driving fast, too.

  I couldn’t believe Skull actually meant to hurt Alena. I still couldn’t, even when I knew how far he had gone to threaten her. He was all talk. Wasn’t he?

  If he was willing to go this far, I couldn’t deny it: he had killed Sara. And if that was true, he was desperate. He’d do anything he had to do to protect himself.

  I remembered when we were kids and how hard it always was to get him to tell the truth when he did something wrong. He used to drive teachers crazy. He could do something right in front of them, in front of the entire class even, and he would swear he hadn’t done anything. They could have had him dead to rights, and it wouldn’t matter. He would swear up and down that they were all crazy for accusing him.

  Even when it was obvious someone was on his track and was going to prove he was lying, he would make up all kinds of crazy lies to cover up. The stories would get so thick, he would confuse himself after a while. It never worked, ever. And it only made things worse when he finally fessed up. But he still did it, every time. He never learned. Maybe it was part of his personality, and would never change

  I would always back him up in those days. Maybe this mess was partially my fault because I always stood by him even when I knew he was wrong. I would be right there next to him, telling lies just as big as the ones he was telling, just to back up his story. Even if the lies made me look bad. I thought that was what brotherhood meant. I still did. Maybe it was time to rethink my definition of the word.

  I should have turned him in to the cops a long time ago, when I first thought he had something to do with Sara. I shouldn’t have wasted my time trying to talk to him about it. I should have known he would never tell the truth, no matter how bad it looked for him. Why didn’t I know better?

  I hadn’t wanted to get us in trouble with the cops. Now we’d be in deeper trouble than before if he killed a second time. What was he planning to do? How did he think he could cover it up? I didn’t think he had much of a plan in place. He couldn’t, or else he would see how pointless his actions were. He was just doing whatever came to him, making it up as he went along.

  There would be no way to get around the cops this time. They would blame us for sure. Then what? That would be the end of the club for a long time.

  Now Alena was in trouble because of me not being able to step up and do what I had to do as a leader. Maybe she was about to die. All because I couldn’t imagine my best friend doing something so terrible, and couldn’t bring myself to get the truth from him or tell the police what I feared. I should have known what he was capable of.

  I beat myself up like this for miles down the highway. I could have stopped it. I could have stopped him. I could have given Alena a little peace instead of warning her how dangerous it was to put her nose where it didn’t belong. What a stupid thing to say! Of course she had every right to know what had happened to her sister.

  I remembered the way she tried to hit me, too. When she was screaming over how unfair it was that she was expected to roll over and pretend nothing happened instead of the club acting like rational people who didn’t commit crimes. Damn it, she’d been so right. I had to keep telling myself at the time that she was wrong so I could live with myself. Now she was going to die because of me. How could I live with myself once that happened? I gunned the engine, pushing the bike faster.

  And she would die hating me, too. She would think I had set her up. Of course she would. When she kicked me out of her house, she thought I knew something. She wouldn’t have to think hard to blame me for this.

  My phone rang. It was Skull. I didn’t wanna pull over—I would lose time—but I couldn’t ignore the call. If it wasn’t already too late, I might be able to talk some sense to him.

  “Skull!”

  “Hey, man,” he muttered.

  “Where are you? I went to the house like you asked, but you weren’t there.” I didn’t wanna tell him I was on my way. It might spook him into doing something drastic.

  “I had something to take care of,” he said. His voice sounded dead, just flat and hollow. My blood ran cold. Had he already killed Alena?

  I closed my eyes, reminding myself to stay calm. Otherwise, he’d hear the panic in my voice and know I was on to him. “Where at? I can meet you wherever you want. You said you wanna talk? Let’s talk. Okay?” The traffic was rushing by, and I knew he had to hear it through the phone. Would he figure out I was already more than halfway there?

  “No. The time for talking is over now. There’s nothing more to say. Nothing can make this better, man.”

  “How can you say that? You only texted me this morning. What could have happened between then and now?” How many miles did I have to go? Twenty-five? Thirty? How fast could I ride them?

  “I didn’t really wanna talk this morning. I only sent that message to distract you.”

  “Distract me from what?”

  “From what you were doing.” How had he known?

  “I wasn’t doing anything. What are you talking about?” I hated this cryptic way he was speaking. Like we were playing word games. I cut to the chase. “Hey, I’m worried about you. I don’t want you to do anything drastic.” Right, make it sound like you’re afraid for him. Not her. Don’t let on you know he has her.

  “It’s too late for that. It’s all too late. I’m sorry I didn’t come clean with you sooner.” His voice had this funny sound to it. A very final sort of sound. I wondered if he wasn’t planning on killing himself when it was all over.

  I realized, finally, that he had never planned to talk to me this morning. He had only wanted to get me away from Alena so he could lure her to him. I had been so blind. He’d read me, known what I would do. And I’d walked right into his trap.

  “You can do it now. Come clean with me now.” I was getting desperate. I couldn’t push him over the edge, but I was in a hurry to get to him. To her.

  He laughed a little. “Remember when we first joined the club? How excited we were?”

  “Yeah, I do. We were trying so hard to be cool,” I said. Where was this going? He was wasting time now. I wished I could ride and talk on the phone at the same time, but I needed both hands.

  “I didn’t know how it was gonna go. I wonder if I had, would I have joined?”

  “I don’t know. I think you would have. We both needed to feel like we were part of a family.”

  “Yeah. You’re right. It was the only way to feel like I was a part of something. Look where it got the both of us.” Was he sniffling? I thought I heard him starting to cry. He was losing it.

  “Where did it get u
s? Where do you think it got you? Man, I have to be honest. You’re scaring me a little right now.”

  He was crying for sure. “I didn’t mean for this to happen. For any of it. I swear.”

  “Skull? Where are you, buddy? Come on. Let me come to wherever you are, and we’ll talk about things. I know we can work it out.”

  He laughed bitterly. “Stop fucking with me, man. I know you know where I am. I already talked to Teresa. You know everything already.”

  Shit. I closed my eyes, a hand on my forehead. “You’re wrong about one thing,” I said. “I don’t know everything. I don’t know why you’re doing all this.”

  “Sara, of course. It’s all about Sara.”

  “What happened? Come on. Tell me.”

  “I loved her!” He was crying, a mess. I could hear from his voice that he meant it, or thought he did. He had loved her as much as he could ever love a woman. I believed him.

  “I know you did, man. And I’m sure that whatever happened was an accident. But this isn’t helping. You know that, right?”

  “No, I don’t.” He was totally irrational. I had to find a way to get through to him. Alena was depending on me.

  “There’s gotta be a way to get through this with anybody else getting hurt,” I said. “I mean, all the shit we’ve done together? How many times did you think we were never gonna get out of whatever trouble we were in? But we always did. Because we trusted each other. We were all we had, right? You still have me.”

  “No, I don’t,” he said. “I can’t bring you into this. It’s not fair. I fucked up, and this is all my fault. I can’t make you pay for what I did. There’s no way out.”

  “What did you actually do? You still haven’t told me. It’s probably not as bad as you think it is.” I was stalling, saying whatever I could think of just to keep him on the phone and away from Alena. As long as he was talking, he wasn’t hurting her.

  “It’s bad. Murder’s bad, man.” Fuck me, I thought. He was finally ready to admit it. But that meant he’d come to the end of his rope. He was capable of anything.

  I scrambled to get through to him. “Murder’s only murder if you meant it to happen. And I know you wouldn’t have hurt Sara on purpose. Right? Anyone could see that. All you have to do is tell the truth.”

  “Nobody will believe me. You know how it is. People don’t believe us, even when we’re honest. I’ve been thinking about it for weeks, you know. There’s no way out of it.” He had a point, even though I hated admitting it. The cops wouldn’t believe it was an accident, no matter what happened. Especially since he’d been covering it up for weeks now. That didn’t look good. Besides, we were criminals. That was how they saw us. They wouldn’t care about the truth.

  “There’s gotta be a way. Just wait there, and when I get there, we’ll talk it out. We’ve always talked things out, haven’t we? We can work on it together.”

  “No. It’s not worth it. She’s too close to the truth. She wouldn’t let it go, you know? I didn’t wanna have to do this.” He cried again. “I don’t wanna kill anybody. Not a woman.” Alena. He meant Alena. He had to kill her because she was too close to the truth about Sara. But the way he made it sound, she was still alive. That was a good thing. How much longer would she be?

  “So don’t. You don’t have to. You have a choice, Skull. You can make the right choice.” God, if you’re there, let me get through to him. Or let me get there in time to help her.

  “There’s no choice, and you know it just like I do.” He wasn’t crying anymore. He was serious. My blood ran cold again.

  “You’ll only make things worse by doing this!”

  He laughed. “How much worse could it get? Shit, I killed Sara, and I loved her. What do you think I’ll do now?” The line went dead.

  “Fuck!” I wanted to throw my phone, just to hurt something, but instead I started the bike up and got back on the road. Now I was riding faster than ever.

  I couldn’t let myself imagine being there too late to save her, but every time I thought of her, all I could imagine was her dead body. Holding it in my arms. Would her eyes be open? Staring at me, blaming me for letting her die? She wouldn’t have to blame me. I would blame myself for the rest of my life.

  What would I do without her?

  Now that she was in danger, and I couldn’t be there for her, I knew how deep my feelings ran. Why had it taken me so long to figure it out? I had always tried to tell myself there was no such thing as love, but she showed me otherwise. It would be just perfect if I lost her now, wouldn’t it? I laughed bitterly to myself. At least my life was consistent. Just when I learned I could love a person, she would be taken from me.

  No. That wasn’t going to happen, not if I had anything to say about it. But what could I do if I didn’t get there in time?

  I could still call the police, and I considered it for a minute. But no. That was out, because as soon as he saw them, he’d freak out. It wasn’t like I knew which room they were in, either. I wouldn’t know where to send them. When he saw the cars and the lights, he might kill her right away just out of panic. He wasn’t thinking clearly.

  Now I knew how desperate she had felt when her sister was missing, because that was how I felt as I sped toward the hotel. I was desperate to get to her in time. I couldn’t let Skull do anything to her. I would try anything to save her.

  Even kill him? I still hated to think about it. My hands tightened around the handles of the bike. With everything he had done already, I cringed when I thought about shooting him. But I was starting to come around on the idea with each minute that passed. I knew I would do whatever I had to do to make sure Alena was all right. She meant that much to me now. She was mine, and she needed me. I was the only person who could do what it took to save her.

  She was counting on me. I couldn’t let her down. I only hoped she was still alive for me to save.

  Chapter 21

  Alena

  The room was as dingy as I would have expected from a place like this. And old, too. Nothing had been updated in years, maybe decades. Tired, worn carpet that might have been green in a former life. Dark paneled walls—how had anyone ever thought that was a good look? It didn’t come off as being a bit natural, but maybe that was never the intention. The one wall which wasn’t paneled, the one opposite the bed, was a deep red-orange color. Another holdover from an earlier time when everything was either red-orange or deep yellow. The nineteen seventies and early eighties weren’t exactly a high point for interior design.

  The bedspread was probably original to the room as well. I shuddered to think how many people had slept beneath its big, splashy print. How much DNA was on that thing? My skin crawled. It was probably completely flammable, too. How many people had almost burned to death with lit cigarettes in bed? There were nearly more cigarette burns on the carpeting than there were clean patches.

  All I could do was keep thinking about the way the room looked, or else I would go crazy. The chipped laminate on the dresser. The ugly pictures on the walls. The musty curtains on the window.

  My captors only added a little something extra to the space. One of them, the one who had smiled at me, was looking out the window. Who he was waiting for, I had no idea. Or maybe he was only keeping a lookout in case somebody came up. I couldn’t imagine who would. I hadn’t told anyone I was coming. God, why hadn’t I? Why had I been so headstrong? I should have known something fishy was up, but I was so happy to hear what I thought was Sara’s voice.

  Of course, it wasn’t. I didn’t know who this creep had gotten to call me and pretend to be her, but they clearly didn’t have a heart. Who would do that to a person? It was sick, sicker than anything that had happened yet. They knew I would come running if I thought my sister was waiting for me. They played me.

  I was too busy being crazy stubborn, and out of my head with grief and worry for Sara. I wasn’t thinking clearly. I should have known Cole was only trying to keep me safe. He wouldn’t have played me. And I had pus
hed him away, probably the only person who could protect me from what was going to happen now. I promised myself that if I ever got out of this, I would start listening to other people. I would remember that I didn’t always know the whole story and that sometimes other people could help me in ways I couldn’t help myself.

  I had been so blind. Convinced that because he was a “bad” person, I couldn’t trust him. He was only out to protect his club, all that. But in the end, he had cared for me. Would he mourn me when I was gone?

  I told myself to stop thinking dark thoughts like that, but seeing as how a couple of maniac criminals had tied me to a chair, it was hard not to. The other one, Alan, was sitting on the bed. The TV was on, a grainy, static-filled cartoon. It sounded unbelievably stupid and crude, but he loved it. The IQ wasn’t running high with this one. If it had only been him, or maybe even him and the other one by the window, I might have had a chance at outsmarting them. Telling them I had to go to the bathroom and climbing out the window, or using something as a weapon against them. Anything. I would have tried anything.