by Nicole James
Two silver rings. Two Evil Dead rings. The two rings that were missing off Digger and Weed’s bodies.
Holy fuck.
Cole’s eyes darted up to bore into Dog’s. “Where the hell did you find these?”
Red Dog’s brows rose meaningfully as he delivered the news. “Pocket of Taz’s cut.”
“That son-of-a-bitch,” Cole hissed, trying to contain his rage in the quiet hospital waiting room.
“Exactly. Makes me want to dig him up and kill him all over again.”
Cole quickly shoved the rings in his pocket, glancing again toward the officers.
“You think the DK’s put out that hit?” Green asked quietly.
Cole shook his head. “Doubt it. Big Ed was by earlier to pay his respects. He and Mack seemed cool. I hinted around about Taz. His reaction? Seemed to me, he was fed up with Taz. Said he was starting to become more trouble than he was worth.”
“They gonna have a problem when he disappears? I mean, just because he’s not his Chapter President’s favorite no more, doesn’t mean the rest of his brothers don’t care.”
Cole shrugged. “To tell the truth, I don’t give a fuck. It becomes a problem, we’ll deal with it, won’t we?”
“Damn straight,” Green agreed with a grin, rubbing his palms together. “Wouldn’t mind nailing a few more DK cuts to our wall. Something new to throw darts at.”
A moment later, several more men walked in, but they weren’t bikers. It was Jameson O’Rourke and his crew. And the man looked upset. He came to a stop, and the eyes of every brother in the room fell on him. He was quite the super star to this crew. A real rock star at what he did. The king of ink. And more than a few of his guys were in awe of being in the presence of such greatness.
O’Rourke’s eyes scanned the room, until they fell on Crystal, and then they lifted to Cole. “Thank God. She okay?”
“She’s fine. One of my guys was hurt.”
“The one called Wolf?” he surprised Cole by asking.
“Yeah.” Cole frowned. “You know Wolf?”
“He’s been coming around her. He came around last night just before she disappeared. I’ve be worried sick. I was about to file a police report when I caught wind of this.”
“Caught wind of what?”
“Word on the street is the Evil Dead had a man in the hospital, cut up pretty bad.”
“News travels fast.”
“Seems so,” Jameson replied, his eyes again falling to Crystal.
Cole studied the man’s expression and suddenly it slapped him in the face. This superstar, with his rock star bus and all his traveling sideshow—was fucking in love with Crystal. Well, goddamn.
Cole extended his hand. “Cole Austin.”
“Jameson O’Rourke.”
Just then Crystal woke up, wiping a hand over her eyes. “Jameson? What are you doing here?”
“Been lookin’ for you, Ace. You had me worried sick.”
“I’m sorry. I…Wolf was hurt and…” she looked at Cole as if not sure how much to say.
Jameson’s eyes also moved to him. “Mind if I talk to my employee alone?”
Cole gave him a hard look. “You can talk right here.”
Jameson blew out a breath, obviously not used to anyone not bending to kiss his feet. His eyes swung to Crystal. “Come on, Ace. You look beat. Let me get you out of here.”
She got to her feet and approached him. “I can’t leave Wolf.”
Jameson’s brows shot up. “You can’t leave Wolf. The man who came to see you last night?”
She nodded.
His voice took on an edge. “The same guy that had you in tears the other day? The same guy that shredded your heart in Vegas?”
She nodded, looking embarrassed. “I love him.”
He grabbed her by a forearm and held up her wrist, pushing her sleeve to her elbow. “You love him? The same guy you slit your wrists over?”
Cole stood shocked in place as he watched Crystal’s eyes dart to him with shame and embarrassment.
“Jameson, please don’t,” she begged in a broken voice.
“Don’t what? Don’t try to stop you from throwing your life away for a guy that doesn’t give a damn?”
Crash started to move toward the man, but Cole threw a fist up, hitting him in the chest and holding him back. Cole’s eyes zeroed in on Crystal. “You want to explain that?”
When Crystal could do nothing but look up at him with big eyes pooling with tears, practically begging him to stop, to let it go, Jameson filled in the gaps.
“You never noticed? The bracelets she always wore to cover the scars? I finally talked her into letting me tattoo over them, but you can still feel the ridge of scar tissue. See for yourself if you think I’m lying.” He glared at Cole.
Cole took her hand in his and gently ran his thumb across the inside of her wrist over the intricately beautiful tattooed cuffs. He felt the telltale ridge of scar tissue and his eyes lifted to hers. “Darlin’, why?”
She whispered, “Please, Cole. Please don’t make me talk about it.”
He pulled her into his arms, and whispered, “Shit, babe. Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?”
She clutched him tight, too overcome with emotion to speak, to do more than convulse with sobs.
Cole looked over her head at Jameson. “You want to give us a minute?”
A muscle in the man’s jaw twitched, but he nodded and stepped back. Cole walked with his arm around Crystal, guiding her down the hall around the corner, where he pulled her to a stop. “Goddamn, Crystal. I know I don’t know everything that’s gone on, but this shit with you and Wolf has been messed up from the start.”
She folded her arms tight around her, one hand coming up to wipe the tears from her cheeks.
“If you don’t want to talk about it, I’m not going to make you.”
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“You know we all love you, don’t you?”
She nodded, taking in a deep calming breath.
“So does that man out there.”
She frowned at him. “Jameson?”
Cole nodded. “Yeah. Mr. Rock Star Tattoo God out there.”
“You’re crazy.”
“Am I?” When she stayed quiet, he dropped a bomb on her. “You should go with him.”
She looked up, confusion marring her face. “What? I can’t leave Wolf.”
“Yes. You can. And that’s exactly what you’re going to do.”
“Cole—”
“Listen to me, Crystal. Go with O’Rourke. If Wolf loves you, if he wants a life with you, he’ll come for you.”
“But—”
“Crystal, Wolf’s my brother, and I love him, but the man’s got to step up sometime. If he doesn’t now, he never will. I’m betting he will.”
She didn’t look convinced.
“Besides,” he grinned, trying to cheer her up, “you know Wolf’s all about the chase. You run, he’s gonna chase after you.”
“He didn’t last time I left.”
“He will this time.”
“I don’t want to play games, Cole.”
“This is not a game, darlin’. I’m bein’ straight up with you now. You need to know you’re worth it. He needs to know you’re worth it. And by God, he needs to prove it.”
Crystal looked down the hall in the direction of Wolf’s room. “Just leave him? I don’t think I can.”
Cole leaned into her, putting a palm on the wall next to her head and got right in her face. “This is not up for debate. You’re going. If Wolf’s half the man I know he is, as soon as he’s able to walk out of this hospital, he’s gonna be coming for you, and when he does he’s gonna haul your ass back to Cali.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
Cole straightened. “Then, sweetheart, you’ve got a man standing down that hall ready and willing to lay the world at your feet.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
Wolf’s eyes opened and moved around taking
in his surroundings. He was in a bed. In a hospital gown. An IV going into his arm. His eyes followed the line up to the bag hanging beside his bed. Some kind of monitors stood next to him. And then his eyes focused on the man sitting in the chair by the bed, flipping channels with the TV remote. Red Dog.
Wolf tried to move, and pain shot through him in a dozen places. He groaned. Christ that hurt. And then it all came flooding back. Taz and his knife. And Crystal.
Fuck. Was she okay? He tried to lift his arm.
“You dumb fuck, don’t try to move. You’ll tear your stitches,” Dog growled, looking over.
And then suddenly Cole was there, standing in his peripheral vision at the foot of the bed. “So, you let a DK get the drop on you?”
“Yeah. Where’s Crystal? Is she okay?” He tried to sit up in the bed, and grimaced against the searing pain in his gut and the lightheadedness that hit him.
“Take it easy, Brother. She’s fine,” Cole informed him.
“Who the fuck you think has been sitting next to your bed, you scary bastard?” Crash added as he came into view on the other side of the bed.
“Scary?” Wolf frowned, then reached up to gently touch the bandage on the side of his face, remembering. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“You ain’t gonna be a pretty boy no more. You got an ugly mug like the rest of us now,” Red Dog teased coming to his feet.
Wolf’s mind circled back, a little jumbled from the pain meds. “She’s here?”
Crash and Red Dog exchanged a look with Cole, who explained, “She was. She had to leave. The traveling ‘O’Rourke’ show left town.”
“And she…she left with him?”
“Yeah, man. She left with him as soon as he showed up,” Dog confirmed.
Crash looked across the bed at Dog. “Well, why don’t you take Tiny Tim’s crutch and beat him over the head with it.”
“What? He asked.”
Wolf lay back and stared at the ceiling as feelings of desolation washed over him.
“Look, Wolf—” Crash started, but Wolf cut him off.
“You guys mind if I ask you to leave. I’m kind of tired and my head’s foggy.”
Crash and Red Dog again looked at Cole, who jerked his chin toward the door.
“You take care of yourself, Wolf. We’ll be back in the morning.” Crash patted Wolf’s leg.
“Take care, man,” Dog said. “By the way you lucked out with some hot nurses. I’d insist on a sponge bath first chance you get.”
Wolf nodded, his eyes still on the ceiling, but didn’t even crack a smile at Dog’s attempt at humor.
When Crash and Dog had left, Cole moved to the side of the bed, his hands resting on the metal side rail. “Before the law comes in for your statement, let’s get your story straight.”
Wolf nodded.
“Mack told ‘em it was a botched robbery attempt. One guy in a ski mask.”
“One guy. Gee, thanks for making me look like a pussy.”
“Caught you unaware as you were taking a piss.”
“How dignified.”
“You fought over the knife.”
“Where’d this fairytale supposedly take place?”
“An alley behind that saloon on Main Street, round the corner from that tee shirt place.”
“Wouldn’t that leave a blood trail?”
“Crash used his tee shirt to staunch the flow of your blood. We dumped it and the knife in the alley. It’s all good. Just don’t change the story.”
Wolf nodded, wincing as another wave of pain took him.
Cole’s voice softened with regret. “This was all because of me, Wolf. Because of that beating I gave Taz in Reno.”
Wolf looked over at him, taking in his tormented face, then back at the ceiling. “Don’t beat yourself up about it, Cole. Taz was a sociopath.”
Cole shook his head. “This was a message meant for me. He said as much.”
Wolf frowned, and looked back at Cole. “I may be a little fuzzy, but I do remember shooting the motherfucker. When the hell did you talk to him?”
“We went back after we loaded you off to the hospital. Crystal showed us where the campsite was, only he wasn’t there.”
“What the fuck do you mean he wasn’t there?”
“He’d crawled off into the woods. Wasn’t hard to find, just followed the blood trail.” Cole attempted a grin. “Much better than breadcrumbs.”
“And?”
“And before I emptied my clip into him, he told me it was all payback for Reno. Apparently, I’d fucked up his face.”
That got a slight chuckle out of Wolf, which made him grimace in pain, his eyes closing. “Fuck that hurts. Don’t make me laugh.”
“Sorry.”
“So, you saw the camp?”
“Yeah.” Cole swallowed. “He was a sick motherfucker.”
Wolf nodded. “It was a sick feeling, Cole. Being strung up in that tree, just hanging there like his personal piñata.” He paused and looked over at his VP. “We’ve faced a lot of shit, haven’t we?”
Cole nodded solemnly.
“But, Christ, Cole. I think that was the closest I ever came to checking out. I didn’t think I was getting outta there alive.”
He saw a muscle in Cole’s jaw clench and knew this was an uncomfortable subject. Facing one’s mortality wasn’t easy for any man. Thinking you were the cause of another’s near death was possibly worse. Wolf cleared his throat and caught Cole’s attention. “Hey.”
Cole’s eyes, which had been staring at the bed, returned to him.
“It was Crystal that got us out of there. If it wasn’t for her, I’d be dead.”
“That’s not the way she tells it.”
Wolf frowned. “What do you mean?”
“She said you were the one that talked her through it. Got her to calm down enough to deal with it. Told her what to do.”
Wolf looked at the ceiling, thinking about everything Crystal had done, everything she had endured to get them free. “I wanted her to go, save herself. But she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t leave me.”
“You know she was never going to leave you.”
Wolf looked over at him. “But she’s gone now.” When I need her most. Wolf left that part unspoken, but knowing Cole, he heard the silent words loud and clear.
Never one to hold back, Cole let him have it. “Yeah, she is. And whose fault is that?”
“Mine, I’m guessing.”
“What goes around, comes around, Brother. I shouldn’t need to tell you that.”
“Well, I did take a blow to the head, so maybe I’m a little slow.”
“You’ve never been slow, Wolf. Don’t play fucking games with me.”
Wolf frowned suddenly. “What day is it? How long have I been here?”
“It’s Monday.”
“You heading back?” Wolf knew they should have been gone yesterday.
“I’m not going anywhere until you’re released.”
“When’s that supposed to be?”
“No fucking clue. You tell me.”
“Ha ha.” Wolf closed his eyes, fatigue getting to him.
“Okay. How about a topic that’s not funny? You know about Crystal’s wrists?”
That got his eyes open. They darted to Cole’s, and he swallowed. “I found out in Vegas.”
Cole nodded, letting it drop. But then he twisted the knife. “I think Jameson has feelings for her.”
“Oh, you two on a first named basis now?” Wolf grimaced against a wave of pain. Christ, he needed another shot of whatever the hell they’d been injecting into his IV.
“He’d give her a good life, Wolf.”
“Shit, Cole.” Wolf paused to lick his lips. He felt like he had a mouthful of cotton. “Kick a man when he’s down, why don’t you?”
“Just sayin’. Once you heal up and are out of that bed, you need to pull your head out of your ass and figure out what the fuck you want. If it’s Crystal, you better make your move before it’s too
late. If it’s not, then you need to fucking let her go once and for all. Don’t fuck up any chance at happiness she has. It’s cruel to jerk her around like this. She deserves a hell of a lot better.”
Wolf stubbornly stared at the ceiling again. “She does. The kind of life Jameson can give her apparently.”
“What she deserves is to be loved. She deserves a man who’s got the guts to give her that. She doesn’t give a crap about some fancy life. And if you haven’t figured that out about her, you’re dumber than I thought.”
With that, Cole turned and stalked out. Wolf watched him go and felt the knife twist in his heart. Everything he said was the truth. All of it. Now he just needed to figure out just how brave he was. Brave enough to go after her or brave enough to live the rest of his life without her?
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Wolf pulled up in front of the address and backed his bike in next to the line of four bikes parked with their back tires against the curb. He set the kickstand down and threw his leg over the bike as he stood, his eyes taking in the building. Brothers Ink. Jameson O’Rourke’s place. It was two stories high, and he could see the man himself standing at a second floor plate glass window, looking down at him. Jameson lifted his chin to him, and Wolf returned the gesture, then headed inside.
The place was impressive. Sleek and modern. A reception counter stood across the entrance, tattoo stations lined behind it. No one stood at the counter. Wolf glanced around, but didn’t see Crystal anywhere. One of the tattoo artists, who’d been busy sketching out a design, stood and approached the counter. He looked vaguely familiar from the shop in Sturgis. He was stocky, with a bald head, a thick beard and ten gauge onyx plugs in his ears.
“Can I help you?” the man rested his palms on the counter, his arms covered in ink.
“Is Crystal here?”
“Not at the moment.”
“How about Jameson?”
“Do you have an appointment?”
Wolf took in the empty shop, and a grin pulled at his mouth. He shook his head as the man’s eyes slid over his leather Evil Dead cut. “I think he’s got time. Tell him Wolf wants to see him.”
The man, who obviously was used to dealing with bikers, nodded once, then jerked his chin toward the seating area. “Take a seat. I’ll tell him you’re here.”
