by Franca Storm
“Finn?” Scott asked, seeming as surprised as me. “Why’s he calling you?”
I shrugged and answered, “Finn, hi. What’s up?”
“Is Scott with you?” he barked.
“Yeah. Is—”
“Put him on. Right now,” he commanded fiercely.
I pulled the phone away from my ear and handed it to Scott. “Something’s wrong.”
Scott frowned and took my phone and turned away to speak with Finn.
“You giving her attitude? What the fuck are you—say that again. What? When? You got him? Is Laura there? I’m on my way.”
He disconnected and I saw him hang his head, then scrub his hand over his face, uttering a curse. When he turned back, there was just pain. Nothing but pain.
“What’s happened?” I asked gently.
It took him a moment to answer and when he did, all he said was, “We gotta get back to the clubhouse. Now.”
21
~Spartan~
FINN BLOCKED MY WAY.
“Move,” I ordered, as I hurried up to the infirmary.
Instead, he folded his arms across his chest and firmed up his stance in front of the door.
“How long have you known?” he barked.
“Known what?”
“Don’t fuck with me. Not now, not about this.”
Goddamn it. I took a beat as realization set in. “He told you.”
“He was delirious, crying out names, names that mean a hell of a lot to me. Yours was also in there. You’ve been working together to take Hammer and his boys down, haven’t you? Fuck, it all makes sense now. You working out like a madman, withdrawing from everyone and everything, our argument at the barbecue. All this time you knew Nemesis had resurfaced. All this time and you actively kept it from me.” He pushed off the door and raged, “This is something that directly impacts me! It’s a massive threat to me, the club, and anyone I come into contact with. Jesse! Ashley! This is life and death, Scott! You fucking well lied to me, straight to my face! How in the hell did you rationalize keeping me in the dark here?”
“I had it handled.”
He scoffed. “Yeah? Really? Is that why Jesse sent out a distress signal from the side of the road, where I found him bleeding to death in the fucking gutter?” He gestured to his blood-soaked t-shirt, his stained hands and face. “Is this what having it handled looks like?”
“I told him to hold off, to wait for me.”
“Hold off on what?”
Fuck. It was too late now. He knew enough that I had to fucking well tell him the whole deal. “Knox. He had that fucker’s location.”
“Knox? What does he have to do with Hammer and his band of merry psychos?”
He wasn’t gonna take any of this well. He thought what he knew already was bad enough. It was only a fraction of the whole deal.
“He hired them to get me off his back.”
His eyes widened. I’d never seen him so shocked in all the time I’d known him.
“Jesus Christ,” he breathed. He muttered a slew of curses under his breath, then spun and slammed his fist into the wall. “I told you!” he roared. “I fucking told you to let it lie! Knox was done for! He wasn’t a threat anymore! The Feds were all over his ass! He was inconsequential, unable to touch you or any one of us!”
“Like you were inconsequential once upon a time, until I saved your ass and brought you back into the world?”
“That was different.”
“Nah, it was the goddamn same. As long as that fucker’s breathing, there’s no guarantee.”
“That kind of obsessive thinking is exactly what’s led us to this. Knox reached out to Hammer and his guys, because of you refusing to let it go. Jesse got involved because of you pulling him into it for his skills.”
“Jesse got involved, because of you.”
“What? What the fuck are you talking about?”
“He knew, just as much as I did, that as long as Knox was alive, he was a threat to me and mine and he gets real well that I’m the only thing standing between you and ghost living for the rest of your goddamn life. He did all of this to protect you.”
“And you? What did you do all of this for?”
I moved to speak, but he cut me off, stepping up to me and telling me, “Go ahead. Look me in the fucking eye and tell me that this was all about protecting people. Me. Ashley. The club.” He jabbed his finger into my chest. “Lie to my face! Tell me it wasn’t about avenging your wife, that this wasn’t the very definition of a personal crusade!”
I snatched his wrist. “Get your goddamn hand off me.” When he just glared, I ripped it off my chest, making him stumble back from the force behind it. “Check yourself, brother.”
“If I wasn’t already doing that, you’d be out cold.”
“Watch that arrogance. You might’ve picked up a few new tricks over the years, but don’t forget that I’m the one that taught you how to fight.” I took a step forward. “And I’m your fucking Prez.”
He scrubbed his hand over his face, his distress real fucking obvious. I watched him clench his fists afterward, breathing in and out slowly. I knew the action well. He was using a technique he’d actually taught me after my wife had been murdered, a fiercely powerful meditative technique that could calm even the most intense rage.
I folded my arms over my chest, waiting until he was done. As much as I wanted to get past him to see Jesse, see how he was doing and figure out what the hell had happened, interrupting Finn now wouldn’t help anything. I needed him calm to get all this shit out in the open and make him understand. It was a fuck of a lot to walk into with no warning, so I wasn’t surprised at him going off the rails right now. It was the main reason he was getting a pass for coming at me. Yeah, he was my closest brother-in-arms, my best friend basically, but I couldn’t let nobody disrespect my authority, no matter what.
That would make for chaos.
Finally getting it under control, Finn shot his gaze to mine and asked, “You said you told him to wait on you? What was that all about? He had a lead on Knox. Why would you hesitate and delay jumping on it?”
“Dani needed my help.”
I saw that shock again from him. “Jesus.”
“What?”
“You chose her over your vengeance.”
“Yeah, I did.”
Hope shone in his eyes and I knew why.
But I couldn’t let it. I couldn’t let it be the truth. So, I told him, “I made a mistake.”
“What?”
“I fell into the trap, just like you warned me about. Got caught up in her.”
“No. You fell in love with somebody. Finally, the past fell to the wayside, in favor of a bright future without all that darkness you’ve been carrying with you for so long.”
“And look at what it cost.” I shook my head to myself. “Nah. I was right the first time. A guy like me don’t get to live that life, don’t get that kinda peace.”
“Scott, no. Don’t go there. That’s not—”
I held up my hand. “I gotta talk to Jesse, figure out exactly what went down tonight. Then I’ll come to you and we’ll make a game plan, maybe, bring the club in on it too.”
He finally stepped aside.
As I brushed past him, I realized I had something I needed him to know, something that weren’t gonna sit right with me if I didn’t set him straight. Grasping his arm, his gaze snapped to mine, and I told him, “The reason I had to go after Knox weren’t about the vengeance. It was because I felt like I couldn’t fucking rest until it was really over, until he was buried. I know you get it, you got that same nagging feeling with Hammer and the guys still being out there. And we’ll sort it. We’ll sort it all.” I forced a smile and gave his arm a squeeze. “Then we can both rest.”
“Scott, wait, I—”
I shook my head and pulled away. “That’s all. I’ll come by and we’ll talk tomorrow.”
Before he could start up another protest, I opened the door to the
infirmary and stepped on through, shutting the door behind me, shutting him out.
***
What a clusterfuck.
I cringed at my text to Dani.
It’s all good. No worries. Later, love.
She’d been calling and texting after I’d dropped her back at her place, then taken off without a word to the clubhouse to deal with the Jesse emergency.
I’d wanted to wait on contacting her, to push it off to the side until I’d had a chance to get my head around how best to deal with it.
With her.
With us.
But I’d already put it off for too long and the way I’d left so freaked and all that had her real worried. I couldn’t put her through that.
And now I’d basically lied to her.
Things weren’t all good.
I was keeping her in the dark about it.
After all the struggle to air all our secrets and let one another in and now I was risking it, all that headway we’d made.
I was shutting down, closing myself off.
Shutting her out.
And right now, I didn’t know if it was to protect her, or myself.
Fuck. She’d compromised my judgment. She’d split my focus. She’d divided my priorities.
So much had been riding on me taking care of Knox and the Hammer threat, yet when the opportunity had come my way to take care of it, I’d screwed it to hell.
I’d chosen her.
And it’d cost way too much.
Knox and Nemesis had slipped through my fingers.
More than that, from Jesse going at them, it confirmed we’d gone against Knox’s warning to back off and were instead actively going after them.
It meant one of two things were gonna happen. Either Knox would finally fucking give it up and retreat big time, going underground where it’d take the likes of moving heaven and earth to find him again. Or he’d switch up the reactive approach and give Hammer and his guys orders to come at us real goddamn hard in one hell of a brutal attack.
I weren’t down for either option.
Knowing Knox as well as I did, though, I was betting on him going for the brutal attack.
Yeah, we had tight security around Ridgefield and up at the clubhouse, a lot of it thanks to Finn’s work since he’d come on board as Sergeant-at-Arms, but Hammer’s guys were trained to infiltrate even the most secure location. If Knox gave the word, they wouldn’t stop until we were all put to ground.
I couldn’t let things get that far.
I had to stop it all before it escalated even further.
I was just hoping like hell that Jesse had something to go on.
Searching out those fuckers like a needle in a fucked-up haystack would take way too long. I’d never find them before they came at us.
But it weren’t looking like I was gonna be getting answers tonight, the state Jesse was in.
Jesus Christ.
Those fuckers had really done a number on him.
He was black and blue. His left eye was swollen shut. He’d had stitches for a nasty gash down the right side of his cheek. His hands were bandaged. Laura had told me that the fuckers had crushed a couple of knuckles on one of his hands. The rest of the damage had been sustained by him trying to fight back. He was sporting two broken ribs, a stab wound to the thigh where he’d lost a load of blood.
I’d seen a lot over the years doing the work I did. But it didn’t really get no easier seeing somebody I cared about in this kinda state. Suffering.
I’d sent men into battle too many times to count.
Leading meant having the stomach to do that, knowing they might not all make it back. It meant believing in what we were fighting for, the greater good of it all.
But this… it was worse than even all that.
Jesse had been hurt, because I’d fucked up. I hadn’t had my head in the game. I’d gotten wrapped up in Dani, big time.
“Brother, that’s not how love works. There’s no clear, rational path. It’s not about cold, hard logic. It’s about feeling. It’s about the heart.”
Finn’s words to me a few weeks back kept whirring around in my head.
I’d been fucking arrogant to think it wouldn’t go down that way with me, that I’d be different somehow. Stronger. More focused. Above it all.
I’d figured that I’d lived without that kinda interference of loving a woman for so long that it wouldn’t get to me like that. But it’d been the opposite. Because I weren’t used to it no more, it made me more susceptible to it.
A groan from Jesse pulled me outta my head.
I shot from the chair I’d been sitting in for the last couple of hours as I’d waited for him to wake up. “Easy. No sudden moves,” I warned him, laying my hand on his shoulder.
His eyes snapped to mine and right away emotion bled from them. “I’m… sorry,” he croaked.
“You ain’t gotta be, brother.”
He smiled weakly. “Brother?”
“Yeah.”
“Thought… you’d… be pissed.”
I shook my head. “I just gotta know what went down. Gotta deal with the fallout.”
He nodded his understanding, then cleared his throat. After a couple of nasty coughs that had him wincing from the pressure on his messed-up ribs, he managed, “I know. I should’ve waited on you. I just… I got caught up in it. Me and Finn, we thought those of them that’d survived his hit were gone to ground for good. He’s already got enough to worry about with the law. He’s got to lay low for the rest of his life. We had that down, you and me, keeping him safe and off the grid. Now, Knox reactivating Hammer and his guys puts all of that at risk and everybody’s lives too.”
“Fuck, I know. Never shoulda told him about all that.”
“You were younger then and you guys were really tight back then. Nobody saw Knox losing his mind and betraying you like he did.”
I shoulda seen it. I shoulda been better. I never shoulda relaxed that much, the way I had when I’d got together with Andrea. Fuck. Now, here I was, making a real similar mistake again with Dani.
It was my goddamn blind spot.
And I couldn’t allow that right now.
All that mattered, all that could matter right now, was the mission.
“Was Knox there?” I asked him, pushing forward with the intel gathering.
He nodded. “I was casing this warehouse. It was the location I had pegged for him. Some empty former lumber storage place. I got confirmation that it wasn’t as empty as it should’ve been when I spotted Knox’s bike and the unmarked vehicles Hammer and his black ops guys drive around, over on the north side. I’d only just stepped inside the place when they descended on me. They started beating the crap out of me. Knox ID’d me in front of them, so now they’ve got my name and fucking everything I’ve tried so hard to keep on the down low for years. Not just for my benefit, but for Finn and your club, because I’ve done questionable work for you guys in the past too.” He started coughing, launching into a massive fit with it, the distress of all of it clearly taking its toll.
“All right, take it easy. We’ll talk more soon. I’ll let you sleep now. Just rest, brother.”
“Can’t. Gotta shut down my servers. Everything. Gotta cut off the source of any intel those assholes might be able to turn up now I’ve been outed by Knox.”
Fuck. “You ain’t in no state to do much of nothing right now. Give me the physical location and I’ll take care of it.”
“No. Has to be someone who understands my setup.” He eyed me intensely. “There’s only one.”
The look on his face said it all. “Finn?”
“Yeah. He’ll know what to do. Don’t let him go alone, though. Not with the enemy out there the way they are.”
“He don’t get to go alone nowhere these days.” I always sent him with backup if there was ever a time he had to go beyond Ridgefield’s borders. It weren’t easy to maintain his ghost status outside of them. It called for being real careful all t
he time and taking extreme precautions and measures.
“Good,” he said, resting his head back against his pillow, spacing out.
Yeah, he was done.
I had enough intel to act on for now.
He closed his eyes and he was out in a couple of seconds.
“Rest now, my friend.”
22
~Daniella~
SURREAL.
That was what my life had felt like for the last few days.
Two weeks, was it?
It’d been hard to tell, because things had been moving so quickly.
So much insanity.
Such chaos.
Too much disorganization.
All in the name of achieving calm and order.
Yeah, re-starting up a business was a hell of a task.
Not to mention, making a home that’d been abandoned for two years livable again.
I hadn’t been able to ease into it either. It’d been a frantic rush, because I was meeting about a job today. The person in question would be here any minute.
Being so busy had been a blessing, though. It had thrust me back into things, refusing to let me hesitate or question my nerve after everything that had happened to destabilize me over the years.
It’d also helped to push my feelings for him into the background.
I hadn’t been able to focus on him constantly, or the whirlwind of emotions that had been threatening to consume me.
Except when the downtime came at the start of the day, then when I went to bed. Those awful times when there was nothing else to do but lie awake with my thoughts.
Scott had left me.
Sure, he’d dressed it up with a pretty little bow, by referring to it merely as a pause.
But down at its bedrock, it was the same damned thing. He’d walked away.
I understood it. To a point.
He’d freaked after what had happened to his friend, Jesse. He’d put the blame on our relationship for his shift of priorities which he believed had led to him letting Jesse down and not being there when he’d needed him. He was dealing with a tough and dangerous situation right now, so, of course he had to be on the ball.
