Blood & Rust (Lock & Key #4)

by Cat Porter

  “Me either. She never talks about him, and I figure if she’s not talking about it, that either means it’s really fucked up, or there’s some sort of secret involved. In any case, she’s extremely loyal, Butler. Whatever it is, she won’t just share for the hell of it. With any of us.”

  I exhaled deeply. Tania’s fierce loyalty was one of the things I loved about her.

  Loved?

  Is that why my heart felt like it was going through the shredder, and the only things keeping me standing were my ribs, my legs, and denial?

  “I got the sense that she has a deeper connection with Finger than she does with that husband of hers,” I muttered. “Or is that just my crazy talking?”

  Grace glanced up at me. “No, it’s not crazy. That’s what worries me.”

  A bond. Finger and Tania shared some kind of important bond.

  “Grace.” Lock stood over his old lady from behind, his arm sliding across her chest, pulling her close to his.

  Did Finger and Tania share a bond the same way Grace and Lock had from the very beginning?

  Getting involved with Tania, getting attached to her, would only be more of the same disappointment, disillusionment, destruction.

  Grace laced her hand in her old man’s. “We’ve got to go. If anything comes up, let me know, okay?”

  “Yeah, sure.” I raised my chin at Lock. “Good night.”

  He nodded at me, and the two of them took off, their arms around each other’s waists.

  I stared after them.

  It was meant to be for some of us, not all of us though. No, not all of us. I had accepted that fact at Caitlyn’s funeral. I had accepted that fact last year after the debacle of me and Grace as I’d ridden off into my black sunset. It would never happen for me again. It wasn’t in my cards, my stars, my whatever the fuck. That was why agreeing to be with Nina had made sense. Because all that just did not fucking matter anymore. Because I’d finally accepted the message I had been given by fate.

  Then, Tania had happened and blown that theory to bits.

  And here I was, burning.

  Burning.

  Burning.

  I was such a fucking idiot. Still.

  Tania was now scarred with an angry red wound on her chest. The red weals would fade, but the marks would remain forever.

  That fucking F.

  Failure.

  Fuck-up.

  Finger.

  She was permanently marked from my failure to protect her. And marked with a souvenir of her connection to him. Whatever kind of connection it was, it definitely was something.

  That light-headedness kicked in, my breath shortening, the skin across my forehead and down my neck tingling with a cold sweat. I wiped at my damp upper lip.

  “You okay?” Kicker laid a hand on my shoulder.

  I jerked back at his touch. “Hey. You got a smoke?” I bit out, my gaze averted, my eyes springing in their sockets.

  He handed me his pack, and I tore one out, tucking it between my lips. Kicker flicked his lighter on, and I lit up, sucking deep on the nicotine rush, on everything that cigarette was, and on everything it fucking wasn’t.

  My eyes scraped over the bottles pouring out their seductive potions throughout the Roadhouse, the full glasses being raised in the air, tipped to mouths, the smokes glowing in the dark.

  I took in another brutal inhale. My chest squeezed sharply. “I’ve got to get out of here.”

  “You need something more?” Kicker asked.

  My eyes slid to his.

  “Get thee behind me, Satan.” My mother’s voice echoed in my brain.

  She used to say that phrase to tease my father when he would bring home a huge box of doughnuts or her favorite cherry pie. Ma was always on a diet, trying to stay away from temptation, but she loved sweets.

  And I loved a different brand of sweets.

  Those words were Jesus’s reply to his buddy, Peter when he had tried to reassure Jesus that everything would be groovy, if only he’d relax a bit. He’d only wanted to keep Jesus safe and alive, but there was no easy way for Jesus. He’d had to face that cross, and he had known it, no matter how much the human in him might have been tempted to avoid it, desperate to avoid it. Peter had just been making a friendly suggestion, but he hadn’t gotten it. He hadn’t understood the bigger picture, the danger of what he was saying.

  Oh, Kicker got it though, and so did I.

  The interim president of my club stood before me, watching me, an eyebrow raised, a glint in his eye.

  Was this a little test?

  Butler’s already lost his temper once tonight. Let’s see if the coke fiend is gonna rage again.

  “I catch you using—just once—you’ll be out on your goddamn ass forever.” Jump had told me that first day back at the club.

  And he was right. Couldn’t be a part of a club as a clown, let alone in any position of responsibility, and you couldn’t ride high. They knew I’d never touched the harder stuff—the heroin, the crack—and I hadn’t. Those were forbidden. Those were worthy of getting rid of you in an unequivocal way. I’d seen it before. A brother unable to cut himself free from the junk, and the club dealing with it by slipping him pure stuff to OD on. Elimination done right.

  Maybe Kicker was only asking a bro to join him in a good time.

  Maybe not.

  My nerves twitched and snapped inside me.

  My exile was fucking over. I had paid the many prices. I’d passed through a year of withdrawal and total abstinence, including booze and pot. Coke withdrawal was a deceptive, deceitful little whore. I had at least another year ahead of me of the mood swings and anxiety, the irritability and bad sleep—all of which would come and go without reason. All it took was one little thing to tick them off, to swing me down low, and I’d have to wrestle my Satan, my adversary, down.

  Tania letting go of my hand—Satan.

  Tania taking off with Finger and his crew—Satan.

  Kicker inviting me to play—Satan.

  Howling wind blew through that gaping crevasse in my soul that was still desperate to be filled.

  I’m used to that eerie sound, aren’t I?

  My fingers found the hard outline of the key to my bike in my pocket, and my pulse leveled off. I focused on that one singular craving that made sense to me, the one that came second to none. My music was good, it helped, and I was so grateful to have it in my life again—thanks to Tania—but this, this was fundamental.

  The drone of my engine, the hot metal vibrating underneath me, my grip on those handlebars, the cold air battering me as I zoomed forward.

  No thinking.

  Only feeling.

  One with the wind.

  Inside the speed.

  Within the roar.

  No thinking. Just riding. Being free.

  Free.

  “Get thee behind me, Satan.”

  I took in a deep breath through my nose and stepped forward, heading for the door.

  “What I need is the road.”

  I KNEW IT WAS HER, standing in the rain, half on, half off the sagging porch of the old two-family house where I rented out the second floor apartment. The dim yellow light of the front door lamp highlighted her form.

  A pull dragged on my heart at the sight of her. Was I annoyed at seeing her here? Was I happy? Fuck, I didn’t know.

  I pulled up the driveway into the garage and shut down my engine.

  She didn’t move, didn’t say a word. She waited for me.

  I moved up the steps.

  Pat, pat, pat went the drizzling rain over the hood of Tania’s jacket.

  “I need to talk to you.”

  I caught her eyes in the porch light. “About what?”

  Her shoulders tensed. “What happened earlier. I didn’t like how we left it—”

  “But you left it anyway. Left me and took off with him.”

  “It’s not what you think.”

  I raised my hands in the air. “Let me cut to the chase h
ere. I have feelings for you. Feelings I thought I’d never feel again and ones I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to feel because they leave me confused, wanting too much, and fucked in the head. Like right now.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry.” I let out a heavy exhale. “Goddamn, don’t be sorry for me liking you.”

  “I like you, too.” She reached out a hand toward me.

  I grabbed it, squeezing hard, my fingers digging into her flesh.

  She gasped in pain.

  “Here’s the thing, Tania. I like you as a person; I like you as a woman. I don’t want half of you, parts of you. I don’t want to just have a good time, have you on my arm here and there, have a laugh at a party over a beer, fuck you, zip up then walk away.” I entwined our fingers, pulling her closer in to me. “I want you to want me like I want you. I want you to feel like you can’t get enough of me, just like I can’t get enough of you. I want you to feel that you can’t claw your way in here deep enough.” I bashed her hand into my chest. “Because that is how I fucking feel about you.”

  A tear spilled down her cheek. Was she sorry that it wasn’t that way for her? Was she here to explain and say goodbye? The steady rain grew harder, louder.

  I released her hand. “I can’t do games with you, Tania.”

  “This isn’t a game to me.”

  “Then, what the fuck is going on with you and Finger?” I wiped the wet, matted hair from my face. “Tonight, you flirting with Trav, you hanging with whoever the fuck else, didn’t bother me. I enjoyed watching you have fun, cut loose. But you and Finger? That feels different, sounds different; it fucking smells different. You two are tied in some way. You can’t say no to him, and he can’t say no to you either. And the thing is, you don’t want to. I see it in your eyes, his, too. And that spells disaster for anyone else coming close to the fire to try to get warm. That ain’t gonna be me, Tania.”

  I brushed past her and went to the front door, fumbling for my keys.

  “Please, can I come inside?” Her voice shook. “I’ll explain what I can.”

  “Oh, great—what you can?” I unlocked the door and shoved it open.

  “Please, Butler. Please?” Her voice was just above a whisper, her posture almost humble.

  She wasn’t up to tricks or a show or a seduction. This was going to be real. I’d steeled myself against her since I saw her on my front porch, but I wanted to hear it. I did.

  I let out a breath and stepped to the side. She entered, following me up the creaky stairs and inside my small apartment. She removed her hands from the pockets of her short trench coat, clasping them together.

  “Let’s hear the speech,” I said, tugging off my wet jacket, throwing it on the peg behind the door. “You practiced it real good for me?”

  She wiped the water from her face. “I’m going to take all this sarcasm as a sign that you care and you give a shit.”

  I toed off my boots. “I’m also a damn sore loser.”

  “You didn’t lose anything, Butler.”

  I eyed her. “Let’s go. I’m waiting to hear the big rehearsed and edited explanation.”

  “Finger needed my help with a mutual friend of ours.”

  “A mutual friend?” I grabbed a towel from the kitchen and rubbed my dripping wet hair with it. “You and Finger have a mutual friend? Not your brother?”

  “No, not Catch. I met Finger way before my brother had ever even heard of the Flames of Hell. My brother is ten years younger than me. When I first met Finger, Drew had only just started junior high.”

  I threw the towel at a kitchen chair. “That long ago?”

  “Yes. Actually, it all started with you and me.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” my voice snapped.

  “After you and I had our little hook-up that never was, at Grace and Dig’s wedding, I left town a couple months later to go back to Chicago, like I’d told you.”

  “Right.”

  “On the road, at a gas stop, I met Finger.”

  “And what? You had a quick fuck instead of a Slurpee?”

  “No.” She ignored my sarcasm. “He was in trouble. Finger was on the run at the time. He was injured, and I helped him.”

  “I almost ended it in the fucking restroom of a gas station on the highway.” Finger’s voice ran through me.

  “He needed food, first aid—”

  “And a fuck?”

  Her back straightened. “He needed to lay low for a while. He was being hunted down,” she said, her voice cool, like a lawyer making her case. “And I helped him.”

  “I managed. I survived and got done what I had to get done.” Finger had said.

  “You helped him do that,” I said quietly, dragging my hands through my damp hair. “What the hell made you help a guy like that, in that kind of dangerous situation? Back then, you’d never hang out with the Jacks. You were pretty much always uncomfortable around us. But a scarred, injured, on-the-run Flames of Hell Finger, you took under your wing? You took money and time out of your rushing back to Chicago to help a man like that? A man you didn’t know? A man you should’ve been afraid of just by the looks of him?”

  Her eyes leveled with mine. “Yes, I did.”

  I tried to picture the two of them on the run. This is fucking nuts.

  “Did you realize how dangerous it was?”

  “Yeah, I had a good idea. But it was worth it.”

  Worth it?

  I licked my lips and shifted my weight. Dizziness weaved through my head. My damp henley felt like a lead weight on me, and I ripped it off, bunching my wet shirt in a ball and throwing it in a corner. “So, a little while after you and me at the wedding, you met him? Him you fucked though, right?”

  “Yes.”

  I let out a dark laugh. A slap in the face, a definitive kick in the blue balls, delivered twenty years later.

  “You couldn’t finish what you’d started with me”—I raised my voice—“but him—this scarred, probably bleeding vagrant off the road—you fucked? Him you had a secret getaway affair with?” I dug my fingers into my scalp, the jags of pain satisfying.

  “I felt awful about what had happened or hadn’t happened between you and me at the wedding. It was a terrible failure. Me, the big talker, and I couldn’t follow through with the hot player who had come on to me. I got scared. I felt totally out of my comfort zone.”

  “It wasn’t about being comfortable, Tania. It was about getting wild and getting off.”

  “Right.” She chewed on her lip. “I panicked. I couldn’t do it.”

  My shoulders fell. “Tania—”

  “I couldn’t do it,” she repeated, her voice barely audible. “I felt so self-conscious, so not wild and so tense about being able to get off. I looked up at you, and you were charging ahead. Getting into it, going for it. And I…I talked myself out of it. I knew doing it wasn’t about you and me being hot for each other as much as it was about other stuff going on in our own heads, and that was fine. I didn’t have any illusions. But I felt like I was being pushed off the edge of some cliff, and it scared the shit out of me. I wanted so badly to be this liberated, free woman who took risks, the kind of woman a guy like you would go for, but when push came to fucking shove—”

  “And it did.”

  “And it did.” She met my gaze. “I shut it down.”

  “You backed away from the edge of the cliff.”

  “And I irritated you, of course,” she continued. “I made you angry, and suddenly, you saw me in that same negative way that I saw myself—the ice queen who, deep down inside, was just a ball of fear. The little girl who couldn’t step up, couldn’t let go. I was embarrassed, horrified, with myself. All my little insecurities were cemented in place. I wanted to run and hide, and I did.”

  I planted my hands on my hips. “I figured you were playing games, and I wasn’t doing it for you after all. That you wanted to kick my ass for the hell of it.”

  “No, it wasn’t that.
Not at all,” she said. “Weeks later, when I met Finger, it was an opportunity to erase all of that. To step up, to be that wild and free person. To finally take that risk. To set that ball of fear on fire and toss it away and really do something different, something wild, and, yes, even something dangerous. To take it as far as I could.”

  “Jesus.” There was a question I had to ask. “With Finger, was it only then?”

  The dreaded answer glimmered in her liquid eyes.

  She shook her head. “No. We stayed in touch.”

  “You stayed in touch?” I breathed.

  “Whenever our paths crossed, we would meet up.”

  My pulse pounded in my neck. I could barely believe what I was hearing. But there she was, in my apartment, her lips moving, going on and on and on.

  “How long did it last?”

  She swallowed. “Until I met Kyle and things got serious. Almost ten years.”

  “Ten years? Ten years of you and Finger hooking up?”

  “Yes. Off and on.” Her eyes held mine. “When I saw him in Nebraska at his clubhouse with Grace, when we saw you there, that was the first time I’d seen him or talked to him since we’d stopped a decade before.”

  “Were you in love with him? Are you? I mean, is that the real reason why you and your husband didn’t work out?”

  “No. I’ve never cheated on Kyle.”

  “That’s not what I asked, Tania. Were you in love with Finger?” I searched her eyes, desperate to see any hints of her hiding, lying. “Are you now, after seeing him again, him now being a part of your life through your brother, through the Jacks?”

  “No, I’ve never been in love with him, and I’m not. It wasn’t like that between us. It was very clear from the beginning what it was. I was attracted to him, obviously.”

  I gritted my teeth. “Obviously.”

  “Neither of us wanted a relationship. There was never any question. Our lives were and are so different. It was…”

  “Your walk on the wild side.”

  “Yes. My secret life. I didn’t have to fake it with him. There weren’t any expectations or disappointments.”

  “Just what? Fun?”

  She let out a breath. “More of a relief, actually, something of my own that I did purely for me. A high. That’s how I saw it, that’s how I see it, and I’m not apologizing for it.”