by Amy Love
Still, she wasn’t okay with the fact that the man she still adored was lugging around a bag full of drugs. Not one bit.
Gryff, however, acted like it was nothing—like he was carrying around a bag of books instead. His ease around illicit and illegal substances should have sent her running for the hills, but every time she looked in his eyes, she remembered the kind of person he was. Just because he ran in certain circles didn’t make him that sort of man. He’d proved that to her now.
At least, she hoped he had. She hoped he hadn’t duped her, and the police officers he requested to stand in front of her father’s door were actual cops sent by the actual police station, there for her father’s safety and nothing more.
“Do you know the officers they sent over?” she asked in a soft voice, pushing her food around the plate a little more. Nothing on it seemed appetizing, but she knew she needed to eat something.
“No.”
“But then why—?”
“I just knew we needed someone to watch him,” Gryff told her. He’d scooped some mashed potatoes of his own onto his fork, but it sat hovering in his hand between the plate and his mouth. “People like your dad. They respect him. The cops should have stationed people outside his door from the beginning.”
“What if they’d discovered, you know…” She nodded down at the grocery bag now sitting on the floor between them. “That.”
“Then I guess I’d have to man up and explain what’s going on,” he said dismissively, “but for now I want to keep things quiet. I don’t want to involve the police unless I have a good plan in mind. In case you didn’t notice, they aren’t exactly fans of bikers.”
She pressed her lips together and turned her attention back to the parking lot, watching the way icy rain peppered the cars and pavement with slickness. When the officers had arrived, they dealt primarily with her, given that she was the one who’d called for protection. Still, they’d eyed Gryff as if he might explode at any moment, a bomb just ticking down second by second until something awful happened.
Again, it could have been a ploy, but it would have been tough faking that kind of obvious dislike. To his credit, Gryff hadn’t done a thing to antagonize them. He’d hovered in the background, assisting her only when she’d started to flounder, flustered by the presence of two hulking men in uniform staring her down. Once they’d chatted about her father’s condition, she and Gryff left, and she prayed those two men would still be there, protecting him, when she returned.
“So do you have one?” she asked some time later. Both of them had worked through some of the bland hospital food on their plate, but it was a struggle. When Gryff looked at her with a raised eyebrow, she swallowed her bite of dry chicken to clarify. “A plan, I mean. What are you going to do about Crest?”
She still couldn’t wrap her mind around it. She’d known the man for years. Gryff she’d known for months, but for some reason, she was more willing to believe in him than she was in Phillip Crest—especially after what had happened to her father. The man had to pay if he was truly the puppet master behind everything that had happened.
“I’m working on something,” he told her, setting his fork down and grabbing his napkin. She watched him wipe the gravy from his lips, wincing as he did. After they’d reunited outside her father’s room, she’d insisted someone take a look at his face. While Gryff refused any medical help, he’d acquiesced to her wiping some of the dried blood off from around his nostrils. At the moment, he still looked like he’d been in a scuffle, but now at least it looked less fresh.
“Care to share?” Beth asked, then took a quick drink from the Cola she’d bought alongside dinner. Best tasting part of the meal, frankly.
When Gryff didn’t answer right away, Beth looked at him, frowning, and set her fork down. He seemed lost in thought for a moment, his eyes so very far away, and when she cleared her throat, he glanced at her briefly before turning his gaze to the parking lot. Still, it was as if he was looking without really seeing.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea to share any of my… plans with you.”
“What?” She shifted on the stool to face him, putting on her best glare. “Gryff, you dragged me into this. I have every right to know—”
“I did,” he said fiercely, his eyes narrowed at the window. “I dragged you into this. I shouldn’t pull you deeper.”
She gave a soft sigh, then placed her hand on his arm. The light touch seemed to send a jolt through him, and he flinched back as if surprised by her closeness. When their eyes met, she tilted her head to the side.
“Gryff, I’m in as deep as I can get now,” she insisted gently. “I know everything. I know that you didn’t mean to involve me. Hell, if I was someone else’s kid, I’m sure we’d still be carrying on as we were, but… I’m not someone else’s kid. I’m the dean’s daughter, and I deserve to know what you’re going to do about the man who tried to kill my father.”
Her cheeks burned with passion, but probably not as bright as the passion in her eyes. Someone had tried to butcher the one family member she had left. She had no intention of sitting on the sidelines, not anymore.
Gryff studied her for a long moment, then, without a word, reached up and wove his fingers through her hair. Unwittingly Beth leaned in to his touch, her eyes threatening to drift closed so she could lose herself in the moment. But she held strong, silently pleading with him not to set her aside. Silently hoping he knew that she trusted him, that she would do whatever she could to help—even if that meant staying out of the way, for the most part anyway.
Moments later, he leaned in and brushed his lips against hers. This time, there was no hesitation. Despite the fact they both tasted like dry chicken and watery mashed potatoes and gravy, their lips parted with an urgency she’d never known from a lover before. There was so much about Gryff she’d never experienced in a man before, and here she was, falling back into his arms again—willingly, at that.
“I can’t tell you my plan yet,” he started, and when she tried to protest, he kissed her again to silence her, and when he broke away, he whispered, “because I don’t have one. Not a whole one, anyway.”
“Oh,” Beth muttered, her cheeks flushed. “Right.”
“But I do know that I’m going to keep you safe,” Gryff insisted, and in that moment, she saw the passion in his eyes, one that blazed so brightly that it made her tremble. He brushed her cheeks with his thumbs affectionately. “No matter the cost, I’m going to keep you safe. Is that understood?”
She nodded, and right then and there decided that she would keep him safe, too. “But how are you going to do that?”
“By giving Phillip Crest exactly what he wants,” he told her, and when her eyes widened, he smirked and chuckled, then added, “Well… almost exactly what he wants.”
Chapter 43
“So… You own this place, huh?” Gryff glanced back at Beth’s question, then gave a nod when she raised her eyebrows curiously. “Kind of an obvious name.”
“I didn’t choose it,” he insisted, ushering her into the front door. “I just didn’t argue it when the time came to vote on it. We all own Phoenix Rises collectively.”
“Well, I guess there are worse names out there,” she said once she was inside. Gryff shut the door hastily behind him. He wasn’t surprised to find that Phillip’s handlers weren’t still waiting for him across the street, but he couldn’t be sure there weren’t other eyes watching him from seemingly vacant windows, inside seemingly empty cars, inside seemingly harmless shops. He probably should have left her at the hospital, behind the closed door with police officers stationed out front, but he knew the club bar was the one place he could be totally sure she was safe. Micky had already agreed to watch over her—and if there was anyone in the world Gryff felt he could trust right now, it was Micky.
Besides, the bar was a fortified safe house for all the members of the Steel Phoenix Motorcycle Club. While their boys might have been getting killed on runs, not even Phi
llip had tried an assault on the premises. It looked hapless and a little rundown from the outside, but everyone inside was carrying heavy weaponry at any given moment. The windows were bulletproof glass—illegally installed, of course—and most nights the place was heavily packed with die-hard bikers, who’d give their lives for the well-being of their brotherhood.
Beth would be safe here, and Gryff would find precisely what he needed to take down Phillip Crest once and for all.
He wasn’t the least bit surprised to find the place more packed than he’d left it. Micky must have called in the cavalry, because everywhere he looked, Gryff saw tried and true members of the Steel Phoenix MC—not a townie or drunk from outside the club in sight. The conversations settled somewhat as he walked in, Beth trailing behind him. When they’d first met, if she had been in a place like this she would have followed like a meek lamb. Tonight, she moved with grace and confidence. Gryff knew she was nervous, but she had learned to hide it well.
His chest swelled with pride, and he tried his best not to smile like an idiot when he looked back at her.
“Gang’s all here,” Micky announced, as Gryff worked his way through the crowd toward him. Gryff gave him a nod and reached back for Beth, who readily slipped her small hand in his.
“I don’t have a lot of time,” he told his old pal, nodding to the doorway that opened to the basement stairwell. “I just need to get some supplies, then I’m off.”
“Can I help?” Micky asked. Those gray-blue eyes flitted back to Beth briefly before fixing on Gryff, who nodded.
“Please.”
There wasn’t time to stop and fill all the other higher ranking guys in on what was happening, so he planned to leave that to Micky—and Beth, if she felt like talking. He knew Phillip would be waiting, and even though Beth was finally safe, her father was still at risk. Sure, there were armed guards standing at his door, but what would happen if Phillip fucking Crest strolled up and insisted he was there to visit his friend and superior?
Beth cringed whenever he alluded to the outcome. They hadn’t shared Phillip’s true nature with anyone, mostly because Gryff wanted to tear him apart first—then the Steel Phoenixes would have at him, then he’d be dumped at the police station, a pile of flesh and broken bones. That was how Gryff foresaw the near future, but only if everything worked out according to plan.
The three descended into the underground labyrinth in silence. If Beth thought anything of the assault rifles and weapons hanging from the walls, or the stacks of unmarked bills piled up on a table they passed, she said nothing. She didn’t even squeeze his hand. She just followed, observing, seeming calmer than he’d expected. In that moment, he thought he might actually love her.
“So what do you need?”
“Sedatives,” Gryff told Micky, then dumped the grocery bag full of coke he’d been hauling around all day on the counter of the drug storage room. Even in his drug running days, he had never carried around that much cocaine before, but the key was to act like there was nothing valuable in the bag and no one would pay it any attention. If anything, it was just his groceries that he’d picked up before going to the hospital. That was how Gryff carried himself with thousands of dollars’ worth of coke on his person.
“Sedatives?”
“I’m going to take Phillip the drugs he wants,” Gryff told him, and before Micky could protest, he held up a hand to silence him. “Not every bit of it, of course. I want to put some back. But the stuff I bring him, I’m going to lace it. I know him and his boys snort it.”
“Bit of a Trojan horse, I guess,” Micky muttered, as he opened one of the supply cabinets. Beth, meanwhile, loitered by the door, holding herself in a solo hug. Gryff just wanted to scoop her up, but she probably wouldn’t want to touch him after she heard what he had to say next.
“I’m going to go to him shortly,” he explained, pacing back and forth as Micky pulled out the pharmaceutical drugs he planned to cut the coke with. “I’ll go alone. Beth stays here and you watch her, Micky.”
“What?” Her protest was expected, and he let out a soft sigh. “Gryff, don’t just—”
“You’re not going there, to him,” Gryff said sharply, and she pressed her lips together in a tight frown when he looked back at her. “I’m sorry, but no. I don’t want you anywhere near him.”
They held one another’s gaze for a long moment, long enough for Micky to clear his throat, until Beth finally exhaled deeply and nodded. “Fine. I’ll… I’ll stay here.”
“You can keep me company,” Micky interjected. “My bum leg won’t let me go out on this kind of sh— stuff anymore.”
Beth gave a nod that told him she wasn’t thrilled with the idea of hanging behind with Micky, but she wasn’t going to argue with him about it anymore either. With that settled, Gryff and Micky got to work drugging the drugs, adding crushed sedatives into the white powder and mixing them until they were virtually indistinguishable from one another. When he was sure he had what he needed, he helped Micky load about half of the coke back into the vaults.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Micky said in a gravelly voice, as they headed for the stairs again. “Otherwise it’s your ass.”
“Just stick to the plan and everything will be fine,” Gryff told him, and Micky carried on up the stairs in a hurry, leaving him alone with Beth for a moment.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” she said, her voice finally giving way to the shakes now that they were alone. She faced him, standing a few stairs higher so that they could look in one another’s eye. Licking her lips, she reached out and brushed his hair back. Gryff wanted to melt into the touch. “I mean it. Don’t, you know, get yourself killed.”
“Don’t worry about me,” he urged, hoping he sounded as confident as she needed him to be. “Once he’s out cold, he’s my hostage. The tables are going to turn, Beth. I’ll be back here before you know it.”
“I just…” She looked at her feet and swallowed hard, and when their eyes met again, hers were watery. “Don’t die, okay? I mean it.”
“Beth, sweetheart,” he whispered, trying the name for the first time in a long time and finding that he liked it, “I’m not going anywhere.”
She gave an unsure nod, and then they kissed in the dark stairwell for far too long, slowly sinking in to one another until it was almost painful to pull away. Taking her hand in his, Gryff tugged her back upstairs, where the conversations going on with the rest of the Steel Phoenixes were positively thunderous—and none of them stopped for him. Micky met them at the back emergency exit, where he had his bike waiting for Gryff and the same warning he gave before about taking care of it.
“Take care of her,” Gryff fired back, his eyes flickering to Beth. Micky nodded, a fierce determination in his eye, and then Gryff was gone. No sense in dragging out the goodbye, not when it would only make things harder on both of them.
He just wished he’d kissed her at least one more time, but as he climbed onto Micky’s Harley, the bag of spiked cocaine thrown over his shoulder, he knew just one more kiss would never be enough.
Although he hadn’t been conscious when he was first taken to Phillip’s warehouse headquarters, he’d been observant as ever when his handlers had left with him earlier in the day. Growing up in Blackwoods gave him a good idea of where he needed to go and how he needed to go about getting there.
Gryff was about halfway there before police sirens wailed behind him, and a quick glance in his mirrors showed flashing red and blue lights.
“Fuck,” he hissed. They were definitely following him. Had he been speeding? Maybe. His head so full of other things that he’d just been letting instinct guide him through traffic. Were Micky’s fucking plates expired? Another possibility.
If he tried to make a run for it, he’d never make it to Phillip. The sun was already setting, and the man didn’t strike Gryff as the kind to have a lot of patience for things not going according to plan.
Groaning, Gryff slowed the bike an
d searched the curb for a good spot in which to pull over. Behind him, the cop car pulled up, shut the siren off but kept the lights flashing, and all Gryff could do was wait.
But if there was one thing he was certain of, he sure as hell wasn’t going to jail today.
Chapter 44
Gryff had expected the number of handlers waiting for him at the security checkpoint outside Phillip’s warehouse. What he hadn’t expected, however, was for the doors to be open and an escort waiting for him in a Hummer. He slowed his borrowed Harley down at the sight of two bulky assholes in the front seats, different from the men who’d taken him downtown today—they were probably dead, considering they’d let him escape.
He brought the bike to a stop nearby, set one foot down to stabilize himself, and then raised his visor. Once he and the driver had locked eyes, he was waved onward. When the Hummer pulled out in front of them, he popped his visor back down with a sigh and followed them deeper into the gated complex. Various abandoned cars sat scattered around him, with the warehouse in the middle of it all, no lights to speak of. The Hummer headed for a two-door garage, and even though a sinking feeling took hold of him the second he started to follow, Gryff did so anyway, knowing he had to do what he had to do.
