by Nicole Fox
Suddenly, I was replaying all of my interactions with Emmanuel in my mind, remembering all the times he had coddled me. Of course, he'd done it under the guise of acting like a gentleman, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized he treated me like a fragile possession that he had to take care of but didn't much care for.
My eyes slid over to Thorn, and I stared at him for a long moment, trying to puzzle out my feelings as Emmanuel continued to give me patronizing assurances over the phone. Maybe that was part of what had driven me to go along with Thorn. Maybe that was part of my attraction to the man. For all that he had gotten me caught up in something totally illegal, for all that he was impulsive in all the wrong ways, he actually expected me to be able to reason and hold my own. He expected that a little danger wouldn't destroy me. And I appreciated that.
“Emmanuel, I have to go,” I said, voice firmer than it had been at any point during the call. Without waiting for a response from him, I hung up, still unable to tear my eyes from Thorn.
Thorn raised an eyebrow at me, folding his arms across his chest. “Who's Emmanuel?” he asked, tone dangerous.
I ducked my head a little, dropping my gaze. “Just ... a guy I know,” I said, not even sure how to describe who Emmanuel was. The man was charming, a real social butterfly — and the more I thought about it, the more I wondered if he had just been playing with me all this time. Maybe he had kept leading me on, promising to be my boyfriend, and then had gone back to his posh group of friends and laughed about it all with them. Maybe.
“Who is Emmanuel?” Thorn asked again, his tone even more menacing. “The last thing I need is for someone else looking for you because you were sobbing into the phone while you were supposed to be having fun on vacation.”
His words were eerily close to the truth, and I wondered if he'd been able to hear Emmanuel's side of the call. But I didn't think my phone volume was turned up that high.
“It doesn't matter,” I finally said, shaking my head. “He's not important.” But I was crying again, this time in earnest.
Thorn looked torn for a moment, then he came over to the bed and sat down next to me, pulling me carefully into his arms. “Hey,” he said gently, lightly stroking my hair. “It's okay. You're going to be okay.”
I sobbed and clung to him, burying my face against his chest even though I knew I really had no right to be doing that. “He's the reason I was trying to be more spontaneous,” I finally told Thorn. “He told me he would date me if I was more spontaneous. But he doesn't really want me to be more spontaneous, he just wants ... a damsel in distress, I guess. He wants a silly doll that he can put up on a pedestal.”
“Guy sounds like a jackass,” Thorn muttered into my hair.
I shook my head. “He was really good to me,” I said. “Patronizing maybe, but good. And he never got me caught up in anything like this.”
“Except for how he kind of did,” Thorn pointed out. “If you hadn't been trying to be more adventurous, would you be where you are now?”
I shook my head again, trying to get my tears under control. I sniffled a little and pulled away from Thorn, even though I almost wanted to stay there against his solid torso for the rest of the night, burrowed against his warmth and protection. I wanted that, but I didn't need it — and I supposed that was the real difference between Thorn and Emmanuel.
“I'm okay,” I said, although my voice was still a bit watery. I tried a smile and shrugged a little. “Sorry to go to pieces on you like that. I'm going to go get cleaned up.”
“Okay,” Thorn said, his voice still impossibly gentle as he reached up to wipe one last tear from my cheek. Then, his voice turned gruff: “For what it's worth, I think you deserve better than him.”
I shook my head. “You don't even know him,” I said. “And anyway, I'm not sure how much I value the opinion of a criminal.” But I couldn't help smiling a little at him. “Thanks,” I said softly.
Chapter Eight
Thorn
The next morning, I let Jess sleep in a little — partially because I knew she must be exhausted after our ride across a good portion of the country and partially because I couldn't bring myself to disturb her when she was looking so peaceful and angelic sprawled out against the sheets like that.
I puttered around a little on my computer, checking my email, and found that Dorian had written to me with a request that I call him. I sighed and decided to save that until after breakfast at least. Finally, I went to get breakfast for us.
Jess was just sitting up when I returned from the store. She blinked blearily at me and then yawned widely. “What time is it?” she asked, her voice still rough with sleep.
“A little after ten,” I informed her. “We don't have that far to go today, and I thought you could use the rest.”
She blinked at me, and I could see a few different emotions flicker across her face: gratefulness, surprise, and maybe a hint of suspicion.
I grinned at her, amused by the suspicion especially, and held up the bags of food. “I brought us some breakfast, if you're hungry.”
“Yeah,” Jess said, scooting towards the edge of the bed. “Yeah, uh, that's great. Thanks.”
I wanted to ask how she was feeling, but I bit it back, not needing to upset her before we even got started for the day. I didn't know who this Emmanuel person was to her except that he was maybe a potential suitor, but I would have had to be blind to not realize that she had feelings for him that either weren't entirely reciprocated or were reciprocated in the wrong sort of way.
I silently pulled out coffee and breakfast sandwiches and set them out on the table, sitting unceremoniously to unwrap one of the sandwiches. “I didn't know what you wanted, so I got kind of a selection,” I told Jess around a mouthful of egg, bacon, and cheese. I pointed at the other sandwiches. “There's a sausage-and-egg one and a bacon-and-egg one, or there's a blueberry muffin. And coffee.”
Jess's brow furrowed, and she looked like she wanted to say something, but then she simply sat down across from me and grabbed the sausage-and-egg sandwich, unwrapping it slowly. “What's our plan for today?” she finally asked.
“I have to call Dorian,” I said with a shrug. “And then this evening, we're supposed to meet with Gabi to coordinate the drop off of the packages. I expect to have more details from her soon.”
“You don't know where we're supposed to be dropping them?” Jess asked, sounding confused.
“She needed to make sure the location was secure and that it could be changed if necessary,” I said patiently, reminding myself that Jess didn't know how these things were normally handled. “She gave me the city, but the exact location was yet-to-be-determined when we last spoke.”
Jess shook her head, but she didn't push the topic. “What does Dorian want?” she asked instead.
I shrugged a little. “Not sure. Could just be news from our branch of the Sigma Saints; he knows I'm on a delivery at the moment and so we can't meet up in person. Or he could be calling to chat about this mission. It could be that he knows something about Gabi that could be important to us.”
“Do you trust Gabi?” Jess asked, picking at her sandwich a little. “I mean, I know you said to Dorian that you don't know anything about her, but you trust her not to … I don't even know.”
I took a bite of my sandwich and chewed while I considered this. “It's difficult to explain to you what it means to be a part of a biker gang if you're not part of that lifestyle,” I told her. “It's kind of like being a part of a fraternity or a sorority in college, I guess, or part of a ... really solid group of friends. Even if your friends have friends that you don't know, you trust them, right? Because your friends are friends with them and your friends wouldn't be friends with people that they couldn't trust. Something like that.”
“So Gabi's kind of a friend-of-a-friend?” Jess pressed.
“Kind of like that,” I said. “I mean, the other thing about it is that there are...certain rules that go along with your m
embership. You agree to follow leadership's decisions, and you agree to accept their judgement.”
“So if Dorian told you not to deliver these packages, you'd listen to him?”
“It's not that simple,” I said, shaking my head. “See, there's a hierarchy. Dorian is the regional president of our branch. But Katia Sin is our national president — despite the fact that she's in jail at the moment. My orders are first from Katia and secondly from Dorian.”
“Do you trust Katia?”
I sighed and rolled my eyes a little. “Look, this isn't really breakfast conversation, all right? Can we drop the discussion of politics?”
Jess watched me for a moment and then shrugged, ducking her head a little. “Fine,” she muttered. “Just trying to know what I was getting myself into.” She sounded sullen, almost as though I'd hurt her feelings, and I had to suppress a sigh.
Painfully young and naïve, I reminded myself.
I finished off my sandwich and dialed Dorian's number, pressing the phone against my ear this time. I had learned my lesson with the speakerphone thing last time. Even though I didn't think there were any other details that he could accidentally give away to Jess, I didn't want to risk it.
The phone rang a few times before Dorian picked up. “You asked me to call you?” I said, with no preamble.
“Thorn,” Dorian acknowledged, sounding almost relieved to hear that I had called. “Do you still have the packages?”
“I'm supposed to make the delivery this evening,” I responded. “Did you have some information for me?”
“Listen, I've been doing some discreet asking around for you. About this whole thing.” He paused for a moment. “It doesn't sound good.”
I'd heard Dorian discuss a number of different missions over the years, and I'd never heard him sound so grim. That made me sit up a little. “What do you mean?” I asked carefully.
Dorian sighed. “It honestly sounds like Katia may be staging some sort of prison break,” he said.
“I could have guessed that, given what's in the packages,” I pointed out, shrugging a little.
Dorian made a noise of frustration. “Thorn, have you thought through what the consequences of this could be?” he asked, sounding agitated. “There's a reason Katia went away to prison. Somebody narced on her. And after that, how many people agreed to stand as witnesses against her to either reduce or commute their sentences? What do you think is going to happen to all of those people once Katia gets out?”
“Don't you think they deserve it, for turning against her?” I growled.
“All right, what about this,” Dorian continued. “What do you think she's going to do to remind people that she's not to be crossed?”
I paused for a moment, wondering what he was thinking. “What do you mean?” I finally asked.
“She's done this before, Thorn. It was before you were part of the Sigma Saints, but you must have heard the stories. She'll purge every level of leadership that she can and put into place those that she knows are loyal to her.” His tone turned bitter. “Of course, if you deliver the packages, you're probably one of those people — but I had no idea that you were gunning for my job.”
I stared blankly at the floor for a long moment, processing what he had said. Dorian had long been my mentor and my friend — one of the people that I could always count on to be at my side when I needed him the most.
“Don't be ridiculous,” I finally said. “I'm not gunning for your job — you know that.”
Dorian was silent for a minute, allowing me to continue thinking things over. “Do I?” he asked quietly. “Because at the moment, it sounds like you're getting pretty chummy with the national leader — and ignoring your regional leader in the process.”
I flinched a little, remembering what Jess and I had just been talking about. The thing was, I didn't really know Katia — sure, I'd met her once or twice at Sigma functions, maybe had a couple drinks with her. But I didn't really know her, not the way I knew Dorian. But still...
“I think you're overreacting,” I told Dorian. “I don't think that's what her plan is. I mean, her plan is probably to get out of jail, and she probably will go after everyone who had a hand in putting her behind bars. But I just don't think she's going to kill off all of our leadership individuals. There would be a mutiny otherwise.” At least, I'd like to think so.
I shook my head. “Anyway, what am I supposed to do, Dorian? I've already agreed to carry the packages. I already have the packages, and I'm clear across the country to drop them off. What am I supposed to do, just turn around and leave and somehow dispose of them? It's my life if I do.”
“You'd need to disappear,” Dorian agreed grimly. “And the girl who's with you too. It's a shame because you're one of my best people. But we can make it happen, if you're willing to go.”
“I don't want to leave,” I said, shaking my head before he'd even finished talking. “I'm not going to hide like a scared and sniveling little rat, Dorian. What do you take me for?”
Dorian sighed. “You always did have a little too much pride,” he said, but he sounded almost amused. Then, his voice turned serious again. “As I said, there's a reason Katia is behind bars. It doesn't take a genius to realize she was getting a little too impulsive, and a little too careless. She was becoming a liability. There are plenty of Sigmas who would be more than happy to see her continue to stay behind bars. If you chose not to deliver the package, there are people who would support you.”
“But otherwise, I've made myself a target, is what you're saying,” I said bitterly, rubbing at my temples. I should never have gotten mixed up in this to begin with.
But when I glanced over at Jess, who was watching my patiently, I suddenly had the thought that not all of this mission had been unpleasant.
“Dorian, I'm expecting a call from Gabi to come through at any time,” I said finally. “I need to hang up.”
There was another long pause. “All right, Thorn,” Dorian finally said. “But be careful. You're better than this.”
Chapter Nine
Thorn
Jess scowled over at me, folding her arms across her chest. “Are you seriously going to do that all day?” she asked.
I looked up mildly from the message that I was in the process of typing out on my phone, ceasing tapping my pen as I did so. “Keep doing what?” I asked.
“Tapping that pen,” she snapped. “You're driving me nuts.”
I gave her a surprised look and then glanced down at the pen in my hand, twirling it deftly around my fingers for a moment. “Sorry,” I said, sounding almost sheepish. “Didn't realize I was doing it.”
“Well, stop,” she said crossly. “It's bad enough that I have to sit here with nothing to do all day, waiting for this phone call so that I can get out of this stupid situation, but it's another thing to have what practically amounts to torture: you incessantly tapping that pen against the armrest.”
I rolled my eyes at my dramatic whine. “I'm sure there's worse things I could be doing,” I pointed out before turning my eyes back towards my phone. But I set the pen down off to the side. She was being much more patient than I'd expected her to be, and I appreciated that. She hadn't even asked very many questions about my conversation with Dorian, although I was sure I'd been obvious enough about the fact that I really didn't want to talk about any of it with her.
“What do you do when you're not transporting illegal packages across the country anyway?” Jess asked suddenly, probably desperate to do something. Her phone was dead, and I imagined she must be bored out of her mind.
I smiled a little, amused by the question, but didn't look up. “Just normal things,” I said vaguely.
“Things like what?” she pressed.
“I ride my bike. Get drinks with my friends. Work.”
“What kind of work?”
I raised an eyebrow over at her, deciding to tease her a little. “Do you really want to know?”
She blushed and ducked her
head. “Probably not,” she admitted.
I laughed, delighted that I had gotten exactly the reaction that I'd expected from her. “I work as a bouncer,” I said. “It's all strictly legal.”
“Then how'd you get mixed up in all of this?”
I shrugged, trying to figure out how much I could really tell her. But the thing was, there wasn't much to tell. “I guess I just happened to be in the right place at the right time,” I said. “And I needed the money, so...”
“You need money badly enough that you're willing to do something illegal?' she asked skeptically.
“It's not really illegal,” I insisted. “I'm delivering a package from one friend to a ... friend-of-a-friend. Nothing wrong in that.”
“Except that the package contains guns, and somehow Katia Sin is involved,” Jess concluded.
