by Zoey Parker
At first, I couldn’t tell what she thought. It was quiet for a moment…too quiet. The silence between us began to drip with poison.
Then she lashed out and slapped me across the face, nails bared.
I stood up from the table in shock as blood dripped onto my plate. Silverware went clattering to the floor. I was steaming fucking mad. I couldn’t believe she’d just fucking hit me. I knew she wasn’t gonna be happy with the question, but this was way fucking out of line.
“Are you out of your motherfucking mind?” I said to her. “No one hits me without getting punished for it. I don’t give a flying fuck if you’re my wife.”
Olivia grabbed a knife from the table and dropped into a fighting stance. Her face was snarled in anger.“And I don’t give a fuck who you are—husband or whatever. Don’t you ever dare insult my brother to me again, or accuse him of being a traitor. I may not look that tough, but I won’t hesitate to use this on you.” She waved the knife back and forth, looking exactly like her brother had at the wedding—batshit insane.
What the fuck was going on? Was she in on it with him? She had to know what was going on, otherwise all this made no sense.
Her reaction told me everything I needed to know. “He is, isn’t he?” I roared. “He’s a fucking traitor and you know exactly what he’s up to! Tell me! You know, don’t you?”
God, I’d been so fucking stupid. This whole time I thought I was firmly in control. You absolute idiot, I told myself. You’ve been thinking you’re the man, that just because this bitch is letting you fuck her, that you really have made her yours. She’s been playing you from the start. You’re the one who’s been getting railed. You’re the sucker.
The world was spinning. I was angry, confused, and just so fucking dumb. I stumbled and knocked the table over. Plates crashed everywhere and broke into pieces. The pitcher of water cascaded onto the ground. I didn’t care—it was too late to care, too late to stop anything.
I would’ve bet my goddamn cut that this was exactly what Luke had planned the whole time: let the marriage lure Houston into thinking everything was all gravy now, that we’d squashed the conflict and put years of animosity to bed. Of course we fucking hadn’t. Croak had been suspicious, and rightly so, because Luke was way too much of a power-hungry son of a bitch to just submit and let that be the end of things.
No, Luke wanted to own it all. All of Austin, all of Texas, all of the goddamn country, probably, if we gave him the chance.
“Stay the fuck away from me,” Olivia warned, still flailing wildly with the knife. “Don’t take another step closer.”
“You’ve known the whole fucking time,” I accused. “You played me. You lied from the very fucking start.”
Olivia waggled backwards, knife held firmly in her fist, as she slid slowly towards the door.
All I could picture was her face, looking up at me in the lingerie shop. “Do you like it?” she’d asked. Of course I had. So many years spent watching her walk home every day, those books pressed up against her chest so that her breasts spilled over the top.
She’d been so innocent. But she wasn’t. She was a backstabber, a fucking double agent if ever there was one. And I was the target. Lure me out, pull the wool over my eyes, fuck me into complacency.
I’d traded my brothers’ lives for a little bit of pussy. Who knew what Luke was planning? Who knew what he had in store for them? It wasn’t going to be pretty. I’d seen his face that night he shot me in the thigh, like I was some street dog he was teaching a lesson. I’d seen his psychotic eyes that day at the wedding, when he tried to gut me like a fish right in the church. He had no morals, nothing holding him back. No loyalty to the skull.
I had to get her to tell me what he was doing. I’d already wasted days when I could have been getting intel, critical information that would keep my brothers safe.
Guilt racked me in waves. I had to make up for lost time. I jumped towards Liv, trying to impose myself between her and the door so she couldn’t get away.
But she ducked under my outstretched arms and ran out before I could get a chance to stop her.
My whole world had started to crumble. I’d lost my wife and my brothers in one fell swoop, and it was all my fault.
I sprinted down the driveway after Olivia, trying fruitlessly to catch her. She disappeared around the corner by the gate, towards where the main road swooped in to the villa grounds.
My boots pounded the dust, raising clouds where I ran. I coughed, trying to clear the flying dirt from my lungs.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. Where would she go? I wondered if this had all been planned. Let her fool me, then extract her before I can find anything out. I didn’t think I’d ever forgive myself for being such a fucking fool.
I whipped around the gate she’d ran through and found myself staring down the barrel of a gun.
“Easy there, compadre,” snarled the motherfucker holding it. He was a big, fat son of a bitch, sweating his ass off in the Mexican heat. He wiped a towel across his bald head. I could see the Inked Angels patch sewn into the shoulder of his cut.
One of Luke’s boys.
“Give me the fucking girl,” I barked back. “Or I’ll beat your fucking skull in.”
The bald man laughed. “That’s a funny threat, seeing as how I’m the one pointing a gun at your face,” he said. “Seems to me like I’ll be the one calling the shots, you stupid little cocksucker.”
I growled and tightened my fists, but there was nothing I could do. The bastard had me cornered and weaponless.
“Bet you feel like a dumbass, don’t you?” he joked. “Some men go crazy for a little pussy. Forget all about their priorities.”
I’d never wanted to break someone so badly. I saw visions flashing in front of my eyes of me taking a wrench to this asshole’s kneecaps. I wanted to hear his bones shatter and make him scream for mercy while I sliced the skull ink clean off his shoulder. Scum like this didn’t deserve to wear a patch.
I thought of my brothers who I had let down. Steezy. Croak. Ember. So many good men were in serious trouble because of my mistakes.
“Your president is a fucking lunatic,” I told him. “He’s gonna get a lot of Inked Angels killed just to satisfy his own ego.”
“Luke’s got a very nice plan that’s already in motion.” The man grinned. “And you’ve been extremely helpful to us. He wanted me to give you a big, warm thanks for all that you’ve done.” Christ, if only I could slap that smirk right off his face.
The man contorted his face into a mocking frown. “Now, the only real regret I have is that he told me not to hurt you. If it was up to me, I’d put enough lead in you to set off a metal detector a mile away, but, unfortunately, I’ll have to let you go this time. Fingers crossed, we’ll get the chance to meet again, with fewer restraints on my behavior.”
What a slimy bastard. “That would be the biggest mistake you’ll ever make, you cue ball motherfucker,” I told him. “I look forward to it.”
He started to back up, gun pointed at my face, still sweating like a pig. I saw a pickup truck idling on the road. Another Austin Inked Angel sat in the driver’s seat. I saw Olivia in the back, staring at me through the window. Her face was unreadable.
Did she care at all about what she’d done? Did she even know? I wasn’t sure if I’d ever find out. Hell, I wasn’t sure if I’d ever see her again. She’d done a number on me, and now she was just disappearing, courtesy of her traitor brother.
I had to fix this.
The fat man climbed into the passenger seat and shut the door. He leaned out of the open window and waved a playful hand.
“Adios, muchacho!” he teased, cackling like a crow.
The truck peeled out, whipping up whirlwinds of dust as it sped down the dusty road. I whispered to myself under my breath as it disappeared from my sight.
“Luke Morris, I’m coming for you.”
Chapter 7: Blood in the Water
Olivia
I didn’t eve
n know how I should feel as we bumped down the road. Doc and Splinter laughed and joked with each other up front, but I sat in the back, curled up with my knees to my chest, letting emotions ride over me like an avalanche.
I’d left behind the only man I’d ever been with. I’d lied to him, hid things from him, strung him along. I didn’t have a choice—I had to protect my brother. Family is family, and ever since my mother ran away and my father turned into a human vegetable, my brother was all I’d had left.
He’d protected me and made sure I was safe and taken care of for my entire life. He was everything I had, and if he needed me to do something for him, well, I had no choice. I didn’t like the plan, but I trusted my brother above everything.
But Blaze…I’d thought about him so often since that first night in the driveway. I’d imagined him at night, but I never could have dreamed that I would see him again. I always figured that he was a part of my past, just a brief moment that I would never get a chance to follow up on.
And then, suddenly, jarringly, he’d just barged back. He hadn’t really changed much. He was the same stoic bastard, infuriatingly hard to read, but God, I wanted so badly to try. These last few days had been a journey into the head of the most interesting man I’d ever met.
He had found things in me I didn’t know were there. Made me tougher, sexier, just plain happier than I had ever thought possible.
And now I’d abandoned him.
I steeled my jaw against the bouncing vehicle. Leaving him behind was what had to be done. If I had told him about Luke’s plans, he would have exposed them to the entire MC. I knew that Luke was in too deep for that. If Blaze had revealed everything, then the Diablos would blame Luke. They’d probably kill him. I didn’t know everything, but I did know that the cartels were infamously violent. They wouldn’t hesitate to torture my brother to death.
I couldn’t bear the thought of that. No, it was my job to protect Luke however I could. He’d always protected me. I had to do the same for him.
We drove all day and night, making only brief stops for gas and food. Doc and Splinter were eager to make it back to Austin as soon as possible.
The whole time we drove, one thought kept playing in my head, over and over, as endless and relentless as the man I was thinking about. I love him.
What had I done?
* * *
We coasted into the city limits just past midnight. Everything was quiet, windows were dimmed, and the sidewalks were empty of people. A thin fog hung over the whole town like a veil, hiding the tops of buildings from sight and making the streetlights diffuse into fizzing spheres.
I was sore and aching from too many hours spent cooped up in the car. My neck had a crick that would probably take days to work out. But more than anything physical, my heart hurt. I had to keep telling myself that I loved my brother, that Blaze would have ruined everything, would have jeopardized my family, my kin, my blood.
It didn’t help, though. I loved Blaze, too. I wished I had told him.
We drove through an intersection on our way to the clubhouse. When we were just a few blocks away, I heard Splinter’s phone vibrate in the cup holder up front. He flipped it open, read the message, and frowned. He murmured to Doc in a low, concerned voice.
“Weird. Just got a text message from Luke’s burner phone. Says not to go to the clubhouse. We’re supposed to swing by his family’s place and send his sis inside to grab some documents he needs to prep for the deal with the Diablos that’s going down at the clubhouse in a couple hours.”
Doc frowned, too. “That doesn’t sound right,” he replied.
“Yeah, no kidding, but he used the code words. No one else outside the club knows those. It must be Prez, no way around it.”
“You think?”
“I don’t see how anyone else would be texting us from the president’s phone, using the president’s code words. It’s gotta be him.”
Doc let loose a sigh. “Well, guess so. Fuck it, we’ll go by the house, then. Christ, I’m exhausted though.” He spun the car around on the deserted road and headed back the opposite direction, towards the neighborhood where I’d grown up.
I recognized the houses as we wheeled down the familiar old street. They were all dark, no motion inside. After a few minutes, we pulled into my driveway. Doc cut the engine and silence fell over us. The fog made everything eerily hushed and muffled.
Splinter looked back at me. “Go on, then. Grab the box of papers from the living room. Should be all he needs, according to the text, at least.”
“Okay,” I said, clambering out.
“Hurry up,” Doc added. “I don’t like sittin’ around on nights like this. Spooks me out.”
I started to hustle up the driveway, but right as I was about to step onto the front stoop, I paused for a moment. I looked to the house next door. That wide, sweeping porch, the rocking chair out front—it was Blaze’s old house.
I thought back to all the days I’d seen him sitting there and smoking with that permanent scowl on his face. So handsome back then. Now, too, of course, but before he’d joined the Inked Angels, he’d been just another dark kid with a seductive smile. Well, not just another. There had always been something else to him: a depth that other people lacked. The kind of depth that I wanted to swim in forever; at least that was what I used to want, until all this had happened.
Now he really was gone from my life. I doubted I’d ever see him again. Luke wouldn’t allow it. I should have told him I loved him. It wasn’t even a rising question anymore. There was no doubt. The love was a certainty that sat in my chest like boulders—immovable, permanent, and every bit as solid.
I couldn’t be thinking like this right now, though. I’d overheard enough of Doc and Splinter’s conversations on the ride up from Mexico to know that the big deal with the Diablos was taking place right before dawn. The Diablos would hand over the shipment of drugs in exchange for the money and guns that Luke had promised them.
This was supposed to be the climactic moment of the deal. Luke had buyers lined up, ready to start spreading the crystal to towns all around the Southwest. Once it got moving, cash would flow in like never before, giving Luke an edge over the Houston charter that would forever tip the balance of power in his favor. One piece left, then Luke would be safe, and I could go back to living my life.
I could escape this marriage and pretend it had never happened. Loving Blaze was too much. I couldn’t care for both him and Luke at the same time. They tore my heart in half, and I had made my choice. Family came first, always. Blood ran thicker than water.
But where did love come in?
I didn’t even know if I was the same person I had been just a week ago. Blaze had opened my eyes to feelings that were so far beyond the scope of my imagination they might as well be alien. Love, sex, the intense belonging to another person…it was all so foreign and addictive, so fundamental now to who I was. I was changed forever.
It didn’t matter, though. I had to give that all up and leave it behind. I could do it, I was sure. I’d shoved my parents’ memory into a dark box way in the back of my mind, and I had no problem leaving them there until the day I died. I didn’t know where they were or what they were doing, but it didn’t matter. They were gone to me. No longer a part of my life. If I was okay with doing that to them, I could do the same thing to Blaze—forget he’d ever existed.
I twisted the doorknob and walked in. The den was dark. I frowned; the television had always been left on at all hours of the day for as long as I could remember. Even when my brother retreated upstairs to sleep, he never turned the squawking box off.
I walked over to it and laid my hand on the screen. It was cold. Someone had turned it off a long time ago.
Now that I thought about it, the vibe in the whole house felt off. It was too quiet, too still, too dark. The fog swaddled the windows so that I couldn’t see anything but the blurry outlines of the lamps on the street and the pickup truck outside.
I didn’t like the silence.
I hunched over and walked down the hallway, being careful to make as little noise as possible. My feet shuffled quietly on the runner carpet. I reached the living room entrance. Poking my head in slowly, I panned around.
All the lights in the room were off. I waited until my eyes had fully adjusted to the darkness. I saw boxes and papers stacked on the coffee table.
Wait. What was that?
I froze. My breath caught in my chest. A creak had come from outside the living room window. I dropped to my knees and looked over at it.
There it was again—a scratching sound from outside. The subtle tab of a blade on the glass, maybe, or someone standing outside leaning against the panes. I saw a spindly silhouette move.
