by Drew Elyse
I should’ve kept calm. One of us should have been, and it was obvious that was not going to be Ace. I couldn’t help it when I snapped, “I’m not a prize. I don’t just go to the freaking winner.”
He jerked me back against his chest, one hand cupping the side of my jaw in a firm grip.
“You’re right. Taking me down wouldn’t get him you. But you’re also fucking wrong, babe. You are the greatest prize a man could win.”
How could he be so sweet while being visibly pissed off?
“That motherfucker knows that,” he went on ranting, moving agitatedly around my apartment. “That’s why he’s so fucking determined.”
“Jack.”
“I just don’t understand why now. Why the fuck did he wait so long?”
“Jack,” I repeated.
He cursed, running a hand over his face. He still didn’t focus on me.
Part of me wanted to hold on to being pissed at him. He’d kept something else from me. It was because of him I’d been blindsided by Damien’s reaction earlier.
Then again, that wasn’t just on him, was it? Damien and I had been friends for nearly a year before I married Jack. Never once in that time did he show any indication he wanted us to be something more. At least, he never gave any indication I could pick up on.
It was impossible to say how I would have reacted if he had. I hadn’t been interested in him that way, but maybe I would have tried. Maybe, if he’d asked, I would have met Jack at some Blackhorne family thing.
How I might have reacted to meeting Ace while dating his brother was another question entirely. Nothing on this earth could make me into the type of woman who would cheat, even emotionally by being invested in someone else. I hadn’t even entertained the idea of going down that road with someone else while Ace and I were separated and I’d tried to start divorce proceedings.
Still, I couldn’t imagine knowing Ace and not wanting to be with him. It had taken all of a half hour in the coffee shop that first day we met for me to start imagining a future for us. If things had been different, could I have helped that?
I wasn’t convinced.
That undeniable connection we’d had from the beginning was why only part of me was holding on to that anger. The rest of me was focused on the knowledge that he wasn’t in a good place. I’d never seen him so upset, not even in the days after Damien’s accident with everything I now knew was weighing on him.
That was what led me across the room, inserting myself right into his path. I brought both my palms up and laid them on his chest. The leather of his cut was supple over the hard muscle below. He stopped then, looking down at me with all the frustration and anger he was feeling clear in the hard lines of his face. It took a long moment for him to wipe that away, to force himself not to direct that at me.
The rage melted from his features at the same time he brought his hands up to grab ahold of my hips. He held onto me like it was my proximity alone that centered him.
“Let it go,” I told him softly.
His eyes closed on a small shake of his head. “I can’t do that.”
“He was upset. It wasn’t a big deal,” I tried to talk him down.
Returning his focus to me, he said, “It is a big fucking deal, Quinn. This isn’t about me. If he was just being a dick to me still because of whatever fucked up shit he has in his head about me messing up his family, I’d let it go. This is him bringing you into it. This is him going after the club.”
Ace dropped his forehead to mine and his fingers tensed at my hips like he could scarcely control the urge to ball both hands into fists. When he collected himself, he continued. “Even if I could ignore him showing up here and handing you that shit, I can’t ignore what he did to the club. I can’t ignore him trying to take down my brothers. There has to be retribution for that. I have to make sure he doesn’t try to pull shit like that again.”
“Can’t it wait? Can't one of the other guys handle it?” I asked. If he went after Damien in the state he was in, I wasn’t convinced he would be able to control himself. Last time, he’d delivered just one punch. With two years of resentment and everything that had happened that day fueling him, I was terrified Ace might do something he would regret.
“I brought this shit to them. It’s my responsibility to fix it,” he shared.
I doubted the Disciples would agree. Maybe they were willing to step back and let Ace handle it because it was his half-brother, but from what I’d gotten to know of them, I was sure no one else was placing that duty upon his shoulders. That was all him.
“I have to do this,” Ace said, starting to move back from me.
“Wait. You’re going now?” I demanded.
I had to stop him. There had to be a way.
“I need to finish this.”
“But—”
He cut me off with a fierce kiss. I should have fought it—fought him and his stupid plan for vengeance. I was too caught up having his lips back on mine.
When he broke it off, he moved away faster than I could stop him. I was chasing him to the door when he pulled it open and stepped through. With a lunge, I got my hand on it before he could close it behind him.
“Don’t go,” I pleaded.
“I have to,” he said, that ferocity back in his face, scaring me for all it revealed about his intentions.
I didn’t follow him again. I let him leave, but only because time was of the essence. Throwing the door behind me, I ran across the room to my phone. It took three tries just to unlock it with the way I shook, even longer to get into my contacts and find the one I needed.
Thankfully, my horrible luck with reaching people had ended. Ember answered on the second ring.
“Hey. What’s up?”
“Are you with Jager?” I asked in a rush.
“Man, I’m going to get a complex soon,” she muttered. Then, louder, “Yeah, he’s here.”
“I need to talk to him. It’s an emergency.”
“Are you okay?” Her voice was full of concern. In any other situation, I would have done what I could to ease her, but it was not the time for that.
“Please,” I stressed.
“Right, here he is.”
A second later, his deep voice came through on a short, “Yeah?”
“Ace just left. He’s going after Damien,” I told him.
“I know he is,” Jager informed me.
Crap.
Damn these macho bikers and their stupid brutish ways.
“You have to stop him,” I pleaded.
“Quinn,” he started, and I knew he was going to try to talk me down.
“Damien was here tonight,” I spat out before he could get into it. “He was here, and he told me he was in love with me. I guess Ace knew that, but that didn’t stop him from getting really pissed off. And then I told him Damien threatened the club, and he nearly lost it. He can’t go there alone.”
“Fuck,” Jager bit off.
He was breaking. Any hate he might have had for Damien and the things he’d done to the club today didn’t compare to loyalty he had to Ace as his brother. He knew as well as I did the kind of trouble Ace could get into, and he didn’t want that either.
“Please,” I begged.
“I’ll get on the road now,” he told me. “I’ll call the guys, try to get someone to reach him and slow him down. Do what I can, but I can’t get there as fast as he can.”
“Where is he going?”
“Got the asshole’s address earlier. Ace has it,” he explained.
“What’s the address? I’ll go and try to stop him.”
“Fuck that,” he denied me. “You aren’t putting yourself in the middle of this.”
“Please. I can help.”
“No.” Right on the heels of that one word, I heard a click. He’d hung up on me.
I had no idea where Damien was living. His old place had been a split level. There was no way he was still there with the stairs. I wasn’t sure whether he could even liv
e alone anymore.
It might have been a long shot, but that thought gave me at least one place to start. Throwing on a pair of shoes, I ran out the door to my car and headed across town to Ace’s father’s house.
Richard and Nancy Blackhorne lived in a gated community. Just to drive in at this time of night, I’d had to tell a guard who I was going to see and wait while he rang up to the house. Seriously. It was like I was trying to drive into a development where a bunch of celebrities lived or something.
At that entrance, I had my doubts this was where Ace had come, and those were confirmed when I noticed there was no motorcycle at the front of the house. At noting that, I was ready to put my car in reverse and drive away, but the front door opened.
In for a penny, in for a pound, it seemed.
I shut down the engine and went up to the—if I was frank—ostentatious house.
Nancy was in the doorway. She’d always made me feel a bit uncomfortable. That being largely because she was formal at all times, encompassing everything from the way she dressed, to the way she spoke, to the very way she held herself. Even in the hospital after Damien’s accident, she would be in the waiting room looking more like she should have been headed to some luncheon to plan a charity event.
This also meant I only referred to her as Nancy in my head. Aloud, she was always…
“Hello, Mrs. Blackhorne.”
“Good evening, Quinn. Won’t you come in?” she greeted in turn.
As ever, the epitome of formal. Even though I’d arrived, unannounced, after ten o’clock at night, she was still dressed and ready to welcome me in. I had a brief, ridiculous thought that maybe she never undressed. Maybe she just fell asleep in those clothes, then woke in the morning to put on another fabulous outfit.
“Thank you. I am so sorry to arrive unannounced,” I apologized as I stepped over the threshold.
As it had always been, the grand entryway—and it could only be described as grand—was intimidating. Rounded staircases ran down both sides of the room, framing the entry to the living area. A crystal chandelier hung above our heads. I’d been through a good deal of the house and could say from experience the lack of anything homey or comfortable extended throughout.
“No need to apologize, dear. Richard is not yet home from the office, so I am still up either way,” she said. “Would you like to go sit? Can I offer you a drink?”
“Actually, I was looking for Damien. I wasn’t sure if he would be here.”
She seemed surprised by that, though that was to be expected. I was married to her…stepson? I wasn’t sure Nancy even considered Jack to be that.
“Oh, no. He’s not here. But may I just say I was so happy to hear you two are getting together. You’re such a sweet girl. It’ll be good for you to be with Damien. I always worried about you with Jack.”
Wait. What?
“I’m sorry?”
Nancy didn’t acknowledge what I was guessing was a very obvious expression of shock on my face.
“And my poor son, in his condition. I feared he might not find a nice, beautiful woman to suit him.”
In his condition? Was she serious?
I didn’t have time to be outraged on Damien’s behalf that his own mother would think him needing a wheelchair determined his ability to find a woman. I didn’t even have time to address the “worried about me with Jack” thing. Heck, at that point, I didn’t even have time to correct the biggest issue of all—that she seemed to think Damien and I were getting together.
I had to assume she had gotten that information from Damien, which only served to make me more concerned about what would go down between him and Ace.
“I hate to be even more rude after just showing up like this, but it’s actually really important I see Damien right away.” The first part of that was a lie. I couldn’t bring myself to care about being rude to her. She didn’t need to know that, though. “I haven’t been to his place, so I don’t know where I’m going. Could you give me the address?”
“Of course,” she agreed right away. “Let me go fetch my phone.”
I waited on pins and needles for her to return. I could only hope that when I got wherever she was directing me, I wasn’t too late.
Damien’s place was dark.
I pulled my bike right into the driveway. There were plenty of glowing lights up and down the block, and I was going inside whether Damien was there to let me in or not. The best bet was to make it look like I should have been there. With all the neighbors, it wasn’t a good idea to try to pick the lock or go around the back of the house. I had to bank on Damien still being stupid.
I went to the keypad for the garage door. Flipping open the cover, I entered in 0715—his birthday. It used to be his fucking code for everything. Nothing happened.
Fuck.
I had to think—quickly. Odds were, he hadn’t chosen three numbers at random. They had to mean something.
That right there gave me the answer, and it made me fucking sick to enter it in.
1016.
It wasn’t his birthday. It was my fucking wife’s.
The door powered up and I moved under it. When I was in, I could see Damien kept his place as neat and fucking lifeless as our father’s. Every piece of furniture and all the weird useless shit probably cost more than anything I owned but my bike. That was the measure of success for a Blackhorne: how much expensive crap you could surround yourself with.
I’d be thankful to my mom forever for making me a Wieser—in every sense.
Since I was already screwed on the breaking and entering front, unless I left before Damien got back, which wasn’t happening, I decided to have a look around.
While I was inspecting the living room, my phone went off. It had while I was riding over too. I hadn’t cared much to check it out when I’d gotten here. Taking it out then, I saw it was Stone. I’d catch shit for not answering his calls later. Right then, I didn’t give a fuck. Taking care of Damien was my burden.
After all he’d done to me, my brothers, and most of all, Quinn, that burden didn’t feel so heavy.
I was in his office when I heard the car pull up. That didn’t stop me from pulling open the last of the drawers. There was only one thing in it. Pictures.
There were fucking dozens of pictures of Quinn.
And she wasn’t looking at the camera in any of them. Every single picture was taken from a distance. The motherfucker had someone following her. From the subtle changes to Quinn’s appearance between frames, it wasn’t all the time, but it had been for a long time. And I was certain a couple were taken just after I left.
For the hundredth time today, I asked myself, why now? Why, after two years, was he coming after me, and by extension, the club?
I had my answer.
On top of the pile was the most recent. It was Quinn in the parking lot of her building. She had on a loose hoodie and leggings, and she was putting a duffle bag in the backseat. I’d loaded that bag into her car myself just a few days back.
He knew Quinn had gone to see me.
The front door opened and closed. Snatching up the pictures, I made my way down the hall. Damien hadn’t gotten farther than just inside the door.
“Is it worth asking why you’ve broken in to my house?”
Such a jackass.
“Dunno. Might have something to do with the asshole you got to testify against my club. Or maybe it’s because you asked out my wife, went to her house, and told her you’ve been after her for years. Any of that sound like a good fuckin’ reason?”
“She’s not your wife,” he spat.
“Are you shitting me? She’s got a ring on her finger and a marriage certificate that says different.”
“She also filed for divorce after you’ve been separated for two years.”
I almost wanted to fucking laugh. “Spent the last two weeks with her back in my life and in my bed. I burned those fucking papers, then I got her another ring for good measure. You can tell yourself wh
atever the fuck you want, but Quinn is very much my wife.”
“You fucking—”
He hadn’t finished that thought. He was interrupted by a sharp, insistent knock on the door.
“Jack?” Quinn called, sounding desperate. “Jack, please.” Quieter, but still making it through the door, she muttered, “Crap. Crap. Crap.”
The smile that spread across Damien’s face was fucking demonic. “I guess we can let Quinn speak for herself.”
“Get out of here!” I yelled, but it was pointless. Quinn wasn’t listening to me, she was too focused on Damien opening the door. Her eyes moved around the room, taking is us both, assessing nothing had gone down yet.
Like it was happening in slow motion, I watched her move right to me, giving Damien the ability to cut her off from the exit. And he did.
Quinn tried to throw her arms around me, but I stepped out of her reach, trying to shuffle her toward the garage. My damn stubborn girl wasn’t having it.
“You need to go.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” she replied. “I know you’re upset, but we can sort this out, okay?”
Christ. We did not have time for that shit.
“Fine. Then we’ll both leave,” I snapped.
Her eyes widened. “Really?”
“No one is fucking leaving,” Damien yelled.
I grabbed ahold of Quinn’s arm, turning us both until she was behind me. I wasn’t a praying man, but I felt like there was some fucking higher power with me as I faced Damien again to find a gun in his hand.
He had it pointed right at us. With the angle he had it lifted, that bullet would find a home in my chest if he fired. I was thinking third time might just be the charm for motherfuckers trying to take me down.
I couldn’t let that happen.
When I’d charged after the asshole trying to take Ash, I’d thought I’d never experience fear like that again. I was dead fucking wrong. There was nothing that could touch the absolute terror that stole through me in that moment.
I didn’t even care what happened to me. What sent ice through my veins was knowing what Damien might do to Quinn if he got me out of the way.
