“Sure is. I got a few pics as well.” I suppose it might not stand up in court, all we’ve got are identical parts to those that were stolen suddenly turning up on his cousin’s bike. Enough evidence, though, for Prez to start asking questions I would think.
“He got a bit shifty when I started to probe where he got them from.”
“Noticed that.” I pass Shooter his cut.
He slides it on its rightful place on his shoulders. “Ready to get back?”
“Yup.”
As we start our engines, I breathe a sigh of relief that this part of the puzzle has been solved. Now I just need to decide how, and who to deliver the evidence too.
It’s taken an hour to get here, the same amount of time to get back. But now I’m riding with more urgency. There’s a man in the club I haven’t found myself able to trust, and now I’ve got proof I was right all along. I want to get back, somehow, without giving too much away, I need to warn Jayden.
Have I got enough to take to Prez or Demon? Who should I talk to first? Should I run it past Mace, or Thunder? I’m still new to the club, I’m unsure who would be the best person to approach. As I ride, my thoughts are racing. My anger at anyone in this Satan’s Devils Chapter being involved seeps through me. What do they hope to gain? What plans have they got? Have they done enough, or is there still more yet to come on their agenda?
I don’t notice my hand twisting the throttle as my rage grows, forgetting this road is unfamiliar. Fuck, the bend’s tighter than I thought. My rear wheel starts to slide out from underneath me, I try to throw my weight over, but I’m too late, I can’t right my bike. Continuing to fight the inevitable crash that seems to be approaching in slow motion, my time with Jayden flashes through my head, my hopes for our future…
Chapter Thirty-Five
Jayden
Earlier…
I love seeing Shooter, a familiar face from home. Pal and him have always been close. It’s a shame, though, that him sleeping on the floor of our bedroom last night obviously meant I wasn’t going to have a repeat performance of my amazing experience the night before. Truly making love with Pal had been incredible. A far better first time than I could ever have hoped. Everything between us had just been so easy. Fun. Just what I needed. There had been nothing to trigger bad memories from my past.
Now it’s morning, and Pal and Shooter clearly have plans.
“You two going for a ride?”
Pal shoves a piece of toast in his mouth and swigs down his coffee. While Shooter snorts with laughter, making my eyes narrow, Pal simply tells me, “Club business.”
“Always hated that.” Jeannie pauses before opening yet another pack of bacon. “But you can’t do anything about it, girl, best you get used to it from the start.”
“Why’s Shooter going with you?” I try to weasel it out of him, tackling it from another direction. “He’s here for a visit.”
“He’s a Satan’s Devil too, Jay. You know this.” That he says nothing else suggests Shooter’s been roped into Colorado business.
I toss my hair back over my shoulder, my eyes blazing. Looking around, I see Taser, Mace and Pyro all looking amused. Runt’s sniggering into his coffee. Before I get told my place in stronger terms, I huff. “Well I guess I’ll see you later.”
“No goodbye kiss, Doll?”
Before I act on my impulse and slap him to wipe that smarmy look off his face, I turn on my heels and start walking away. Before I’m out of the kitchen, Pal reaches me, his hand grabbing hold of my shoulder, he pulls me back against his chest. “I’d tell you if I could, Doll, but I can’t. What you don’t know…”
“…can’t hurt me.” I finish, still annoyed. But I do turn my head when he nuzzles my neck, and my lips do meet his but only briefly. “I’ll see you later.”
Of course, Paladin and Shooter didn’t give me any idea of where they were going. I’m not even an old lady yet, but already I detest the words club business. I was the one who’d suggested Pal contact his brothers in Tucson, that Shooter’s here as a result of that is obvious. He’s come to watch Pal’s back. Which means what they’re doing might be dangerous. Doesn’t Pal know how much I worry about him? Surely he must.
I go up to our room, busying myself putting Shooter’s blankets and pillow away. I’ve no idea how long he’ll be staying. I like him, it’s great to see someone from home, on the other hand, I want to continue to explore Pal and my new relationship. It’s like something’s been turned on inside me. I’ve started to feel horny all the time. He doesn’t even need to be here, as soon as I start thinking of him, I want him. I wonder if he knows what a monster he’s created. Does he think of me too?
The small room’s tidy, I can at least walk across the floor now without tripping over Shooter’s saddlebags. Lounging on the bed, I pick up the Kindle that Ella had given to me as a going away present. My lips curve as I remember her saying that I won’t have to sneak read her books anymore. Then I frown, realising how much I miss her.
No point moping, things are what they are. Making an effort to put regret for a situation which can’t be changed behind me, I open the cover. Great! One of the books I pre-ordered has been delivered. I download it, then start to read. It’s by one of my favourite authors, she has me hooked by the end of the first page.
So much so, when a knock sounds at the door, I don’t hear it. Until the knock comes again.
“Jay? You in there?” A male voice hisses.
The door’s locked, of course, to keep Bitch out. I go and open it. “Taser?” What’s he want? I just want to get back to my book. He’d interrupted at a crucial point.
“Jay.” Something about the way he says my name sounds wrong. “Jay, there’s been an accident.”
Book forgotten, my hand covers my mouth. “Pal?” I ask around my fingers, hoping to hell it’s not him.
“Yeah, I’m sorry, Jay. He’s come off his bike. He’s badly injured. Come. I’ll take you to the hospital.”
“Oh my God, no. Shooter?”
“Shooter’s fine. He’s with him. Come, quickly, there…” his worried eyes meet mine, “there might not be much time, Jay.”
No! This can’t be happening. Not now we’ve taken that step. Not now I’ve admitted to myself, if not expressed it in words to him, how much I love him.
“Hurry, Jay.”
Automatically I slide my arms into the sleeve of my jacket that Taser’s picked up from the chair and is holding out. I close the door, not bothering to lock it. What does it matter if Bitch gets in when my man might be dying? My heart’s beating so fast I think it’s going to leap out of my chest. I turn to walk down the corridor.
“This way,” Taser grabs my arm. “We’ll go down the fire escape, it’s faster.”
I didn’t even know there was one. Obviously health and safety’s not a priority at the club as no one had pointed it out. Taser knows this place better than me, so I follow him to a door I hadn’t noticed at the far end of the corridor, almost running down the external metal steps. A motorcycle is parked waiting at the bottom.
Taser doesn’t give me a helmet. Now’s not the time to protest that I’m under eighteen and, by law, need one.
My first bike ride, and it’s up behind another man, it feels so wrong. As Taser roars out through the gates of the compound, I sob, wondering if I’m ever going to know what it’s like to ride with Paladin. How badly is he hurt? How did it happen? He can’t die, can he? All I can do is pray I’m not too late. He can’t die. He can’t. Not now. More sobs come one after the other. I’m blinded by tears.
I don’t know Pueblo, have no idea where the hospital is, nor how far away. All I can hope is that we get there soon, and in time. In time for what? To say goodbye? I couldn’t bear that. It would destroy me. I can’t lose him. Not now. I can’t. Every nerve in my body is screaming.
I close my eyes, trying to picture his face. Trying to conjure up every detail. Trying to remember the feeling of his arms around me. When the bike sta
rts traversing rough ground, I open them.
Where are we? This doesn’t look like a hospital parking lot.
Taser swings the bike around, spitting up gravel beside a muscle car.
“Where are we, Taser?”
His terse reply is just one word. “Off.”
Are we taking the car the rest of the way? That doesn’t make sense. But with the majority of my brain focused on Paladin, I do what he says.
Suddenly I’m face down in the gravel, Taser’s heavy weight on my back, my arms wrenched behind me. Something’s tied them together. Shit. Has this been a trick? Is he working for the Herreras?
“Paladin?”
“Don’t know where the asshole is or care. But I can’t wait to see the motherfucker’s face when he finds you gone.”
Paladin’s okay. He didn’t crash. Oh, thank God!
My wave of immense relief is short lived. Almost immediately I focus on what’s happening to me. If Taser gets his way, Paladin will be hurt, though maybe not physically. His devastation if I’ve gone missing will equal mine when I thought he was lying injured. I have to do something.
Escape. Get away. My mind races. I can’t let the Herreras get their hands on me again. There’s no other reason Taser’s got me tied up. I can’t let him put me in that car. Can’t let him take me to them.
He pulls me up expecting a weak woman. But knowing what lies in store for me, I’m going to fight. Taking him unawares, I throw my head back, hitting him in the face. Then I turn, kneeing him as hard as I can in the balls and then take off, running toward the road. Have I incapacitated him enough?
The loudly roared, “Bitch,” from behind shows he can still breathe, and the sounds of his heavy boots on the gravel pounding after me suggest I haven’t. From somewhere I find another burst of speed. Suddenly I feel immense pain between my shoulder blades, and I fall to the ground unable to control my twitching muscles. I can’t breathe, I’m screaming but making no sound. I don’t know how long it goes on, the pain’s awful, I feel like I’m dying.
The pain stops, my muscles still jerk uncontrollably, I’m flapping around like a landed fish.
He takes his time getting to me. When I at last can gasp air into my lungs, he crouches in front of me, showing me something. “Wonder what hit you? You’ve been tasered, bitch.”
He drags me up by my bound hands, pushing me in front of him. I try to struggle but I still haven’t got control over my limbs and know I lost control of my bladder. He must have had the taser at full strength.
As he opens the trunk, I’ve at last regained sufficient presence of mind to stiffen my body to try to stop myself being pushed inside. He takes hold of my hair, pulls my head back, then smashes my face, hard, into the bodywork. Half-stunned, he has no difficulty shoving me in, folding my still weak limbs and slamming the trunk down.
I’m dazed, my muscles aching from the long burst of the taser, my head hurting. I’m scared. He must be taking me to the Herreras. Are they paying him? What else could he want with me?
But instead of the car starting, I hear the motorcycle engine instead, then the sound of it pulling away. After the noise of the exhaust pipes fades, there’s silence.
He’s left me here.
I start screaming, kicking futilely. I’m scared of the dark, scared of closed-in spaces. My voice goes hoarse, my legs hurt where I keep knocking them against whatever’s kept in this trunk, tools and something sharp that’s cut me. I can only hope I’m not bleeding to death.
How long will he leave me?
Is there a way to get out of here? Some sort of mechanism to release the trunk from inside? I force myself to calm down, concentrating on slowing my breathing. Pal, help me. What should I do? Am I looking for a lever? How should I know? My education didn’t include how to escape from a locked car. A hysterical giggle bursts forth when I think perhaps it should.
Calm down, calm down. But it’s dark. Ignore that. The dark won’t be what kills me. Hampered by my hands being tied behind my back, awkwardly using touch only, I trace the seams around the trunk closure, finding nothing that appears might be a mechanism which would open it. It would be better if I knew what I was searching for, but even trying everything, nothing works. If this had been his plan to leave me here, he might have removed anything which would help me escape.
At last deciding getting out the way I was put in isn’t going to work, I try to kick at the back seats, but there’s not enough room to manoeuvre. I can’t get sufficient weight behind my legs to kick, and my hands, tied so tight that I’m starting to lose feeling, are becoming next to useless.
It’s getting warm in here. It’s getting harder to breathe. You shouldn’t leave dogs in hot cars in the sun, let alone people. For the first time I’m glad I’m not in Tucson, in that heat, I’d already be dead. But even though the outside temperature might be twenty or thirty degrees cooler, and the sun’s rays a little weaker, the end effect will probably be the same. It might just take a little longer.
I’m already thirsty, dehydrated. Not yet you’re not. But you will be.
I’m so scared, I start screaming again.
What’s his plan? If he’s handing me over to the Herreras, he’ll be back before I’m dead, else he wouldn’t get any money.
What if I’m wrong? What if my brain just went to the one enemy I knew I had? What if he’s got nothing to do with the Tucson crime family? Perhaps it’s closer to home. Perhaps he wants nothing for me. Only to take me away from Pal.
Why would he want to hurt his brother?
If anything about Taser had seemed off before today, I may not have believed him. Wouldn’t have been tricked by him, and certainly wouldn’t have gone anywhere with him. But I’d not had a clue. If Pal suspected anything, he hadn’t warned me. Had he been wrong? Was Taser the man he’d had suspicions about? Was it what I didn’t know that had ended up hurting me? Had he known about Taser?
I think back to the few short hours ago in the kitchen. There was no indication anything was amiss. Taser had seemed friendly enough with everyone, even Paladin.
Pal. Tears roll from my eyes. We had our whole lives ahead of us. Now, I don’t know how much of mine I have left.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Hellfire
I give Demon a nod as he walks into the clubroom. Much as I hate doing this, it’s time. Nothing further has come to light, we’ve no more information as to who could be fucking with us. In the absence of anything else, all fingers seem to point to Runt. He hasn’t done himself many favours, playing on his injury as if it had been near fatal. He’s even got the club girls waiting on him hand and foot. When I insisted he take up bar duties again, he’d made such a song and dance I almost relented. But he can pick up a bottle with one hand. He’s right handed after all; he was shot in his left. Rusty assured me it’s nothing more than a scratch.
Had I been able to claim Moira, she would never have been raped. Because of my past, I’d allowed the prospects more latitude than they’d have in any of our other chapters. If they want a girl, they can have her. That doesn’t extend to trying to poach the woman of a patched member though. I’d lost even more respect for him when he’d gone head-to-head with Paladin.
Christ. What a fiasco that had been. Moira’s still working through that shit that happened with Blackie, guess I’d hoped that as thirty-six years of water had passed under the bridge, she would be able to put it behind her. It was a slap in my face to find some wounds remain as fresh as the day they were inflicted. After all this time, it still influences her thoughts and actions.
That Runt hadn’t helped, had orchestrated the situation to inflame her, only added to the dislike I was beginning to harbour for him. I was loath to accuse a man of something he might not have done, but if he was inclined to cause mischief in the clubhouse, it had made me wonder, what else might he have done?
Two days I’d given him. Time had run out. With no other suspects on the horizon, Demon’s bringing him down to the basement now.
/>
I raise my chin toward Mace who immediately leans over the bar, speaking to Dan. The prospect nods, and the music is turned up, AC/DC thumping out through the speakers.
Thunder gets to his feet, and follows Mace down the stairs, Demon and Runt only just ahead of them. I wait, but nobody seems to have noticed.
Runt is used to being given shit jobs. He knows what we do in the room beneath the clubhouse, he’s been responsible for laying out plastic sheeting and doing clean up before. Catching up with them as Demon unlocks the door, not unexpectedly I hear him complaining.
“My arm’s killing me, VP. I’m on light duties.”
“Don’t worry,” Demon replies. “You’re not going to have to lift a finger.”
Runt glances around him, noticing for the first time the enforcer and sergeant-at-arms have followed him and the VP down. When his eyes fall on me, they widen. He starts to back up. “Hey, what is this?”
It’s clear the penny is dropping.
“We just want to have a chat with you, Prospect,” Demon assures him. He points to a chair sitting on top of a clean section of plastic sheet. “Sit down.”
“I’ve done nothing wrong.” Runt eyes the chair nervously. “Look, I was just fucking around with Paladin’s woman. I was bored, okay? Was just a joke, didn’t mean anything. How was I to fuckin’ know it would start World War Three?”
“Not here about that,” Demon tells him. “We want answers to a few questions.”
Mace steps up. He pulls Runt’s arms behind him, expertly zip-tying his wrists together. I nod. Over the last few months Mace has grown into his role. His face is impassive, and I know he’ll do everything necessary.
“What the fuck, Mace?” Runt struggles against him, then asks, hopefully, “This part of the initiation for prospects?”
“Just sit down.” Thunder growls.
Satan's Devils MC Colorado Boxset 1 Books 1 - 3 Page 31
