Blade

by Blair Grey

  “You can’t be doing that to the cops,” I told him. “That’s what’s going to get you behind bars the longest.”

  “Well, I was pissed. They didn’t have any reason to be on my ass like that, but there they were!” he replied.

  “I know,” I agreed. “I’m going to look into it right now. Why don’t you go home and get cleaned up. I’m going to talk to Jett and we’re going to figure this out.”

  “Thanks,” Gin said again.

  “Do you need a ride?”

  “No, they’ve got the bike in impound. I just have to get over there to pick it up,” he said.

  “I can drop you off over there,” I told him, but once again he shook his head.

  “I’m okay,” he said. “Really.”

  “Okay,” I reluctantly agreed. I wasn’t in love with the idea of him walking to get his bike in the condition he was in, but I didn’t have much say in it. If he was going, then he was going, and that was the end of that.

  So, as he headed toward the impound, I pulled out my phone and tried to call Alexis. I was tense, and I knew if there was anyone who would be able to calm me, it would be her. I waited as her phone rang. But, it went to voicemail.

  So, I tried again. But once again, it rang and rang, before going to voicemail. I sighed, wanting to throw my phone against the side of the building. I had no idea where she could be, and considering how the day was going so far, I couldn’t help but be worried about her.

  For a moment, the thought of what had happened to Callie flooded through my mind. Of course, it was ridiculous to think that might happen to Alexis. She and I might have been hanging out, but she wasn’t nearly the same kind of asset to the club as Callie would be.

  Not to mention, our problem wasn’t with other MCs. It was with the cops. And, with this prospect who had gotten Gin arrested. Defeated, I knew the only thing I could do now was meet with Jett and some of the other executive committee members and talk to them about what we would do with Junior.

  Obviously, I wanted to have him thrown out of the running for the club. I didn’t want him to even have a chance to wear a patch after what he put Gin through, but more than that, I wanted to take him out to an alley and beat the shit out of him.

  I wanted him to not only learn a lesson, but I wanted to make an example out of him to all the rest of the prospects, too. This was serious business, and I wanted to send that message out loud and clear to anyone else who wanted to be part of the club.

  The MC was in charge. We all followed the rules, and the rules were clear. We never did anything that could get someone in trouble. And this, well, this had gotten not only someone important in trouble, but it could have put the entire club’s mission at risk.

  No, something was going to happen with Junior. I didn’t know what it would be yet, and it really wasn’t my call to make. It would come down to what Jett thought was fair and what the rest of the club voted. But, I knew one thing – if I had my way, I would send the message out loud and clear to the rest of the prospects.

  The club meant business.

  I was exhausted by the end of the afternoon. It had taken a long time to get all the committee together and even longer for us to reach a decision about what we were going to do with Junior.

  Of course, I pushed and pushed for my point of view to be taken seriously, but Jett didn’t feel we had to get that stiff with our punishment. Though, I pointed out time and time again how dangerous and stupid it was to have someone so reckless just walk away, that’s how the voting went.

  He wasn’t going to be allowed into the club, but that was the extent of his punishment. Sure, he was also banned from Echo Mori with a steep warning to never return, but that wasn’t nearly what I felt would be enough to send the message to the rest of the town.

  At the end of it, I was pissed off and more than ready to go home. It also didn’t help that I hadn’t heard from Alexis all day.

  I’d sent her more than one text message, and I’d tried to call her several times throughout the afternoon. I didn’t know where she was or what she was doing, and that was pissing me off all the more. She could be hurt or even dead for all I knew, and I hated that I was worried.

  I didn’t get worried about people, but I was worried about her. And now, I was nearly frantic and wondering if I should knock on her door when I got home to make sure she was alright. It would mean I’d have to deal with that prick of a brother, but it would be worth it if I knew she was okay.

  But, just as I pulled up in front of the house, Alexis also arrived in her car. She pulled into her parking space as I sat on the back of my bike, but I waited. I didn’t want to ignore her, and I wasn’t going to wave back when she gave me the wave and the smile.

  In fact, the way she so casually greeted me pissed me off even more than I already was. Didn’t she know how important it was for her to keep in touch with me? Didn’t she care about the fact I was worried about her? What the Hell could she have been doing all day that would justify her not responding to any of my messages?

  She got out of the car and started toward me at the same time I got off the back of my bike and headed toward her. But, instead of sweeping her up in a hug and pulling her close, I took a step to the side when she tried to hug me.

  “Where the Hell have you been?” I nearly shouted at her. “What the fuck were you doing?”

  “What the Hell?” she asked in surprise. The confusion was spread across her face, and she clearly didn’t know how to respond to my outburst.

  But, I wasn’t done with her yet.

  “That’s right!” I snapped. “What the Hell? You’ve got two seconds to tell me what the fuck you were doing and where you were, or I’m really going to get pissed!” I crossed my arms and gazed down at her, the fury in my eyes. “Talk!”

  Chapter 16

  Alexis

  My mouth fell open, and I didn’t know what to say. I thought Blade had been waiting for me to get out of my car so he could tell me to get into something sexier and meet him in his house.

  I thought he was intentionally arriving home at the same time I was to meet me and save me the need to go in and deal with my mother and brother. I was sure he would want to take me in his arms and kiss me hard after not seeing me all day.

  In fact, we hadn’t spoken since a couple days before when we had lunch together, and since then, I was sure I had feelings for him. I knew it was a bad idea for me to think such things, and it was bound to lead to me breaking my own heart when the time came for me to move on. But at the same time, I wanted to enjoy myself as much as I could when I was on this assignment, and if that meant I had some fun with the sexy guy next door, then I could allow myself to do that.

  I was sure he would be on the same page. After all, Blade was the kind of guy to move from one girl to the next, I could sense that about him. I didn’t need him to tell me so for that to be the case.

  But, what I didn’t expect was for him to blow up on me like that. I had no idea he was going to freak out if I didn’t text him back or return his calls. I was busy. I was sure he would understand that. He seemed like the kind of guy who knew what it was like to be busy, and though I wasn’t the kind of girl to blow up his phone all day, I had a feeling I would have to wait for him to be ready for me before he would be in touch.

  “Is this really happening right now?” I asked.

  “Yes, this is happening,” he shot back.

  “You’re really going to confront me on my own lawn and ask me where I was? I’m an adult, I can be where I want to be when I want to be there,” I said.

  “You ignored me all day!” he shot back.

  “I was working!” I snapped. “I’ve got patients to handle and a job to do! I don’t have the time to be waiting around by my phone in case you decide you’re going to text me!”

  “You knew I texted! And, you mean to tell me you didn’t have any time all day long to just send me a text back? You didn’t have a chance at all to let me know what was going on? C
ome on! I need to be able to reach you when I want to, and you need to answer!” he said.

  I stared at him, once more unsure whether he was entirely serious. He had to know I wasn’t the kind of girl who was going to let anyone control me like that. It didn’t matter who they were or what they were to me in my life. I was my own person, and I would forever be my own person.

  “Do you mean to tell me, you expect me to drop what I’m doing to make sure you know where I am and what’s going on with me? You’re not in charge of me!” I said with a shake of my head.

  “I’m the man in your life! You make sure you’re available when I need to talk to you!” Blade took a step forward, but now I took a step back. I wasn’t going to let him talk to me this way, and it pissed me off to think he had the audacity to assume he was able to tell me what to do.

  I wasn’t his. And it didn’t matter even if I was. Even if he and I were in a relationship, that didn’t mean he owned me, not in the slightest, and I wasn’t going to act for even one second like he did. He had no say over what I did or where I went. He had no say at all over anything in my life.

  And the more he acted as though he did, the more pissed off I got. I wasn’t about to take this from him or anyone else. I suddenly didn’t care if anyone in my house happened to look out and see what was going on. This had nothing to do with anyone but us, but I would stand up for myself right here in the middle of the lawn for the entire neighborhood to see if they wanted.

  “You need to get one thing straight here,” I told him. “I don’t belong to you or anyone else. What you and I are doing is for fun and only for fun! As soon as you think it means you own me, you’re gone!”

  “What the Hell are you talking about?” he snapped, but I was just as mad as he was. I wasn’t going to let him twist this around or make me feel like I was crazy.

  I had grown up with a woman who knew how to gaslight me – I wasn’t going to take it from anyone else.

  “I’m talking about the fact you think I’m going to update you on where I am and what I’m doing!” I spat. “If you really want to know what I was doing with my day, then you should know I went to work, and then I went out with friends to celebrate a birthday. No, I wasn’t going to be on my phone all day, and no, I wasn’t going to call and tell you I was going out with anyone. It’s none of your business!”

  “If it’s you, then it’s my business,” he said.

  I heard in his tone he was trying to calm down, but I was too worked up now to let it go. I hated it when anyone tried to tell me what to do, and when someone acted as though they owned me, it got even worse. I wasn’t going to take that shit from anyone, not even the sexiest man in the world.

  “It’s not!” I snapped. “What I do is my business, and that’s the end of that. If you think you have any say in what I do or where I go, you have another thing coming! I can walk in there and close that door, and you’ll never hear from me again if I don’t want you to!”

  “You sure seemed to like the attention before. Now what? You’re going to act like this was nothing?” Blade challenged.

  For a moment, I didn’t know what to say. I knew this is what Stephanie was talking about when she told me how I was acting the other day, but I didn’t want to face it.

  I didn’t want to accept the fact I had to choose. Either I was going to be in this, or I wasn’t. There wasn’t going to be an in-between. As hard as it was for me to admit, I wasn’t going to be able to have my fun with this guy and just let it when I left.

  That’s how I would want it, and that’s how I would assume he would want it, too, but I knew everyone was different, and if that’s not what he wanted, then I wasn’t going to be able to do any of this. I didn’t want to be trapped here, and I wasn’t going to let anyone tell me what I could or couldn’t do.

  “I liked it when you treated me like I meant something to you, but you need to get one thing straight,” I said. “It doesn’t matter what I am to you, or what we do with each other. You are never going to own me, and no matter what, you aren’t ever going to tell me what to do. I am my own person, and I’m not going to put up with you or anyone else trying to control me in any way, do you understand?”

  I gave him a look that told him I meant business, and he shook his head in disbelief.

  I got the impression he had never been told no by a woman before, and he wasn’t sure how to take it. But, that wasn’t going to stop me. I wasn’t going to back down just because he wasn’t used to being rejected.

  We stood in silence for a moment, and then I sighed. “This is why I told you I can’t do this.”

  “Do what?”

  “Any of this,” I said as I motioned between us. “I told you I’m going to be leaving in a couple months, and that date’s just getting closer. I can’t have this happening. I need to focus on my job, and I’m going to get the Hell out of here as soon as I can. That means I can’t get caught up in this sort of thing.”

  The words hung in the air, and the look on Blade’s face told me plain as day what was going through his head. He might not be used to this, but he wasn’t angry anymore, either. It made me wonder what was really going on inside his head, why he was really so upset he wasn’t able to get a hold of me.

  But in the end, it didn’t matter. It didn’t change the fact I was leaving, and it didn’t change anything I said to him. I was still pissed off, and nothing was going to just erase what he had just done to me.

  He wasn’t in charge of me, and he never would be. This was going to be hard to let go, but it was necessary. I could get over it. It would break my heart, yes, but I could still get over it.

  I was stronger than the pain of a breakup, and I would be okay.

  Blade, on the other hand, clearly felt bad for what he had done, and he took a step forward, pulling me in his arms and kissing me with the same ferocity as always. Before, it would have turned me on. I would have wanted him to take me to his house and have his way with my body.

  But now, I was pissed. I wasn’t going to do this. With a push, I shoved him off me.

  “I told you,” I said. “I can’t do this. And, I meant it.”

  Without another word, I turned and headed into the house. I was ready to face another fight with my mother and more comments from my brother, but that would be better than the look that was on Blade’s face. I didn’t want to look at that anymore. I couldn’t.

  There were emotions there I never wanted to see, and I had a feeling my own face reflected emotion I wanted to deny.

  This was the hard truth I didn’t want to face, but it had snuck up on me like a thief. Now, I had to deal with the mess I made and push through the rest of my time here. It wasn’t easy, but I’d made my choice, and now I had to stick with it.

  It broke my heart, but I was sure this was really goodbye.

  Chapter 17 – One Week Later

  Blade

  “I’m going to need you all to be here entirely tonight. You got that? This isn’t anything to half-ass or joke around about. We go in, we do the run, we get the Hell outta Dodge, got it?” Jett looked around the table, and we all nodded.

  The night of the run had come, and I was ready. After the setbacks we’d gone through a couple weeks before, we were all more than ready to be done with the deal and put it behind us.

  Junior, of course, was gone, but I still was rather butt hurt about how it had gone down. I wanted to prove a point, but that didn’t happen. He just walked out of here as though nothing mattered. Still, I knew a lot of the frustration I felt toward the situation and a lot of the anger I wanted to take out on him could be traced back to how I felt about my relationship with Alexis.

  Or, should I say, my lack of a relationship with her, really.

  I was shocked with the way she’d stood up to me outside her house last week, and I wasn’t sure what to do about it. Never in my life had I dealt with a situation like that, and now that it was over, I wanted to put it behind me and forget the entire thing.

&nb
sp; As difficult as it might seem avoiding her living right next door, I didn’t find it hard to do, at all. She went to work and did whatever else it was she happened to do, and the rest of the time she spent in the house. She never sat on the porch anymore, and I got the impression she was also doing what she could to avoid me.

  That was fine.

  We hadn’t spoken since that night, and that was fine, too. Hell, this was all fine. I was fine, I would insist what went down between us was fine, and now that she and I weren’t talking at all, I could say it was better this way. There wasn’t any need to beat a dead horse, and we both made it clear how we felt.

  I wanted to have more than just a friend with benefits in Alexis, and she didn’t want to have anything with me. What she was doing those nights when we hooked up, I wasn’t sure, but clearly, it didn’t mean anything to her.

  While I couldn’t blame her for that, it hurt to think it was what it was, and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.

  God knew I’d done that enough to various women in my own past, so I really could chalk it up to being karma and nothing more. There would be other women to hook up with in the future, and life would continue to move on. It was simple, really, like so many other things in life.

  “Blade,” Jett brought my attention back to the moment. “I want you to take the smaller of the groups with you around the back. I don’t want there to be even a slight chance those guys will try anything. I’m going to lead the front, we’ll seal the deal, and then we ride.”

  “Got it,” I nodded.

  None of us were looking forward to how the night would unfold. We were dealing with an MC that was known for being volatile, and it wasn’t any secret what had just happened with the Devil’s Sons, either.

  For the moment, the Steel Wings MC looked injured, and that would mean we were vulnerable – exactly what we didn’t want to be. But, the only way to maintain our status was to prove to the rest of the world we weren’t vulnerable, and we were still the top dogs in the area.