by Devney Perry
They wouldn’t betray us. I saw that now. We could tell them the truth and they’d safeguard it with their lives.
Genevieve clutched my hand. “They’ll know our marriage isn’t real.”
But it was real, wasn’t it? Somewhere along the way, this marriage had become the most real thing in my life.
“We’ll deal with it,” I said. “We’ll figure it out.”
She fell into my side, her cheek resting on my shoulder.
I shifted, wrapping an arm around her and pulling her close. “Let’s wait until the garage closes. Wait until Pres goes home. She doesn’t know everything that’s happened with the Warriors lately, and I think Dash wants to keep it that way.”
“Especially if the Warriors are trying to get to us through Jeremiah.”
While we trusted Presley implicitly, Jeremiah was a different situation. And Pres didn’t need to be put in the middle. We worried enough about her, sending her home each night. She’d assured us that the Warriors were gone and she was safe.
But she was Presley. We worried.
Genevieve and I leaned into one another, settling deeper into the sofa as we waited. I closed my eyes and blocked out the world beyond our door. I hugged my wife. I pretended the illusion was true—that Genevieve and I had met and fallen in love on the same day. That I was just as head over heels in love with her now as I had been on day one.
Maybe I was.
But it was time for the illusion to come to an end.
I kissed the top of her hair as she breathed me in. We were both savoring these last moments.
Until the sounds from the garage began to dull.
And our time was up.
An hour later, when the garage was closed for the night, everyone was in our apartment. No one had hesitated when I’d asked them up.
Though it was only six o’clock, it was dark outside. Daylight in a Montana winter was as short-lived as phone calls had been in prison. The black window matched the mood.
Draven, Leo and Emmett were shoulder to shoulder on the couch. Bryce and Dash were at the table, while Genevieve and I sat on the end of the bed. This was the most people I’d venture to guess had ever been in this apartment. We wouldn’t have to speak loudly to hear one another across the room.
“What are we doing here, Isaiah?” Draven asked.
“Something happened today,” I said.
Dash sat straighter. “What?”
“Someone came after Genevieve.”
The room exploded.
Not in the typical explosion where people shot out of chairs and began pacing. Not a soul moved. But the tension and anger and fear that detonated into the air was an explosion, nonetheless.
“When?” Draven asked through a clenched jaw.
“After work,” Genevieve answered, telling them about leaving early. She shuddered as she described how the man had dragged her from her car. As she spoke, her hand drifted to her hair where, beneath those brown locks, I was sure a nasty bruise was blackening.
“Did you get a look at him?” Dash asked.
“Yes.” Genevieve nodded. “I’ve never seen him before. Dark hair. Brown eyes. But he wasn’t one of the men I found in my research, so I don’t know his name.”
“He was wearing a Warrior cut. I only got a look at him from behind. When I got there, I shouted, and he ran to the back of the building. Disappeared. He never did turn so I could see his face.”
“Fuck,” Dash spat. “Tucker thinks it’s us.”
Genevieve’s hand found mine on my knee. She squeezed it, then gave me a sad smile.
This was it. The end.
No more secrets.
“There’s something you guys should know.” I blew out a long breath. “We lied to you. About what happened in the cabin.”
Dash’s face turned stone-cold, his expression harder than I’d ever seen it before. Bryce’s jaw dropped. Emmett and Leo shared a wide-eyed look. Draven frowned but didn’t seem surprised. Maybe he’d known all along.
“I ran to the cabin. You guys know that already,” Genevieve said. “The door was unlocked so I slipped inside. I thought I could hide there. My feet were hurting so badly, I knew I couldn’t run fast or far. It was dark inside, but there was a light coming from the far back corner. You wouldn’t have even seen it unless you’d gone inside, so I walked that way, hoping maybe it was a back exit or something. It was a stairwell.”
Dash scoffed. “And let me guess, you went down.”
“No.” She shot him a glare. “I went the other way, toward a room. I was looking for a way out so when I saw it was just a room, I almost turned and left. But then I saw it was full of bags. All plastic. All tiny. And all of them were filled with something white.”
“Drugs,” Bryce guessed. “The Warriors were using that place to store drugs.”
“They’re dealing now?” Leo asked.
Draven shook his head. “Doesn’t seem like Tucker’s style. He wants the money from the suppliers but knows getting involved in distribution would put a target on his back. They’re not dealers. They’re the muscle and the guns. But maybe they added a service. Instead of just running protection routes on shipments, they’re doing some storage too.”
Protection routes? For drugs? Was it something the Gypsies used to do?
Did I want to know that answer?
No.
“Keep going,” Dash ordered Genevieve.
She nodded, her grip on my hand tightening. “I backed away, wanting to get the hell out of there. But as I turned, this guy came up from the basement. He was in a daze. His eyes were glassy. He was high as a goddamn kite.”
“Maybe those drugs were the Warriors’ personal stash,” Emmett muttered. “And he was assigned to watch over them.”
Draven leaned forward, his eyes glued to Genevieve. “What happened next?”
“He smiled at me.” She shivered. “He said, ‘Looks like the boys sent me a present.’ And then he came at me. He tried to kiss me. He licked my cheek. He put his hands all over me.”
I clenched my jaw, not wanting to think about it.
“I fought him off as best I could,” she said. “I tried to run for the door, but he was strong and I’d been in a trunk and tied up beside a tree all night. I was exhausted. He grabbed me and ripped at my shirt.”
The other men in the room sat stiff. Bryce gasped, sad eyes and pain etched on her face.
While she’d run from their kidnapper into Dash’s arms, Genevieve had run from one hell to another.
“He would have raped me.” Genevieve swallowed hard. “Probably killed me too. He punched me in the stomach and told me to stop fighting. It knocked the wind out of me and I collapsed.”
That’s how I’d found her. With a man pinning her to the floor, tearing at her clothes. He’d gotten her pants off past her hips. Her panties too. She’d been bare, exposed and helpless.
I’d only caught a glimpse of Genevieve as she’d run toward that cabin and it had been from behind. The first sight of her face—in person—had been on that floor.
I’d never forget the look on her face, the sheer terror as she gasped for breath, all while her bare ass writhed on a dirty floor because she was trying to get her most precious place away from a man who had no right to touch it.
“I ripped him off her,” I told the room, trying to block out the image of her.
So far, I’d been able to keep that image locked down tight. I did my best to never think of the cabin. Now that we were airing our secrets, would I have a new nightmare tonight? Instead of Genevieve dying in the passenger seat of a car, would I see her on that dirty fucking floor?
“I hit him a few times, tried to keep him down, but he kept coming.” The guy had gotten a few hits in of his own, mostly to my ribs. Nothing broken, but they’d hurt for a couple days. So had my hands from punching him.
“Did you kill him?” Dash asked.
“Yes.” The word hung in the air. “He was in a blind rage. Had to be the drugs.
I knocked him down and got my hands around his throat.”
Then I’d strangled him.
When his arms and legs had fallen limp to the floor, I’d stopped.
I could have stopped sooner. I should have stopped sooner. Maybe Genevieve and I would have been able to call the cops then, explain it as defense of another.
But I didn’t. I fucked up.
I held his neck, squeezing the life out of him, until he was gone from the world.
“I’m not sorry.” I met Draven’s eyes. I wouldn’t be sorry for taking that man’s life. “He wasn’t wearing a cut. I didn’t know he was a Warrior. Not that it would have mattered. I would have killed him all the same.”
Draven nodded. “You did the right thing.”
“Yeah,” Dash, Emmett and Leo echoed.
My shoulders fell, a relief settling that I hadn’t felt in months. I’d needed someone to tell me it was right. I thought it was, but my judgment was so fucked up, what the hell did I know? Genevieve never blamed me for it. She never looked at me like I was a killer.
“He would have killed you both. If not then, later.” Dash ran a hand through his hair. “The Warriors take their revenge. It’s what we would have done as Gypsies too.”
Genevieve shifted her grip, lacing our fingers together. Maybe everyone was good with that being the end of the story, but they needed to know the rest, so I gave her a small nod to continue.
“Isaiah was worried he’d go back to prison. At the time, we weren’t even thinking about the Warriors. We were worried about the police.”
Because normal citizens didn’t fear their actions would lead to retaliation from a motorcycle gang. They feared jail time, as they should.
The realization that I’d killed a man, that I’d go back to prison, had dropped me on my ass on that cabin floor.
I can’t go back there.
I’d chanted those words, over and over, as my options had raced through my mind. Suicide had been at the top of the list. Because I wouldn’t survive another day in prison, let alone a life sentence.
I wasn’t like Draven. Prison wouldn’t harden him. It wouldn’t scare him. He’d weather it like he had life, with a deadly gaze that would take him to the top of the inmate hierarchy. He was cold and hard enough to survive.
It was a good thing Genevieve had some of her father’s strength or I wouldn’t have pulled myself up off that floor.
She’d sprung into action, standing and righting her clothes. Then she’d rushed to my side, shaking me out of my stupor.
What’s your name?
That question, her voice, had broken through the fear.
Isaiah.
She’d looked me dead in the eye. Thank you, Isaiah.
Fuck, but she was too good for me.
“We knew someone would eventually come looking and find the body,” Genevieve told the room. “My fingerprints were everywhere. I knew if the cops found us, they’d take Isaiah back to prison for saving me.”
Maybe we could have run, but instead, I’d killed him. An ex-con who’d gone to prison once for manslaughter wasn’t going to get a light sentence on another charge.
“I found a lighter. It had fallen out of the man’s pocket,” Genevieve said. She’d picked up that silver-plated lighter and an idea had washed over her face. “The fire was on me. I started it by the fireplace, thinking an investigator would think it was a regular fire that had gotten out of control. And it was close to the body.”
I hadn’t been surprised when the place had gone up like a torch. It was an old wooden cabin with logs for walls. It had burned like gasoline on a barbeque.
“We watched it for a few minutes, making sure it was roaring,” I said. “Then we got out of there.”
We’d run to where we’d parked the bikes. I’d held Genevieve’s hand, helping her traverse the forest floor. On one step, she’d cried out and that’s when I’d taken a good look at her feet. I’d made her climb on my back and carried her the rest of the way.
Emmett and Leo and Draven had been searching for the girls’ kidnapper and their bikes had been parked beside mine. They’d assumed we’d left right behind Dash and Bryce. They’d assumed the kidnapper had doubled back to the cabin and started the fire as a distraction.
“What’d you do with the lighter?” Draven asked Genevieve.
“I dumped it in a trash can at the airport after Isaiah dropped me off.”
“Good girl.” The pride in his voice was unmistakable and she blushed.
Odd as it was to be proud of someone for covering up a murder, I was proud of her too. If not for her fast thinking, I’d be done for.
“We stopped about halfway from the cabin to town,” I said. “Waited to make sure the fire was reported and didn’t burn up the forest. When we saw a forest service truck race by, we made a plan.”
Genevieve shifted, inching closer to my side. “If the fire wasn’t enough to destroy the body, the only person who could testify against Isaiah was me. And the only person who could testify that I started the fire was Isaiah. So I suggested we get married. I took a chance that depending on the evidence, a prosecutor would have a hard time proving we’d done anything beyond a reasonable doubt.”
She paused, taking a moment. I assumed she’d tell them about the law, that we hadn’t had to get married after all, but she didn’t and my heart swelled. She kept that secret for us alone.
No one else needed to know she’d stayed for me.
Because I knew.
“You got lucky,” Emmett said. “That fire was hot enough that it burned up that body and destroyed everything but bone. The hyoid wasn’t broken so no one could tell he’d been strangled.”
Nods bobbed around the room.
“Isaiah took me to Bozeman so I could fly home and pack,” Genevieve said. “Then I came back, and we got married.”
When I’d watched and waited for her plane to take off, I’d figured there was a fifty-fifty chance I’d ever see her again. I wouldn’t have blamed her if she’d run away and never come back. But then she’d texted me, as promised, when she’d left Denver.
We’d been waiting for the other shoe to drop ever since.
“Fuck.” Draven ran a hand over his beard. “Wish you would have told us the truth.”
“I didn’t know you,” Genevieve said. “Any of you. All I knew was that I’d come to Montana to visit my mother’s grave, thinking you were the man who’d killed her. I get to Bozeman and someone kidnaps me. Then Bryce, a reporter who I’d only talked to once, tells me that you’re my father and you didn’t kill Mom. I get away from my kidnapper only to get sent into another hell. Isaiah rescued me and I owed him my life. I wasn’t sure who to trust, so I chose him. And I made a promise. If I could keep him out of prison, I’d do it. As for the rest of you, you were strangers.”
“We weren’t worried about another motorcycle club,” I added. “We were worried about the cops.”
Draven let the words sink in, then nodded. “I get it. You still should have told us.”
Maybe. But it was too late to change things now.
“That’s it?” Dash asked me. By rights, that question should have gone to Genevieve, but Dash, that stubborn son of a bitch, wasn’t letting her in. And it was his loss.
“Yeah. That’s it.”
The tension in the room had eased some as we’d told the story. Now that it was over, the room went quiet. The tension returned, this time with an undercurrent of anger, mostly coming from Bryce.
She shot out of her chair—as fast as a pregnant woman could stand—and marched for the door.
“Bryce.” Genevieve stood. Bryce turned. “I’m sorry.”
“You lied to us.” Bryce’s voice shook. “After all that we went through that night, you lied to me. I get why you did it then, but why keep doing it? You were my matron of honor. We’re friends.”
“I’m sorry,” Genevieve repeated. “I didn’t know if I could trust you.”
Bryce planted her hands on
her hips. “Do you know now?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” Bryce changed directions, coming to Genevieve and pulling her into a hug. “No more secrets. We’ll never survive this if we don’t stick together.”
There was so much truth in that statement.
“I’m sorry that happened to you,” Bryce whispered.
“Me too.”
The women broke apart and returned to their seats. The moment she was seated on the end of the bed, we clasped hands.
Together. As we had been from the beginning.
Maybe this marriage was fake and everyone knew it now, but that didn’t mean we weren’t fighting on the same front.
“Now that you all know what really happened”—I looked to Draven—“what’s the plan?”
Chapter Twenty-One
Genevieve
We keep our fucking mouths shut.
That was the plan we’d all decided on.
And over the next week, we did just that.
Dash and Draven worried that if we admitted to the truth, Tucker would retaliate against Isaiah and me—maybe others. He’d see the lies we’d told during the meeting at the clubhouse as something organized. Something Dash and the other former Tin Gypsies had done because of the old rivalry between clubs.
So we stayed quiet. And my pretend marriage was intact.
I wasn’t ready to give up Isaiah, not yet. Especially with the jury delivering Draven’s verdict tomorrow.
Jim had called an hour ago. The jury had reached their decision and would announce it in the morning.
None of us had expected their deliberation to last a full week. I’d hoped it had meant they were deadlocked. That maybe, just maybe, there was a chance at reasonable doubt.
But the fact was, the only way we’d set Draven free was with a miracle. We had to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, with refuting evidence to support it, that he hadn’t killed Mom.
