by Brook Wilder
My stomach turned. “No bail.”
“You damned right no bail,” Jon announced. “Those fuckers won’t be getting out anytime soon.”
I slumped against the bar, feeling like I was underwater, unable to catch my breath. I wanted to scream that not everyone was bad, not everyone deserved the same treatment, but then again, I would be lying. The Jesters had killed people. They had run drugs and guns that ultimately had killed people.
They were by all pretenses, the enemy. “I’m leaving in two days.”
“Back to Virginia?”
“Yes,” I said, picking up another shot. I couldn’t stay here and watch the club go down like this. I had done my job and it was time for me to get the hell out of here.
Jon touched my arm, forcing me to lower the shot. “Let’s get you something better than that.”
I frowned, putting the shot on the counter. “There’s nothing bad about tequila.”
“Except the damn hangover in the morning,” he chuckled. “We need to celebrate properly.”
I let him order the damn drink, not really caring what he got as long as it made me forget. “I’ll be right back.”
He gave me a smile and I wobbled to the bathroom, locking the door behind me so I wouldn’t be disturbed. I had to man up about this. What was done was done and there was nothing I could do about it. Seth had made this bed for himself. Not me, not anyone else.
He had chosen this life and now he had to pay the consequences.
I went to the bathroom and then washed my hands in the sink, splashing water on my face. I didn’t recognize the woman in the mirror staring back at me. Maybe I needed to take a leave of absence after I got back. I had the time, and a beach with lots of alcohol sounded pretty good right about now.
When I returned to the bar, Jon was still there, a drink in his hand. “Here,” he said with a grin. “Drink this. Now there is a drink to make it all go away.”
I frowned, peering into the glass. “What is it?”
“Jon’s concoction,” he chuckled, holding up his own glass. “Trust me. It’s the best thing you will ever drink.”
Shrugging, I tipped it to my lips and took a swallow. Surprisingly, it was pretty good. “This is great, thanks.”
“No sweat,” he said, downing his glass in one swallow. “Drink up. You will be a hero come morning.”
I didn’t feel much like a hero. Taking another swallow, I started to feel the effects of the alcohol. Whatever was in it, it was strong. Still, I forced myself to down the rest. Maybe this was what I needed.
But as I went to put the glass down, the bar top swayed below me.
“Whoa, Alisha,” Jon said, his arm wrapping around my waist to steady me. “Maybe we shouldn’t have put that on top of whatever else you drank. How many shots did you have?”
My lips were numb, and I couldn’t force the words out of my mouth. I didn’t drink as much as I used to, but I was no lightweight either.
“Come on,” he was saying, throwing some bills on the bar. “Let me get you to your parents’ house. You are in no condition to drive, and I would hate for you to get a DUI in this backwoods shithole.”
I wanted to object, but I couldn’t even get my legs to cooperate, much less figure out how I was going to get home.
“When we get back to Virginia, you can forget about this place once and for all,” Jon was saying as we walked outside. “I know this hasn’t been easy for you, Alisha, and it’s got you thinking things you shouldn’t. You wouldn’t be in this bar if you weren’t.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, my words slurring. Damn I had gone downhill quickly.
“You know,” he answered, steering me toward his car. “Rehashing old feelings that didn’t mean shit to you back in Virginia. You’re a damn fine agent and I don’t want to see you go down like this.”
I opened my mouth to ask him what he meant but someone else caught my eye and my blood ran cold, even in my inebriated state. “How?”
Jon kept hauling me toward the car, toward a grinning Lopez. “See? I’ve done damn good this far. No one ever suspected this.”
I forced my head to turn, feeling the fringes of the darkness starting to creep in. “What?”
Jon slid a finger over my lips. “Shh, all in due time, Alisha. Now go to sleep. You know you want to.”
As my eyes fought the heaviness, I realized Jon had done this. He had slipped me something to make me feel this way.
Oh Seth, I need you so much now.
It was the last thought I had before I succumbed to the darkness.
Chapter 18
Seth
I stepped up into the van, wishing they hadn’t dressed us in the jumpsuits for the transport. I felt like a damn lamb being led to the slaughter in this getup.
After a sleepless night in a jail cell, I wasn’t in the mood.
The clank of the chains around my legs ground on my nerves, but there was nothing I could do for them either. I was a ward of the state of Texas and would likely remain one for ten to twenty years if the feds had it their way.
We couldn’t let that happen, but I didn’t know what the hell to do about it. We were about to be taken to Dallas, away from all the people who cared about us. Rex had nearly lost it last night when I had told him about the transport. He had gone into the corner of the cell and sat there for the longest time, staring at the wall. I knew what he was thinking. He was thinking of how he wouldn’t see his wife without bars between them.
We were all thinking the same thing, how much we would miss out on, how we could be old ass men before we ever saw the light of day again.
Most of all I would miss out on making the woman I loved part of my life.
I would miss Alisha.
Just the thought of Alisha made my chest squeeze painfully. Even a night in the pen hadn’t made me give up on us just yet. She might think she was doing the right thing by walking away, but I knew better.
I knew we couldn’t walk away from each other no matter how much we tried.
But now I was right where we always thought I would be, and she was nowhere in sight.
“Damn this color fucking sucks on me.”
I chuckled as Corey attempted to make light of our situation, though we all knew it looked grim. With the council captured and no one to run the club, the others would scatter, not wanting to be picked up too. We had all discussed it last night, the fate of the Jesters hanging on by a thread.
After all our blood, sweat, and tears, we were on the verge of losing it all.
We were down, but not out, not yet.
The truck pulled away from the jail and I leaned against the side, rubbing my hand over my face. Thank God they hadn’t chained our hands back together. We were in a non-descript truck for our transport, with two guards riding in the cab. It was just the four of us: Rex, Corey, me, and Damian, and apparently they weren’t worried about us breaking out.
Chained together like this, we’d probably break our necks trying to get out of here.
“Don’t worry, you won’t be wearing it for long,” Rex said after a moment, frowning at his own chains.
“Why is that? They gonna take us to the desert and shoot us?” Damian grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest. “Be quicker than a trial.”
“No,” Rex answered. “I’ve already initiated my tracker. We will be busting out soon.”
I arched a brow. “Where the hell do you have a tracker that they haven’t found?”
He grinned. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
I shook my head and he opened his mouth, the cap on his back tooth looking just like a filling.
“There. Now get your mind out of the fucking gutter.”
“Who gets the tracker?” I asked stupidly, probably already knowing the answer.
Rex’s grin grew wider. “The only person who would care to track my ass.”
I grinned back, some of the weight lifting off my shoulders. We were going to get out, busted free by a bunch of women.
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Whom I would kiss the hell out of when I saw them.
It wasn’t long before there was a bang and the truck wildly shifted sideways, throwing us against each other.
“Tires,” Corey muttered as he pushed Damian off him. “They had to go for the tires.”
“Get ready,” Rex shouted as another bang sounded and the truck fishtailed, the left side slamming into the road. I tasted blood in my mouth as I struggled to sit upright, my chains tangled up with Rex’s. The back doors were thrown open and two masked people stood there, guns drawn.
“Don’t ya’ll look cute in your matching outfits.”
I accepted the hand of another masked person, who was hauling us out fast, the sunshine blinding me as I stepped out the best I could, nearly falling on my face when I tried to walk with my ankles still chained.
“Quick! Get in the truck!”
“Do you know how hard it is to walk in these damn things?” I said as I was pushed into a waiting truck. Inside was a grinning Kris, with bolt cutters in her hands. “Good to see you, Chuckler.”
“You too,” I said. “Get these damn things off me, will you?”
She obliged and I removed them from my ankles, glad to finally be rid of that handicap. “What’s the plan?”
“The plan is for you to listen,” Mama Bear answered instead, the truck already moving now that we are all loaded. “The feds set you up.”
I looked up sharply. No, Alisha wouldn’t do that. She was by-the-book kind of a girl. “That asshole partner of her...”
“Yeah,” she said, throwing me a bundle of clothing. “He’s working with Lopez.”
Shit. I knew something was up. “Where’s Alisha?” I needed to tell her a lot of things, but the most pressing was that her partner was corrupt, and she was in danger.
“That’s the thing,” Mama Bear said quietly as the truck bounced over the rough surface. “Our tail on her saw her getting into a car with her partner six hours ago. We haven’t seen her since.”
My blood froze in my veins and I paused pulling off the jumpsuit. “What?”
She looked away, not because I was getting naked in front of her like the rest of the guys were, but because something was wrong, and she didn’t want to tell me.
“I think… we tracked her to a shitty motel off highway twenty-five. Rivet is casing the joint now.”
Thank God I had planted that tracker on her boot when she wasn’t paying attention.
Corey let out a growl and I knew he hated that his woman was scouting without him.
“I have to get there.” Whether Alisha went there willingly or by force, I was going to find out.
I needed to know she was safe.
Then we would be having a long, much needed discussion about our future together. If I could deliver a corrupt ATF agent and potentially Lopez, then there had to be some room for negotiation for our conditional release.
The truck slowed to a stop and I was the first out, looking for transportation to get to Alisha. That was all I cared about now. “I need wheels.”
Mama Bear hopped down from the truck, handing over her gun to me, and her keys. “Take mine. It’s gassed and ready to go.”
“Thanks,” I answered, taking her offerings.
“I’ll come with you,” Corey said, clearly going because Rivet was out there.
I didn’t care. All I needed to see was Alisha.
“Wait,” Rex said as I shrugged on the shirt in the bundle.
It wasn’t my clothing, but the boots fit, and I could hide out just a little longer before we were busted again. “What?”
“Be careful, man,” he said softly for just me to hear. “I’ve done this before, charging into the fray of things to save my woman. I don’t want to have to bury you, too.”
“I’ll be fine,” I answered, checking the gun. “I swear it. Go after Lopez if you can. We need him alive to bargain with the feds.”
“We got Lopez,” Rex said, his lips in a thin line. “It will be hard not to kill the bastard though.”
I looked over at him, tucking the gun in the waistband of my jeans. “I don’t particularly want to go to prison. He might be our only bargaining chip.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Rex sighed. “Fine. I will do my best to keep him alive.”
“My God, hurry up, will you?” Mama Bear fumed, her hands on her hips. “I swear y’all are worse than women when it comes to making plans. Just go get her already!”
“Yes ma’am,” I said, giving her a salute before I hurried to her bike. It was smaller than mine, but it cranked up just fine and I made sure Corey was behind me before I took off, roaring down the long concrete road through the desert. I didn’t know what they were going to do with the truck and the fallout from our escape, but I had to go get Alisha back.
She could be in some serious danger with her partner. He had already expressed his feelings for her and clearly, he wasn’t a man who went away easily.
I would fucking kill him if this was anything more than partners working together. I doubted Alisha would work with Lopez, especially since she had found out he had killed her sister.
Alisha had been the target all those years ago and I was worried they might try to finish the job.
I couldn’t lose her. I couldn’t survive that kind of pain. Alisha was all I ever needed in this world, my first and my last love, and I needed her to be alive.
And for any sort of future with her, we needed to find Lopez before the feds did. It was our only chance to stay out of prison.
Chapter 19
Alisha
“I told you to kill her! What the hell are you thinking?”
“I told you I wasn’t going to fucking kill her, not yet. She’s far more valuable alive if you want your revenge on the Jesters.”
I struggled to open my eyes against the sound of angry voices, my head feeling as if it was going to split in two. My mouth was dry and as I tried to shake the cobwebs out of my head, I realized I was tied to something, my arms spread high above my head.
“Just make sure you have my fucking money when you come back. I’m not risking my career for free.”
“You will get your damn money as soon as I have the head of the Jester’s president in my hands.”
I forced my eyes to open just a tiny bit, the room coming in clearer and the outlines of Jon and Lopez standing near the door. We were in some sort of motel room, one of the pay by night ones based on the furniture and musty smell in the air. I shuddered when I thought of the dirty bedspread I was on and how many tricks had been turned before Jon got the room.
Jon. I was going to kill him. First, he professes his love to me in the oddest way, and then he spiked my drink to use me as a pawn in some sort of sicko game he had cooked up with Lopez. It seemed you never really knew a person until they were given a chance to earn cold cash.
I would revel in the fact of turning him over to the feds to prosecute, that is, if I could get out of my current situation.
“I’m going to get your damn money and my club,” Lopez was saying as he opened the door. “Don’t try and double cross me.”
“I’m not,” Jon said as the commander shut the door. “Asshole. I should put a fucking bullet in his brain.”
He turned back toward the bed and I made a sound, fluttering my eyes to make it appear as I was just waking up.
“Good morning sunshine.”
“What happened?” I asked innocently, straining against the ropes around my wrists. “Why am I tied to the bed?”
“For your own safety, of course,” Jon answered as he sat on the edge of the bed, his hand brushing my hair out of my face for me. “God, you are fucking gorgeous, Alisha, far too pretty to be ATF.”
I tried not to flinch under his touch, wanting to coax him to untie me so I could kill him with my bare hands. “My arms are hurting. Please untie me, Jon. I’m scared.”
His gaze narrowed. “You? Scared? What for? There’s nothing to be scared of, Alisha. I am going to
take care of you just like I have since day one. You are going to let me, right?”
The door opened suddenly, and Lopez walked back in, ruining the mood. “Ah, she’s awake.”
“What the hell do you want?” Jon demanded, standing abruptly.
I could see the gun strapped to his waist, his badge gleaming in the light. The same badge he was currently betraying.
“Forgot my keys,” Lopez said slowly, picking up the set from the table near the door. “But since our friend here is awake, maybe I will hang around.”
