Savage Saints MC Series: The Complete Box Set

by Hazel Parker

  The second thing she noticed was the distant hum of sirens. She couldn’t tell what kind of emergency vehicle they were for, but she could hear that they were getting closer and fast. That, too, she wrote off in her mind—perhaps someone had fallen in one of the motel bathtubs and called an ambulance; it wouldn’t be the first time. She pressed on the gas a little harder.

  Finally, as Nina pulled into the parking lot of the Oasis, she was forced to come to terms with her worst nightmare—smoke and flame. Her motel, her father’s motel, was on fire. Her stomach immediately felt sick. She barely had time to park and pull her keys from the ignition as she hurried out of the car, throwing the door closed and sprinting toward the fire against her better judgement.

  Luckily, the motel itself wasn’t ablaze yet. She checked the rooms, passing by the few guests that were standing outside on the porch and watching helplessly as the shed behind the building burned to the ground. The smell of gasoline made her eyes water in addition to the smoke, a sure giveaway that this was no accident. Indeed, the sirens she’d heard had been firetrucks, which now pulled into the parking lot and straight toward the fire. Men in yellow uniforms shoved her out of the way none too gently and a nice older woman to whom she’d rented a room the night before was standing there to usher her kindly aside, taking her toward where the rest of the guests were watching the blaze.

  “What happened?” she asked, feeling herself choked up already despite her best efforts to avoid getting emotional publically.

  “I really don’t know,” the older woman admitted. “I smelled smoke and came outside, and that little shack was already on fire. I mean completely up in flames; it went up so fast. That young man over there and his wife had already called the fire department, but it just burned so quickly.”

  “Did anyone see anyone around it before it went up?” Nina asked. She knew that the firefighters would surely ask these questions as soon as they finished putting out the flames, but she had to know now. She already had a sinking feeling that she knew the answer.

  “Well, we didn’t see anyone,” a woman, the wife of the guy who’d apparently made the call, interjected. “But I could have sworn that I heard a motorcycle driving by not ten minutes before we smelled the smoke. It’s probably a coincidence—I don’t even know if they came into the parking lot.”

  That was enough to switch Nina’s devastation and sadness into overwhelming anger. This was one of the Disciples, she knew. Vance had finally gone too far, crossed someone he shouldn’t have, and they’d taken it out on her and her business. She should have listened to her gut—hell, she should have listened to Vance’s ex-girlfriend the first time she’d told her that she needed to cut him out of her life to avoid the trouble he’d bring. She hadn’t believed her at the time, having been blinded by Vance’s charm and depth and aloof brand of kindness that had both filled her with desire and with curiosity, but no more. This wasn’t something that she’d tolerate for one minute longer. The next time she talked to Vance, it would be to tell him to get the hell out of her life for good.

  Chapter 22: Vance

  Vance finished a long day at the bar after allowing Sheila to close so he could turn in early, still exhausted from riding all day, and returned to the Oasis before midnight. He pulled into the lot on his bike and was surprised to see Nina sitting outside on the porch, looking stressed and upset. It wasn’t his place to talk to her about that, though—it was Adam’s job to deal with whatever was going on with her, now. That’s why it surprised him when she beelined for him, not even giving him a chance to act as if he hadn’t seen her before pointing, not waving, and beckoning him toward her with one finger like his teachers had used to do when he got in trouble in school.

  “Hey, Red,” he greeted casually, “what’s up?” She didn’t look particularly angry, nor did she look pleased to see him. Really, she just looked tired, more tired than he’d ever seen her, and distressed.

  “I want to show you something,” she began ominously. He frowned.

  “Uh-oh,” he tried to joke, but she wasn’t having any of that. Now, dread really did begin to make a home in the pit of his stomach as he followed her around the side of the motel and around the back. Once there, she stopped, gesturing weakly to the shed behind the Oasis. It was a little too dark to see anything specific, but the smell of ash and the meager light from the moon and the streetlights in the parking lot illuminated just enough of the scene to allow him to see what she was talking about.

  “Fuck, Nina,” he muttered. “What happened?” The shed was still standing, but it looked as if it were only barely doing that, and it was charred all the way around. Surely, everything inside was ruined, and though he didn’t know what kinds of things Nina kept in there, he imagined that whatever it was was of no small value.

  “There was a fire,” she replied simply, obviously. “Burned down today while I was out doing chores, but even if I’d been here, it wouldn’t have mattered. Whoever did it used so much gasoline that the firefighters think it probably went up completely within seconds.”

  Vance shook his head in disbelief. “Somebody did this on purpose?” he verified, though he had a good idea of who would have done it. “Did anybody see them? Have they been caught?”

  Nina bit her bottom lip as if she were trying not to cry looking at the wreckage. He got the impression that this was how she’d spent a lot of the day, but he could pretend that the redness of her eyes and the stuffiness in her voice were from the smoke inhalation rather than tears.

  “Hey,” Vance began, moving a little closer to her and throwing an arm around her shaking shoulders. “It’s okay. You’ve got insurance, right? This is gonna be fixable. Hell, even if you don’t, I can give you the money. It’s not a big deal.”

  “It’s not about the money, Vance,” she said into his shoulder as he held her tightly. She was trembling even though the night air wasn’t as cold as it had been in recent weeks and he assumed that it was emotion rather than temperature.

  “Then what?”

  “Someone did this,” she reiterated. “It wasn’t some freak accident or some punk kids playing with fireworks or whatever. They used gasoline and set my shed on fire. The only thing that anyone was able to report was that they heard a motorcycle go by ten minutes before they saw the flames.”

  Vance nodded, not surprised but feeling the same frustration that Nina surely was right now. He’d promised to protect her and he’d failed.

  “I’ll make sure that the person who did this pays for it—”

  “—No, Vance,” she cut him off with the quiet kind of anger that made him sure she meant business. “I don’t want you exacting revenge and making these people even angrier than they already are. Leave it alone, I mean it.”

  Vance sighed. “Nina, if you don’t let me take care of it, this could escalate.”

  “I’m done letting you fix things,” Nina said solemnly. “I’m going to fix this one myself.” She took a deep breath in order to summon the courage to look him in the eyes. “Vance, I think you should leave.” Vance blinked in surprise.

  “You’re kicking me out of the motel?”

  She looked away pointedly. “It’s not personal,” she said. “I’ll prorate you for the rent you’ve already paid this month.”

  “Look, I know you’re mad at me, but—”

  “That’s the thing, I’m not mad,” she argued. “I just need to do whatever is best to protect myself and the motel. And you being here isn’t what’s best for the Oasis.”

  Vance hadn’t felt this kind of rejection in a long time. He could see the pain in Nina’s face as she was speaking, knew just how difficult it was for her to even ask him to go, but it didn’t change the fact that this was what she felt she had to do. It brought him back to the early days of being part of the Rebel Kings, constantly working for the approval of the people he cared about and never quite feeling like he’d done well enough to deserve it. With Nina, though, he had to earn her trust in a different way. Sitti
ng back and following orders may have worked for Flip and Aces, but it wasn’t going to get him anywhere with Nina. He had to show her that he was committed to not bringing more problems her way, that he would keep her safe from the trouble that followed him. He’d done a bang-up job at that so far, and now he thought that perhaps he’d gone too far. Maybe he couldn’t get back on her good side. Sometimes when bridges burned down, they burned for good, and the issues that Vance had brought into Nina’s life so far would have already bested someone who was less tenacious and kind than Nina was.

  “If you really want me to go, I’ll go,” he finally said after a long pause. “For the record, I don’t think it’s the best idea, and I’m not just saying that to get you to let me live here. I don’t care where I sleep. It’s just that the Disciples aren’t going to let up on either of us until they get what they want, and at least if I’m here, I can make sure that they always have to get through me to get to you.”

  Nina looked him in the eyes once more, her gaze patient and sad. “Well, you were ‘here’ today, Vance,” she pointed out. “The fire broke out while you were living here and there was nothing you could do to stop it. No matter where you live, you’re not gonna be here to protect me all the time. If they’re just gonna use the times you’re away to terrorize me and my guests, then how much more of a risk am I really taking by asking you not to come back?”

  Vance could hardly argue with that logic because it was true: he wasn’t here all the time, and the Disciples would likely never pull anything during a time when Vance was there. Just like today, they’d take the coward’s way out, waiting until they knew he was gone to strike. He had to admit that maybe Nina was right—if he left, there was a small chance that the Disciples really would just leave her alone and start targeting him and the bar just like they had with Tank. He cringed to think about subjecting Nina to that same fate.

  “Okay,” he caved. “I’ll go, then. You can keep the money. I’ll just stay at the bar until I find a new place.” The pity in Nina’s eyes was apparent and he hated to see it there for his sake. She was an empathetic soul, of course, but he didn’t want to come across to her as needy or downtrodden.

  “I mean, I could let you stay here until you’ve got something lined up…”

  He offered her a reassuring smile that didn’t seem to put her fears to rest.

  “Nah,” he dismissed. “The bar has a comfortable couch, and I’m sure I’ll find something else fast, anyway. I’ve stayed in worse places, you know.” That part was true, as he’d seen some pretty nasty motels in all the traveling he’d done, but he was slightly exaggerating his confidence that he’d find another motel or apartment any time soon. The search results had been meager at best when he’d first moved here, and he couldn’t imagine that things would be any different now.

  “I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I just have to do what’s best for the Oasis.” The ‘it’s not you; it’s me’ speech was just icing on the pity-cake for Vance, but he wasn’t about to say that out loud.

  “I get it,” he told her instead. “I’m not mad. I’ll have my stuff out of here by tomorrow night.” There wasn’t much to pack, since he’d brought everything he’d needed on the back of his bike and hadn’t really even spread out inside the room. His clothes were in the dressers, sure, but Vance didn’t have anything special in terms of trinkets or pictures or other personal touches that most people used to brighten up their rooms. He moved around so much that he only took the bare essentials, and those things would take up no room at all in the staff room at the Nightcap. His employees wouldn’t even have to know: not that he really cared even if they did.

  Nina looked like she wanted to keep apologizing, so Vance reached out and gave her a friendly, light punch on the shoulder with a smile.

  “Don’t worry about me, okay? You’ve got a shed to fix.” Now, reminded of why she was doing this at all, the determination and resolve returned to Nina’s face and she nodded. That was good—those were his favorite things about her, after all, and he didn’t want to make her crazy with guilt over asking him to leave. Being kicked out of places had been a common theme most of his life. His parents had kicked him out when he was 17 for doing poorly in school, his cousin had kicked him out when she and her husband had gotten married, and he’d been kicked out of college in the middle of freshman year because he couldn’t find the money to pay the tuition. The only people who had never turned him away were the Rebel Kings, and he still had them.

  Trouble was he didn’t want to leave, and it wasn’t because of the motel room or the free coffee he typically bummed off Nina early in the mornings. It was because he didn’t like the idea of not coming back to the motel every night and seeing her. He hated the thought of not speaking with her ever again. However, if there was a chance that this really would keep her safe, he’d suck it up and try it, because there was nothing that he cared about more than keeping Nina safe. There was nothing that he cared about more than he cared about Nina. She was all that mattered now, and if leaving was what she needed him to do, he’d do it for her. He wouldn’t stop watching out, but he could do that from a distance. He could keep her safe even if she had no idea that he was doing it, and to the best of her knowledge, he’d be out of her life for good.

  Chapter 23: Nina

  The amount of paperwork that Nina had to do in order to get the insurance money for the shed was incredible. Never before had she ever had to struggle with something like that—even the time that a drunk driver had taken out the front wall of one of the motel units with their car, Nina’s father had been the person to file the papers and get the money and to rebuild. He’d made it look so easy; he always had made it look easy, but now that she was doing it on her own, she realized that running a business was anything but easy. It had been almost a week since the fire and she was still dealing with the aftermath. She’d had several people already come to the motel and give estimates about the damage costs, all throwing out numbers that were so varied that she really had no idea what kind of funds she’d even get for rebuilding and couldn’t really begin to make plans accordingly.

  Adam had barely been around at all since the fire. Though she was keeping it together, there was a definite part of her that was still very afraid of what might happen, of what had already happened and about how much further the Disciples could take this rivalry between two motorcycle clubs that she wasn’t even a part of. Having Adam around was really the only way that she could feel safe anymore, and he wasn’t doing a great job at being present. She had to admit that this had taken a toll on her mentally. Ever since the fire, she’d had trouble sleeping, afraid that as soon as she closed her eyes, that someone might terrorize her once more. Because of that fear, she’d started sleeping in the units again rather than going back to her own home, and even here, she found herself waking up several times a night feeling the intense need to check on the motel and its occupants. She sent the laundry out instead of taking it up to the laundromat herself, deciding just to swallow the extra cost for the sake of being here to keep watch over the place. It was driving her crazy, she knew, thinking about nothing but the worst case scenarios, but with no one here to stop her mind from going off on tangents, she was starting to spiral a little bit.

  Worst of all, she missed Vance. She knew that it had been a good move to kick him out of the motel, and she also knew that if she just went to visit him that she’d have to admit to herself that she just couldn’t get over her feelings for him. She couldn’t very well invite him over to catch up because of that, and there was no way she was leaving the Oasis for long enough to have some drinks at a bar; not that Adam would want to spend the time with her anyway. Vance would reassure her that everything would be okay in ways that Adam couldn’t. He would hold her in his strong, tattooed arms and tell her that he’d protect her, and for once in her life, she’d believe that someone could and would. Nina had known no shortage of tragedy in her life, having lost both of her parents so young and now being left to
manage such a huge business venture all by herself, but she’d never felt so completely alone during a crisis before. Her father had been there to get her through the loss of her mother, and Adam had been a shoulder to cry on after her father’s death. Now, he wasn’t anywhere to be found, always running out with some excuse about a call at work or needing to work overtime, since business hadn’t been great in the past few days—after all, who wanted to stay overnight in a place that had been the setting for an arson attack?

  She rubbed her tired eyes and shut the file of paperwork that she’d been staring at for the past few days. On this sheet, she’d been asked to make a list of everything that had been in the shed, which was easier said than done. Much of it had been her father’s tools and other things that she hadn’t touched in years, and even trying to dig through the rubble to find identifiable pieces of things was difficult, since most of it was charred beyond recognition. Still, the list had been steadily growing as she put more and more focus into perfecting the image of the interior of the building in her mind’s eye. A lot of lawn-care tools, ladders of varying heights, some of the older pieces of decor like neon signs and Hollywood-style light-up mirrors that her father had introduced when they’d been trendy and then buried in the shed with the hopes of someday selling them. It was surprisingly emotional to dig through the memories—it was always difficult to know what sorts of memories held emotions until they were remembered. Perhaps it was just the loneliness talking, but she missed her father. If he hadn’t passed away, she wouldn’t be here at all. Nina had to actively force herself not to be angry as she thought of how if her dad had just not been on the road that night, she’d still be in Portland, happily dating Adam and working toward her own career. If her father had just heeded his own warnings against motorcycles and not been out on his so late at night, she’d still have him in her life.