Tank: A Motorcycle Club Romance (Chrome Kings MC) (Bad Boy Bikers Club Book 7)

by Naomi West

He found the light switch and confirmed what he suspected. It was Eagle, the pool of blood around his head a crusty red spot on the carpet. It might have been a drug deal gone bad or a result of whatever other schemes he’d had his fingers in, but either way he had ended up dead. Tank quickly removed the man’s vest as proof of his death and headed back across town.

  This time, Eagle’s woman opened the door before he even made it all the way up onto the porch. She sobbed as soon as she saw the vest in his hands. “No! What did you do to him?”

  He handed her the piece of leather. “Not me. He was already dead when I got there. Care to tell me what else you know?”

  She clutched the vest as though it was her one line to Eagle, and perhaps it was. “Come in.”

  Tank knew there wasn’t a lot of time to mess around, but this wasn’t the sort of thing that could be discussed on the porch. He followed her inside, where she sagged down onto the couch. The yellow light from a nearby lamp accentuated the red streaks that her tears left as they ran down her cheeks.

  She stared at his vest as she spoke. “A while back, he told me that he needed to make more money. He said he wasn’t making enough with the Chrome Kings, that you didn’t use him to his fullest potential. I told him we were fine, and that he needed to just be patient until he got promoted. I hated that he was in the Kings at first, but I realized it was better than him being on his own. At least he had other men to watch his back, and there was always steady income.

  “Go on.” Tank shifted, eager to get back out onto the streets and find Piper. There was nothing he could do for Eagle now.

  “He started selling drugs. At first, it was just a little bit here or there, but the volume started increasing. I was worried, because that’s the sort of thing that gets attention, but he said his connections to the police force were going to keep him safe. He’d been friends with some of those guys since high school. They’d had numerous reasons to arrest him in the past, but they had never bothered. He thought he was invincible.”

  “But he wasn’t?” Tank guessed, already seeing where this was going. He hadn’t heard the entire story yet, but the ending wasn’t hard to predict.

  She shook her head. “They set him up, and they caught him. He was arrested, but he made a deal. He was going to give them some information on the Kings, but then he was going to blame it all on some woman reporter that he said was snooping around.”

  Tank didn’t have to ask for her name to know which reporter she was talking about. “And what about the Red Devils? What did Eagle have to do with them?”

  The woman set the vest next to her on the couch and covered her face while she sobbed. “Nothing, at first. But he knew a few of the guys, and they were getting suspicious that you and the reporter were working together to get rid of them. Eagle fed into that to get onto their good side. He thought it was a chance for him to get into their gang and earn a better position than he had with the Kings.”

  “That explains a lot.” And it did. Piper had never gone to the police. It had always been Eagle. He should have known, but he had chosen to trust the man who had sworn his allegiance to the Chrome Kings.

  “What are you going to do with me now?” Eagle’s woman asked pitifully, looking up at him with watery eyes.

  Tank considered the question carefully. She had lied to him at first, but he genuinely didn’t think she had anything to do with Eagle’s deal with the Devils. He reached into his back pocket. She flinched, but he pulled out his wallet and handed her several hundred-dollar bills. “Get out of town. Go start your life over somewhere else.” He would have offered it to the widow of one of his men who had died honorably. This wasn’t like that, but something in him was changing.

  She took the money with shaking fingers, clutching it to her chest. “Thank you! Thank you so much!”

  He left before he had to hear any more. He had to find Piper. The Devils had already taken out Eagle, and she didn’t stand a chance against them. He would find her and protect her for good.

  23

  Tank

  Tank believed Eagle’s old lady, but he had to know for sure that Piper had been telling him the truth about not going to the police. Just because Eagle had spilled his guts didn’t mean that she hadn’t. He blazed back to the clubhouse and found Wire, his tech guy. “What did you find on the laptop?”

  “Not much,” he replied, picking it up from the corner of his desk and handing it over. “I looked through everything she had pulled up for you, and it was all on the up-and-up. Nobody has tampered with her email, so I was able to go through that very thoroughly as well.”

  “And the rest?” Tank had urged him to dig through all her other files, just in case.

  Wire shook his head. “A few games, some photo editing software, stuff like that. Unless you want to know where her dog is, it’s pretty ordinary.”

  “Dog?” Tank had spent less than twenty-four hours in her apartment, but he would have noticed if she had a dog. There had been no sign of one, not even a food bowl on the floor. “What are you talking about?”

  The techie set the computer down and opened it up, easily bypassing the required fingerprint scan to get into the system. “She has one of those apps that track pets via GPS. It’s becoming a pretty common thing these days.”

  “Pull it up and show me where this dog supposedly is.” He could feel his temper rising within him again. Just as he was beginning to think he had been wrong about her, he had a nagging feeling in the back of his mind that she had been jerking him around all along.

  “Two dogs, actually,” Wire said as he turned the screen around. “Those little blue dots on the map show where they are.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Tank whispered. He immediately recognized where the first dot was. It was his house. She hadn’t been tracking any animals; she had been tracking him. He didn’t know where she had planted the devices, but it was obvious nevertheless. “Where’s this other one?” Tank pointed to the dot on the left side of the screen.

  “Let’s see.” Wire turned the keyboard toward him and pulled up a satellite map of the area. “Looks like a warehouse, one on the south side of town.”

  Tank slammed his hand on the desk, making the computer jump. “Send the address to my phone.” He headed into the garage to round up his men.

  24

  Tank

  “This is the place.” Tar pulled up alongside him.

  It was the middle of the night now, but there was a lot of activity happening at the warehouse. Men and cars came and went. Tank didn’t know why the tracker was here, but he knew there had to be a good reason. “I say we attack from all sides. They’re busy there, but they don’t seem to have anyone that’s simply standing watch. They think their numbers will protect them.” He heard several clicks behind them as his men checked their weapons.

  “You want anyone alive?” Chain asked from his left.

  Tank shook his head. “Just let me deal with Demon myself, and don’t hurt the girl. Everyone else is expendable.” It had been some time since they’d had an all-out battle, but he knew his men were ready for it. They needed this as much as he did. “Let’s go.”

  They revved their engines and shot forward, guns blazing as soon as they were within range. Tank had been on a motorcycle most of his life, and he didn’t need to think about his driving at all as he took aim. He sent one man to the ground, his arms sprawling out to his sides. Tank didn’t take the time to watch him fall, quickly aiming for the next one.

  His body moved as though it belonged to someone else, instinctively knowing when to duck and dodge around the return fire that soon began. His men were at his back, fighting just as hard as he was. Shouts went up from the Devils, but Tank only heard the sounds of his own men as they whooped in victory or fell in defeat.

  Slamming on the brakes, Tank spun to a stop just outside the building. An overhead door was standing open where the Devils had been loading cargo, and he jumped off his bike and onto the concrete. Someone shot at him fro
m behind a stack of crates. His vision red around the edges, he whipped around and pulled the trigger. Tank smiled at the satisfying thump of a body hitting the ground.

  “You see her anywhere?” he called over his shoulder, knowing that Tar and Chain were right behind him. Eagle may have betrayed him, but they wouldn’t.

  “Nothing yet,” Chain assured him. He spoke quickly into his radio. “Nobody else has, either.”

  “Keep moving. She’s got to be here somewhere.” Tank knew there was a possibility that he had been wrong, that the tracking device had somehow been put on a crate of goods or even on a vehicle that belonged to one of the Devils. But his mind insisted that Piper was here somewhere. It was the only answer that made sense.

  Tank moved through the warehouse, taking out anyone in red as he went. The Devils weren’t trained road warriors like the Kings were, and they were almost too easy to defeat. The bright warehouse lights illuminated the growing pools of blood, and soon there was almost nobody to fight them back. Heading out of the main area of the warehouse, Tank went through a door on the end of the building and found a flight of stairs. Dropping his clip and loading a new one, he headed down.

  “Well, well, well. I should have known you would show up, even though you weren’t invited.”

  Demon was waiting for him, a gun pointed levelly at the door. He looked almost comfortable, as though this was normal for him.

  Piper was curled up behind him against the wall, shivering in only her bra and panties. Her clothes lay in a pile closer to the door, where she couldn’t get to them unless she got past Demon.

  “Let her go,” Tank growled. “She has nothing to do with this.”

  “She does, actually,” Demon replied calmly. “This little bitch is the one who got the police on our tail. I thought it was a nice coverup when you were pretending to keep her as your prisoner, but clearly that was just a ruse to take us down. And I thought we had a nice little business deal worked out.”

  “We did.” Tank kept his eyes focused on the other man. If he looked at Piper any more, with her makeup streaking down her cheeks and bruises peppering her arms, he would go insane. “But there was never any plan to take down the Devils, not from me at least. Eagle betrayed us, and then you betrayed him.” It was one big, fucked-up mess that could have been avoided if only Eagle had come to him about his financial troubles.

  “He was a fool if he ever thought I would work with him. I think he just wanted one of our organizations for his own, or maybe to get rid of both of us and start something new. I’m sure the two of us can come to a new agreement.” Demon raised one slim eyebrow.

  “I’m sure you wouldn’t be saying that if you saw how many of your men we just slaughtered upstairs. Unless you want to join them, I suggest you put the gun down.”

  “No deal. I’m not an idiot. You’ll just shoot me anyway.”

  “If you say so.” Tank pulled the trigger. He’d had years of practice, and he was a fast shot. The bullets tore through Demon’s chest. The other man fired as he went down, but his aim had gone wild. Ammunition ricocheted off the ceiling before the gun fell out of Demon’s hand.

  It was over too fast to be real. Tank strode forward, gun still at the ready. He kicked Demon’s gun across the room, just to be safe, but the toe of his boot in the Devil’s ribs told him everything he needed to know. He was gone.

  The anger he felt toward Eagle and the Red Devils must still have been in his eyes, because Piper shrank away from him when he looked at her. But he was done killing for the night. “Get your clothes on. It’s time to go.”

  Five minutes later, she had her arms around him as they headed into the night on his bike. He had so many questions he wanted to ask, but the wind wasn’t going to let them have a real conversation. Several of his men followed behind until he got close to home, and then they split off. He would need some time alone.

  Piper was still crying when he pulled into the garage. He took her upstairs to the master bathroom, undressing her gently before putting her in the tub. Tank was boiling inside, but he waited. When she was clean and dry and dressed in his sweatpants and T-shirt, she finally turned to him. “How did you find me?” she whispered.

  This was the part he hadn’t been looking forward to. As furious as he was at her for tracking him, he was also just so grateful that he had found her in one piece. “The tracking device,” was his simple response.

  Her eyes widened and her body seemed to shrink in a little on itself. “It had been on your motorcycle,” she murmured. “And there’s one on your car, too. But I took the one off your bike on the way to work, and I had it in my pocket.” She gestured to her clothes, which now lay in a crumpled pile on the floor.

  “I thought you had told me everything. You lied.” He took her by the arm and led her down the hallway.

  Piper’s body tensed, but she followed him. “I wasn’t even thinking about it. I was so frazzled to have you at my apartment, and then, once I remembered, it just didn’t even seem relevant. I’m so sorry, Tank, really I am.”

  “It’s fine,” he grumbled. There were emotions swirling inside him, emotions that he realized he had been trying to suppress ever since he had met this woman. But he couldn’t them out right now. It had been a long day with a lot of drama, and he was just tired. “Let’s just go to bed.”

  25

  Piper

  Piper woke up. The room was dark and unfamiliar, but it only took her a moment to remember where she was. This was a part of Tank’s house that she had never been allowed to see before, since it wasn’t the basement. He had taken her to his room and put her in his own bed. She had expected him to demand her body as he had before, but he’d simply put her between the sheets and laid down next to her. He’d told her what happened and how he’d found her as he’d wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close.

  Now, his naked chest heaved slowly behind her. He was still holding her. She was warm, but only as comfortable as her bruised body would allow her to get. Piper turned to him, tracing her fingers through his chest hair. “Tank?”

  “Hmm?” He stirred, tightening his arms around her.

  “I didn’t get to thank you for rescuing me.” At one point, she had wanted to be rescued from him. But things had definitely changed, and she was so glad.

  Tank smiled. “Of course. You were mine first, anyway.”

  Her heart thrilled at the idea of being owned by him, especially when it didn’t include being locked in a closet. “And now?”

  He kissed her soundly. “Still mine.”

  Piper laid her head against his chest. “I really am sorry I followed you.” It had all made sense to her at the time, but now it seemed like a distant nightmare.

  “And I’m sorry I kidnapped you and kept you here against your will. You’re free to go whenever you want to, but I want you to stay.”

  She smiled in the darkness. “I’d like that.”

  Tank pulled in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “You know, I’m also not sorry.”

  “Why not?”

  “I thought you were nothing but trouble,” he said, laughing, “and it turns out I was right. Just in a different way. But if I hadn’t found you in that warehouse, then we never would have ended up here.”

  Tank had turned her on from the moment she had met him, but hearing words like that come out of his mouth made him absolutely irresistible. “And since I am here, why don’t we take advantage of it?”

  He gladly obeyed, covering her mouth with his as he stripped off her pants and T-shirt. Piper shivered with pleasure as he ran his warm hands over the curves of her body, slowly, appreciatively. He kissed every square inch of her, worshipping her instead of just taking what he needed. Their bodies joined, moving slowly and sensually, his shaft burying deep inside her as she clenched around him. Every moment was filled with a satisfying tension as they made love, enjoying the present and knowing there was more to come.

  When Piper had moaned her delight and Tank had buried h
er hips in the mattress and filled her, they fell asleep in each other’s arms.

  Piper awoke to find that Tank had already gotten out of bed. She rolled over, wishing she could go back to sleep. Even having slept for most of the night, Piper was worn out. She had a feeling she wouldn’t get her normal energy back for quite some time, but still she couldn’t shut off her brain. It was suddenly reeling with ideas, ones that she couldn’t let go of.

  Finding a robe and slipping it on, Piper slipped down the stairs to find Tank in the kitchen. The scent of frying eggs filled the room, and her stomach growled.

  He looked up as she entered. “I didn’t expect to see you for a few hours yet.”

  “I didn’t, either,” she admitted. “I’m so exhausted, but I don’t think I can sleep right now. Do you have a computer I could use?”

  Tank gave her a concerned look. “Sure, but why?” He flipped two eggs onto a plate and set it on the table, gesturing with his head for her to have a seat.

  She sat, eagerly digging into the meal. How long had it been since she had eaten last? “I don’t mean to bring up a sensitive subject, but I’ve got a story to right.”

  His back stiffened as he plated a second set of eggs, and he turned slowly to face her. “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I was following you because I thought the Chrome Kings were my big break. Obviously, I can’t write about that now. But I still have my chance at a headline if I focus on the Red Devils.”

  He still looked skeptical as he sat down across from her at the kitchen table. “How are you going to do that without involving me?”

  She hated that he still doubted her, but she couldn’t blame him. Piper had risked her life to get a scoop on the Kings, and most reporters wouldn’t just let that go in exchange for good sex and fried eggs. She was more than willing, though. “It’s pretty simple, really. I put the entire focus on the Devils and their black-market deals, but I don’t say a single word about the Kings.”