by Blair Grey
“What are you talking about?” I asked in surprise. “How would you know that?”
“How would we know that?” he mocked me. “Because we were there, sweetheart. Because we were there.”
“You weren’t!” I shouted.
“Don’t raise your voice to me, toots, or I might have to remind you to keep it down,” Spritz growled.
“There’s no way you were there,” I tried again. My heart raced. “You’re not part of the Steel Wings.”
Both men laughed now, and it made my blood boil. There wasn’t anything funny at all about my father’s death, and the fact they were joking about it was enough to make me want to kill both of them. But, I knew I had to be smart. With them talking, I was able to work on untying myself.
My hands were behind me, but with both men in front of me, I could work without them getting suspicious, as long as I was careful with the way I moved my arms. Not that they were paying much attention to that anyway. Sitting naked in front of them was certainly distracting them.
I tried not to think about it as I continued to work.
“She believes the Steels did that, too!” Tony chortled.
“That’s how good we were,” Spritz said.
“What are you talking about?” I asked. “The police said the Steel Wings were responsible, and they had reason to do it. They wanted the drugs, so why the Hell would I think you were the ones behind it?”
It was a challenge. I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear it myself, but then, I did want to know why anyone would murder my father. He was the kindest man I had ever known. He was the sort of man who would give someone his coat off his back if they needed it, and he never tried to get anything in return.
I didn’t want to believe Jett when he said my father helped them, but at the same time, I couldn’t help but. I wanted to believe my father would help someone who was deserving – something like Jett – rather than be murdered by him for drugs and a little bit of money.
“He wouldn’t help us, the bastard,” Spritz said. “Doc. That’s what the Steels called him. Oh, they never told us about the guy, but we figured it out. We knew he was a good guy to go to because he never called the cops on anyone. But then, one night, we got in tight with the law, and several of the boys were shot up. We went to Doc to get help, but he refused.”
“My father would never help the likes of you,” I spat.
“Evidently the love runs in the family,” Tony laughed. “Because he said the same thing. He would help the Steel Wings, but when it came to us, well, he just thought we weren’t worth his time. So, if we weren’t worth his time, he wasn’t worth ours. We killed him right there and planted enough evidence for the cops to think that the Steels were responsible.”
My blood boiled. Not just because of what happened to my father, but for the fact I had fallen for the trick, as well. They had made sure we thought Jett and his MC were the ones responsible for this, but the fact of the matter was that he had been framed.
I should have known better. I realized that now. I shouldn’t have ever believed Jett would be the kind of man who would kill someone innocent like that in cold blood. He had tried to tell me the truth. He tried to tell me my father would help him and his MC.
Of course, it sounded like the thing my father would do. He wouldn’t go around and sew up criminals who were running from the law, but he would help those who were in need who hadn’t done anything wrong. And while I knew Jett wasn’t entirely innocent, I knew he wouldn’t have ever asked my father to do anything illegal.
And now, this man was laughing about what they had done as though it was the best joke they had ever pulled off. They didn’t care that they were talking about a man’s life, and they really didn’t care the man they were talking about was my father.
All they cared about was the fact they were able to fool the cops. Sure, they might not have set out enough evidence to lock anyone from the MC up, but they had certainly made it appear as though the Steel Wings was behind the killing. And, I had been stupid enough to believe it.
Hell, I had gone to great lengths myself to make sure Jett and his members were locked up. I wanted even worse than prison for some of them, and now…now I felt terrible. I wanted nothing more than to take Jett in my arms and tell him just how sorry I was for accusing him of that.
I wanted him to know I believed him. I didn’t need him to tell me what happened. I trusted him, and I knew he would have been there to protect my father if he had known what was happening. That seemed far more like the Jett I’d come to love.
It wasn’t the man who was like these men in front of me. These men who were going to use me for their own pleasure just to get back at the man they wanted to get even with. It was sickening, that was for damn sure, and I wasn’t going to just take it.
I wasn’t going to be that woman who just put up with it because it would be easier for me if I did. No, if it meant I was going to get myself killed getting out of this, then so be it, but I wasn’t going to take it like a sheep lying down. I was going to fight my way through all of this.
Just like my father would do. Just like Jett would do.
I had worked on my bindings the entire time the two men had been telling me the awful truth about my father, and now, my hands sprang free. I didn’t waste a second. With hate in my eyes, I shoved myself out of the chair and sprang toward Tony.
He was smaller than Spritz, and though I knew he was stronger than me, I knew I would have a better chance getting him out of the way than I would his larger companion.
He let out a shout as I hit him as hard as I could, but I kept going. I had no intention of sitting there and fighting with him. I had to get out of there, and fast. I would come back for the other women, and I would bring help. I wasn’t about to forget about them, I just knew I had to get out of there before Tony was back on his feet.
Spritz had been taken by surprise at the sudden attack, as well, and for a brief second, I was able to run for the door. I wasn’t sure what I would do when I got to the other side. I had no idea where I was, and I didn’t know where to even begin looking for help.
And, I was still naked. But, I couldn’t even bring myself to care about that right now. All I knew was that I had to get out of that building. If there was any chance of me getting out of that situation in one piece, I was going to have to take the chance I had.
God knew this was the only chance I would get to get out of there, and I wasn’t going to let it pass. Those men would do terrible things to me, and if that woman who was in the closet with me was right, it would be even worse now that I tried to get away.
But, I knew it was a risk I would have to take if I was going to get out of there, at all. I was willing to take that risk. My father didn’t raise me to be a quitter. I was his daughter, and I was a fighter through and through. I’d made it this far, and I might have been wrong about Jett, but that didn’t mean I didn’t have the strength in me to keep going.
I would fight my way through all of this, and I would somehow get help. I prayed to God Jett was somehow on his way, and he would find me before it was too late. I wanted to tell him how sorry I was. I wanted him to save me.
I wanted to be his old lady. I had to be with him. I had to let him know I understood now, and I wasn’t angry with him anymore. I wasn’t going to hold anything against him any longer, and I wasn’t going to turn him into the police.
But, most of all, I wanted to tell him I loved him.
I’d fallen hard for the one person I never thought I could love, and he had to hear it from me before it was too late.
There was a door just up ahead, and I hoped to God it was the way outside. I might be naked, but I was going to run the streets that way if I had to. I wouldn’t stop until help was on the way. I wasn’t going to go down without fighting.
Just as I reached the door, I felt a rough hand closing around the back of my neck. I screamed, kicking my legs behind me and trying to get the man off me. I fought with the door,
managing to get it open and dragging myself outside.
I didn’t know who had me, but they were very strong and clearly weren’t just going to let me walk out of here.
The arm that closed around me was too strong. I was being dragged back into the house – the house I knew would be my grave if I didn’t keep it up. But, the arm continued to pull, and though I fought, I just wasn’t strong enough to get myself free.
This was it. The men had me once more. And, there was no escape.
I’d lost my chance. I was being pulled into the house of horrors.
And, I knew it would be the end of me.
Chapter 24
Jett
The bikes flew around the corner and sped toward the warehouse. I didn’t know the exact warehouse we needed, but I knew where the Devil’s Sons spent most of their time.
The light was fading as the sun dropped in the sky, but that was also fine with me. We were a little way from the residencies on the edge of town, but we were still close enough I knew if something were to happen, the people in those houses would be able to hear.
I didn’t want the cops to be all over us before we had the chance to settle this ourselves. I knew the law liked to keep an eye on what was going on so they could step in and prevent deaths and violence if they could, but there were times when I just wanted to be able to take care of business myself.
Just as my father had.
We rounded the final corner, and that’s when we saw them. Callie was trying to fight her way out of a warehouse door, and a man was nearly on top of her, pulling her back into the warehouse with him. The sight of him fighting with her – especially with her naked – was more than I could handle.
I pushed my bike faster than what was even safe, and both Ryder and Blade did the same. Kage was close behind Ryder, and Rocco wasn’t far off Blade’s right.
We were coming in fast and hard, just the way I liked my attacks. I had a feeling the men could hear us coming in with the bikes blaring, but that wasn’t going to give them much time, anyway. I’d seen Callie with my own eyes, and I knew I had to reach her.
The gunfire rang out before I even made it to the doorway of the warehouse, but my men were ready with their own guns. They returned fire, giving me the cover I needed to head for the door. The windows of the building were shot out, but I stayed low until I managed to make it to the door.
“Callie!” I shouted. “Stay down!”
There was a reply shouted back to me, but I couldn’t make out her words with all the gunshots ringing around me. I didn’t hesitate. With the bullets whizzing through the air, I rose from the safety of my cover and kicked the door in. It flew inward with only a single kick, but I had my gun poised in front of me, ready to fire at any of the rival MC.
Callie, however, had managed to get free from her assailants once more, and she rushed the door as soon as I walked through. I threw my jacket around her, giving her a little bit of clothing as we made our way back out through the door.
I continued to fire over my shoulder. I wasn’t taking careful aim, but rather firing in the direction of the bullets coming toward me. There was too much chaos for me to be able to take the time to aim, and I had to get Callie out of the line of fire.
“I’m sorry, Jett!” she shouted as we made our way out of the warehouse and back toward the bikes. “They told me the truth! They told me they are responsible for my father’s death! And, there’s other women in there!”
Callie was nearly hysterical with fright and the chaos of the moment, but I held her close under one of my arms as I continued to pull her along with me toward the bikes. There wasn’t a lot of protection that way, but I knew it was better than where we were.
Ryder rose from behind a crate just as we reached the bikes, offering us as much protection a he could. He was an excellent shot, and though he had been hit in the arm and was bleeding heavily, he was still fighting with all he had left in him.
“Don’t take risks!” I shouted. “Fall back as soon as you can! We’ve got who we came to get, and we need to get out of here! Sirens!”
I shouted several times, trying to get the attention of all my men. I could see from where I stood there were several hits on our side, but I also saw plainly we were all on our feet. That meant we didn’t have any casualties. Of course, with the bodies on the ground near the warehouse, I couldn’t say the same for the Devil’s Sons.
But, I didn’t have the time to stand and see what the damage had been. I had to get Callie out of there, and I wanted to get the rest of my boys out of there before we had the cops down on us. They wouldn’t take the time to decide who was right or wrong in the fight.
If there were men down, then there would be charges made, and I wasn’t about to wind up in prison for the rest of my life over a fight that took place with a rival MC.
“What about the other women?” Callie shouted as we climbed on the back of my bike. “We’ve got to save them!”
“The cops are on the way!” I said over my shoulder. “They’re going to take care of them, don’t worry.”
“We need to make sure!” she tried to insist, but I shook my head. I had been through things like this before. I knew with the cops on the way, there was no way in Hell the men who were left were going to try to get those women out of there.
It would be the chance those women needed to fight back, and if that was the case, they could hold them off long enough for the police to arrive and save them. But, more likely than not, the men who survived the fight would get out of there as soon as they could.
There would be no hiding the fact they were the Devil’s Sons, and I knew the cops would leave it at that. They weren’t going to come for us when they had plenty to deal with right down there at the warehouse, and that was fine with me. I had Callie.
She might be naked and terrified, but she was safe. Now, I could take her home and get her comfortable. Nothing was going to hurt her now, and no one would ever come near her again. She had told me she knew the truth, so there was no need to even talk about happened to her father, either.
It was enough for me she knew what had really happened, and I could finally let it go, too. Those men who attacked her in the bar that night had fallen in the shooting. I wasn’t sure if they had survived their wounds, but I knew they would be arrested if they did.
They might have thought they got away with Doc’s murder, but it had caught up with them eventually. Sure, it had come to them in a different way than most karma catches up with those of us on our bikes, but it had come for them just the same.
Now, I was taking Callie back to my house, where we could start to put this all behind us. It’s what I wanted more than anything, and I knew Callie wanted it, too.
It was time for us to move on. It was time to finally be happy. And now that I didn’t have to worry about the drugs or a war breaking out over it, I knew I could finally relax for a while, too.
My men were okay, and they were all heading to get patched up after the fight. We had stood together once again, and as always, we had come out strong and as a team. Nothing could stand against my MC when we pulled together like that, and nothing ever would.
Now, I had Callie, and I was ready to head home. She clung to me tightly, her body pressed against mine as we rode through the darkness. I knew she was still scared, but there was something relaxed about her, too.
She might have been through Hell and back, but I had proved to her I meant what I said. I never would let anyone have her. No one could lay a finger on her but me, or they’d have to answer to me for it.
And those men lying on the ground back at the warehouse had to find that out the hard way.
Chapter 25
Callie
I took my time in the bath, trying to wash off the rest of the day and all the emotions that went with it. I didn’t care that I’d showered just that morning. After the way the day had gone, it felt like a hundred years ago, and I was ready to get clean all over again.
I tri
ed not to think of the feeling of those men’s hands all over me as they tied me up and fought to keep me under their control, but it was difficult not to. All I could think about was how it might have turned out if Jett hadn’t come to my rescue and how grateful to him I was that he had.
It felt good to finally be able to tell him that I learned the truth. I felt bad that I had been so convinced he had been the one to kill my father, and I wasn’t sure how he would take it if he knew what I had been trying to do. But, as soon as we got back to his house, he told me he found out the information on my phone, and he wasn’t going to hold it against me.
“I’m so sorry,” I told him. “I thought I was doing the right thing.”
“And, that’s why I’m not angry with you,” he told me. “I know you wanted justice for your father, and you were going to do anything to make sure that happened. I’m proud of you for sticking with what you thought was right. That’s how I was raised, and that’s just what I would do, too.”
“But you probably wouldn’t have gone and fallen in love with the person you were trying to expose,” I told him.
He pulled me close and kissed me tenderly before looking deeply into my eyes. “I’m so glad you messed up your plan enough to fall in love with me. I fell in love with you the first day I saw you at Echo Mori. I knew right away that I wanted you.”
I smiled, kissing him in return. For the first time, kissing him felt so natural without any hint of guilt mixed in. I no longer felt like I was kissing someone I was betraying. Now, I felt like I was kissing the love of my life – the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.
If my father thought Jett was a good man, then I knew he would agree with our relationship. He wanted nothing more than for me to be happy, and I knew he would be proud if he knew I was falling in love with Jett. He’d trust I could make the right decision about who I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, and he would support me – just like he had decided to support Jett.