Patch (The Black Cobras MC Book 3)

by Savannah Rylan

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right. But you have to understand why we were suspicious. You would have been too, Patch, if you were in our position,” Grimm replied, and I clenched my jaw.

  “Maybe I would have trusted one of my brothers more than you guys did,” I said, and I looked at Cash. There was a look of guilt on his face and he didn’t meet my eyes for very long. Maybe he was blaming himself. “And now I’m not sure if she’s going to be safe or not. I’ve allowed too much time to pass since she came to see me. They could have done anything to her by now!”

  It was Bones who spoke up next. He cleared his throat first, which caught my attention.

  “Sit the fuck down, man,” Cash snapped at him and immediately I knew Bones and he knew something I didn’t. I glared at Bones directly, egging him to carry on.

  “What were you about to say?”

  Bones’ jaw were clenched. He was angry about something.

  “I followed her yesterday,” he said.

  “Followed Samantha?”

  He finally looked at me and breathed in deeply and then nodded.

  “We decided, as a group, that the best thing to do to safeguard our club would be to watch her closely and make sure she wasn’t working against us,” he continued.

  “You followed her when she left this place? That was the job you needed to take care of when you were missing?”

  I was facing off with him now and Cash stepped in towards us.

  “It wasn’t just his decision. We all decided it was the obvious thing to do. You may have known her since you were kids, but she’s been sleeping with the enemy, man. We all had our suspicions!”

  I wasn’t even looking at Cash. My eyes were on Bones.

  “How far did you follow her?”

  “All the way to the Sons of Satan’ Clubhouse.”

  “So, you don’t know what happened once she went in?” I asked and Bones seemed to hide a gulp that went down his throat.

  “I kept a watch on the place. I wanted to follow her back to her apartment. See what else I could find out about her life.”

  “And?”

  “And she never came out of the fuckin’ Clubhouse.”

  At first, I wasn’t sure if I’d heard Bones correctly.

  “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” I barked and he shook his head.

  “All I know for sure is that she’s still in there.”

  “But you don’t know if she’s dead or alive?” I was shouting now. I could feel a thick vein throbbing in the center of my forehead. I was losing it. Anything could have happened to her.

  Bones didn’t respond. That was enough of an answer for me. He had no idea what her condition was. Gunther could have been telling me the exact truth when he said she was as good as dead already!

  “And you’ve known this for nearly twenty-four hours, and you said nothing to me!” I hissed through gritted teeth. I could feel all the muscles in my body tightening under my skin. I knew I was losing it.

  Cash was the one who spoke now.

  “He told me, and I told him not to tell you, or the rest of the club. I wanted to take some time to think about it, to decide what to do next. This isn’t Bones’ fault.”

  I had my hands clenched. I could have hit Cash right there. Made him bleed. Knocked his teeth out of his mouth, but then I remembered little Lily in his arms and I just turned from him and walked out of the room.

  Cash found me in the toilets, glaring at the cracked mirror again, trying to stop the blood from rushing into my ears. I was gripping the edges of the sink, stopping myself from hauling it out of the ground and crashing it right into the mirror.

  Why didn’t I stop Samantha from leaving? Why didn’t I trust her a hundred percent when she came to see me?

  I fucked her because I took what I wanted from her.

  What I should have done was protect her, but I was too pussy to do it. I was thinking too much about what Grimm and Cash thought. What the rest of the club would want me to do. I should have been thinking about her. The woman who was literally risking her life to give me the information I needed. And that risk wasn’t even worth it. Because I wasn’t able to convince my club to arm ourselves against the Sons of Satan in time.

  Cash came up behind me, but he kept his distance. No doubt he could see the condition I was in.

  “Man, you have no idea how sorry I am at this moment. I wish I could change things and make a different decision.”

  I whipped around to face him.

  “When Bones told you, she hadn’t left their Clubhouse, why did you fuckin’ stop him from telling me?”

  “Because I knew what you would do. You’d go after her. You’d start a war with the Sons of Satan to get her back.”

  “And so would you if you were in my position!”

  Cash clenched his jaw and nodded.

  “Yes, I would, I did, for the woman I wanted. And now I have her. I have a kid with her. And nothing matters more to me than my family. To keep them safe. I thought I was protecting them by trying to stop another war with the Sons of Satan. I thought if we did nothing about the girl, then they would continue on with the truce like nothing happened. But I was wrong about everything.”

  My shoulders were heaving. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I’d always considered Cash to be my best friend, but now I didn’t know anymore. I didn’t recognize this guy.

  He looked up at me, his face awash with guilt and angst.

  “I’m not here to ask for your forgiveness, Patch, I’m here to say that we need to fight now, and I want to fight by your side. I want to do everything that needs to be done to save her. I’m prepared to die if I have to.”

  I peered back into Cash’s eyes, watching him closely as he spoke. I could see he was genuinely sorry. That he was suffering because he had to make an impossible decision. He was regretting the past, his decision that had led to this but now there was very little he could do to change anything.

  “It might be too fuckin’ late,” I said.

  16

  Samantha

  They’d left me alone again for the night. Gunther and his men had walked out and Lynch hadn’t come to see me. I knew there was truth in what Gunther had claimed. That Lynch wasn’t going to sympathize with me in any way. He’d have no mercy, even though I’d been one of his top girls for a long time now. I’d betrayed him and I might have harmed his club, which was going to be unforgivable.

  I was pretty sure he was going to kill me.

  Now, huddled up in the cage by myself in the dark, I couldn’t stop thinking about how once upon a time, several years ago, I thought Lynch was going to save me. I thought he would be my ticket out of the stifling life I’d led for so many years. He was going to help me escape.

  I had just enrolled in college. I was studying locally because, of course, my parents weren’t going to let me out of their sight. I was living at home, attending my classes, and staying out of trouble. Being closely monitored by my parents at all times.

  There were boys in college, just like there had been those in school, who wanted to date me. Who wanted to have sex with me—and of course I wanted to explore too. But I was still sheltered, still living in that cage. Another type of cage that my parents had built around me.

  Their only aim in life then was to get me to finish college, get a decent job and then they were going to encourage me to find the right man. Preferably one of the boys they knew through Church or the Golf Club they frequented over the weekends. A boy who would match my caliber, who would make an honest woman out of me.

  Finding a random boy myself was completely out of the question and that was something they made clear to me. I wasn’t allowed to date; I wasn’t even allowed to casually be friends with guys in the fear that it might lead to something else. In their eyes, I was their perfect girl. Prospering and blossoming and growing into the ideal daughter who was going to make them proud someday soon.

  What they couldn’t see underneath the surface was that I
was wilting inside. I was frustrated and torn down. After years and years of this treatment, I couldn’t bear it anymore. Every day that I lived that life felt like another day in a prison. I was simply going along with it till one day, hopefully, I would find my way out of there. I had no plans of looking back.

  And I did. My ticket out came in the form of a charismatic older man who I thought was going to show me the world.

  Poor, foolish, naive Samantha. If only I could tell her a thing or two now.

  Maybe the thing about Lynch was that he subconsciously reminded me of Patch. Now that I looked back at the events that led to me getting involved with the Sons of Satan, it was highly likely that was what happened.

  I hadn’t seen or heard from Patch in several years, but he was still the hottest guy I’d ever met. The guy I wished I had a chance with. The one who got away.

  And then I happened to see Lynch in the most unlikely place I could have seen him at. At a shopping mall, of all places!

  It was the only place my parents were okay with me going to. Only for a couple of hours and only if I was accompanied with the girl-friends they trusted. I was hanging out there with those girls and we were doing our usual thing of gossiping and getting something to eat and window shopping. Thankfully, I still managed to have a handful of friends who were willing to include me in their group, despite the bizarre rules that my parents inflicted on me.

  Things were going the usual way till my eyes fixed on Lynch from across the courtyard. We were coming down the escalator and he was on his phone at the bottom of it. He was barely even looking at me before, but now that I couldn’t drag my gaze away from him, he kept looking too.

  Lynch wasn’t handsome, per se. There was just something else about him, a certain charm or charisma maybe. Or maybe it was just the fact that he reminded me of Patch. They dressed similarly; leather jacket, dark slick hair, I could see a few tattoos creeping around his neck and his hands. In an instant, I had fantasized in my head that this was what Patch would look like when he was in his forties. But with a hell of a lot more muscle.

  By the time we had come down the escalator, I was smiling at this older stranger. Lynch exuded strength and toughness. He was a quintessential bad boy with his ponytail and his confident gaze. Now he too had spotted something he wanted and from the way I was looking back at him, he could probably sense that I was going to reciprocate.

  I was with my friends and we were going to walk past him, but he stood in our way deliberately. Me and the other girls had no other choice but to stop. He was standing there in front of us, looking directly at me, up and down my body like he could see right through my clothes.

  I was foolish back then. I took it as a compliment. No other guy, especially not someone as old and mature as him, had looked at me this way. I was blushing and giggling. I could see, we could all see he wasn’t interested in anyone other than me. I was the girl he wanted, and Lynch always got what he wanted.

  That day at the mall, Lynch stepped aside eventually and let us pass through when he decided he was done with looking at me.

  My friends and I giggled at that man’s strange behavior. While the others couldn’t appreciate the fact that it was more of a compliment than a joke, I went back to my home thinking of Lynch and the world of possibilities he could open up for me.

  Not only was he older than me, more experienced—but he also seemed like the kind of man who would stop at nothing to get what he wanted. Even then, even though I had just seen him once, I knew it wasn’t going to be the last time that our paths crossed, and I was looking forward to seeing him again. I didn’t exactly know why.

  And there he was, at the entrance to my college the next day, just like I was hoping he would be.

  Was I attracted to him? Did I want him?

  Not physically. Even though he possibly brought back memories of Patch and the way I had desired him, it wasn’t Lynch’s body I wanted. But I was interested in everything else he seemingly had to offer me. A taste of freedom, new experiences, a world away from this life.

  Just like I’d predicted, he came on a bike and he told me he was interested in taking me for a ride. I was hesitant at first, not because I was afraid of him but because I wasn’t sure how I would explain my absence to my parents. They would be expecting me back home. But I decided to risk it anyway.

  Lynch instantly opened up my world.

  I didn’t get into trouble with my parents that day and I kept seeing him.

  At first, Lynch was sweet. He was treating me like any other boyfriend would…or how I thought any boyfriend would. It wasn’t like I was experienced in that at all.

  He took me to places to eat, he bought me presents, he wanted to keep me happy. He hadn’t even forced himself on me.

  When we did have sex for the first time, it was because I wanted it. It wasn’t everything I’d hoped for. I didn’t feel the things I imagined I’d feel when I pictured having sex with Patch, but Lynch right then was the best thing that could have happened to me in my lonely sheltered life and I was grateful for him.

  My relationship with Lynch continued for several months on the sly. To the extent that not even my friends found out about it. Not even my family. I wasn’t paying attention in college. I rarely attended my classes. I was failing my exams and spending every spare minute I could get with Lynch.

  The only problem was that I knew little about him. We weren’t really big ‘talkers’. He preferred to have sex with me than get to know me and I decided it was just how men were and I made my peace with it. What more did I need to know about him anyway, I foolishly thought. As long as he was making me feel like a woman, that was all I particularly cared about at the time.

  Eventually, Lynch made me an offer I didn’t think I could refuse. I’d been secretly seeing him for close to two years, and I was already ready to drop out of college by then. It wasn’t like I was going to make it through anyway.

  Lynch offered to take me in, he said he would make me a part of his ‘club’, give me a decent job and money, even put me up in an apartment. I believed he was offering me all that because he loved me. Because we were in a relationship and he was eventually going to ask me to marry him. I genuinely believed that my life was going to be decided now. And I thought this was what I wanted.

  I’d spent so long trying to find my way out of this cage my parents had built for me and now was my chance. This older, more responsible man was offering all that to me, and how could I possibly say no?

  It didn’t take me long to get back to him with an answer. Lynch was happy to hear it.

  I had one bag ready to go and he came to pick me up on his bike in the middle of the night. I left a note for my parents to find. I was twenty-one years old. I was an adult. There was nothing they could technically do about it. Once I was gone, I was gone.

  He took me to that apartment that very night. The small cramped studio which I still call home. Five years later. At the time it was my symbol of freedom and independence and now it represented just the opposite.

  That first week was blissful. Lynch introduced me to his friends at the Clubhouse. I was shown around the place. I actually had a paying job! Or so I thought. I was basking in the attention.

  But it didn’t take me long to figure out what was really going on under the surface. A month max, and I knew I wasn’t the only girl who’d caught Lynch’s eye. I was one of plenty. Lynch had no interest in a relationship, he was more interested in keeping women around. Show dolls. Pieces of meat to fuck and pleasure him. To carry out his commands.

  And it was within that short month that I also picked up the basics of my new life—of how trapped I was now. I had nowhere to run to. I was Lynch’s property now and he was going to find me wherever I tried to go. It was over. I’d made the final decision for my life. I was more trapped now than I’d been when I lived with my parents.

  It was too late to change my mind.

  17

  Patch

  Cash followed me as I
left the toilets.

  “I want to help you!” he called after me and I stopped in my tracks and whipped around to face him again.

  “You want to help me? You should’ve stood by my fuckin’ side when I needed you to. That’s what I would have done for you!” I growled at him. Cash clenched his jaw. My face was in his, but he didn’t step back or look away.

  “Yeah, get back to me when you’re a father to a newborn and have a woman to look after,” he hissed.

  We glared at each other for a good minute before Cash sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

  “I know this sounds ridiculous for me to say, but we can do something about this situation. We can come up with a solution if we work together. You’re not going to be able to rescue her or keep her safe by working alone. Do you get that, man?”

  “She could be dead by now! They could have fuckin’ killed her by now!” Even as I said the words, I felt my blood run cold. I knew I wasn’t exaggerating; those motherfuckers were capable of anything. It didn’t seem like they gave a shit about Samantha. They were never going to forgive her for cheating them.

  Cash’s expression looked hardened.

  “We have to go by the possibility that she’s still alive. You can’t give up on her now. I’m not going to let you.”

  I ran a hand through my hair. I could feel myself cracking.

  “I shouldn’t have let her leave this place when she came to see me. I shouldn’t have been more concerned about what you bastards thought than her safety. I should have known they were going to follow her and figure out what she was up to! Fuck! Why wasn’t I thinking!”

  All I could do now was picture Samantha’s face in front of my eyes. I turned from Cash, walking over to the closest wall so I could punch it with my fist. I’d driven my hand through it—concrete and plaster, before Cash could stop me. It ripped through my skin. My knuckles were bleeding, but I was glad for the pain. It’s what I deserved. I deserved more. I should have kept Samantha safe.