Irrevocable (The Exiled Eight MC Book 1)

by Addison Jane

  I ducked down under the door before it had even made it halfway up, my eyes scanning around the small loading space outside, my eyes quickly becoming adjusted to the dark, but it was completely empty.

  There was a loud click and two bright spotlights illuminated the area beaming down from the building above us. A handful of police officers joined us, everyone confused as hell about what the fuck was going on. Caleb was meant to be this legend, this amazing cop who eradicated and exterminated criminals. Yet, now they were suddenly beginning to realize he wasn’t the man they had imagined he would be. Especially Austin, who idolized him and the work he’d done as a man of the law.

  Footsteps down the side of the building drew my attention, and I gripped my gun a little tighter. Shake and Shotgun appeared around the corner, but they weren’t alone. They were carrying a very limp EMT who had blood pouring from a wound in his head.

  “He’s alive,” Shake noted as they brought him inside and placed him on the concrete floor. “He’s got a pulse, but he’s completely unconscious.”

  “He had help,” Shotgun noted, wiping off the blood on his hands. “That guy was knocked out down the driveway, and you can’t tell me Caleb was able to drag Dakota all the way down there, knock out the EMT, dump his body behind a dumpster and then get her inside all within the last ten minutes.”

  “Fuck,” I cursed. Shotgun was on point. He had at least one person helping him that was for sure. If Dakota didn’t spike Keela’s drink at the bar, someone had to. But fucking who? “They’re not taking her to the hospital that we can say for sure.”

  “Is there a way to get the number plate? Or to know if the ambulance company has GPS fitted to their vans?” Shake noted thoughtfully.

  I looked up scanning the building and spotting exactly what I needed. “Where is the video footage for this?” I asked, pointing to the camera overlooking the bay.

  Austin’s eyes followed mine before he nodded. “I have clearance. We can tap into it through my computer.” He took off running, and I was right behind him, everyone else staying where they were.

  It took less than a minute to make it back up the staircase to Austin’s office. He made a dive into his computer chair, and his fingers flew over the keypad like he was a man on a mission. Everything moved quickly. I didn’t have time to follow the process but suddenly a display popped up, a grainy image of the back of the building. He hit play, then moved the little dot forward until the ambulance zipped onto screen backing up to the roller door.

  My stomach tightened as I watched Caleb toss Dakota’s limp body inside, her limbs and head all floppy and unresponsive. She looked like a rag doll, and I instantly hated myself for letting it get this far.

  “Here, someone’s getting out and coming around to shut the doors,” Austin noted, pointing to the screen. It was a fucking woman. She paused for a moment holding the doors before she slammed them shut and then turned to look over her shoulder.

  Austin paused the image.

  My breath was stolen from my lungs.

  The paused video was scratchy and rough, but what I saw in front of me was a face who I knew so fucking well. One that I’d grown up with, one that I’d shared my secrets with, one that I had trusted to have my back for years.

  “Holy fuck,” I cursed, planting my hands on the desk and shaking my head.

  “Guessing you know who that is?” Austin muttered, sounding almost nervous.

  “Yeah, I know who it is.”

  Lauren.

  DAKOTA

  I blinked away the darkness. Everything was foggy, and I felt like I’d had too much to drink like my brain was filled with cotton. I could feel my body though, which I said a silent thank you for until I realized that maybe I would have rather it be numb again.

  My hands were still cuffed, and to add to that, they were actually cuffed to something now. And all my muscles ached, and they were twitching and going crazy. I groaned loudly as I tried to roll over getting halfway before there was a painful tug on my wrists, hard plastic zip-ties digging into my skin. I pulled again, still trying to get my vision back and having no idea where I was or what I was tied to. Whatever it was wouldn’t move or budge an inch.

  “You’re not going anywhere,” a soft female voice said, her words followed by another sound and a thick smell.

  I blinked through the haze, managing to work out the outline of her body and what she was holding.

  “Is that…” I mumbled, my tongue still feeling like it was too big. “Is that… gasoline?” The smell was strong and the way she was dousing it around the front of the stage by the chairs, I instantly got a bad feeling.

  Yes, stage.

  As my vision fell clearer, I realized exactly where we were.

  The theater that the club was renovating.

  I was tied to a thick metal bar that reached the entire length of the stage, and was usually used in the rafters to hold the massive lighting and displays. The club had recently gotten the keys to the place, and had started to pull things out which they were going to keep and use later, and these looked pretty much brand new.

  “Yes, it’s gasoline,” Lauren replied, turning and looking at me so she could roll her eyes before she continued on her way down the aisle toward the doors. “Caleb wanted to stay and watch, but he’s gone out to steal a new car for us and left me to get things started.”

  “Why are you doing this?” I asked, pulling my aching body up into a sitting position, my eyes frantically looking around for something I could use to get myself out of this, even though I already knew it was useless. The metal bars were welded into a rectangle with no way to be able to slip the cuffs off, and there was no key or no way to break them.

  I’d watched something a long time ago about how to cut through zip-ties with the laces of your shoes, but my ballet flats that I’d worn to work weren’t going to be much help in that instance.

  I just had to try and convince her not to let Caleb win.

  And not to light the damn gasoline.

  She let out a heavy sigh before she tossed the now empty gasoline container to the side and came strutting back down the aisle with a confidence that surprised me. “Because you got in the way,” she accused, pointing directly at me. “My life has been planned since I was little. Ripley has been mine since then. Why don’t you get that? Why don’t you understand that this is how things work in the club?”

  Because that wasn’t how they worked in the club.

  That was only how they worked in her head.

  “And how are you going to win Ripley over with this? How is destroying this place and me going to suddenly make him fall in love with you?”

  She laughed, throwing her hands in the air. “Ripley already loves me, I’ve been there for him for a long time. The moment you’re gone, it won’t take him long to see just how important it is having an Old Lady. And with this place destroyed, he has no reason to be down here in Phoenix and he’ll be in Vegas more which is where he needs to be. At home with his family, with his friends.”

  Lauren was one of the most confusing people I’d ever met, and I was beginning to realize that it was because she had something far more complicated going on in her brain than any normal person.

  “Lauren, you’re smarter than this,” I appealed, trying to convince her she was better than what she was currently doing. “You went to college, you graduate—”

  “I flunked out.” She laughed with a slight shake of her head, and my brows shot up in surprise. She looked over seeing the reaction on my face and grinned. “I know, right? My professors thought there was something wrong with me. I wanted to be a vet because I knew animals, I knew what they needed. They didn’t understand that.”

  “Like… the animals told you?”

  Her laughter boomed again in the large theater. “Oh my God, you think I’m crazy and can hear animals talking?” She chuckled in amusement. “No. It’s just a feeling. Like when you get a vibe off people, or when you just know you have a connection wi
th someone. Like Rip and I.”

  I was talking to a fucking crazy woman.

  “See, it’s something I know. Something I can feel, and I can’t let you get in the way of that.” She bounced up the stage, pulling a lighter out of her pocket and flicking it in her hand as she walked toward me.

  “And what happens when they find out you’ve burnt down the theater and killed a police officer’s daughter?”

  She frowned as she crouched down in front of me. “They won’t know. They will think it’s Caleb doing all this. He’s going to get me out of here, then I’ll show up later like I never knew.”

  Okay, so appealing to her logic didn’t work, it was never going to work. Lauren came off smart. She appeared like any normal girl, and at times she seemed completely reasonable, but there was something not quite right, a connection that didn’t quite meet in her brain, and she struggled to see the difference between real and fake.

  So, I needed to come at a different angle.

  The smell of the gasoline was making me lightheaded, and this was not a good time to allow myself to be anything but smart and on my game.

  “Lauren, Caleb left you here, he’s not coming back,” I whispered, trying one more time to get her to hear me, feeling like maybe I could shock her, have her to believe Caleb was the enemy. “He left you here to take the fall and create a distraction while he ran.”

  She flew to her feet, standing over me with a heavy glare. “No. He’s going to be right back. This might not have been how we planned it, but it’s going to work.”

  My heart was pounding. It was thumping against my chest so hard I’d be surprised if you couldn’t see it with the naked eye. “How long have you been planning this?” I demanded, and then things start to tick over in my head. “The drugs tonight in the club. Keela’s drink… that was you?”

  She rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Now she gets it.”

  “And the beating you got?”

  I felt sick.

  “Fake. A plan to get Ripley out of town so Caleb could give you the warning he needed for you to move faster. We were both getting impatient.”

  God, she’d been in on this longer than I thought.

  She wanted Ripley away from me and back home in Vegas.

  She wanted him back with the club because that was what was important in her mind, that he was with the family he needed to be with, so they could create future members of the club.

  “You’re fucking crazy.”

  She shrugged, looking at me over her shoulder with a sadistic smile. “And in a moment, you’ll be fucking dead.”

  And there it was.

  She was gone.

  I’d failed.

  “Lauren, stop!”

  She walked over to the ragged curtains at the side of the stage and tore off a piece before holding the lighter to the end and watching it catch alight, her eyes sparkling as if mesmerized by the flame.

  “Please! Stop!” I pleaded, yanking hard at the ties around my wrist. “You don’t need to do this.”

  It was like she couldn’t hear me. She’d turned off, and she was on autopilot walking directly toward the bottom of the stage where she’d doused the carpet in gas.

  I struggled and fought with the ties on my wrists, trying to get to my feet as I pulled at them, the plastic now tearing at my skin, but I couldn’t feel the pain. The adrenaline was coursing through my body, my heart pumping it faster and faster as I realized I may not be getting out of this.

  Lauren looked over her shoulder at me, taking a deep breath and holding out the raggy part of the curtain.

  “Please!” I screamed, but it fell on deaf ears as I watched her release it and take off running.

  “No,” I whispered, watching it hit the ground, the impact creating a large, loud whoosh of flames, forcing me to turn away and cover my face from the heat.

  Lauren was gone.

  She ducked out a side door and left me kneeling on the stage as the inside of the theater slowly began to fill with flames. It followed the trail she’d left across the front of the stage and up the aisles and then back down. The whole place was old and dusty and everything was a fucking fire hazard. From the old broken down and fraying material of the seats to the curtains and the carpet. It was going to go up fast.

  And right at that moment, the only thing I could hope for was that I was either already dead, or I was unconscious when the flames hit my body.

  Tears hit hard, and I sobbed loudly continuing my endless tugging against the plastic ties that held me captive, hoping that if I pulled hard enough they might snap under the pressure, but part of me just knew they wouldn’t. They needed to be cut. The flames were growing bigger as they moved across the room, the smoke shooting up to the high ceilings and rafters.

  “Help!” I screamed. “Please, help!”

  I basically knew it was pointless.

  The flames were too aggressive.

  It was already too hot in here, and I could feel my skin beginning to heat up like when you’re sitting too close to a bonfire. It pricks at your skin, it lets you know to move away.

  But there was no moving away.

  There was no getting out.

  There was no escape.

  “Dakota!”

  My head shot up, and I spotted Drake rushing across the stage and falling to his knees beside me. “Holy shit, thank fuck I found you.”

  “You need to go Drake. I can’t get out,” I told him, holding up my now bloody wrists for him to see. “Please go.” The smoke was starting to come lower as it filled the top of the curved ceiling, almost thick enough that I couldn’t see the magnificent design that patterned it, making it look like there was a night sky above us.

  It was beautiful.

  It was something I’d begged Drake to keep.

  And now it was being destroyed.

  “This is going to sound like a cliché movie line as hell, but I’m not leaving you here to die,” he responded as his eyes scanned the contraption I was tied to. “I need something to cut these. He’s used more than one, and it’s strong as fucking hell.”

  I almost laughed.

  But it wasn’t funny.

  I refused to steal any more of Ripley’s family away. I couldn’t take another person from him. Over the past month, I’d really started to realize how important the people were in Ripley’s life. They played a part, and that part was essential to creating the most amazing man I’d ever met.

  Huntsman was his truth, the one who forced him to be honest with himself. Drake was his rock, the one who held him down when he felt like he was lost, and Meyah brought out the most amazing and beautiful soul inside that for a long time he refused to admit that was there.

  Ripley may not be polite, or charismatic, or a gentleman. But he was smart, and funny, and loyal, and honest to a fault. And if you were lucky enough to feel the love which he usually kept locked inside, you needed to hold that tight and appreciate every moment of it because it was so precious.

  “You need to go,” I whispered, squeezing my eyes shut tight and trying to blink away the stinging sensation.

  He shook his head, his eyes scanning all around us for something he could use to break the ties. “You’re part of the family now, and we have this thing where we don’t leave anyone behind,” he explained loudly before turning back to face me with determination in his eyes. “Rip is going to take over the club one day, Dakota. He needs someone who’s going to fight for him, and someone who’s going to stand right beside him with her head held high. He needs someone who’s going to test him at every turn and not try to force him to be perfect but love him because he’s not. He needs you.”

  And I needed him.

  Tears streamed down my cheeks and as the smoke grew thicker and denser, I found myself wanting to fight. This couldn’t be it.

  We hadn’t gone through the shit we’d gone through in our lives for this to be it.

  “I don’t know what else to do,” I said loudly.

 
“How do you feel about praying?”

  RIPLEY

  Austin got on the phone with anyone and everyone he could think of calling, letting them know to look out for an ambulance and giving them the number plate.

  I called Drake who’d just rode in from Vegas, he missed everything and had no idea what had happened at the club or what was going on now. He and some of the boys were hitting the streets on their bikes. The more eyes we had out there, the harder it would be for them to hide.

  As each minute ticked by, I wanted to vomit.

  I’d once again fucking failed to protect someone I loved.

  I loved?

  Holy shit, was I there?

  Shake skidded up to the doorframe, bracing his hands against it as he fought to catch his breath.

  “It’s Lauren,” I told him, pointing to the computer screen.

  But he didn’t even acknowledge what I’d said. Instead, he heaved in a deep lung full of air before speaking. “Drake called. He was heading to Empire to grab some more boys. Rode past the theater and guess what’s parked out the front?”

  I took a step forward. “Okay, let’s go!”

  He didn’t move though, and suddenly, the urgency turned to another emotion.

  “He found gallons of gasoline in the back of it.”

  The air was pulled from my lungs. “They’re gonna try and burn it down.”

  With Dakota inside.

  Everything from that point felt like a blur.

  My head was full of haze as we ran out the front door of the police station with Austin calling in every fucking available officer to meet us there, along with every fucking fire brigade in the city.

  It would have been the perfect time to commit a crime. All the police were in one place. And usually, I’d find that amusing, but I didn’t because there were two pieces to this puzzle—Dakota and a burning building. And when I placed them together, all I could see was my heart being torn from my fucking chest and thrown in that fire alongside her.