STONE KINGS MOTORCYCLE CLUB: The Complete Collection

by Daphne Loveling

  “We gotta make some headway on finding out who these fuckers are,” I scowled. But I knew it wouldn’t be easy. “Any of the brothers have a kid in high school who could tell us who their classmates are that are dealing?”

  Moose frowned. “I dunno how old Pig’s daughter Jenny is,” he said. “Maybe thirteen?”

  “That’s probably too young. We need high school kids.”

  “Church is tomorrow,” I pointed out. “Let’s take it to everyone. Get a plan for ending this.”

  “Yeah,” said Trig gloomily. “Let’s stop talking about this shit, though. It’s fuckin’ depressing. We keep it up, I won’t be able to fully enjoy kicking Moose’s ass.”

  True to his word, Trig sank the eight ball on his next turn and didn’t waste any time rubbing Moose’s nose in it. Moose, apparently a glutton for punishment, immediately challenged Trig to another game, and I went off to find some other entertainment.

  I had just sat down at the bar and struck up a conversation with Johnny, the bartender, when I felt a soft touch on my forearm. I turned to find Claudia, one of the club whores.

  “Hey there, handsome,” she cooed. “You lonely?” She turned up the corners of her mouth in a cherry-colored smirk and cocked her head at me, her deep auburn hair falling over one shoulder. Leaning in a little closer she pressed her perfect tits against my arm, then half closed her eyes and parted her lips seductively.

  My dick got half-hard at the knowledge of what Claudia could do. She and I had shared more than one fine moment in the past, and she gave one hell of a good blow job. Normally, I wouldn’t have thought twice about taking her up on her offer in one of the apartments upstairs. But today, the memory of how Andi’s deep blue eyes had fluttered closed just as she exploded into her orgasm pushed from my mind the thought of any other woman. I wanted Andi, more than I’d ever wanted any woman in my life. And until I’d had her, no other woman would do.

  “Sorry, darlin’,” I drawled, shooting her a lopsided grin. “I’ll have to take a rain check on that tempting offer.”

  Claudia pouted her lips at me. “You’re no fun,” she sulked.

  “Sorry, about that. I got important club business on my mind.” Hey, it was half true, anyway.

  Unfortunately, Claudia’s expert ministrations would have been a great way to kill time and alleviate the restlessness I was feeling, if I’d been so inclined. As it was, I kept thinking back to Andi, wondering where she was and what she was doing. I thought she’d mentioned something about band practice tonight. Her gig in Denver was starting in a week or so, if I remembered right. Maybe I’d make the trip up to the city to see it and surprise her. I wondered what her reaction would be if I did.

  I had Johnny at the bar set me up with a shot glass and a bottle, and wandered over to a group of brothers drinking and shooting the shit, preparing to join them. Just as I’d sat down, I felt the phone in my back pocket buzz, and I took it out to check who was texting me.

  I dont know if youre busy but if not i could use someone to talk to

  It was Andi.

  Where r u?

  I pressed send and waited.

  Im at home

  I was already standing up and walking to the door.

  Be there in ten

  When I got to Andi’s apartment complex, she was standing outside in the parking lot, next to her car. Her arms were crossed, hugging her chest. She looked cold.

  I pulled up in the space next to her and cut the engine. “What are you doing out here?” I asked her.

  For a moment she was silent. “I’m afraid to go inside,” she said finally.

  “What? Why?” I slung my leg over the bike and stood up. “Your place is locked up tight as a drum, Andi. You will know in a second if anyone has broken in.”

  In a small voice, she murmured. “I’m afraid there might be someone waiting in the hallway.”

  Jesus, something really had her spooked. I had never seen her like this before. “Okay,” I nodded. “Come on.”

  I picked up the guitar case that was sitting on the ground next to her. Then without thinking, I took her hand in mine and led her toward the front entrance, noting that her fingers twined into mine without a moment’s hesitation. When we reached the front door, she reached into her bag and took out her keys with her other hand, not letting go of me as she did so. She unlocked the door, and I went in first.

  In silence we walked up the stairs to the second floor. I scanned the area as we went, not knowing what or who I was looking for, but in any case no one was around. We reached her door and she finally dropped my hand, searching through the key chain and finally sticking one of the keys in the new deadbolt I’d installed. She turned the key in the lock as I watched. I reached in front of her and turned the knob, then took her hand again. The door alarm began to beep its thirty-second warning. Pushing the door open wide, I let the light of the street lamp show me there was nothing immediately in front of me, then, stuck my head in just a little to look around. As I had known would be the case, there was no one inside.

  I reached around the corner for the switch and turned on the lights. Stepping through the doorway, I pulled gently on Andi’s hand and felt her come in behind me. She went to the alarm and typed in her code to disable it. Then I led her to the windows and let her see that the locks were still in place and the alarms were still set.

  Andi’s body visibly relaxed when we’d finished checking everything. “Okay,” she said, shaking her head. “I feel like an idiot now.”

  “Don’t feel like an idiot,” I told her. “It’s always better to be cautious in a situation you think might be dangerous.”

  “I know,” she sighed. “But I shouldn’t have asked you to come all the way over here to protect me like I’m some child. I should be able to take care of myself.” She hugged her bag to her chest like a shield.

  “Andi,” I said, “Stop.” I put my hands on her shoulders. She looked up at me with those fucking gorgeous deep blue eyes. “I don’t mind. I’m happy to help you out. I’m glad you felt like you could call me.”

  “Okay,” she said in a half whisper. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

  “I do,” I murmured. “I know exactly how you can thank me.”

  Andi’s eyes widened. A pink flush of color bloomed on her cheeks as her lips parted in something I almost read as shock, but then realized it was something else.

  Anticipation.

  Andi thought I was asking her for sex.

  And she wanted me to.

  Unfortunately, as badly as I wanted to take advantage of this unexpected development, I had something else in mind, and it couldn’t wait.

  I grabbed her hand in mine again, my eyes not leaving hers. “You’re going to tell me what the fuck is going on.”

  10

  Andi

  ANDI

  Once Cal and I were in my apartment, and he’d made sure that no one was inside waiting for me, I felt like the biggest fool in the world for asking him to come to my rescue like a knight in shining armor for some silly princess. If I’d had any guts at all, I would have just taken out the gun I’d been keeping in my purse for the past week, and gone into the building myself.

  I knew how to use the Browning. At least, in theory. I’d taken some gun safety classes when I’d first bought the thing a year ago, but since then I hadn’t so much as touched it until last week. In fact, I’d almost forgotten I had it until the night I pulled it out of the drawer of my nightstand and realized I’d never even bought bullets for it.

  But knowing how to use a gun in theory, and being faced with the possibility of flipping off the safety and walking into a situation where you might have to use it were two completely different things. The fact was, I’d chickened out, too afraid I’d panic and do something horrible like shoot an innocent stranger.

  So I’d called Cal.

  Because he was literally the only person I’d told about feeling unsafe recently.

  Cal knew basically nothing abo
ut why I was so afraid. And yet, when I’d texted him, he had immediately come running to help me, no questions asked.

  Now, though, he was demanding answers.

  And as much as I wanted to pretend I was just being flighty and silly, I realized that I owed him some.

  Wordlessly, I reached into my back pocket and took out the smallish, folded piece of paper. I handed it to Cal, waiting as he unfolded and examined it. It was a picture of me, my bass guitar around my neck, singing into a microphone. In the frame with me, off to the side, were Kai and Emmy. I watched Cal as he peered at it, and then cocked his head at me, uncomprehending.

  “That was taken tonight,” I whispered. “It was sitting on the front seat of my car when I got out of practice.”

  Cal looked down at the red T-shirt and jeans I was wearing, then back to the grainy picture. He nodded once, then reached out and took hold of my hand and led me to the couch. “Okay. You need to tell me what the hell this is about. You’re telling me some fucking stranger took this picture of you tonight without your knowledge and put it inside your car for you to find?”

  “Looks that way,” I said miserably.

  His eyes bored into mine. “This isn’t the first time something like this has happened, is it?” he demanded.

  I shook my head, not trusting myself to speak.

  Cal’s jaw tensed. “Jesus, Andi. How could you not tell me about this?”

  “It’s just…” My voice cracked, and I cleared my throat and started again. “It’s… I don’t know. Not your problem. Not anyone’s problem, really, except mine.”

  “Andi, goddamnit. Stop it!” His voice rose as he bit out the words. “Stop it, right now!” Cal’s eyes glittered with anger, but whether toward me or my stalker, I couldn’t tell. “You have got to let someone help you. This is serious shit.” His hands found mine, gripping them tightly. “You hear me? You have to let someone help you.” His voice softened just a bit. “Let me help you.”

  My eyes were flooding with unshed tears, and I detached one hand from his to brush them away. “I… Cal,” I started, trying to think of the right words to refuse his help. But the fact was, I was so scared, and so alone. The thought of having someone else to talk to, someone else to help me…

  Someone to protect me…

  No. I couldn’t expect Cal to protect me. But maybe, just maybe, I could have him help me figure out what to do.

  Taking a deep breath, I nodded. “Okay.”

  Cal spoke to me in low, soft tones for a few minutes, until I was calm enough that we could start actually talking about the photo and what it meant.

  “It’s too grainy to have been taken from inside the building you were in,” he was saying, frowning down at the paper. “Had to be taken through a window or something.” He looked up at me. “Where do you practice?”

  “It’s in a vacant space in a strip mall,” I explained. “You know the one on Cascade Avenue, west of town? The one with the Mongolian grill restaurant that closed a while back?”

  His brow furrowed. “Okay.” I watched the gears working in his head. “And what time did your practice start?”

  “We got going around seven-thirty,” I replied. Practiced for about two hours. I got out to my car about nine forty-five.”

  “And you texted me not long after that,” he mused, taking out his phone to check the time.

  “Yeah.” I shivered involuntarily as I remembered the feeling of terror and dread when I picked up the photo from the front seat. “I texted you a couple of minutes after I saw that.” I nodded toward it.

  “So,” he recapped. “Someone was there, watching you through a window as you guys practiced, around the time the sun started going down if the light’s any indication.” Cal put the photo on the cushion and fixed me with eyes that were dark and serious. “Andi. Do you have any idea who this is?”

  Oh, God. I bit my lip and looked away, sudden panic beginning to seize me. I had never spoken about this to anyone, least of all someone I’d been… intimate with. My whole adult life, I’d kept my sexual relationships casual, preferring the emotional safety of a hookup to having to spread the traumas of my personal life out in front of another person. Whatever had happened between Cal and me, it sure as hell wasn’t anything approaching a relationship, and we hadn’t even had sex, technically. But all the same, this was a personal boundary that I was deeply uncomfortable crossing with a sexual partner.

  Still, much as I hated it, I had to admit that Cal might be the only person I knew who could even come close to helping me deal with this.

  I closed my eyes tight for a moment, wishing this would all just go away — that I would open my eyes, and everything would just vanish. From this apartment, to Cal, to that damn photograph sitting on the cushion between us. I opened them again slowly, only to find him staring at me with an expression of worry.

  “Andi,” he said gently. “You do know who this is, don’t you?”

  I took in a deep, shaky breath, and blew it out as slowly as I could. I nodded. “I think so.”

  I told him as little as I could. I told him about growing up poor, just my mom and me. I told him about her marrying Anthony, and how at first, it was like living in someone else’s fairy tale life. I stumbled over the next part, not sure how I could explain Anthony’s obsession with me without revealing more than I could bear to. Eventually, I told Cal that I knew Anthony was involved with illegal shit, and probably always had been — what kinds, I didn’t know. That I was pretty sure he was a higher-up in whatever food chain he was part of. And that my mom had made it a habit to look the other way, because she liked her life full of pretty things and pretty people too much to risk losing it.

  “So,” he said, puzzled, “You left home at eighteen, and you haven’t been back since? You haven’t talked to your mom or your sister since?” He ran his hand across his chin as he took this in, the scruff of his whiskers making a soft, scratching sound. “Your aunt never told them you were with her?”

  “No.” Heat rushed to my cheeks. “My aunt… doesn’t like my stepfather. At all. She wanted to protect me.”

  “And your mom never tried to find you?” Cal looked skeptical.

  “Once, I think.” I admitted. “She did call my aunt, soon after I left. But my aunt said she didn’t know where I was.” I knew my mother could have found me pretty easily in this day and age if she’d tried hard enough. The fact that she apparently hadn’t was both a relief and a source of sadness to me.

  “So.” Cal shook his head. “Something’s not adding up here, Andi. If you’ve been gone all that time, and up until now no one’s tried to track you down, why now all of a sudden would your stepdad be doing this?”

  “I don’t know,” I said miserably. My hands balled into fists, the fingernails biting into my palms. I pressed tighter, welcoming the pain. A lump formed in my throat as I choked back tears.

  “How can you know it’s your stepfather, Andi? What makes you think he’d do this?”

  My hand went absently to my hair. I fingered my short locks, remembering with a shudder how he used to touch my hair. “Because,” I whispered. “He told me he’d always know where I was. That he’d always find me, no matter what.”

  I’d reached the limit of what I could stand to say out loud. The fingernails of my left hand were still digging painfully into my palms. I held myself rigid, my eyes locked on a tiny stain on my couch. I wasn’t sure if I’d managed to tell Cal enough to make him believe that it was Anthony or his men who were stalking me.

  When finally I forced myself to take my eyes off the stain and look up at him, the expression in his eyes had changed. His normally clear green eyes were dark, stormy with something I couldn’t quite describe, but which looked like barely-contained fury.

  He knew, I realized. Somehow, from what I’d told him, he’d figured it out.

  “Andi.” His voice was low, cold and hard as steel. “I will never. Ever. Let him hurt you.” He leaned forward, his eyes locked on mine. “Ev
er. Do you believe that?”

  My face grew hot with shame and horror. I wanted to die. I wanted to be invisible. I wanted to run far away. Anything, so that I didn’t have to face the fact that another human being knew what my stepfather had done to me.

  A low sob escaped my throat. I tore my eyes away from his. I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t stand it.

  “Andi. Look at me.” His voice was soft. “Please.”

  I closed my eyes tight, then opened them again and forced myself to do what he asked.

  “Thank you for telling me.” He reached up and softly touched my cheek with his thumb.

  I shivered at his touch, almost pulling away. I felt sick to my stomach. My eyes flicked away from his, down to my hands. “You’re welcome.”

  Cal turned the conversation to other things then, saying that we could talk more about what to do tomorrow. It was a relief to not have him wanting to know anything else about my stepfather. He asked me a few questions about how practices were going and when our first gig was in Denver, and I relaxed a little bit and tried to put the events of the past couple of hours out of my mind.

  Eventually Cal glanced over at the window, out at the night. “It’s getting late,” he murmured. “Look, do you want me to stay here tonight? I can sleep on the couch.” His eyes were gentle as they returned to look at me. “It might make you feel better to have someone around.”

  “No,” I protested, wiping at my eyes and sniffling. “That’s ridiculous. Like you said, this place is sealed tight as a drum. I know it’s safe.” I tried to smile at him. “I was just being silly.”

  “God, Andi, you’re not being silly. Stop that.” He shook his head. “Look, I know you don’t want to put me out, but I’d really like to stay. It would make me feel better to know you’re not sitting in here by yourself, worrying.” The smallest hint of his sexy smile appeared in one corner of his mouth. “C’mon. Say yes.”