Free

by Kristen Ashley

  “Right,” Rush pushed out.

  “Later.”

  “Yeah. Later.”

  They disconnected.

  “What?”

  He stared at the bacon frying until he felt Rebel’s hand low on his back.

  “Baby, what?”

  He turned his head and looked into her eyes.

  “Chew murdered five prostitutes last night.”

  Those pretty blues got huge.

  And it was then, the memory of Rebel sitting on the couch with Playboy came to him. Playboy doing his usual flirting, doing it giving everyone a good look at Rebel’s sweet bra.

  She didn’t get embarrassed. Or upset. Or ticked.

  She laughed and teased Playboy, looking disappointed when Rush’s dad swooped in and claimed him.

  If they had kids, she’d give that to their children. That natural ease. That humor. That “kids will be kids” and then you let them be kids.

  You let them be free.

  He’d spent years watching his mother try to kill the spirit in Tabby. Break her and force her to be something she wasn’t so that Naomi could shine.

  These thoughts came and Rush made a decision.

  “Your brothers want to take you down to Phoenix,” he shared. “I want you to think about going.”

  “Rush,” she whispered.

  “My dad found Tyra when he was forty-one. I found you at twenty-nine. I’d give about anything to give him twelve more years with the woman he loves. That isn’t in my power. But it’s in my power to protect that time with you. I know where this is heading, and you know where this is heading. I want us to get there.”

  Her face grew soft, but she didn’t respond.

  He took her expression as confirmation they were on the same page and kept talking.

  “Maddox and Diesel got enough time off to be up here with you for a week. So you got time to think about it. But if Chew even knows you’re mine, he’d have other targets first and probably doesn’t have the resources for long-distance operations. And Valenzuela just sustained a full-frontal attack. He finds out what you were up to, you wouldn’t be a priority. So, this shit won’t filter down there and I want you to think hard about going to Phoenix.”

  “If they won’t be focusing on me, then I’m safe up here too,” she pointed out.

  “Maybe. But it goes without saying you’d be safer down there.”

  She registered that but didn’t give up. “I have to get back to work, Rush. I checked my emails. I have jobs I can take on and need to take on. Molly says no gifts for their ceremony, but I’m so buying them something, and Essence loves me, but I love her too and the way I do means I’d never ask her to deal with me being late on rent.”

  “I hear you and we’ll cover you, whatever it is you think you gotta do. But, baby, listen to me. The more we gotta cover, the less energy and manpower we got to put an end to this shit. And it’s lost on no one this is heating up, fast, so it’s gonna boil over, soon. And then it’ll be done. So think about Phoenix. Please.”

  Her gaze moved over his face before she asked, “Who’s gonna look after you?”

  “My brothers.”

  “Not that way.”

  Fucking hell.

  His girl.

  He pulled her into his arms.

  Her arms went around him and held tighter.

  “We’ll talk on the phone,” he said in her ear.

  “It isn’t the same.”

  She was right.

  He didn’t confirm that verbally, just held her to him.

  “I like our marathon getting to know you,” she said.

  “Me too, sweetheart. But we can do that over the phone.”

  “Not with interruptions of you fucking me with your big dick.”

  Rush started laughing and through it said, “Phone sex.”

  “Again, not the same.”

  She was right about that.

  “Babe.” He gave her a squeeze.

  She squeezed back harder.

  “I’ll think about it,” she whispered.

  Rush closed his eyes.

  Thank fuck.

  Beck

  Eleven forty-five that morning . . .

  Pissed about whatever “emergency” meeting Web had called when Beck knew these men had nothing urgent to discuss, outside arguing by-laws and whatever ridiculous name they thought the club should be called because they thought it was badass, Beck put his hand up to push the door open to their meeting room.

  The only reason he was just pissed and not furious was because Janna had to work that day. Production was halted for some reason one day that week, they were using that day to make it up.

  If she was home, and he could be with her, eating her food, fucking her in her bed, sitting on her gray velvet sofa with her watching TV, finding some way to get her to share about her dream, he’d be really freaking ticked.

  On this thought, he pushed through and was instantly pulled to the side with a hand wrapped around his biceps, the door slammed shut behind him, and he heard the lock go.

  He angrily shrugged off Eightball’s mitt with a kill look then turned his attention to the table.

  All the men were standing around it, knives resting on the table in front of them, except Eightball, who’d pulled him in, and Griller, who’d shut and locked the door.

  Jesus, Digger and Pacino had shared they’d been pulled in by the cops.

  Well then . . .

  It was showtime.

  His eyes went directly to Digger.

  “Appears you were hauled in by the cops, brother,” he declared.

  Hostile shifting of bodies from everyone, but it was Pacino who spoke, “Yeah, you’d know all about that. You were fucking big-mouth snatch, must have worn off on you, brother.”

  He kept his shit, he did not know how, at the reference to Rosalie and locked eyes with Pacino.

  “You get pulled in too, Pacino?” he asked quietly.

  “I’m sure you know I did,” he sneered.

  “I don’t know, got first-hand knowledge Pickle likes to chat, can’t know who he likes to chat with. Do you know, Digger?” he asked the sick fuck.

  Digger didn’t quite hide his flinch before he responded, “I know he said you came sniffin’ around.”

  “Yeah, you see,” Beck started, moving toward the table, “I’m in this club. I got brothers in this club. And somehow, we got messed up with some big deal asshole who promised us easy money. Now I know, my old lady fucked that shit for us. I also know Valenzuela let us swing. All his money. His hotshot attorneys. We still got boys sittin’ behind bars. Where was Valenzuela then, he was gonna take such good care of us? We’re partners? The big man promises he’ll see to our brothers, promises opportunities of payback and jobs that’ll make life sweet, then he disappears. When he comes back, though, we don’t fuckin’ exist.”

  He paused, no one said dick, so he kept going.

  “So I had a think about it. Thought on it a long time. How’d we get messed up with this big deal asshole who left us swinging? This club, good club but no experience, never done shit like that, how suddenly is he all good to come to us and offer us lots of cake for taking care of an important part of his business? How did we earn that nod?”

  No one said anything.

  Beck did.

  “Out of the blue, Valenzuela comes to us? It didn’t jive. So, like I said, I had a long think about it because, I don’t know about the rest of you, but I wanted to know. Delivered my old lady for a beatdown. Got my face carved up after. We got a beef with Chaos. Brothers in the joint. Lost our charter. I wanted to know. I give a shit about my club. So I asked around. Wanna know what I found out?”

  Pacino looked to Digger.

  Digger’s mouth was working, and it wouldn’t have surprised Beck if he’d pissed his pants.

  Beck took the last steps to stand at his place at the table and kept his eyes locked on Digger.

  “Seen Chew Lannigan recently, brother?” he asked.
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  More shifting, it was even more hostile, and he knew Digger had everyone’s attention.

  “What’s this shit?” Web growled.

  “We weren’t called on by the great and fucked-up Benito Valenzuela because he saw promise in our club and wanted to cut us in on his empire,” Beck announced, still staring at Digger.

  He turned his attention to Web.

  “Digger ran with Chew Lannigan back in the day. They’re still tight. Chew has a beef with Chaos and he allied with Valenzuela to work that beef out. And to firm up his position with Valenzuela, offer him an army, he offered us up,” he told Web and looked again to Digger. “Am I right?”

  You could actually see the wheels turning in the motherfucker’s eyes before he spat, “It was a good opportunity, until your gash fucked it all up.”

  Beck slammed his fist on the table and shouted, “This club is about honesty! Brotherhood! Loyalty! You thought this was a good opportunity, why didn’t you share how we got that opportunity?”

  “You’re tryin’ to put this shit on me when it’s your fucked-up cunt who put us where we are,” Digger sneered.

  “I think I handled that situation, asshole,” Beck fired back. “I found that shit out. I told my club. I went and got her ass. I brought her to my brothers to be taught a lesson.” He tasted bile in his throat, but he had no choice but to keep going. “And it was me who landed the first blows.”

  Christ, was he gonna be able to get through this shit without throwing up?

  He had to try.

  “Half the pigs in the DPD are after Lannigan. Chaos wants him. Valenzuela is panting for him. We’re vulnerable, we got a link to that crazy fuck we don’t even know about, and you don’t share he’s the reason why we’re caught up in this shit in the first place?”

  “I couldn’t know your bitch was gonna give us up,” Digger returned.

  “Well she did. And when shit happens you deal. But you can’t deal if you don’t have all the info. And now we got brothers bein’ pulled in by the cops because they want Lannigan’s ass in the joint before Chaos or Valenzuela tear him to shreds, and we’re even more vulnerable. No charter. No backup. No allies. No money. Not dick,” Beck shot back.

  Pacino looked to Digger, confused, mostly because he hadn’t been pulled in about Lannigan.

  He’d been pulled in about being a bogus alibi for a murder.

  “Why they just bring in Digger and Pacino?” Rainman asked.

  Beck threw an arm their way. “You gotta ask that?”

  Spiderweb, Muzzle, Griller, Eightball, Spartan, Rainman, Hardcore, if he wasn’t done with this club, if they hadn’t put the hurt on Rosalie, called it, demanded it (though Pacino was the one behind that, rabid about pushing it through), he might stick with those brothers.

  Muzzle, Eightball, Hardcore and Griller were decent-looking, built guys Beck’s age or a little older. They had brains in their heads, but they used them mostly to find ways to get laid. If he’d been asked before all this started to go down, he’d have said all four of them, as well as Beck, just wanted someone to ride with, drink beer with, raise some hell with and have wingmen to find pussy with.

  Rainman and Spartan were in their forties, Web in his fifties, softer, but even mostly clueless, wannabe outlaws who were that basically because they didn’t live large by any stretch of the imagination and they wanted to give more to their families but had zero opportunities to do that, they were still solid.

  Pacino was a weasel, weak of body and mind, and that was written all over him, but it got verified any time he talked.

  Digger was just a deviant.

  So Beck didn’t have to explain further.

  “You in with Chew Lannigan?” Web asked Digger.

  “Don’t eat his shit,” Digger answered Web. “He knows we all think he’s a dumbfuck pussywhip for gettin’ us fucked over.”

  “I don’t think that,” Hardcore said. “Rosalie was cherry. I’d be a dumbfuck I was dippin’ my wick into that regular.”

  Beck’s torso swung back, and it did in shock not jealousy Core would want a go at Rosalie. She was gorgeous. Any man with a dick would.

  Just what he said.

  “And it was you, Pacino, pushed we fuck her up, which got us all arrested, that bein’ after we all got our asses kicked by Chaos and Throttle got his face carved up,” Muzzle, standing next to Beck, noted. “She was informing to fucking Chaos. We all knew, we touched her, they’d move in. It was insanity we beat her down.”

  “You voted for that,” Pacino snapped.

  “Yeah, because I was tweaked and thinkin’ with my balls, that bein’ folks deciding I didn’t have any if we didn’t make a statement,” Muzzle returned. “Havin’ some time to ponder this shit, that brother Hound actually got started with his knife, and didn’t limit his good time with Throttle’s face, I wouldn’t have any balls at all, so maybe it’s time to think with somethin’ else.”

  “I’m not Throttle,” Beck declared.

  “What?” Eightball asked on his other side.

  Beck turned to him. “I’m not fuckin’ Throttle. I’m Beck.”

  He put his hand to his belt, undid the snap on his own knife, yanked it out and everyone went alert.

  But he just took it to the edge of the patch that had the name Throttle on it, which was stitched over his heart, and shoved it through enough he could toss his knife on the table in front of him and tear off the second patch he’d torn off his cut in the last two months.

  He threw it on the table.

  “I’m Beck,” he stated. “Throttle is dead. This club is dead.” He looked to Web. “This becomes about brotherhood and loyalty and respect and goddamned fucking honesty, I’m still in. We’re Resurrection. And to be brought back from the dead, we gotta carve out the weak links, and I want those two fucks gone.” He pointed across the table at Digger and Pacino. “We don’t get saved, it’s me that’s gone.”

  “Resurrection,” Griller muttered, “Kickass.”

  “True that,” Rainman agreed in his own mutter.

  Jesus.

  Web held Beck’s gaze before he looked to Digger.

  “Digger, answer. Valenzuela call us because Lannigan came to you to offer us up?”

  “I wasn’t called in by the cops to talk about Chew,” Digger returned.

  Total lie.

  It was written all over him.

  They wanted a murderer.

  But they got up in his shit about Chew.

  “Then what’d the cops call you about, brother? ’Cause we ain’t done dick in months, Valenzuela forgot we existed, so there’s nothin’ to haul you in about,” Web pushed.

  “You called your president,” Spartan added when Digger didn’t chime in, “tellin’ him we gotta deal with Thro . . .” he glanced at Beck then back at Digger, “Beck ’cause he was runnin’ his mouth to the cops. Seems to me, he was just askin’ questions to your drunk-ass, waste-of-space bud, Pickle. You and Pacino still got pulled in. What’d the cops talk to you about?”

  Beck wondered why they didn’t ask that question before they called an emergency meeting and got their knives out.

  But at least they were asking it now.

  Digger looked to Beck, the table, and his attention stayed there.

  Pacino’s eyes were pinging around the room.

  “Pacino, what the cops haul you in about?” Spartan pressed. “You’re all in for us to crawl up Beck’s ass, he’s a rat. What’d we do the cops were so interested in? What’d Beck run to them and share? Having an argument about how long a term is for president?”

  “It’s a year, everyone knows it’s a fuckin’ year,” Pacino muttered.

  A loud boom sounded when Eightball’s huge fist landed on the table and he thundered, “Answer, goddammit!”

  “Digger’s up for whackin’ some porn junkie,” Pacino said fast. “He needed an alibi, I gave him one. I took my brother’s back. That’s why they hauled us in.”

  There was a very long moment of v
ery heavy silence.

  Then Muzzle pulled out his chair, sat in it and leveled his eyes on Pacino, saying quietly, “Not takin’ his back now, are you, brother? Just laid him out. Eightball makes some noise, you spill. Nice.”

  “It’s about brotherhood, loyalty,” Pacino pointed at Beck, “honesty.”

  “You got one down,” Eightball said, pulling out his own chair and sitting in it. “Though, sayin’ that, you knew this and convinced us to lay the hurt on Beck, he ratted us out. So honesty seems sketchy too.”

  “You kill this junkie?” Web asked Digger.

  “What?” Digger asked back, looking so damned shifty, considering his normal level of shifty, it was nauseating. “No way. Just was home alone. Cops don’t believe dick, a man’s home alone, mindin’ his own business.”

  Web gave up on Digger and looked to Pacino. “He kill this girl?”

  “How do I know?” Pacino spat.

  “Brotherhood, loyalty,” Griller muttered, taking his own seat. “Warms the heart.”

  “I’m on record with the pigs sayin’ he was with me,” Pacino snapped. “That’s both.”

  “Either a’ you geniuses think to bring this to the club?” Spartan asked. “You know, seein’ as we’re so solid right now, can withstand a hit, like one of us a suspect for murder without the other ones knowin’ about it. My old lady woulda lost her mind, I was hauled in by the cops again. I woulda lost mine, I was hauled in and I had no clue what it was about. Already nearly lost my job over goin’ down, what we did to Rosalie. My boss’d can my ass, cops showed and pulled me in again. And I kinda like my kids. So I’d kinda like to make sure they keep getting fed.”

  “We thought we had it covered,” Pacino muttered.

  “Well, you didn’t,” Web clipped.

  Pacino focused on Beck. “Anyone think to ask Beck why he knew all this shit, he didn’t bring it to the table?”

  Because he was waiting for it to implode.

  He could not say that.

  “Because I had a woman I didn’t pay enough attention to, and that fuckup led to fuckin’ my club up. I got somethin’ happenin’ with my woman now that needs attention, I made that call. The damage was already done. It couldn’t get any worse, I took a coupla nights and looked after my woman. I was gonna make another call to have a meet when I got the call to come to this meeting. I knew what it was about. What I didn’t know was that two of my brothers were gonna lay me out.”