by Marla Monroe
“No!” Mia yelled. They all froze. “Rage, he’s a friend. He helped me and deserves the courtesy of you at least hearing him out.”
“Don’t piss him off, Mia. Not over me. He’s right. I don’t have any business being here,” Hoss said and took another step toward the door.
Rage stepped in front of him, staring into the man’s eyes. He could see something there that you didn’t see on most hard-nosed bikers—regret, or maybe it was just plain old sadness.
“Who the hell are you if you’re not who I think you are?” he asked without blinking his eyes. He could feel Terror shifting toward Mia to get between her and Hoss.
“I’m nobody, man. I fucked up coming here. Just wanted to know that she was okay. She hit her neck and head on the car’s bumper pretty damn hard.” He held Rage’s gaze.
“Get out of the way, Terror. I can’t see them.” Mia’s anger had Rage’s building that she would defend a fucking Viper. He’d told her how dangerous they were.
“Mia. Are you choosing him?” he asked in an almost strangled voice. Fear punched holes in his gut that she might do that.
“What? Are you serious or just dumb?” she yelled. “I don’t really even know him, but he helped save my life and he’s not one of them. Just listen to him, Rage!”
Rage had to swallow twice to keep from roaring in frustration. He’d done the unthinkable and fallen for a woman when he’d known better. Now she was twisting a knife in his heart as if she didn’t understand what it was doing to him.
“Fine,” he snarled. “Tell me who you are and why she’s defending you.”
Hoss dropped his eyes before shoving his hands on his hips. He looked at the two other men in the room as if weighing something in his mind. He seemed to come to a conclusion and looked back at Rage.
“I’m not a true Viper. I’m undercover with Homeland Security on loan from ATF, Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and assigned to the Vipers to locate some missing weapons that are believed to be in the hands of their MC. If you spread this around, I’m as good as a dead man, and won’t be an easy death either.”
Rage gritted his teeth and slowly relaxed his muscles.
Fuck! Double fuck!
“Where does that leave us?” he finally asked.
“Not my problem,” Hoss said. “I’m not interested in you guys. You aren’t involved, and just between you and me, you aren’t on anyone’s radar. For the most part, you’re a clean club outside of some questionable on-the-line transactions. You don’t deal drugs or deal in human trafficking. I think you do handle some light arms deals, but nothing big enough to drum up interest. Keep it that way and your way of life won’t change.”
“What alerted you to the Vipers having anything to do with these missing weapons in the first place?” Rage asked, thinking about Mia’s problem and the missing key.
“Word got to Homeland that the weapons that went missing over two years ago were about to be sold and the Vipers were in the middle of it somehow,” Hoss said.
“What if I told you that the man responsible for those missing weapons might be sitting in the sheriff’s jail right now, and that those weapons are still under lock and key and safe from him or the Vipers?” Rage asked with a small smile.
He looked over Hoss’s shoulder to see Terror smile as well. Mia, however, looked quite pissed. He was going to have a lot of groveling to do to get back on her good side. Maybe avenging her husband’s death and getting Gaetti off her back would help that out some.
“I’d be pretty damn happy. It might get me out of another fucking year of this shit.” Hoss crossed his arms over his chest and waited for Rage to fill him in.
“A little over two years ago, a man found out that his boss was stealing arms and selling them to the highest bidder, no matter who that bidder might end up being. It bothered his sense of patriotism and general right and wrong ideals, so he stole the key to where they were hidden. His boss figured out who had stolen it and went after him. He and his wife were tortured and left for dead, the house ransacked, but no key was found.” He stopped and risked a glance in Mia’s direction. Terror had wrapped an arm around her shoulders and was holding both of her hands in the other one.
“The husband died, but the wife lived, and with nothing left to hold onto, moved back to her hometown to start over. Several years passed with the boss trying to figure out a way to get to his payload without the key, but it was impossible. He started searching for the widow and finally found her. When he attempted to kidnap her to locate the key, his plans were thwarted and he was captured. The key was still safe.”
Hoss looked from Rage over to Mia and Terror before looking back at Rage. His eyes were wide with surprise and worry. Rage was sure that the man was wondering if he’d screwed up by telling them who he was. After all, if he had possession to the weapons through the key, he could potentially sell them himself and make billions on the transaction, with Hoss becoming a liability that had to be eliminated.
“I take it you have the key,” he finally said, resignation apparent in his voice and the slight drop of his shoulders. He held his head up, though. Hoss wasn’t a coward, but he knew when he was beat.
“Yes. We have the key.” He turned to Bear and took the bag the other man had picked up in the hall when he and Terror had raced for Mia’s room.
Stepping away from Hoss, he pulled the picture frame from the bag and set it in Mia’s shaking hands as Terror released them. She looked up at him in shock to see the only thing she’d had left of her marriage to Glenn—their wedding picture. Rage had been able to tell that the frame was the original by the scratches and dents where it had been damaged. It was a miracle that the glass hadn’t gotten broken at some point or Mia would have found the key a long time ago. . The picture displayed how pretty she’d been and how happy both of them had looked in that frozen moment in time. It dug at him a little, but reminded himself that she was with them now, if she didn’t reject them after all of this.
“My wedding picture. Thank you for saving it for me,” Mia said with tears in her eyes. “But why did you bring it here?”
“We moved all of your things out of that shit hole you’ve been living in, and we thought you might want it with you instead of packed up.” He waited to see what she’d do.
To his surprise, she laid it facedown on the bed next to her and held out her arms to Terror and him with a watery smile. He let her pull them into a tight hug that went a long way to easing the pain in his soul at the thought of losing her. Maybe she hadn’t written them off just yet.
He could feel Hoss’s impatience and growing unease behind him, so he pulled away from the embrace but made sure Terror remained there to hold her. He picked up the frame, being very careful with it, and watched Mia’s face. When she only watched as he flipped it over so that he could turn the closures on the back of the frame, he saw curiosity but no fear or anxiety. She really didn’t know that she’d had the key all that time. He breathed out a sigh of relief.
Pulling off the back cover, he laid it on her lap and pulled off a layer of cardboard to reveal a thin metal plate with numbers and symbols embedded on it. It had been created in the shape of a house key, though it wouldn’t fit into any lock found on any house that he knew about.
Rage gently loosened it from the cardboard and settled everything back into place, securing the latches on the back and handing the picture back to Mia. Her eyes had gone wide in surprise when he’d removed the metal key from its hiding place. Then relief like nothing he’d ever seen before washed over her face and even her body as she sank into Terror’s arms.
“I believe this is what the government needs to locate those lost weapons. The exact location, you’ll have to beat out of Gaetti. If you need any help with that part, Terror and I are at your disposal,” he said as he handed the object of so much pain and suffering over to Hoss.
The agent stared at it for a long time before slipping it into his pocket and nodding at him. He watched Rage as he slowly
eased over to where Terror still held a silently crying Mia in his arms. Rage let him go to her. She was safe, and that was what really mattered.
“I’m sorry for your loss, Mia. I can’t imagine what you must have gone through. The fact that none of us ever put any of that together shames me. But you have two good men here who would die for you. I think you will be happy despite the past. If you ever need anything from me personally, or unofficially from ATF, my name is Russ Dodd. I’m with the ATF out of Albuquerque, New Mexico.” He nodded at her then Terror before turning toward the door.
“Don’t forget that asshole Gaetti or our offer to help you get the information you need,” Rage reminded him.
Hoss looked over his shoulder at him and smiled. “Don’t you worry about that piece of shit. He doesn’t have any paperwork on him to connect him to the ATF or Homeland at this point. No one knew he was involved so we’ll take him off your hands and get the information we need one way or another. You know, accidents happen all the time out in Podunk towns in the West.”
* * * *
Mia smiled as Terror and Rage helped her out of the wheelchair and into the back of the truck. Scooby was driving, with Hawk riding shotgun. There were four other Howling Death members riding in the back. She truly felt like a prisoner who had just been sprung. She couldn’t stop the soft chuckle that escaped.
“What’s so funny?” Terror asked as he climbed up next to her and started fastening her seatbelt.
“I was just thinking that this feels like a jail break and I’m the prisoner,” she said with a huge grin.
“Who’s a prisoner?” Rage asked with a frown when he’d gotten in on the other side.
“No one anymore,” Mia said, squeezing his hand. “You and the guys broke me out.”
“And we always will, baby girl,” Rage told her, kissing her lightly on the cheek.
“Let’s ride!” Terror told Scooby.
Scooby started the truck, and what sounded like a hundred motorcycles did the same behind them. She turned as much as she could to watch as they pulled out of the hospital’s drive as at least twenty bikes filed in behind them. It all felt surreal to her. She’d been existing, making a living and thinking she’d never have a family since she couldn’t have children, when out of nowhere two men rode in on shiny steeds that roared like lions and ran like the swiftest cheetah. They swept her off her feet and accepted her into their fold like a lost lamb. She could never repay them or the others for the gifts of their trust and friendship, or for the pledge of protection they promised.
“What are you thinking about?” Terror asked. “You’re so solemn-looking now.”
“Just thinking about how blessed and lucky I am. There are hundreds, maybe even thousands, of women in the US alone who never find what you and the club have given me. I feel for them,” she said.
Rage leaned over and tilted her head toward him. “No, babe. We’re the lucky ones. Instead of turning your nose up at us and expecting the worst, you accepted us and made us want to be better for you. We could have taken that key and you would have never known it. We could have sold those weapons and made enough money to finance a small country easily, but that would have been saying that what had happened to you and Glenn had been for nothing—that the sacrifice he made knowing it might cost both of you your lives had been nothing but pissing in the wind. We couldn’t do that to you and because of you.”
“Then it was all worth it in the end,” she said with a smile. “I blamed Glenn for doing something illegal all this time, but you gave me back the good part of him by showing me that what he’d done hadn’t been for money, but to help keep our little part of the world safe. For that alone, I love you both, but I also love you because you are you. I feel beautiful around you. I feel like everything is right with the world, and the two of you gave that to me.”
“Scooby, I think you need to get them home and pretty damn quick, too. I like a good porno flick now and then, but seeing their white asses just doesn’t do it for me,” Hawk said, staring straight ahead.
Scooby laughed until Hawk popped him on the back of the head and told him to drive. The normally twenty minute ride from the hospital to their part of the land took less than fifteen minutes after that.
Mia couldn’t stop the tears when they stepped into the clubhouse to find that it had been transformed into a sweet reception hall with all the Old Ladies, girlfriends, and bike buddies gathered around to welcome her home. The rest of the crew filed in behind them as they parked their bikes.
“They wanted to officially welcome you to the club, but before they can do that,” Rage said, “we’ve got to claim you as our Old Lady.”
Terror reached behind them and held up a leather jacket with the words “Rage and Terror’s Property” with The Howling Death’s brand in the middle. She smiled through the tears and nodded her head. Rage and Terror helped her put it on, and then each of them kissed her with hints at the hunger that simmered just below the surface.
When the catcalls and wolf whistles started up, they released her and held up their hands for silence. The crowd settled down once more.
“She is our reason to breathe,” Rage began. “Her safety means everything to us.”
Terror took over. “You are our reason to ride. The club is our family and keeping our way of life is our purpose. Live to ride!”
The club members lifted their fisted hands in the air and yelled as one, “Ride to live!”
Chapter Sixteen
“You never did tell me what was going on with those three men and their determination to get the club off the land,” Mia said as Rage and Terror bathed her one night several weeks later.
Terror was sitting behind her in the big tub, cushioning her body as Rage knelt on the outside, running the cloth over her in gentle swipes. They’d promised her that when they built their house behind the club that the tub and the shower would be big enough for the three of them.
“You know, it’s funny how all of it actually was connected in a weird, sort of disjointed way,” Rage said.
“How do you mean?” she asked.
“Well, let me see if I can put it in the right order, though I think it was actually one big cluster fuck that just sort of worked out that way,” Rage mused, kissing her nose. “Gaetti wanted the key and felt like he had it when he found you, so he set up negotiations with a foreign buyer using the Vipers as the go-between to keep his hands as clean as possible.”
“That’s a crazy assumption when he’d already killed Glenn and nearly killed me,” she muttered.
“I agree,” Terror said, nuzzling her neck. “But, he was thinking in degrees of clean, as in protecting his ass from terrorists should something not go well in the negotiations.”
“So, player one, Gaetti, pulls in players two and three, the Vipers and the unknown terrorists,” Rage continued. “The next player, who actually might have been the second player all along, was none other than Deputy Teddy Gowen.”
Mia interrupted him with a frown. “You mean he was part of all of this? I thought he was just a huge nuisance that I couldn’t convince that I wasn’t interested in him. I knew there was a reason he suddenly got interested in me when he’d never bothered me before.”
“Well, I think he’d been interested in you all along, but didn’t push because you made him nervous. He’s a pussy at heart. It took the promise of lots of money to bring him out of his sleazy shell,” Rage told her.
“He seemed to have a thing for the club in that he wanted to get rid of us so bad it burned his gut every time he saw us riding around town,” Terror added. “I think it was jealousy that he couldn’t throw it all out the window and ride, too. He didn’t have the guts, though, so he made it his mission in life to make life hell for the club.”
“That’s when he started researching you. You were the only waitress at the bar who would serve the MC, and because you didn’t show fear or act nervous, he assumed you were in with them somehow. So he dug into your past to try to
unearth some dirt to use against you. His research alerted Gaetti of where you were. He had moles in key places who reported the ripple in your files from Settler’s Point.” Rage had stopped bathing her now, but he didn’t stop touching her, his hands rubbing softly up and down her shoulder and arm.
“So he figured out I was living here and decided he all but had the key in his hand. That’s when he contacted players two and three about negotiations,” Mia surmised.
“Exactly,” Terror told her.
She frowned and shook her head. “I still don’t see where that has anything to do with the land.”
“Patience, grasshopper,” Rage said with a grin. “I always wanted to say that.”
Terror chuckled and splashed water on his brother. “Just get on with it, Rage.”
Laughing, Rage splashed Terror back then started talking again.
“Well, the Vipers needed to be able to cross our territory to keep low on the law’s radar, and highway 64 turns into 164, which puts them in our territory but out from under most law enforcement’s priority monitoring. So, they were threatening a war to psych us up to agree to letting them use 64 and 164 without retaliation, which would bring the law where they didn’t want it. They felt that if they kept us wondering about an all-out attack that when they only asked for permission to use those roads bypassing the town that we’d easily agree, and they were basically right.”
“But what about the three men?” she asked again. She’d never known a man to go into so much detail over telling a story unless it revolved around sports or hunting.
“She’s got no patience, brother.” Terror laughed. “We’re going to have to teach her some.”
Rage grinned. “I’m looking forward to that, too.”
Mia blew out a breath and growled. “Finish it already!”
“Okay, okay.” Terror gave her a quick, hard kiss before continuing. “One of the real estate agents in town found out that they were going to utilize some of the older highways and roads between Kansas City and Amarillo to create a four-lane interstate to connect the two cities. There were some new manufacturing companies who were considering land along one of the roads but needed a four-lane highway to support the increase in eighteen-wheelers traveling up and down that stretch of road. Don’t know how he found out about it, but when he researched to see what land in the area they would need to build the road, he came up with our club’s land.”