“I’m very capable of driving and I didn’t turn around. I’m coming to you. I shouldn’t, but I am.”
“Are you crazy about my cock or my brains?”
She knew he was teasing her, trying to get her to laugh when she’d been upset. He didn’t want her crying and driving. She could love him so easily. “That’s a fair question. Let me give it some thought. It might take me some time.”
“Ledi.”
There was a bite to his voice that sent blood pounding right through her clit. Right then, had he asked, she would have immediately said it was his cock she was crazy for. What was it about his voice that got to her the way it did?
“The proper answer is both.”
She waited a couple of heartbeats on purpose, a smile curving her lips. Happiness blossoming. She didn’t have any right to feel happy, but Absinthe made her that way in spite of everything. “Yes. Yes, of course. Why didn’t I think of that?”
He laughed. “You’re about an hour out.”
“Thirty-three miles is not an hour.”
“On that road it is.” Now his voice sounded stern. “Does it take you an hour to drive it?” She put snip into her tone. “Being a man and all?”
“Before you throw attitude, Miss Scarlet, it has nothing to do with you being a woman and me being a man. The Harley can take the curves at a higher rate of speed simply because I am used to the road and know it so well.”
“It just so happens I’m a very good driver,” she said. She was. She wasn’t bragging. Well. Okay. Maybe a little. Just that fast he’d turned her entire mood around. She was happy all over again and very certain she was making the right decision.
“Scarlet.” He went to serious, all teasing aside. “I don’t want anything to happen to you. I absolutely believe you’re a good driver and you can cut several minutes off that drive, but I’d rather you not chance it. Just get here safely. I’ll drink a few extra cups of coffee and shoot the shit with a couple of the brothers while I’m waiting for you.”
Everything in her stilled. Her mouth went dry. “A couple of the brothers?” she echoed.
He didn’t hesitate. “I told you I was raised with a bunch of hell-raisers. A couple of sisters and fourteen brothers.” He cleared his throat. “And Demyan. I told you. He didn’t make it out.”
She let out the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “Yes, I remember, your brother.” His birth brother, older than him. She would never forget that, any more than she would forget her own younger sister. It was another tie that bound them together. She had to stop looking for reasons not to trust him. “Are they really all hell-raisers?”
“Sadly, yes. I’m the nicest of the lot.”
She found herself laughing again. “Do they all live close to you?”
“Yeah, we tend to stay very close. We look out for one another, watch each other’s backs. We all lost too much and aren’t willing to lose anyone else we love.”
She didn’t know what that would be like—to have someone watching her back. “I’ve been alone since I lost my family. I didn’t realize how much I stay to myself until I met you.” She could hear the lie in her own voice and hoped he couldn’t. Maybe it just sounded loud to her because she felt guilty lying to him.
There was a long silence. Yeah. He heard it and he didn’t like it.
She sighed. “I shouldn’t have said that. I think I just retreated from the world after I lost them. You’re the first person I’ve really let into my life at all.”
The road climbed up the mountain in a long series of switchbacks. The drop-off was steep, trees rising from below trying to climb out of the valley, the tops swaying alongside the turnouts, providing a reality check of just how deep the drop actually was.
“I’m grateful you let me in, Scarlet,” Absinthe told her. “Each day that I went to the library you brought me a sense of peace when I needed it the most. Some days I thought I was losing my mind.”
“It was the library, not me, silly.” She wanted it to be her.
She maneuvered the car around a particularly sharp curve. There was a large pond, very marshy, with reeds that protruded like a great jungle all around it. Vivid green plants grew on the surface of the water. A broken wooden fence added to the picturesque look of the landscape, and then she was sweeping around the next bend in the road, up into a grove of shady redwoods.
“It was definitely you, moya literaturnaya ledi. Do you have any idea how many libraries I’ve gone to over the years? There are libraries closer to where I live and none of them ever stilled the chaos that eats me alive sometimes. You do it. That’s all you. Sometimes, I feel that I’m going crazy, that I can’t get my brain to just be still, to be quiet, even when I go to the library, my one refuge, and there you were, my perfect ledi.”
“Absinthe. I’m not a perfect lady.”
“You’re my perfect ledi. You don’t have to be perfect for anyone else. Just me. You fit with me, Scarlet. Hopefully, you feel that I fit with you.”
She loved that. She hadn’t thought of it that way. She only had to fit with Absinthe. No one else. He definitely fit with her. She liked that he thought she was perfect for him. Maybe her imperfections were what drew him to her. Everything about him, so far, had drawn her to him. He had a way of thinking that made her believe she had a chance at life.
“These hell-raising brothers of yours …”
“I may as well tell you my sisters are a bit of hell-raisers too.”
She laughed aloud at the mixture of mock exasperation and very real affection in his voice. “This family of hell-raisers you have, are they going to be around a lot?”
“They’ll be in our back pockets,” he admitted with another exaggerated sigh. “You’ll learn to ignore them.”
Her heart took a little plunge. “I’m not good with a lot of people,” she confessed, genuinely worried again.
“They’ll have your back too, Scarlet,” Absinthe said, confidence in his voice. “They’ve suffered loss, just the way we have. Every single one of them. I wanted to meet with you at the coffee house, somewhere neutral where you would feel safe, because I want to tell you as much as I can about me, about my life and my family, so you know me, you know us, and you feel comfortable enough to make an informed choice. I want to be your choice all the way. I want you to give me your trust, and to do that, baby, you have to know me.”
She took a deep breath. He was so amazing. He was everything she wasn’t. Willing to make himself vulnerable, turn himself inside out in order to take a chance with her. She wanted to be like him, give herself to him so freely. Jump in with both feet. There was a time she could barely remember, when she was young, that she used to trust everyone. She couldn’t remember her mother ever yelling at her. She believed in people and always told Scarlet that there was good in everyone. Her mother was wrong.
“I swear, Absinthe, I’m coming to you to do the same.” She was. To the best of her ability, she was determined to give him what he’d asked of her. She was going to give him the woman she’d locked away—Scarlet Foley.
Absinthe glanced down at his phone. A message had come in from Code and there was an alert on it. “Gotta go, babe. See you in a few.” He waited for her acknowledgment. Then he checked in with his team. “Transporter, you have her yet?”
“Your woman drives like a bat out of hell, Absinthe. She knows her way around a car and a road, that’s for damn sure.”
“Stay on her and pass her off as soon as possible. She has good instincts, and if she picks up that she’s got a tail, she’ll ghost out of here so fast we won’t know what hit us.”
Code’s message was to call. It was urgent. Absinthe did so immediately.
“Patching you in on a conference call, Absinthe, with Czar and Steele as well,” Code said. “I’ve got an alert on that bastard Holden any time he contacts his security company or his attorney, or Scarlet’s name is mentioned. Basically, any time he moves. He rages against Scarlet more and more. At this po
int, he’s obsessed with her.”
Absinthe clenched his teeth, wanting Code to get on with it. He felt like reaching through the phone, grabbing him by the throat and shaking the information out of him. Instead, he calmly picked up his cup of coffee and took a sip, looking out at the street. The umbrella over his head was striped green and white, casting some shade over the table and chairs. No one but Torpedo Ink sat at the tables in the outside patio, but several cars lined the outside drive-thru to get drinks.
“Seems to be half the world is obsessed with Scarlet,” he said.
“She’s that kind of woman,” Code conceded. “Holden’s offered a reward to the Venomous club to bring her to him. He wants her alive so he can make her suffer. He made that very clear, over and over. She is to be alive. He doesn’t much care what shape she is brought in or how badly used—in fact, the worse the better—but she has to be alive.”
Absinthe’s gut knotted. He glanced at Savage and Lana and then across to Mechanic and Alena. They would be sent a report. He could imagine how they would all take it. They knew what it was like to receive the kind of treatment Holden was paying to have Scarlet get.
“Holden waited for time to go by, and he’s done it carefully so law enforcement doesn’t get wind of it. His attorneys represented members of the Venomous club and another little-known club called Twisted Steel. They were on the same run we were on not too long ago,” Code reminded. “In any case, he made a very large offer to have the VCs pick her up, giving them first option before going to other clubs with his offer. He told them they had two weeks. I imagine they started out right away. He told them exactly where she was, her home address, her work address.”
Absinthe’s heart dropped. He actually started to rise as if he could outrun the order Holden had given. There were eyes on her, he consoled himself. She was a good driver and she was already very close to the coffee shop. Once she was there, Torpedo Ink would ensure she was safe.
“When was that offer made to the clubs?” Czar asked.
“The attorneys took it to the two clubs last night. I caught it because one of the attorneys always makes a point of recording anything Holden says because he’s afraid Holden is going insane and will turn on all of them. The moment it appeared in his files, the alert was sent to me. If Holden knew about those files, he would lose his mind. There’s some fairly damning evidence.”
“All of which I’m certain you have now.”
“That is correct,” Code said.
“Send the others the reports,” Absinthe ordered. “Thanks, Code. I really appreciate the heads-up. I hope she packed enough to stay with me for a while. She isn’t going back until I can sort this out.”
“We can get her things for her,” Code said.
“Don’t forget we have that job in Sacramento as well, Absinthe,” Czar reminded. “This is all hitting at the same time.”
“I’m in,” Absinthe said. He was part of team one and wasn’t about to let them down.
Absinthe didn’t dare warn Scarlet. She would turn around the moment she knew he was in her business. As it was, he was going to have to be careful how he revealed everything to her. He would be as honest as possible, but he wasn’t going to just let her leave and be killed because her feelings were hurt. Shit. He shook his head.
Savage looked down at his phone as the report came in and then up at him. He stood up and came straight to the table to drop into the chair across from Absinthe. He was a stocky, compact man, all muscle and steel, a scary, dangerous individual with the flattest, coldest blue eyes anyone might ever want to see. Absinthe was used to him, but being in close proximity with him, even outdoors, when his demons were riding him so hard, was difficult.
“I can take care of this for you,” Savage offered. “Holden is a piece of shit. He’ll keep coming at her.”
It was that easy. It was always that easy. Savage was the club’s go-to man. If not him then his brother, Reaper. Reaper had Anya now and Czar was doing his best to keep him from having to do so much of the dirty work. Absinthe could have told him; it was Savage who needed to be protected far more than Reaper did now that Reaper had Anya to anchor him. Savage had no one and he was being eaten alive.
Absinthe shook his head and leaned back a little in his chair, watching Savage with cool eyes, trying to find a way to help him. There was always a pathway, but in opening it, that connected them, and Absinthe had more than once spent months trying to get images from Savage’s mind out of his head.
“Czar is working on a plan to take all of them down—the corrupt attorneys, the judges involved, any cops, all of them,” Absinthe said. “Thanks, Savage. I appreciate the offer. Once she’s sitting right here with me, I’ll feel a whole hell of a lot better.”
“Just understand the offer’s always on the table. Send me the green light and I’m on it.” Savage started to rise.
Absinthe leaned forward and he sank back down. “The Venomous club is really working to chip away at the Diamondback territory here in Northern California. Do you think they’ve really grown big enough to challenge them and no one has noticed?”
Savage shook his head. “Diamondbacks are the biggest club out there. They have chapters all over the world. They aren’t the bloodiest by any means, but they have more chapters and more members than any other. The Venomous club is a gnat flying around.”
“Czar said two of the three nightclubs were being negotiated for purchase by the attorneys for the Diamondbacks and the Venomous club attorneys swept in and made a deal that fast and took it out from under them. Both clubs, same time. Same seller owned them. He signed the deal and got out of town. Far more money for him too. That was on the Diamondbacks for trying to force the strip club owner to sell to them far below what the clubs were worth,” Absinthe said.
“True,” Savage agreed. “But the real question is, how did the Venomous club know to swoop in and take the deal?”
“That is a damn good question.”
“I think so too,” Savage said. “I don’t know, Absinthe, but it seems to me, ever since we took that job and ran across the Ghosts and the Russian’s assassins, we’ve run into more and more snitches. Not in our club, but I think other clubs have them planted in them.”
Absinthe took a sip of his coffee. It had grown cold. He’d never liked cold coffee and he pushed the cup away. Shit. Savage was right. “You think the Russian has someone in each of the clubs feeding him information?”
Savage took his sunglasses out of his pocket and shoved them on his nose, hiding his glacier-cold eyes from the sun that was now permanently out. “No, he wouldn’t waste his manpower that way. He would use his men to come at us, because he’s a fucking pedophile and loves little kids. That means we aren’t going to stop until we find him. He has to find a way to get someone in with us. No, someone else is looking to get an ‘in’ into the clubs.”
“The Ghosts,” Absinthe guessed. “They’re just a bunch of dumb fucks looking to make money off the clubs. They have no idea who the Russian is or who the supposed hit men they use are. They’re playing with fire and eventually, they’re going to get burned. You can bet the Russian knows who they are. It’s the Ghosts buying off snitches in the clubs.”
“Has to be. They have money and they’re paying the weak links in the clubs for information. Get the right intelligence on them, or use the right bribe.” Savage shrugged. “The Diamondbacks are a big club. That big, you’d like to think all the brothers are solid, but it only takes one bad one and that one can bring a lot of good brothers down. Who owns the other strip club?” he added.
“The Venomous club rent it from a woman named Haley Joico. She has a very big insurance policy on the building and had a sit-down with the Diamondbacks recently. They wanted to buy it from her, and she refused to sell. She wouldn’t sell to the Venomous club either. Both clubs got a little rough with her, but she didn’t cave. According to Code, she inherited the club from her uncle and she’s trying to make it work for the women who work th
ere. He had one of the few places with a good reputation for his girls. Good pay, safe work environment, that sort of thing.”
“I take it we’re not burning that one to the ground,” Savage said. “Does Code know what the club manager is doing with it? If the Venomous club is running the place, how did they manage to wrest it out of her hands?”
“He’s looking into that. It wouldn’t make sense that she refused to sell and then turned around and rented it out, leaving her girls in the club’s hands anyway,” Absinthe said. “Czar wants the information before we head out.”
“Sucks that your woman is under threat and we’ve got this hanging over our heads,” Savage said. “Is Czar insisting you go with us?”
“I’ll go. I’m part of the team. We don’t break up the team, you know that.” Absinthe had the feeling Savage was testing him.
“That’s what I thought you’d say.” There was a small silence. Savage took off his glasses and looked Absinthe in the eyes without blinking. “I need to find some action soon or something bad is going to happen.” He made the statement softly. There was no question. No asking for help. Nothing whatsoever in that gently worded declaration, but Absinthe knew what it meant.
His gut churned. He’d helped to cause this. It didn’t matter that he’d been a child and didn’t know better. He did now what he’d done then—used his gift. It was so much more powerful now. So strong. Few could resist his voice when he wanted to influence them. They didn’t use their talents on one another, it was strictly forbidden—especially his talent.
“You certain, Savage?” He had to ask. He hadn’t asked as a child. He’d done it to ease their pain. To make it easier for them. He hadn’t known what he was doing, what he was helping to create. He still didn’t know, if he had a choice, if he knew the consequences, if he still would choose the same path.
“I’ll kill someone, Absinthe. Or really hurt a woman. I don’t want to do that, even if she gives me her consent. I couldn’t live with myself if I did. You’ve managed to keep me going more than once. I don’t know how you do it, but you do.” He kept looking him in the eye. “I know it isn’t easy for you, so thanks.”
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