Torched

by Shay Mara

  The only thing we enjoyed more than sex in the heat of the moment, was sex after a fight. And fight we did, almost everyday and always about the most inane shit. Thankfully, it seemed Torch had dropped whatever curiosity he had about my past, although I had a nagging suspicion that he was still working some kind of angle, maybe hoping I’d get so worked up that I’d drop a hint or two. Or maybe it was just all about that rush and make-up sex for both of us, in which case, I couldn’t tell who the bigger instigator was.

  And it wasn’t just him pulling me into the chasm, the entire club lent a hand. The old ladies were especially welcoming, stopping by the garage almost daily, taking me out to lunch and even hosting a last-minute cookout in the parking lot. Not to be outdone, the men were just as friendly and kind. Grimm finally pushed the wrong button and got a Torch-sized fist to the jaw, but other than that, everyone behaved. Well, as much as this group of shit-talking hooligans could. Even the girls who hung around turned out to be pretty cool. With the exception of Nadia, who was a master of the stink eye and luckily hadn’t been around much since getting shoved to the side, no one else seemed to have any bad feelings.

  I also got to know the people and places of Linwood a bit better. Torch took me on a sight-seeing tour through the town, pointing out all the club-owned businesses scattered around. Along with the garage and salvage yard on the compound, they also ran a strip club, bar, tattoo shop, and hardware store. Their neighbors in the community were gracious and warm, or at the very least, gave respectful nods as we passed.

  Nothing else was said about the Serbs or Masters, not to me anyway. Whatever was happening on that front was only mentioned behind the closed doors of church. Torch hadn’t offered up and information, so I didn’t ask. He didn’t request more help, so I didn’t offer. Biff and I stuck to generic lessons and assignments.

  I knew the place of women in their culture, and it went without saying that I didn’t like it much, but these were all ladies who had made life choices knowingly and willingly. It wasn’t hard to see what they loved about being part of this extended family that took care of its own, and there was no way any of these tough bitches would ever be mistaken for Stepford wives, but at the end of the day, they were still expected to look the other way and let the men make a lot of major decisions for them. Suffice it to say, MC mentality went against what made me… well, me… and I remained lucid enough to know that I would never actually fit in. I didn’t look at the time I was spending among them as anything more than a working relationship with sexual perks.

  Were there deeper feelings there? Of course. But I did my best to keep a lid on them, proactively trying to cushion myself against an inevitable fall. At least some rational piece of brain tissue was still somewhat functional.

  Neil and I kept in touch more often than usual while he worked on the Bastian angle and tried to feel the guy out. I waited patiently, knowing there was no room for mistakes when it came to working with one of Mitch’s top dogs. Either he was serious and we could come to a deal, or Mitch had somehow found out about my connection to Neil and was using Bastian to play us. I’d been careful for years, but nothing was out of the realm of possibility. And with my dumb ass getting tangled up with the Serpents and showing my face all around town—knowing there was a chance they were still being watched—I’d probably managed to blow my own cover in a minuscule fraction of the time I’d spent protecting it.

  Fucking hell.

  : 21 :

  Something was off about her tonight and he couldn’t fucking figure it out. It wasn’t anything glaring in the way she walked or talked—Jet, Rox or Buddha would’ve noticed that and said something—but there was definitely some anxiety showing in her shifty eyes, at least to him.

  As he bullshitted with Jet and Buddha about that week’s upcoming repo runs in Fort Collins and Greeley, he kept an eye on her and Rox as they cleaned up in his kitchen.

  Liv cleaning up after him without so much as a snide comment? Yeah, something was definitely off.

  “Torch? You listening?” Buddha asked.

  Torch diverted his attention back to him. “Sorry, what?”

  “You gonna be able to tear yourself away from that pussy long enough to do these gigs?” Jet piped up. “Jesus, I feel like I need a shower just watching you eye-fuck her.”

  “Maybe I’m eye-fucking your wife,” Torch smirked. “Is she into three-ways?”

  He ducked as Jet’s boot came flying at his head.

  By the time they’d hammered out the details of the six different jobs they had lined up and Torch turned his sights back on the kitchen, only Roxy remained, putting away clean dishes.

  He got up and walked over to her. “Where’s Liv?”

  “Outside smoking I think. Here,” she said, tossing a dish towel at him, “wipe down after yourself. We all sit on that furniture.”

  He shook his head and chuckled, gave Rox a kiss on the cheek, and headed out to the patio.

  Liv had her back to him and was sitting by the crackling fire pit, smoking and talking on her cell. He slid the door open slowly and stepped out as quietly as he could.

  “Behind the Gelman steel mill. Wednesday,” she told whoever was on the other end. “I know you’re not comfortable with me going alone, but this shit needs to end once and for all… Relax, it’ll be fine. This deal’s as good as it gets for him... Okay. I gotta go… Later.

  He wasn’t sure what the hell to make of her end of that conversation, but he didn’t like the sound of it. At fucking all. From where he was standing, it sounded like she was planning a meet, which at least one other person thought she shouldn’t go to alone.

  She’d said something needed to end once and for all and the deal was as good as he would get. Was she talking about Henslow? She wouldn’t be stupid enough to fall for that shit, would she? At an abandoned factory of all fucking places?

  Torch strolled over, sat down in the chair next to her, and lit up his own cigarette.

  “Hey,” she said apprehensively, eyeing him like she was wondering how much he’d heard.

  “You alright?” he asked.

  She took a drag of hers. “Yeah, I was just talking to a client.”

  Right. A client.

  “Come here,” he said, extending his hand. She took it and let him pull her into his lap. “There something I should be worried about? You look tense.”

  “I’m just tired. Nothing to worry about.”

  “Not really buying that, sweetheart,” he argued.

  She reached up and caressed his cheek, then leaned in and kissed him. “Trust me, I’m fine,” she whispered. “It’s getting cold out here. Finish your smoke. I’ll be inside.”

  She kissed him again, probably trying to knock him off his fucking game, and got up. Torch slapped her ass as she walked around his chair and made her way inside.

  Trust her? When she was obviously about to pull something fucking insane? No chance. He reached into his pocket, pulled out his phone, and dialed it.

  “What’s up, brother?” Biff asked.

  “Hey, man. I need a favor...”

  : : : :

  “She’s two miles out,” Biff announced.

  Torch paced around the room, while Buddha, Zed, Mace, Gauge, Grimm, and Squid took their positions crouching behind glassless window frames in the crumbling building. The entire table had volunteered to do this with him.

  He hadn’t slept for shit after overhearing Liv’s conversation. Running through what he knew over and over, there really wasn’t an explanation he could think of that would end well. If he was right about Henslow, she was asking to get herself killed. He didn’t like jumping to conclusions, but knew better than to confront her. She’d either spin it or get pissed and take off.

  He couldn’t risk it. He’d called church and brought it to the table. Everybody was fucking livid when he passed around the police report and told them about his suspicions that Henslow was still after her.

  So, here they were, trying to see for the
mselves just what the hell they were dealing with and protect her if needed.

  A black Taurus pulled in from the right and parked in the lot just outside. It was only about fifty feet away, but the windows were too dark to see who was inside. Torch’s stomach was in fucking knots as he kneeled down next to Zed.

  Less than a minute later, Liv’s Infinity followed. She drove around the other car and parked facing it.

  The ten longest seconds of his life followed.

  She flashed her brights at the other car and its door slowly opened. A man looking to be in his mid-forties, with dark blonde hair and clean-shaved face, stepped out of the car, his hands in the air. In one of them, he held an envelope.

  “Who the fuck’s that?” Buddha asked. Biff had pulled Henslow’s mugshot and this guy looked nothing like him.

  “No idea,” Torch remarked, straining to get a better look.

  Liv finally stepped out of her cage, a gun trained on her target.

  “Dude, what?” Mace muttered.

  Silence fell as they all watched what happened next.

  She slowly approached the man, stopping a few feet in front of him, and motioned with the gun. He responded by lifting his sweater and pant legs, then turned around and did the same thing, clearly trying to show he wasn’t armed. Not satisfied, Liv cautiously walked closer, shoved the gun in his crotch, and frisked him. He wasn’t a big dude, just an inch or two taller than her.

  When she straightened up and tucked the gun away, her contact handed her the envelope.

  Liv snatched it, looked inside, and pulled out something tiny Torch couldn’t make out. After inspecting it, she nodded and walked back to her car, watching the man over her shoulder the entire way. Torch kept his weapon glued on the skittish-looking fucker, just in case he made any sudden movements. They were way too far to take a decent shot though.

  Fuck.

  From her car, she pulled out a laptop and set it on the hood. The man nervously looked on as she booted up and plugged in whatever the fuck he’d given her. A minute of furious typing later, she closed it shut and nodded again. She walked back around to her passenger door and bent down to lean in.

  That was when he noticed the guy’s eyes shifting between her ass and his driver’s seat. He had a look of panic.

  “Something’s not right,” Torch muttered. “He’s about to reach.”

  Sure as shit, at the very moment Liv stood back up and started moving toward him, the asshole reached in.

  “Go, go, go!” Mace called out.

  They ran out through the broken windows, guns drawn.

  When she twisted around in surprise, the man swooped in from behind and grabbed her around the shoulders. He dragged her backwards to his door, this time actually pulling something out.

  They all stopped in their tracks a few feet away as the sun gleamed off a long blade pressed against her throat.

  “Fuck! Stand down!” she roared.

  At them. She was telling them to stand the fuck down.

  “Now!” her captor added.

  Torch’s eyes burned into hers, trying to process what the fuck was happening. Because the weird part of all this was that she didn’t look scared, she looked goddamn pissed. “Liv—”

  “Put the fucking guns down,” she barked at them again.

  Torch looked around at his brothers’ confused faces and scowled.

  “Torch,” she hissed, bringing his focus back to her. A thin trail of blood was now running down her neck from behind the blade.

  “Do it,” he ordered the guys, reluctantly lowering his.

  The asshole released his grip and she pulled away, touching her throat in the spot where the blade had pierced her skin.

  But instead of running or even just taking a few steps back, she squared her shoulders and faced off against him, the rage on her face easily seen from where they were standing.

  It got even more intense as she looked at the blood on her fingers. “Are you fucking insane?!”

  “They came running! What was I supposed to do? You were supposed to be alone!” he argued.

  Before he could utter another word, she pulled her arm back and slammed a fist into the side of his face, sending him stumbling back against the hood.

  Fuck, the bitch had a mean right hook.

  And Torch still didn’t know what the hell they were watching. That’s all they could do. Every single one of them just stood there and watched.

  Completely unfazed, she kicked the knife out of his hand and reached down to pick up another envelope, this one a lot bigger and heavier than the other. It must have fallen at some point. Torch hadn’t even noticed it during the stand-off.

  She held it up. “If this is a fucking mistake, you better tell me right now, Bastien,” she warned. “Because the next time I feel like you’re a threat—in any sense of the word—I’ll hunt you down and fucking kill you myself. Slowly. Are we clear?”

  A trembling Bastien glanced at her, then over her shoulder at the boys.

  “Look at me,” she demanded.

  “Yeah… We… We’re clear,” he stuttered.

  “Good. Here.” She tossed him the envelope.

  His hands shook as he opened it and thumbed through the contents.

  “We good?” she asked.

  Christ, what the fuck? This was not the Liv he’d been sleeping next to every night. This version could terrify a grown ass man, including him. And it was also clear by now that this wasn’t a peace talk, she was making an exchange for information.

  He nodded. “Thank you… And sorry about the cut, I didn’t mean to. I just—”

  “It’s fine,” she said, setting her sights on Torch. “I wasn’t expecting company either. Just keep your mouth shut.”

  “I will.” With that, Bastien scurried back to his car, picking up the knife on the way. Seconds later, he was speeding out.

  Liv, hands on her fucking hips, stared them down. “What the fuck are you guys doing here? You could’ve gotten me killed,” she seethed.

  “What are we doing here?” Torch snapped back. “What the fuck are you doing? What is this?”

  She shook her head and mumbled something under her breath, then tried to walk around him to get to her car.

  He grabbed her arm. “Talk!”

  She stopped and breathed more fire. “This has nothing to do with you, Torch. I already told you what kind of people I deal with. I haven’t interfered in your business, so stay the fuck out of mine.”

  “You expect me to believe that was a fucking client?”

  “Right now, I don’t give a shit what you believe.” She yanked her arm away from him and took a step back. “You crossed a fucking line. This goes beyond being nosy. I’m getting my bike and having the car towed. We’re done.”

  : : : :

  The only reason he let her leave was to give her a chance to cool off. Biff had already installed a GPS tracker on her car. As soon as she peeled out, he was on the phone with Ty, instructing him to keep her ass there until they got back. Make no mistake, he was getting answers one way or another.

  Today. Enough was enough.

  All he wanted to do was protect her, why the fuck was he being made out to be the asshole?

  Shit was about to boil over, he could feel it in his gut as soon as he pulled in through the gates. Scanning the lot, he saw that both her car and bike were there.

  Jet walked up to him as he dismounted. “What the fuck happened, brother?”

  Torch just shook his head. “No clue. She in there trashing the place?”

  “Nah,” Jet chuckled. “Don’t think Liv’s that kind of psycho.”

  Wasn’t she? Fuck if he knew. He’d just met some radical alter ego, maybe there were even more waiting to come out.

  He braced himself for Hurricane Liv, but was met with an icy chill when their eyes locked. Flanked by Ty and Mack, she was sitting at the bar, tapping her fingers on the counter. “May I be excused, sir?” she asked, her tone oozing with contempt.
/>   “No... Girls, prospects, out,” he ordered.

  They kept staring at each other as the prospects and bitches scattered, practically knocking over the other guys making their way in. Ty handed him Liv’s keys and closed the door.

  She rolled her eyes, which just pissed him the fuck off even more. He wasn’t in the mood for a shitty attitude.

  He swooped in and pinned her to the bar top, a hand firmly planted on both sides of her. “I want answers, babe,” he fumed. “Start talking.”

  “Or what? You’ll lock me in your room until I do? Come on.”

  He slammed both palms down, making her jump. It wasn’t that he wanted to scare her—the last thing he wanted was to see fear on her face when she looked at him—but goddamn, nothing else seemed to work. It was time to quit being a fucking dipshit, waiting around for her to open up in her own sweet time.

  Fuck it. “Like what the Henslow’s did to you?” he growled. “No, sweetheart, I’m not that kinda man.”

  Her breath hitched and nostrils flared. “What?”

  “You fucking heard me.”

  He fished out the folded-up report and picture from inside his cut and held it up in front of her. When she snatched it out of his hands he took a step back and crossed his arms, trying to gauge her reaction as she read it.

  But she didn’t, not the whole thing. It was clear as day that she’d seen it before. After a quick scan, she held it back up. “How long have you had this?”

  “I’m the one asking questions here—”

  “There’s a fucking time stamp, Torch. Almost five weeks ago.”

  “Wasn’t like you were telling me shit,” he retorted.

  “So, what? You hired another investigator?”

  “Doesn’t matter how I got it, babe.”

  “No, it doesn’t. What matters is that you figured me out, right?” She smirked and held the picture up next to her face. “This is why you’ve been working your ass off to keep me close. Because this is what you see when you look at me, right?”