Angel's Halo: Atonement (Angel's Halo MC Book 5)

by Terri Anne Browning

  As we neared the entrance, Aggie came out from the back with my purse in her hands. “Take tomorrow off, Quinn,” she commanded with a small smile. “The place won’t fall into the poor house without you for one day.”

  “But—”

  “See you, Aggie.” Raider tucked me close before I could argue further and opened the door.

  “You drive safely with my girl in there with you, Raider Hannigan.”

  He tipped his head at her. “You don’t need to worry about that, Ag. I got precious cargo to take care of.”

  Chapter 21

  Raider

  In the parking lot, I opened the passenger door and helped her inside. She still had that dazed look on her face, as if she thought she was in a dream or some shit. Regret burned through me that she was so stunned I would treat her so gentle. I hated that I had wasted so many years with her, that I had ran in the other direction from what I had suspected we could have all along, but had been too much of a pussy to give it a chance.

  Only when she was safely inside the car did I release her hand. She was so tiny compared to me that I had to remind myself that she wasn’t nearly as delicate as she looked.

  Closing the door, I went around to the driver’s side and climbed behind the wheel after pushing the seat back as far as I could. Still, my knees touched the steering wheel and I had to shift around for a few moments before I could find a position that allowed me to drive without continuing to knock my knees into the wheel. She had the keys in her purse, but it had a push start.

  I didn’t drive a cage often. They were too confining, making me feel like I was trapped inside a metal box. Quinn’s little car was enough to make anyone over the height of five-foot-five feel claustrophobic.

  “Did that just happen?” she muttered half under her breath, as if she were talking to herself.

  “Did what happen, sweetheart?” I asked as I pulled out into traffic.

  She turned her head, blinking those baby blues at me like an owl. “My sisters. Aggie. You.” She shook her head, as if she needed to clear it. “I’m so confused right now.”

  “Okay, let’s reexamine what just went down. Maybe that will help you.” I glanced at her for a moment before turning my gaze back to the road. “I walked in and saw Whitney try to attack you. That dumbass bitch better watch herself. If she had touched you, she wouldn’t have been welcome back at the clubhouse. You know I wouldn’t hit a woman, sweetheart, but if she had hurt you, I would have laid her ass out on the floor.”

  Her blue eyes only widened more, driving home to me yet again what a complete idiot I had been over the years where this female was concerned. If I could go back and rewrite our history, I would have gone back to the first time I had seen her as more than my little brother’s best friend. Fuck, that had been when she was little more than seventeen, but damn, I would have made sure that nothing bad every happened to her. That she wouldn’t have to question every little thing I did or said now. I would have made her mine at the stroke of midnight on her eighteenth birthday and spent every day of those wasted years worshipping the very ground she walked on.

  “Why did you pick me up from work?”

  I reached over and took one of her hands, bringing it to my lips. “Because I missed you like hell, baby.”

  “Since last night?” she asked skeptically.

  “No,” I assured her, giving her my eyes for a second. I saw a flash of hurt that made her face twist. “No, Quinn. I missed you from the moment I left you the night of my brother’s engagement party.”

  “O-oh,” she breathed, lowering her eyes to her lap.

  Less than five minutes later, I was pulling into her driveway. I noticed that my brother wasn’t there, but Kelli’s car was right where it had been when I had left the night before. Hoping that she was still in bed so I would have a little privacy with my female, I turned the car off and hurried around to the passenger side to open the door before she could do it herself.

  Her baby blues only widened more, if that was possible, as I took her hand and linked our fingers together once again, pulling her toward the house. Something as simple as holding a woman’s hand was new to me, but I was getting the appeal of it. I got to touch her, got to hold on to her, and pull her close if I wanted … and I wanted.

  The heat of her small hand packed a powerful punch, bringing me a kind of peace that I was starting to realize I had been missing for most of my life.

  At the front door, Quinn pulled her hand free to get the house key out of her purse, and I missed the warmth of her fingers around mine.

  I wasn’t blind to the fact her fingers were shaking, making it difficult for her to fish around to find the keys.

  I calmly took the purse from her and opened the thing myself. My hands were considerably bigger than the actual purse itself, so instead of helping, I only made the situation worse.

  I heard her snicker and couldn’t help grinning as I handed the purse back. I was glad that shocked look was starting to fade from her beautiful face. Now a half-smile teased at her lips as she took the purse from me, making her luscious lips look so damn kissable.

  Temptation was too hard to resist. Cupping my hand around her neck, I used my thumb to tip her chin up then dipped down to steal a kiss. Her body went completely still, but I didn’t let that stop me. She tasted too damn good to pull back.

  I licked her full bottom lip, teasing her mouth open so I could dive deep. A kiss had never tasted so good. Then again, I wasn’t much into kissing. Kissing wasn’t part of what I did with the females I had fucked in the past. It was too personal, too intimate. I hadn’t kissed anyone in years, but right then, it felt like it was the most natural thing to do in the world.

  Her shy tongue brushed against mine, as if silently asking me for more. I pulled her closer, moving my hand around her waist and sliding it down to cup her ass. Then I moved the hand at her neck so I could wrap her ponytail around my wrist, holding her head at the exact angle I needed to explore her mouth deeper.

  Neither of us noticed when she dropped her purse; all I cared about was that her hands were now on me, touching my chest under my leather cut. She moaned softly, just the barest of a sound that could have easily been mistaken for a kitten’s purr.

  She pressed one of her hands to the center of my chest, right over my pounding heart. There was no way she could miss how crazy it was beating, no more than she could miss how my dick flexed against her waist, demanding attention. But this kiss was too good for me to care about that part of my anatomy right then.

  If she were any other female, I would have pressed her up against the front door and fucked her then and there. She wasn’t just any female, though.

  She was mine.

  And I wasn’t about to let anyone see what my female looked like when I was inside her.

  She moved her hands from my chest to the back of my neck, holding on as I kissed the breath out of her. Those soft, little moans were getting louder, more insistent. All I wanted was just a few more minutes of savoring the taste of her wicked little mouth …

  The sound of a car idling pulled me back from the edge of madness. I carefully lifted my head, and Quinn buried her face in my chest, her body trembling with a need that only made me ache ten times worse.

  I pressed my lips to the top of her head and turned to see who was in the car I kept hearing. Quinn had several neighbors on either side of her, as well as across the street. It was a pretty safe area of the county, something I was sure my brother had made sure of before letting her move in to the house. It was safe, but more in the lower-class rather than middle.

  The big, black SUV that was sitting at the end of Quinn’s driveway definitely stood out in this part of the county. The windows were so darkly tinted that I couldn’t make out how many people were inside. I didn’t know who the fuckers were, but somehow, I knew this was not a group of girl scouts there to sell us cookies.

  I tightened my hold on her, shifting so she was shielded by my body, out of sig
ht of whoever was inside the beast of a utility vehicle.

  The driver revved the engine when he noticed me looking their way. The back window on the driver’s side lowered and I barely had time to recognize the glint of the sun reflecting off the tip of a gun before the bullets started flying.

  “Fuck,” I growled when I felt the sharp slice of pain of a bullet grazing my left arm and pulled my Glock out of my holster. I turned just enough to fire a few shots back, but had other things to worry about right then.

  “Raider!” Quinn screamed in terror as the bullets kept coming.

  There was no time to find the damn key and the door would take too long to break down. I needed to get her out of the line of fire. The living room window was right there.

  Tucking her close, shielding her from the shower of gunfire, I grabbed the heaviest thing I could find in a split-second and used it to shatter the window.

  Lifting her, I tossed her into the house before following her in. Glass was everywhere, but I didn’t have time to worry about Quinn getting cut. I was too damn worried about keeping her from taking a bullet. She was on the floor, yet the bullets were still flying too close to her body. I fell on top of her, using my body to shield hers as we crawled toward the back of the house.

  Just as quickly as the bullets had started, they stopped. I didn’t understand why at first, but then I heard the distinct sound of sirens. For the first time in my life, I was glad the cops were showing up.

  “Are you okay?” I demanded when Quinn just laid under me, so still I couldn’t even tell if she was breathing. “Quinn? Baby, talk to me.”

  “I … I-I think I’m okay.”

  My fear for her didn’t lessen. “You think, or you know?”

  “I … I don’t know.” There was a quiver in her voice. “I think I might be bleeding.”

  The thought of her hurt, of blood leaving her precious body because of those motherfuckers, had my rage boiling. I cautiously lifted myself off her and turned her over onto her back. Then I carefully ran my shaking hands over her body, trying to find where she might have gotten shot or where glass could have cut her. There were several scratches on her arms that I saw immediately, a few that might even need stitches.

  Outside, I heard the powerful SUV burning rubber as they hurriedly drove off.

  “Quinn!” Kelli shouted from what I could only assume was the direction of the bedrooms. I lifted my head when I heard her coming at a run. “Quinn!”

  “Kelli, are you okay?” I demanded.

  “I’m fine. I called the cops when I noticed the damn SUV out there. They told me it was probably just a fucking neighbor.” Her face was twisted in disgusted anger. “I was still on the phone with them when the bullets started flying in every direction.”

  “I’m not complaining, but what the hell made you call the cops in the first place?” I slowly got to my feet, glass and other debris falling off my back. The room was clouded with a mist of dust, plaster, and small pieces of glass that had yet to settle down.

  “Because I recognized the vehicle from the parking lot at work last night. I thought it was a creeper stalking Quinn or something.”

  My blood turned to ice in my veins. “You recognized it? Do you remember who it belonged to?”

  She grimaced. “There were two SUVs like that there last night, both of them full of guys in expensive suits. I think they were all together. They made Topaz happy when they started flashing around rolls of hundred dollar bills. It was why she was so set on Quinn dancing that set.”

  “What did they look like?”

  “Dark hair, dark eyes, tan complexions. I think I heard them talking in Italian.”

  Three cop cars pulled into the driveway, their sirens deafening everyone in the room. I bent and lifted Quinn to her feet, my hands continuing to skim over her body in case I had missed any other injuries.

  When I didn’t immediately see anything, except the scratches, I pulled her against me. I held her there for a long moment, my lips pressed to the top of her head as I kept reminding myself that she was okay.

  A phone rang, making Quinn jump at the sudden noise. Kelli lifted the phone I hadn’t noticed she was holding to her ear. “Hello?” She rolled her eyes while she listened. “No, dumbass, I’m dead and talking to you from the grave. You fuckers are slow as hell, you know that? How about you go find who just shot up my house, huh? We’re fine in here.”

  She hung up on them, shaking her dark head in exasperation. “That was the cops. They wanted to know if we are okay. Guess they are too pussified to actually knock on the door.”

  I turned my head to glance out the broken window and saw two of the three cop cars backing out, going in the direction I could only assume the SUV had gone in. The cop in the other car kept glancing at the house, as if debating coming inside or not.

  Quinn tightened her arms around me, as if she were afraid I was going to release her.

  That was never going to happen.

  My cell buzzed in my pocket, and I pulled it out, seeing Colt’s name on the screen. I lifted it to my ear. “Where are you?”

  “At the bar.” His voice was strained. “I just heard there was something going on at Quinn’s house. How close to there are you? Can you check on them for me?”

  “I’m here, man.”

  The cop must have finally made up his mind, because I watched him start toward the front door.

  “What the hell is going on?”

  “We’re going to have to talk about that later. Cops are about to knock on the door. Just know that Kelli is fine, and Quinn only has a few scratches, but they should be looked at by Raven or Doc.”

  The doorbell rang and Kelli carefully walked around the shattered glass to answer it.

  “Tell Bash we need to go on lockdown. Get the kids and the women to the clubhouse.”

  “Are you sure that’s all that’s wrong with Quinn?” He didn’t sound like he trusted my report on her. “Let me talk to her.”

  “Hold on.” Pulling back enough to look down at her, I saw that she was silently crying. Her face was pale and her lips were completely bloodless. “Sweetheart, it’s Colt. Do you want to talk to him?”

  She started to shake her head, but then seemed to change her mind. “Okay,” she whispered, and I handed over the phone. “C-Colt?” She closed her eyes, her body sagging against mine. “I … No, I don’t know. I’m not in any pain. I-I just feel a little wet.” Her voice shook more and more with each word that left her lips until she broke down and started sobbing. “I think I should see a doctor.”

  Worried about her, I took the phone back and pressed it to my ear.

  “I’m coming,” Colt was saying from the other end, his voice sounding almost as choked up as hers was. “Just stay calm, Quinnie. I’m on my way.”

  Chapter 22

  Matt

  I felt like I was a chauffeur, driving around with my brother. I couldn’t remember the last time we had been in the same vehicle together. From the time we could ride a hog on our own, that was how we got from Point A to Point B.

  However, ever since I had broken my fucking hand punching some douchebag college kid at the bar, I couldn’t ride much. Not at all. Which was driving me fucking crazy. The cast wouldn’t allow me to drive my bike so we were stuck in my truck since it was the only thing I could drive one-handed these days.

  The only reason he was even with me was because we were on red alert for the fucking Italians. Santino’s man, Fontana, had a grudge with us. Nothing new about that. The Santino crime family always had their panties in a twist over us for one thing or another every day of the week. We worked for their opposition, so we were just as much enemy number one as the Vituccis were.

  “Where we going?” Tanner asked from the passenger seat of my truck.

  My F-150 double cab was usually in our garage, so it barely had a thousand miles on it, even though it was over three years old. Most of those miles I had put on it the last few weeks. It had been weird as fuck at first,
but I was finally starting to get used to it again. I was itching to get the cast off, though, so I could go back to my hog.

  “I gotta check on something,” I muttered, turning left at the intersection in town that would take us by the courthouse.

  “Gracie got court today or something?”

  “Don’t know,” I told him honestly.

  Right then, Hawk’s female was at the bottom my list. Everything else could go to hell for the time being for all I cared. I only had one thing on my mind, one person. I needed my fix, or I was going to feel jumpy for the rest of the day.

  I slowed but kept driving, passing the parking lot for the courthouse. I went by the municipal office that was beside it, then the police station that was on the next street. I could feel my brother’s eyes burning into the side of my head, trying to figure out what the fuck I was doing. He could judge me all he wanted; I didn’t give two shits what he would think once he realized what I was doing.

  What I had been doing for weeks now.

  The mayor’s office was on the other side of the police station. I drove past it at about fifty yards, then parked in the only space available on the same street. Turning off the truck, I unsnapped my seatbelt and sat back, waiting.

  “What the hell are you doing, little brother?” Tanner was eyeballing me like I was insane now.

  Maybe I was, but I didn’t honestly care.

  I shrugged. “You’ll see.”

  “Please tell me you aren’t hooking up with those bitches we were banging a while back.”

  I shot a frown at him, not remembering who he was talking about. I had banged plenty of bitches over the years.

  “I don’t remember their names, but one’s daddy is friends with the DA or some shit.”

  “Oh.” I still didn’t remember the girl he was talking about, although I did remember that I had fucked some chick a few times because she had said her daddy was the district attorney’s best friend, or something like that. I hadn’t really cared enough to remember. It had just been a little fun to try to distract myself. Not that it had worked. “No, this isn’t about that bitch.”