by C. M. Marin
I don’t know who that Sheridan guy is, and since he’s associated with that club, I don’t want to either.
The conversation resumes, no one pressing on what are that girl’s reasons for doing what she did.
“I’m sorry, Jayce, but besides losing the opportunity to find out more about them through their phones, I think it’s fucking dangerous to turn up there, even with another charter, without knowing how many men are going to be there. Especially if a fucking Cartel is involved in this shit,” Liam steps in, and his words spur my mouth to vomit my own without thinking.
“What if someone stops them without this someone being you?”
Chapter 20
Nate
Everyone shuts up as every pair of eyes in the room swing to Camryn, who is still sitting right where I left her on the couch five minutes ago. Not that I had forgotten about her. Just like whenever she’s around me, I could still sense her presence, so I knew exactly where she was. But I have complete trust in her, and it’s the same for my brothers because they trust my judgement.
That said, a woman taking part in our shit is unprecedented.
When no one seems to remember how to use their mouth, Cam goes on with a roll of her eyes. “Sorry, I didn’t realize the fifties were back. I can go back to knitting if it makes you more comfortable,” she deadpans.
Ben’s laughter thunders. That’s more usual.
“Are you offering your services, love?” he muses, and my eyes cut to him immediately. He carries on, either unaware of my death glare or not caring about it. “Don’t want to get ahead of myself, but I think Nate here will vote against that brilliant plan.”
“That is if I allow a fucking vote on this.”
Camryn ignores my growl. “However tempting this idea sounds, I’m not offering my services, no. I was thinking about sending the cops.”
Obviously, a few snickers get lost in the air after that. I do my best to keep mine to myself.
“In case you didn’t get the memo just yet, we don’t exactly work with blues, sweetheart,” Blane says.
A small smile tugs at one corner of his lips, which is enough to let us know he’s seriously amused. Blane’s not an overly smiley guy.
“I’m not saying you have to organize a picnic and exchange friendship bracelets. I was thinking more along the lines of using them. An anonymous tip they’d get about the time and place of the exchange. They’d have to check that out, right?”
“Not a cop, but that’s their job,” he says. “Though a tip to the feds would be more efficient in my opinion. Most blues are useless amateurs,” he snarls.
When we all simply keep our distance with the cops because of the life we live, Blane hates them deeply. He only shared his story in broad terms with me, but it’s still enough to know that every ounce of hatred he has for the so-called authorities is warranted.
“If someone else goes there―” Camryn starts.
“The exchange won’t happen, and we don’t risk putting ourselves directly in the line of sight of the Spiders and a Cartel if they do work with one,” Liam finishes for her.
“Yeah, running into a fucking Cartel would be bad,” Jayce admits, but his eyes still hold a clear trace of his irate temper he can barely contain. “And there’s no way we can ask a charter to take that risk either. Fuck. If playing this smart means involving the cops, I say so be it.”
Interesting.
“What do you think, Nate?” Brent asks.
I think I need to feed my blood with the strongest whisky I can find. And Cam’s penetrating gaze I sense on me doesn’t help me see straight. If I could hear her thoughts, I’d hear her reciting prayers for me to agree to that solution. And something tells me it’s not only because she thinks her idea is the best option we have. I’m sure she does think it is, but I’m also pretty damn sure she suggested it because it would make me stay here safely instead of going out there, a target for every criminal in sight.
The cops, for fuck’s sake. I can’t believe I’m even contemplating that option. Though using the fuckers has a nice sound to it.
“I think that barging in like stupid bullies would be damn close to suicidal. And Jayce’s right, we can’t ask for help. Like Ben said, there are too many variables. We can’t stupidly risk lives. But if something is really going down tonight, we can’t let it happen either. Hate to say this, but the black and whites are our best option right now. And if luck is on our side, they’ll have all Spiders’ asses in jail by tomorrow morning.”
Cody plumps down on the nearest couch while speaking, “If the feds catch them in the act, even their fancy lawyer will have a hard time getting them out of their shit.”
“And since they have no idea we’ve been suspecting them, there will be no retaliation against us,” Ben adds.
“Yeah, I think that’s the smartest move,” I decide. “Go ahead, Blane.”
“On it.”
As he walks away, his phone in his hand and his attention solely on it, Ben opens his mouth. “A party.”
Everyone else’s attention veers to him, but Camryn is the only one frowning.
“He means we need to throw a party tonight,” I enlighten her confused mind. “That way, dozens of people can witness us all here.”
“Oh.”
The last fucking thing I wanted tonight was party to keep up appearances. I’m aware Camryn and I spent the most part of the last twenty-four hours in bed, but I had planned to take her right back upstairs after we talked to Cody and got something to eat.
“Text everyone,” I tell Ben, sighing.
I’m about to apologize to Cam just as her phone rings in her pocket. As she gets busy taking it out, I turn to Jayce to check on my best friend who must feel like shit right now, but my body whirls back around as Cam’s first words leave her mouth.
“Hey, sexy.”
She catches my scowl, but it only makes her smile. I want to kill whatever fucker is on the other side of the line.
“Damn, Cam! I will never recover from the heart failure you caused me!”
A reflex has her pulling her phone away from her ear as a wince deforms her expression. Since the room has felt silent, I heard―we all did, I think―the girl’s voice as if she had been right here with us.
“Okay, breathe slowly and tell me what has your panties in a twist?”
The girl must be Colleen, since her best friend is the only person Cam ever talks to on the phone. It’s a girl, at least, so my blood goes back to a normal temperature. But as my brothers scatter, I don’t even envision moving away from Cam. Her face has suddenly paled so badly that I’m glad she’s sitting. I also wish Colleen were still squealing into the phone. All I can hear now is a distant mumbling that frustrates the hell out of me as sheer fear grows on Camryn’s face. A fear I also sense through her hand that clasps my forearm right after she jumped up to her feet and rushed to me.
“It’s Colleen,” she confirms what I’ve already figured out. “She’s outside my house and there’s a biker across the street.”
Fuck.
“No, I’m talking to Nate,” she says.
As she doesn’t specify who I am, I deduce that she already talked to her about me.
“Stay on the phone with her,” I tell Cam. “Liam, Brent, can you drive toward Cam’s house? What car does she drive?” I ask her, though I’m not sure Colleen even has a car since she most likely flew out here.
“How did you get there? A cab?” she asks her, apparently sharing my thoughts. There’s a short pause before she speaks again. “She has a rental. Colleen, go back to your car. Don’t look at him. Go back to your car and drive toward Twican.”
“What kind of rental?” Liam asks.
“What kind of rental do you have?” she relays his question to Colleen. There’s another pause while Cam listens to her. “Some black rental,” she winces as she looks at Liam. “A small one,” she adds apologetically.
Not as tense as I got, Liam snickers. “Tell her to flash her
lights when she sees two bikes. Should be us.”
As he jogs out behind Brent, Cam explains to Colleen what she has to do.
“Yeah, I know,” she says at some point. “It’s just that you worry too much about me.” She sighs, most likely after Colleen berated her for not telling her what happened to her recently.
“People will show up soon,” Ben says, looking up from his phone.
My focus doesn’t stray from the girl still clutching my arm. “I’ll explain everything when you get here. You’re driving already?” she asks her, then nods. “Okay, just drive. He didn’t follow her,” she informs me.
After another pause, she lets out a laugh, but a quiet agitation still has her body bristling. Sounds like she’s the most nervous out of both girls since Colleen most likely made a joke to tear that small laugh out of her.
“Of course you are.” Now annoyed for whatever reason, she sighs. “Yeah, okay.”
She hangs up, and I give her a quizzical look.
“She’s out of battery, as usual. But Liam and Brent should meet her soon, right?”
“Five minutes, tops. He didn’t follow her, that’s good.”
She nods hopefully, but the worry doesn’t dim in her eyes as she steps closer and presses herself against me. My arms go around her automatically, and Ben forces a scoff before walking away.
Dickhead.
“Thank you,” she murmurs. “She’s important to me.”
“I know.” I kiss her hair, inhaling her scent that always calms me. “What is she doing here?”
“She came for the weekend. She wanted to surprise me. It’s her who was surprised,” she snorts. “I didn’t tell her about the fire so she wouldn’t worry. She’s been worrying too much since…you know.”
Since that motherfucker pushed her knowingly into a year of useless grief.
“You girls are welcome to stay in my room. I’m sorry about the party, I know it’s―”
“No, don’t.” She shakes her head then grimaces. “I feel a little ashamed, actually. I suggested you send someone else because I was scared of you going there and getting hurt. I’m sorry.”
This girl. I have no fucking clue how a girl like her came to look at me like I’m everything she needs when I’m nothing she needs. I already had suspicions about what her reasons were for suggesting using the cops, but her admission goes straight to my chest, warming something deep inside me. But paradoxically, it also ignites a wave of chills running up and down my spine.
My life is messing with her head.
The only people I’ve always been close to are people who take the exact same risks I do. Until now, I hadn’t even thought that Cam was looking at all this from the outside. As unbelievable as it is, she cares about me, which is why she worries.
“I know you did, babe,” I say, chuckling when she frowns. “I know you were worried about me going there. But I agreed to that option because it was the smartest one,” I tell her the plain truth. “We aren’t ready. It’s too risky. You’ll find that difficult to believe considering what’s happened since we met, but most of the time, we deal with our bikes, our clients, run our shops, and everything goes smoothly. Not saying there are zero risks, but we’re cautious. We’re not some sort of mercenaries. We want to live.”
When I smile, her own barely spreads before she says, “I know, but look at Jayce’s family. You really think it was the Spiders?”
“It was, and we already knew that, but we didn’t have any proof so we couldn’t act on it. Now it makes sense. That kind of coincidence doesn’t exist. Isaac had owned his cabin since he was thirty and never had a damn problem. Then the Spiders start business there and he and his sons die. Not a coincidence.”
“Are you going to kill them?” she asks, and I’m surprised by the fact that her question comes out so bluntly.
Placing a hand on her soft cheek, I run my thumb over her soft lower lip.
“Now we have more than one reason to kill them.”
“I’m the other reason?”
“The guys and I talked shortly when I went down to grab something for dinner yesterday. Rod isn’t going to back off if you’re his daughter. We had already decided he needed to be gone, as well as his inner circle.”
She nods, though she looks deep in thought.
I know she understands what kind of man Rod is and why he has to disappear if she wants to live her own life peacefully. But sentencing someone to death isn’t something she’ll easily come to terms with. Maybe even less because she had to take two lives herself. Somewhere in her mind and heart, the guilt of having done that is still nagging at her. That’s why this feeling I’ve had for a while about her pulling away from me sooner or later won’t ebb. It stays dormant most of the time, but it’s there. Deep down, I know that even if she didn’t have a job waiting for her in LA, I couldn’t keep her near me. My world has already hurt her too much to let me do that.
Chapter 21
Camryn
“What you are saying is that a biker club burned down your house to kidnap you, and that another biker club is protecting you from your biological father and not-so-dead fiancé, who are the president and vice president of the former biker club?” Colleen summarizes quite well the events that happened soon after I started my pilgrimage to my hometown.
Slowly, I nod. “That’s basically what happened.”
She stares at me for a moment, almost like she expects to hear me add that I’m only kidding her. Then she bursts out laughing, and I become the one trying to decrypt what’s going on in her head.
“That must be a nervous laugh,” Ben supposes, not moving from his slumped position on the couch across from the one Colleen and I are sitting on.
His eyes don’t leave her, narrowed as though he’s as lost as I am.
“I’m… No, it’s… I’m sorry.” Colleen gets a grip on herself quite laboriously and looks at me. “I’m aware I told you a couple of times to start thinking about spicing up your life again, but I should have been more explicit, because this is just too much, Cam.”
“Ha, ha, ha… Glad to see you’re still the most hilarious.”
“No, sorry. It’s actually not funny,” she admits shamefully, but her chuckling doesn’t taper off. “That said, between you and me…” She adds that even though she’s perfectly aware of the fact Ben is listening to our conversation without bothering to hide it. “You didn’t exactly seem affected by a bad case of PTSD when I saw you being overly touchy-feely with sexy biker boy just ten minutes ago.”
The sarcasm that craves to come out of my mouth dies on my tongue, Jayce stripping me of the opportunity to give her more than a roll of my eyes.
“Where are you from?” he asks her as I only now notice him sitting on the same couch Ben is, though at the other end.
“Good evening to you, too,” she openly points out to him his lack of manners. “San Diego. Well, that’s where I was born, but I traveled a lot growing up. My mom isn’t the settling type.” She swings her head back toward me, grinning.
Her mom is definitely something else.
“How is she? I still feel guilty for skipping her sixth wedding.”
“I don’t,” she snorts―because she also missed it, though not for the same reason. “Hey, sixth wedding versus first fashion week ever. Not an unbearable dilemma.”
We had planned to go to the fashion week together. My plane ticket had been patiently waiting in my nightstand for a few months when the time of using it came, but I had bought it not knowing I wouldn’t be able to go through with the trip because I’d be a grieving mess uncapable of hopping on a plane and crossing the country for some fashion show.
“You missed your mom’s wedding to go watch gorgeous chicks parading in sexy clothes?” Ben asks her to confirm, sounding puzzled.
“I did, and I have no regrets. Less than nine months later, she’s going to divorce. Again. She told me yesterday.”
“No way,” I blurt out. “That’s the shortest.”
“New York.”
“How long have you been living there?”
Her gaze pauses on him before she answers. “If you have a form for me to fill out, we’ll save some time,” she starts, not seeming intimidated by this man whose size, piercing green eyes and tattoos can look quite scary when you first meet him. “I don’t know about your time, but mine is precious considering I hadn’t seen my best friend since Christmas. Or I can send you a copy of my rental agreement when I’m back home on Monday if you need the exact date of my moving in.”
“That won’t be necessary,” I scowl at Jayce.
What’s his problem?
“Jayce is cautious, that’s all.”
I don’t have to shift on the couch to know Nate has joined us and is now sitting on the armrest beside me. As though sensing my annoyance, he runs a palm up and down my back before squeezing my shoulder.
“Caution is a must in this life,” he goes on, looking at Colleen. “And something I can’t talk to you about is happening tonight, which means the club is on red alert.”
Puzzlement twists Colleen’s expression, and her brows draw together as her gaze drifts around her.
“You always party like wild ones when you’re on red alert?”
“The party’s an alibi. People are seeing us here, and the word will be spread in town tomorrow,” Jayce explains.
“An alibi? Am I likely to be put in jail by merely being here? Because I have been there once, and I found it too cold for me. With a fluffy blanket, maybe.”
I smile at the memory of the night she called me from a police station after a bachelorette party that had gone a little too far in terms of wildness.
“I think I’m in love,” Ben deadpans, gawking at her.
“Caution requires having every detail covered,” Jayce adds, ignoring Ben’s awestruck comment.
“I’m sorry, but this is more like serious paranoia, and that’s not healthy. Some yoga might help, though,” she suggests, and I muffle a laugh behind my hand. “You’re too high-strung. And very lucky your sexy side counterbalances it.”