by S. E. Jakes
“No more lights off. Ever,” I told him. He gave me that sly grin again. “Bastard.”
The way he looked at me made the world still. All the noise, the bullshit, stopped cold. He was all I wanted to focus on. Everything else fell away until it was just the beating of my goddamned heart, and he’d snuck in there when I wasn’t looking. When I was being too dense to notice, and he’d known it the entire time. Known and waited, semipatiently, until I’d discovered it.
His hand traveled along my side, the way it always did, slid under my arm, then settled, palm open, fingers splayed over my left side, fitting against the slope of my ribcage. He studied his hand and my skin intently, and now I realized he’d been doing that since our second night together.
His hand seemed to fit there, perfectly. I didn’t question why he did it. It was one of those things where, if I mentioned it, he might stop doing it.
Once his hand settled into its spot, my eyelids got heavy. His arm slung over me. An anchor. I slept, even though I didn’t want to.
When I woke, he was gone.
ust like the good old days, I’d rolled over and found myself alone. No roses though. Not even coffee.
I sighed. Stared at the ceiling, wondering if we were really going back there. But hell, was there any kind of future to move forward on with a guy from Havoc?
And speaking of assholes, I moved to grab the phone to call Noah for the first time in days, but the doorbell rang before I could dial.
I rolled off the bed and headed to the door, dressed in sweats, pulling on a flannel shirt as I went. Last time I’d looked, my cheek and chest were still covered in colorful bruises that would be slow to fade, and I was sore all over, but I’d stopped taking the painkillers.
I glanced out the side window. No black-and-white. I didn’t recognize the car, but I knew it wasn’t McKibbins’s. Still, when I opened the door and saw the guy I’d raced against last week standing there, I knew it couldn’t be good. For one thing, I’d never given him my address. Or my last name. Or any name, for that matter.
For another, even though he looked the same as he had that night, with old jeans, black boots, a ratty T-shirt, and a bandanna wrapped around his head, there was something different about him. The goddamned ATF badge he held out to me. Jethro Holmes.
I frowned. Stared between it and him. Waited.
Finally, he said, “We need to talk.”
“A lot of that going around,” I said with a smile but stepped aside.
He brushed past me. “I’ll just bet.”
I closed the door behind him. He’d already made himself comfortable on my couch, his long legs splayed in front of him. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but don’t you have some kind of official uniform when you come calling with your badge?”
He eyed me. “Seriously? I caught you racing a stolen car and you’re questioning my clothing choices?”
I shrugged. “Is that enough to arrest me?”
“Sadly, no.” He pointed to his T-shirt. “This shit’s vintage.”
“Are you pissed because I beat you? You can’t pull that, ‘I let you win because I’m really ATF’ bullshit.”
“For the love of Christ.” He shook his head, then got serious. “I was supposed to fucking win, asshole. So no, I didn’t let you do anything. I didn’t expect you to be there.” Then he sighed, stared up at the ceiling for a second before bringing his gaze down to me. “Rush, there’s a lot of shit going down. You’re in the middle of it.”
“No, I’m not actually. I’m pretty much done.”
“That’s what they all say.”
“This time, I mean it.” For him to introduce himself to me meant he was either damned confident I wouldn’t spill his secret to the Hangmen . . . or the Hangmen already knew what he was. Either way, it meant there were much bigger fish to fry than me or Noah.
“Noah Carson’s trouble,” he said, echoing Ryker’s sentiment. “Any idea where I can find him?”
“I haven’t spoken to him in days.” And that was the truth. I hadn’t called him—he’d texted a few times, but I’d ignored those too. Until just before Jethro came, I couldn’t figure out the level of pissed I was at him, and until I did, I wasn’t going there. Nothing to do with the fact that Ryker told me I needed to cut him off.
“Noah’s been running with Edmund for a while,” Jethro told me. “You’re not surprised.”
“I was when I first figured it out,” I told him. Fuck. So maybe Ryker was right about my level of naïveté.
Or maybe Noah and I had been to hell and back together, and I expected more from him than being the last one to know.
Jethro left. He’d been muttering under his breath a lot, especially after I asked him about the Hangmen killing him if they found out who he was. And when he didn’t answer that—maybe he thought it was an obvious enough yes—I asked, “I don’t get it. Are the MCs into stealing cars now?”
“The car I raced wasn’t stolen,” was the last thing he’d said before leaving me his card with only his name and cell number on it and telling me that I needed to stay away from Noah Carson at all costs.
Which meant I called Noah before Jethro pulled out of the driveway. I now knew the level of pissed I was at him, and it was through the motherfucking roof.
He started with, “Rush, I know you’re pissed,” forgoing any of the hello bullshit.
And I knew that tone of Noah’s. He couldn’t fake or hide the true fear in his voice. And he was driving—I could hear the engine, the rhythm of the way he talked in time with his shifting and steering. No one else would’ve noticed it, but I did.
“Where are you?” I was pulling on boots and grabbing for the keys to my truck.
“Almost to goddamned South Carolina.”
“Noah, talk to me.”
“I’ve been trying to talk to you, but that fucking brute’s been threatening me. Linc and I’ve been worried sick since you called about the accident. And now I’m in the middle of a job, so it’s not a good time.”
Dammit, no matter how pissed I was, how much I needed to know, this wasn’t the time. Whether what was happening to him now was tied into my accident or not, it was most definitely tied into Edmund. Which meant Noah still needed my help. “Are the cops after you?”
“No. Some other asshole who claims I cut in on his deal. No idea what he’s talking about, but he and two other jacked-up dudes are following me. I can’t lose them, and I’ve got to bring this to the docks, to Carlton, the same guy from the other night. I figured I’d try to hide the car until tomorrow night, when the coast is clear.”
“Yeah, brilliant.”
“I didn’t plan this shit. I’ve got another car to grab before midnight.”
I checked my watch. “Not happening, brother.”
“Fuck. Never get back to Hiland before then.” I heard him slam the steering wheel with his palm. My hand was on the doorknob still. Hiland Park was an hour from here, a ritzy suburb, mostly gated communities.
“What’s waiting for you?”
“A sweet ’67 Corvette.”
“You know that’s not my favorite,” I bitched, even as I left the house, got into my truck, and started driving in the general direction of Hiland. I’d have Noah pick my truck up tomorrow from Hiland after it was all over.
“You still there?” Noah asked finally.
I turned onto the highway. “Yep.”
“Are you feeling better?”
“Better than I look.” He blew out a sharp breath, but before he could launch into an apology, which I knew was coming next, I asked, “Did you tell Edmund about me and Ryker?”
“I didn’t know there was a ‘you and Ryker,’” he said irritably.
“Don’t play dumb, Noah.”
“Fucking asshole threw me out of your place, Rush.”
“You pissed him off. You pissed me off too.”
“Yeah, okay, I deserved that.” He sighed. “And all right, fine. I might’ve mentioned about you and Ryke
r to Edmund after that first job we did for him.”
“The first job I did for him. You’ve been working for him for a while.” Because yeah, I’d seen the newspaper articles about the car thefts that had just happened to coincide with our leaves. I’d long suspected it was him. “So you just blurted out my sex life to Edmund out of the blue?”
“Edmund’s been worried because the MCs have been blocking his dock access. He doesn’t know why, just says they don’t like anyone doing things in what they consider their territory.”
“Wouldn’t it make more sense that it’s the Hangmen involved in that shit, since they were at the race?”
“Maybe. Edmund says all the MCs like to throw their weight around, always want a cut of shit they did none of the work on. So I just mentioned that getting through the docks shouldn’t be a problem for you, because you had an in.”
I groaned. “Don’t you think that might’ve made Edmund see me as a liability instead?”
There was a pause and then, “You can’t think Edmund caused that crash?”
“He called me and said he couldn’t get in touch with you.”
“I left my phone at the shop.”
“You never do that, Noah.”
“I was in a hurry—it was a last minute job.”
“Edmund implied he’d hurt you if I didn’t do your job.”
“Fuck. Edmund lost a ton of money. He’s pissed, Rush. He thinks the MC sabotaged his car. That somehow, we’ve caused an MC war.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“So is cutting the brakes on a car you needed to deliver on,” he pointed out. “Ryker’s really got you turned around.”
“Whoever cut the brakes knew that car was going to be stolen.”
“But they wouldn’t know you’d be the one stealing it, Rush.”
“Unless Edmund told them, since he goddamned knew.”
Noah paused. “Maybe Ryker let that out.”
“Ryker didn’t know anything about it.” But I started thinking about what Ryker said, about how he’d had his guys watching me. In which case . . . would they have known what I was planning? They weren’t wiretapping my conversations though. Following me was different than spying on me to know my next moves.
“You’re really hung up on him.”
I countered with, “He’s been with me through my recovery.”
“Ouch,” Noah said plaintively, followed by a string of curses, the squeal of tires on asphalt. I was doing ninety, a straight shot up on the semideserted highway, so I waited until he said, “That was close. Think I lost them. Look, after the accident, I told Edmund you didn’t want to do these jobs, and he agreed not to call you again. So that’s done. And dude, Ryker’s MC. He’s the fuck-you-and-leave-you type.”
“And you know this how? Because I didn’t realize you’d fucked your way through Havoc.”
Noah’s tone softened. “Rush, come on. I just think you’re putting too much into this. He’s having fun. He liked the chase, but once he caught you . . .”
No more flowers.
Noah continued, “I think you’re confusing sex and love, Rush, and you’re the last person who should be. You’ve never trusted very easily, so why now, with him? I mean, look, you’re talking Havoc here. Even for you, that’s extreme.”
I stared at the open road and, for the first time, fully realized that maybe I couldn’t trust my best friend. I hated him for that, wanted to hate Ryker more for opening my eyes to it, but I couldn’t. He’d been trying to protect me.
But I couldn’t discount what Noah was saying either. “Ryker knows things about me.”
“Like what? Sex things?”
“Beyond sex things.” Although he knew those really well too. And he made me realize there were things I actually did like.
Like bottoming. For him. “You know, about Dad. Billy. My record.”
Noah huffed. “So that makes him Prince Charming?”
“Little bit, yeah.”
“You need to get your head out of his ass, Rush. We’ve got shit to do.”
“Like what? You said it was a one-time thing. That if we wanted more, we picked, but if we wanted to be done, that’d be it.”
“And we both knew it wouldn’t stay that way.” He paused. “Billy’d love this.”
He meant that. It was a nonmanipulative, purely truthful statement, said wistfully. We both missed our friend. Our partner in crime.
Noah and Billy liked to steal. They only specialized because that was my thing. Because I didn’t like the idea of breaking in and invading someone else’s space, no matter how wealthy they were. It wasn’t what I did.
I’m sure Noah and Billy had done runs without me. I’m sure Noah felt that urge still. But we were back in the car game now, and there was safety in doing things together. I was also beginning to realize just how locked into this Noah was—and me, by extension—because of Edmund.
There wasn’t time to worry about who was after Noah. He owed Edmund a car and even though Edmund was the one who’d fucked up the last job, dammit, I hadn’t even thought twice about helping Noah. But inside, I was torn somewhere between Ryker wouldn’t want me to do this and I don’t take orders from anyone, and I was pissed that I was torn. Because Ryker wasn’t here, for all his talk. And I had no real way to reach him either.
“Why didn’t you tell me about this sooner?” I demanded. “You’re in so fucking deep, Noah, and now so am I.”
“I was protecting you.”
“Yeah? How’s that?”
Noah sighed. “You were trying to stay out of trouble. I was too, but I couldn’t handle it. I figured . . . I wouldn’t tempt you. But I was scouting out jobs for both of us. Finding ways we could do what we wanted to do without getting into trouble.”
Noah’s twisted logic made perfect sense to me. More so when he said, “You’re always taking care of me. Like you always took care of Billy. I wanted to do the same for you.”
The guilt lodged itself in my throat, because he was so sincere when he said that I always took care of Billy. In my estimation, I’d gotten him killed because I hadn’t been able to stop him from doing exactly what Noah was doing—putting himself in the line of fire for me.
Which was exactly what Ryker was doing too.
I couldn’t take any more blood on my conscience. “Where are you now?”
“Crossing the state line.”
“And they’re still following?”
“Yeah. I just hope the rest of their gang’s not doubling back to steal the other car I need.”
“What’s the address—I’ll try to find you the shortest route,” I lied. He rattled it off. “I’m on it.”
“Rush—”
I hung up before he could say anything else.
ccording to Noah, the Corvette was half a mile from the 3-D movie theater, at a private house in a gated community. I parked in the massive movie theater lot, bought a ticket, went inside the actual theater with popcorn and a soda and came out the back emergency exit once the movie started. It was ten forty-five. I walked to the house, casually, like I belonged in the area, and no one looked at me twice.
Someone was watching over me, because no one was home, and because they counted on the gated community keeping riffraff like me out, their garage wasn’t locked, and nothing was armed. I ran my hand along the bumper, introducing myself to her. She was in decent shape, but she’d been ridden a lot and no doubt her gears were stripped. And, I noticed, she was goddamned open.
No respect. I probably could’ve gone inside to find the keys so I didn’t have to take her column apart, but I didn’t have the time. I disabled the tracking chip and the GPS and guided her carefully down the road and took the most secluded way possible back to the docks.
It had taken me under three minutes to lift her. No one else seemed to be aware that she was part of the deal for Noah and Edmund, so I didn’t have to do the evade-and-escape thing the way Noah was. When I checked my phone, I saw he’d called me a mi
llion times. I didn’t text him back, because if Edmund really wanted me gone, I wasn’t giving him my whereabouts as extra ammunition. And hopefully Noah didn’t mention to Edmund that he’d given me the address.
For a moment, I thought about just going—taking her down to Florida. I could pick up Noah and we’d go together. Except Noah had no interest in starting over. He was living in the past and I was caught somewhere between present and future.
I pulled the car into a secluded spot a couple of blocks away from the dock, pocketed the registration and snapped a picture of the car before walking over to the north side.
There were always people hanging around the docks. It was difficult to tell who was legitimate and who wasn’t because everyone was seedy looking. Tonight, it was more crowded than normal. Lots of shipments going out, but no police and customs agents around at this time of night. I spotted the container that we’d brought the last car to. Same guys too—Carlton, the one Noah mentioned, plus two other big guys. But Carlton frowned when he saw me. Maybe because I wasn’t dead?
“Noah got held up,” I told him. “I’ve got one.” I held up the registration in one hand and my phone with the picture and he looked at both.
“Deal was for two.” He glanced up and down the area, suddenly antsy.
“Fine. I’ll sell it someplace else.” As soon as I turned, I felt the change in air. Forced myself not to turn around until the last possible second. When I did swing around to face the two men who’d been standing next to Carlton, I caught one of them solidly in the diaphragm. He doubled over, out of commission for a while, leaving me to deal with the giant bald man who sneered and grabbed me by the throat.
I chopped his arm and he let go. A couple of quick, well-placed movements brought him down. Another thing I’d learned from hanging out with those Special Forces guys—economy of movement was imperative. Never use six moves when two will do. Also, know your strength. If you can kill with your bare hands, you have to know how and when to hold back.