by Raven Dark
“I made a friend out there,” I tell Devil carefully. “We’re going to culinary school together.”
He pushes to his feet, his big shoulders tight. “Absolutely not.”
“Here we go.” I put my head back, standing, too. “I am not having this argument with you. We already have an apartment set up to rent in January. I’ve been accepted to a school. It’s done.”
Stalking to the window, he shakes his head. “You aren’t going back.”
My fists clench. “Did you hear what I said? I got accepted. It’s a good school. The apartment is nice, in a good part of town. Gabby is great, she—”
“Enough. Cancel your admittance, and the apartment.”
“What?” I growl, encroaching on him until I’m at the window with him. Can’t he even pretend to be proud of me? “Why?”
“Because. I want you here.” He jabs his finger at the dark brown carpet. “I want you where you are under my protection.”
This is exactly like him, to bulldoze his way through my plans and try to rule my life.
“No. No, you mean you want me under your thumb,” I snap. “You want me where you can keep an eye on me.”
“Oh, don’t make me sound like a tyrant here, Red. Are you forgetting why I sent you out there in the first place? Pay a visit to the coppers in Whiskey. Ask them to see your file. It’s this thick.” He holds up his hand, his finger and thumb an inch apart. “I’m the one who had to pick you up at the station after you got mixed up with that…what’s his name? Glitch?”
If I hadn’t been so pissed, I’d have laughed at his mistake. “Clutch.”
“Whatever.”
“I made a mistake, Devil. I didn’t know what kind of shit he was into.”
“You stole a fucking car.”
“I screwed up! It happens. Let it go.” I refrain from reminding him that he and most of the other men here have done a hell of a lot worse in the name of the club. He’d only tell me it’s not the same. I don’t have a dick, after all.
“Yeah, you’re right, you did. And I had to clean up your mess instead of dealing with club business.”
Guilt stabs at me. I look away, refusing to let him see it and use it to his advantage.
Devil puts himself toe to toe with me, and when I meet his eyes, they narrow to dangerous slits. “You have a habit of getting yourself in trouble. I want you where I can keep you in check.”
“Oh my God.” I grip the back of my hair. “I’m not that girl anymore, Dev. You know that. Check the records in Cali. I kept my nose clean.”
I’d lock myself up in a cell before I got mixed up with guys like Clutch again. Yeah, I like to party, but I want a career, and not one that entails being behind bars. And I don’t want the kinds of friends who will throw me under a bus at the first sign of trouble. I can see it in the cold determination in his eyes, Devil’s waiting for me to mess up. It hurts more than I’d like to admit that he doesn’t trust me.
“I know you kept your nose clean,” he says now. “I already checked.”
Anger bolts through me at this and my shoulders roll back. “Seriously?”
“Oh, yeah. If you had done anything out there, the boys in the California Chapter would have told me. Cook would have carted you back here in a second.”
Holy shit. He had Cook spying on me? I love Cook, but I’ll give him an earful when I see him. “Wow. You are a fucking asshole, Dev.”
“You’re my sister. And what you do reflects on me. Sue me for wanting to keep you on the straight and narrow.”
I make an angry sound. “So you want me to pass up a chance at a top culinary school to come back here, and, what? Become the live-in maid and fuck bunny to some guy you choose for me? I want more than that.”
“You don’t know what you want, Red. You’re too young to have a clue. I know what’s best for you.”
“I’m not staying here, Dev. I’m going to make something of myself. I’m here to spend Christmas with the club, but come January, that’s it. I’m gone.”
“You’re not leaving. End of discussion.”
“Yes. It is the end of this discussion. And it ends with me going back to Cali as soon as Christmas is over.” I turn and start toward the doors.
“Red, get your ass back here.”
“Good bye, Dev.”
I storm out of the Chapel before he can say more.
Twenty minutes later, I’ve called an old friend to come and pick me up. I’ve showered and changed my clothes, and started walking down the dirt path toward Holden, a small town about an hour from here.
I’ve called David Keller, a friend I met in high school, before I left for California. His dad owns The Underground, a dance club a few minutes outside of Holden. It’s the kind of unpretentious hangout where you don’t have to be rich or connected to get in, and I’m allowed in as long as I don’t drink.
Still stewing over Devil’s assholery, I wrap my long, leather coat around me and shove my hands into my pockets, keeping an eye out for Dave’s Porsche. An icy breeze picks up, biting at my cheeks.
One month, and I’ll be back in the California heat.
For my whole life, I’ve let Devil call all the shots. With mom run off, and Dad dead, Devil was the one who took care of me, and I love him for it. But I have my own life to live, and that life doesn’t involve being caught up in MC drama, or letting him dictate my future.
I’ll miss this club like crazy, and even though I’d never admit it to anyone, I’ll miss him. But if I don’t leave, I’ll never have the life I want. After Christmas, I’m gone, and I’m not letting him, or anyone else, stand in my way.
But I’m not going to think about any of that for now. Today, I’m going to put Devil and this whole mess out of my mind and live it up with a friend who lets me be me. Dave is exactly the kind of company I need right now.
Dave Keller is Clutch’s older brother, but he’s nice, and he doesn’t try to rope girls into his shit. I can hang out with him knowing I won’t get mixed up in anything shady, unlike if I tried to do that with Clutch. Clutch has a way of pulling people in without them knowing it, and by the time they realize what he’s gotten them into, it’s usually too late.
When I was fifteen, Clutch managed to get me to steal a car. Not my finest moment. That’s what got me a record, and it’s the reason Devil thinks he has to watch me like a hawk all the time. Devil managed to get the cops to let me off with a warning. I still don’t know how. He’s never told me.
If he knew I was headed to hang out with Dave, he’d skin me alive. He wouldn’t believe Dave isn’t like his brother.
A red Corvette makes its way down the icy road. It’s the only car I’ve seen on this road since I started walking. Dave’s dad owns a lot of fancy cars, so I assume it’s one of his. I wave until the vehicle pulls up alongside.
The driver rolls down the passenger side window, except as soon as I look inside, my stomach clenches. The driver isn’t Dave.
“Clutch,” I drawl. “What the hell are you doing here? Where’s Dave?”
Clutch gives me one of his stunning, golden boy smiles that makes it hard to believe he’s a criminal. With thick dark hair always perfectly styled to sweep over his forehead and that black designer shirt and coat, he looks like the kind of charmer who’d own a fancy resort in the Catskills given about ten more years.
“I asked Dave to let me pick you up.” He opens the door for me. “Come on, get in.”
“No thanks.” I pull out my smartphone. “I’ll call a cab.”
“Oh, come on, Red. Don’t be silly. You’ll be waiting an hour for a cab out here. You’ll freeze. Where are you going? Get in, I’ll take you.”
“Yeah, like that’s going to happen. Whatever shit you’re planning on getting into tonight, I’m not interested.”
“I don’t have any plans.” He holds up his hands. “Look, I’ll drive you wherever you want to go. You want to hang out, fine, otherwise I’ll drop you off and leave, but I don’t want you out he
re alone in the cold.”
I look up and down the road, shivering. My toes are almost frozen in my leather boots, and he’s right, it would take a cab a while to get out here. It’s a ten minute walk back to the clubhouse. Going back means dealing with Devil. I need a break from anything that reminds me of him.
“You swear, no tricks? You’ll drop me off and that’s all? No detours?”
He nods. “Swear on my mother’s grave. Come on, get in and shut the door before I freeze my ass off.”
I sigh and climb in, shutting the door. “Thanks.”
“Sure.” He turns up the heat a little. “Roll up the window for me, would you?”
I press the button on the door. The window goes up, shutting out the cold. I pull off my leather gloves and hold my hands up to the heat vents to warm them up.
We drive for a while, catching up, and by the time we get halfway to Holden, I feel bad for not trusting him. He drives slowly, cautiously on the slick road, nothing like the wild speeding he would have done two years ago. We talk about his dad’s club, about his admittance to a college next year.
College. Wow. He’s got his life together. Two years older than me, when I’d known him, he’d dropped out of high school, but he’s since gone back and gotten his diploma. He’s talking about starting his own auto shop.
“Congrats, Clutch. I had you all wrong.”
“Thanks. That means a lot, Red.” He squeezes my knee.
For some reason, the sudden touch makes me tense.
When we used to hang out, Clutch was a friend who represented adventure, a hint of the danger I liked without said danger being hamstringed by Devil’s control. He’s good looking, but I’ve never been interested in him that way. I didn’t think he was interested in me, but touching me like that…
I push his hand away.
“Still not ready to play with the big boys, huh, Red?”
My back stiffens. Excuse me?
I force my tone to stay light. “Let’s just get where we’re going, okay?”
“Sure, sweet cheeks.” He pushes my hair back from my neck, his clammy fingers brushing my skin. I shudder.
An icy, uncomfortable feeling starts to settle in the pit of my stomach. I don’t remember him ever being this pushy. I need to get out of this car.
“Clutch—”
A siren wails behind us and I whip my head around to look out the back window. There’s a cop car tailing us.
Clutch glances in the rear view. “Shit.”
“Clutch, stop. Pull over.” I hate the anxiety in my voice. It’s not as if I haven’t tangled with the police before, and the club is certainly no stranger to such things, but I can’t help it.
“Chill out. I’ll handle him.”
I’m starting to worry he’ll take off and try to lose the cop when the squad car pulls in front of him, blocking us and forcing Clutch to stop.
“Clutch,” I hiss. “What did you do?”
“Shut up. Just shut your mouth and stay cool.” There’s a fierceness to his voice that makes him sound almost like the old Clutch. The troublemaking shit who almost ruined my life.
The officer gets out of his car and walks toward us.
Fuck, what the hell have I gotten myself into here?
The car was stolen.
Two hours after the cop stopped us, I’m sitting in a back office across from a desk in front of an officer who’s been lecturing me for the past ten minutes about where my future is headed if I keep letting myself get mixed up with guys like Clutch.
The cop called himself Officer Henderson, but I’ve already dubbed him Officer Jerkoff in my head, mostly because he’s spent this entire time talking down to me as if I’m twelve.
The cops won’t let me see Clutch, but that’s probably just as well. The son of a bitch stole a car and then drove around with me in it, knowing I have a record that would make it harder to convince the authorities I wasn’t in on it. If I saw him right now, I’d probably break his fucking neck.
“You need to stay away from guys like him,” the officer goes on, glancing over my file. “By the looks of things, you’ve already been in enough trouble without the help of men like Clutch. I hate to see a nice young girl like you throw away your future, Diana.”
I wince at the sound of my name, a name I haven’t heard since the last time I was here. No one calls me that anymore. The name Diana has always sounded to snooty to me. I’ve always been “Red.”
“I’ve already contacted your brother,” the officer adds, nodding to what I assume is Devil’s name, listed as an emergency contact. “I’ll be having a word with him about it when he gets here.”
My heart sinks like a stone.
That’s all I need. Devil will probably beat the shit out of Clutch for getting his sister involved in this. That I can live with. Hell, the way I’m feeling now, I’d watch him do it if he let me. But then he’s also probably going to lock me up in his house and never let me out.
Okay, he wouldn’t really do that. I don’t think. But I can forget all my plans for school and Cali. He’ll definitely find a way to stop me now. And he won’t let me out of his sight.
“Listen,” I lean forward in my seat. “Are you going to charge me? If not, then I’m out of here.”
“We’ll get to that in a minute. I want to hear your version of what happened.”
“Whoa, wait. My version? Listen, pal, it’s not a version. It’s the truth. And I already told you what happened.”
I don’t miss the smile that flickers on his face as he sits back in his chair. He looks me over, taking in my tatted up arms, and the assortment of daggers and skulls that dangle from the necklaces hanging from my neck. The wild mass of red curls I’ve never been able to tame. He takes it all in with such open contempt that there’s no mistaking what he thinks of me. He’s like every other jerkoff in Whiskey. He thinks I’m just another biker slut, another wasted youth corrupted by those Heathen animals.
“Tell me again,” he says, and his tone is just this side of mocking.
I sit back in my own seat and watch him silently, inwardly kicking myself for showing my anger. I’ve never been good at playing that whole ‘biker with the heart of gold’ role some of the guys pull off when they need to.
There’s a rap on the door to his office, saving me from having to reply.
“That’s probably your brother now. Come in.”
I brace myself for the inevitable shitstorm to come.
But when the door swings open, Devil doesn’t enter.
Oh no…
Riot steps in, and as soon as he sees me, those perfect hazel eyes dance.
“Shit. Florida.”
His lips quirk. “I knew you were trouble the first time I saw you.”
3
Choices
Damn it. Riot. What the fuck is he doing here?
The officer’s voice asking him to shut the door only half registers, the blond god in my presence stealing all my focus. While Riot pushes the door shut with his big hand, humiliation burns my cheeks.
Why the hell I’m so freaked out by his being here, I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense. One, biker chicks aren’t supposed to be known for their innocent, sweet ways. The ones who are born into this life have to be made of some pretty tough stuff, or they don’t last long.
From as far back as I can remember, Dad and Devil both made it clear that the men in the club have to know the women they’re with can handle the shit they do. A girl can’t get squeamish at the idea of facing down authority or crack under pressure. Weak women endanger the club, and present a liability to everyone in it. And like the men, they have to be willing to take care of their business without fuss. Sometimes, that means doing things that other people, and the law, doesn’t like. Riot might be new to our chapter, but he isn’t new to the MC. He’d know this.
And two, I have never, ever been embarrassed at the idea of being caught at the police station before.
If anything, I should get a kick
out of his finding me here. I should want him to see me as a bad girl, a wild child that takes after his leader, wearing my misfit status like a badge of honor. Instead, I can’t look at him, and I find myself wishing the floor would swallow me whole.
What the actual fuck? It shouldn’t even matter what he thinks. What the hell is wrong with me?
I force myself to meet his eyes, leaning back in the chair, playing it cool. “Devil send you, Florida?”
“Yeah.” He comes to stand beside me, laying his hand on my shoulder. The single point of contact sends a jolt of heat through my veins. “What’s the situation, officer?”
“Florida... Is that your name?” The cop rises from his seat, visibly amused.
I snicker, especially when Riot raises a brow at me. Copper thinks it’s his biker name now.
“It’s Riot, actually.” Seeming totally unaffected by Officer Jerkoff’s reaction to his name, he holds out his hand to him with a charming smile that makes my stomach dance.
“Ah.” The officer shakes Riot’s hand and introduces himself. The disapproving scowl he gives the skull rings on Riot’s fingers only lasts a second, but it’s there. “Miss Stanton here was stopped by one of my officers in a stolen car.”
“I know. Her brother told me. Are you charging her?”
I stare at him. He isn’t even asking if I was in on the theft. Devil would have automatically assumed I was. The respect that pricks at my chest for him is annoying.
“No. Believe me, we’d love to. I think it would do her good to spend some time in lockup. It might scare her straight, so to speak. But we can’t.”
He’s waited until now to say this?
My fists clench. He doesn’t want to charge me to set me straight. He wants to put me in a cage where he thinks I belong. Typical of someone from Whiskey to automatically want to take someone associated with the MC down regardless of what they might—or might not—have done.
“Both Clutch and she are insisting she didn’t do it, and witnesses only saw him at the scene,” Henderson continues. “Her…story, that she got into the car with him after he took it and didn’t know it was stolen, seems to check out.”