“Hawk—” Audra murmured.
I ignored her, not taking my eyes off the man sitting next to her. I knew that he was Dane Winthrop and in that moment he was the real threat. “Move away from her,” I growled, itching to end him for even touching her. He made to get up but at the last second he yanked Audra to her feet in front of him, jamming a gun against her temple. Feet stomped toward us as the rest of my brothers stormed into the house from other entrances. They halted upon entering the room, prepared for shit.
I didn’t take my eyes off Winthrop.
“Hold it right there, big guy.” Dane smiled, self-confidence dripping out of every pore. I wanted to bash his fucking teeth down his throat. “We don’t need anymore killing today.” His meaning was clear. The fucking coward was using Audra’s body as a shield, his arm across her chest as he pulled her tightly against the front of him.
“Then lower the fucking gun,” I snarled.
“Do I look like a stupid man?” He laughed. “No, I don’t think so. I think my sweet, little Audra is my insurance card into getting out of here alive.” He started to back up slowly.
There was no way in hell I was letting him take her. “You want to go, then go, but the woman stays,” I said.
He made a half-laugh, half snorting sound, tightening his arm around Audra. “I can’t do that. Audra is mine.” He nuzzled the side of her neck. “Aren’t you, darling.” The arm across her chest shifted, and then his hand was squeezing her tit. I was going to cut that fucking hand off. “She misses what I can do for her. I took care of her.”
My gaze shifted to Audra, hating the liquid emotion staring back at me. She was pale, bloody, and looked like she’d been through hell. “Yeah? That right, baby?” She shook her head, trying to squirm away from Dane. “Doesn’t look like she wants to go with you,” I smirked.
“Let me go, Dane!” She was fucking mad, slapping at his groping hand. “I’ll never go anywhere with you willingly!”
“Easy, baby,” I warned, afraid she’d forget about the gun at her temple.
“She’s just a little confused. I’m afraid the situation has overwhelmed her.”
I glared at Winthrop’s condescending smirk. The man had a death wish. “I think you’re the one who’s fucking confused. Leave now while I’m giving you the chance, but without the woman. You have ten seconds to make up your fucking mind before my brothers start shooting.”
Dane’s face reddened. He clearly didn’t like ultimatums, or not being the one in charge. That was just too fucking bad. He was lucky that I was willing to let him leave there alive. His gaze moved around the room, as if looking for an ally. His men were showing more smarts than he was. They were clearly outnumbered by us, but Dane was a desperate man. I wouldn’t hesitate to end him, but I wanted to save that pleasure for Covacks. He deserved to kill the man who’d murdered his son, and I had no doubt that the coward in front of me now was that man. We just needed the fucking proof.
“She’ll be the first one to die,” he threatened.
“You’ll be the second,” I snarled immediately afterwards. “After then it won’t matter.” I could see the indecision on his face, and knew the exact moment he knew I’d do it. The bastard wanted Audra but he wanted to live more, and it was obvious that he hated having to make a choice.
In the next instant none of it fucking mattered. Chaos erupted. More of Dane’s men rushed in from the back of the house. I gave BK and Painter a sharp look because they were supposed to have checked out the fucking plane. I’d have to deal with them later because Dane’s men came into the room firing their weapons as they spread out to take cover. My brothers scattered for protection and fired back. I got two rounds off, crouching low as I moved toward Audra and Dane with a snarl.
Dane forcefully pushed Audra at me and stumbled back into the protective circle of his men. I caught her to me, fear turning my blood cold when I watched him raise his gun. The fucking coward! With my arms wrapped around Audra I pulled her down onto the sofa and covered her with my body. His shot went wild and when I glanced up it was to see his men ushering him quickly from the room.
I pulled back to meet Audra’s eyes. “Don’t move, baby.” Not waiting for her response, I rolled off onto the floor and took aim.
The gunfight didn’t last long. Once Dane was safely away the rest of his men made their way in the same direction, shooting as they went. “Let them go!” I yelled when the last of Dane’s men were out of sight. “Big John, Jumper, follow to make sure they all get on that fucking plane. I don’t want anyone left behind.”
“Hawk—”
Smoke lingered heavily in the air, the acrid smell stinging my nose and eyes, and the place was shot the fuck up. When it was over Keg and three of Winthrop’s men were on the floor. Nothing fucking mattered except for the woman throwing herself into my arms, her tiny body of curves sinking into mine. My arms closed around her awkwardly as an unfamiliar feeling surged through my blood. Fucking hell, what was happening to me?
This woman wasn’t just getting to me.
She had me!
“You’re safe now, babe.” I ran my hand up and down her back, as much for my comfort as hers.
“Thank you for coming for me,” she breathed against my chest. I wasn’t wearing a shirt beneath my cut and the feel of her warm breath across my flesh fucking scorched me. I felt my dick twitch because she’d spoken the words against my nipple. My hand went to the back of her head, clenching into the soft thickness of her hair. I crushed her against me.
A snicker from my brother’s brought harsh reality back. “We have work to do, brothers,” I growled, gently pushing Audra back. “Make sure the suits are dead and take their weapons.”
“What about Keg?” Ned asked.
“We take him with us. I don’t want to leave any signs that we were involved in this shit.” My gaze caught on a pair of bloody jeans on the floor. “Yours?” Audra nodded. “What the fuck happened?” I scowled, touching the gauze on her upper thigh.
“Keg shot me when I tried to run. It’s just a graze.” she said. We both looked down at him, and I wished the fucker were alive so I could kill him again. “This was Dane paying him back for delivering me.”
I’d already figured the man was untrustworthy. I reached for her jeans. “Think you can get these on?” I didn’t want her on the back of my bike without protection for her legs.
She nodded and took the jeans from me. “He wasn’t going to kill me, Hawk. Dane. He has a place in Canada.” Her comment drew my gaze to where she’d dropped down onto the couch. “He wants to take me there.”
I clenched my jaw. The bastard had plans to keep her a prisoner somewhere. I’d seen it happen with obsessed, controlling fucks before. Audra was still in danger, but it would be over my dead body that Dane Winthrop would get his hands on her again. Christ, I had to get her back to the club to look at those pictures. If she recognized Dominick as the man her ex had killed we could dump this shit in Covacks lap and end it once and for all. If by some fucking miracle Winthrop hadn’t murdered Dominick, then I’d go after the bastard myself.
Big John and Jumper came back into the house. “Bastards are gone, Prez.”
I acknowledged them with a chin lift. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.” I noticed Audra’s wince when she stood to do up her jeans. Before she could take a step, I scooped her up.
“I can walk.” She smiled.
“Yeah, but I can take four steps to your one.”
“I’m sorry about Keg, Hawk,” she said, surprising me.
She had nothing to feel sorry about. “Don’t be, he made his decisions.”
“I know, but if Dane hadn’t offered so much money to find me Keg wouldn’t have done what he did.”
I looked down at her. “Money is a powerful incentive, babe, makes people weak, but there’s an order in which we do shit. The club is a brotherhood, we don’t go against it. We stick together and have each other’s backs at all times. Keg let the dollar signs fu
ck up his thinking. If it hadn’t been this situation, it would have been something else later.”
“You don’t know that for sure.”
“You want me to blame you for this shit?” I asked, moving toward the trees where my bike was. She quieted and looked down, shielding those beautiful greens from me. “It’s done, Audra, and after today this shit with your ex ends, too, one way or another.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean he’s going to die.” I placed her on the back of my bike and mounted. I probably shouldn’t have said anything, but she deserved to know her trouble with Dane would be over permanently. “BK−” He turned my way. “You and a prospect bring a van back for Keg and his bike and make it fucking quick.” He nodded and kicked his bike to life.
The noise of our bikes revving up sounded like rumbling thunder as the rest of my brothers did the same. They held back until I moved into position in front of the line, and then we were off. Audra wrapped her arms around me tightly. I felt her hugging my body close. She was safe for now, and I intended to keep it that way. When the time came to turn her loose she wouldn’t have any worries. She’d be able to live the way she wanted, without looking over her shoulder.
It occurred to me that I could have turned her the fuck loose at any time. She wasn’t my responsibility, and never had been. The truth was that the minute she’d planted her sweetly rounded ass on my bike, I’d fucking wanted her. Sure, there’d been the possibility that she meant trouble for the club and we’d needed to find that out, there was always that. Anything that threatened the club had to be dealt with, but right then she meant more trouble for me, than for the club.
I had to turn her loose.
Before it was too late and I couldn’t.
I forced myself to remember Sonya and her traitorous ways, hoping that would force the fucking walls back up. Women were good for one thing, and I wanted to keep it that way. Fuck them and walk away, no strings attached. No emotions. No fucking mess. Deep down I knew that Audra was different, that she wasn’t like Sonya, everything in me told me that, but I was too stubborn to accept it.
I couldn’t get back to the clubhouse fast enough. We continued around to the rear and backed our bikes close to the building. “Baby,” I said once it quieted down around us. “Go to my room. Get cleaned up. I have some shit to take care of.” I helped Audra off my bike, mindful of her leg.
She steadied herself and glanced up at me. “Thank you again, Hawk,” she said softly, and fucking hell I saw more in her eyes than I wanted to. I clenched my jaw, until with a small smile she finally turned and limped away.
Rock came to a stop next to me, watching Audra disappear into the building. I braced myself because his silence spoke volumes. “Don’t say a fucking thing,” I warned him. He snorted, and I knew that if I looked he’d be smiling.
“She’s getting to you, brother.”
I growled low, closed my eyes, and shook my head.
He slapped me on the back of my shoulder. “What are you gonna do about it?”
I didn’t even have to think about it. “Nothing. She’ll be gone in a couple of days.” I looked at him. “Either Covacks takes care of Dane Winthrop and the club’s a million bucks richer, or I do the fucker in myself.” I knew he wouldn’t question me why, because he’d do the same fucking thing. We were a hard-core MC until it came to women and children who needed our protection.
“You know, brother, not all women are like Sonya.” Rock had been there when everything had turned to shit. “Be ashamed to turn a cute little piece like that loose because another bitch soured you.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” I walked to the door and opened it.
“Fine, but if you don’t want her, can I have her? I’d like to get a taste of her little—”
I should have expected that, but without thinking I swung around and punched Rock right in the mouth. He didn’t even try to stop me. In fact, there was a bemused smile on his face that pissed me the fuck off. The fucker had been baiting me. He staggered back a little, bringing his hand up to his split lip.
“That answer enough for you?” I snapped.
A humorous chuckle was his only response. With a curse, I turned. Most of the brothers were at the bar, being made over by the club women and already drinking hard. It wouldn’t be long before they’d disappear to the rooms to work out their aggressions. What had gone down at the farm house could have turned out a lot worse. Most of my crew lived each day as if it were their last.
“Hey, baby.” Sid came slithering up to me, sliding her hands up my chest to link them behind my neck. She was wearing a bikini top so tiny that it barely covered her nipples. Her cut offs fell just below her jeweled bellybutton. She rubbed against me like a fucking cat in heat. “You look like you need relief,” she cooed into my ear, before biting down on it.
I jerked back when I felt her teeth sink down on the lobe of my ear, and then reached up to unwind her arms from around my neck. Why couldn’t she get it through her fucking head that I was done with her? “If you keep this shit up I’m going to bar you from the club. Find another brother.” I didn’t wait for her to react.
I went straight to Fox’s room. As usual, he was sitting at his computer. The man fucking lived on the damned thing, which was good considering that he did our surveillance and security. “I want the pictures of Dominick.” He picked up a stack he’d printed out and handed them to me. “Why so many?”
“There are four different men here, Prez. See if she can pick out Dominick’s face, then we’ll fucking know for sure.”
I thumbed through the pictures. The men in them were very similar. I nodded. “Good call, brother.”
“Too bad about Popcorn.” I nodded, there was nothing else to say. All the brothers knew he’d been a good prospect. “I heard about Keg, man. Good thing we put that second GPS tracker on his bike.”
“Yeah, could have ended in a whole different way.” He could have disappeared with Audra. I thought about her and what Dane had planned. It could have turned into a life sentence for her, being locked away on some fucking estate. “I should have killed him when I had the fucking chance.”
Fox’s brows rose with surprise. “She means that much to you, that you would have jeopardized our affiliation with Covacks?”
He had a lot of fucking nerve asking me that. Protecting the club came first, and that included doing whatever was required to keep in good standing with our contacts. The club earned a ton of revenue from Covacks, we’d be stupid to piss him off. His explicit orders that he’d wanted his son’s killer alive in order for us to get the million dollars was the only reason I’d let Winthrop go. I knew, though, that if Audra had been hurt by his hands, I wouldn’t have hesitated to take him out on the spot.
“You know the answer to that, brother.”
Chapter 22
Audra
I turned the faucet off and then reached up to squeeze the excess water out of my hair. My leg hurt like hell, the sting of soap and water running through the raw burn left me gasping for breath, but at least it wasn’t bleeding anymore. It was ugly, the kind of thing that would scar and forever remind me of the incident, but it beat the alternative. Keg could have easily have done a lot more damage.
Hawk was my savior. I thought about Dane’s plan, knowing that if he’d succeeded in getting me on that plane it would have been the end of me. I would have simply disappeared. I didn’t know anything about his estate in Canada, but I knew that he had a preference for isolation when he was away from Vegas. The location would be secluded and far away from the general public. I’d always known that Dane was exceedingly rich, but I was only now learning that his wealth far surpassed anything I’d suspected.
I’d given myself to a monster. All those years…how could I have not known what he was really like? He’d been good at keeping that side of him hidden, careful to keep me away from his work. The trip to Last Hope had been a rare exception to taking me on any business trips,
and that was only because he’d promised to take us on a pleasure trip directly from there. That’s where it had all gone to shit.
I stepped out of the shower. The bathroom door opened, and Hawk was there, his gaze raking over my dripping body in a physical caress that drew a willing response from my body. Everything about him was so fierce and volatile. The way his dark eyes moved over me made my senses switch on full alert, my nipples swelled into hard kernels and my pussy grew wet. I couldn’t believe how fast this man got to me on every level. I became afraid, yes, afraid, when he moved toward me with an expression of pure animal lust stamped on his sharply defined features. I just stood there, frozen, weak in the knees, and waited, breath catching at what he made me feel. The predator was hungry.
“You want me,” I uttered softly as he got closer.
His gaze dropped to the wound on my leg. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
Phantom Riders MC - Hawk Page 21