by Cat Porter
Grace burst into the room. Her delicate features were an austere mask, her eyes went to the red slashes on my skin.
She led me back to the bed and set about inspecting my wounds, cleaning them. I wrapped my fingers around her wrist. Her hand holding the antiseptic-soaked gauze hovered over my chest.
“I’m fine, Gracie. Thank you.”
She resumed dabbing at my skin, her face still tense. “I came by last night, but you were sleeping, and I didn’t want to wake you.”
“Oh. Thank you.”
Had she seen me and Butler together?
“By the way,” I said. “I called my mother before I fell asleep and told her that I was spending the night with you and the baby since Lock had to go out of town at the last minute.”
Her forehead wrinkled. A slight movement, but I knew her so well.
“Say it already,” I urged.
“Just like when we were in high school. Remember when you wanted to spend the night with Trip Hofstedt at his family’s cabin in Spearfish, and you told your mother that you were spending the night at my house?”
I let out a small laugh. “Oh, right. Trip was sweet. Good kisser, too.”
She shot me a hard look. Not amused.
The door burst open, and our heads jerked toward the noise.
“Tania.” Finger filled the doorway, his usually neutral, unreadable face was drawn and tight, his dark eyes fiery coal. One large hand was splayed over the door.
“I’m fine,” I said, adjusting my shirt so it covered the cuts.
“That’s all she keeps saying,” Grace spit out. “I’m fine. I’m fine.”
“But I am, honey,” I said.
“Sure you are.” Grace pitched the gauze into a small plastic bag at the side of the bed. She wiped at her eyes as she shot up and faced Finger. “Take a look. See how fine she is. You’ll appreciate it.”
“Grace, don’t,” I said.
“I’ll leave you two alone.” She stalked from the room, her boots stomping on the cement floor.
Finger approached the edge of the bed. His index finger yanked down the loose V of my T-shirt, and I pulled in a breath. His face erupted into a malicious glower.
An F was sliced into my skin to match the ones on his face.
“Motherfuckers!” he bit out through his clenched jaw. His eyes darted to my wrists and the red marks around them to the cuts on my fingers.
My stomach rolled. “Finger—”
“That’s about me, clear as day!” Finger’s jaw tensed, his shoulders one long ridge. “He used you to send me a message, to—”
“Please, please don’t start some kind of war over this.”
Finger’s white teeth dragged over his bottom lip. “War’s already begun, baby.” His gaze ricocheting around the room with the force of a bottle rocket.
I pushed up in the bed. “They can’t find her, can they? One of them was with Reich, and if you—”
“I will take care of this.”
“Oh, yeah?” Butler stood in the doorway, arms folded, face stony.
Finger spun around. “They took her from you, asshole. What was she doing with you anyhow?”
“I was at Butler’s place because I wanted to be. They took me when I left the building.”
“I don’t need you defending me, Tania,” Butler spit out, his eyes flashing.
“Both of you need to concentrate on getting things right between your clubs. That’s how you can make this”—I pointed at my chest wound—“better.”
They both stood over me, a savage simmer seething between them, hot and fierce. Two warriors, one dark and one light, from some heretical fairy tale. Their minds were undoubtedly swarming with the same images of revenge seeking—bikes roaring, bloodletting, smashing skulls, breaking bones.
But there was another way to take this.
I touched Finger’s arm, and his thick gaze met mine. “I need you to do me a favor.”
“Anything,” he replied.
Butler let out a huff.
“I need to see my brother.”
“Of course,” Finger said, tipping his face at me.
“What are you up to, Tania?” Butler asked, his voice sharp.
“In this huge mess, I see an opportunity arising for everyone, something I don’t think you see—a first step. I want to make it happen in an unequivocal way.”
Butler shifted his weight. “Unequivocal?”
“That’s right. Do you need me to define that word for you?” I asked.
Butler’s eyes flashed. “No, I don’t.”
“Finger?” I asked.
“I’ll make it happen,” Finger replied, a hint of a smile playing on his lips. “In a very unequivocal way.”
He shot Butler a pointed look, which Butler flung right back.
“Is Catch far away?” I asked.
“No.”
“Good. Get him up here fast. And you,” I said to Butler, “let him come here to see me. Please. And I need to see Nina.”
“Nina? What for?” asked Butler.
Finger lifted his chin at me as he untucked his phone from his back pocket. “You might not be my old lady, baby, but you sure are thinking like one, and I like it. A fuck of a lot.”
Butler shot him another leaden glare.
“There’s something else I need to discuss with you. Alone. Sorry, Butler,” I murmured.
“You two do what you want. I’m out of here.” Butler pulled something small from his back pocket and threw it on the bed. The lipstick knife. “This is yours.” He charged from the room, stomping on my good intentions with every step.
“What did you want to tell me?” Finger asked.
I picked up the lipstick knife, wrapping my fingers around it. “There was a Smoking Gun with Reich.”
“I know. I heard all about it.”
“I recognized his club logo, just like her tattoo—”
“Tania.”
“Reich has set up the Smoking Guns with the Broken Blades,” I said. “From what they were saying, it’s been in the works for a while, but now, the Blades finally said yes to it.”
He stilled, his back rigid. “Who cut you, Tania?”
“The Smoking Gun.”
His heavy eyes returned to me. “What was his name?”
“Scrib.”
Finger’s jaw muscles flexed. His eyes lowered for just a moment.
“Scrib told me he’s been watching your club since things got touchy with the Blades months ago,” I continued. “He recognized me from when I came to Nebraska with Grace.”
“Figured you and I were connected?”
I nodded. “Then, I opened my mouth.”
I took in every twitch and flash of emotion on his face, in his eyes. Those large dark eyes were now saturated in the vile tones of venom and bile.
“You know how he got that name, Tania?” His voice was low, controlled.
“No.”
He took in a deep breath, and my chest constricted.
“He scribbled on my face with his knife.”
That night, unable to sleep, I tossed in my bed, the sensations of Scrib’s knife taunting me, keeping me strung tight. A motorcycle engine blared down the road then cut out. I got out of bed, and, gripping the edge of the curtains, I peered out my window.
My heart skipped a beat. I recognized the blond head of hair, the broad shoulders.
I reached for my phone and hit his name. In the distance, the shadowy figure moved.
“Scarlett?
“Thank you for getting my knife back,” I whispered.
“Of course. You not sleeping?”
“Can’t sleep.”
“Didn’t think so. I’m here, baby. You go back to bed. I’m right here.”
“YOU DOING OKAY?” Nina asked me the second I walked into her room at the hospital.
I closed the door behind me. “Getting there.”
“Thank God you’re okay. You were lucky. I’m sorry about Reich.”
“Y
ou have nothing to be sorry about.” I sat down on a chair by her bed. “I’m glad to hear you’re getting released tomorrow.”
“Yeah, I can’t wait.”
“I need to talk to you about something important.”
She pushed her blonde hair behind an ear. “What’s that?”
“First off, I know about you and Butler.”
“What do you mean?”
“That you aren’t really together because you want to be.”
“Okay.” She shrugged. “So? You’ve been wanting to jump his bones from the beginning. Think I didn’t have that figured out?”
“And I know about your cross-country good times with Led on the way over here from Ohio.”
She tugged at the neckline of her hospital dressing gown with her free hand. Her other arm was still in a sling.
“Tell me, why did you agree to come out here with Butler in the first place? I know why he did it. Good business. But what makes a girl like you agree to such a thing?”
Her gaze bounced around the small room.
Nina needed a push, and I was going to give it to her.
“Because the quality time I just spent with Reich made me realize a few things,” I said.
“Oh, yeah? Like what?” Her fingers fiddled with the cover of a celebrity gossip magazine at her side.
“He’s very controlling, and he especially likes controlling you. He really misses it, too. I think it’s more than some power trip.”
“Reich’s been controlling my fucking life since I was a teenager,” she spit out, her neck tensing. “I don’t want to end up like my sister, being told what to do and how. Having to look the other way. She loves him and likes the status, the rewards that go with him. It makes me crazy.”
“Nina, has he ever touched you? Has he ever—”
“Yes!” Her voice snapped, and her eyes widened. “Yes, he has, okay?”
“Oh God, I’m sorry.”
She took in a deep breath. “From the beginning, he’d always been real flirty with me, and I liked it. It was fun; I was flirty myself. I had a crush on him when he was first dating my sister. One day, he took it further. He had just married my sister, and I’d stayed with them one weekend. He caught me fooling around with my boyfriend in their den in the basement. He used to watch us. Watch me. Taking a shower, getting dressed. One night, he came into my room and made me play with myself, and he just watched.”
“How old were you?”
“I was sixteen.”
I sank in my chair.
“He was rising in the ranks of his club,” Nina continued. “I couldn’t say a word against him. I was afraid of him. He insisted I live with him and my sister. Deanna was so happy; she wanted me with her. They seemed good together, but I knew he had his share of club whores. But that didn’t stop him from making me do things for him. He’d make me strip, bring toys for me to use. In his own house. When my sister was at work or at night when she’d be asleep upstairs.
“I knew he wouldn’t let me go. If I ever dated a guy, I had to do it in secret. He’d always find out though. My grades sucked, so I couldn’t apply to any colleges and get out of there that way. He wouldn’t let me get a job outside the club network either.”
“You were trapped.”
“Yeah. I dated other club members here and there. But I got scared that he’d set me up as an old lady to one of his boys, and he’d keep me under his thumb, keep me as his toy, and I’d never, ever get out from under him and his club. There were two likely candidates last year.”
“Was Led one of them?”
“Yeah, he was. I knew he wanted me. Badly. Then, I met Butler. I came onto him, and we slept together a couple of times. Then I made him an offer.”
“You did?”
Her cold eyes met mine. “Tania, I would’ve gone to China if I could, but South Dakota sounded just as far away and just as exotic. Butler belonged to another club, and he was a nomad. When would I get that chance again? Never. I figured I could do my time with him, playing the good old lady for a while. Then, Butler and I would break up, and we would go our separate ways. He was going to help me get to LA or Vegas and get lost there.”
“That was generous of him.”
“He’s a good guy. But I ruined that plan when I got caught with Catch. That put us all on Reich’s radar again.”
“Is my brother just another good time for you or—”
“I know what you think of me.”
“Just tell me.”
“Why?”
“It’s important.”
Her shoulders fell. “I couldn’t keep away from Catch. He liked me; I could tell. I can always tell. I liked him, too. A lot. So, I went for it. I know it was stupid and a huge risk, but for the first time in my sorry-ass life, I didn’t weigh the risks. I only—”
“Felt.”
Her eyes filled with water. “Yeah. I felt all right. But, now, I’ve ruined everything, and I’ll probably never see Catch again. I’m sure he hates me anyway for the lies I told.”
Here was this girl, this girl I’d once not had much respect for, this girl who I’d resented, been jealous of, sent poisoned voodoo darts at for months whenever I saw her. She’d suffered and carefully plotted her escape, and with Butler’s help, she had achieved her freedom. But then she’d tossed everything in the air for a true moment, a moment full of passion and genuine feeling. She had embraced what she wanted, destruction and death be damned.
I swallowed past the thickness in my throat. “The baby—”
“It’s Catch’s baby. I want to tell him so bad, but he won’t answer his phone. I know he was sent away for a while, and now…” Her hand dropped in her lap.
“I have a proposition for you.”
She pulled at her sheet and coverlet. “This should be good. Let’s hear it.”
“Leave Butler officially and be Catch’s old lady.”
She stared at me. “What am I? Some Barbie doll that gets passed around?”
“Nina, hear me out. Your fling with my brother is much more than a hook-up or two or five, isn’t it?”
“To me it is.”
“Catch was on the way up in the Flames of Hell, but recent fuck-ups are ruining that. He needs stability, and he needs to show his president and his brothers that he’s not this crazed guy risking everything for some pussy. They like that he’s crazed, but he needs to be dependable within that crazy.”
Nina remained motionless.
“He likes you, Nina. A lot. He told me himself.”
Her face flushed.
“Catch needs an old lady to have his back, someone committed to supporting him and his ambitions. Someone who knows what it takes. You know what it takes, don’t you? Let’s face it. If you stay with Butler, Reich is going to use your affair against him somehow or against you, don’t you think?”
She lowered her gaze to the magazine next to her on the bedspread, rubbing a corner of it with her fingers.
“You want to get rid of me. You’re so fucking obvious.” She ripped a corner off the magazine cover.
“No. I want to protect you and Butler. And I want what’s best for my brother.” I sat down on the edge of the bed at her side. “What you and Catch have doesn’t need to be a secret or forbidden anymore, Nina. You could explore it, live it, enjoy it out in the open. And, now, there’s your baby, too. Fear won’t rule your life any longer, and Reich won’t be able to use you to stir shit up between two different clubs over bullshit the way he’s doing now.
Her legs shifted under the sheets.
My gaze caught hers. “Reich is a cruel son of a bitch, and he’s obsessed with you. He intends on taking you home with him, to keep you, and he’s not going to let anything or anyone stand in his way this time. Baby or not.”
“That’s all my sister’s been talking about. She’s been trying to get pregnant for years. She can’t wait to get me home.”
“Nina, you can’t go back. He set the explosion in your car.”
&nbs
p; Her head sank back against the pillow, her hand covering her face.
“He didn’t care if you or anybody else got hurt as long as his point got made, his rage felt,” I said. “I got to experience it firsthand. Look, Nina.” I opened my blouse for her to see the marks her brother-in-law and his buddy had left behind.
“Oh my God, Tania! He did that to you?”
“He wanted to piss off Butler and Finger.”
“Going after women and kids is wrong, so wrong.”
“Isn’t it? But he enjoyed every minute of it. Every goddamn minute. I figure, what’s that compared to controlling the life of a young girl for years? For forever? He will never allow you to leave again with anyone. He will never take his eyes off you. You will be no better than a prisoner if you go back with your sister. Do you want that for your baby? What if he tries to make you get rid of the baby? Or takes the baby away from you? He’s capable of anything.”
She swallowed hard, her brown eyes searching mine. “I’ve never been able to tell anyone. Not my sister, nobody. Only Butler.”
I wrapped my hand over hers. “I’m sorry. That’s awful. Truly. You did something to get out though, didn’t you? You took a chance on Butler, and he helped you. That was brave of both of you. But do you want to keep running from that bastard all your life? You have to protect your baby now, too. My brother’s baby.”
She chewed her lips as she stared at our hands.
“You and Catch having an affair and getting caught actually works in your favor here, funnily enough. If Reich sees that you’re leaving Butler for Catch, he’ll know that this time, this relationship, is for real. No more grabbing at happiness in secret whenever you can. Or what you think is happiness.”
Her eyes darted up at me. “I get it.”
“You give it a chance with Catch, and if it works out between the two of you, terrific. If not, you both go your own way. No worries, no backlash.”
“What does Catch say? Have you talked to him? Is he still—”
“He’s back, and I spoke with him before I came here. He’s in, if you are.”
“He is?”
“He’s out in the hall with Finger, waiting to see you.”