Swearing under his breath, he stood and stomped out of the living room like a petulant child. Callie shot me a wink before disappearing into the kitchen, no doubt to give Sawyer another piece of her mind.
A long, slightly uncomfortable silence followed their departure. I wanted to ease the tension but I wasn’t exactly sure where to start. Nix and I had been through a lot over the years, but nothing compared to the last few days. Trying to have a normal conversation in the midst of a colossal clusterfuck was almost comical.
Biting my lower lip, I hoped I wouldn’t sound stupid. “How do you feel?” I asked, shifting on my cushion a little.
“Like dog shit,” he said, his voice horse.
I looked at my lap, a sudden wave of guilt washing over me. He wouldn’t have been suffering if it weren’t for me. It was my fault he’d been kidnapped and beaten in the first place. “I’m so sorry, Nix. If I hadn’t been with Tony in the first place…Fuck, this sucks,” I choked out through tears.
Wincing, Nix pushed up from his slouched position and sighed, sitting a little straighter. “This isn’t your fault. You didn’t know what you were getting into,” he said, his words stilted at the end. Nix wasn’t really the jealous type, never really had the need to be when we were together, but I think the thought of me with another man was difficult for him. The thought that he might still think of me as his hadn’t occurred to me. I supposed, when I thought about it, I still thought of him as mine.
Swallowing hard, I cleared my throat. “You’re right, no sense in playing the blame game, doesn’t really matter at this point, so…”
“Guess not,” he muttered under his breath.
Great, now what?
“Look, I think we both get that we’ve got a lot of shit to hash out. It’s important, and we will have that conversation—or conversations, however long it takes—but not now. Soon, but not tonight, please.”
“Yeah, okay,” I said, wiping away my tears.
“Let’s just focus on the now. You good with that?”
Taking a deep breath, I nodded, all too willing to agree to his terms. As much as it was necessary, I wasn’t exactly looking forward to dredging up all those feelings.
“Where are we going to go?” I asked, giving voice to one of my biggest worries beyond the scope of ‘us’.
“I’ve got a friend, we were in juvie together back in the day, but he’s a good dude, lives up in Portland. He’s been trying to get me up there for a few years, I think it’s just as good a place as any, and it’d be good to have someone around that I trust just in case.”
He let the thought hang in the air, both of us reading between the lines. In case Tony came after us.
I decided to ignore that particular elephant in the room as well, I didn’t have the energy to add to my already exhaustive worry. “What are we going to do for money? I’ve got a little stashed away, but it’s not enough to start over,” I said, raking a hand through my hair.
“Calvin’s MC owns a shop up there, he said I have a job waiting for me anytime I want. It’s not much, but it’s something.”
Raising an eyebrow, I gave him a confused look. “Calvin?”
Nix huffed out a laugh but it was cut short with a groan as he held his ribs. “Back in the day I knew him as Calvin, but he goes by Z now, can’t say I blame him,” he answered on an exhale.
“He’s in a motorcycle gang?” I wasn’t sure running to another criminal organization was a good idea considering what we’d just been through. Felt a lot like buying more trouble for ourselves than necessary.
“Club, not gang,” Nix corrected. “It’s not what you think. They’re not exactly law abiding citizens, but they’re good people. I met a few of the guys and their wives when I was passing through last year, they’re solid.”
If I’d learned anything in the past few days, it was that I could still trust Nix, he wouldn’t let anything happen to me. I trusted his judgement.
Nix shifted his position again, grunting a little as he tried to get comfortable. I hated that he was in pain and there was nothing I could do about it.
“Do you want me to see if Marco has any aspirin or something?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“No need, I’ve got some here,” Callie said, hurrying into the living room with a bottle of pills rattling in her hand.
I glared at my best friend, knowing full well she’d been eavesdropping on our conversation. “Thanks,” I said, taking the bottle from her and shaking out a few pills into Nix’s hand.
As quickly as she’d appeared, Callie was gone again, but I wasn’t stupid enough to think she wasn’t still listening around the corner.
I sighed, resigned to the fact that we wouldn’t be getting any privacy. “Why don’t we get you in bed, you should rest while you can.”
Nix agreed so I grabbed the lantern, and helped him down the hall. There was a lot of groaning as I helped him climb into the bed, but he seemed to settle rather quickly. When I was satisfied that he was as comfortable as he was going to get, I turned to leave.
Calloused fingers wrapped gently around my wrist, stopping my retreat. “Stay, please,” he croaked out.
Swallowing down the tears threatening to make an appearance, I nodded without looking at him. If I looked into his eyes just then, I’d burst into tears and I was so fucking sick of crying. Moving around to the other side of the bed, I clicked off the lantern before climbing in next to him.
The darkness didn’t feel so scary anymore as I let pretenses and the looming what ifs fall away, and cuddled up to Nix’s side like I’d done a million times. Neither of us breathed a word as I rested my head on his shoulder and we both drifted off to a dreamless sleep.
CHAPTER 9
Nix
An impossibly bright light pulled me from my comatose state. It shown directly in my face, blinding me to everything else.
“Rise and shine,” a voice growled menacingly.
Tony.
Ellis gasped, and I felt her body go still beside me. I curled my arm around her shoulders, attempting to provide any sort of comfort I could, no matter how small.
“Bring ‘em into the living room with the others,” he sneered, the blinding light finally moving away from our faces.
Others? My sleep addled brain struggled to make the connection and it took me a second to remember Callie and Sawyer were somewhere in the house. How did Tony find us? Did he get Marco too?
I blinked rapidly, trying to force my eyes to adjust so I could get my bearings when someone grabbed my arm, violently dragging me out of the bed. My ribs protested, shooting pain ripping up my side as I fell to the floor.
Ellis screamed, and I tried to twist around to make sure she was okay, but my arm was suddenly and viciously wrenched behind my back, making it impossible to move. Someone looped something around my wrists and the telltale sound of the zip tie ratcheting tight echoed ominously in the darkness.
Two men, one on either side of me, pulled me to my feet and pushed me out into the hallway. I craned my neck, trying to see if Ellis was following, as we made our way to the living room. I couldn’t see her, but I could hear her.
“You son of a bitch!” she growled. The sound of a slight struggle followed by a manly grunt came next and I almost wanted to smile. My girl still had fight left in her, she wasn’t about to lay down and die, it wasn’t her style.
The man on my left was holding a flashlight so I could make out Callie and Sawyer kneeling on the living room floor when we emerged from the hallway.
“On the ground,” the guy to my right said, pushing me to my knees next to Sawyer.
I shared a look with my little brother and saw the fear in his eyes. This wasn’t something he was going to be able to talk his way out of, and he knew it. We were at the mercy of a merciless man.
Ellis fell to the ground beside Callie, jerking her arm out of one of the guard’s grip and tossing a hateful glare at Tony as he came to stand in front of us. We were lined up like we were
facing a firing squad and I prayed that wasn’t what Tony had planned. There had to be another option, some way for us to get out whole, I just didn’t know what it was.
The zip ties bit into my skin, there was no way I’d be able to wiggle out of my bindings this time, seemed like Tony was a quick to learn from his past mistakes.
Four men flanked him, two on either side, as their leader looked down on us with disgust. The men each had flashlights, all of them pointing to the floor and casting odd shadows around the room.
“What am I going to do with you, hmm? You were going to be my queen, I’d have given you the world—anything money could buy, but instead of thanking me, you spit in my face,” Tony sneered, clucking his tongue at Ellis. He was beyond crazy; the man was unhinged.
“You gonna kill me, too?” Callie asked, her voice unwavering and full of challenge. “How are you going to explain that to Marco?”
Movement over Tony’s shoulder caught my eye, I blinked a few times, trying to decide if the light was playing tricks on me. No, someone was definitely there.
How many men did he bring with him?
Seemed like overkill, but from the brief time I spent with him, Tony didn’t seem like the type of person to leave anything up to chance.
“Fuck Marco,” Tony snapped. As soon as the words left his mouth, his head jerked forward slightly, body going stock still, and a flash of fear crossing his face.
“No. Fuck you, Tony,” Marco’s voice sounded from the darkness. One of the men standing to Tony’s left stepped aside revealing Marco holding a gun to Tony’s head. “On your fuckin’ knees, bitch.”
“Fucking do something!” Tony yelled, looking to the men beside him for help and finding none.
Marco laughed, the sound hollow and haunting. “They ain’t gonna do shit to save you,” he said. “Now get on your knees before I put a bullet in the back of your fuckin’ head.”
Begrudgingly, Tony lowered himself to the floor. The term if looks could kill came to mind as his eyes found mine. I suppose if he needed to blame someone, I was as good a target as any.
Keeping his gun trained on the back of Tony’s head, Marco nodded to one of the men and he crouched down to secure Tony’s hands behind his back.
“Put him in the car,” Marco said, tucking his gun into the waistband of his jeans like I’d seen him do a thousand times before. Once again, he’d ditched the suit, opting for jeans and a hoodie like he’d worn when we met at the diner.
Three of the men put down their flashlights and hauled Tony out the front door without question. The remaining guard hung back, lighting Marco’s way as he produced a pocket knife and cut Callie and Ellis free.
“Now what?” Ellis asked, rubbing at her wrists.
“Now, you get out of town,” Marco said, leaning down to cut Sawyer and me free next.
Callie frowned. “But if Tony’s not a threat, why would we have to leave now?”
“Because, Tony still has friends and I’ve got a fuck of a lot of house cleaning to do. It’s not going to be safe for you guys for a while. I’m sending Martha and the kids to stay with Abuela in Mexico for a while. I don’t want anyone caught in the crossfire while I’m settin’ shit straight,” Marco said standing.
“What are you going to do with him?” Ellis asked, voice shaking a little.
Marco cut his eyes to me before sighing and scrubbing a hand over his bald head. “You want the truth?”
She nodded, leaning into Callie’s side a bit more as if she was drawing strength from her friend.
“I’m gonna take him out to the desert and bury him in a shallow grave. He’s not gonna fuck with you with a bullet between his eyes.”
To my surprise, Ellis didn’t balk at the idea, instead, she breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Marco. I mean it.”
“Don’t thank me. It was a long time coming,” he said, but we all knew it was only half the truth. As hard as Marco tried to act, he did care, he’d proved that tenfold.
One of the guys that had taken Tony outside knocked twice on the open front door. “We’re ready to roll.”
“I’ll be right out,” Marco said with a nod before turning his attention back to me. “Our agreement still stands. Take the Escalade and get them far away from this shit, tonight.”
“Don’t worry, I’ve got somewhere we can go,” I said, getting to my feet.
I’d briefly discussed the idea of heading up to Portland with Ellis earlier, but the more I thought about it, the better it sounded. Z had been hounding me to come up and prospect for the Knights of Mayhem. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to have a group of rough and tumble bikers at our back.
Callie got to her feet and crossed the room, wrapping her arms around Marco’s waist. “Thank you,” she whispered into his chest.
He hugged her back, kissing the top of her head and whispering something in her ear I couldn’t hear. She nodded at whatever he said and stepped out of his arms, wiping tears from her cheeks.
“Take care of yourself,” Marco said, lifting his chin in my direction.
“You too, man,” I said, nodding. Wrapping an arm around Ellis’s shoulders, I pulled her to me. After what had just gone down, I needed her close. Thankfully, she seemed to have the same idea, because she leaned against me, resting her head on my chest.
Turning to leave, Marco was halfway out the door when Ellis called out, stopping his retreat.
“Marco?”
He turned back, the headlights from his waiting car illuminating his silhouette. “Yeah?”
“How’d Tony find us?”
He sighed, licking his lower lip as he considered her question, probably trying to decide if he was going to answer truthfully. “I had Beto make up some shit about driving by and seeing the truck in the driveway. Needed to get him away from the guys that were still loyal to him, if there was another way, I would’ve taken it.”
“How did you know he wouldn’t just kill us as soon as he got here?”
Marco shook his head. “Not his style, the psycho likes to play with his pray. I knew I had time.”
Seemingly satisfied with his answer, Ellis nodded.
With one more chin lift, Marco and the last guard stepped out into the night.
“Not that I don’t trust Marco to handle shit with Tony, but we should probably get out of here,” Sawyer said, speaking for the first time.
We all agreed and got to work gathering our things. I wasn’t in ideal travelling form, but the more distance we put between us and this godforsaken city the better. Even if I couldn’t watch the lights fade away in the rearview, knowing Ellis was safe and would stay that way was satisfaction enough.
EPILOGUE
Ellis
One Year Later...
“Here, give him to me,” Finley said, reaching across the picnic table.
I kissed my squirming son’s forehead and gladly handed him over, thankful for the opportunity to actually eat a meal while it was still hot.
“You’re getting so big,” she cooed, blowing a raspberry on his chubby cheek.
“He’ll be three months next week,” I said around a mouthful of pulled pork. The girls at the club knew how to cook, a skill I’d never had. Stella, Finley’s sister, was teaching me some basics, but I was still a long way from putting together a feast like the ones at the club cookouts.
It hadn’t taken long for us to find our footing in Portland. True to his word, Z had given Nix a job right away. The entire club welcomed us with open arms.
I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but it definitely wasn’t what we got when we pulled into the Knights of Mayhem compound after being on the road for nearly sixteen hours straight. Finley, the president’s wife, headed up the welcoming party, introducing us to everyone. She’d even gone as far as to let the four of us rent out her house at an incredible price.
The old ladies and girlfriends had made it easy for Callie and me to find our place in this strange new dynamic, taking the time to explain the ins and outs
of club life. When I found out I was pregnant with Sylas a month after we settled into our new life, the girls had thrown me a massive baby shower, outfitting us with everything we could possibly need for our new little bundle.
In the course of a year, I’d gone from having a single girlfriend to being surrounded by strong women ready and willing to help anyway they could. I’d learned that the club was more like a tribe than anything, everyone chipped in and helped out, and no one complained. There was always someone around to babysit at the last minute, or come get you when you got a flat tire. It was a community, the family I never knew I wanted.
It had taken a while, but Nix and I worked through the pain of our past, making the conscious choice to look to the future. Our relationship wasn’t perfect, no one’s was. He still left his dirty clothes on the floor and the idea of hanging up his wet towel escaped him more days than not, but I’d take the little daily inconveniences over the alternative any day.
“Oh, here they come,” Finley said, jerking her chin in the direction of the wide deck coming off the side of the clubhouse.
Twisting around in my seat, I watched as a mob of black leather and worn jeans emerged from the sliding door, Sawyer and Nix front and center smiling like a couple of idiots. Everyone stopped what they were doing and cheered, offering shouts of congratulations as they turned around to show everyone the new patches on their leather cuts.
After a year of prospecting, both brothers had earned their top rocker. I was surprised when Sawyer decided to become a recruit with Nix, but the structure and accountability had done him good, and I was equally proud of both of them.
I watched with a smile on my face as Nix accepted congratulatory hugs and pats on the back on his way back to our table. It was good to see him happy again.
“Where’s my son,” he said by way of greeting when he finally reached our table.
Finley rolled her eyes, but handed Sylas over anyway. “Here, but I want him back when you’re done.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, get your own,” Nix joked, cuddling Sylas close to his chest.
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