Temper: Road Roses MC

by Ada Stone

  “Now, may I use your phone?” I asked impatiently.

  The guy shrugged. “Yeah, sure, whatever. Just make it fast. My boss is a real dick about the phones.” Then he turned back to his magazine, giving me a semblance of privacy.

  I grabbed the phone and turned away from him after dialing. The phone rang several times and I was concerned that Yegor might not pick up. After all, he wouldn’t have any reason to recognize the number I was calling from. After the fifth ring, I was almost positive that he wouldn’t, then the line clicked and there was a stern, cautious, “Hello?”

  A whoosh of air escaped my lungs in relief. “Yegor, it’s Alexei. I’m calling from the Ranch Hand Inn.”

  There was a pause, then the next thing he said was in pure, natural Russian. “What happened? Why aren’t you calling from your cell phone?”

  I responded with equally smooth Russian, “It’s a long story and I really don’t have time for it. Let’s just say I had a little issue and my phone isn’t an option right now. Once I’m on the road, I’ll pick up another one and use it to contact you.”

  “Alright. What do you need?”

  It killed me to say it, but I had to. “I lost Christopher again. I need to get ahold of him. He knows that I can find him somehow, but I have a little bit of an advantage right now.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “He thinks I’m dead.”

  Yegor let out a low whistle, then said, “Well, then. You know you will have to tell me the story about this later, right?”

  I made an impatient noise in my throat. “Yes, yes. Just tell me where to go.”

  “You got it.” There was some shuffling and a pause on the other end. Then he rattled off an address. “It’s some kind of warehouse, it looks like. As far as I can tell, it’s not in use and no one owns it. The bank’s got claws in it, but they haven’t done a thing with it.”

  “Sounds like the perfect place to hide a lot of money,” I told him thoughtfully.

  “Sure does. Take it easy. Call me when you get that new cell.”

  I agreed and we hung up. I turned around to see the attendant staring at me with a bewildered look on his face. “Whoa, was that like German or something?”

  Resisting the urge to roll my eyes at his ignorance, I turned away and said simply, “No.”

  As I stepped outside, a plan formed in my head. Abandoned warehouse. A “party” at the Ranch Hand Inn. Christopher was getting the money; I was almost sure of it. The attendant had made it seem like Christopher hadn’t checked out yet and the fact that the warehouse was empty made it the perfect place to hide things. No one was going to nose around an empty warehouse, and certainly not at night.

  I would go to my car, I decided, and make sure my Glock was still safely tucked away. Then I would get to this warehouse, and I wouldn’t let Christopher get the jump on me again. He thought I was dead, which gave me an edge, but I wouldn’t go into this overconfident. Not this time. From there, I would hopefully get ahold of his partner and put a quick bullet in his head. Then I could torture Christopher until he told me where the money was. And if he didn’t, well, I was fairly certain it was there in the warehouse, meaning I could probably find it without him.

  Yes, this would do just fine.

  I was starting to head towards my car when I heard it. A curdling, terrified scream tore through the air and I froze. I had never heard her really scream before, only whimper and beg, but I didn’t have to in order to know whose voice it was that rang through the air.

  Susanna.

  Without hesitating, I turned and headed back towards the row of doors that marked the hotel rooms. Another scream sounded and I saw which room it came from. Using my momentum and strength, I barreled into the door without hesitation, causing it to buckle beneath the force and weight of my body. It crashed to the floor, one hinge just barely hanging on.

  The room was crap with just a bed, a rickety desk, a wooden, straight backed chair, and a pathetically dim lamp. All of which was completely irrelevant, because my eyes had gone straight to the bed. Lying on her back, her face turned away, her eyes pricking with tears, was Susanna. Her face was splotchy, her expression terrified, as she was pinned down to the bed, her hair fanning out in a long halo about her head. Her hands were held by one of her assailant’s above her head and I noticed that she was wearing a bra, but no shirt. The man’s other hand was occupied, working at the button of her jeans. She was doing her best to struggle, to buck him off, but it was no use. She was too small, too weak compared to the man above her.

  “Stop fucking struggling!” he barked at her, his tone whiney and impatient.

  And she did stop, but not because he ordered her to. Her wide, sparkling blue eyes had landed on me. She looked bewildered, almost as though she’d seen a ghost, but there was no doubt the relief that shone in them.

  All of this happened within seconds. The man—it was Tyler, I realized with disgust—telling her not to struggle, Susanna freezing, the door slamming to the ground. I crossed the room in an instant, reaching for Tyler, just as he finally turned to see what had happened to the door. He had a millisecond to catch sight of me, for his eyes to go wide with astonishment, before I jerked him by the collar up and off of Susanna.

  I ripped him away, throwing him to the floor away from the bed. Susanna scrambled away immediately then, her hands massaging her wrists before clutching at her exposed chest. She watched me, still full of disbelief and relief and something else that I didn’t have time to think about or place. I was too focused on the piece of scum at my feet.

  It didn’t take a genius to guess what he’d been about to do to her, and it made my blood boil. I felt heat and rage flood my body until I was pounding with it, energy in the form of white hot rage fueling my movements and pushing me forward. I watched almost detached from myself as I grabbed Tyler by the collar of his shirt with my left hand as I cocked my right one back. When it made contact with his face, there was a sickening crack. Red splattered the floor and marred his face. I’d broken his nose, but it wasn’t enough. I hit him again, this time the sound squelching and wet. I hit him again. And again. And again.

  I couldn’t say how many times my fist made contact; I didn’t really care. All I knew was that he had to pay and hitting him was the closest thing to calming the rage.

  I didn’t stop until Susanna whispered my name.

  “Alexei.”

  Coming back to myself, shaking with adrenaline and the remnants of ager still coursing through my system, I let Tyler drop back to the floor. He was unconscious, his face resembling raw hamburger meat. Assuming I hadn’t done too-permanent damage to him, he’d definitely take time to heal and probably needed a doctor to fix up his face. At the very least set his nose.

  I didn’t feel an ounce of guilt for it, either.

  Breathing heavily, I straightened myself up and turned to face Susanna. She’d gotten up off the bed and was now standing there, staring at me. I felt a flicker of worry rush through me. Was she disgusted with that display of violence? Probably. But I thought that was for the best.

  It was important for her to know who I was, and just what she was getting herself into.

  We stared at each other for a long while. I noticed her body was trembling, her eyes flooded with unshed tears, and without saying a word, I reached for her. She came willingly as I pulled her against my chest, wrapping my arms tightly around her. As soon as she was safe in my embrace, she began to cry. Heavy, wracking sobs crashed through her body. She shook and trembled and sobbed in my arms. And for a moment, I gave her that. I let her cry, stroking her hair and letting her do what she needed to do.

  Finally, when she began to settle, at least to the point where I could speak to her, I asked, “What are you doing here? What happened?”

  The tears came again at my question, but she managed to get words out between hiccupping sobs. “I was sure you were dead,” she bawled. “H-he said y-you were dead. H-he said—” She broke off in a fit of m
ore sobbing.

  I stared at her. She thought I was dead? That seemed odd. Why would she think that unless Christopher—

  He’d told her.

  My blood ran cold at the thought that he told her such a thing. What would be the point of that?

  “He said he killed you.” Her small arms wrapped around my middle, holding me tightly as she could muster.

  “Clearly he was wrong,” I managed to get out, my voice sounding too harsh, too gruff. But she didn’t seem to notice. She just continued to hold tightly to me.

  After a moment, I asked again, “But what are you doing here?”

  Sucking in a deep breath, she pulled back to look up at me. I could see regret and guilt lying there and braced myself for the worse. She worried at her bottom lip—a habit I’d grown to adore—before finally telling me, “I—I ran away. We did.” She glanced at Tyler as she said this, but only for a moment. Her eyes moved away quickly from his prone form as though the mere sight of him made her feel queasy. Maybe it did. Looking at me again, she continued. “He told me that you threatened him. That… that you said you’d kill him.” She sucked in a deep breath, then added, “And that you’d kill me, too.”

  Shock raced through me.

  What? Of all the insane things I’d heard recently, that one was probably top of the list. Tyler, I had definitely threatened. In fact, I wasn’t all that opposed to killing him. But Susanna? Even if she walked away from me, if she truly and honestly never wanted anything to do with me ever again, I would never wish her harm like that.

  After a moment, shock was replaced by hurt. “You thought I would do that?”

  Her blue eyes grew watery again and she frantically shook her head. “No. I mean, I was scared and Tyler was scared, so I thought he was being honest. But I hoped it was some sort of mistake, but you’re a hitman and then—” She was rambling, babbling. Shaking her head, she sucked in a breath and finished, “I knew I was wrong as soon as we got here. I was wrong about everything. You’d never do anything to hurt me.”

  Something tense eased within my body and when she fell against me again, I wrapped my own arms around her, clutching at her almost desperately.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Susanna

  Shock was putting it mildly. Everything in my system seemed out of whack, off balance. Too much had happened in such a short amount of time and I was left wondering just how my life got so very crazy.

  I was wrapped tightly in Alexei’s arms, clinging to him as though he were a ghost and might disappear any moment, as though my holding him was the only thing tethering him to this world.

  Which, of course, was ridiculous. Alexei was here, flesh and blood. His body was hard and warm, his heart a thundering drumbeat in my ear, his breath feathering across my golden hair. What seemed like only moments before I had thought he was dead. Fully and truly. Chris, my awful brother, had told me as much and the casual confident way he said it, well, could there be any questioning it?

  I shuddered at the thought.

  Imagining Alexei bleeding somewhere in a ditch was one of the worst things I’d ever conjured in my head and I was sure, alive or not, it would haunt me for a very long thing. And it wasn’t the only thing that would haunt me.

  Of their own accord, my gaze slithered down to Tyler, lying unconscious on the floor. His face was beaten and bloody, so disfigured in that moment—swollen, covered in blood, his nose at the wrong sort of angle to be natural—that I wouldn’t have even been able to recognize him if I hadn’t known it was him.

  Which wasn’t so far from the truth in the first place. If anything, I didn’t recognize him. Not in how he looked now or what he had tried to do just seconds before. My skin crawled at the thoughts of what Alexei had interrupted.

  The gun was aimed at me. Shakily, yes, but there was no question that the barrel was leveled at my chest and it was clutched in his hand. How could my best friend be threatening me?

  “Tyler, what are you doing?” I asked, my chest constricting, my heart hurting with the weight of knowledge. The knowledge that my brother was something awful. That my friend was threatening me. And, worst of all, that Alexei was out there somewhere, dying or maybe already dead.

  I winced at the thought, the pain growing in my chest.

  Tyler was visibly sweating, his upper lip coated with it, his brow pebbled with little beads of it. He licked his lip, wiping away that line of sweat. I imagined the gross, salty taste and cringed. After a moment, he answered, “Chris said you need to stay here. He told me—he told me that I need to keep you here.” He made an unpleasant face, like he wasn’t all that happy with how things were going, but he didn’t seem to think there was any other choice. “So… just, come back to the bed.”

  I stared at him, my eyes impossibly wide, my face a mask of complete and utter shock. How could he be doing this? “What?” I asked, my brain not really comprehending.

  He licked his lips again. They looked really dry, cracked in places. “I said, come back to the bed. Now.” He had begun to put more force into his voice, and I sensed that something had changed. He’d made a decision. One that I wasn’t going to like.

  “Tyler,” I whispered, feeling the desperation creep up along my spine and into my throat. “We need to go. Chris… Chris has lost it. He killed a man!” Two men, I thought gravely, thinking of Alexei. But I knew I couldn’t bring him up. I couldn’t, because it would tear my heart to shreds to keep thinking of him dead, but also because I knew that wouldn’t go over well with Tyler.

  Finally, it occurred to me that Tyler lied. Alexei wasn’t after us. Or at least, he wasn’t after me.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Tyler said. He stood up from the bed, suddenly looking too tall and menacing, not at all like the young man whom I’d considered my best friend for all of our lives. When had things changed so much?

  He motioned with the gun for me to go back to the bed. “Get on the bed, Susanna. Now.”

  It suddenly occurred to me how bad of a situation this was. This Tyler was being ruled by something I didn’t recognize and it wasn’t just fear, though there was certainly some of that. There was something else going on in his head, and it seemed like an awful thing.

  I had to comply. He was being so erratic; I didn’t know what he would do if I didn’t listen. So I slowly moved back to the bed, doing my best to not act afraid, though I most definitely was. His eyes flashed with something dark that I didn’t like. As I moved to stand beside the bed, he seemed to get a sudden idea.

  “Take off your shirt.”

  My eyes went wide. “What?”

  “You heard me. Take it off.” He was still holding the gun and now we were much closer. There was no chance he’d miss if he fired it at me. When I didn’t move to comply with his ‘order’ he motioned with the gun again. “I said take it off!”

  I flinched as his voice rose in volume. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to take off my shirt, and I didn’t want to think about why he was asking me to. I didn’t want to think about that dark look in his eyes…

  But with trembling, numb fingers, I reached the hem of my shirt. I closed my eyes shut, fighting back a surge of tears, and jerked the shirt over my head. Sucking in a shuddering breath, I opened my eyes when he’d yet to give me further commands.

  I saw him staring at me. His eyes were locked onto my breasts which were starting to grow from my pregnancy, becoming too large for my regular bras now. I was practically spilling from it and I cringed at how hungrily he was staring at me.

  Nausea swept through me. I knew what that look was now; I knew what he wanted. And it was awful.

  “Get on the bed,” he ordered, motioning again with the gun.

  I almost shook my head, thought about fighting him off, but I knew that with that gun, it would be all over in minutes. And I could no longer trust the thought that Tyler, my best friend, wouldn’t shoot me. This wasn’t the man I knew. All bets were off.

  Trembling, I sat down gingerly on the edge of t
he bed. The tears had started to fill my eyes, blurring my vision and I knew it wouldn’t be long before they fell.

  I saw Tyler’s left hand, the one not holding the gun, go to the fly of his jeans. I felt bile rise in my throat and had to work not to throw up. He was going to do this. He was actually going to force me to—

  I couldn’t finish the thought.

  My brain worked feverishly to try and come up with a way out of there. Maybe I could knock the gun away and make a break for the door. Probably not, though. Tyler was faster than he looked and I already knew he was stronger than I was. And even if I did manage to get out, where would I go? Maybe the guy at the front desk would help me—or maybe not. He didn’t seem to care much.

  And Tyler had the keys to the car. If I tried to run, it would be on foot. He’d catch me in a heartbeat.