by Parker, Ali
I stared at her. “You’d seriously move all the way out here just because I did?”
She nodded. “Yeah, I would. Don’t make it sound like it’s such an insane idea. You’re the best part about Chicago. If you leave, I leave. Besides, we’d be reunited with old friends here. I’m not opposed to a fresh start.”
“Someone who finally talks sense,” Owen said appreciatively. Nancy beamed at him, and he winked at her. She turned a furious shade of pink and sipped her whiskey.
I adjusted myself on the couch and re-crossed my legs. Owen glanced over at me as I held my whiskey in two hands and sipped it. I raised an eyebrow at him. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“You don’t have to sit with us all night, you know? You can go do whatever you want. Or go to bed.”
Owen shook his head. “Pass. I’m up and with you two until Rhys gets back here.”
“I’m sure he wouldn’t care if you crashed for a bit,” I said.
Owen fixed me with a hard stare. “Not happening, Quinny.”
His tone had changed. It was harsher. I frowned. “What’s your deal?”
He looked over to the window he’d been standing in front of earlier. It was pitch black outside, and all I could see was our reflections in the glass. His expression was dark. “I’ve dropped my guard before, and it got people killed. I’m not getting caught up in that mess again. Once was enough.”
Nancy and I glanced at each other. He continued staring at the darkness outside.
Nancy slid off the sofa to sit on the floor. She grabbed the bottle of whiskey and then topped up Owen’s glass. She slid it across the table closer to him and cleared her throat.
He looked back at it, picked it up, and took more than a big mouthful. He winced and swallowed and then put the glass down.
“I’m sorry for what happened to the Red Rogues,” I whispered.
He shrugged one shoulder. “Nothing for you to be sorry about, Quinny. Shit went south. There wasn’t a damn thing any of us could do about it once that fucking ball started rolling.”
“Why did Isaac Reed go after you?” I asked. “Your MC, I mean?”
Nancy shot me a look that said “are you sure you want to have this conversation?”. I was sure.
Owen chuckled and looked up at the ceiling. “You know, I often wonder the same thing myself? I don’t think I can even give you a solid answer. The guy was fucking nuts. Truly. Once we crossed paths, he decided he was going to take us out, one after another. And he didn’t hold back.”
“When did you cross paths?” I asked.
Owen sighed and turned around to face both me and Nancy. He took another swig of whiskey, and then another. Nancy leaned over and topped up the glass. He thanked her with a nod. “We met him in a bar.”
“Oh?”
He nodded. “Yep. We were doing our usual shit. You know how it was. Hitting on chicks. Drinking beers. Throwing darts and playing pool. I was in the middle of telling Rhys some story or another—I don’t recall what it was about now—when Reed walked by. He slammed into my shoulder. And, well, you know how I used to be.”
“You fought him,” I said. It wasn’t a question. Owen was a much different man now than he used to be. He used to be the sort of guy who was always looking for a fight. The fact that he was the one here watching us rather than off with Rhys to crack skulls was more than a little surprising.
“Yeah, I fought him. At least, I tried to fight him. He had me on my back pretty fast. Rhys and Max were there and stopped him from beating my skull in. But of course, he didn’t like that.”
Nancy made a nervous sound in the back of her throat.
Owen smiled at her. “I’ll spare you the gory details.”
“Too late,” she said.
He chuckled and scratched his jaw. “Sorry. But yeah, that fight sort of kickstarted the whole thing. From there, we started to notice little things. We were being followed when we were alone. He popped up in random places we always frequented. Soon, he was making plays at us. He jumped a few guys and beat the living shit out of them. And it escalated from there. It went from beatings to murders in a matter of weeks. It was… hellish.”
“I’m glad he’s dead,” I said bitterly.
Owen took another big drink. “Me too, Quinny. Me fucking too.”
“I thought I told you to stop calling me Quinny,” I said teasingly.
“I can’t help myself. It suits you. And it reminds me of better days.”
I smiled. “Me too.”
Owen rolled to his feet. “You think that boy of yours has anything worth eating in his fridge?”
I shrugged. “Maybe.”
Apparently “maybe” was good enough for him because Owen walked off into the kitchen, and Nancy and I listened to him rummage around in the fridge. I met her eye, and she gave me a sad smile. “Maybe Rhys wasn’t the only one who needed to talk about all this.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I think you’re right.”
I took another sip of whiskey and so did Nancy. We sat quietly and waited for Owen to come back, and when he did, he had a jar of salsa in one hand and a bag of chips in the other. He tore open the bag, unscrewed the jar, and put them on the table. “It’s not much, but it’s the best he’s got. You’ll have to take care of that shit, Quinny.”
“Why are the contents of his fridge my responsibility?” I asked sourly.
He blinked at me.
“I’m not his maid,” I said.
“I never said you were.”
“No. You just implied that it was my job to fill his fridge up with better food.”
Owen chuckled nervously. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“I should hope not,” I said.
“I meant you need to teach him how to shop like an adult.” He held the bag out to me in a peace offering. “Chip?”
Chapter 25
Rhys
The motel room door clicked closed softly behind Liam, and we crept farther inside.
One of the lamps on the wall between the two beds flicked on.
“What the fuck?” Rudy, the one who I’d hit with the baseball bat that night outside Kyle’s garage, sat bolt upright. He and the others were all lying on top of the blankets, fully dressed. “Kyle!”
Derek rushed between the beds, gathered the front of Rudy’s shirt in his hand, and clocked him right in the face with his fist.
Rudy wailed with pain and cupped his hands over his nose, which was now gushing blood. His friends came to at the noise
I loomed over Kyle, who woke with such a start that he scrambled right off the bed and fell heavily on the floor. “Hey there, sunshine.” I grinned. “Remember me?”
Kyle glared at me, and his friends found themselves in equally unpleasant situations. Aiden and Liam were watching the other two, while Derek smirked at Rudy, whose shirt was turning red with blood.
“Which one of these assholes tried to strangle you?” Aiden asked.
“The ugly one,” I said.
Aiden chuckled. “They’re all pretty fucking ugly, boss.”
I glanced up at him and the two men he was forcing to stand up. I looked them over. They were both decorated in bruises, courtesy of yours truly, and they were staring daggers at me. Liam and Aiden shoved them roughly up against the wall and told them to stay where they were.
“The one with the beard,” I said.
Aiden nodded. “Good to know.”
I stared down at Kyle and lifted my leg to plant a boot on the bed frame. I leaned forward and rested my elbow on my raised knee. “You and I need to have a little chat, man.”
“Fuck you,” he spat.
“I don’t give a shit if you want to cooperate or not. I’m going to say what I have to say, and then me and my boys are going to give you a taste of what will happen to you if you keep coming around. I won’t ask you if you understand. I don’t really give a fuck if you do or not. Because I’m going to enjoy this.” I reached down and gathered the front of h
is shirt in my fist. I yanked him forward. “You will never go near Nancy or Quinn again. If you do, I swear to God, I’ll kill you. And something tells me nobody will miss you, Kyle. Not a damn person.”
He clenched his jaw.
“Why did you follow us here?” I asked.
Kyle’s lips peeled off his teeth—well, what was left of them since I’d kicked some of them out—and he sneered at me. “To teach those bitches a lesson.”
Rudy started laughing despite his bloody nose. Soon, the other two joined in on it. Kyle chuckled too and leaned forward, closing the distance between us. “Nancy can’t just walk away from me. Not after everything. She’s mine. You hear me? She’s mine.”
I shook my head. “No, I don’t think you’re getting it.”
“I think we need to show them what we mean,” Derek said.
I released Kyle’s shirt and stepped back to let him get up. He gripped the side of the bed and pulled himself to his feet. Then he spat at me. “Come on, hot shot. Let’s do this.”
Aiden, Liam, and Derek were all giving their guys space too. I didn’t always fight fair, but tonight, I would. Mostly because I wanted to show them how poorly matched they were against us. I’d seen them in action before, and that was enough. Sure, I’d taken some hits, but that was because there were four of them.
And a baseball bat.
Now it was four on four, and there was no baseball bat on the scene. They didn’t stand a chance.
Kyle let out a furious yell and charged me. The others followed suit, and I blocked out everything else in the room, focusing all of my attention on Kyle.
He slammed into me, and I buried my fist in his gut. He grunted and doubled over, but his momentum pushed me backward into the wall. My head hit the drywall, cracking it. Kyle drove his fist up into my ribs once, and then again. Then he tried to back away. I grabbed him by the neck and drove my knee up into his chest.
Air whooshed out of his lungs. He staggered back and tried to catch his breath as I shook my hands out and prepared myself for the next round. My head already hurt from being slammed into the wall, and my ribs were protesting. I wanted this to end quickly. I was in no mood for more bruised ribs, and I sure as hell did not want any broken bones on account of this asshole. “You can do better than that, Kyle. Come on.”
He rushed me again. It went worse for him than the first time. He was a poor fighter—something I had already established the first time I fought him in Chicago. His timing was off, and he threw his weight around like a drunk teenager in his first fight. How he managed to maintain his current lifestyle, I had no idea.
After delivering another couple of blows to his ribs, I turned him around and slammed him into the wall. Then I grabbed him by the throat and pinned him there. “You will leave Nancy and Quinn alone. If I see you in my city again, you know what I’ll do to you. You’re an annoying fly buzzing around my head, Kyle. I’ve dealt with meaner dudes than you. And you know where they are? In the fucking ground.”
Kyle grimaced and tried to break free, but I held him fast and slammed him into the wall again. The back of his head punched a hole in the drywall.
“Are you going to make more trouble for me, Kyle?” I asked.
He gritted his teeth. His broken, ugly, sharp teeth.
“I asked you a question,” I spat, tightening my grip on his throat.
The fight that had been raging around me was dying down. We didn’t have much time left before we’d have to hightail it out of here. Someone had most likely called the cops by now, and there would be a short response time. We probably had four minutes. Maybe less.
“Rhys,” Derek warned.
“I know,” I growled. I tightened my grip again. “I’m not leaving until you answer me.”
Kyle tried to swallow, but my grip was too tight. He reached out and tried to pry my hand away. His nails dug into the back of my hand, but I didn’t let up. He squirmed and tried to kick me. I drove my knee into his stomach.
“Last chance,” I said. “Leave the girls alone. Don’t come back here. Or you will mysteriously disappear, along with your three buddies.”
Kyle glanced over my shoulder at the others. I couldn’t see what he saw, but I assumed his friends were on the floor unconscious or in similar situations to Kyle. His eyes slid back to me. “All right,” he said, his voice a raspy whisper.
I let his throat go, and he sucked in a desperate breath. “I hope you’re not lying to me, Kyle.”
He rubbed his throat and slipped away from me to retreat into the corner. “You’re fucking crazy, man. If those bitches mean that much to you, fuck it. They’re yours.”
“Rhys,” Derek said a little more firmly. “It’s time to go.”
“All right,” I said. Then I pointed at Kyle. “I suggest you don’t tell the cops that we were here and you let them think the four of you did this to yourselves.”
Kyle was still massaging his throat.
“At least it’ll look like you won a fight for once, you weasel,” I said. Then I turned and marched out. The cool fresh air of the night hit me, and I took a deep breath and shook out my hands. My wrists ached from having my hands clenched so tightly into fists.
The others followed me out. “Anybody hurt?” I asked.
I was answered with a unanimous, “No.”
“Good. Let’s get the hell out of here. Good work.”
We jogged across the street. Before we got on our bikes, Derek put his hand on my shoulder. “What?” I asked.
“You said ‘my city’ back there.”
“What?”
Derek clenched his jaw. “When you were threatening Kyle, you referred to New York as yours. I just wanted to clear that up. This isn’t your city, man. It’s Ryder’s. I’m not threatening you. I’m just giving you a heads-up. You have to watch yourself.”
“I hear you,” I said. I hadn’t said it because I meant I was in charge. I’d said it because it would hold more weight in the moment. I wasn’t going to tell the guy that this was Ryder’s city. He didn’t know who the hell Ryder was. I’d rather let him think I was the enemy. And it was a better tool to keep him the hell away from Quinn. And Nancy.
We all got on our bikes. Liam and Aiden pulled away first and were followed shortly after by Derek. They were all heading back to my place.
I sat on my bike and stared at the motel in front of me. Sirens whirred in the distance.
The door to Kyle’s room was still open, and I could see movement inside. He was probably trying to rouse his friends. Then I saw him run out of the room, look both ways, and take off at a sprint down the sidewalk with a duffel bag over his shoulder.
The coward was running.
I laughed to myself. Nancy and Quinn would definitely be safe. If he didn’t have the balls to hang back with his friends and face the heat, he sure as hell didn’t have the nerve to go after my girl again.
Because he knew what sort of hurt would be waiting for him if he did.
I revved my bike and tore out of the parking lot. The bright glow of the neon sign faded away in my side mirrors, and I opened up on the throttle. I wove through cars, rode the line, and kept my eyes dead ahead on the taillights of my friends’ bikes until I caught up and overtook them.
Then I left them behind and smiled as the engine of my Indian roared in my ears and the wind tugged at my jacket.
Chapter 26
Quinn
The bag of chips was empty. Owen was on one sofa with his feet up on the armrest. His arms were clasped beneath his head as he lay on his back with his eyes closed. He’d fallen asleep a short fifteen minutes ago, and I didn’t have the heart to wake him. It was one thirty in the morning.
Nancy had fallen asleep too. Her head was in my lap, and she was curled up on her side. I watched her sleep, and then watched Owen, doing everything in my power not to worry about how long Rhys and the others had been gone.
I wasn’t doing a very good job.
My gut was twisting with nerves,
and my heart raced with every passing minute. It had been too long, hadn’t it? He should have been back an hour ago if everything went well. Maybe there had been complications. Maybe Kyle had more than just four guys with him.
Maybe Rhys and the others were in trouble.
Stop it, Quinn. You’re working yourself up for no reason. He’s fine. He’s always fine.
I ran my fingers through my hair and tried to focus on how peaceful both Nancy and Owen looked. He had started to snore softly, and I watched his chest rise and fall with each breath. I could hear Nancy’s breathing too.
Panic still swelled inside me.
I considered calling him but doubted he would answer. And if he was sneaking up on Kyle, I didn’t want to risk compromising him. I just had to wait. That was what he wanted me to do, and it was what I was used to. I could do this.
I had to.
Another few minutes passed. I was about to wake Nancy up when I heard something familiar: the distant roar of a motorcycle engine. Not too long after, I heard the mechanical groan of Rhys’s garage door opening.
I tapped Nancy’s shoulder. “They’re back,” I said as her eyes fluttered open.
She pushed herself up and rubbed sleep out of her eyes. “How long was I out?”
“Not long. Twenty minutes or so.”
She nodded and peered around. Then she spotted Owen and smiled. “He finally fell asleep too?”
“Yeah, once you passed out, he was quick to follow,” I said as I got to my feet.
The motorcycles were out on the driveway now. Owen’s eyes opened, and he sat up. He looked around at us and then blinked at the clock on the wall. “It’s almost two. What were those clowns doing all damn night?”
“I was wondering the same thing,” I said.
He rolled to his feet and cracked his back.
The door to the garage opened, and I spun to see Rhys emerge in the hallway. Liam, Aiden, and Derek all followed behind him, and they made their way into the living room.
Rhys greeted me with a hug. I threw my arms around his shoulders and clung to him. “I’m glad you’re okay,” I said.