by Monroe, Evie
She nodded and turned toward the dinette. I watched her for a second and turned back to Cullen. “Now what?”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Caitlyn
I walked over to the chair Cullen had gestured to and sat down.
After a few minutes, Drake and Cullen crossed the room with the other guys following. I sure as hell hoped I was doing the right thing and Drake’s cock wasn’t the only reason for this.
Jet’s eyes were turning black-and-blue. He had a tissue stuffed up under his nose, and it was bulging, misshapen. Drake must have broken it with that punch. He didn’t seem concerned, though. He was just as interested in what I had to say as the rest of them. He asked, “Do you know where the Fury’s clubhouse is?”
I nodded slowly. “Which one?”
Drake and Cullen exchanged looks. Drake said, “Wait. You shouldn’t be here. The Fury knows where our clubhouse is, and that’s why they bombed it the last time. We need to get you back to the apartment.”
“In a minute,” Cullen said, waving me away. “Let’s see what she knows.”
Jet stared at me with dead eyes. “Whatever she tells us could be bullshit. Why should we even trust her?”
Drake let out a growl and tightened his fists. He was about a second away from pounding Jet again. “I’m fucking taking her home,” he snapped, standing up.
I gnawed on my lip and tugged on his sleeve. “Wait a second, Drake. Can I talk to you a minute? Privately?”
Exhaling, he led me to a bathroom, off the side of the warehouse. I turned on the light and closed the door and said to him, “I came here to help you guys. Let me.”
He wrapped his arms around me and buried his face in my neck, nibbling the side of my throat. “Fuck this. Fuck them. I’m tired. They’ve been giving me shit this whole time. I just want to take you back home and be with you. We’ll deal with it tomorrow.”
“We have to deal with it soon, Drake,” I said, pushing his hair out of his face. “And I’m here now. Let me tell them what I know.”
He cupped my face in both hands and ran a thumb over my lips. “Let us deal with it. And stay away. I don’t want you to get any more tangled in this than you already are.”
I couldn’t understand. “Why are you . . . why wouldn’t you want me to help?”
He dropped his hands to my ass and lifted me onto the sink. He took my earlobe into his mouth and sucked lightly on it. “Because Jet’s out there, and he wants to fucking use you as bait. You’ll start out telling them you want to help and next thing you know, he’ll be using you as a lure to catch one bloodthirsty fish. You’ll get yourself killed. And I’m not letting that happen. We have other ways.”
I pressed my lips together. “Harder ways, you mean.”
“Yeah, maybe. But I want you involved as little as possible. There’s going to be a fucking storm and you can’t be a part of it.” He pulled away and gave me the cutest, most boyish crooked grin. “I’m kind of falling for you, Cait.”
It stabbed me right in the heart. Suddenly I was fifteen again, with my first boyfriend who used to say all those sweet things to me. I stiffened and pushed him away. “Don’t. Please don’t.”
He held me in his grip, his big strong hands clamped on my shoulders, warm and unmoving. “Don’t be afraid, Cait. I told you. I’m not.”
He was so big, so strong, so fearless, his arms around me like iron, but still, I couldn’t help trembling. “I believe you. I do. I trust you. But this is where the bottom always falls out from under me. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“I won’t. Listen to me,” he said cupping my chin and bringing my face to his, so I had to look into his beautiful amber eyes. “I won’t get hurt. I promise.”
“All right. But you can’t do it without my help. I’ll stay away, I won’t let them use me as bait, but just let me tell them what I know. Please.”
He stared at me for a long time with an intense, hooded gaze, then finally nodded, conceding. “I just want you to know what you’re getting into. If any of the guys give you shit, I’m taking you out of there.”
I stood on my tip-toes and kissed his cheek. “I can take care of myself where they’re concerned. Don’t worry about that. Just help me with my dad, okay?”
He nodded, that boyish grin appearing again, and I forced myself to swallow back the words that drifted to the tip of my tongue at that moment. No kind of, for me. I have completely fallen for you, Drake. Hook, line, and sinker.
We went outside, where the guys were silently sitting there, smoking and drinking, but most of all, waiting for our return. I sat down in the chair and said, mostly to Jet, “I understand that you’re worried that I might not be telling the truth. But I want you all to know that my life has been hell for the longest fucking time, and it’s all because of Hell’s Fury and my father. I probably hate Slade more than you guys do. I’ve been trying for so long to find a way to get away from him, but nothing has ever worked out, and it has always been too dangerous.”
The men all looked at me silently, no one moved an inch. I couldn’t even tell if they were breathing.
I glanced at Drake and managed a small smile. “When I met Drake, and I learned a little more about your club, I actually dared to believe that there was someone who could help me and my mom. Because you guys are so powerful. I know how Slade talks about you, and you’re clearly a force. Slade hates the Cobras and would’ve wiped you off the map if he could have. But he hasn’t. Because you’re the only people in this goddamn town who can stand up to him.”
Jet was staring at me when I met his eyes, but once I did, he looked away and hung his head, then stubbed out his cigarette. He nodded slightly, looking a little bit sheepish, and didn’t speak.
Good. I was pretty tired of him, anyway.
I sucked in a breath. “That’s why I want to help you. So tell me, what is it that you would like to know?”
Cullen spoke first. “Which clubhouses do you know of?”
“The one they’ve been using most recently is in North Aveline Bay, by the foothills. It’s in an old mining camp, pretty much in the middle of nowhere. I can show you on a map.”
The dude with the laptop slid a computer with a map over to me. I zoomed in and pointed it out to him.
“But there are others. They move around a lot. I’ve been to six that I know of.”
“Hart, after this, have her map them all out for you, as best she knows,” Cullen said to the man with the computer before turning his attention back to me. “Can you give us an idea of who usually hangs out there and when?”
“Well, it varies. But I can tell you exactly when my father does things. He’s the type of person who likes to do things like clockwork,” I said, lacing my fingers in front of me. “But he drinks a lot. And I think he uses speed. I think that’s why he’s so hateful all the time.” I reached into the small fridge and grabbed a bottle of water and took a long drink. “When he isn’t drunk or fucked up, he usually spends most of the day at home and goes to the clubhouse after dinner. When he comes home from the clubhouse in the early morning, like 4 or 5 am, his attitude depends on how much he drank and which one of his bitches he was able to fuck that night.”
The men nodded. Meanwhile, Hart’s fingers raced over his keyboard. He must’ve been taking down everything I said.
“Who else?” the guy they called Nix asked.
“I can give you a list of names and how often I’ve seen them there, if you want,” I said. “But if you’re looking for a time when most of them are going to be there, you can’t go wrong with ten o’clock on a Friday night. He’s always having some big party there on Fridays.”
“Friday is too far away.” Drake said. “Where is he tonight?”
I looked up at Drake who was eyeing me with such concern, it nearly made me melt. I gave him a little smile. “Well, Monday night? Same place. Church at nine, unless he’s changed his plans. He’s been having church on Monday nights for God only knows how long.” Damn, I wante
d Drake so bad. I just wanted to go his apartment and curl up next to him and let him take me however he wanted to. I wanted him with a passion so deep it burned within me, because it sounded so much like normal. Normal boyfriend, normal dating, normal life.
But I knew that until this was taken care of, until Slade was taught that he couldn’t hurt me and my mother again, there would never be normal. There would always be so much fear.
And with the Cobras—and most importantly, Drake—by my side, I was finally ready to conquer it, once and for all.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Drake
I sat there as Cait calmly answered their questions, giving them no doubt that she knew what she was talking about. She was so detailed and had so much information that we’d never known before about the Fury, even Jet gradually began to trust that she was there to help us.
I barely said a word, just watched my little lady go, each Cobra hanging on her every word. Every once in a while, she glanced at me, but for the entire two hours of questioning, she was a woman on a mission. A mission to bring her father down.
And she looked goddamn sexy doing it.
Cait seemed about ninety-percent sure that if they were holding church tonight, which they often did, they’d be at the club in the foothills. She said her father liked that one because it was the safest location, out of the way from the rest of Aveline Bay. But it was also closest to his house. She told us that if he was going to be there, it’d be him and the rest of his officers, starting at nine in the evening.
To us, it seemed like all the info we needed, and the perfect time to raise a little hell.
“We got those explosives made, right?” Cullen asked Zain, who nodded. Since the Fury had bombed our old clubhouse, we’d been stockpiling weapons like crazy, especially pipe bombs, for the chance to retaliate.
Now was that chance.
“All right. Let’s get that stuff together and then we’ll head out. We’ll meet at the gas station on 4th, which isn’t far from their clubhouse,” Cullen said.
We all stood up and started to break into action. Cait stood up, too, like she was going somewhere. She looked as riled up as the rest of us, and it made my cock twitch for her. But right away, I knew she got the wrong message. I caged her against the wall, worry sparking through me. So far, we hadn’t had a disagreement. “What’s up, Cait? Going somewhere?” I didn’t want to come across as a jerk like Jet, but Cait had to understand this wasn’t her fight.
She tried to push her way out of my arms, but I held firm. Finally, she crossed her arms and gave me a defiant look. “Where do you think? I thought you needed my help.”
“And we got your help. Much appreciated. I think you know that. Took a lot of courage to come down here like you did. But now you have to let us take over. You’ll be safe here. I’ll lock this place up like Fort Knox.” I dipped my head to hers and touched her bare collarbone, enjoying how the goose bumps popped up on her flesh. “I’ll need a welcome home present.” I gave her a smile to soften the blow of the news that I could tell disappointed her.
But she wasn’t having it. She glowered at me, acting hard, though I could see her pulse fluttering under her luminous skin. “I’m sorry,” she snapped, taking my concern the wrong way. “I’m not your welcome home present. I should go with you. I can help.”
I didn’t care if she could bring down Slade with one hand tied behind her back, I’d rather keep her here, safe, and have her sexy body in my bed later tonight. And that meant us being apart, for the time being. I moved closer to her, taking her shoulders and directing her toward the table. Her butt hit the seat and she had no choice but to sit back in the chair. I said, “Please, baby. Listen to me.”
She pouted. “But what do I do here? Stare at the walls?”
I pointed to the pool table, the sofa, the television set in the corner. We were still adding the comforts of home to the new clubhouse, but we had a few things to make the place look less like a warehouse and more like a hangout that people liked to go to. “You’ve got plenty, here. It’s not prison. And there’s other stuff to drink in the fridge. Help yourself.”
She shook her head slowly and stared me right in the eye. “I don’t want to. I want to go with you. What if you can’t find the place? I can still help.”
My voice rose, and I punched a finger on the table. “And I’m telling you, it’s not safe. I’m only thinking of you.”
I could feel the eyes of the brothers on me. I hated drama, especially in the clubhouse, but I couldn’t let her have her way on this. “You have to stay here.” Anxious to get on the road, I punctuated my insistence by smacking the table and Cait flinched, and I felt about two inches tall. “Oh, God, Cait, I’m so sorry. I’d never hit you.”
She looked up at me with fear in her eyes. Fuck. Me. “Don’t yell at me, okay? I’m trying to walk away from all that.”
I leaned over her and whispered in her ear, “Sorry, baby. You’re safe with me. Stay here. Please. You’ll help me more than anything when I’m inside of you tonight, fucking you into tomorrow.”
Her blue eyes softened. “Don’t ever yell at me, Drake. Okay? Or you won’t be fucking me at all.”
I looked around. The men were nearby, pretending to mind their own business, but I could tell they were hanging on our every word, waiting for more woman drama. My brothers were no strangers to bat shit crazy. Jet, especially. He was standing at the door, looking out the window as he finished his beer, but I knew he was just waiting for the chance to get his retaliatory blow in. If Cait delivered it, even better. He could rub my nose in it and tell me “I told you so.”
I took her hand. “Come on. Let’s go somewhere else to discuss this, baby.”
She pushed up onto her feet but huffed as if she didn’t want to. “There is no discussion. I’m coming,” she said, as I pulled her back toward the bathroom.
Any other time I’d be amused as hell by her tough, sassy act, but we had a life and death situation on our hands with no time to lose. Time to put my foot down. I pulled her inside and closed the door, pressing her up against it and putting a finger in her face. “Like hell you are.”
She snapped at it, trying to bite it, like a little brat. I ripped it away, just in time as she said, “Just try and make me stay, tough guy. Go ahead. Tie me up.”
She held out her arms in surrender, begging for it. Her eyes sparked with electricity. I think she would’ve liked that. Hell, maybe I would’ve liked it, too.
I couldn’t believe the guts of this woman. She knew I wouldn’t do anything like her father. Or maybe she didn’t, and she was testing me. But either way, it was getting me hot.
Then she reached out and touched my chin, running her finger down across the rough stubble, teasing me. Goddamn, her touch did crazy things to me. It made me sick, it made me alive. It made me want to lick and suck and bite and take what she put in front of me all night long. It might have been the adrenaline, but I didn’t just want her later, as a welcome home present. I wanted her right then. I wanted to taste her titties again. I wanted her naked and on top of me. I wanted to sink my tongue and my cock and my fingers inside of her pussy, make her wet and hot and mine.
And she wasn’t just sexy. She was so fucking beautiful, too. I loved her big blue eyes, her fiery red hair that fell down to her breasts and looked like a lion’s mane when she woke up from sleeping. I loved her little white teeth, her sun-kissed skin, her slim and dainty little hands. Every part of her looked like it was made for, meant for me. For Slade to hurt something this gorgeous and heavenly was fucking unconscionable.
“What are you looking at?” she said suddenly, her finger stilling on my chin. She dropped it suddenly, as if she’d thought she was doing something wrong. That was the doubt her asshole father had put in her.
“Perfection.”
She studied me like I was the crazy one. “I thought we were in the middle of a fight.”
“Fuck that. You win. Let’s make up.” I took her hand and
placed the fingertips back on my chin again. “I like it when you touch me.”
She smiled and lifted her finger up to my lips. I kissed the tip of it. Then she cupped my face. “I’d love to make up.”
Her skin was so creamy and soft, begging to be touched. I slid a finger down her pretty jaw, to her collarbone, touching all the places I wanted to kiss. Then I tangled up my hand in her long hair and drew her up to me, stopping just a hair’s breadth away from her neck. I licked a wet, sinuous path up her pretty throat before crushing her mouth with mine. I thrust my tongue into her waiting mouth and she settled against me.
I fucked her mouth for a minute, all me, until she let out the smallest of moans in response and reciprocated, our tongues warring together as I pressed her up against the wall. She arched against me, her tits pressed against my chest, nipples hard beads, begging to be sucked.
That was all it took to get me hard. That, and the knowledge of what we were about to do. Because fuck me, I wasn’t about to stop now.
She knew it. Instinctively, she wrapped her arms around me. The door was shaking back and forth from our weight, making a racket, so I spun her around, so that she was up against the sink. As I did, her hands roved down to the waistband of my jeans, hitting upon the butt of my gun. She tensed up.
I reached behind me and pulled it out, setting it on the tank of the toilet. She followed it with her eyes, a worried crease on her forehead. “Have you ever shot anyone with that?” she asked me.
I wrapped my hands around her tiny hips, my fingers skirting under the camisole to find her soft skin. I shook my head. “My business is in fixing people, not hurting them. I don’t like to use it.”
“But you would? Use it on my dad, I mean?” Her voice was so small.
I inhaled sharply. “I would. I’d shoot that bastard right between the eyes for what he’s done to you, and not feel a lick of guilt.”
She nodded. “Good. I would’ve, too. I almost did. You don’t know how many times he left his gun out on the coffee table at home while he napped, and I thought I could so easily just pick it up, and end it . . .” She trailed off, breathing hard.