by Lana Grayson
“Won’t happen again.”
“Good.”
I brushed the last shard into the garbage. Goliath grabbed the gauze from my hand, spat on his wound, and wrapped the injury himself. I tucked the antibiotic ointment in my pocket instead.
“Come here, baby.” Goliath deliberately softened his voice. He needed something. I doubted it was a ride to the hospital for stitches. “Been wanting to talk to you.”
“Oh?”
“Got good news.”
He pinned me on his lap. He smelled of blood and fuel and not nearly enough alcohol to let me wiggle away from the strength I once desired.
“We made new friends. They can help us get work.”
My pulse leaped, proud. Didn’t take much, just a sweet dance around a conversation, and I got him talking. I wished I had bet Red all the newfound money he was going to make.
I nodded. Even without the secrets, work sounded great. The oil-stained garage functioned at half-capacity since they hadn’t bothered to fix the lights over one of the bays. The MC chased most of my patrons out of the bar, and, the nights I worked, Goliath demanded his brothers drank for free. The club was desperate for cash. I didn’t blame Sam for trying to work out a deal somewhere.
I just wished Red and I could trust it.
“This means I’ll be on the road more,” Goliath said. “Sorry, baby. Daddy’s gotta work.”
I fibbed a smile. “That’ll be tough.”
His blue eyes seared—the fizzle of the lighter before the flame struck. “Bet you want me on the road. Bet you can’t wait to get rid of me.”
Yes.
I snuggled closer to him. “Then who’d keep me warm all night?”
“You tell me.”
“There’s no one else, baby.” I wove my hand along his arm. “You’re more than enough man for me. I thought I proved that.”
He hated to be corrected, but he did love the flattery. The tension in his arms washed away as he pulled me closer.
“I got a job for you, baby.”
Shit. I didn’t expect that.
“...For me?”
“Yeah.”
I pointed over the stockroom. “But I have a job.”
“You’re gonna help the club now.”
My stomach sloshed the godforsaken gin. I edged away to glance at Goliath.
“We got these buddies up north. Real powerful guys who want to help us. We’re setting up an alliance.”
“That’s good. But what does it have to do with me—”
His hand palmed my hip and squeezed. I shut up. Better to assess the situation and figure out what in the hell was happening.
“We owe them a bit of money, but it’s gonna take time to free it up. You get me?”
All too well.
“You’re gonna go up north and entertain these boys. Our...proof of payment.”
I trailed my fingers along his leather jacket, flicking away bits of blood and dirt from the ride. “But baby, you don’t like me flirting with the boys down here. Why are you getting me involved with a bunch of strangers?”
He grabbed my hand and crushed it. I didn’t make a sound.
“Did I say you were gonna fuck them? You’re going up there so they don’t blow our brains out before our deal is done. We send you, they know we’re good for it.” He snorted. “Christ, you’re vain. You think everyone’s dying to fuck you.”
“But you are, baby.”
He shifted and adjusted the hardness tenting his jeans. Jealousy got him off.
And I thought I was fucked up.
“You’re going north tomorrow. Already made the deal.”
“I don’t—”
He stood, tossing me from his lap. I staggered, but I didn’t fall to the floor. I ducked a few steps toward the safety of the doorway and met his gaze.
“You wear my patch, Martini.” Goliath slammed his hand against his chest. The wound bled harder. “You belong to me. If I want to let the Kingdom MC fuck your ass, I can. If I want to hogtie you and leave you in the garage all night, I can. You’re mine.” He snorted. “Thought you liked that.”
I nodded, but kept my mouth shut. If I lied, the hypocrisy would set the bar on fire.
I did like it. Once. Before I realized what I was getting into, when the bad boys weren’t bad enough anymore and I searched for someone bigger, meaner, and a hell of a lot more fun when the leather stripped away.
Goliath wasn’t my first mistake—he was just my worst. And I owned up to it. When I controlled him, I managed the relationship. And the placating worked. At least, I thought it did.
He reached behind him and tugged his jacket up. The motion was quick, but that didn’t offer me any comfort. He pointed the gun at my neck, right where the ink hid under the sweater. I stayed still.
I definitely didn’t have enough to drink.
“This job...is different, baby. You gotta pay attention. You gotta be a good girl and wait for me to come and get you or these guys will rip the skin from your bones while they fuck you.”
Jesus Christ, what the hell had he got us into? The worst deals Sacrilege ever made were backyard weed scores and the occasional meth haul. Nothing dangerous. Nothing skinable.
The dread coiled in my stomach.
I wanted nothing to do with the deal anymore. Especially since the deal looked like it was…me.
Goliath’s eyes cleared for a moment—the rage and aggression shed for insane ambition. I stared at the gun.
“Baby, how much do you love me?” He asked. “Will you do this for me?”
The word hung in the air. I answered reflexively. Like I had a choice.
But my reaction was genuine. My relief quick. His favor was the first taste of freedom I had in months.
It was my chance to leave him.
And nothing would stop me from getting free.
A woman sat on my bike.
It was the most dangerous place in the world for her.
Had a man trespassed, he’d be laid out on the concrete cradling a broken nose and counting the teeth scattered on the pavement.
But the blonde leaning against the handlebars gave me a fucking smirk. The kind of look that gripped a man by his jeans and twisted until he handed over his wallet or fell in love. She mugged with a smile, charmed with a twirl of her hair, and saved her perfect ass from my temper with an arching eyebrow.
She was the type of pretty worth a night of regret, but I knew better. Pretty was about as good for my bike as a ride on dry gravel. I jerked a thumb over my shoulder.
She spoke first.
“Hi.”
Disarmed, and she didn’t even throw a punch. The leather jacket tailor-fit her frame, snug against a thin waist and swelling hips that promised endless trouble. Her boots had heels, probably to pin down the men who fell for her siren song. Her jacket wasn’t zipped, but a pink, silk scarf tied over her neck and obscured the cleavage from her plunging neckline.
She was the most beautiful woman I’d seen in three thousand miles and thirty-eight years.
And she sat on my bike.
“Get off.”
I counted the seconds her silver eyes dared to meet mine. She glanced down, batting her thick lashes as she studied the ground with a bite to her lip and another squeeze on my jeans.
How fucking old was she? College probably, though I doubted many people in the coal mining town saved their pennies for higher education.
“I can’t get up.” Her lips puffed into a perfect pout.
She didn’t want to play this game with me.
“It’s real easy, Darling. Stand up. Get the hell off my bike.”
“I told you. I can’t.”
Those silver eyes pierced my patience, daring me to haul her over my shoulder. I considered it. She thought she could tease without consequence, thought she’d handle how I punished little flirty girls for playing a game they’d never win. She crossed her ankles and settled in. Defiant.
I hardened.
And I h
ated myself for it.
“Get off the damn bike.”
“They’re waiting for you inside the garage.” The woman teased me with a glance over my leather. “I won’t let anyone touch your ride.”
A scratch to the paint would be nothing compared to the bruise on her ass.
The bag weighed heavy. I didn’t ask what a busted-up garage with more weeds in the parking lot than customers wanted with a laptop. Half of their windows cracked and shattered, and yellowed paper curled beneath the broken frames. The rusted body of an old Chevy blocked access to a broken bay door. More than fuel and oil sullied the air.
No wonder the girl sat on my bike. It was the cleanest place to rest that tempting ass.
“Entry’s around the side,” she said. “I’ll wait here.”
At least she had sense enough to keep out of the MC’s business even if she thought her bones were made of concrete. My jaw tensed.
This wasn’t what I was expecting.
Then again, I didn’t have a right to expect anything after leaving Anathema. The road dulled only so much pain, and every bump in the asphalt ached in my healing shoulder. When the bullet struck me, it was courteous enough to divert away from any major arteries. It didn’t kill me, and more importantly, it hadn’t hit her. Anathema’s last gift to me was ripping the slug out of my arm, but the wound it left behind required more than a handful of antibiotics and a tumbler of whiskey to manage.
Death had to be cleaner than this life—easier than running packages cross-country and dealing with disorganized and desperate MC’s with half the discipline of Anathema and all the aggression of the remaining leadership.
Most men lived for the job.
This wasn’t living.
The money I made and the men I contacted and the miles I rode existed only to pass the time. But it wasn’t on my side, and the days my father served protected him behind unbreakable walls and bribed wardens. We both had debts to our name, but mine would last long after he repaid his to society.
The garage was a bad front, but in this area, even the cops struggled to survive. Bad money traded between both sides of the law, the same greasy dollars trapped in a cycle between drugs and women, cash for beer and a kid’s braces. The bikes loaded into the bays were missing parts and covered with dust. Waiting for the money to replace broken starters, or probably stripped to pay for something else.
The further I ran from home, the more familiar everything seemed. My family fought the same poverty. I got out of jail at twenty-one and learned quick how a heavy a burden real-life was. My father did what he did best to get money, and my brother injected courage into his veins to do what my father asked.
And Rose?
The first time I met her she was four years old and playing under the bar with a one-armed doll while Mom served more than drinks in the back room. She smiled because she didn’t understand, and her giggle was a sweet sound after those years in prison.
I didn’t know what to do after she hugged me, so I stole a TV and pawned it to buy the kid her first real stuffed animal—something fluffy and pink that smelled like baby powder. It didn’t matter where it came from. I owed her that much, something to hold onto at night when Dad beat the shit out of Mom for spending all their cash on more drugs.
The officers of the Sacrilege MC waited in an oil-stained break room. The fridge hummed, but the fluorescent lights zapped in the bulb’s death throes. Four men sat in silence.
I met the president—Sam “Harbinger” Ferrero—a few days before the meet. The former mill worker was laid-off when the industry failed. He was too old to return to the forge and too proud for social security. He laughed when he should have thrown a punch, but I had my fill of violent presidents who fought first and snuck in a second shot before the dust cleared.
The other three were strangers. A blonde kid sat on the counter, pants covered in grease. He couldn’t have been over twenty-five, and his only patch labeled him as Red. He didn’t focus on me, not when his attention was reserved for the behemoth threatening the room. I didn’t blame him.
The hulking beast was more freak show than genuine bulk. He glared with all the subtlety of a charging bull and the intelligence of a rutting cow. Some fool gave him a vice-president patch—probably because he wasn’t trusted with anything beyond what his knuckles scraped.
Christ. I escaped from one bloody asylum only to land somewhere between a meth lab and a double homicide. I set the bag on the table for Sam and his treasurer, a man who served in Vietnam and twitched enough to signify most of him was still in the damn jungle.
Sam took the laptop and nodded as he pushed the power button.
“It’s working. Pay him.”
The veteran offered me an envelope. Inside was more than they made in a week. Not worth a hand-me-down laptop but a steal for what was on it. Bank account numbers, blackmail, rival club info. All the same to me as long as I got paid. The money was enough to feed me and collect for Rose. She wasn’t a kid anymore and didn’t need dolls, but she could use it for books and tuition, guitar strings and amps. Maybe a plane ticket when she realized trading one fucked up family for a fling with Anathema’s president wouldn’t help her any.
“Good to see you again, Noir.” Sam gestured for me to sit. “You’ve been trustworthy. Dependable. That’s rare around here.”
I didn’t want to stay, but the couple grand in my pocket was reason to be polite.
“That’s just good business,” I said.
“Think you can do us one more job?”
My shoulder ached. Rest would help—time in a hot shower with enough pain-killers to ease the aching pinch. Two worked to stop a headache, but a handful of Tylenol PM helped to black out the guilt.
“Where do I go, and when do you want me there?” I asked.
Sam grinned, but he was the only one. While Frankenstein lumbered in the corner, Red stared through Sam’s head like he was aiming a gun. He reloaded his gaze at the behemoth. The Vet said nothing, tapping quick, anxious fingers against the table.
Dissention. Insubordination. The resentment staining Sacrilege MC would crumble the decrepit garage into rubble. I saw what happened when clubs tore apart and brother fought brother.
No one would win and no one could help, even when they thought they had a solution.
Especially when they thought they had a fucking solution.
“This delivery will be a little different,” Sam said.
I didn’t like different. The laptop made me nervous enough. Men like Sam and his rag-tag club didn’t do different. They did meth and weed, stolen TVs and cigarettes.
“I don’t need the details,” I said. “If it fits on my bike, it goes.”
“Good. She’s already on your bike.”
A dozen profanities shot through my head. “Forget it.”
Behemoth snorted. Red finally gave me an appraising look.
“You haven’t heard the proposition yet,” Sam said.
“I’ve heard enough. We’re done here.”
“She’s part of this deal, Noir. Listen to me.”
He wouldn’t say anything worth hearing. The envelope bled through my vest. I tossed the money on the table.
“I’m not interested.”
Behemoth spoke. His words grunted through pure testosterone and nothing else.
“You said he wouldn’t ask questions.”
“I’m not asking questions. I’m telling you. I want nothing to do with that girl.”
The thought soured my brain. I carried drugs and murder weapons across state lines, stolen credit cards for pimps and pharmaceuticals for sick kids. There was a time my conscience never slowed me.
That had changed. So many things changed. Now I knew what happened to scared little girls stuffed on the backs of motorcycles. I learned that lesson too late, but I’d be damned if I let it happen again.
“Sit,” Sam said. “Please.”
“I don’t traffic women.”
Behemoth lunged. “You ca
llin’ my girl a whore?”
The knife twirled into my palm quicker than the giant moved. I aimed, and the point of the blade dug into his neck.
The vet hopped from the table too fast. “Oh, shit. Shit, shit, shit.”
“Whoa now.” Sam eased between us. “Goliath, Noir ain’t said nothing about Martini. Let me handle this.”
Goliath snorted. He deliberately leaned into the blade. A bead of blood stained his thick neck.
“We’re not asking you to traffic her,” Sam said. He waited until the knife fit in its sheath. “You just gotta take her to Kingdom. She’s a...token of good faith while we move on the next phase of our agreement.”
I ground my teeth. “She’s collateral?”
“Yes.”
“She know about this?”
“Of course.”
It still didn’t sit well with me. A cute girl like that with an ass that promised a better ride than a Harley had no business getting passed club to club.
Sam kept his voice calm. “We just need you to take her to Kingdom. They’ll give you five grand for the ride, and you’ll be on your way.”
“I don’t transport passengers.”
“Even for five thousand dollars?”
“Take her there yourself. It’s only a couple hours north.”
“Can’t do that.” Sam tapped his nose. “We technically don’t have any contact with the Kingdom MC. This is all...covert, for the moment.”
Subtlety was not a pot-bellied president, a meth-head Vet, a blonde playboy, and a walking injection of steroids. It also wasn’t trading a woman for an IOU.
“I don’t carry things liable to talk back. I’m not jeopardizing my business by becoming an accomplice to kidnapping or murder.”
Or rape.
The word pitted my stomach. Just another reminder of what I raced to protect.
“No one’s touching Martini,” Goliath said. “And she ain’t gonna do nothin’ I didn’t tell her to do.”
“It’s above board,” Sam said. “No one’s gonna hurt Martini. She’s one of us. We love her.”
I had heard that before. I was familiar with loyalty, but I understood betrayal better. One was far easier than the other. What was a little insomnia and guilt when there was money to make and pleasure to be stolen?