by Lana Grayson
And it made me sick. Everything inside me shriveled and dusted away with the brimstone that awaited me when my luck ran out.
I acted just like him.
The rage burned me. I hadn’t treated women like him though. I still gave them a choice. I waited for their consent. I took, but only because they wanted it. Only because they needed it. Only because they understood and desired the same animalistic rutting I did.
Rose didn’t have that choice.
And my father didn’t fucking care.
I’d slice my own throat before I let the blood we shared heat like that again. The instinct was always there, waiting for the chance to strike. I choked Martini without realizing the fragile creature was trying to help me. I hardened because she couldn’t fight back.
The gun should have turned on me.
Martini emptied the bucket in the sink. She washed away more of my blood than water.
“You should sleep,” she said. “I’ll be okay.”
“I’ll take the chair.”
“How chivalrous.” Her hand teased over her throat, but her amusement forgave me. I manhandled her, and she offered to flip me for the bed with a quarter she found in her pocket.
The girl was more dangerous than Temple MC.
A police siren wailed in the distance. She flinched and double-checked the lock on the door.
“Can we be adults about this?” She sat on the edge of the bed with an inviting arch to her eyebrow. “I won’t try anything if you won’t.”
Easier said than done when my every instinct was to shove her into the bed, rip away her clothes, and earn the whimpered breath wrung out from my strength.
But my head felt like it cracked on the concrete only to cobble together with a hammer and rusted nails. I blinked, but two of her now gestured for me to come to bed. Just another fucking fantasy that’d get me in trouble. But my chest ached, and my nose decided to bleed.
Fuck it.
I collapsed on the bed. Martini got under the covers. I might have promised to traffic her to a violent MC, but I was still a gentleman. I gave her the blanket, especially since I blistered in the heat of her memory under me. She seared like the sun, and I didn’t deserve that brightness. I didn’t deserve that excitement. I didn’t deserve to lie in bed next to such a gorgeous woman who nearly died because of me.
“Who were those men, Brew?” Her whisper made the darkness darker with just the mention of my name. She didn’t give up when I ignored her. That was good. Neither would they.
“Temple MC.”
“They aren’t from around here.”
“No.” The thought disturbed us both. “They aren’t.”
“Then why are they here?”
I didn’t have to guess. They looked for proximity to the lake. Border-hopping was easier with calmer waters and looser law enforcement. Better weather, less people, smaller municipalities with fewer funds to chase the drug deals. The region was a prime target for Temple.
“Same thing everyone’s doing here,” I said. “Looking for work.”
“They shot at us.”
“Yeah.”
“And they didn’t hesitate.” She twisted to lean on her side and faced me. “They knew you.”
“Looks that way.”
“Why?”
“You ask a lot of questions.”
“Someone has to.”
I adjusted the rock of a pillow behind my head. My shoulder roared in pain. It needed a bed of ice and a handful of the drugs slipping across the lake, not conversation. “You ask questions, you get hurt.”
“I think I might get hurt either way.”
She pulled the pin on a grenade she didn’t know she carried. If she were lucky, the few cuts she got would be the last marks on her perfect skin.
“I won’t let anything happen.”
“I believe you.”
That was stupid. I made promises I’d never keep, but false hope tasted better than lying, and I was tired of the tang of blood on my tongue. The longer she stayed with me, the more danger she was in. Temple wasn’t my only problem. If one rural deputy with more donuts than brains put out an APB on my name, Brew Darnell would rise from the dead and enter the crosshairs of Anathema, Temple, and The Coup.
And they’d target Rose.
Thorne could explain why he hadn’t killed me, but Anathema still hadn’t healed from the last schism. The war ended when Thorne took out The Coup’s self-appointed president—a monster who kidnapped and hurt Rose. The false-president was tossed in the river, but that didn’t mean his second-in-command wouldn’t leap at the chance to unify both Anathema and The Coup under his banner. Knight was too smart for the club, but played both sides.
Kill off Thorne, claim Anathema for his own, and offer my ass to Temple in retribution.
Clusterfuck didn’t begin to describe it. The world was a constant bloodbath with no life-preservers. We grabbed whatever unfortunate fucker happened to swim too near us and dunked them under to keep ourselves afloat. It wasn’t personal. It wasn’t business.
It was just survival.
And it was hell.
Martini fell asleep before I did. She rolled closer to me, her body stretched out, arms over her head, knees bent and jabbing me in the side. I didn’t move her. Didn’t touch her. Not even when a lock of impossibly blonde hair grazed over her cheek and hid her beauty.
I wouldn’t leave my fingerprints on her. Bloody. Dirty. Greasy with the constant wear of the road.
I had five thousand dollars in my vest.
I was owed another couple grand for transporting her safely.
Kingdom MC choked the region, wringing out every last cent from meth and whores. They made their money, but always spent more. Ten grand could buy Martini time. Maybe not protect her forever, but at least keep her safe for a few days. I’d give them everything to my name if it prevented someone else from grabbing her throat and pinning her against a cheap mattress in the darkness of an unfamiliar room.
It took ten grand to let me sleep peacefully for the first time in three months, and it was worth every penny.
But when I woke, Martini wasn’t in the bed.
I opened my eyes, listening to her whisper from the bathroom. Her words weren’t the gentle promises a woman offered her lover. The floor creaked as she paced.
I eased from the bed. Every ache of my bones reminded me I was closer to forty than thirty. But my arm was still attached at the shoulder, and my grip didn’t fail around my gun. I’d survive, but I wasn’t sure Martini would.
“Baby,” she whispered. “I’m sorry. There was an accident.”
She apologized for getting hurt. Her voice softened, meek and timid with just the right amount of respect that soothed the asshole screaming over the phone. It was a fake voice. She was used to dodging a right-hook with pretty glances and compliments.
“Yeah, I should have called. I meant to, baby, I did. But my head just got all fuzzy.”
A real man wouldn’t have needed an explanation. The word accident stilled hearts, and anyone deserving Martini’s sweetness would have cracked his own skull to trade places with her.
Goliath roared so loud I heard the snapping threat echo against the walls.
“Baby—listen to me. Baby, I swear—”
She sighed and slammed a hand against the sink.
“I told you! We got into an accident. I’m hurt, Goliath. I had to find a hotel. I just woke up, baby. I called you as soon as I could see straight.”
Damn. The behemoth had a point. Kingdom expected her last night, but no one had called. I pulled my phone. I missed another text, though it wasn’t from Kingdom with a threat to slice off my balls for not delivering Martini.
The message hurt just the same.
Are u ok? Txt me back. I miss you! <3 Rose
“Baby, no, don’t come here.” Martini hardened, the gentle coo lost in a brief panic. “I’m okay now. I’ll get up there today. I promise.”
The silence stilled her. T
he wall thudded. Not her hand. This time, it was her whole body. She collapsed against the bathroom door. Her voice lowered.
The words weren’t her own. Hollow and lost and so full of utter fear that I nearly ripped the door from the hinges to make sure the bastard hadn’t made her cry. “Don’t come get me. I won’t let you down. I promise.”
The silence thudded my heart.
“Love you too, baby.”
The conversation ended. I didn’t move from the door. She ran the water for a minute before flicking off the light and nearly running into me. She squealed. Her hands fluttered to her throat. She rewrapped the loosened silk into a pretty knot, not fast enough to hide the angry tattoo scrawled over her creamy skin. I didn’t ask. She didn’t explain.
“You ready?” I said.
She tucked the phone in her pocket. I doubted she realized I was awake, and she hadn’t wanted me to hear her conversation with Goliath.
“We need to talk,” she said.
We didn’t. I already made my decision.
“I’m taking you to Kingdom.”
Those silver eyes had a bad habit of sharpening into a flash of steel. Her stare polished the edge of an unconcealed blade.
“I’ll only ask this once,” she said. “You can answer honestly, or you can lie. That burden is for you to live with.”
“I live with a lot of things, Darling. What makes you think anything you say will be different?”
“What the hell did Sacrilege get into with this deal?”
Martini asked the wrong questions when she should have looked after her own ass.
“What did your boyfriend say?” I said.
She didn’t like my stall. “He asked if I made it yet. Why I hadn’t called.”
“He worried about you?”
“No.” Her voice bittered. “He’s worried I screwed it up.”
“Doesn’t sound like a nice boyfriend.”
Her eyes flashed again. “I don’t trust this deal. And I refuse to get trapped somewhere I can’t get out.”
Trapped. That was a good word for it. Didn’t have to be ropes binding her to a chair. No options, no hope, no way out but bloodshed. If my money might have bought her safety instead of time, I’d have gone into debt and sold my bike to rescue her from what was about to happen.
But no one had that power.
“You’re going to Kingdom because you’ll be safe there.” I patted my vest. “I’m giving them the ten grand as protection money. No one’s gonna touch you.”
“What?” She frowned. “Why would you do that? That’s ten thousand dollars.”
“I’m taking you there, finishing the deal, and keeping you somewhere Temple isn’t gonna look.”
“But—”
“They’re after me. That wasn’t the main MC. That was a scouting party. A handful of guys making alliances and setting up shop in this region. They’ll be back with more men, bigger guns, and a grudge that’ll turn the lake red with blood.”
“So what do we do?”
“We do nothing.”
I tugged my shirt over my head and zipped into my jacket like a suit of armor, the one protection I had. No patches. No names. No emblems. No responsibilities except to myself and the little blonde flirt who watched me with blades in her eyes.
“I’m gonna make sure you’re safe,” I said. “Then I’m leaving.”
“Where will you go?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“What will you do?”
I held my arms out. “It doesn’t matter. Time to go.”
“But what about the deal?” She planted herself in the motel. It’d take a slap to her ass to get her to move. “Sacrilege MC doesn’t spend thousands of dollars they don’t have to hire someone to steal women away. And Kingdom isn’t holding me for money. You have to know something.”
I forced her coat into her arms. “I don’t ask questions. If you were smart, you wouldn’t either. You might not always like the answers.”
“Oh, I have plenty of questions.”
I didn’t doubt it. She raised her chin.
“Who’s Rose? What’s Anathema? Why didn’t you black out your ink yet? What did you do to Temple to piss them off?”
I shoved her into the wall and held her there, my forearm to her throat.
I towered over the girl. It took less effort to keep her still than it did to haul my crashed bike off the road. She didn’t reach for my arm. Martini went limp, but her stare met mine and matched the rage seething from my strength with her own resonating stubbornness.
“Darling, I answer those questions and I guaran-fucking-tee you’d wish you never asked.”
We had wasted enough time. I grabbed her wrist and forced her out the door, tossing the room key on the ground and guiding her to an exit. She didn’t say a word as I slammed her on my bike. The Harley started. It was more reliable than anything else in my life.
“Something happened to Rose.” Martini laced her fingers over my chest. Each touch was like a dagger’s bite. “That’s why you’re helping me. Something happened to her, and you blame yourself.”
I clenched my teeth. Three months passed since the rage last seized control. I inherited my temper from my father. My hands tightened over the handlebars. It was the only thing saving her from a smack across the mouth, and the only motion preventing me from shoving the gun under my chin and ending the fucking guilt once and for all.
“You say her name again, and I’ll leave you with Kingdom to rot.”
Martini tensed, but her voice softened. Not the placating whisper she used with Goliath. A real gentleness. A heart-breaking forgiveness I didn’t deserve.
“You won’t leave me because you’ll never let it happen again.”
I didn’t answer. She already sliced my throat, and I was content to bleed out. She said nothing else on the ride, just gripped me tight and leaned against me to protect herself from the wind and bitter truth of what was about to happen.
The highway let out in forest. I followed the lone road beyond civilization and into the back-ass woods where lone cabins dotted the streams fed from the lake. My phone buzzed again. I didn’t look until we pulled in front of the addressed safehouse—a little summer home that might have once entertained a happy family. Now, Kingdom boarded up the windows and hid their grizzly pack inside. A padlocked garage probably housed their boat. Two jeeps parked in the grass.
No one moved in the cottage.
I ignored the text from Rose.
Martini hopped off the bike and fluffed her hair. She was probably five feet tall, but a good four feet of that was just bluff. She zipped her jacket higher and stared at the quiet house.
Kingdom hadn’t called to ask why I was late with their delivery.
I knew why.
“Brew.” Martini pointed to the rickety porch and the swing collapsed against the rotting floorboards. “Why is the door open?”
Fresh, single tire tracks imbedded out of the mud along the driveway. Only one. They rode in, stopped in the mud, then spun out as they left in a hurry.
Martini read the tracks and came to the same conclusion.
I pulled my gun.
“Stay here,” I said. “Don’t move. Don’t make a sound. I’ll be right back.”
She nodded. I didn’t need to tell her twice to keep the bike warm.
I eased onto the porch. The scent of death wafted outside, the fresh reek of ambush and bloodshed. I edged open the door. Only the darkness of a cloudy autumn morning greeted me. No sound. No TV or laughing, no shuffling or swearing.
Whatever happened, happened quick. The coffee table knocked over. One of the fancy kinds with the glass plate in the middle. The glass shattered, but nothing else was disturbed.
I peeled the corner with my bad shoulder first. It screamed as I lifted my arm and aimed the gun.
I found what I came for.
The dining room was once a quaint little set-up. China cabinet built into the wall. A hand-crafted cherry dining
set with matching chairs lined up under a sparkling chandelier. Perfect for a small family.
Except five severed heads positioned at the table, hacked from their bodies and rolled before each place setting. Kingdom’s cuts served as placemats.
A bullet pierced through each head. I recognized Rivet. His expression registered only shock. The others didn’t have time to react before they were killed and desecrated.
Anathema never sent messages like this, even to the asshole brothers who split to form The Coup.
This wasn’t the violence a small crew inflicted. Tough MCs tossed bricks through windows and dented cars with hammers.
Beheadings were the markings of a cartel.
It was a damn good thing Martini slept beside me in a filthy motel. One of the heads might have been hers.
Her scream echoed from outside. I sprinted from the house, but she was nowhere near my bike.
I swore and circled around back, to the pretty garden fenced in with white-washed wood protecting orange and gold mums. Martini found the headless bodies, stripped naked and tossed in the flowers.
She clawed through her panic and stared at me, her eyes glassy in horror.
Then she bolted into the woods.
They were killed.
All of them. Murdered. Left to rot in a tiny garden.
None of them had heads.
I ran, but I couldn’t sprint far enough. Brambles tangled in my legs, and branches snagged in my hair. Nothing slowed me down, but I couldn’t outrun what I saw.
And neither could my stomach.
I fled until my side cramped and warred with every part of me jarred from the accident. My collapse wasn’t elegant. Neither was what I heaved from my stomach. But the sickness was good. Something tangible. A way for me to expel everything haunting and terrible from my body and mind.
I stood only to get sick again.
Apparently, there were a lot of terrible things festering inside me. I doubted I’d get them all out without clawing at my insides.
The men were all murdered.