by Lana Grayson
Someone desecrated their bodies, sliced their heads off, and tossed their remains haphazardly behind the house for the scavenging animals to eat.
If we hadn’t got into the accident last night, if Brew hadn’t bought me dinner, if we hadn’t hidden in the hotel room from Temple...I would have been tossed into the garden with them.
I wouldn’t think about that. Not while the murderer might have lurked nearby. Watching the house.
Waiting for us to get there.
Waiting for me.
Christ. I didn’t know where I was running, but I ran until my lungs filled with panic as thick as mud. I slid to the ground and panted.
Jesus, how had I got mixed up in this? First Goliath, then the beatings, then the club business. I leaned against a tree and closed my eyes. It didn’t help.
Goliath hadn’t cared about the accident. Hadn’t asked if I was hurt. Hadn’t even cared where I was. He demanded only two things.
Did I make it to Kingdom’s safehouse.
Did I fuck it up.
What the hell would he say when he realized the men were dead? Or was that how it was always supposed to play out?
How deep did this go?
The jumbled questions blurred my composure into slippery, useless panic. I breathed. It did nothing. The breath lodged itself between the fear of what happened and the horrors yet to come. I coughed it out.
I had to figure this all out. That was step one. Figure out what to do. Who to tell.
Who to trust.
That answer was easy. Red.
My heart stuttered and stopped, split down the middle like the poor bastards trapped in the garden.
Red was supposed to be up here. He went to find the money and rescue me from groping hands, not hacksaws to the neck.
What if he made it here? What if he was one of the dead?
I pulled out my phone. My grip sweated, and the phone fell to the dirt. I dove, murmuring my prayer as I fought with the jerking, thickened movements of my terror to call the one bastard in the world that cared for me even after I made every wrong decision, slept with every wrong guy, and lost myself in the wrong world. My cousin was no saint, but Red was all I had.
I dialed and prayed he wasn’t one of the bodies hauled into the woods.
One ring. Two rings. Three rings and a scream tore through my throat and pooled the blood at my feet. I tasted the panic attack, and it wouldn’t be pretty.
Four rings.
“Martini?”
Red’s smooth voice rolled like Crown Royal, the stuff I hid behind the bar when the guys stumbled in after a run. My lungs might have detonated into a sob if I hadn’t tasted a dozen expletives to fire at my cousin. I gripped the phone until my fingers turned white.
“Red—fucking answer your phone when someone calls!”
“What the hell—”
“You’re alive!”
He snorted. “Hardly. I’m stuck in Philly.”
Never had such a horrible fate sounded so perfect. I collapsed against the tree. This time, I let the tears roll over my cheek—only because no one was looking, and no one could use it to their advantage.
“They’re all dead.”
“What?” Red asked.
“All of them. Five of them. Maybe more. They’re all dead.”
Whatever chuckle rounded from his lips abruptly silenced. “Who is dead?”
“They are. They’re dead. Dead, Red.”
The rhyme sounded childish. I nearly giggled. I might have used his real name, but Ryan was as dead as the men in the garden. Lost his scholarship, lost his way, lost his mind. Ryan abandoned a life of medicine and potential for a different kind of forensics. Hands-on training—crime scene investigating for those who didn’t want to call the cops. He guaranteed a quiet and effective clean-up service for those who needed to dispose of their vendettas as discretely as possible. Then he dropped out of school, entered the MC, and made a name for himself as Red—someone to call when five decapitated bodies piled in a backyard.
“Who is dead? Jesus Christ, hold on.” Red muffled the phone with his hand. The scratchy grumble of a street corner hummed over the line, but he ducked inside a building and slammed a door. The sudden silence only made his question harsher. “What the fuck is happening?”
“They’re dead!”
“Yeah. I get that. Who is dead, Martini? Take a fucking breath and talk to me. Christ.”
“Kingdom MC.”
Now it was his turn to panic.
“You’re not serious.”
“Kingdom MC is dead. The ones we were supposed to meet. We’re here. They’re dead.”
“Are you sure?”
“The headless bodies were a clue, but I’ll go back and ask if they’re horsing around.”
“Holy shit.”
My trembling returned—more epileptic fit than shuddered fear. But that was good. Shivering meant I was feeling something. What I saw hadn’t destroyed my mind. I blinked and imagined the bodies. After a drink or ten, maybe the image would fade.
Red’s voice lowered. “You gotta tell me who’s dead. What members? Is anyone else there?”
“Anyone else? Holy shit, we needed a priest for last rites hours ago.” I tugged at my hair. I liked the pain. I normally did, but this time it wasn’t someone else’s hand keeping my attention. It was my own, and the bite focused me on the present. “No one told me I’d be walking into a damned graveyard. What the hell were Sam and Goliath thinking sending me into a fucking gunfight?”
“A gunfight—Martini, what the hell—”
“Three men came after us. I just wanted to stop for a milkshake, talk to him a little. I was trying to get some information out of him.”
“What? Who?”
“Brew.”
“Brew?”
Fuck. “Noir.”
Red exhaled with a profanity. “Three men killed Kingdom?”
“No! Well…maybe. Just fucking listen to me. I had a milkshake. I mean, we stopped at a diner to eat, and Temple MC came in. Three officers. They chased us out of the diner.”
“Temple?”
“They must have known Noir. They followed us all over God’s country before Noir took two of them out. Or maybe he didn’t. They might still be around. After we crashed, I don’t remember what happened—”
“Crashed?”
“Red, I’m in trouble. Something is happening here. Something big. Sam and Goliath got us into trouble, and now we have got to get out.”
I wasn’t making any sense. I sucked in a breath. Red talked at me. I didn’t listen. I didn’t care what he said, just that he was saying it. Enough madness and bloodshed stained my life in the past twenty-four hours. The last thing I needed was my cousin caught in the middle of this, trying to bargain my life away from men who didn’t have time to fight to save theirs.
“I’m so glad you aren’t here,” I whispered. “Red, what the hell is going on? Who killed Kingdom MC? Did Goliath or Sam say anything?”
“I haven’t heard a damn thing. How long have they been dead?”
“I didn’t think to ask them.”
“Sam talked to them before you left.” He not-so-silently counted the hours. “You were supposed to be there last night. What happened?”
“I told you. I convinced Noir to stop for food. I hoped he had information about the deal. I tried to find out who he was.”
“And?”
I sighed. I learned plenty about him, but nothing that helped us, and nothing that my cousin needed to hear about my reactions to him. I covered my face with my hand. Sticky. Blood stained my cheek. Just another cut. Another injury.
I survived a firefight, motorcycle crash, and now a beheading. Lady Luck was apparently on my side. I never had a good relationship with her before, but damn was I glad I suddenly got to meet her.
“Martini, say something.”
“He didn’t tell me anything. He didn’t know, or I didn’t get it out of him. It all happened so quick. These Te
mple guys showed up and the game completely changed.”
“They’re not local.”
“So you’ve heard of them?”
“They’re big.” Red swore. “They got the money, the men, and the drugs to make our lives a living hell. And they’re after Noir?”
“I think so. We lost them and stayed at a motel for the night.”
“Jesus, are you okay?”
“Fine, I guess.”
“Are you safe now?”
I shrugged. The trees seemed relatively harmless. “What do you think?”
My cousin figured things out quick. Math, science, music. Nothing challenged him except the law, and, even then, he might have made a killer lawyer if he respected authority. But he hadn’t seen this coming. He said nothing, and his silence was the loaded gun pushing at both our heads.
“I don’t think Temple would come all this way just to fuck with Noir,” Red said. “That’s a lot of miles for one grudge.”
“Yeah, but…” I tried to forget the pressure of Brew’s body over mine. My fingers still traced the angry ink covering his chest and arms. The word Anathema MC played in my mind. But I didn’t reveal that part of him. “This guy isn’t a small town meth dealer. He’s the real deal.”
“Great. So you’re trapped in a tomb with a troubled loner and one of the biggest MCs in the west chasing you.”
I nodded. “Yeah. And we gotta figure out who killed these guys.”
“No!” Red’s chastisement rang through the phone like a shake to my shoulders. “Are you crazy? You don’t do anything. You get the hell out of there.”
“Red, five men have been murdered.”
“No. Five Kingdom MC officers were murdered. They aren’t innocent. These were the men who were gonna keep you captive while Goliath and Sam dicked around getting them God-knows-what.” He exhaled. “Where the fuck is Noir now?”
Good question. I surveyed the woods. He couldn’t have been far behind me. He stopped yelling my name though. I hoped it was out of caution and not because someone else chased me.
“He’s at the house. I think.”
“You think?” Something else broke. I hoped Red wasn’t trashing a hotel room, but it was better than fucking up a dealer’s house. We didn’t have many friends on the eastern half of the state. “Find him fucking quick.”
“Why?”
“So he doesn’t leave your ass there, Martini. Think about it. Sacrilege, Kingdom, everyone knew you were supposed to be at that house!”
Yeah, no shit. It was all I thought about. Over and over and over again, so much so I felt washed in the blood of the bodies and just as cold and hollow.
“That’s not their normal safe house. Kingdom set up there specifically for this drop. It was a secret location.” Red swore. “But whoever killed them did it to fuck with this deal. Don’t you get it? If they think they’re missing a material fucking witness to the crime—”
“I didn’t see it happen.”
“You saw a pile of corpses. An empty house.”
“No one knows we made it here but you.”
“And Noir.”
“Yeah...and him. But he didn’t kill them. He was with me the whole night.”
Red snorted. “Christ, Martini, you know how to pick them.”
“Nothing happened.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Fuck you, Red. I called you for help!”
He sighed. Thinking. Always thinking, but never doing anything that would help himself. Sure, he cleaned up after others, but he used his education and experience to fix everyone else.
But I recognized the catch in his voice. I had heard it ever since we were kids—when we ran around the neighborhood terrorizing the other children and mortifying our parents when they faced the angry mothers at Sunday Mass.
“Get the hell out of there,” he said.
“And go where? Home? Back to Goliath? Christ, he’ll kill me for not being there when it went down. He’ll take this out on me.”
“You can’t stay there. Not until we figure out why Kingdom got chopped to bits.”
“Where am I supposed to go?” I ran a hand through my hair. “My only ride is Noir.”
The thought hit us at once. The best and worst ideas come to life in a single split decision that would either fuck me over or save my ass, depending on which side of the gun I landed.
“Make a break for it?” I asked. “For good?”
“What choice do you have?”
“There’s always a choice,” I said. “It’s the options that suck.”
“You can’t stay. Kingdom’s gonna be looking for blood. They’ll burn down this side of the state. And Goliath—”
“Noir won’t take me anywhere, not with Temple on his ass. He was dropping me here and offering Kingdom ten grand not to touch me.”
Red’s voice hardened. “Doesn’t matter. I don’t care what you tell him. I’ve heard enough about Noir. He’s just as fucking dangerous as whoever killed Kingdom. And those Temple assholes are chasing him for a reason. If you get him on your side, you’ll be safe. Get out of there, out of the state, away from our territories.”
“And I’m supposed to do…what? Ask him nicely for a ride? Because he was so amenable to that before.”
He snickered. “Don’t play fucking coy. You know how to get what you want. Always did. You sigh and giggle and bat your goddamned eyelashes, and you make him want to help you!”
“It won’t work on him.”
“He’s a man, right?”
A perfect example of one. “Yeah.”
“He’s not gay?”
Pinning me to the bed while his hardness pressing into my leg in pure, feral aggression disproved that. “No. He’s not.”
“Then do your fucking magic. Flirt. Cry. Sleep with him. Who cares! Make him promise to protect you until we figure out what the hell happened.”
“I’ll try.”
“Get on his bike and ride as far as he is willing to take you. I’ll tell you when it’s safe to come back.”
It was my turn to laugh. “You think it’ll ever be safe?”
He hesitated. “Not with that psycho running things. Goliath will murder you if he thinks you’re trying to leave him. And that’s if you’re lucky.”
“Yeah.” The thought sobered me. I stuffed my fear deep down, coiled into a tight ball where I’d deal with it later, once I was warm and far from the nightmare of blood. “He’s not going to let me go.”
“Better to ask forgiveness.” Red sighed. “Start practicing your apology now. It’ll take a lot more than a few smiles to sort him out.”
“Fuck me.”
“Yeah. You’ll probably have to do that too.”
“You’re not helping.”
“Just be glad you’re still alive to be helped.”
A twig cracked somewhere beyond the trees. I stiffened, my hand coiled over the phone. Red spoke, but my pulse roared the blood through my ears. I reached to my side and curled my fingers over the first decent rock I found. It wouldn’t do much against a gun, but ten years of fast-pitch softball was worth more than a trip to the state finals. My grip tightened, but the gun cocked before I had a chance to get away.
Brew leaned over me. Nudged me with the barrel. I swallowed.
“Red,” I whispered. “I’ll have to call you back.”
The girl ran, but she couldn’t escape.
I was bigger. Faster. I caught her even with a headache that throbbed like I poured motor oil in my skull and lit it on fire.
I tracked Martini into the woods, crept up behind her, and had her in my grasp before she defended herself.
The thought might have once gotten me hard enough to split the seams in my pants. Now, the motor oil dripped down my throat, coated my guts, roiled with fear.
If she couldn’t even get away in acres of uninhabited woods, she’d never elude the men who murdered an entire crew of Kingdom’s officers. They were probably hunting her already. The three Temple fu
cks sure as hell got a good look at her while she rode with me.
Martini was cute, and she might have ruled the Sacrilege MC with a smirk, but in the real world? Where drugs and trafficking meant five men were beheaded for setting up camp in a formally uncontested territory? She was the very definition of collateral.
Collateral for what her pussy was worth.
Collateral damage when her hulking lover and his jerkoff president pissed on the wrong contacts.
Collateral to her MC’s needs, the business that would ultimately bleed her dry.
I saw it happen again and again, to women just as innocent, just as trapped as her. Difference was, then? I hadn’t thought to help. I was obsessed with profit, the club, and my own fucking pleasure. I didn’t see what was happening. I didn’t think anyone got hurt except the assholes I beat with my own fists to secure a future for everyone but the girl who deserved it the most.
Not this time.
It wouldn’t fucking happen again.
I hauled Martini up by the arm, and she came willingly. I shook her wrist to drop the rock in her hand. The phone tucked into her pocket.
She called someone.
Mistake.
“Who were you talking to?” I didn’t soften my voice. It was time she understood who I was and why it was a bad fucking idea to run from me. “Martini!”
“My cousin. Red.”
“What the hell did you do that for?”
“Red was going to help,” she said. “I had to make sure he wasn’t in that...pile.”
Her words faded into a rasped whisper. She had two options. Panic and get slapped out of her hysteria, or focus on me and keep her head on her shoulders.
Her color returned. She swallowed and faced me with the flash of forged steel in her eyes.
Good girl.
“Red is my family and my oldest friend. I told him what we found.”
We were as screwed now as we were without him hearing about the massacre. “And?”
“He had no idea this happened.”
“Yeah. I figured.”
I didn’t let go of her wrist. Martini stumbled as I pulled her toward the cottage.
“What do we do?”
She tried to steady her voice. She hid a whimper, but she wasn’t fooling anyone. I admired her for trying. Some women might have just broken down.