by Stacey Lynn
“If Travis is backing the Black Death trying to get drugs into Jasper Bay,” I started saying around a mouthful of salty bacon, “there’s nothing I can do to protect him.”
She stared me right in the eyes. “You mean you won’t.”
“I mean I can’t. You know how this works, Liv.”
“He’s the father of my baby. What would my dad say?”
I leaned back in my chair, crossing my arms and raised an eyebrow. “You want to ask him? Tell him the mess you got yourself in all because you’ve been holding an unnecessary and misplaced grudge against him for the last five years?” I leaned forward, my hands pressed into the table. “I’m pretty sure he’ll put Travis to ground himself if he finds out he knocked you up.”
Liv’s eyes flashed. I watched her shake her head, her eyes wild before she pushed back from the table and dumped her breakfast in the trash. She had barely eaten a thing. “Unnecessary? Misplaced? You have got to be kidding me! I was shot!”
“And we took care of the threat.”
“You left me alone! Damn it, Daemon!” She spun around and stomped out of the kitchen. I followed, right on her heels. Finally, we were having the conversation we should have had five years ago. And hell if I was letting her walk away from it again. She spun on her heels once she hit the top of the stairs and faced me. One hand curled tightly around the banister while the other ran madly through her hair.
“I was dying. My mother had died. And everyone I knew—my entire family—not one came. All of you were too fucking busy playing your damn outlaw renegade games, to care that I was left alone. Don’t give me that shit about my anger being misplaced, because when I needed family, no one showed. Not even you.”
I closed the gap between us on the stairs and was in her face immediately. Both of us were breathing so heavily the air between us was hot and thick. I could see her pulse jumping in her neck, and all I wanted to do was kiss some fucking sense into her for once. Then fuck her. My dick clearly didn’t care she was knocked up by another man.
“Do you know what I saw that night when I got here?” I growled, my small hold on control threatening to explode. Liv made me feel fucking insane. “I saw my dad… dead on the floor, from a bullet my own brother had put in him. Your mom’s brains were blown all over the couch, and you. You were unconscious, blood all over your body, and puke all over the place. I had no idea what kind of fucking massacre I just walked into, and all I knew was that the most important people in my life were lying in pools of their own damn blood.”
All that damn blood. If I closed my eyes at night in the dark living room, I could still see it—I could still smell it. It seemed to have been coming from everywhere. Cherry on the couch, Liv slumped over in her chair, and my dad, lying in a pool of blood. And in the midst of it all, was my older brother, Ryker, shutting down right in front of me when as he realized he had not only killed our dad, but that the other guy had gotten away. Didn’t matter that it was an accident. I sent him home before he could get busted for possession of an unregistered firearm, and hadn’t seen him since. He just took off. Fled town, left his fiancée and all his guilt behind in Jasper Bay. Most of the time when I talked to him, it sounded like he was still running from it.
She wiped her tears and turned her head from mine. I reached out, grabbed her chin, and pulled her to me. She had to hear this, almost as much as I had to say it.
“Do you know what that did to me? It fucking gutted me, Liv, and I would go make the same decision today even if you ended up hating me all over again. Family was dead. Women, Liv. We don’t fuck with women, they broke that rule, and they had to pay. Don’t you get that?
“You can’t fault me for that. And you can’t fault your dad, either. They needed payback. They needed it immediately, and they needed it big. I had to join. Ryker was a fucking mess after he accidentally shot our dad, Liv.” I took a deep breath, trying to calm my racing heart. It worked minimally.
I shook my head, my voice softer and slower. “No one else in my family was left and there was no way I was letting the club go, not without any members of my family in it. Shit had to be done. And we got it done.”
She wiped the tears falling down her face, her eyes on mine as I said every word. I held tighter to her chin, mostly because she had to pay attention. Also, because I just loved touching her soft skin.
“Tell me you get that, babe.” Pink rose to her cheeks; her breath hitched. I took just a second to enjoy the fact she wanted me as much as I wanted her. Then I dropped my head closer and pressed my lips against the edges of hers, giving her just a hint of what I really wanted to do to her, and at the same time, hoped like hell she didn’t knee me in the balls.
When she relaxed against me, I took the small victory before I pulled back. I ran my thumb softly against her bottom lip, watching her pant for breath while her eyes looked glassy.
“I need you, Liv.”
“What?” The word came out as if exhaled in a breath. Maybe it was. Her eyes cleared and her brows furrowed together.
“I need you to talk to Travis. See if he gives anything away.”
“You want to use me as bait?”
I pressed my lips together and then bit the inside of my cheek. Heat flared in her eyes.
“I need you to do your part for the club. No one has asked anything of you, ever. You’re the only one who can figure out how the Black Death are hijacking our ports and getting their drugs in town. I need to know where they’re coming from and how they’re getting in. And if Travis is helping.”
One of her hands came up and wiped a line of sweat beads on her forehead. Then she smacked my hand off her chin. “God, you’re such a dick.”
She headed to my old bedroom and I followed her slowly. Liv had to understand how important this was, not only to the club, but also to her.
“I can’t believe you would ask me to do this, Daemon.” She was staring out the window of my bedroom, her back facing me, her voice defeated and sad when I entered. “He loves me. I know he does, I just don’t believe he’d become a dirty cop. He’s always wanted to protect this town. I can’t fathom him helping with this.”
“Think of the consequences if he is. Someone is helping. Maybe it’s not him,” I allowed the concession, but I doubted it, “but we need to know, and you’re the only one close enough to him to be able to figure it out. If he is, Liv, he allowed someone to throw a bomb through a window where you live. You could have been killed last night. Or hurt. And he had a part in it.”
“He wouldn’t.” She shook her head. Her hands were propped on her hips and her fingers dug into my shirt. We were silent for several minutes before she took a deep breath and exhaled. “What do you want me to do?”
I grinned. What did I want her to do? Lay down on my bed, clothed only in my damn shirt and stay there for the rest of the day. The week. Hell, forever worked for me.
“I can keep you updated when the drops are, or when we suspect activity. I just need to know where Travis is when it happens.”
She raised one eyebrow and looked at me doubtfully. “That’s it?”
I shoved my hands in my jeans pockets and rested against the wall. “That’s it. I swear.”
I watched her uncertainty turn to determination. Her shoulders rolled back, her hands fell to her sides, and her lips pursed. In front of me, was the daughter of the President of the Nordic Lords Motorcycle Club, walking back into the life, even if she wouldn’t admit it.
And it was sexy as hell.
She nodded. That was all it took. I left the room and came back a few minutes later with a burner phone in my hand. She took it willingly and slid it into her purse without looking at the phone or at me.
“All you have to do is call me if he disappears. I’ll keep in contact with that phone. Answer it when I call.”
“Okay,” she said, after another deep breath. “Let’s get to work.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
For the first time all morning,
she looked at me and smiled. I instantly wanted to take back the question. I braced myself for something I knew was coming that I didn’t want to hear.
“Travis is picking me up and taking me home. I need to go through my shit and figure everything out. I called him when you were still sleeping to come get me.”
My eyes, I swear to God, almost jumped out of my sockets. “Uh. No. You’re at the club, Prez’s orders.”
“Well that’s freaking stupid,” she waved her hands in the air wildly. “How in the hell is Travis going to trust me, spend time with me, when I’m stuck in the very club you think he’s turned against?”
She had a point. Still, Bull was going to be pissed as a… well, a bull. I could practically see the steam shooting out of his nose.
“I have to go on like everything’s normal,” she continued and I closed my eyes, swearing to myself. Using her might end up being my worst decision yet. “And I can’t do that if I’m at the club all the time.”
“Fine,” I bit out. “But we’ll still be watching you. And you call me immediately if something doesn’t seem right.” Then I remembered that her apartment was trashed. She wasn’t going back home and I felt like vomiting and then putting a bullet in Travis just because. “Where are you going to stay?”
She smiled. Wickedly. I wanted to lick her lips and then handcuff her to my bed. “Travis’s.”
“Fuck.” I raked my hands through my hair and turned around.
“What’s wrong, Daemon? Jealous?”
Fuck if I’d admit it to her. No way in hell would I give her that power over me. Not until she was mine, and then she could take whatever the hell she wanted from me.
“It’s fine,” I said, walking out of the room. I smacked my hand on the doorframe, grinning like a fucking wild man, as I looked at her over my shoulder. I felt like one. “I’ve got Missy.”
She scowled instantly, and I bit back my laugh as I headed down to the living room to wait for Travis to come pick up his girl and unborn baby.
Fuck.
Neither of us spoke when I met Daemon downstairs. I briefly wondered if we would ever end the games between us. He sat on one of the couches, his gun resting on his thigh. I’m sure it was in an attempt to intimidate Travis when he showed up.
Idiot. I rolled my eyes. Like Travis would even get out of his truck on Daemon’s property.
I heard the rumble of his large Super Cab Ford peeling down the driveway before I had a chance to prepare myself for what I had just agreed to. I had just made the legitimate decision to walk right back into the club, at least, to help them. I hated it.
But I needed it. I needed to know if Travis was truly trying to hurt my family. Granted, I hated the club, but if Travis was intentionally doing something that could end up killing my Dad? Deal breaker wasn’t a big enough word for what would happen to him.
And there was no way I was going to tell him about the baby, until I knew for sure he could be trusted.
“You okay?” Daemon asked me as we heard the truck outside pull to a stop, skidding out on the gravel.
“I’ll be fine.” I turned to him and my heart skipped. Closing my eyes, I tried to erase the thoughts in my head. They were bouncing around like crazy, too disjointed to become a full, linear thought. But the one thing that stood out the most?
Daemon was sexy as hell. He was every bit the biker man now. He was fully ingrained in the life. His long hair was wild and disheveled, his beard scruffy and rough. But his eyes. They could always grab me, hold me, and look at me as if I was the most important thing in the world.
I stared at the wooden floor beneath my feet, too afraid he’d see the reaction I had for him. It didn’t matter if I was with Travis or not. Daemon still wasn’t an option for me.
I just had to keep reminding myself of it. Sleeping in his old high school shirt last night, in his bed, and in a room that reeked of all things Daemon, probably wasn’t the smartest decision I had ever made. Continuing to let him kiss me was even worse. Maybe I had multiple-personality disorder—schizophrenia. Some medical condition that could explain why every time Daemon touched me or breathed on me my brain turned into a puddle of stupid.
His hand was on the back of my neck and he pulled me until my body was flush against him, right as I heard an impatient and loud honking sound from outside.
“I gotta go,” I told him, my voice more breathy than I wanted. Damn it.
“Be safe. Get the fuck out of there and to the club if you suspect he knows what you’re thinking, or doing. At all.”
“I know—”
“I mean it,” he said, cutting me off. His eyes pierced mine with intensity that I had never seen. All fucking hot sex male intensity. My stomach flipped and not from morning sickness. “You have a baby to take care of. And I don’t give a shit if it is Travis’s. I need you taking care of yourself, and I need to know nothing will happen to you.” His forehead fell to mine and he pulled me closer. I fought the urge to wrap my arms around his waist; instead, I just inhaled the smell of his leather cut. “I can’t have anything happen to you again.”
“I know,” I choked out. Another honk from outside, and I opened my eyes and pulled away. “I’ll be good.”
He eventually let me go. As I walked out the door and climbed into Travis’s truck without so much of a hello from him, I knew Daemon was in the doorway. I didn’t have to look back to check. I could feel the heat from his stare on me the entire time.
“How’s my apartment?” I quietly asked Travis once we were halfway back to town and far enough away from Daemon’s that the tension between us had dissipated a little bit. Which meant it was still thick and heavy and we hadn’t said a single word to each other yet.
His hands rubbed around the leather steering wheel making an eerie squeaking sound. “I’ve heard it’s in bad shape. Are you sure you want to go back? You can’t get in, yet. It’s too dangerous.”
“I just have to see it,” I said, resting my head against the cool glass of the window. Nothing important was there, but I had to see what had happened. I needed to know how badly I could have been hurt.
“I’m surprised you were allowed to leave,” Travis said a few minutes later. He didn’t look at me, but his voice was cold and impassive.
I squeezed my eyes shut before turning my head to him. “Do you really want to talk about Daemon?”
“Interesting he was there last night, wasn’t it?”
So he did want to talk about Daemon. I let out a slow, frustrated sigh. “My dad’s been having me followed. I didn’t know until last night.”
He let out a laugh that was anything but friendly. “I should have known.”
“Would it have changed anything?” I asked, not entirely sure what I was asking. Would he have still left me alone last night had he known a Nordic Lord was in the shadows? Would he have allowed someone to throw a bomb into a window near where I lived? Would he have even made an effort to be with me when I came back to town?
I didn’t really think I wanted the answer to any of them. And Travis didn’t answer anyway.
He did scowl, however, when we pulled up to my apartment and saw Faith sitting on the curb outside my building.
My eyes widened as I took everything in. Yellow police tape surrounded the perimeter of the building. The front windows were completely gone and inside I couldn’t see anything but half-melted furniture and ashes. The second story windows where my apartment was were missing too.
I climbed out of his truck when he parked it across the street and met Faith at the curb.
“Are you okay?” she asked, her hands wrung together as if she didn’t know whether to reach out and hug me. I stood in front of her awkwardly not sure what to do either. How do you greet someone who used to be your best friend but you’d only talked to twice in five years?
In the end, I reached out and wrapped my arms around her. “I’m fine. I got out almost immediately.” It was awkward and we were both stiff, but I had nothing personal against
Faith. She pulled back quickly and let me go.
“Good.” She nodded and looked at Travis. He stood next to me with the same scowl on his face directed straight at her, his hands in his pockets, almost as if he were trying to protect me from her.
Or he just hated that someone else from my past club life was hanging around my home.
I didn’t know which and didn’t care to ask. I ignored them both and bit my lip, fighting to keep back tears from my eyes as I looked at my home.
It wasn’t much. It was a crap hole really, but it had just become my home. Staying with Travis might be a temporary solution, but where was I going to end up?
Just as I turned back to Travis, I saw another car pull up and park next to his truck. I frowned as Gunner climbed out of his low-lying sports car and jogged across the street straight toward me.
“Thank God, you’re okay, woman.” He wrapped me in his arms, not giving me a chance to answer. “I was losing my shit last night until the firemen said you weren’t upstairs.”
He held on to my shoulders as he pushed me away to take in every inch of my body and examine me for anything wrong. “I’m good,” I promised as he wrapped me in his inked arms again.
“You got a place to crash for a while?” he asked, once he finally let me go.
I nodded my head in Travis’s direction. “I’ll be fine. What about you and work?”
He shrugged like it was no big deal. Maybe to him it wasn’t. I didn’t know much about Gunner other than he loved tattoos. “The office wasn’t damaged so anything important is safe. I figure it’ll take about a month to get things cleaned up before we can get back in here. I can always work from home if someone needs something immediately.”
I wrinkled my nose and let out a breath. “A month?”
“Don’t worry; you’ll be on paid leave. Take a vacation. Cause some trouble. I’ll need you back before too long.”
My shoulders fell and I frowned. Work had been the only thing to keep my mind sane since I came back to town. But since there wasn’t anything I could do about it, there was no sense in complaining.