by Cat Porter
“Never goin’ back,” I murmured.
“Never,” he agreed. “And never letting anybody have that power over us again.”
Yeah, never sounded real good.
Never was a plan.
I weaved through the traffic in downtown Denver and willed those bitter images away from my vision.
That tingling numbness just beyond the scar tissue flared across my middle, reminding me of my willingness to believe over and over again. I had known it was tempting fate to have something good for myself, to have Jill. The gods of vengeance were angry at my arrogance.
At least, Alejandro Calderone was.
I steadied myself on the memory of making love to Jill last night and this morning. On the fragrance of my scented oil that she’d dabbed on her chest before we’d finally fallen asleep. On Becca’s voice piping up across the hallway in the darkness—a soft babble of words, non-words, and sighs that filled my empty house.
My chest swelled.
I had achieved what I had always known I shouldn’t, what Alejandro would never allow.
The last time Alejandro and I had spoken was a few weeks after Dig and I had left Denver. I had made the mistake of calling Julio, and Alejandro had answered his phone.
His voice had smoldered over the line. “You killed my brother and now she lost my baby, you motherfucker. I will never allow you to have what you’ve taken away from me. Never. That’s a promise.”
Yes, never.
And never was today.
I BELIEVED THAT HATE remains buried in our marrow. Does it ever soften? Does its power over us fade? Maybe. Maybe if you were able to forgive.
The glacial dark eyes of Alejandro Calderone told me different. His was a hate born of passion, full of fire.
A security guard had patted me down in the private elevator up to his penthouse high above Denver. The ceiling had to be over twenty feet high. The floor-to-ceiling windows wrapped around the living and dining rooms, offering a massive view of the city and the mountains beyond. Artwork crowded the walls, furniture and carpeting stifled the space.
He stared at me standing in his royal domain. He was pleased to see me. He was pleased with himself.
I nodded at him. “Look at you—a suit, a pressed shirt, five-hundred-dollar shoes, and a palace to go with it.”
“The shoes cost a grand, but I wouldn’t expect you to know these things, Santiago. Look at you—a piece-of-shit white-trash biker in the wilderness, speeding around in your own little Wild West rodeo.”
I only lifted an eyebrow.
“I’ve grown up, ese. While you? You’re stuck in the camouflage grunge of our younger days.” His fingers waggled in the air, two gold rings glinting in the sunlight coming from the wall of windows. “You could have been at my side, like you were from the very beginning.”
“At your side? I was your drudge, not your partner.”
“You did good work, my friend. So dependable. You always went above and beyond the call of duty. You were so very responsible, too. A very unique quality. I needed you, and I took care of you. And what did you do to repay me? You killed my brother.
“Even though you were just a kid, you were the best, so focused, so vicious. You wanted to excel, and you did. No gratitude though, El Hueso. None. Without Felipe and me, where would you both have gone? What would you have done?”
“You wanted me to pay for that for a lifetime.”
He tilted his head and made a sucking sound with his tongue behind his teeth. He held my gaze, but I gave him nothing.
“You took her, Alejandro. You used her, lied to her, made her candy-sweet promises.”
His eyes lit into me, his voice puncturing my veins. “Lied to her? You never understood this, but she came to us, Santiago. She wanted us. You couldn’t accept that, could you? I admit, at first, she was a new, pretty acquisition. Fun. But Felipe and I adored her. We loved her. It had been going on for weeks before she finally left you. I know, in some ways, she was…delicate, but she was always intriguing, a surprise.” He took in a breath. “Our perla negra.”
“All this was her idea,” he continued. “Us getting off the streets, leaving the bullshit pissing contests behind. The companies, the moving forward into something better than our”—he gestured at me with a flick of his tan hand—“grunge. It was hard and very bloody, but with her at my side, it was all worth it.”
Inès—The face that had launched our thousand ships.
“The one horror was that you’d killed my brother like the little savage you were. That devestated her and me both, but Inès made me promise not to hurt you. She felt guilty about what she had done to you. You were family, after all.”
Family. My eyes shut tight. Family didn’t burn you, throw you away, leave you bleeding to die on the side of the road like an animal.
“So, I kept my word.” His voice was hushed, slow. “I let you go. Thankfully, you left Denver and never came back. At least you respected me in that way. At least. But you destroyed my Perla in the end.”
My eyes snapped open. “What are you talking about?”
“After you’d killed Felipe, she’d started doing blow regularly and had that first miscarriage. We’d gotten married, two more miscarriages, more coke, a bit of smack, eh. Sometimes, she would talk to you in her little hazes. Babbling on about some childhood nonsense or other, crying.”
I clenched my jaw and looked away.
“For years she’d go on and off the medication she was supposed to be taking. ‘Lithium gets in the way of the good things,’ she’d say. A month ago, one night she was home alone at our country house and threw herself off our bedroom balcony.”
I held his black gaze. “She killed herself?”
Alejandro lit a cigarette, some foreign brand I’d never seen before. He blew a long thick stream of smoke from his lips. “She was flying on heroin at the time. I tried to keep it away from her, but my little crazy thing, she liked it, like she liked two cocks in her. When she got emotional, there was no controlling her.
“Over the years, she would often disappoint me with the things she did or said, but she was young. The things she’d do afterward to make up for it…ah.” He sucked on his cigarette, a grin searing his face. “And I loved her all the more for it. My wife was everything to me.”
He offered me a cigarette, and I shook my head.
“Your girlfriend—she’s a cute nugget, eh?” He tossed the pack of smokes on his desk. “Banal though.” He slid his fingers down his blue silk tie. “Ah, well, they’re all banal after you’ve had the one you know you’ll never find again. Am I right?” He took a deep drag and crushed his cigarette into a huge red crystal ashtray that looked like some sort of sea creature, his eyes piercing mine through the smoke. “My tigresa wanted her master’s blood smeared on her tits, not just my cum.”
His lips moved, sound came out, but the two remained detached, separate. I wasn’t registering words, thoughts, ideas. Only his fingers stroking that fucking tie was real to me. The old familiar tats around his neck crept over his smooth starched ivory collar.
Yeah, there was an elegance about him now, a refinement, so different from what I remembered of him. Back then, he had been a whip, snapping for attention, and he would revel in the sting singing in the air above him. He had once been a primitive, sadistic little beast, sporting a long mustache, with built arms and a huge chest that I was sure he’d pound like some sort of inner-city fucking Tarzan.
Now, that beast was all dressed up and speaking slowly, carefully, but the same glint was in those dark eyes. The predator. The demon. The fiend.
“Why did you wait so long, Alejandro? Why? You could’ve found me sooner.”
“I did find you.” He plucked at the stiff cuff of his shirtsleeve. “But I was waiting until you had something of worth that I could take from you. Inès made me promise not to hunt you down. She made me promise to stay away from you. She would even check to make sure I kept my promise. But she’s dead now, and so is that
promise.”
Alejandro took in a breath of air through his nose. “Your girlfriend is pregnant. Why should you have what I didn’t? You took Felipe from us, and in the end, all that miseria you created took my children and my woman.”
“You seem to forget that you took her from me, ese,” I said. “You took what you wanted and left me on the street to bleed. You won it all a long time ago. If it didn’t end up good for you, that’s on you, no one else, not me.”
Alejandro grunted loudly and grabbed the red ashtray, throwing it against a wall. A shower of glinting shards and ash shattered over the rug.
“You want my life for theirs?” My voice boomed through the vast space. “Is that what you want?”
He raised that sculpted chin of his, his jaw jutting out. “Yes.”
“Then take it. Take it and let them live.”
I TRIED TO GET CONTROL of my breathing, but it was nearly impossible. My hand rubbed over my chest as I counted. I should go to the clubhouse and tell the Jacks everything I knew, everything I thought might be going on.
My eyes went to the basket tray by Boner’s front door. Empty.
Shit, where are my car keys?
I plowed through my handbag, my stomach twisting into those familiar knots. Nothing.
“Damn it!”
I shoved my hand under the sofa cushions, I checked under the skirt of the sofa, along the floor. Nothing.
“Unbe-freaking-lievable,” I muttered. “Becca, have you been playing with Mommy’s keys again?”
Becca looked up at me from coloring at the kitchen table, her lips pursed, a stubby black crayon in her hand. I went to the table piled high with her coloring books and sheets and crayons. I shuffled through the heap, pushing the jumbo box of crayons out of the way.
My keys were splayed out at the bottom of the pile. “Thank God.”
Becca went back to coloring and singing to herself. My gaze landed on the coloring page she was working on, one of the many that Boner had printed out for her last night. My heart skipped as crayons rolled across the table.
There they were.
Snow White and the Prince.
She was waking up from her death slumber, and he was over the moon, taking her hand in his. My girl had colored both characters in black—Snow White’s hair, her dress, her coffin, the flowers, and the Prince’s hair, outfit, and boots. Becca would often get obsessed with one color and only use that particular one for everything she colored the entire day. Today, it was black.
The black prince and his black princess.
The crayons spilled over the side of the table.
“Someday, my…”
But my prince had come.
My prince was outlined in black and was full of dark passions and poetry, jagged heartbeats and raw whispers in the night, and he was mine. It didn’t matter that he was another biker. It didn’t matter that he was over a decade older than me. It didn’t matter that he did not sport a cap with a feather in it or a cape along with a dashing, eager smile on his face.
My prince carried knives, guns, and brass knuckles, and he wore dirty dusty leathers, heavy boots, and faded black T-shirts and jeans. He tore through the wind on a powerful metal machine, not an elegantly appointed horse. And the smile he wore for me did not only please me, but alternatively scared me, thrilled me, and gave me a burning rush like nothing else.
My heart slammed against my ribs. I caught my reflection in the leather-framed mirror by the front door.
Magic mirror on the wall, who’s the scared-est of them all?
Me.
I was the scared girl behind the polite thank-you/no-thank-you smile, who was always running to the next great idea, the next sure thing in an effort to forget, to let go, to leave the gloom, the sorrow, the insecurities behind me. I’d done it over and over again, yet each and every time, I’d bailed and moved on.
Becca had changed all that for me. She had become my new center, my joy. Providing for her, making her laugh while I fed her or read to her, hearing the ringing of that laughter as we sang goofy songs in the car, and then her sleeping peacefully at my side at the end of every day—it had grounded me in a surprising, wholly new way.
Finally finding Grace, being able to help her on her quest for motherhood, being a part of Rae’s life—all of it had given me a renewed sense of family and belonging that I relished.
My hand instinctively went to my round tummy.
I was grateful, content, happy.
And Boner?
“I love you, Firefly.”
My dark prince had kissed me awake in so many deep, real ways.
I needed to wake up.
Once Snow White had woken up, she hadn’t hesitated for one second, had she? The moment she’d opened her eyes and seen the prince, she had known, and she had been ecstatic. She’d immediately thrown her arms out and embraced the Prince—no holding back, no wondering, no second-guessing—gotten on the back of his horse and they both went off to their own kingdom.
My dark prince had made my bright fairy tale come true.
Embrace him.
“Our bright life can come true, Bone,” I whispered out loud to my reflection.
I couldn’t wait. I had to find him now, and I’d need the big guns to do it. Not just the Jacks.
Finger.
Finger had connections everywhere—or at least, it seemed that way to me. He wasn’t just the prez of any old MC. His Flames of Hell wielded power and influence throughout the country. People bowed down to him, licked his boots—literally.
I had witnessed that ritual one night, too, hadn’t I?
My breath caught at the memory. Yes, another Catch lesson in Don’t Fuck with the Flames. You Know Who’s Boss, Baby.
Maybe Finger might respect the fact that I was going to him myself.
Finger never struck me as the impulsive type, not like Catch of the strike-now-pay-the-consequences-whenever-and-who-really-gives-a-fuck-anyhow-as-long-as-I-make-my-point life philosophy. Finger might give me a chance to talk to him. He might listen to what I had to say.
My stomach took a dive. I was persona non grata at the Flames. Would they even let me see Finger once I got there? Would they even let me in?
Screw it. I have to try.
Time for the Flame’s Old Lady network. I dialed Krystal’s number. Her old man was now Finger’s Vice President. Luckily, I hadn’t deleted her number from my Contacts list, like I had been tempted to do after I left Nebraska behind.
“Girlie, is that really you?”
“Hey, Krystal. Sorry it’s been so long.”
“I get it. How are you? Heard your news.” She let out a throaty laugh. “Way to bounce back.”
“Krystal, something fucked up is going on, and I need to talk to Finger. Is he at the clubhouse? I need to see him. I’m ready to get in my car now and come down.”
“Seriously?”
“Very. Is he there?”
“He’s here, honey, but I don’t know if you’re gonna be able to see him.”
“This is life and death, Krystal. I have to try.”
“Is it Becca? Is she okay?”
“Becca’s good. This is about my old man.”
She sucked in a breath. “If you’re willing to try, I’ll see what I can do.”
“Okay.”
“Okay, you’re coming? Or okay, maybe you’re gonna fuck with me?”
“I’m coming. My old man’s life depends on it.”
“Huh. That’s my girl.”
I tossed my phone into my bag.
“Look, Mommy! For you.”
I turned around. Becca held up her black prince and princess masterpiece.
I smiled at my daughter. “It’s perfect. I love it, honey. Bo will, too. Come on, sweets. We’ve got to go.”
I swept all of Becca’s coloring books, papers, and crayons into her Hello Kitty tote. She dashed over to the sofa and grabbed her elephant and baby doll, while I got her diaper bag. We put our shoes on, and I took
her hand.
We flew out the door.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?” Catch walked up alongside me in the Flames clubhouse lounge.
His hand cupped Becca’s cheek while I held her fast on my hip.
“Take your daughter.” I placed her in his arms.
“Jill?”
“Someone’s been following me the whole way from Meager. Black Ford Explorer. Two men in the front seat.”
His face furrowed. “Den!” Catch shouted, his arms tightening around Becca.
“Yo!” Den raised his head from behind a computer screen at the long center table.
“Black Ford Explorer’s been on Jill since she left Meager. Check it.”
The Flames were diligent about their security. They had hidden cameras all over town.
“On it.” The clip-clat, clip-clat of Den’s fingers powering over his keyboard filled the air.
“They have Colorado plates,” I said.
“Ah, fuck,” said Catch.
“They’re still in view,” Den muttered. “Got him. Running the plate.”
Catch’s attention snapped back to me. “What the hell is going on? Why are you here?”
“Boner’s missing. And I think he’s in Denver.”
His lips pressed together.
“I called Butler when I stopped for gas. The Jacks can’t find him. He told me about the Calderones.”
Krystal appeared behind Catch. She put a hand on his back and kissed Becca on the cheek. “Hey, beautiful girl! You got so big, Becca! You remember your Aunt Krystal?”
Catch shifted his weight, adjusting Becca on his hip. “Jill—”
Krystal’s gaze leveled with mine. “Come on back, babe.”
I kissed Becca’s hand that was reaching out to me and held Catch’s gaze. “Take care of our daughter. I took the risk bringing her here, because I want to trust that she’ll be safe with her father and his club. I know you and your brothers wouldn’t let anything happen to her, especially after the last time.”
He raised his head high. An acknowledgement of my act of trust, of faith in him and his club. I followed Krystal to the end of the common room to Finger’s office.