Almost instantly his face softened. “Dawn … I don’t know what to say. You’ve made the right choice, of course, and I’ll be with you every step of the way.” And then his smile faded. “But what about … Cade? I won’t pretend I don’t know you’re close.”
“He’s a Sinner. He’ll stay with his club.”
“And your cut?” He gestured to her leather vest.
Dawn swallowed hard, curling her hand around the soft leather. “I’m giving it back. I have one more thing I have to do for the club—a party I organized—and then I’m done with the Sinners. The whole biker thing was never real. It wasn’t me.”
* * *
“You’re gonna love these twins.” Gunner showed Cade a picture of two young women in a hot tub, one blond and one brunette, both with what Cade knew to be surgically enhanced breasts. Real breasts floated.
“Just what you need to get out of your black mood,” Gunner continued. “So things didn’t work out with your girl. You just gotta get back in the saddle.”
Cade studied the picture as he sipped his beer in the clubhouse kitchen. The blonde was cute but she had nothing on Dawn. Her hair was too short, her face too thin, and her eyes hazel and not brilliant green. She had the look of a pampered princess who had never done a day of work in her life, unlike Dawn who worked three jobs. But maybe Gunner was right. He needed someone to take his mind off Dawn. He needed to go back to having casual hookups where he could have his fun without the emotional burden or intimacy of a relationship dragging him down.
“When are you going?”
“Tomorrow night. They’re bringing some friends. But you’re gonna have to sober up. You don’t want to have to ride out there in a cage. These chicks dig our bikes.”
Gunner jabbed him with his elbow but Cade couldn’t even muster a smile. He hadn’t heard from Dawn since the police showed up to investigate the body outside her house. And, of course, Benson was with them, and everything went downhill. Benson promised to protect her and arranged for a police detail to watch her house. Benson assured her he would find out who was responsible, and if it was Mad Dog, he would lock him up for good. Benson took her away in his police car after she’d arranged for Martha to look after the kids.
From his vantage point on the hill above Dawn’s street, Cade had watched Benson put his arm around Dawn’s shoulders in the police car. Was she really planning to take him up on the witness protection offer? Nothing had ever cut Cade so deep as the moment she’d called Deputy fucking Benson.
He’d texted to see how she was doing, but she hadn’t returned his messages. At first, he figured she was overreacting to the body in her back lane. But then Arianne had passed on a message that she needed some time alone.
Alone from him. Not Benson.
“Yeah. I’m there. Never could resist twins.” He stared at the picture and wondered if they were like Maia and Tia who had such different personalities. Maia was so damn sharp. She knew exactly what was going on. And Tia … he would have liked to hear her talk. Just once.
Damn Benson for giving her a way out. Damn Mad Dog for making her need it. Damn him for not doing what needed to be done. He had to get her out of his system and move on. Or was it moving back? Back into endless nights and unfulfilled mornings. Back to a search for something he had already found.
* * *
“Look what we got!” Dawn slid off Arianne’s bike and held up the USB stick she had just picked up from Bunny. They had driven straight to Banks Bar to share the news and watch the video together. “Bunny interviewed the investigator before Jimmy got to him. I didn’t really think he’d pull through for me, but he did.”
“Gimme a minute.” Banks stuck his head out from under the hood of his Jeep. “I need a new part and I gotta get a measurement.”
“Your Jeep always needs parts.” Arianne laughed as she parked her bike. “If not for you, I don’t think Sparky would be able to keep his garage running.”
“She’s got no respect,” Banks muttered. “You don’t talk down a man’s Jeep. Something happens to people when they put on that damn Sinner cut. Never happening to me. When Jagger came begging me to join the club, I told him where to go. Don’t want anything to do with bikers.”
“Me either.” Dawn hadn’t spoken to Cade since the afternoon Jimmy dumped the body in the lane, nor had she answered his text messages. She knew she’d hurt him when she called Doug, but panic set in, taking with it all her faith in Cade and the Sinners. And now she’d made a decision that meant she and her girls would be safe, together, and as far away from the Brethren as possible. She should be happy, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was making a terrible mistake.
After Banks finished with his Jeep, they squeezed into his office and Banks downloaded the file. “Where’s the popcorn?”
“You want popcorn while we watch someone being interrogated?” Dawn stared at him aghast. “That’s sick.”
“Buttered popcorn would be sick. Plain popcorn is a healthy snack.”
They suffered through the first few minutes of the video in silence. Bunny sat across from the investigator in a dingy office. Even now, Dawn couldn’t look at him without feeling sick inside. With his slightly mussed brown hair, pock-marked plain face, and rumpled short-sleeved shirt, he looked so ordinary, like anyone’s dad. Which is why she had so easily fallen for his ruse.
Bunny asked a few questions. The investigator shook his head. Finally, Bunny pushed a piece of paper across the desk. The investigator paled and then everything spilled out.
“I was hired over the phone to set up some woman behind a school, and then testify in court. I’ve done setups before. I don’t got any issues with them, so long as I’m paid. I was given a time and place where the woman would be, and the location of a duffel bag that had half the money, a school sweatshirt, a photograph, and a small ziplock bag filled with coke.”
“You sure it was coke?” Bunny said.
“Yeah. I tasted it ‘cause it had a sparkly sticker on it, and I wanted to be sure it was real. You gotta use the real stuff ‘cause they need it as evidence.”
“Who filmed you?”
“Dunno. Usually I do that myself with a hidden camera but that wasn’t the job. I put on the sweatshirt and told the woman I was selling tickets for the school picnic. She handed over the money. I handed over the coke. Usually the mark knows what’s going on right away, but I think the sticker threw her off. When she figured it out, she threw the bag at me. I got the rest of the money after I testified in court that she’d approached me asking if I had anything for sale.”
Dawn sighed after the video finished playing. “He’s right. Because of the sticker, I thought he’d given me something for the kids—pretend fairy dust, or a sugary treat. My brain just couldn’t process the danger because of the sweatshirt, and the way he looked, and because I was at the school, and who would sell drugs at a school?”
“Every drug dealer in the city,” Banks said. “But your kids are young. You don’t have to worry about that until they’re eight or nine years old.”
“Eight?” Dawn stared at him aghast.
“Got offered my first joint when I was eight. Good stuff. Got me through Mrs. Keevil’s art class. I was never big on art, but when I was stoned you shoulda seen the kind of shit I painted.”
“I called my lawyer before we left Bunny’s place.” Dawn leaned back in her chair. “He said we can offer the video as evidence but with the investigator dead it’s a long shot whether the court will accept it. I looked at the video of the setup last night, and I went back to the school, but all I could figure out was that the person who took it had to be taller than me.”
“Well, that narrows it down to every adult in the city,” Banks said.
Dawn huffed. “I’m not that short.”
“You’re not that tall, either.”
“I figured he must have been at the curb, and not in the shadows, which means it wasn’t Jimmy because I would have recognized him.”
/>
“A mini Colonel Mustard with a pipe in the kitchen.”
“Did you just tell a joke, Banks?” Dawn shared an incredulous glance with Arianne. “I think Banks just told a joke.”
“Write down the date and time. I think it only happens once every five years.”
Banks gave Dawn’s shoulder a squeeze. “Why are you doing this? Even if you found out who it was, how would you get them to testify? Dirt bags don’t answer subpoenas and they tend to disappear when they know the police are looking for them. And if you go into witness protection, they’ll bury that court decision and you’ll have the girls back.”
“I can’t let Jimmy win. When I go into witness protection, I’ll lose everything I built since I came to Conundrum. Even my name. I can deal with that, although I’m going to miss you guys something fierce. I’ll be back where I started, rebuilding my life all over again. But what I can’t deal with is the fact that there is a document out there that says I’m an unfit mother. I’ll always be afraid it will come to light and I’ll lose them. I want to clear my name. I want to know no one can take my girls away. I want to fight back.”
Arianne gave her a searching look. “Then why are you running away? If you run, you’ll always be looking over your shoulder. You’ve always been a strong person. But since you hooked up with Cade, you found just how deep that strength goes, especially when you have support. Believe in yourself and the life you choose to live. That’s what Sinners do. That’s our creed. And that’s what it means to wear the cut.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t be wearing it.” She stroked a hand along the soft, black leather. “Ever since I put it on, I’ve been doing things that really aren’t me.”
“The cut is neither here nor there.” Banks closed his laptop. “Hell, you got away from that bastard and made a life for yourself on your own and every time he threw you a curveball, you hit it out of the park. But some fights you can’t win on your own. And right now, you’ve got a team of damn Sinners on your side. You got a coach who’ll go to bat for you if you want to drive that ball straight at the pitcher.”
“Write that down, too,” Arianne said. “I didn’t know Banks knew that many words. I also didn’t know he knew anything about baseball.”
“I know another word,” he muttered. “Fired. I’m gonna get myself some staff that aren’t old ladies and know how to treat their boss with the proper respect.”
“I’m not…” Dawn cut herself off. An old lady. But she was. Although she’d been tempted to hand the cut back to Cade after she called Doug, something held her back. She wasn’t ready to give up. At least, not yet.
“You wanna watch it again,” Banks said. “Maybe it will trigger a memory second time around.”
“No. It was pretty much what happened. Although I’d forgotten about the sticker.”
A sparkly purple heart.
Dawn sucked in a sharp breath. “Oh my God. I know who took the video.”
* * *
“Hey, brother.” Jagger pulled up a chair across the table from Cade in the corner of Banks Bar. Cade scowled and poured himself another shot. He just wanted to be left alone to drink in peace. Just like he’d been doing for the last four days since Arianne had called to tell him Dawn was going into witness protection.
“I thought you and Gunner were heading out to a party. He said you ditched him at the last minute.”
“Changed my mind.” He tossed back the shot and closed his eyes as the liquor burned down his throat. He’d switched from bourbon to whiskey this afternoon, needing something with more of a kick.
Jagger covered Cade’s glass when he reached for the bottle to pour another shot. “Does this mean you’ll be here for the Brethren party tomorrow night?”
“Won’t let my brothers down.”
Cade signaled Arianne to bring Jagger a glass. Dawn still hadn’t arrived for her shift and Cade wondered if she would show at all. She was running scared, and although he understood her fear, he couldn’t understand why she didn’t trust him to protect her. Mad Dog’s scare tactic had worked too damn well.
“I shouldn’t have asked her to join the club.” He brushed Jagger’s hand away and refilled his glass. “It just inflamed the situation. Actually, I shouldn’t have stopped to talk to her that day outside the school. Then none of this would have happened.”
“It was Dawn’s choice to join the Sinners,” Jagger said. “She knew how it might play out. And if you hadn’t stopped to talk to her, we would never have found out the Brethren were looking to patch over to the Jacks. The deal would have been done and we would all be dead.”
Cade lifted his glass and stared at the brilliant amber liquid. Sometimes when the light hit her just right, he saw amber flecks in Dawn’s eyes, and then those beautiful lashes would sweep down over her cheeks and he’d get distracted by her lush little mouth.
“I made the wrong fucking decision when I agreed not to go after Mad Dog. And every time he stepped out of line and we didn’t act, the situation just got worse.”
“You did it for the club, brother. No one will forget that. And you couldn’t have known how it would play out. Just like when you were ambushed and lost your men. Sometimes shit happens that we can’t control. You trust yourself to make the best decision you can in the circumstances and then you deal with the consequences. But you don’t let it bring you down.”
“Dawn’s going into witness protection because I wasn’t there for her. That’s not a consequence I can accept.” Cade lifted the glass and lowered it again. He felt like shit: eyes bleary, stomach churning, and a headache that just wouldn’t quit. Did he really want to do this to himself again? Drown his guilt in liquor and the soft arms of strangers? There was nothing down that road but pain and emptiness, and this time his brothers wouldn’t be there to save him.
“You were there for her just how she needed you to be.” Jagger pulled his chair closer. “You made her see the Sinner she had inside. Hell, the woman I first met here in the bar over a year ago is not the same woman who stood up in my office, instructed us on how to play our own political game, and told my executive board where to go.”
But now, after Mad Dog had destroyed any chance of her clearing her name, she was thinking of running away. She’d let fear get the better of her. Just like he’d let guilt get the better of him.
“And you did the same for the club.” Jagger leaned across the table, his voice insistent. “You reminded us what it means to be a Sinner, what it means to follow the creed.”
“I joined the MC when I thought I had nothing left to live for,” Cade said. “I couldn’t handle the guilt of living when all my men died, and not being there for my mom when she needed me. I found a home with the Sinners. Friends. A life I fucking love. But there’s always been something missing. I’ve been looking for something, and I didn’t know what it was.”
Jagger glanced over at Arianne. “I know the feeling.”
Cade pushed his chair away from the table. “I never really dealt with all that guilt. I never thought it through, until I met Dawn. She made me see I got a need to protect the people I care about, and when I can’t, it eats at my soul.”
“Your sacrifice protected the club.”
“Yeah, and it put Dawn and her girls at risk.”
“You can’t protect everyone, brother. You can’t stop people from doing what they want to do or being where they want to be. And you can’t fight everyone’s fight. Sometimes it’s just enough that you’ve got your brother’s back so he knows he isn’t fighting alone.”
He felt the truth of Jagger’s words in his gut, and the burden he’d carried for so long lifted. His mother, his men … he’d done everything he could do to save them, but in the end, he couldn’t be responsible for their choices, or for the actions of the men who had destroyed them.
But now he had another chance. He could protect the woman he loved by destroying the destroyer before he caused any harm, and maybe then he could convince her to make another choice. The ri
ght choice.
Him.
TWENTY-ONE
I will never give in, never give up, never surrender.
SINNER’S TRIBE CREED
“Where is he?” Dawn stood on tiptoe as she tried to see above the sea of heads in front of her. The makeshift boxing ring in the backyard of the clubhouse, although illuminated by floodlights, was barely visible through the crowd, and despite the late hour, the fights were still going strong. The yard smelled of sweat and stale beer, crushed grass and the sweet scent of pot.
“He’s standing in the far corner.” Arianne pointed through the crowd, and Dawn caught a glimpse of golden hair. “He hasn’t fought yet. I think he was hoping you would show up.”
“He left a message with Banks asking me to come. I guess he wants to say good-bye. I feel awful for avoiding him, but I just didn’t know what to say.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re here. Usually these are fun fights. We invite a few support clubs and have a big party. But Cade challenged a guy from the Devil Dogs who is an amateur fighter on the MMA circuit with all sorts of wins under his belt. Cade’s good, but he doesn’t have a chance against a seasoned MMA fighter.”
“Christ. Look at this crowd.” T-Rex came up behind them, Tank at his side. “Sparky’s taking bets if you want to throw in some cash.” He winked at Arianne. “By the way, Jagger’s still on his way back from Helena. He said to enjoy yourself.”
“You texted him?”
“Thought he should know his old lady was in a dangerous place, but T-Rex and Tank had your back.” T-Rex held up his arm in a classic bodybuilder pose, his biceps flexing under his T-shirt, but Arianne didn’t smile.
“Like I can’t look after myself,” she snapped.
“Not sayin’ you can’t look after yourself,” T-Rex said. “Just sayin’ the Sinners always have your back.”
A cheer rose from the crowd, signaling the start of the match. Dawn stepped to the side until she had a clear view just as Cade stepped into the ring. His fight shorts, black with a white skull on each side, reminded her of his patch, but when he turned and she saw the scarred tattoo on his back, her heart squeezed in his chest.
The Sinner’s Tribe Motorcycle Club, Books 1-3 Page 59