“So, I got this friend…”
“You don’t have friends.” Dax laughed as they stepped out into the games room. “You have brothers. And brothers look out for each other. Jagger already told me what went down ‘cause he was worried about you, and he didn’t want anyone getting hurt.” He paused at the bottom of the stairs. “So, to recap, you found your long lost girl who turns out to be Viper’s girl. You decided to steal her away, but you don’t know if you want her or she wants you. You got a son you didn’t know about, and the whole shebang scares the shit out of you ’cause who the hell can prepare themselves to be a dad when they don’t even know it’s coming?”
Zane bristled. “I’m not scared.”
“Then you’re not human.” Dax ran his hand through his dark hair, slicked back to show off his widow’s, peak. “I was scared shitless the first time Sandy got pregnant, and I had nine months to prepare and the love of my life to catch me when I fell. And boy did I fall. First month, I took every job Jagger had on offer just to get away. But Sandy set me straight. One night I came home and she dumped Jett in my arms and told me it was her turn for a month off. Then she walked out the door. I didn’t know she was just stayin’ next door with her friend. But hell, by the end of the night, Jett was still breathing, and I was feeling pretty damn good about myself. Sandy came back the next day and I told Jagger I’d be slowing things down for a while.”
“He’s not a baby.” Zane leaned against the worn pool table that had seen one too many games. His gaze flicked to the wet bar in the corner. If he didn’t need his wits about him to interrogate Doreen, he would be over there pouring himself a shot of the good stuff. “He’s eight. I missed…” His throat tightened. “All that.”
Dax’s face softened. “Yeah, you did. And the way Jag tells it, that’s another burden you have to bear. Who we are as teenagers isn’t who we are as men. We don’t have the maturity or even a sense of responsibility under our belts. They say the male brain doesn’t fully develop until we hit twenty-five, and I’d say that’s about right. Women on the other hand are born mature. That’s why they can so easily fuck us over. They’ve got years of practice before we come into our own.”
“Evie…” Zane toed the concrete floor with his boot. When they’d first done the reno of the new clubhouse, they’d put down industrial carpet, but after a few parties, a couple of orgies, and a few fistfights, they’d decided to rip it up and go back to the basics. “She had a hard time growing up. And in the end, everyone abandoned her, including me and Jag. She doesn’t trust me. She thinks I’m gonna leave her again.”
“Are you?”
“I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “I keep thinking maybe she’s better off without me. I’m not a family man. Didn’t have any role models for how that kind of thing works. She was doing okay before I came along, and she doesn’t want to be involved in our life. But then there’s Ty. I’m not about to abandon my son. I wanna do right by them. I just don’t know what right is.”
Dax lifted the key from the hook beside the door. “You’ve got to figure that one out. When people are abandoned, they wind up with a need to feel safe and secure, but they can’t trust anyone because the people who were supposed to love them let them down. So they push everyone away. If you want her, you need to make her feel secure. She won’t feel that way if it looks like you got one foot out the door.”
Well, hell. Here he’d been thinking only about Evie, but Dax could have been talking about him. He’d never thought about being abandoned as a kid. His life was the way it was, with a mom gone and a dad who didn’t give a shit about anything but drugs. He’d never really seen the parallel between Evie’s alcoholic mother and his druggie father, but it was right there, staring him in the face. They’d bonded over a loss they hadn’t realized was a loss at all. They’d found safety and security in each other’s arms.
Dax paused, one hand on the door. “Not that I like intruding on people’s lives—okay, actually I do—but, there’s something else.”
“She’s gotta forgive me.”
“No. You have to forgive yourself.”
* * *
“Viper doesn’t want me back, does he? That’s why you’re here.” Doreen folded her arms and leaned against the wall. She had taken off her cut and tied her hair up in a ponytail, bringing the dark circles under her blue eyes, and her pale skin into sharp relief. But as with all old ladies, appearances could be deceiving, and so far she’d shown herself to be vicious, cunning and resourceful, all of which meant Zane had to stay alert.
“He has one our brothers,” he said. “We offered him a trade, and he turned us down. He said if you were stupid enough to get caught, he’d kill you himself if you showed up at his club.” Zane didn’t pull his punches. She needed to know she was alive now only by the grace of the Sinners.
“I’m not as stupid as he thinks,” she muttered, half to herself, but Zane didn’t miss the pain that flickered across her face.
He pulled up the chair across from her bed and rested his elbows on his knees, studying her body language—legs stretched out on the floor, ankles crossed, leaning back on her hands. Certainly not the language of fear.
“So are you going to kill me? Torture me for information? You want to know what they’ve done with your brother, don’t you?”
Dax unloaded his duffel bag on the table by the door. “If you’re willing to cooperate, we’ll let you go. If not, we’ll get the information we need in whatever way we have to do it.”
“Let me go?” She moved as if to stand and Zane motioned her back on the bed. He had no desire to get physical with her, but if she tried anything stupid, he would have no choice.
With a sigh, she pushed back and leaned against the wall, legs bent up, her arms resting casually on her knees as if they were just hanging out having a chat, instead of in a dungeon with a torture expert who was ready and willing to ply his trade. “You’ve tainted me. If he sees me on the street he’ll think I did a deal with you to get free, which would make me a traitor. Only way I can go back to Viper is if I bring him something useful to prove my loyalty. You wanna tell me your secrets? Maybe give me a crate of weapons to buy back his love?”
“Torture and death it is then.” Dax clapped his hands together. “And Zane thought this wouldn’t be fun.”
Doreen shrank back the tiniest bit. “What about a door number three? Like I give you something and you give me something that doesn’t end up with Viper hunting me down and slitting my throat?”
“What do you want aside from freedom?” Zane met her gaze, challenging, defiant. He liked her. Not in a sexual way, although she was an attractive woman, but because she’d been through hell and didn’t break. Kinda like his Evie, but with rougher edges and a harder heart.
“Protection.”
“You’re a prisoner,” Zane said. “Can’t get more protection than that.”
“Not for me. For my kid. I don’t want Viper to get him. I want someone to look after him if I don’t make it. He’s with my mom, but she’s only interested in booze and drugs and her place isn’t exactly kid friendly.” She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, a hesitant, slightly apprehensive gesture that was at odds with what they’d seen of her so far.
“Why would he care about Axle’s kid?” Dax voiced the question that was on the tip of Zane’s tongue.
Her eyes widened and she quickly looked down, worrying a thread on the rough wool blanket covering the bed. “Viper has no boundaries. I wouldn’t put it past him to grab my kid just to make sure I don’t talk to you.”
Zane ran a hand through his hair. Something else was going on here, more than just an old lady who’d been unwillingly taken to pay her old man’s debt, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. “We’ll take it to the executive board, but you have to give us something as a show of good faith. You do that and Dax will write down your mom’s address before we leave and we’ll check it out to make sure it’s not a trap.”
“He’
ll be in the torture chamber,” she said quietly. “Under the clubhouse.”
Zane’s head jerked up. “So there is a torture chamber?”
“That’s where he puts all his prisoners. Looks like a medieval dungeon and the stuff that he’s got in there…” Doreen shivered, giving authenticity to her words even before her lips curled in disgust. “He likes to hear them scream. He likes their pain. Sometimes he keeps them in there for days or weeks. I heard he has another dungeon at his house, but I’ve never heard of anyone being taken there.”
“Sadist.” Dax said. “Like that’s a surprise.”
Doreen’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Never wanted to leave the Jacks as much as the first time I was sent down there to clean up. Axle was no saint but he wasn’t twisted like Viper. Torture turns Viper on. Even the hardest old ladies didn’t want to go to his bed after he’d been down there.”
Zane’s jaw clenched. “How do we get in?”
“The main door to the dungeon is outside the clubhouse. The yard is fenced off with electric wire and there are guards on the gate, as well as guards patrolling the grounds. And dogs.” She drew in a ragged breath. “Viper has the only key and he keeps it in his office.”
“Don’t need a key when we have explosives,” Zane said.
“Someone will need to get close enough to plant them. That’s not gonna be easy.” Doreen twisted her hands in her lap. “A couple of other clubs have tried. The guys who made it past the fence never made it out again. It’s a suicide mission for whoever you send.”
“That’ll be me,” Zane said.
T-Rex had sacrificed himself for Evie. Zane owed him a debt. And if he had to repay it with his life, he would die a happy man. He had held Evie in his arms one last time. He had a son to carry on his name.
What more could a man want?
FIFTEEN
Don’t get distracted while doing your repair. You have one goal, and one goal only. Make it run and make it run good.
—SINNER’S TRIBE MOTORCYCLE REPAIR MANUAL
Perfect woman for Jagger, Evie thought as she shook Arianne’s hand. In the fifteen minutes she and Ty had been in Sparky’s shop, Arianne had barked orders at a couple of bikers, thrown a wrench at Sparky, and tuned up a V-Rod Muscle to the thudding beat of Saxon’s “Motorcycle Man.” A little heavy for midday, but no one complained when Arianne hooked her phone up to the speaker system and blasted the tunes.
Evie tried not to stare, but it was hard to look away from the contrast of Arianne’s beauty—long, thick brown hair, startling green eyes, sharply-defined features—and the baggy gray coveralls she wore for her work as a journeyman mechanic in Sparky’s shop. Evie had always wondered what kind of woman could put up with Jagger’s forceful personality, but now she knew. Formidable in her own right, Arianne was his perfect match.
“So you’re Zane’s new girlfriend.” Arianne gave her a frank, appraising look and gestured her over to the worn brown couch in the corner. Tucked away in the corner of an industrial estate, the corrugated metal warehouse had been converted into a spacious, brightly lit garage, complete with neatly filled tool racks, comfortable furniture, and work bays for five bikes.
“I have to say I never thought I’d see him with a woman,” Arianne continued. “He’s a dark horse, our Zane. When I first came to the club, he thought I was a Black Jack spy sent to seduce Jagger and take down the Sinners, and he did everything he could to get rid of me.”
“I’m surprised he’s still alive.”
Arianne’s eyes widened and she grinned. “Jagger likes him so I let it slide.”
“We’re not really together,” Evie said quickly. “We were friends growing up, and then we lost touch.” So they’d had sex. It hardly counted for a relationship, although she knew a lot more about Zane than she did about most of the men she had dated. But that was Zane before. Not Zane now.
“Friends who have a son together.” Arianne nodded at Ty who was watching attentively as Sparky changed a tire.
“Yeah. I don’t know how that’s going to work out. I mean, with the whole biker thing…”
“Lots of the club members have kids,” Arianne said. “They just keep their home life separate from their biker life, except for Sunday rides and club parties when the old ladies show up and cause trouble. You’ll get a taste of that at the party tonight.”
“Don’t scare her off.” Sparky, the Sinner road chief, and serious a contender for Tall, Dark, and Handsome Man of the Year, with his thick, brown hair and piercing blue eyes, wiped his hands on an old rag. “At least not until she’s given us the down and dirty about Jagger and Zane.”
“That kind of information is only shared among old ladies.” Arianne smirked. “So unless you want to hang with Sandy, Dawn, Evie, me and a bunch of old ladies tonight, you’re out of luck.” She put her feet up on the coffee table, and her brow creased. “Evie’s also going to tell us what she was doing with Viper when Zane was riding around available for the taking, ’cause I’m guessing she’s a few years younger than me and given that Viper’s my dad, that’s kinda … not something I really want to think about.”
Evie’s cheeks heated and she drew in a deep breath, inhaling the familiar scents of grease and paint. “I didn’t—”
“And I’m outta here.” Sparky tossed the rag on a tool bench affixed to the wall. “Gotta get back to man stuff: fixing engines, tuning bikes, using tools—”
“What I was just doing,” Arianne interjected.
Sparky flipped her the bird. “Ty. Bud. C’mon over here and I’ll show you my manly socket wrenches.”
“You don’t have to tell me anything,” Arianne said after Sparky had taken Ty to the furthest corner of the garage. “I just found it hard to believe when Jagger told me. I never saw any kindness in Viper. He was a cold, hard, cruel father, and a vicious, ruthless bastard who twisted my brother, and killed my mother because he thought she was having an affair.”
Evie’s mouth opened and closed again. She was at a complete loss for words. Had everything between Her and Viper been an act? Every word? Every conversation? His gentle kisses and soft words? As with Derek and Mark, had she failed to see the monster behind the man? Was she making the same mistake with Zane? How could she ever trust herself?
“I’m sorry.” Arianne grimaced. “I shouldn’t have said that. You obviously saw a side of him no one else has seen. Maybe he was different with you. There were times when he was caring with my mother. Obviously. Or she would never have stuck it out.”
Was that it? Or had she been wearing blinders all her life, shutting out what she didn’t want to see in her dogged pursuit of a dream that never was going to come true? “Maybe she stayed because of you,” Evie said. “I stayed in a bad marriage for Ty. That’s why I’m done with relationships.”
Arianne lifted an admonishing eyebrow. “Better tell that to Zane. He came down here and laid down the law. It was the usual possessive, protective, territorial biker thing: you’re his, blah, blah, blah; he’ll kill anyone who touches you, blah, blah, blah; no one who wants to keep his balls can look at you, blah, blah, blah; don’t even breathe the same air … you get the drill.”
“He said that?”
“He said it with a difference.” Arianne’s smile faded. “Because he’s Zane. He doesn’t talk much, but when he says something, he means it.”
* * *
Sparky’s shop shook with the hard beat of metal music, the thud of the bass carrying up the stairs where Evie had just put Ty to bed before changing for the party. She had only packed one fancy outfit in her suitcase, a Scandinavian-style black dress in a crepe fabric with unique cut outs on the sides and front, and a wide bandeau strip across her breasts. Not really her style, but Connie had convinced her to buy it one Saturday afternoon by feigning a collapse in the store dressing room when she tried it on.
Zane met her in the hallway at the foot of the stairs. He’d been out all day at the clubhouse dealing with the situation with T-Rex. Evie’s
gaze skittered from the tips of his heavy, dust-covered biker boots, to his low-riding jeans, snug in all the right places, and then over his muscle-hugging T-shirt to his tanned, frowning face. Memories of what they’d done last night sent a wave of heat through her body and her cheeks flushed.
“You’re showing a lot of skin.” His frown became a scowl as his gaze swept over her body. “Do you know what it does to a man when he gets a glimpse of something he’s not supposed to see?”
“Does that mean you like it?”
Zane splayed his hand under the back panel of the dress, his fingers skimming the edge of her panties as he pulled her against him. “It means I only got two hands, and there’s a lot of brothers who won’t be able to take their eyes off you since you’re showing more skin than dress.” He pulled his hand from beneath her dress, and slapped her ass. “Go change.”
Evie cried out in surprise. The slap was more of a sting than true pain, but the responding throb in her sex shocked her, made her wonder what would happen if he slapped her again. But the sudden thrill quickly turned to indignation.
“Seriously?” Evie glared at him, her mouth agape. “You’re ordering me to go and change my clothes? I’ve seen some of the clothes the old ladies are wearing. I look like a nun compared to them.”
“You got a habit upstairs, I’ll be a happy man.”
“I’m not changing, Zane.” She leaned against the wall, folded her arms over her chest. “Even if we were together, which we’re not, I wouldn’t let you tell me what to wear. I went through that with Mark. He was insecure right from the start because he never felt he could measure up to you and Jagger. When he lost his job, he started drinking again and that just made it worse. And when we had to rely on my income, he couldn’t deal with it. He started following me around, trying to cut me off from my friends, checking my phone, and showing up at work. He threw out some of my clothes, called me a slut…”
The Sinner’s Tribe Motorcycle Club, Books 1-3 Page 82