by A. M. Myers
“Holly,” Ash whispers, something between a plea and moan, and I suck in a breath as my thoughts screech to a halt. Holly? There is a girl I work with at the club named Holly but he wouldn’t… I shake my head. Of course he would. If he is willing to cheat, why would the fact that I work with her stop him from pursuing someone? I think about the two of them, sneaking around behind my back while I’ve been dealing with all this stuff with my mom and it’s like a blow torch has been lit inside me. Rage simmers through me as I rush forward and round the partition, holding my breath as I take in the scene in front of me. Ash is on top of her, in the middle of my bed, with the sheets pulled up around them and her pink nails are digging into his back as she moans again. Her eyes are squeezed closed, her head thrown back in ecstasy, and I glance at the shelf next to me where the little ceramic pig Ash and I found at a flea market sits. I pick it up, staring at it before turning to the scene in front of me.
They still don’t realize I’m here, too lost in each other to notice the person they’ve both betrayed. Their arrogance and carelessness only fuels my rage. From my spot at the end of the bed, I pull my arm back and chuck the pig at the wall above the bed. It shatters and sends little shards of clay raining down on them as Holly screams and Ash jumps off of her. She shrieks again and grabs the sheet, pulling it up to her chest as Ash stares at me with wide eyes.
“Row… I thought you were working late tonight.”
I nod, grabbing another little knickknack off of the shelf and tossing it back and forth between my hands. “Clearly.”
Holly sits up and scoots back along the bed before leaning back against the headboard - my headboard - and smirking up at me. What the hell? I wouldn’t have called Holly and me friends but we were, at least, friendly at work but as I look at her now, all I can see is hatred shining in her eyes. Where in the hell does she get off hating me? Especially after I just caught her in bed with my man.
“Look, this isn’t what it looks like,” Ash says and I laugh because the whole thing is so fucking ridiculous. It is exactly what it looks like and there is no way in hell I’m buying anymore of his shit.
“Don’t lie to her, baby,” Holly whispers, running her hand down his back and I see red as I chuck the figurine in my hand against the wall again. Holly screams and Ash moves in front of her as he holds his hands up.
“Calm down, Rowan. You’re acting crazy.”
“Oh, baby,” I whisper with a smile, grabbing the heart sculpture he gave me on our first anniversary. “You haven’t even seen crazy yet.”
My mind races through everything I’ve been through in the past three weeks, everything I’ve lost and all of the pain I’ve kept bottled up for most of my life and all of the dreams I had for a future with him as the hurt in my chest only intensifies.
When I was meeting with the funeral home, was Ash screwing Holly in my bed? The thought sends my body into motion and I chuck the figurine in my hand against the wall again before picking up another one.
While I was in the hospital, learning that my mother died instantly from a blood clot, was he fucking Holly in his car? I throw the little glass figurine in my hand against the wall and it shatters, drawing another scream from the whore’s mouth as Ash jumps out of bed and starts walking toward me with his hands up. He’s still completely naked and I can smell the sex in the air. Plus, he’s got about five damn hickeys on his neck. My stomach rolls and as I look over at him, I wonder how in the hell I was ever attracted to him.
“Hey, let’s just talk about this, babe.”
Arching a brow, I grab a candle off of the shelf, staring at it as I imagine chucking it at the wall, too, before shaking my head and setting the candle back down. “You know what? Let’s not. It’s not fucking worth it. I’m leaving now and when I come back in the morning you and your slut need to be gone or I’ll call the police.”
Turning away from him, I walk back over to the door with my head held high and grab my bottle of wine as he calls my name, begging me to come back and talk to him but I ignore his pleas and step outside, slamming the door behind me and it feels symbolic for the end of our relationship. As I descend the stairs, I expect to feel the sadness of my lost relationship or the sting of Ash’s betrayal but I don’t feel anything. Maybe, in the scope of all of the shit that has happened in my life lately, walking in to find Ash screwing my co-worker just doesn’t rank. Or hell, maybe I’m just numb to it all now and someday soon, it will all come crashing down on me and destroy me. Either way, the only thing I want to do right now is get away from here and drink.
Jumping back in my car, I toss the bottle into the passenger seat and whip out of my parking space before turning toward the main part of town where I can find a hotel room for the night. As I drive along the coast, my gaze flicks to the mountain range where my dad’s plane went down again before falling to my mom’s ashes in the seat next to me. I’m sure Ash doesn’t know it, yet, but he has just ended things with me and with our relationship officially over, there is nothing else keeping me here in Alaska. Everything in this place just reminds me of all that I have lost and I can’t stand to be here anymore. As I pull into a parking lot of one of the hotels downtown, I put the car in park and dial Lincoln’s number.
“Row?” He answers after a few rings, his voice groggy and I wince. Shit. I always forget about the time difference. “Are you okay? It’s one in the morning.”
I nod, releasing a breath as my big brother’s voice calms me. “Yeah, I’m… okay. I’ve just been thinking about the last time we spoke…”
“Yeah? And?”
“Does your offer still stand? To move there, I mean.” My belly flips with nerves or excitement or maybe both as I wait for his answer. He sucks in a breath.
“Of course, Row… but, are you sure you’re okay? You sound off.”
I let out a humorless laugh as I think about the last month of my life and shake my head. “It’s been… interesting…”
“Yeah, okay. I get it,” he says when I don’t say anything else and I sigh, leaning my head back against the seat. “How soon do you think you’ll be here?”
“I don’t know. I have some things I need to wrap up here.” My mind drifts over the things I need to do, like quitting my job and packing up the apartment before I realize that everything I actually care about will probably fit in the back seat of my car and take me all of an hour to pack up. “Actually, never mind. I can probably be on the road in two days.”
He sighs. “What the fuck is going on, Rowan? You don’t sound like yourself and you’re really starting to fucking worry me.”
“I promise I’m okay, Linc, and I’ll tell you all about it as soon as I’m in Louisiana, okay?” I bite my lip as he lets out another heavy sigh and I wonder if he’s actually going to let me get away with this. Lincoln tends to be overprotective, especially after our sister Nora was killed by her crazy ex-boyfriend eleven years ago, and I know that even if he lets me off of this phone call without telling him what is going on, he’ll worry himself sick about it until I get to Baton Rouge and spill my guts. Finally, he groans.
“Fine, but you bet your ass that as soon as you step foot in Baton Rouge, you are going to tell me everything.”
I roll my eyes and fight back a smile. “So fucking bossy. Hasn’t your wife broken you of that nasty habit yet?”
“Girl, I fucking wish!” Tate, Lincoln’s wife, hollers from the background and I laugh, feeling lighter than I have in days.
“Shut up before I shut you up myself, woman,” he growls at her. I bite my lip to hold back the giggle as I shake my head. Tate is not a woman I would ever want to mess with but apparently, my brother likes playing with fire.
“You’re getting stupid in your old age, Archer.”
“Who in the fuck are you calling old, woman?” he yells and I can’t hold back my laughter any longer.
“Okay, well, I’m going to let you go deal with that but I’ll call you before I hit the road,” I tell him and he hums in agr
eement.
“Damn right, you will. I want constant updates so I know you’re safe, you hear me?”
After promising to call him with nightly updates and reassuring him that I can take care of myself at least four times, I finally manage to hang up. As I step out of my car and turn toward the hotel where I’m staying tonight, I’m surprised by how hopeful and excited I feel about this move and I can only hope that it turns out to be just the thing I need to heal all this hurt I’ve been carrying around.
Chapter Two
Travis
“Fuck. This can’t be right,” I hiss, staring at the social media profile I just stumbled across on the screen in front of me before releasing a heavy breath. For months, my brothers and I have been doing everything we can think of to find the asshole that has been targeting the club and coming after women we have helped in the past but I may have just found something that rules out the only suspect we’ve been able to come up with. Mitch Harris was married to Dina, the first girl that was killed, and after we came to her rescue and helped her escape him, he lost his goddamn mind. When she was murdered, we all just assumed that he was the one that did it. The problem was, we didn’t have any proof and when two other girls were also killed, we turned our focus away from him. But then Fuzz suggested that he was still behind it all, killing people close to us in an act of revenge for our role in his wife leaving him and since he is such a shifty character, it wasn’t much of a leap. Plus, he didn’t have the best alibi for the night Dina died but if what I just found is true… there is no way he is behind these deaths.
Scrolling through the profile, I shake my head. I was lost, looking for any kind of lead when I decided to go peruse Mitch’s social media and noticed his new girlfriend. She likes to tag him in her check-ins every time they go somewhere together and as I was scrolling through her profile, I found a check-in for the date the latest girl, Sammy, was killed. Shaking my head and hoping like hell this is somehow wrong, I click the like for the little diner she checked in at and start flipping through photos on their page. In one photo, I spot a security camera and grin as I open a new window to hack into their system. It is surprisingly easy and I roll my eyes at how lazy and complacent some people can be. For fucks sake, it is not hard for someone like me to gain access to someone’s system but they make it even easier on me when they don’t change the password from the default code from the factory.
Sighing, I scroll through the dates listed until I find the one I need and click on it, selecting the camera in the dining room. The video starts at midnight so I fast forward through the entire morning until just after lunch when Eve, Mitch’s girlfriend, checked in to the diner. As the video begins playing, I hold my breath and hiss a curse when Mitch walks in with Eve on his arm. Chucking my pen across the room, I lean back in my chair and it smacks against the wall, falling to the floor as I watch Mitch and Eve slip into a back booth and start making out.
“Goddamn it!”
“Problem?”
I glance over my shoulder as Storm walks into my room and arches a brow in question. Nodding, I release a breath and point to my computer screen. “Only if you count discovering an alibi for Mitch a problem.”
“Fuck… seriously?”
“Afraid so.” I turn back to the screen and sneer at Mitch pawing all over Eve in the corner of the booth. “This is him and his new girlfriend, Eve, making out in a diner an hour away from here while Sammy was being murdered.”
“Shit.” He turns away for a moment before turning back to watch the video. “What about the other two murders? Does he have an alibi for them as well?”
“He has a shaky alibi on the day Dina was murdered,” I say, clicking back over to Eve’s profile and scrolling down until I find the date in question and resist the urge to smash my fist into the table. “But, he was with Eve again on the day Laney was killed.”
“Doing what?”
I point to the check-in. “Bowling. Apparently, they won third place.”
“Can you verify that?” he asks, crossing his arms over his chest and I nod as I click the link for the bowling alley and bring up their website. I jump over to the winner’s page and scroll down until their picture pops up on the screen. Turning back to him, I point to it and he sighs.
“Fuck.”
I nod in agreement. “Yep.”
“All right…” he says, running a hand through his hair. “We’ll deal with that later. Veronica is downstairs in the war room and she might have new leads for us. You coming?”
“Absolutely,” I answer, closing out of the websites and grabbing my phone off of my desk. He nods, turning to leave and I follow behind him as he walks out of my room and down the hallway to the stairs. The low murmur of multiple conversations greet us as we descend the stairs but I can’t make out anything that is said since we are literally packed to the rafters in here these days.
The Bayou Devils MC wasn’t always the family friendly environment it is now. In fact, it used to be a real outlaw club with its members running guns, drugs, women… anything to bring in the cash but everything changed when our President, Blaze, was shot by a rival dealer and one of our members, Henn, was sent to jail for seven years on a drug charge. Blaze started to see the error of his ways and backed away from anything illegal to open a legitimate business and when a terrified woman crashed into him in a gas station, we kind of fell into the work we do now - helping those that have nowhere else to go. Or, at least, that’s the way it started. These days, we’ve made quite the name for ourselves and we’ve taken on other jobs like security and P.I. work. I didn’t join the club until things had turned around and I was drawn here by their mission and I knew my computer hacking skills would come in handy but I haven’t been a whole lot of help lately with this threat coming after us.
Veronica, the woman we’re meeting with today, went missing almost a year ago on her way home from class and we were tasked with looking into her disappearance when Detective Rodriguez, a local cop we work with often, hit a dead end and was ordered to focus on other cases. We didn’t get much farther than he did, though, and we were all shocked as hell when she stumbled into the clubhouse two weeks ago, disheveled and terrified out of her mind. She had a message for us, from the man who has been targeting the club and it set us all on edge – even more so than we already were. Blaze immediately ordered everyone and their families to come stay here, at the clubhouse, so we can keep this little family we have built safe but it hasn’t been easy.
I am just getting started.
I shudder as I remember the message she delivered that day. It’s haunted me day in and day out as I try my hardest to come up with answers for my brothers but I hit a wall every time. No matter where I look or what angle I try to take, I always come up empty and I can’t help but feel like this fucker is toying with me. Like he knew who I was and he knew what I could do when he went about making this whole damn plan so it’s tailored to drive me out of my mind. Scoffing, I shake my head.
God, how fucking narcissistic is that?
Pushing the thoughts from my mind, I follow Storm as he walks into the war room and as soon as I’m in the room, he shuts the door behind me, locking it as I slip into my seat at one end of the table. Across from me is Blaze, our president, at the head of the table and Storm takes his seat to his left with Smith, our sergeant at arms, to his right. Veronica sits in the middle of the table to my left, looking nervous as hell as we all turn our focus to her.
“You all right, darlin’?” Blaze asks her and she nods, her gaze flicking around the room like a scared animal.
“Being back here just reminds me of…”
I nod in understanding as do the rest of my brothers. The last time Veronica was here, she had just been dropped off by the man who kidnapped her and she has absolutely no idea what she was walking into.
“Just know that we’re all here to help you in any way that we can,” Blaze assures her and she nods, sitting up a little straighter as she sucks in a breath. “
Are you ready to tell your story?”
“I am.”
Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I open the voice memo app and hit record before setting it down on the table. “Just start at the beginning.”
“Okay,” she breathes, glancing over at me as she nods her again a little too much, almost like she’s hyping herself up and I can’t stand it. When I think about how many lives this guy has torn apart, messed with and used, it brings up shit that I would rather forget and makes me feel like putting my fist through a wall. All I want to do is end this but I can’t help worrying that the ending won’t be as pretty as I’m hoping. Veronica wraps her arms around herself as she stares down at the table and shifts in her seat, obviously uncomfortable.
“What do you remember about that day?” I ask, hoping to just get her talking. I’ve noticed that the hardest part for most people, after a trauma like this, is where to begin. They have so many thoughts running through their heads and so many emotions that they quickly become overwhelmed into silence. She sucks in a breath.
“It was so normal, you know? Like, shouldn’t days where your life is going to change come with some kind of warning? Shouldn’t there be some kind of sign from the universe that you need to pay attention?”
I scoff, fighting back memories. “I fucking wish.”