Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (Brimstone Lords MC 3)

by Sarah Zolton Arthur

  “I’m an ass. Wasted so much time being pissed, too blind to see it.”

  I walk over to the mini fridge and grab a beer, twist off the cap, then take a long, much-needed pull. He was an ass. My best friend should have known me better than to think I’d ever fuck over his sister. But like I told Liv, so long as he remembers I’m never gonna fuck her over, it’s water under the bridge.

  “We stay good, I’ll never bring it up again,” I tell him, laying out the honesty. “But I don’t know when we’ll be back.”

  “I’ll let the brothers know if you’d like.”

  The day after next Liv and I make the drive back to her house. Tiny town, but she was right, I love it here. What I don’t love is the reason behind me having to be here.

  We drive down the little main street—no, not little. We lived in Thornbriar, for Christ’s sake. Quaint. She drives past an old-fashioned nineteen-fifty style gas station I figure has to be the place she works.

  She passes it, I pull in. Need to get the lay of the land. In my rearview, I watch Liv pull a u-ie after she saw me turn into the lot.

  I’m already out of the truck before she pulls in. So I wait for her to jog up, tits bouncing from her wearing a string bikini under the tank top and shorts we bought her. Whether she likes it or not, my woman is pure biker.

  I can’t wait to get home—her home—and get my hands on those tits, get my lips on those pink, pert nipples.

  God, Liv is so sexy.

  “What are you doing?” she asks, tearing me from thoughts of her tits.

  “Need to check shit out.”

  This store’s a trip. Rounded white milk glass globes over the pumps with the name Smitty’s painted on them in bold red letters. Talk about a step back in time. It hits me that back when the gas prices rose up above six dollars a gallon a few years back, he must have had a bitch of a time with pump and runs—until I get a better look and see that the pumps are newer, made to look old. Nineteen fifties pumps never had a pay-at-the-pump option.

  The cameras I lock on to right away. Two pointing out to the pumps, one pointing at the door to the store.

  A bell jingles overhead when I walk inside, holding the door open for Liv. An old man squints at me, but his eyes light up at the sight of Liv.

  “What are you doing back, sweetheart? Thought I gave you time off for stalker behavior,” he says to her.

  Liv actually laughs. I glare.

  “Had some trouble the other day at the beach,” Liv admits. The old man’s back goes rigid.

  “He hurt you?”

  “Tried.” Liv admits that, too. “I got away. Then I finally broke down and called Gage.”

  “’Bout time,” the old man says, then he looks at me. “You him?”

  “Guilty.” I walk over to the counter and when I reach him, hold my hand out for him to shake.

  The old man steps out from around the counter and shakes it. “Smitty.” He offers.

  “Cha—or um—Gage,” I reply, catching myself. Liv doesn’t want anything club-related to reach her here right now, so despite my natural inclination, I fight against it in hopes of recapturing Gage. The man I’d been pre-brother of the Lords.

  “Good to meet you, son. Been telling this gal for months that if she had a good man she needed to get him here because no good man will wait around forever.”

  “I would for Liv,” I reply.

  “Good answer,” Smitty says back. “I like him,” he then says to my woman.

  Liv sighs one of those girly love sighs and tells him, “Me too.” Her smile brightened the whole space for a moment until I see it in her eyes, the minute she remembers what brought me here and her smile drops, and those brilliantly beautiful eyes dull before she quickly composes herself.

  “We won’t keep you,” I tell Smitty. “Just wanted to introduce myself, let you know I’ll be around keeping an eye on Liv.”

  “Got a phone?” Smitty bizarrely asks.

  “Yep.”

  “Let me get your number. You take mine in case I have to get a hold of you.”

  Reaching into my jeans pocket, I pull out my phone and open up the contacts page, then hand it off to the old man.

  He types in the store number, his home number and a cell. The man doesn’t look the type, but he pulls out an iPhone from his shirt pocket to type in my number. The old man has an iPhone.

  All smiles and joviality he tells me, “Good to meet you, son. You can bet your bottom dollar I’ll be in touch.”

  I nab a packet of Zingers, those raspberry- and coconut-covered sponge cakes with the cream filling, and reach into my pocket to pull the bills to pay for it when Smitty says, “Your money’s no good here, son. Enjoy.”

  Liv climbs back in her pickup, which actually belongs to the Lords. Here, with the salt water a constant in the air, there’re a few more rust spots on the old truck, I notice.

  My truck is newer. Not new, but newer than the truck Liv drives. And it’s a two-ton, slate gray hemi that rumbles to life when I turn the key. Everyone for at least a mile knows when a hemi passes through. I follow her back home, laughing and shaking my head. Liv thought the bike causes more of a distraction.

  We drive past acres of trees held back from the road by barbed wire fencing. Each tree holds a bright orange NO TRESPASSING sign. On the opposite side of the road, there’s a fucking gorgeous view of the ocean.

  So busy checking out the scenery, I almost miss seeing Liv turn off the two-lane highway onto a hidden drive. Hidden between the trees.

  We travel about a quarter-mile back before the drive opens up to a big lawn and the house Liv described to me.

  She’d taken pride in the place, and I see she finally got around to weeding and mowing, even planting flowers. She edged the front walk with stone pavers.

  Yeah, this place could really be something, slap a bit of new paint on the siding and trim. Maybe fitted with an updated door. A door that—

  I cut the engine and jump out, running up to Liv’s truck to stop her getting out, then tap on her window. She rolls it down. “Hang tight, baby,” I say. “Keep the window up and doors locked.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  She hadn’t noticed.

  Slowly, I walk up to the front door, which I’d noticed ajar when I drove up. I reach in my front pocket to pull a crumpled napkin so as not to cover up or smudge any fingerprints that shouldn’t be there.

  As I push open the door I feel—shit—I feel heat at my back, a delicate hand placed to my shoulder and the most divine scent of Liv’s peony lotion.

  “God dammit,” I whisper-hiss. “Thought I told you to wait in the truck.”

  “You don’t ever go in to a possible unknown threat without someone at your back.”

  “Been living around bikers too long. Shit.”

  If possible, I could feel her smile.

  Not the time to argue, I sigh, giving in, and she knows it. “Fuck, stay close. Don’t touch anything.”

  “Except you?” she asks cheekily.

  I chuckle and sigh again. “Don’t touch anything ’cept me.”

  She gasps loudly and stops walking. When I turn to her, she has her hand thrown over her mouth, tears filling her big eyes. I hate seeing her in pain, but this pain I have no control over.

  The whole place has been turned. Upside down. Not like someone came to rob the place. Michael showed and he’d been pissed that she’d denied him. Called the cops. Didn’t come home. It could have been any one of those. But with a prick like him, it was all of those. Maybe I could’ve stopped it if she’d called me sooner, but that ship hasn’t just sailed, it’s halfway across the fucking Atlantic.

  I could tell her I’m sorry this happened to her home, and part of me is. But most of me is a giant dick that knows without him messing with her, I wouldn’t be here now. “Smart thinking, going to a hotel.”

  It’s true—she is a smart girl. With the level of devastation he left—I don’t even want to consider what he might have done to her.<
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  The coffee table is tossed face down. One of its legs broken off. All the cushions ripped apart, stuffing strewn all over the floor. Glass knick-knacks and what I think might have been a green vase lay broken or smashed. Shards of green milk-glass and crushed dried or dead—I can’t really tell at this point—flowers cover most of the floor. The leg from the coffee table is sticking out from a large hole in the god dammed TV screen. The power and anger it had to take to plunge a table leg through a television, it turns my stomach. And the pages from Liv’s books are torn out and crumpled.

  It just gets worse from there. The kitchen, it’s a holy mess. Broken dishes. The refrigerator door wide open. Spoiled milk pooled on the floor. Broken beer bottles mixed with the beer in a large puddle, and all her food items, from fresh baby spinach to flour all over the floor, to—sick. Sugar and thousands of sugar ants swarming the sugar crunch underfoot.

  Liv begins crying. We don’t even make it to the bedroom before I lift her in my arms, wrapping her legs around my waist and press her face to my chest. She holds on, arms around my neck as I spin on my boot heels to get her out, dialing 9-1-1 as we rush.

  Before we get out the door, Liv hits my chest to get me to put her down, which I do because the woman hits hard. And more than that, she’s not doing it to be obstinate, she’s on a mission, running to the front window to pick up a broken hula girl. It looks old and sun-bleached and Liv looks devastated as she sobs, breaking my heart for her even more now than it had just moments earlier.

  “Liv, baby,” I whisper without anything else to say. She turns herself into my arms, still clutching the hula girl against her breasts. Once she’s lifted off her feet again, I waste no time getting her out of the house and set her down on the hood of the truck to wait for the cops to show.

  We finally hear the sirens in the distance, but instead of pushing me away, she draws me closer, holding on tighter, though her tears have begun to dry in streaks down her cheeks where her foundation washed away. To most, she’d look a mess. And in my opinion, she doesn’t need any of it to begin with, but Liv never leaves home without her precious makeup. That chunky purse of hers carries everything. No matter the state of her, she’s nothing short of the most beautiful woman in the entire fucking world, inside as well as out.

  “Was anything taken?” the police officer asks and I jolt like a punk. He snuck up on me and that shit never happens, but I was so caught up in Liv—taking care of her, drying her tears. It won’t happen again.

  She must have been startled by the sudden appearance of the cop, too, because she begins to cry again but does so while shaking her head no.

  “It’s tossed. Bad,” I answer for her. “We think it was her stalker.”

  The cop’s brow furrows. “Has she reported this stalker?”

  “Yeah. Two days ago. He attacked her at the beach in… Was it Sandbridge, Liv?” I ask her.

  She nods.

  “I was out of town and came as soon as she called.”

  As Officer Drinkswine—that’s a badass name if I ever heard one—takes the rest of our statement, then moves back to his cruiser to make a call, others move inside to check out the destruction.

  “This is my home, Gage. What am I supposed to do?” Liv begins to cry even harder, sniffling as she tries to regain composure. “Now I’m not safe anywhere.” She finishes with that punch to my gut.

  My hands drop from holding her to rest at each of her thighs on the hood and I take a small step back to see her face fully. “You’re safe with me, Liv. You don’t go off alone. I kept you safe at the compound. I’ll keep you safe here. That’s my promise, baby. I’ll keep you safe or fucking die trying.”

  She gathers her hair, pulling some more of those strands wet from tears sticking to her face back and braids it all to keep it out of her face. It’ll fall without a band to hold it, but it gives her something else to focus on. At least she’s calm now. Calm enough to grab a handful of T-shirt and tug me closer so I’m flush against her again. “Love you.” She whimpers, but then kisses my jaw.

  Fuck, I bury my nose in the crook of her neck and hold on tight.

  The cops stay for quite a while, taking pictures and walking evidence bags filled with Liv’s bedding and underwear. The clean stuff from the drawers and the dirty from her hamper. The sick, crazy fucktard jizzed all over it apparently. Trashed my woman’s home and then defiled it. They want him caught, I want him dead for putting that level of fear in Liv once again. She’s had enough of that kind of fear to last a lifetime.

  “Wait here,” I order her once we’ve been given the all-clear to go back inside. “And I mean it.” Since she didn’t listen to me last time. With cops still milling about, she’ll be fine for the time. It’s quick, so I can’t guarantee she’ll get everything she needs or wants, but what I don’t grab we’ll buy fresh, and I pack her bag.

  “When can we start the cleanup?” I ask Officer Drinkswine.

  “We’ve gotten everything I think we can. So you’re good.” That, he says to me, then he turns to Liv. “I’m sorry this happened to you, Ms. Baxter. We’ll catch him—that’s my promise to you.”

  Liv tries to give him a smile, but we all can see how forced and pained it is for her to even pretend. Drinkswine leaves us to talk with another cop.

  Bag still in hand, I lift Liv and carry her to the passenger seat of my truck, slide her in and click the seatbelt. She still has that damn broken hula girl clutched so tightly to her chest, the sharp edge of plastic sliced into her finger, covering her skin, her top and the plastic in blood.

  Shit.

  “Come on, Liv.” I coax the broken pieces from her grip. Her whimpers fill the cab as I set it inside the center console, then open up the glovebox for the small first aid kit. After a half a minute of holding gauze to the wound, I rip open a packet of antibiotic ointment at the corner with my teeth and spit the corner of aluminum packet onto the floor while squeezing a dollop of clear ointment on the pads of two bandages, and then I wrap those around her cut.

  We drive back to Virginia Beach, a city big enough that Michael might find it hard to locate us right away. He’ll do it—find us. I suffer no illusions on that—suffer no illusions. Back with Liv for less than a week and I’m thinking like her again. She’s that much a part of me.

  Since we’ll be here for a while and I don’t want too many people knowing our location, I pay a week upfront for an extended stay hotel. A nicer one, lots of business suits milling around.

  After the day we’ve had, Liv and I need to chill. To hold each other snuggled on the bed until we forget the bullshit or pass out, whichever comes first. I’m anxious for us to check out the room. There’s a full kitchen with pots, pans and utensils—dishes and flatware.

  All good there, I check out the security. Camera locations and angles. When the side doors lock for the night so anyone entering the building after a certain time has to use the front lobby doors or use a room keycard to get in, and when the security shift switches up.

  The night auditor who runs the desk third shift is a woman. As is the receptionist on duty now.

  It pans out, so I’m comfortable with Liv and me leaving to drive the twenty minutes, or four busy traffic stops, to one of those superstores. Turning into the large parking lot, I manage to find a spot semi-close to the front doors. A small flock of seagulls feasting on a spilled bucket of popcorn scattered all over the blacktop flap their wings and squawk angrily as the truck’s tires force them away from their meal.

  We buy a week’s worth of groceries and grab us both clothing and personal items—toothbrushes, toothpaste, deodorant and other sundries.

  On the way out of the store I casually sweep the parking lot without letting Liv in on what I’m doing. I don’t want to freak her out.

  There’s a guy checking her out from the front seat of an SUV. He turns away when I catch his eye. The guy doesn’t fit the description of Michael. His is the only eye I catch.

  We drive back to the hotel and carr
y the bags up to the room. Although Liv takes her share, I look like a pack mule. Totally worth it to keep my Liv safe.

  While she spends her time unloading bags, clipping off tags and hanging some shirts in the closet before moving on to fold the rest and put them into the drawers and set the bathroom crap up in the bathroom, I take care of the kitchen. Simple fare tonight, just burgers and fries. I’ve missed cooking for Liv. Hell, I’ve missed cooking with her. All part of the plan in getting her back to good.

  Before she comes out of the bedroom, I make a quick call to Blood.

  “She okay?” he asks.

  The phone I prop between my ear and shoulder to keep the sticky fat from the beef patties I’ve been forming from mucking up the screen or case. And I flop a couple into the frying pan. “The fuck’s not just a fuck, he’s a sick fuck, brother.”

  “You need us? Brothers’ll ride out in the morning.” It’s cool for him to offer, why I joined the Lords—they always have my back. I’ve always got theirs.

  “Liv’s not ready for that.”

  “She’s got to get over her shit. Things have turned, brother. Shits me to tell you, but after the fuck killed Jesse, he went after Caity and her little girl. It’s not safe, you need your brothers looking out. That’s fact.”

  Perfect. Something else to fucking worry about. “That’s why I’m here, to get her over her shit. I’ll call if I need you. But I don’t want her running again.”

  “Hey, babe, that smells delicious,” Liv calls out to me as she leaves the bathroom.

  “Gotta go. But I’ll be in touch,” I say to my best friend before I hang up.

  Things have turned. It’s not safe. Fuck.

  9.

  Livvy

  I wake deliciously sore in all the places a woman wants to be sore. Gage has always been a thoughtful lover. Thoughtful but dominant. He can’t help it. He owns that kind of powerful personality, which led him straight to the brothers. To the Lords.

  Huh… That’s something to consider.

  A long morning stretch as I lay naked next to my sleeping man is all it takes to acutely remind me of all the new ways he’d shown me dominant last night.