“I’ll be in touch. Be ready. This is going down either tomorrow or the day after, no later than that.”
Butch looked unhappy and Quin grumbled, but that was how it was going to be. Jason joined us.
“Hell of a lot of action,” he said sarcastically, and it pissed me off straight away.
“Deal with him,” I said and walked away, leaving the four of them there at the bar with nothing to do. Maybe they would stay and pick another fight. Whatever it was, I didn’t want to know about it.
Sherman had figured it out before we could really get down to it. That bothered me. I was going to have to lure him in another way if I wanted to win this one. I had to be smarter than him, and the fact was, I didn’t know him well enough to know what was going to work.
The night was cool on my skin, and I took a deep breath, feeling restricted. It wasn’t my clothes either. I was getting sick of this. Silly rules, stupid games. What had I given up my life for, an irritating lowlife who thought he was the shit?
But it was more than that and I knew it. I’d given up the life I used to live, not for Sherman, but for Tanya. And she wasn’t irritating in any way. For her, I was willing to make changes. And break bones. I was willing to do a lot of things for her, to keep her safe and happy.
I got on my bike, started the engine, and tore down the road that led to the main road. As soon as I was out of the small town, the road was open in front of me. I switched off my headlights in case there were cops, although I doubted it, and opened throttle. My bike went faster than fast, and the wind whipped around my face, tugging at my jacket, making my eyes water. I didn’t have my glasses on when it was this dark.
Being cool had its disadvantages.
I got back to the cabin in under two hours. The lights were off. It was nine, late, but not too late. Not late at all for Tanya. Which made me worry. Why were the lights off? Why wasn’t she up waiting for me? What was going on?
CHAPTER 34
I lay in the dark, covers pulled up to my chin, worrying myself to death. The cabin was empty without Saxon. I couldn’t believe the difference between sleeping with him in the bed the night before and being in bed, alone, now.
But this was just temporary. Saxon would be back. At least, I hoped that he would be back. He’d been so extremely confident about the night when he’d left, sure his plan was going to work. From where I stood, the plan was great and all, but it had a flaw. He was in it.
And Kenneth wanted him dead. That was the only conclusion I could come to, why Kenneth would organize doing it this way. And who said he wasn’t just going to pull a gun on Saxon? Who said he was going to rely on old fashioned henchmen to beat him up?
There was way too much that could go wrong.
The sound of a motorcycle in the distance wormed its way into my thoughts and snapped me out of my downward spiral. I sat up and listened, waiting for it to come closer, get louder, and not whiz past before it faded into the distance again.
I needed it to be him and not just someone passing by.
The sound didn’t roar by though, like I feared. Instead, it became louder until it rattled the walls of the little house, and then it cut out. I walked to the door and opened it.
“Are you alright?” he asked.
“What?”
“All the lights are off. I was scared you weren’t here.”
I shook my head. He’d just been to a showdown and he wanted to know if I was fine?
“I’m okay,” I said, working hard to keep my emotions in check. A sobbing female once was okay, but two days in a row? I felt like I’d exhausted that option yesterday when I’d had a meltdown about what had happened.
Saxon was the one who pulled me into his arms and pressed me against his body. He sighed with a shudder that resonated with what I was feeling. It was good to know that he was worried about me, that I meant something more to him than just sex. At this point in time, I knew that it had to be more than just sex. He was sticking around. He came to me when I was in trouble and far away. Still, with a guy like Saxon, it was hard to believe that I was the woman he was choosing to be with.
“So, what happened?” I asked after he switched on the light and sat down at the table with a piece of bread left over from last night. He took a bite, chewed and swallowed. The suspense was driving me crazy, but I waited. As much as I wanted to know what had happened, I was terrified of what he was going to tell me.
I was scared he would tell me Kenneth was dead. I was scared I wouldn’t think it was terrible.
Saxon rubbed his eyes and sighed. “Sherman is cunning, I’ll give him that. And careful. He caught wind of what’s going on. Maybe not exactly what, but he pulled out the moment it looked like something was wrong. He’s playing this by ear, and his ear is very finely tuned.”
I blinked. “So nothing happened?”
Saxon shook his head and sank into the chair like it wasn’t just a piece of crappy wood but a comfortable sofa.
“So what now?”
He got up and threw the dried crust into the bag we’d been using as a trash bin.
“Now we need to work out a new plan.”
I didn’t like the idea of a do-over.
“Do you really think we need to push it that far? Can’t we just go home?”
Saxon looked at me, and there was anger in his eyes. It wasn’t on the surface yet, but it was there, waiting, incubating.
“And then? Are you just going to go back to work, carry on like nothing happened? Do you think he’ll leave you alone?”
I sat down on the other chair. “I can get a new job.”
“This isn’t just about work,” Saxon said. “This has gotten personal. He will try to find you. And try to find me.”
I looked at the wood grain on the table, silvered over time.
“We can go to the police,” I offered.
“And tell them what? Your boss is stalking you because we stole his shit?”
He was right. I sighed and rubbed my own eyes, aware that I was mimicking what he’d done just a moment before.
“The only way we’re going to be able to make this all go away is to take matters into our own hands. We’re just going to have to beat him at his own game, and then we can move on. We just need to approach this a little differently. We know he’s not in the hospital, and we know that he’s in town for the time being, although we don’t know for how long.”
I looked at Kenneth’s phone that was off again and on the nightstand.
“How are we going to contact him?”
Saxon followed my gaze and saw the phone, too. He understood what I was asking.
“He’s got contacts. He’s tight with the bartender and his little motley crew. I’m sure one of us can track them down and get word out to Kenneth, or find where he’s hiding. What we need is a solid plan to put into motion, one that he won’t see through.”
I rested my head on my hand, feeling a headache coming on. My hair was a tangled mess, and I was in desperate need of a shower and a fresh change of clothes. Saxon looked as fresh and attractive as ever.
“What do you know about his life?” Saxon asked, leaning against the kitchen counter a couple of feet away from me.
I tried to find something, anything, but nothing came to mind.
“I don’t know him outside of work at all,” I said. “You know his address, which is more than I know. It’s always just been about work with him, nothing else. Not until recently. That’s why all of this is so bizarre.”
Saxon folded his arms.
“What if we do the same thing that he’s been doing?” I asked.
“What, like grab someone he cares about and do the same thing he was planning on doing to you?”
The moment he said it, it sounded wrong. Bringing someone innocent into this fight wasn’t a good idea.
“That’s not going to work,” Saxon said, after thinking for a moment. “Besides, he would expect something like that. I’m telling you, this guy is on top of his
game. He’s on a whole different level now. It’s like he’s done this before.”
It wouldn’t have surprised me. Kenneth had done it all with so much precision that it was possible this wasn’t his first round. I hadn’t thought about it then, but it seemed all the more realistic now. And creepy. Very, very creepy.
“Someone like him ought to be locked up,” I said with disgust. Saxon nodded. “I swear, toward the end there, it was literally like he’d lost his mind. And now he’s collected and on top of things, to take us on like a professional.”
It didn’t make sense, Saxon was right. It was like we were dealing with two different people. I had no doubt that the side he’d started showing of himself once he’d seen that tape of me and Saxon having sex in his office was a very real part of him. It was just a matter of finding out now how that worked, how it happened that his switch flipped and he became a raging psycho-maniac instead of a calm and collected businessman.
I sat down on the bed again and pulled the covers over my legs, leaning against the wall where there was no headboard.
“You know, all of this happened when he saw me with you,” I said.
Saxon nodded slowly, thinking about it.
“So maybe it’s got to do with me.”
Saxon thought about it, but I was the one that came to the conclusion first.
“Let’s use me,” I said.
“What?” he snapped. His eyes narrowed, and I understood why a lot of people were scared of him. He could be damn scary if he wanted to be, and I didn’t think he always did it on purpose.
“Well, Kenneth didn’t go through with tonight because he felt like something was off. He’s sharp and cunning and he notices stuff like that, right?”
Saxon nodded.
“Well, we just agreed that when it comes down to me, he totally loses it. So instead of using someone else he loves in the same technique against him, let’s use me. You can contact him and tell him that you’ve got me and you’re holding me for ransom. He has to show up alone if he wants me back. Exactly what he wanted you to do.”
Saxon nodded slowly, suspicious, as if he wasn’t sure it was a good idea.
“And what makes you think he’ll come?”
“The fact that it’s me,” I said, and I was dead certain about my facts. “Because when it comes down to me, he loses all control and reason, and he does stupid things, and he pushes further than is necessary. So if we tell him you have me, he’s going to shit himself and come running to save me. He’s not going to be thinking straight.”
“You hope,” Saxon pointed out.
“Even if he is thinking straight and brings back up, you’ll have an advantage because you’ll have your backup, too, and you know he’ll be coming. There’s no way this can’t work, right?”
Saxon pushed away from the counter and came at me, walking faster than usual. I was scared for just a second when he pushed me back onto the mattress and pinned me down with his body.
“You’re fucking brilliant, you know that?” he asked.
I smiled, heat washing through my body. I felt his body press against me, his hard-on, and it made me shiver with anticipation.
“Shouldn’t we set up the rest of this plan?” I asked, but my mind wasn’t on business anymore. I was leaning towards pleasure. Saxon shook his head.
“We’ve got time. Nothing’s going to happen tonight. Besides, we’ll have more time afterward.”
He kissed me, ending all talk, and his hands started roaming my body, pulling off clothes as he went—until I was completely naked, writhing beneath his body, his cock buried deep inside of me.
It was midnight before he finally made his calls. Late, according to me, but I got the idea that his people comprised a big part of the nightlife. He didn’t think twice about the time when he made the call.
“We’re doing it again,” he said. “But this time, we have bait.”
He listened while whomever it was spoke on the other end of the phone, a long talk. He nodded, giving small encouragements or reprimands here and there, and then he finally hung up.
“Butch is getting the word out tonight that I’ve got you and I want Sherman to come and collect,” he said.
“Tonight? Isn’t it a bit late?” I sat in bed, covers yanked up to under my arms, my body hot and burning after having Saxon all over me, in me.
“If we wait until tomorrow morning, it gives him time to make his move. Besides, someone will know him and where to find him, and I doubt he’s sleeping yet. If he’s half as scaly as he’s proving himself to be, he’ll know that everything off the books happens after dark.”
I nodded. I was confident about my plan. This was going to work, I just knew it. Kenneth wanted me sorely. He would do anything to get me. And that was exactly where we wanted him.
“Where are we going to do it?”
“Butch has a place out to the east. Middle of nowhere, nice and cozy, so no one will hear him scream.”
I cringed when he said it, and he caught himself, but too late.
“I mean…”
“I know what you meant,” I said, looking down at my hands. If I was going to play this game, do these things with Saxon, I was going to have to get used to the fact that not everything was going to be legal, and not everything was going to be clean and innocent. This was going to get messy, no matter what. Hell, it already was.
CHAPTER 35
We were out before sunrise. This time, Tanya came with me, but not before I organized something else for her to wear. Butch grumbled about having to do a shopping run, but he delivered with jeans that fit her okay and a white shirt. She looked like she felt better by the time she changed.
They looked Tanya up and down when they met her, in a way that had me wanting to bash a couple of faces in.
“Where are we headed?” I asked Butch. He got on his bike without answering, and we all fell into convoy when he pulled out first. Tanya sat behind me, arms wrapped around my waist, face ducked behind my back to avoid the wind. I had to admit, it felt good to have her on the back of my bike, her hot body pressed against mine, the weight of her feeling as if it was grounding me.
We drove to the east for about two and a half hours. We were out in open lands. There was grass, but it was very short and bone dry, as if it hadn’t rained in months, with patches of sand in between. We peeled off the road one by one, our tires kicking up clouds of dust. We’d driven past the last town more than half an hour ago.
“How far do we still need to go?” Tanya asked after a while, shouting so that I could hear her over the roar of the bikes.
I was just about to tell her that I didn’t know when a warehouse popped up in front of us and Butch started slowing down. I didn’t have to answer her question. She looked over my shoulder and saw it, too.
The warehouse was old and neglected. All the windows had been knocked out at some point or another. White letters were painted in an arch above the big garage doors that led into the warehouse, but they were so faded it was impossible to make out what they’d once said.
The sun was scorching through my black leather jacket, and I saw the twins up ahead rubbing their necks and moving their shoulders underneath the jacket like it was getting to them, too. I envied Tanya in her white shirt.
“You sure we good here?” I called to Butch.
“This place isn’t even on the map anymore. No water and electricity. I doubt anyone still knows it exists.”
He opened a small door to the side of the big garage doors that was almost the same color as the faded bricks and nearly invisible. We all stepped into the shade of the building.
The direct sun on our jackets was cut off, and it was a relief, but a small one. The sun poured in through most of the glassless windows, casting patches on the cracked concrete that stretched from wall to wall. The place was just one enormous hall. There were small doors at the far end that led to offices with windows overlooking the area, but they were also all empty with no glass.
; “What’s the plan?” Tanya asked me. The others all turned so that we stood in a circle.
“We’re going to tie you up here nice and easy, and then Sherman is going to come in about an hour. We told him to come alone, but chances are he’s going to bring some company.”
When Butch said they were going to tie Tanya up, her eyes widened slightly, but she nodded. We had to go all out if we wanted to pull Kenneth in.
“We’re going to station ourselves around the place,” I said. “We’re going to watch them come in, where they’re hiding, everything. If he so much as touches you, he’s dead.”
Filthy Ride: A Motorcycle Club Romance (Iron Bones MC) (Whiskey Bad Boys Book 3) Page 21