Will knew he would draw some deep ire for missing the event today, and not just from Jase. But he didn’t care. That tiny ache of shame in his gut was wholly drowned by the tide of anger that washed in when he thought about Henry and the MC. For the last two years, he had tried with every fiber in his being to overcome and forgive what had happened. But it was like Will had no control anymore—not over himself, and not over the events that happened to him.
The scent of baking in the air got stronger, and Will felt tears on his face. He wiped them away with anger. Like a cruel joke, the inferno that consumed his grandmother and her shop had smelled of cinnamon and sugar, smelled of her baking, and now he couldn’t stand the scent. It made him think of fire and pain.
As intrusive thoughts of the blaze tried to surface in his mind, Will pushed back, clamping them down hard with another memory: the look on the faces of the men who had set the fire as he pumped a bullet into their brains. Three of them. He could still remember them, kneeling on the gray concrete floor of the abandoned factory, mouths gagged, eyes full of hate and fear. His MC brothers and the hierarchy of the cartel had watched him take his vengeance. In the name of alliance and mutual benefits, a deal had been struck after the bakery fire, giving the cartel transit through the mountain pass with the MC’s blessing and protection, so long as they never set up shop in LeBeau or Howlett directly. Amended to that, Henry had demanded they turned over the arsonists for the innocent blood they shed.
Will could still feel the weight of the gun in his hand, heavier somehow in that moment than it ever felt before or since. He could remember the burn of righteous rage that tore through his veins. He could still remember thinking the world would feel better once this was finished. But after the rapport died and the gun smoke cleared, he had stared down at three cold and bloody bodies and felt nothing. Not relief, not justice, not catharsis. It was like he had stepped directly into a dark forest with no map or compass as soon as he fired the gun.
Anxiety raced down Will’s body as he lay in bed, his brain overloading with rotten memories and toxic feelings. He just wanted to go back to sleep. He rustled around a few moments, trying to find some space in the bed where he could feel comfortable, but it was useless. Angrily, he lifted himself onto his feet.
His agitation grew as he paced his room, as if he was caught in a labyrinth of thought he couldn’t escape. Finally the building pressure popped, and Will growled as he punched a hole in the drywall next to his bookshelf. The shelf rattled against the wall and spilled a few titles carelessly to the floor. His already-injured hand lit up in a fireworks show of pain, and while it hurt like a bitch, it also took Will’s focus off his mental anguish for a few precious moments. He felt blood running down his dry skin, knuckle wounds torn open just as endorphins rushed through his system to treat the pain, making his vision sharp and the ache in his muscles just a little number.
Will grabbed a dirty shirt from the floor and wiped the blood off his hands as he stared down at the pile of books. Even though they only joined a growing mess of clutter and chaos, he couldn’t bring himself to leave them there. Not his books. Making sure he didn’t have blood on his hands, Will picked them up with care and put them back on the shelf one at a time. Fingering the spines, he couldn’t help but long for the time when reading made him feel better. He was so anxious lately that he could barely concentrate on a magazine.
Will sighed to himself. Everywhere he turned, more pain seemed to await him. He wished he could just sleep through it all, that he didn’t have to go through the hassle of social exposure and protocol to lose himself in the warmth of a woman. He wished he could be drunk forever. All of his days felt dark, but some days—like today—got darker than dark.
There was only one place to go on days like this. At first he had fought it as a poor idea; now, he didn’t care. The land where his grandmother’s bakery once stood had been bought shortly after the fire, and on its ashes, a bar was built. It felt like fate to Will. He had found himself there more and more in recent months. Some days, it was like he ached for it.
Some nights, he wondered if he would die there, too.
As he shuffled for the shower, Will heard his phone buzzing and ignored it again. He didn’t want to talk to anyone today. Today, he just wanted to sit and drink.
After his shower, he found some moderately clean jeans and a white shirt to pull on, ignoring his cut that dangled from the living room recliner. He didn’t want to think about the MC today, either. He even left his phone lying on the floor of his bedroom as he left, and he didn’t even bother to lock his front door.
He simply climbed on his bike and headed out in the late morning sunlight toward Howlett, anxious at the idea of drinking away the darkness.
~ FIVE ~
After the confrontation with the two strangers, Eva asked Charlie to take over serving so she could catch a nap. She assured her overprotective brother that she wasn’t harmed and maybe she had just overreacted, but she couldn’t admit to him how frightened she had been. She also didn’t want to admit to herself how the adrenaline charging through her veins made her feel more alive than she ever had. Instead, she took a slow walk through the forest and back to the house, made herself some tea, and promptly fell asleep, surrounded by her aunt’s creepy porcelain doll collection. Even the lumpy bed didn’t stop her.
It did a fine job recharging her. When she woke, Eva didn’t feel the fear anymore. She told herself she had misinterpreted the exchange with the men. Maybe it was all some joke she and Charlie weren’t in on. Maybe Laura was right—she was seeing things like she was in a story, dramatic and larger than life. Those men probably wouldn’t even come back. She took a shower and grabbed a book before she headed back to the bar, snacking on an apple as she walked.
Someone had started up the jukebox in the corner, which held a fine selection of old outlaw country, and a few classic rock songs. Two men that Eva suspected were farmers talked lowly at one of the tables, sharing a pitcher of cheap beer. One of the regular bar flies claimed his seat at the end of the long oak bar, just next to the video poker machine that went ignored most of the time.
Charlie stood behind the bar, leaning over a book he had spread open on the glossy surface.
She looked down at the small, uniform text arranged around complex-looking diagrams. “Christ, what are you trying to fix now?”
“There’s an emergency generator out back,” said Charlie, thumbing over his shoulder like she didn’t know where “out back” was. “Owen didn’t say anything about it, but it looks like something’s wrong with it. It hasn’t been used in a while.”
“Yeah, probably because something’s wrong with it,” said Eva in a mocking tone. She nudged him out of the way to grab herself a pint glass and filled it carefully from the draught. “You don’t have to repair every little thing broken around here, you know. You can just relax… read a real book.” She shook her own at him.
“This is how I relax,” said Charlie without looking up.
Eva gave him a face that he ignored. She felt a little sting of pain that she recognized as loneliness. She wished her brother could find even some pleasure in the company of others, and not just his constant problem-solving.
She took her beer and her book and settled into the small two-person table just next to the bar, closest to the back room, where she would be least likely to be disturbed should they get some sudden rush of customers. The thought made her smirk as she looked over the perpetually empty room.
It didn’t take long for her to settle in and surround herself in her typical comfort zone. The music of the jukebox floated just soft enough to provide background fodder for her busy brain while it devoured page after page, stopping only for occasional sips of beer. She was five chapters deep when the door to the bar swung open.
For a second, Eva’s heart jumped. Was it the strangers returning? She held her breath until the new arrival walked across the floor and straight for the bar. When Eva saw him, her heart jumpe
d a second time, but it wasn’t from fright. The man was deeply handsome, an unblemished face full of boyish charm juxtaposed with a jawline square and cut like marble. Rust-colored scruff grew in a short beard and moustache, and matched the loose curls on top of his head that looked like they hadn’t seen scissors in a while. His white t-shirt fit snugly over his chest and arms, revealing lean muscle lines. Despite that leanness, he nonetheless exuded a strength that reminded Eva of the strangers from before. Something predatory.
A surprising heat rushed through her chest and into more intimate places. It only worsened when he licked his full lips and absently pushed his hair back from his face as he sat down in front of Charlie at the bar. Christ, he’s so hot it hurts.
As if he could hear her thoughts, the man lifted his gaze and trailed it across the bar until it landed on her. It was then that Eva realized she had stopped to stare at him mid-drink, with her mouth half-open and her pint of beer hanging in the air. She cleared her throat and dropped the beer back on the table as she averted her eyes back to her book, trying desperately to at least look like she was again lost in the text.
When she dared glance back up again, he was still looking at her. Staring, even. His brown eyes were so deep, they looked endless from where she sat, and held a sadness that Eva couldn’t help but feel. His face had gone much softer, and when he looked at the book in her hands, she saw the ghost of an endearing half-smile.
Charlie suddenly looked up from his manual on the counter. “Oh, ‘scuse me, I didn’t see you there. What can I get you?”
The man held her gaze just a second longer before he turned to Charlie. “Two shots of whiskey and a stein.”
Eva’s stomach fluttered at the sound of his voice, a deep timbre spoken softly, deliberately. She couldn’t believe herself, getting all worked up over some… well, what was he? He certainly looked dangerous, but she couldn’t place exactly why. Plenty of guys kept in shape and carried knives. Plenty of guys had scars on their arms, and their neck. It was something else in the way he carried himself. Whatever it was, it didn’t frighten her like it had with the strangers. Instead, Eva felt honest-to-god arousal in a way she hadn’t felt in months—maybe even years.
An unwelcome, paranoid thought protruded into her mind—that maybe this dark, handsome stranger was related to the earlier ones. Was he here to continue the work they had started? He didn’t look particularly agitated. She did hope he wasn’t with them. It would certainly tarnish his handsomeness.
Charlie served him and Eva heard the man ask, “You new here?”
“Yeah, there’s been a bit of an ownership shake-up. Temporary,” said Charlie, holding his hands up as he said the last word. He stretched one of them out to the man. “I’m Charlie Murdock. Owen had some family business to attend to. My sister and I will be running things in the meantime. Hopefully, you shouldn’t feel too much of a difference.”
The man looked at Charlie’s hand a moment before he shook it. “Will.” He took a pause. “You and your sister?” he added, trailing his gaze back over to Eva before Charlie could answer.
“Eva, over there,” said Charlie as he nodded toward her. Both men looked at her and Eva squirmed a bit in her chair. She raised a hand in an awkward wave, and then pretended to dive back into her book. She could feel Will’s eyes on her still, but she didn’t dare look up and confirm it. Laura’s gonna love this, she thought.
She didn’t hear Will say anything else, but she did hear the sound of both the shot glasses being put back on the counter, one after the other. Her gaze flicked up and over the book for another quick peek. The man was just sitting on his stool now, staring at some empty point behind the bar, lost in thought. And not a happy thought, if she had to judge. She didn’t envy whoever he must have been thinking about. There was an air about him that reminded her of a half-sleeping wolf.
The song on the jukebox changed to something from Jimi Hendrix and Eva started to try and get back into her book. She’d only read a few paragraphs before feeling compelled to pause for another glance up at dark, handsome Will at the bar. After a few minutes, she realized she wasn’t digesting anything she was reading. All she could think about was how strong Will’s hands would feel on her.
Eva cleared her throat and blushed to herself. She saw the stranger look up for just a moment and again, like before, his face softened just a touch when their eyes met. She took that as a sign that maybe he liked what he was looking at.
The door to the bar swung open again, and Eva heard the approach of multiple footsteps at once. Her heart dropped when she saw the familiar leather coats and dangerous faces of the Latino strangers who had threatened her before. She froze. The blood drained from her face.
When her gaze flicked back to Will, she saw something come over him, like he was reading the thoughts on her face. His back straightened, and the lines from his face disappeared as his expression became a blank slate of coldness. Something dark erupted in his eyes.
Oh, Christ, thought Eva. Was this Will’s cue to attack? Was he with them, after all?
From her left, she heard Charlie call out obliviously, “Afternoon, guys. What can I get you?”
Her eyes stayed fixed on the men as one of them stalked over to the farmers’ table and suddenly slapped the half-empty beer pitcher into one of their laps.
“Closing time, gentlemen! If you would be so kind as to collect your shit and get the fuck out of our bar,” shouted the man with the close-cropped hair, exaggerating every word and syllable.
The men groused and leapt from their seats, only to be shoved harshly for the door with cruel hands and threats of broken bones. The old barfly near the poker machine didn’t wait to be told; he lurched off his stool and bee-lined out the front door and into the sun. The man with the bun walked up to the bar.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?!” yelled Charlie, his arms up.
Eva held a white-knuckled grip on her book as she watched the man in the bun approach Will from behind. She waited for him to clap a trusting hand on his back, call him by name.
Instead, the man in the bun put one of his arms on the bar on Will’s left side. He leaned in to give Will the same threats the others had received.
“Did you hear that, asshole? Get on your fucking feet,” the man in the bun growled right near Will’s face.
In a flash, Will turned into an animal. He held the man’s wrist steady with one hand and lifted his thick, half-full stein glass with the other. The heavy stein came crushing down on the man’s forearm, filling the room with the sound of snapping bones and painful screams.
The man in the bun grabbed his broken arm to his chest and stumbled backwards into the wall and over a table only a few feet from where Eva sat. She leapt to her feet and scrambled out of the way, scared he would try and hurt her in revenge, but he only writhed on the floor, screaming in Spanish.
Breathing hard, Eva looked up. Will was on his feet, a deadly coldness in his eyes as he turned to face the other thug. Even though the Latino man had height and weight on him, Will looked like twice the force, standing there with his back straight as an arrow, his broad shoulders puffed out. He waited like a patient viper until the thug took a heavy swing at him. Will ducked quickly beneath the punch and came back up with his own, straight into the man’s nose. Blood gushed from the wound almost instantly and the thug howled in pain.
“You picked the wrong fucking bar,” said Will quietly to the man as he stumbled, bleeding, trying to fumble for the door. Will turned and grabbed the collar of the man on the floor and yanked him harshly to his feet. The man howled in pain, spitting at him and calling him terrible things. He pushed and shoved both of the injured men, one after the other, until he had them both out the front door and disappeared from sight. Eva and Charlie could only stand, frozen and staring, completely overwhelmed.
After a few tense moments, Will came back in, yelling at them with a fury that Eva had never heard from anyone. Even though it wasn’t directed at her, it
terrified her just the same. “You tell whoever the fuck sent you that they just made the last mistake of their short, pathetic fucking lives!”
He slammed the door shut, the color in his face already making him look more alive. Without a word, he turned and locked it, pulling the chain on the neon Open sign. “Lock the back door,” he said to neither of them in particular.
Eva nodded, and scrambled to shut the back door that was still open to the drifting, quiet meadow. She clicked both the locks and returned to the bar room. Charlie finally began to move and react, talking to himself in speedy, curse-studded sentences as he paced behind the bar. Will put his hands on his waist and walked slowly back toward the bar, looking suddenly out of breath and tired. He reached to drain the tiny bit of beer left in the stein he had just used to break some guy’s arm. Even from a distance, Eva could see the blood on his knuckles.
She looked up at Will’s face, and he met her eyes. Her knees felt suddenly weak.
Retribution: A Motorcycle Club Romance Page 5