BRANDED

by April Lust

  More bodyguards had come out of the office building—as had the rent-a-cop, his fat wiggling around him—and they took aim at my guys. People I knew were dropping, some only wounded, others dead. Thus far, though, Jones’s body guards were losing their lives, but not failing. Jones had yet to be injured. I gritted my teeth as I watch the massacre, trying to remind myself why I was sitting here while my friends were being murdered and gunned down.

  Endgame, I reminded myself, but I kept my jaw shut so tightly, I thought it might break.

  Danny went down with a cry. He lay on the ground clutching at his leg where he’d been hit. There was blood. I could see it begin to pool around him, even from here. He screamed and wailed like a banshee, clearly in pain.

  I heard sirens. Someone had called the police, as I knew they would, and that was the signal for my guys to try to get the fuck out of there. Jones was almost to the car. He was uninjured, far from dead. My guys were torn between backing off and continuing with the pursuit, desperate to kill this bastard. But they were out of time. I could see the sirens now and heard the squealing of tires as they tried to get as close to the shootout as possible.

  Get out of there! I thought, my hands clenched into tight fists on the table. They’d be arrested and it didn’t matter that they were doing the good thing or the right thing if they were breaking the law. They’d go to jail for a long time and I didn’t want to see that.

  Jones made it to the car—armored, so the chances of getting a shot in after he slammed that door shut were few and far between—and just as he was about to pull the door closed after him, a figure sprinted across the street. He moved quickly, wearing a black t-shirt and jeans. There was no way to make out his features beyond the general build of his body and the shine of his bald head, but I didn’t need to squint to try to figure it out.

  I knew it was Bills. This was his last favor to me.

  He dove into the car and grabbed the door to slam it shut behind him. The car peeled out of there only to come across a road block of police vehicles cutting off street traffic. The car was already going too fast. The driver swerved to avoid the blockade, but it was too late. The car tires squealed loudly as the car skidded across the pavement to slam its side into the row of cop cars. The Crown Victorias handled it just fine and I was surprised the black car did, too.

  There was a lot of yelling as police surrounding the vehicles. More officers swarmed around the building and the courtyard where most of the shooting had taken place. Bodies littered the floor along with shell casings and blood. But the shooting had stopped. There were still a few bodyguards standing around, searching for assailants, but there were none.

  The courtyard had cleared out. My guys were already out of there.

  The cops finally got into the black car. The hauled out the driver who was still alive, and arrested him, but they didn’t haul people out of the backseat. They hauled out bodies. Two of them. One was a bald man in a t-shirt.

  Bills had agreed to do this knowing it would be his last hurrah. This was it for him. Death was waiting for him either at the end of today or at the end of six months, but it was coming either way. This way, at least he got to choose how to go out.

  They wouldn’t find anything on him beyond his driver’s license—a quick way to ID him—but nothing that would link him to the Sin Reapers. There would be rumors and people would notice that this seemed a lot like “gang violence,” but when the police started asking questions, no one would pin it back on us. We were loyal to the end, and they wouldn’t find any evidence that this had been a planned assault.

  The police would never know.

  Chapter 29

  Lucy

  I was hauling my suitcase down the stairs, glancing at the clock on my phone. It was getting late and I was actually surprised Thunder hadn’t come back to check on me. I had a feeling it had to do with my mother. She was probably doing her best to keep him there, to give me more time.

  I felt a pang rattle my heart at the thought of her. It was going to be a strange, lonely world without her in it, but what choice did I have? She wouldn’t come with me and I couldn’t stay.

  Starting over was the only way out I could see and I was finally ready to do it.

  Guess I should thank Blade for that, shouldn’t I? I thought darkly. But it was sort of the truth. What had happened to me had been brutal. Terrible. So awful that I wasn’t sure how long it would take me to get over and away from it. But something good had come of it. I finally realized who I was and who I wasn’t.

  I was Lucy Gilles, daughter of Marcus and Mary Gilles, two perfectly good people from the wrong side of the tracks. I was a sometimes shy, often vulnerable woman who got put in bad situations, because she let herself. The kind of woman who fell in with the wrong kind of crowd even though everyone knew she wasn’t supposed to be there, didn’t belong there, and yet had somehow never managed to climb her way back out.

  I was not a biker’s old lady. No matter how much I loved Max or how familiar I was with the ins and the outs of the club, I was not an old lady. I just wasn’t made for it.

  Blade’s little escapade had taught me that I wasn’t willing to be a part of this world anymore. If I had to give everything up for the chance at a new one, then I’d do it.

  Even Max, I thought, and that pang in my heart grew until it felt like a burning hand gripping inside my chest. It hurt. I had a feeling it would always hurt.

  I got my suitcase down the stairs and out of the house. My car was parked in the space in front of the garage, the trunk already propped open. I threw my suitcase into it eagerly, suddenly feeling shaky.

  Time was running out. I didn’t know why I felt that way, but I felt like it was absolutely the truth. I could feel it in my bones that if I didn’t make my getaway now, there would be no other options.

  I slammed the trunk closed, my hands shaking, and went around to the driver’s side door. I dug down into my pockets, searching for my keys, but came up empty.

  Dammit! I thought. I know I just had them!

  I’d used them to unlock the trunk, because the lever in the front to pop it was busted and I’d never bothered to get it fixed, so I always had to use the car keys. I worried for a second that I’d put them in my suitcase and now I was absolutely screwed, because I’d have to call someone to open the damn thing and that would take too much time, but then I remembered.

  Upstairs. On the dresser. Next to my purse. And the only picture of me and Max I’d take with me. The one where we were young—I was seventeen and he was just out of high school—and he had his arm around me. He was wearing a white t-shirt and his hair was longer, pulled back into a low ponytail with wisps falling out of it, dragging themselves into his eyes. He was grinning like a maniac. I remembered telling him to stop goofing around and be serious, but he told me he was being serious. That he was so deliriously happy to have me that he couldn’t smiling like a fucking clown.

  We’d laughed about it a lot that day. Then we’d made love.

  I hurried into the house, mind still fixed on that picture, and ran up the stairs. I found the picture, the keys, and my purse all right there. I had a small stash of money bundled up in my purse—not a lot, not enough to keep me going for long, but maybe enough that I could find a place to stay for a few days until I got on my feet. Enough for gas to get out of this town, too.

  Right now, that was good enough for me.

  I grabbed the lot of it, scooping up the picture last. My fingers clutched at it tightly as I looked at the happy couple in the picture. It had been too many years ago, I decided, so I stuck it into my purse and tried not to think about it, though I knew I’d pull it out a thousand more times as I drove far, far away from this place.

  Heading back down the stairs, I hurried out the door and to the car. Just as I was pulling open the driver’s side door, I saw the headlight and froze. It was a single beam in the growing darkness and the sputtering rev of a bike accompanied it. I prayed it was Thunder, but I kne
w better.

  It was Max.

  He pulled to a stop along the curb and slid off his bike. For a moment, we both stood there frozen. He knew what I was doing and I knew he was going to try to stop me, but we were both hardheaded on this point. There would be no winning, only a draw, and I couldn’t afford that.

  Max started toward me and I shook my head. “Don’t,” I told him, desperate for him to understand that this was already so hard for me.

  I saw his jaw clench, but he didn’t stop and he didn’t say anything.

  “Please, you have to understand.”

  He reached me—I still hadn’t moved—and when his hands came up to cup my cheeks, I didn’t stop him. When he leaned down to press his lips against mine, I didn’t stop him. When he pulled me closer, his hands at the small of my back, our bodies pressing tightly together, I didn’t stop him.

  I lost myself in that kiss and knew this was the end. I’d never get away now.

  When we broke the kiss, he leaned his forehead against mine and whispered something I never thought I would ever hear him say. “I know what you mean. I know why you have to go now.”

  I blinked rapidly as though trying to clear my vision or wake up, because this couldn’t really be happening, could it? “You’re…you’re letting me go?” I asked, still unable to believe him.

  He winced at my words, but nodded his head just the same. “Yes, but I want us to go. Together.”

  Together.

  Less than two full weeks ago, I would have cried with joy. This was exactly what I’d been dreaming of desperately. But things had changed in those two weeks and now I wasn’t sure if I could do this with him.

  Was Max the kind of guy who could want the same life I did?

  “You’re leaving,” he told me, seeing my hesitation, “and I’m telling you I’m going with you. So please, just…say something.”

  I opened my mouth and said the first words that popped into my head, “Are you sure?”

  He nodded with complete conviction. “Yes. Yes. I’m tired of this life. I’m tired of the whole thing. I’m tired of the violence and the death and the backstabbing. I’m tired of looking over my shoulder to figure out who my friends are. I want to settle down in the suburbs somewhere, raise a bunch of noisy little kids, and live happily ever after. I want to spend my life with you and I’ve already fucked up so much of it. I can’t fuck this up, too.”

  I bit my lip. I wanted so desperately to believe it. “Can you even do that? Is suburbia even possible for you?” I said it half as a joke, but neither of us were laughing.

  He let out a shaky breath. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything. But I know I love you, Lucy, and I want to try. I think we can make it work.”

  I thought it over and, though there was still a piece of me that doubted he could really do this, I wanted him so desperately that I cracked a smile and nodded. “Well, okay,” I said, doing my best to sound serious, though the teasing note was already starting to filter in. I batted my lashes at him. “But you have to keep the motorcycle.” A grin began to spread across his face as I winked at him. “There’s nothing sexier than a man on a motorcycle.”

  He actually laughed at that and then he swept me up into his arms, kissing me feverishly. He began carrying me back towards the house. I giggled, throwing my arms around his neck and hanging on.

  “Where are we going? I thought we were leaving?”

  He nodded his head. “We are. But I have to get the money and—”

  “What money?”

  He winked at me. “The stash I’ve been collecting—just in case.”

  “And what else are we doing besides getting this super-secret emergency money?”

  “I’m going to take all your clothes off and make sure you remember why you’re giving me another chance.”

  We stumbled inside and didn’t bother heading upstairs to the bedroom. He tossed me down onto the couch and tore off his shirt, revealing the hard muscles that lay beneath. I started working at my own clothes, only to have his hands come down and join mine. They slipped beneath my t-shirt, trailing over the soft skin there until he found my breasts. He fondled them, massaged and pinched them as my hands went to his belt buckle. I got it undone and managed to get his zipper down as his lips went to my neck, nuzzling me.

  We couldn’t stop our hands from roaming, feeling places we hadn’t had time to explore lately, places I’d missed.

  His pants came off and my shorts followed. He was already hard and I let my hand slide down to feel his stiff member, stroking him only twice before he was groaning and too desperate to be inside me to allow me to continue.

  He moved so he was positioned at my entrance. I felt the head of him press against me, parting my lips to slip inside. His eyes met mine, shining with lust and something new. Hope for a better future. Then he thrust his entire length inside me and I cried out, my hands reaching for him, clutching at him.

  I clung to him, trying not to think of the bad things that had been swirling around in my world for months now. I pushed all of that to the side and focused on the feel of him inside me. He began thrusting and I held tight to him, raising my hips to meet him as best I could, letting my voice ring out through the empty house as we brought each other the kind of pleasure that you can only find when you’re in love.

  He pushed himself to the edge, releasing inside of me and I had a strange thought.

  What if I get pregnant?

  It wasn’t something I’d ever let myself think before, because I couldn’t deal with the idea of bringing a child into this life of violence, worrying how that child would work through it. But I hadn’t had my birth control during the time I’d been held by Blade. And I hadn’t taken it once I got back.

  Was I ready for something like that?

  I didn’t have much more time to think about it, though, because I had other things I needed to do. Things we needed to do. We took the time to shower, then we got in the car. I stuck a letter in the mail for my mom and told her to tell Becky and Thunder goodbye. Max got his money, enough that I knew we’d be okay for a long time. We'd have enough time to figure things out, to start somewhere new, to have a real life.

  For the first time in forever, I was excited for the road ahead of us. I was excited at the prospect of living in a world without violence.

  I was ready to go.

  THE END

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  More by April Lust

  MAX: The Sin Reapers MC

  The devil himself couldn’t keep her from me.

  She’s my last chance at redemption.

  I’ll be damned if I let them take her away.

  I promised her father I’d keep her safe,

  And I intend to fulfill that promise until my dying breath.

  I was a biker from the start.

  I never had a chance at another life.

  I never wanted it, though.

  I was born for the ink and leather.

  The rumble of the engine is music to my ears…

  And Lucy’s kiss is a drug in my veins.

  I’ve protected her since her father died.

  Fended off the bastards, fought back the creeps.

  She belongs in my arms, now and always.

  But she deserves better than this.

  I want to get her out, to a world where things aren’t so grim.

  We almost made it.

  Almost.

  But just when we were on the brink of freedom,

  The worst man alive clawed us back down.

  He’s trying to take her away from me.

  But he should’ve known better.

  I’ll die to protect what’s mine.

  TAKE ME DEEPER: A Bad Boy Biker Romance (The Predators MC)

  I’M ABOUT TO TAKE HER DEEPER THAN S
HE’S EVER GONE BEFORE.

  Jail changed me.

  When I get out, I want nothing more than peace and quiet.

  But this sexy little hellcat won’t leave me alone.

  There’s only one thing I can do: remind her who she belongs to…

  Me.

  Some people think I’m wild.

  Reckless.

  Out of control.

  That couldn’t be farther from the truth.

  Like any man who’s worth a damn, I live by a code.

  And that means punishing those who violate my rules.