HEARTLESS

by Storm, Franca

  He kicks the door shut behind him and eyes each one of us in turn, lifting his chin with respect.

  “Sorry ˈbout the delay. Had to take Dealer’s call when I pulled up outside.”

  Jesus Christ. He looks real fucked up. His hair’s wild and outta its usual shape. His clothes are torn and stained with blood. Fuck, the blood. It’s everywhere. All over his face too. His knuckles are shredded. Means he’s dealt out some hardcore punishment.

  He walks over to Rox and wraps his arm ˈround her, but she pulls back, shocked at the state of him.

  “Ain’t my blood,” he tells her. He eyes his knuckles. “Well, not counting those.” He kisses the top of her head. “It’s all okay, babe. I’m okay.”

  She gives him a look and it’s real clear she ain’t pleased. He’s gonna hear ˈbout it later. She won’t lay into him in front of us. He’s Prez. Can’t have his woman calling him out. She gets it now she’s been with him for a while.

  He turns to us and reports, “Frankie Newman was behind this.”

  I tense right up.

  Runner storms over. “You sure? It were him?”

  I gotta put somebody on Runner. The way he’s looking, he’s gunning to deal out some major punishment. I don’t blame him. His fucking house was invaded. They went for his wife and kid. But we gotta be careful. The attack today was out in the open, real public. The law’s gonna be watching us. If we retaliate the wrong way, they’re gonna be all over us. And that ain’t gonna help nothing.

  “Yeah,” Ax says. “Got confirmation outta the shooters we forced off the road.”

  “Confirmation?” Rox presses, uneasily.

  Ax can’t look her in the eye as he says, “I forced it outta ˈem. They gave me a name. Frankie’s.”

  “They still breathing?” Sin asks.

  “Yeah.” Ax wipes some of the blood off his cheek with the back of his hand and gazes hard at the stain it’s left on his skin. “Sure they wish they weren’t, though.”

  “Fuck, Neil,” Rox mutters.

  “They came after our baby girl, Rox!”

  So much for ˈem not having it out in front of us. Guess all bets are off with everybody right now. The attack’s wearing on all of us.

  Rox grabs his hand and jerks him into the corner with her. She drops her voice low, but she ain’t a quiet woman by nature, so we can still all hear her, as she hisses at him, “I know that, you ass! I know what a close call it was. I was there, remember? I can’t get it out of my head either. But, you losing your temper all over the place will make everything worse.”

  He strokes her hand and leans down to her. “I ain’t losing it, babe. I got this.”

  She looks unsure. “Just make sure you really do. We have a little girl and she needs both of us. Not to mention, I don’t want her growing up in a warzone. We need to end this ASAP.”

  He nods and pulls away to tell us, “I kept one of ˈem conscious. Let him take off. After the hit they took from us, he’s gotta need to head back to his boss. All we gotta do is wait. Then we’ll have Frankie’s location.”

  “How?” I ask. “We didn’t have nobody riding after the guy.”

  “I tagged him with a tracer.”

  We all eye him, stunned.

  He clears his throat, revealing, “I pulled it off Rox before she headed up here with the kids.”

  “What?” Rox demands. “You planted a tracer on me?”

  “You keep blowing off your protection detail. What you expect me to do?”

  “That’s why you don’t get riled up about it anymore, why you let them hang back.”

  He shrugs. “I ain’t apologizing. I gotta know you’re safe.”

  “He’s right, Roxana.”

  I swing my head over to the door to see Dealer walking on in. He shuts it behind him and joins us.

  “That’s about right,” Mullet mutters.

  “Mullet,” Grit warns.

  “We got a woman in here. A guy who ain’t even no member and used to run with a rival club. And now, the retired Prez. Jesus.”

  Yeah, the club’s become real unconventional since Ax took on the presidency. It works well for us, though. The thing is, Mullet’s been ˈround for a long time and he’s all ˈbout tradition. Most of the time, he keeps it to himself, but every now and then, he blows up.

  “Lock it up,” Ax growls, his eyes flashing in warning.

  Mullet grumbles something under his breath and slumps down in an armchair. He might get pissed at the way Ax does some things with the club, like taking it in a peaceable direction, for one. He hates that we operate that way now. But he still has a load of respect for Ax, as a person, and as Prez. It’s why he backs down. He ain’t like some of the other brothers who fear Ax’s temper. Nah, he’s too old and seen way too much to fear nobody.

  “How’d it go with the Sheriff?” Ax asks Dealer.

  “Fine. I made it clear you guys were the victims. He’s gonna want to speak to you, though. Get your statement and shit. I’ll walk you through it.”

  “Who does he think you are?”

  “Told him I’m Black Thorns MC legal counsel.” He shrugs. “I got the papers to back it up.”

  “Falsified papers,” Rox says, rolling her eyes.

  “Yeah, Roxana. Cut the commentary, cuz the falsified stuff I got is saving all your asses right now. Especially your husband’s.” He glares at Ax. “The van was where you said it was, but you did way more damage than you let on. Me and my guys almost didn’t get things cleaned up before the Sherriff’s investigators got there. Fuck, Ax.”

  Ax folds his arms across his chest, his eyes hard steel. “They’re lucky they’re all still breathing. They fucked with my family, my club, and my town.”

  “We gotta take that motherfucker down,” Runner says.

  Ax steps forward, telling him, “Get me a map of all the routes coming into Reirdon Falls at the checkpoints they hit us at.” He’s looking my way next, ordering, “Work with Runner and Dealer to reference ˈem against all the cameras we got here and down in Brockford. I wanna figure out how the fuck this happened, how they caught us off guard.”

  “On it,” I tell him.

  He slides his hand into Rox’s hair, ditching his aggressive, commanding tone, and going for gentle instead, as he asks her, “Babe, can you get me a list of any contacts you got from your Brockford days who got even a slight connection to Frankie? Even the smallest business dealings, yeah?”

  “Sure, baby.”

  He holds her to him for a beat. Damn, he’s really freaked by how close a fucking call it was earlier. Thought he was gonna lose her and his baby girl. When he lets go of her to get back to barking orders, all I see in his eyes is fire.

  He’s ready for war.

  He eyes Sin. “Get me a meet with the Prez of Savage Slayers. ASAP, all right?”

  Sin nods. “Yeah.”

  As he starts for the door to get on it, Ax calls out, “Have him bring Marco Russo in on it too.” His eyes stray to me for a second, then back to Sin, as he tells him, “He’s real invested in taking Frankie down. Be easier to get on the same page with us, if we got him there.”

  “I feel you.”

  As Sin hauls open the door, commotion coming from the main house reaches us.

  “Want me to sort it?” I ask Ax.

  “Nah,” he says, shaking his head. “They need their Prez. I gotta reassure ˈem and explain where we’re at.”

  He grabs Rox’s hand, leading her outta the room, and calls over his shoulder, “Smiter, I want you in on the meet. Russo and you got a connection we can use.”

  “All right, Prez.”

  “You wanna be the one to put him to ground? You gotta get in fucking line now, brother.”

  What? He don’t kill no more.

  He sees the shock on my face and growls, “He fucked with my family. All bets are off. As of right fucking now, he’s marked for death. The President of Black Thorns is gunning for the motherfucker.”

  He storms outta the roo
m. As the door slams behind him, we all stare at each other in shock.

  Jesus Christ.

  Chapter 24

  ~Halle~

  Wrapping a towel around my dripping wet body, I leave the bathroom and head straight to the makeshift bar that I noticed earlier when Grit first showed me into the room. I pour myself a scotch and throw back the entire thing in three burning gulps.

  I needed that so badly. I couldn’t even endure the few more minutes it would’ve taken to dry myself and dress. Resisting long enough to take a quick shower was bad enough. But I had to. The blood… it was too much. I needed to get it off my skin ASAP.

  Once the adrenaline had started to wear off, I was done.

  I managed well and handled everything just fine when I was in the thick of it, consoling the wives, girlfriends, and kids of the wounded club members. I even dressed some wounds, because the club was shorthanded with only a single doctor and just a couple of medically-trained club members.

  I’m used to taking care of people who need help and morale boosts, due to my role as Mother Hen at Temptress. But, this is something else. The fallout of a brutal attack is beyond my usual scope. And, now that I’m no longer in the thick of it, now that I’m alone with time to think, it’s hitting me just how freaked out I really am.

  I pour myself another glass of scotch and take a look around the bedroom. Smiter’s bedroom.

  Aside from the bed in the corner, it’s actually more of a makeshift surveillance room, than a bedroom. There are half a dozen monitors positioned upon a row of desks. They’re all lit up with security feeds from various places I recognize from around Reirdon Falls. The Black Thorns clubhouse is one of them. I took a look at it when Grit first showed me into the room. It had my stomach churning, just seeing the extent of the damage that’s been done to it. The whole situation is so surreal and incredibly unnerving. I have no idea what’s going to happen next, what the club will do. Rox mentioned war. It sure seems likely. These hardened, uncompromising men aren’t the sort to let something like this go. But, if they decide to hit back hard, how many more people will suffer? Their own members? If it drags on, won’t their families be put at risk again?

  The creak of the door pulls me from my bleak thoughts.

  Smiter walks on in, kicking the door shut behind him. His whole face lights up the moment he sees me standing at the little bar. “Hey, sweetheart.”

  “Hey.”

  He shrugs off his cut and hangs it on the back of the rolling chair in front of one of the desks. He cringes at the security feeds, blowing out a deep breath. I can’t even imagine how stressed out he is. He’s security for the club, so everyone is looking to him for protection, reassurance and comfort.

  “How you doinˈ?” he asks, coming over to me.

  “All good,” I tell him, taking a sip from my glass.

  He looks me over, searching, his gaze intense. He must see something there, because he says, “You don’t gotta play it off, Hal. What went down was real major. It’d be a lot for anybody to take, especially an outsider.”

  “Outsider?”

  “You ain’t club.”

  “Right,” I say, knocking back the rest of my scotch, then placing the glass down on the bar top. I reach for the bottle, still not numb enough.

  “I gotta take you as my Old Lady to make that happen.”

  I still at his words.

  He comes to me, taking my hands in his.

  “Smiter,” I say, looking up into his intense gaze. “With everything that’s happened today, I don’t think now is the best time to be talking about this, about us.”

  “Wrong,” he insists, urgency burning in his eyes. “This was a fucking wakeup call, Hal.” He squeezes my hands and moves into me. His body presses tightly against mine, his hands coming up around my back, holding me firmly to him. It seems like he can’t get close enough. Wow, he’s really freaked out. I’ve never seen him so anxious. He’s such a hardened man, always so impervious to everything, always in total control of every situation. But, it’s clear that what happened today has ripped all of that apart.

  “Smiter, it’s okay.”

  He grimaces. “Nah, it ain’t. It fucking ain’t.”

  “Everyone will get through this and—”

  “This ain’t ˈbout none of ˈem! It’s ˈbout you!”

  “Me?”

  “I coulda lost you today!”

  I shake my head. “I’m fine.”

  He lets go of me, pulling away. “If I’d been a few seconds slower getting down to Runner’s place, you woulda gone on into that house and it all woulda been over. A few seconds, Hal! Seconds and I woulda lost you!”

  “You can’t think like that.”

  “It’s all I can think. It’s really brought it home to me just how much time I been wasting here. Both of us. All our hang-ups? They don’t mean nothing. Just fucking excuses, stalling for no real good reason. I ain’t doing it no more.” He comes back to me. “It’s time I laid it all on the line with you, woman.”

  I swallow hard. “Okay.”

  “What you did today was so brave, Hal. Not just here, at the safehouse, with helping out and all that. At The Cove, when you came clean ˈbout everything going on with you.”

  “I was trying to fight for us,” I tell him. “But, you walked away, so I didn’t know what—”

  “Did that to let it sink in, give you the space I figured you still needed.”

  “Wow. That was… well thought out, actually.”

  He rolls his eyes. “You’re a complicated woman, so I got no choice but to bring it like that with you. You got no idea what it took for me to do it. Walking away like that? It burned me, Hal.”

  He shocks me then by abruptly pulling his t-shirt over his head.

  “Smiter, what are you—?”

  He tosses it aside with a fervor, then tells me, “Other reason I walked away back there was cuz I wanted to give you the proof I know you been needing that I’m all in here, that I ain’t never gonna turn from you, that I got it together now when it comes to us.”

  I frown in confusion.

  He points at a piece of gauze taped to his chest.

  “You’re wounded? You took a hit?” I cry, frantically. “When? I didn’t see—”

  He rips the gauze pad off and my words catch in my throat.

  Oh. My. Fucking. God.

  There, right next to his club tattoo, is a freshly-inked one. The black, cursive script burns into me. Just one word.

  Halle.

  He beams down at me. “You’re the goddamn heart of me, woman.”

  “I can’t believe you did this for me,” I say, my voice breaking.

  “Believe it. This is permanent. Forever. That’s what I want for us.” He brushes a strand of wet hair out of my face and gazes deeply into my eyes. “I love you.”

  “I love you.” Tears spill down my face and I can’t stop them for the life of me. “Dammit,” I blubber, trying to wipe them away.

  He chuckles. “It’s okay, sweetheart.” Moving into me, he kisses the top of my head. “Want to take you as mine. Make it official. Make you my Old Lady. So, I gotta know, Hal. You with me on this?”

  I bite my lip to force back more blubbering. I nod. I nod my ass off. Of course, I’m on board. How the hell could I not be after his amazing words? After everything? My heart and my head are finally on the same page. After all we’ve been through, with all of our issues and all of the bullshit coming at us, we’ve finally managed to make it here.

  I wrap my arms around him and we hold one another close for a long while, both relishing the feeling after too long apart.

  When we finally pull back, I shake out my wet hair and start for the bathroom. “I should finally actually dry off properly. My hair’s dripping all over the place.”

  I don’t get to take another step. Smiter is suddenly on me, pressing me against the wall. He grinds his hard dick between my legs. “I’m gonna have this sweet pussy dripping all over the place in a min
ute.”

  With one rough tug, he rips my towel away, baring my wet, naked body. He growls low in his throat, then grasps my hips, lifting me up. I wrap my legs around him and our mouths clash hard and frantic, as he carries me over to the bed.

  I bounce on the hard mattress and watch as he strips naked in a flash, as desperate for this as I am.

  He’s on me in the next second, pulling me on top of him with his strong arms, my back to his hard chest, in a reverse-cowgirl position.

  Grasping my hips, he commands, “Spread.”

  I spread my legs wide and he lowers me down onto his hard, thick cock, making the both of us moan out as he fills me to the hilt.

  I start to move, but a sharp slap to my right boob has me stilling.

  “Be still,” he commands. “I got you.”

  His mammoth, inked arm bands across my boobs, holding me rigidly against him. His free hand drops between my legs. He uses two fingers to pry open my pussy lips, leaving me open and vulnerable for his thumb to circle my clit. It has me bucking against him. He exerts more pressure, driving me to distraction, as pleasure erupts everywhere.

  And then he starts rolling his hips, pumping his dick inside me in the most erotic motion ever.

  “God, Smiter!” I cry, throwing my head back.

  He nuzzles my neck and breathes in my ear, “You’re the best I’ve ever had, Hal.”

  My response gets caught in my throat, as his thumb moves from slow and sensual, to rough and wild, vibrating over my clit frenziedly. It’s so intense that I can barely breathe. My body shudders, my legs trembling, as I hurtle towards one hell of an intense orgasm.

  “Keep ˈem legs wide,” he growls.

  “I… I can’t,” I pant.

  He slaps my pussy hard, making me yelp.

  “Take it,” he orders, delivering another punishing slap.

  The burn his slaps elicit make me all the more sensitive when he returns to teasing my clit. He uses all his fingers this time, brushing, flicking, dipping inside, spreading my juices everywhere.

  I’m right on the edge of coming when his fingers suddenly leave me.

  In one lightning-fast move, he lifts me off his cock, spins me around one-hundred-and-eighty degrees and slams me back down, making me take the full length of him in one brutal shot. The shock and delicious roughness of it has me hurtling into ecstasy.