Where was everyone? Her foot hit something and she stumbled, fell. She bent down, recognized the long blond hair.
“Doreen?” She shook Doreen gently, felt for a pulse. But when she patted her down, blood seeped through Doreen’s clothes.
She fell back with a gasp.
“Evie!” Zane’s voice rang out in the stillness.
“Zane. Over here. I need help.”
Zane emerged from the smoke, ran towards her. Then he froze, his face contorting in horror.
“Help me. She’s not breathing.”
Still, he didn’t move.
“What?” She looked back over her shoulder, pushed herself to her feet. “What’s wrong? Is someone behind me?”
“You.”
Evie put her hand to her face. It came away sticky and red. She touched her nose, winced in pain.
“The air bag went off.” Her vision blurred and a wave of nausea gripped her stomach. “I must have a nosebleed.”
Zane frowned, shook his head. His mouth opened but she couldn’t make out his words. Evie took a step forward, and then she lost her footing and fell into the smoke.
* * *
“She gonna be okay?”
Zane nodded from the chair beside his bed as Jagger closed the door behind him. Evie had been asleep most of the day, and save for checking in on Ty and putting him to bed in a spare room in the clubhouse, Zane hadn’t left her side.
“Yeah. She’s bruised up from the air bag hitting her face, and she had a nosebleed and a minor concussion. Took her to the hospital and they said she’d be okay. Doc suggested we stay at the clubhouse since he’ll be here all night fixing up the brothers and he could check in on her. How’s everyone doing?”
Jagger settled on the edge of dresser. His face was lined and worn, and he still hadn’t changed out of his blood-soaked clothes after helping treat all the brothers who had been injured in the raid. “Lots of casualties, but everyone made it out alive.”
“Thank fuck. What happened?”
Jagger scrubbed his hands over his face. “They were hiding out in the hills around the clubhouse. Not sure if they were still hiding from the ATF, or if they knew we were coming, but our scouts missed them. They started shooting just after Evie dropped off Doreen. Looks like they hit her tire and she lost control of her vehicle. Benson thought that was the signal to go so he started the truck, drew their attention. They got him through the window, hit his arm, and he couldn’t get it out of gear. The truck crashed through the gate and they kept shooting at it, triggered an explosion. Damaged the building pretty bad. Took out three Jacks. Benson made it out in time. But T-Rex…”
“He didn’t make it?”
“Sparky and Gunner had gone around to help you with T-Rex. When they didn’t see you, they went through the hole you’d cut in the fence while the Jacks were distracted by the truck. Gun broke the lock on the door to the dungeon. They found…” Jagger choked on his words. “A body. Not breathing. No pulse. They were pretty sure it was T-Rex although his face was so beaten it was unrecognizable, and it was dark. Same color hair though, same size, and Mario said he was in there. They couldn’t find his cut, but they found this.” He held up the medallion T-Rex had always worn around his neck—gift from Tank when T-Rex been patched into the club, along with a special blade.
Zane’s heart squeezed in his chest. “Fuck.”
“They couldn’t get him out.” Jagger’s voice tightened and he looked away. “They tried … but we’d spotted more Jacks on the way. I couldn’t lose them, too. When they called me, I told them to get out of there. He was dead. There wasn’t anything we could do for him.”
Zane felt the news like a fist in his gut. T-Rex had died to save his Evie. It was a debt he could never repay.
“I don’t want this life for her, Jag.” He reached over, threaded his fingers through hers. “I want her to have the kind of life she had before. Safe. Peaceful. I can’t give her that when I’m wearing this cut, and I can’t give it to her as a civilian with a damn warrant hanging over my head.”
“You’d give up the life?” Jagger rubbed his thumb absently over the Sinner’s skull ring on his finger—the president’s mark.
“I’d give up anything for her.”
Jagger let out a long, ragged breath. “She wouldn’t want that. I don’t want it. Before you do anything drastic, you need to talk to her about it first.”
Jagger was right. Evie wouldn’t want him to give up his cut. But he was wrong about the talking. Zane had a plan. He’d already talked to Richard, the club attorney, and worked out the details. If he stayed, Evie might talk him out of it. If he left, it would be done and they could move on.
“I want to give her the option.” He scraped a hand through his hair, and it came away black with soot from the fire. “As long as I’m a wanted man, I can’t give them a normal life. And I’ll always be looking over my shoulder, waiting for the day Viper or someone like him goes to the cops. But it’s not just that. I’ve lived my whole life in hiding. I’ve lived in the shadows. Evie brought me to the light. I don’t want to hide anymore. I want the truth to come out. The truth about what happened the night I left Stanton. The truth about how I feel.”
He shrugged off his cut, folded it carefully, and handed it to Jagger. “I talked to Richard. He says if I go up to Stanton and turn myself in they’ll process me and stick me in the slammer for a coupla days, maybe a week. He’ll be there for the interview and to arrange bail.”
“Fuck.” Jagger scrubbed his hands over his face. “Don’t do this. You know we’ll protect you.”
“I gotta do it, Jag. It’s the only way.”
“The club will bail you out then,” Jagger said. “Whatever the cost.”
Zane nodded his appreciation. “Richard said the bail conditions usually include not associating with known felons or criminal organizations. I’m guessing he means the club. I’ll be there for T-Rex’s funeral unless something goes wrong, but I’ll stay away from the brothers. He says our big chance is the preliminary hearing where we try to show the judge there’s not enough evidence to go to trial. Best-case scenario, I walk. Worst-case scenario, I spend the next twenty years in jail for something I didn’t do.”
“That won’t happen. If it gets to that we’ll break you out.”
Zane laughed. “I thought you were gonna say you’d hire a better lawyer. But, yeah, break me out. I’d go fucking crazy if I had to spend twenty years staring at the same four walls. Grand gestures are only good if there’s someone to appreciate them.”
“She might not take you back if you leave her again,” Jagger warned.
Emotion welled up in Zane’s throat. “This time I’m not leaving her alone or unprotected. And this time I’m not running away. I’m trying to come home. Make sure she understands that.”
He brushed his lips over Evie’s cheek and then he and Jagger clasped shoulders. “Look after her and Ty until I get back.”
“Like they were my very own.”
Zane stood in the doorway and drank in the sight of Evie, her hair fanned over the pillow, her face restful in sleep.
After all he’d been through, he had come full circle. He loved her. And yet he had to leave her again.
TWENTY-THREE
If your repair doesn’t work, don’t give up, Go back to the beginning and start again.
—SINNER’S TRIBE MOTORCYCLE REPAIR MANUAL
Evie squeezed Connie’s hand as the biker procession entered the cemetery. Although there was no body to bury, the Sinners had erected a tombstone in their dedicated plot at the Conundrum Cemetery and invited support clubs and local friendlies to honor T-Rex’s memory. T-Rex’s parents had declined the invitation to attend the ceremony, saying that T-Rex had been dead to them for many years and they had already mourned his passing. Jagger had smashed the phone after that conversation and added T-Rex’s family to his blacklist, to be punished at a later date.
Almost two hundred bikers converged on the cemete
ry, a testament to T-Rex’s popularity, not just in the club, but in the biker community. Of course, politics factored into who showed and who didn’t, which clubs sent presidents or VPs and which sent junior patch. All duly noted, of course, by Tank who had been assigned secretarial duty for the day and stood with Evie and Connie translating biker funeral customs into civilian terms so they could understand what was going on.
“Support clubs gotta send at least two board members and two junior patch,” he said, as he snapped pictures with his phone. “I’ll be making a list to give to Jagger and if anyone didn’t show, he’ll send Gunner out with a team to put them in their place.”
“I like that idea.” Connie pulled a collapsible umbrella from her purse and shook it out under the tree where they’d been standing for the last ten minutes. They had chosen a position on a small rise near the edge of the cemetery—close enough to hear, but far enough away that their civilian presence would not offend the biker gathering. “If I die, I want you and Evie to go beat up any of my friends who don’t show for the funeral. Especially Gene. So he regrets never making a move before he had the chance.”
Tank lowered his camera. “Are you fucking kidding me? You’re mine. Gene doesn’t touch you. And after I had words with Sparky, he won’t be touching you either. No one touches you. Except me.” He cupped his hand behind her head and pulled her in for a hard, possessive kiss.
“This is why I like bikers,” Connie said in a breathy voice after he released her. “The whole possessive caveman thing is very hot. You should see what he does if I show any interest in the guys at the bar.”
Evie tried, but failed to smile. T-Rex’s funeral had reopened the black hole in her chest that she hadn’t managed to heal since he’d sacrificed himself to save her. She felt guilty moving on with her life, guilty for every laugh, because T-Rex would never laugh again. And she had no one to share her grief. She’d awoken the morning after the big raid with a splitting headache, and no Zane.
That had been two weeks ago.
Despite her best efforts and the worst of her threats, she had been unable to convince Jagger to tell her where Zane had gone or how long he would be away. However, he had helped her find a small warehouse south of town big enough for a new shop and garage, and a small rental house only a ten-minute drive from Ty’s school. Evie hadn’t seen any Jacks lurking around, and she hadn’t heard anything from Viper. She figured he had better things to do with his time now that he had a clubhouse to rebuild and, no doubt, revenge to plan.
A biker minister said a few words after the crowd had assembled. Evie wondered how the minister reconciled his duties with the ethos of an outlaw biker gang, or what his superiors thought about him wearing a cut. She didn’t recognize his patch, but he was darkly handsome, almost exotic in appearance, with deeply tanned skin and long blond hair, tied back in a ponytail.
Jagger’s speech about T-Rex moved her to tears. Powerful, moving, quietly eloquent, he mentioned the little things that had made T-Rex the most well-regarded member of the club: small kindnesses, thoughtfulness, and a selflessness that put them all to shame. And in the end, he had died true to his nature, sacrificing himself to keep another safe.
Gunner followed with a story about T-Rex as a prospect, bursting into a board meeting to tell them Jagger had been kidnapped and then almost falling over when he saw Jagger alive. After Sparky and Dax gave their speeches, and the service had come to a close, Evie stayed behind so she could spend a few minutes alone at the grave.
She had only a few minutes of reflection before she sensed another presence near the grave. Her head jerked up and she saw Zane on the other side of the headstone, thumbs looped in the belt hooks of his worn, black jeans. The dark shadow of a beard covered his jaw and his hair looked like it hadn’t been combed in weeks. He had lost weight—his T-shirt hung loose under his cut, and although he still cut an imposing figure he looked … diminished, not just physically, but emotionally, too.
Her first instinct was to run, and maybe weeks ago that’s what she would have done. But she’d changed since Zane walked back into her life, and in the last few weeks she’d moved on. She had always known he would leave her again. This time she wasn’t prepared to take him back.
“You missed it,” she said.
Pain flickered across Zane’s face as stared at the tombstone. “I watched from the rise,” he pointed to a hill behind him. “I have to keep a low profile. The brothers knew I was there.”
Evie swallowed past the lump in her throat. It was all too much. T-Rex. The funeral. Zane’s sudden appearance, and now this. “But not me.”
“I can explain it all to you.” He took a step toward her. “You want to talk here or at your place?”
“I moved.” She lifted her chin, met his gaze. “And I’m not interested in anything you have to say. I knew you’d leave me again. I just didn’t expect it to be so soon.” Caught in a maelstrom of emotion, Evie turned and walked away.
“Evie.”
She heard his voice and kept walking, past small benches and tombstones, neatly clipped bushes and vases of flowers. Only when she reached her vehicle did she let go.
With a growl of frustration, she kicked the tire over and over until her foot went numb. When she raised her fist to pound on the hood, Zane grabbed her from behind, pinning her arms by her sides.
“Stop.”
“Let me go.” She twisted and struggled in his grasp as all her pain came out in a rush. “You left me again. No note. No call. Not even a goodbye. T-Rex is dead because of me. And Bill … I couldn’t save him either.”
Zane tightened his grip and pressed his mouth to her ear. “I’ve got you. Use me. Take it out on me.”
I’ve got you. Those three words tipped her over the edge. He’d had her since she was eight years old. He had her when no one else cared. He had her and he left her. Again and again.
She turned in his arms and pounded on his chest, huge guttural sobs ripping from her throat as she let out her sorrow for T-Rex, for Bill, for the past she and Zane had lost to fear, for the future they might never have. Zane didn’t move, didn’t blink; he simply absorbed her blows as if he wanted her pain.
When she was worn out, he held her in his arms and kissed her, a soft brush of his mouth over hers, lips drinking her tears. “I left for us,” he said. “I left so we could have the chance of a future together.”
“Where did you go?”
“Stanton. I turned myself in. I’m out on bail until the preliminary hearing.”
A groan ripped from her throat. “Oh, God, Zane. Why? Why would you do that?”
“I want to be free,” he said simply. “I’m not a good man, Evie. Not in civilian terms. I’ve broken laws, committed crimes. But I can sleep at night because I’ve never hurt anyone who didn’t deserve it. After I met you again, I realized I’ve been living my life under the shadow of a lie. I loved you, but I denied it. I pretended those false charges meant nothing to me, but they do because they mean I can’t give you and Ty what I want to give—a choice.”
She felt a prickle at the back of her neck. “What choice?”
“Whether we live or leave the life is up to you.”
Evie fisted his shirt, pulled him close. “And what if it all goes wrong? What if they put you in jail for the next twenty years? What then?”
“I’ve loved you for almost twenty years, Evie; I’ll love you for twenty more. And I would wait a lifetime to hold you again.”
His utter and absolute faith, his conviction, his heartfelt words turned the tide and washed away the last of her reservations. “I need you,” she whispered. “I want to feel. I want to live so T-Rex didn’t die for nothing.”
“Over there.” He pointed to the caretaker’s potting shed just over the rise. They made their way through the soft grass to the door and Zane used his knife to snap the lock.
Rich and fragrant, the mingled scents of flowers and potting soil surrounded them when they stepped inside. Rows of freshly p
otted flowers lined the wall, and the small table under the sole window in the shed heaved under an array of potting equipment, bags of soil, fertilizer, watering cans and gloves. A large wooden table took up the center space and worn shelves lined the dark, wood walls.
Frantic to touch him, she shoved up his shirt as soon as he turned from bolting the door. She ran her hands over the hard planes of his chest, then she trailed kisses over his newly grown beard. “I’m not sure if I like all these prickles.”
Zane grabbed her ass and ground his erection against her belly. “You’ll love it when I’m between your thighs, licking your sweet pussy.”
“Arrogant.”
“You love that, too.”
He took control, spinning her around and then pushing her over the workbench in the center of the shed. “It’s not the hood of a 300C, but since I haven’t been able to get that image out of my mind, this will have to do.”
The rich scent of earth rose up from the wooden surface, raw and primal. “It’s perfect. Don’t make me wait.”
Zane leaned over her, pressing her body against the table with his weight, then he clasped her neck and pushed her cheek against the rough, wood surface. “You want it dirty, sweetheart?”
“Yes.”
“You want it rough?”
“Yes.”
“You want me to fuck you so damn hard you can’t think of anything but the orgasm I won’t give you till you beg?”
“God, yes. Make me pay for letting T-Rex give his life for me.”
“No.” He released her, backing away, leaving her bereft.
Evie cried out in frustration. “Please, Zane. Make it all go away.”
Zane grabbed her hair and yanked, forcing her back to arch, and her ass to ride high against him. “I’ll give you what you want, sweetheart, the way you want it, but you don’t pay for T-Rex’s sacrifice. He was a Sinner and the debt is a Sinner debt—my debt. The only thing you can do for T-Rex is live and enjoy your life so his sacrifice means something. I want you to feel—pleasure, pain, and desire. I want you to know the love I have for you. I want you to understand that I will always be there for you. You are my life, Evie. You have my heart.”
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