Evie’s stomach tightened. She’d never brought a man home after Mark, keeping her liaisons as discreet as possible. And Ty was already off balance after Zane’s recent disappearance. He needed a hug but she had nothing on and her nightdress was in the dresser. “You can climb in with us. Just give me a second to get dressed and I’ll find another pillow.”
But Ty had never dealt well with change and she hadn’t even thought about discussing the possibility about Zane sleeping over.
“That’s my place,” he shouted, the tears spilling down his cheeks. “And it’s Saturday. We’re supposed to cuddle and tell stories and then you’re supposed to make pancakes. That’s what we do. I don’t want it to be like how it was when Mark was here. I want it to just be you and me in the house and Zane stays at the clubhouse and we can visit him.”
“Hey, bud.” Zane pushed himself up. “Nothing’s gonna change.”
“It’s all changed. You changed it. Mom didn’t used to go out all the time. She didn’t leave me alone. No one slept in my place. We were happy and you ruined it all. You came back and then you went away. I want you to go home.”
“Ty.” Evie raised her voice. “We don’t talk to guests like that.”
“I thought he was my dad, not a guest,” he said bitterly.
“You’re right. And dads sometimes stay over so we can try and be a family.”
He hugged his stuffie to his chest, a blue bear her mother had given him when he was born, the only gift she had given him before she died. “No.” His little body shook. “I want it to be how it was. I want Zane gone. I don’t want a family. You’re mine. I don’t want to share.” He turned and ran from the room, his gut-wrenching sobs tearing through Evie’s heart.
“I’ll go talk to him.” Zane pushed aside the sheet, but Evie stopped him.
“Let me. This is my fault. I didn’t prepare him. I’ve never brought anyone home before, and it was hard with Mark. That’s all he knows about my relationships.” She slid out of bed and grabbed her jeans and underwear from the dresser.
“You want me to leave till he’s feeling better?”
“No.” She pulled on her clothes. “If we want to try to be a family, then we need to deal with this as a family.”
The front door opened and slammed shut and her pulse kicked up a notch. “I’d better go before he gets out of sight.”
Zane’s face creased with consternation. “I’ll be right behind you. It’s still not safe.”
Evie finished dressing and raced out the door. Ty was nowhere in sight, and the street was empty save for a white panel van just turning the corner toward the main road. Evie raced in the direction of the van. Ty had a new friend at the end of the block. He must have gone that way.
She made it half a block, before she saw the bear.
* * *
Zane heard her scream as he reached for the front door. And then he ran like he’d never run before, flying down the steps and along the sidewalk, his feet barely hitting the pavement until she slammed into him, Ty’s toy bear clutched in her hand.
“They have him. I found his bear. I saw the van.” She gasped for breath. “I have to call the police.”
Zane’s blood chilled and he scanned the street. “Are you sure he didn’t go to a friend’s house? Maybe he dropped the bear because he was upset? Did you check with the neighbors? How about out back? Did you look for him there?”
“I know him.” Her voice rose as she struggled in his grasp. “He would NEVER leave the bear behind, no matter how angry or upset he was. NEVER.”
“Has he been this upset before?”
“Zane!” She shrieked and pushed him away. “Viper has him. I KNOW it.”
“The police won’t be able to help you.” He grabbed her shoulders to hold her still. “Viper pays them off to look the other way, and the ones who aren’t on the take are too afraid to get involved. If he has Ty, then the Sinners will get him back. But Viper’s been quiet for weeks so I’m not sure if that’s what has happened. We need to make sure he’s not in the area before we set something in motion that could escalate the war. Does he have any friends on the street?”
“The blue house at the end of the road.”
“You check with them and I’ll ride around the area, and check the backyards, the park and the school. If we don’t find him in ten minutes, I’ll call the MC. I had Hacker put a GPS tracker in Ty’s watch the last time he was at the clubhouse.”
“You what?”
He cupped her face between his hands. “We’ll find him, Evie. I promise.”
Returning to Evie’s house ten minutes later, with still no sight of Ty, he began to suspect that Evie was right. And if Viper was prepared to victimize children to win the war, the MC would have some difficult decisions to make.
He called Jagger first. Then he called Benson and told him to get his damn deputy ass out to Evie’s house and issue a police alert, although it would do no good. Hacker claimed to be out of town, but said could be at the clubhouse in an hour. He gave Zane detailed instructions about how to work the computer and the tracking system. Zane asked what language he was speaking. He suggested if Hacker wasn’t at the clubhouse in twenty minutes, he could say good-bye to his face.
Unable to sit still, Zane went outside to meet Benson and the brothers who were coming to help with the search. Had the Jacks found Evie’s new house? Had they seen his bike parked outside? Was this about Viper’s obsession with Evie or was it directed at the MC? Not wanting to leave Evie alone, he headed back inside, and then he froze.
“What the hell?” He knew exactly what she was planning to do the moment he saw her dressed in that slinky black dress, her breasts barely covered by the plunging neckline, all legs in her black stilettoes. Her hair was loose and spread across her bare shoulders, and her face was barely recognizable beneath the thick layer of makeup.
“I’m going to see Viper. He had one of his minions call me on my landline. Stupid of me not to change the number when we moved. I’m supposed to go to a certain location, and after they make sure I’m alone, they’ll text me the address.” She pulled the contents from her bag and dropped the items one by one into a shiny black purse.
“No. Absolutely not.” Zane folded his arms and stood in front of the door, all his past fears coming to a head in an instant. She was distraught and emotionally unstable if she thought for a moment he would let her go to meet Viper.
“You can’t stop me. I’m not your wife, or your girlfriend, or your old lady. Not that it would make any difference.” She snapped her purse closed and he had to admit she appeared calm and rational despite the crazy words coming out of her mouth.
“I won’t let you go,” Zane said. “I won’t let you do this. You’re mine, Evie.”
“Yes. I am yours,” she whispered. “No matter what happens, in my heart I will always be yours. But this isn’t about you and me. It’s about Ty. And I will do anything to get him back.”
“Then wait. Trust me. The Sinners will handle this.”
“Trust me, Zane. Believe in me this time and how I feel about you. I love you. Nothing will ever change that. Even if I don’t see you again, I will never stop loving you.”
Even if I don’t see you again. Did she really think it would go that far?
He had no hesitation about what he had to do. Evie was his to love, his to protect, and he would keep her and Ty safe until he drew his last breath. “If that’s what you want.”
“That’s what I want.” Her eyes glistened, her emotions belying her words, and it was that, more than anything, that gave him the strength to act.
“Gimme one minute before you leave.” He didn’t wait for an answer, but jogged down the street until he found Benson coming up the sidewalk toward him.
“Need your cuffs.”
Benson handed them over without question. “I probably won’t need them again. This is my last week on the job. I gave in my notice after escaping the fire.”
“You did a good job
with that truck.”
“Yeah about that,” Benson said. “Maybe next time you want to blow up a building with a truck you should drive.”
Zane made his way back to the house where Evie was waiting and shrugged at her questioning glance. “Had to talk to Benson before he started his search.” He stepped to the side, giving her a clear path to the door, but as she reached for the handle, he yanked the cuffs from his pocket and snapped one around her wrist.
“What the…?” She stared at him aghast. Before she could react, he dragged her over to the radiator and snapped the second cuff to the metal frame. Thank fuck for old houses and old-fashioned heating systems.
“No!” She yanked against the radiator and her face contorted in fury. “You can’t do this. Let me go.”
Nausea roiled in his belly and he took a step back. “I can’t let you sacrifice yourself for Ty. I can’t let you give yourself to Viper. He will never let you go, Evie. You must know that.”
“It’s my choice,” she shouted. “You can’t take that from me.”
“I can. And I will.” He reached for the door. “I made a mistake, Evie. We don’t choose the biker life. It chooses us. I thought I could give it up, but it won’t let me go. This is my world, and I need to deal with it my way. It’s the only way to keep you and Ty safe. I’ll bring him back to you. I swear.”
“You bastard.” She yanked on the cuffs so hard blood welled up on her skin. “Take these off.”
Zane pulled open the door and looked back over his shoulder. “I lost you once. It won’t happen again. I love you, Evie, and I will never let you go.”
TWENTY-FIVE
Repair and repair again. That’s the nature of the beast. So learn your skills well.
—SINNER’S TRIBE MOTORCYCLE REPAIR MANUAL
She was going to kill him. No doubt about it. The second she got these damn cuffs off she would hunt him down and then …
No. Death would be too good for him. She would make him suffer instead. Then she would kill him. Metaphorically speaking, of course.
But first, she needed to get to Ty.
A wave of nausea crashed over Evie at the thought of Ty running down the street, so distressed he’d left in his pajamas, only to be grabbed by strangers. He would have been so frightened and he didn’t even have his bear. Despair gripped her throat and she forced herself to take a breath. And then another. She couldn’t help Ty if she broke down now.
The handcuffs rattled as she pulled against the chain. Damn radiator refused to move and her wrist was raw and bleeding from trying to work her hand free; it looked so easy in the movies.
“Help!” She kneeled beside the window and shouted through the glass. But, of course, so early on a Saturday morning, no one was around.
She slumped against the wall and cursed Zane under her breath using every single bad word she’d ever learned. Damn him. Damn him for being protective and loving, and then railroading over her wishes when it mattered the most.
Her phone buzzed in her purse and Evie groaned. She’d already tried to reach her bag, but it was near the door and there was nothing close she could use to pull it toward her. But what about a push?
Her gaze fell on the toy box she’d emptied in her first attempt to reach her purse. Lego bricks, superhero figures, trucks and spaceships, and a remote-control car Zane had bought for Ty yesterday after the funeral. Evie picked up the remote and turned the car on. Ty had been impressed with her ability to maneuver the car around the furniture, but was it strong enough to push her purse? She cleared a path around her and steered it toward the door, the tiny taillights flashing as she drove it under the coffee table and into the tiled entrance way. So far so good. She turned it the vehicle around and aimed it at her purse. Go, car, go.
At first, the car drove over her purse sailing over the edge like a dune buggy in the desert. She reduced the speed and the back wheels whined as they spun against the carpet. Evie backed the car up and tried again, this time hitting the purse at just the right angle, and with enough speed to make it move. Sweat trickled between her breasts as the purse inched closer and closer until, finally, it was close enough to touch.
Score! Ty would have been proud. All those years hanging around with Zane and Jagger had come in useful, and not just for video game skills.
She called Connie first, telling her to come with something strong enough to break handcuffs. Although Deputy Benson was outside, she suspected he wouldn’t give her the key for fear of what Zane might do to him if he found out Benson let her go.
Connie arrived twenty minutes later with a pair of bolt cutters, borrowed from a neighbor, and twenty dollars for the swear jar so she could fully express her disdain for Zane without restraint or inhibition. The moment the cuffs slipped off her wrist, Evie raced to the bathroom, a minor detail Zane seemed to have forgotten in his haste to keep her away from Viper.
“Glad you were able to hold it,” Connie shouted through the bathroom door. “I wouldn’t have come over here as fast if I thought you’d pissed yourself, too.”
“Nice. Very nice.” Evie glared as she walked out of the bathroom a few minutes later. “I’m glad to know the limits of our friendship.”
“Piss is definitely one of them.” Connie looked Evie up and down and her smile faded. “So you’re still going through with it? You’re gonna go see Viper?”
“I don’t have a choice. The police aren’t going to be able to get to Ty, and I’m not leaving his life in the hands of a gang of outlaw bikers who live by a code that puts their club first, or a man who asked me to trust him, then showed his love by handcuffing me to the radiator. Ty needs someone who is there for him and only him, and the only person who can do that is me.”
“You can’t go in alone.” Connie reached into her purse and pulled out a .22. “I’ll go with you. I’ve even got a gun. Tank made me buy it. He said if I was hanging out with bikers, then I needed to be armed. He even taught me a few things about shooting.”
And get herself shot in the meantime. Evie placed a gentle hand on Connie’s arm. “I can’t let you come with me. Viper took Ty to get to me and not, as Zane seems to think, to get back at the club. I have to deal with him on my own.”
“Babe, you gotta have backup. We’ve watched enough movies together so you know what happens when someone decides to face the bad guy alone.” Connie shook Evie gently by the shoulders. “They never come out alive. And then you’re left wondering who the new main character’s gonna be.”
“He’s not going to kill me.”
“You don’t know that,” Connie said. “You think you know Viper. You think maybe he can be tamed. But really, he’s still a wild animal—the elephant who runs off into the jungle with tourists on his back, or the lion who bites off his trainer’s head after they’ve been together for twenty years. It’s like that story I read to Ty the other night … the one about the frog who carried the scorpion across the water because the scorpion promised not to sting him, and then they both died because the scorpion stung him anyway because it was in his nature.”
“I never knew about that morbid streak of yours,” Evie said, but Connie’s words gave her pause. Viper had seemed like a normal guy when he first came into her shop. They’d talked, laughed, discussed her art … Even when they’d gone for dinner he’d behaved like a regular guy. And then he’d killed Bill and burned down her shop and acted like nothing had happened. Like Connie said, violence was in his nature. Okay. She couldn’t go in without backup, or at least some kind of leverage. And she had to do it the biker way.
But who should she call?
Of course. Arianne.
* * *
“I can’t fucking believe it.” Cade handed the binoculars to Zane. “Is Viper that fucking arrogant? He’s only got six guards down there.”
Zane flattened himself on the rise above Viper’s cabin hideaway, still struggling to believe he wasn’t here alone. But as he’d strapped on his weapons at the clubhouse, ready to do battle with Vi
per and rescue his son, he thought about T-Rex’s funeral and how the brothers were all there for each other, and how together they had made it through the most difficult times. He had steeled himself to ask for help, but when he went down the stairs, they were all armed and waiting. His brothers. His friends.
“He probably thinks no one will find him,” Jagger said. “My place is pretty isolated. Unless someone ratted me out, I’d be surprised if a bunch of Jacks showed up.”
“How did we find him?” Sparky unzipped his pack and pulled out a box of ammo.
Zane focused his binoculars on the house. “I had Hacker put a GPS tracker in Ty’s Batman watch last time he was at the clubhouse playing vids. It worked so well tracking down Cade after Benson locked him in the slammer, I figured it was good idea. I also had Hacker put trackers in Evie’s new vehicle and a bug in her phone.”
Sparky let out a long low whistle. “I’m guessing she doesn’t know.”
“We all do it,” Cade said. “And none of the old ladies know. But we gotta keep them safe. Make sure we know where they are at all times…”
“Cade’s still worried Dawn’s got a thing for Benson,” Jagger said, smirking. “After all, she almost went into witness protection with him.”
Cade slammed a magazine into his gun. “Benson knows if he even looks at Dawn I’ll rip off his fucking arms.”
“I don’t think those are the guards.” Dax handed the binoculars to Sparky. “They’re busy like little ants. I think they’re doing some kind of construction. The guards are the ones standing around looking bored.”
Zane lay down and looked over the rise. “What the fuck do you know about ants? Did you torture them for fun when you were a kid?”
“Yeah, I did. Burned them with a magnifying glass. Just got an ant farm for my oldest. But I told him not to do what I did ’cause it’s cruel.”
Cade snorted. “Says the club torturer.”
Dax gave an indignant sniff. “I don’t hurt indiscriminately. Only the bastards you bring me. And only until they give me the information I want.” He hesitated and then shrugged. “Okay. And afterward, maybe a bit for fun.”
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