by Jenika Snow
Tuck and Pierce were here today, and they stood in front of the driveway, blocking the van from moving any closer. Two men climbed out of the vehicle, one from the driver’s side, the other from the passenger side. For a moment they seemed to just be talking, but when of the guys handed Tuck a piece of paper she swore she could feel the blast of anger come from the biker. Tuck all but threw the paper back in the other guy’s face, and when it was clear the van people were not moving, Tuck reached behind him, grabbed the gun that was tucked in the waistband of his pants at the small of his back, and pointed it at all men. The women working in the garden realized what was happening, and Pierce moved toward them and ushered them inside. Adrianna didn’t move, and she watched as Tuck kept raising his hand that held the gun at the guys, and clearly shouting at them. Finally the guys climbed back in the van and backed out. She had no clue what that was all about, but she did know that Tuck, or any of the other bikers for that matter, didn’t overreact about anything. They did things for a reason, and clearly those men in the van were a threat. She watched as Tuck got his phone out, and then he was bringing it to his ear and talking to someone as he moved toward the side of the cabin.
“Adrianna, everything okay?” Molly asked.
Adrianna turned away from the window and smiled. “Yeah.” She wasn’t going to let what was going on outside interfere with her talk with Molly, especially since if there was immediate danger Tuck would have gotten them away from the cabin.
“You like staying here?”
Adrianna nodded. “I just kind of feel out of place sometimes.” She knew Molly was Malice’s ex, but she was also the house nurse for the girls. This was the first time they had really talked since Adrianna had been calling the cabin home. She didn’t know a whole lot personally about Molly, but what she did know was that the other woman was genuine, kind, and thought about others. She wished she would have had a friend like this while growing up. It might have made things easier and more bearable in her life. But she was glad Molly had come today and that Adrianna was finally opening up a little to her.
“But no one has made you feel that way, right?” There was genuine worry in Molly’s voice, and for the first time since Malice had taken her out of the rain and back to that clubhouse, she felt like someone actually cared for her.
“No, they have been supportive, but some are apprehensive of my presence, but if I had lived their lives I would feel the same.” She turned away from the window and sat beside Molly on the edge of the bed.
Molly reached out and held Adrianna’s hand. “You have lived their life, Adrianna.”
Although Adrianna hadn’t sold her body, she had sold her life for a moment of happiness, and look where it had gotten her. There were a lot of things she wanted to talk about with Molly, about what would happen once this was all said and done, and about where she would go. Malice had told her not to worry, that everything would work out, but she couldn’t help but think about how she would repay all of them for their kindness. And even though she did worry about all of that, she couldn’t help but be curious about the life that Molly had led with Malice. The truth was she cared for the big brute of a biker. He was coarse and crude, but with her he was gentle, caring, and had gone above and beyond to leave her horrid life behind her. He had made sure she was safe, and a part of her saw him as this hero. He was her hero. “Can I ask you something?”
Molly smiled and nodded, and continued to hold her hand. “Of course.”
It took Adrianna a minute to actually find the nerve to bring up Malice, because aside from the few conversations that they had where all they mentioned was Malice and Molly previously being a couple, no one mentioned their connection again. Maybe Adrianna should just bite her tongue, but honestly she wanted to know more about Malice. There was something about him that made her feel connected, safe, and wanted. “You and Malice used to be together?” God, she sounded so immature saying that. She knew they had been together, but she was hoping to build up to a more in-depth conversation regarding him.
Molly just smiled and patted her hand once before pulling it away. “We were together years ago, and have a wonderful little boy to show for it.” Molly swallowed audibly, and Adrianna felt like a bitch for bringing it up since it seemed like Molly was uncomfortable.
“I’m sorry, I just…” Now it was her turn to swallow. “It’s just Malice was the one to save me when I was at my lowest. I don’t know where I would be without him.”
“Honey, what you went through was traumatic. Of course you feel like he is your knight in shining armor.” She smiled again. “Malice is good like that. He’s a wonderful father and was a good significant other. It’s just we weren’t right for each other.
Moly shrugged and looked down at her hand. “I love Stinger, and being with him is where I feel is the perfect place for my heart.” She smiled, but she still looked down at her hands. “Being with a man in a MC is a different life.” When Molly looked at her then there was this seriousness covering her face. “It’s a hard life, one that drains your guy to the bone, and they need a strong woman to hold them up and patch their wounds.”
Adrianna nodded, and although she didn’t speak about being with Malice as anything more than what they were, she also knew that Molly must have been able to hear the longing in her voice.
“Malice is a good man, a fabulous father, and is all about loyalty.” Molly stared right into her eyes, as if willing her to understand what she was saying. “If he wants something then he doesn’t stop until he gets it.”
When Molly stopped speaking Adrianna took in her words, rolled them around in her head, and wanted to believe that he wanted her and that was why he had gone out of his way. Any physical connection that they had could strictly be because he was a man in need of a woman. Or maybe he felt like he had this connection with her, too, that he wanted to be with her like she wanted to be with him. It was hard, something she thought about a lot since she had woken up in that clubhouse, and one she hoped to explore. But it was frightening to say the least.
“Go with what feels right in here.” Molly placed a hand over her heart. And when she smiled Adrianna knew that Molly could tell she wanted Malice in a way that was so much more. “Listen, I have a few other girls to check on, but if you ever need anything, or just want to talk you have my number.” Molly stood and Adrianna did the same, and after she gave Adrianna a hug and Molly left she stood there and stared out the window. She took the few words Molly had said and let them register. Did she really want to go down that path with Malice? And if he wanted to go down that road with her was it going to be real?
Chapter Seventeen
Two weeks later
It had only been fourteen days, and Adrianna felt strangely right at home at the cabin, but she also missed Malice. It might have been very fast that her feelings for him had escalated to this point, but she knew better than anyone that life could be snuffed out faster than she could blink. If she truly wanted him—which she did—she needed to embrace that and just go with it. Her physical wounds were already healed, and she loved being at the cabin and helping the other girls not only with domestic things, but also talking with them. Strangely she had a lot in common with them with bad childhoods, abusive relationships, and then finally finding her way to The Brothers of Menace cabin. These women might have been former prostitutes, and might even go back to doing that line of work when they decided they wanted to leave River Run, but Adrianna didn’t judge. In fact she found that they had so much strength, were loving toward each other, and only wanted to survive in this world.
Adrianna wiped off the kitchen counter one last time. Everyone was gone for the evening. The women had taken Kendra into town, and she had heard from Tatum that they were all going to meet up at the clubhouse for a surprise and impromptu birthday party. Adrianna was spending the evening with Malice and his son, maybe even spending the night, but she planned on seeing Kendra on her birthday sometime tonight. No way would she miss that sweet girl�
��s birthday. She closed her eyes and breathed out deeply. She may have only known the women a couple of weeks, but she considered them her family. They were women that had faced a lot of horrors: born from crack addicted mothers, sold to random men their fathers knew, and finally becoming the only thing they knew about. They were survivors; she was a survivor, and she reminded herself of that every day. They were furthering their education and living in a home provided to them by an outlaw motorcycle club. Her nerves were causing her hands to shake and her palms to sweat. She had yet to meet Dakota, and she did worry that the little boy wouldn’t like her. Adrianna wasn’t accustomed to being around children, and for that she was thankful, because the life she had been subjected to shouldn’t have children involved anyway.
She looked at the clock and saw that Malice would be there to pick her up any minute, so she quickly put the cleaning supplies away and went to the foyer. The house was so still and silent with no one in it, empty in not just the literal sense. Working at the cabin allowed her to earn some money, and she was proud to have it saved away in a small bank account in town. Malice had even helped her get the five hundred dollars she had in the Fairview bank. Now she had a nice little nest egg, nothing extravagant, but enough that she felt somewhat secure knowing she had that back-up. Next on her list was getting herself a car, and maybe one day a home for herself, but to be honest she was thinking about Malice, and what it would be like to stay with him. Of course he had broached the subject of her moving in with him. It wasn’t like they kept what they had a secret. Everyone knew their relationship started off complicated, but she wasn’t going anywhere, and she knew in her heart that neither was Malice. He had said as much, and even though it had only been two weeks, being with him felt right on every single level.
This wasn’t just a sexual relationship with Malice, although just thinking about his big, hard body over hers, cradling her, protecting her, and bringing her to the brink of death with the pleasure he gave her had her entire body heating. She was like a fiend for him, because it wasn’t that he made her feel so incredibly good. It was the way he held her, talked to her and made sure she was okay, that made the experience more intimate.
She opened the front door, and something on the porch caught her attention. She glanced down, saw a piece of paper under a rock by the door, and bent down to pick it up. It was some kind of church pamphlet. “The Church of the Good and Only,” she read out loud. The name sounded a little narrow-minded and pretentious. She turned and tossed the paper on the table by the door and stepped out and onto the patio. She shut the front door just as she heard Malice’s Harley coming closer. Ruin and Rock had left about twenty minutes ago since they were the ones that took the ladies to town, but Pierce had stayed behind just until Malice showed up. Pierce came out of the small cabin to the side of the main one. It was for the guys to sleep when they were staying over and watching things. He waved to her just as Malice pulled his bike to a stop in front of her. She moved toward Malice and couldn’t help but smile. God, she missed him.
“You ready, baby?” He grinned at her and reached out to pull her close. He kissed her long, hard, and slow. He was thorough as he kissed her, and she felt herself grow warm and wet, and so ready for him. She didn’t even care that Pierce could see them.
“I’m more than ready.” Molly was dropping Dakota off at Malice’s house for a few hours. They’d have dinner, maybe watch a movie, and she’d have to try to win the little guy over.
Malice grinned and held out a helmet for her. Once she had it on and was straddling the powerful machine beneath her, she breathed in deeply. She wrapped her arms around his waist, and rested her cheek on his back. This was what freedom felt like, and it was the best damn feeling in the world. He went to pull away from the cabin, and she looked over to see Pierce doing the same thing, but then it was like time stilled. The massive explosion that destroyed the bikers’ cabin had a pulse of energy moving outward. She was thrown off the back of the bike, and landed on the ground hard enough that stars danced in front of her vision. There was this loud ringing that filled her head, and when a large piece of debris landed right beside her she covered her head, despite having the helmet on. It seemed like forever that pieces of wood, metal, and other debris spilled out around her, and when she felt it was safe enough to move she looked up. Malice was moving toward her with angry, determined strides. He knelt beside her, black smudges on his face, and lifted his hands to remove his helmet.
“Baby, are you okay?”
She pushed herself up into a sitting position and nodded. “Yeah, just a little dizzy.”
He helped her remove her helmet, and she started coughing as the thick, dark smoke started to billow around them. She stared at the burning cabin. “Oh my God. Pierce—”
Malice shook his head, stopping her from finishing. “He’s scraped up, but alive.”
She looked over his shoulder and saw Pierce moving toward them. He was slumping, but he was speaking in a clipped, hard tone to someone on the phone. Thank God he was alive. Thank God all of them were alive. Malice helped her up, and they moved farther away from the fire. The sound of sirens in the distance drowned out some of the crackling, popping wood as the fire licked at the building. The structure crumbled, and she screamed from surprise. Malice covered her body with his, and she felt him kiss the top of her head.
“Tuck said the girls are safe, and Lucien and the boys are coming out,” Pierce said, and although he was clearly trying to be strong, she saw the strained look on his face, saw the way he held his side, and saw the line of blood making a slow path down his temple.
“Pierce, you’re bleeding,” she said.
“Man, sit down and take it easy,” Malice said and helped the prospect down to the ground.
“This was no accident, Malice,” Pierce said with a hard tone. “That explosion was done by those fucking fanatics.” Pierce exhaled roughly and closed his eyes. “My fucking head is killing me.”
“Man, just relax. The ambulance will be here, and you can get you checked out, brother.”
Pierce nodded. The ambulance and a few cop cars pulled up about fifteen minutes later, and then the rest of The Brothers of Menace were pulling in also. The police kept everyone back and away from the fire as it was trying to be put out, and then for the next twenty minutes the cops were asking them questions.
Adrianna was checked over by the paramedics, as was Pierce, and when he refused to go to the hospital all of the bikers gathered together.
“The women are at the clubhouse with Tuck and Ruin, so they are all okay, but fuck,” Lucien said and looked at the building. The flames were slowly being extinguished, and even from the distance she could still feel the heat as if she was right in the thick of it.
“It was that fucking cult,” Pierce said. “It has to be.” He had a bandage on his head. “They dropped off those damn papers at the clubhouse, and then had the balls to come here a couple of weeks ago, and now this shit. This isn’t a coincidence.”
“Pierce is right,” Malice said and pulled her close. He kissed her on the top of the head again. “No way this shit just happened, but why did they wait two damn weeks?”
“I don’t think people that are fucking insane like that have any reasoning for why they do the shit they do,” Lucien said on a growl, and she could tell he was barely hanging on to his control as it was. All of the guys seemed like they were ready to murder someone.
“It doesn’t fucking matter though, because no one messes with the club and gets away with it.” Lucien turned and stared at each of the guys.
“And we all know that once someone fucks with us or anyone that we consider under our protection, we won’t let them walk away alive.” Malice was the one to speak now.
All the guys murmured in agreement.
A shiver worked through her body at the lethalness that came from all of the bikers. “I did find a church paper on the porch right before Malice showed up.” She looked up at Malice. “I think it was f
rom The Church of the Good and Right, or Only, or Holy. I don’t know. It was something like that.”
There was a chorus of curses from the bikers.
“This is fucked up, and we need to retaliate,” Rock said on a growl.
Lucien held up his hand. “I agree, but we need to think this through. I don’t want the cops getting involved with this, because we don’t need any more heat,” Lucien said and glanced at the building again. “But I want to make sure it was the cult, even if I’d bet my fucking life on it.” Lucien looked back at them, and the look on his face was deadly calm. “We are going to demolish that fucking cult and the one they call a leader.”
They all murmured their agreement, and then Lucien, Ruin, and Rock headed back to their bikes. Malice tuned her around, cupped her face with his hands, and stared into her eyes.
“God, baby, for a moment there as I saw you lying there,” he shook his head. “I thought I lost you.” This pinched expression covered his face, and she lifted her hand and smoothed her fingers between his eyes.
“I’m glad everyone came out of it okay.”
He leaned down and kissed her hard, and she could feel the possession in it. “I love you. Christ, I love you, baby.” He tightened his hands on her face, and rested his forehead on hers.
“I love you, too, Malice.”
He pulled back and looked into her face. “God, I would fucking do anything in my power to make sure you’re protected, and to make you happy, baby.”