by Ava Ashley
Nate.
Chapter Six
Cooper
My actions are all reflexive when I see Nate standing there in the hallway in front of our hotel room. I pull Savannah behind me, blocking her, and put one arm out defensively and one arm up, offensively. My knees are bent, my muscles flexed and ready to explode and rain pain on this little punk. Who would have ever guessed that the new guy in the league would be the cause of so much trouble for my girl and me?
Nate throws his arms up almost as quickly, in the universal symbol of truce. “I’m not here to start anything,” he says, coolly. “I’m not even armed. See?” He slowly lowers an arm to turn one pocket, then the other, inside out.
“Savannah, go to the other room,” I command. I’m not taking any chances of him trying to pull some kind of funny business when I go to check whether he’s really unarmed. He should have never been able to track me here in the first place, I’m a fucking ex-Navy SEAL. I got sloppy in my rush to get to Savannah before she could switch locations again and become entirely untraceable. I knew the necklace was the last way to track her and I knew she’d change her name and wouldn’t do something as dumb as trying to get a credit card. She is a smart girl and that’s part of why she’s so fucking irresistible to me. But knowing that my window of opportunity to find her was severely limited kept me from taking all the necessary precautions. I still changed license plates to an untraceable, bogus number and drove erratically, to throw off anyone trying to tail me, but I didn’t thoroughly check my car aside from a quick frisk. He must have planted something inside one of the tires or in an engine part that I didn’t get to in my rush.
“GPS, by the way,” Nate says with a smirk, holding up a little black disk the size of a hole-punch paper clipping and barely any thicker than that. “It’s not even on the market yet, but I got it through some...friends in high places.”
“Think I’m impressed?” I snarl, taking an intentionally heavy step towards him. “Hands up. I’m not letting you in here until I’ve confirmed you’re clean.”
“Fine,” Nate says, putting up his. “I’m unarmed and I’m here alone. Look all you want.”
“Don’t worry,” I say. “I will.” I pat him down, making sure he’s not carrying any weapons or anymore bugs, then I crush his high-tech GPS under my heel.
“You happy now?” Nate asks.
“No,” I say. “Why the fuck are you here? I don’t want you anywhere near my girl.”
“Your girl,” Nate laughs drily. “It never gets old hearing you call Savannah that and act like you’re serious. Straight-up comedy show.”
I growl and lunge at him, but stop when I feel Savannah’s hand on my back. She had been watching from the door of the bedroom and came back out into the living room when she saw me clear him.
“Please, baby,” she says softly. “Let’s take it inside.” She’s right. We’re too conspicuous out in the hallway. And if he’s in our room with the door locked, it’s easier for me to stop him if he tries to be sly and make a quick getaway to rat us out to his men.
“Fine,” I say. As much as I hate letting this slimy slug into our hotel suite, I move aside and gesture him in. As soon as he’s in, I lock the door, turning as I do. There is no way in hell that I am turning my back to this guy for even a moment.
“So, talk,” I say.
“I get it,” Nate says, refusing to be intimidated. “You guys aren’t exactly thrilled to see me.” As though to prove how comfortable and secure he feels, he throws himself down on the sofa with a thud, legs sprawled like he’s watching a Sunday afternoon football game. “I can understand that, but I’m here to call a truce.”
I walk past him, knocking his legs off of the coffee table, and go sit with Savannah on the loveseat across from the sofa. I put my arm around her, admittedly being a bit more of a possessive Neanderthal than strictly necessary. But Savannah is my girl, and Nate is all kinds of fucked if he thinks he is going to march his punk ass in here and change that.
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Savannah says, rolling her eyes. “But as magnanimous as you might think you are, Nate, it isn’t your choice to free me from our engagement.”
“Are you on crack?” Nate yells it, his casual posture instantly gone as he sits up and leans forward.
Just as fast, I’m up on my feet. “Don’t you dare talk to Savannah like that,” I growl. I’m ready to bash his skull in.
“Baby.” Savannah jumps up, too, wrapping her arms around me. She is tiny compared to me and isn’t actually able to come even close to physically restraining me, but her touch calms me down. And I would never want to risk hurting her, so I am not about to fling her off of me so I can give this punk the pounding he deserves. We sit back down, Savannah keeping a hand on my knee and me keeping an arm around her. “Let’s hear him out.”
“Thanks,” Nate says, finally trying to be diplomatic. “Look, Savannah, I don’t want to get married to you any more than you want to get married to me. I never have, and I never will—not that there’s anything wrong with you, or anything.” He adds this on in a rush, glancing nervously at me. “You’re a great girl and everything, and I’m sure I would be lucky to have you, but you’re just not the one, you know? But then we were engaged before I even stopped thinking that girls had cooties. And that engagement screwed up any chance of liking you. It was screwing up my life, so I hated you. I didn’t think about how it was doing the exact same thing to your life. And it’s still screwing up both of our lives. It’s going to continue doing that, but we have to stop hating each other for something that isn’t either of our fault. I was in love with Nikki—” Here, he pauses, putting a hand up to his forehead and shaking his head slowly. “I have to come clean with you. I still love Nikki. She’s my everything. But I—we—have no choice. I’m ready to be a man and leave the woman I love, and the dream of happiness with her, to do the responsible thing, the right thing, and marry you. Neither of us wants this in the least, but I am ready to make sacrifices. That’s what I came here to say. I won’t be with Nikki romantically anymore, not even on the side.”
“Nate—” Savannah starts, shaking her head. Nate holds up a hand, cutting her off.
“And I know you’re worried that you’re going to be in deep shit when you come back with me—” Nate scoots further away when he sees me visibly bristle at the use of ‘when.’ “But don’t worry. I forgive you. And I’ll tell them not to give you any grief. At this point, they’ll all be relieved just to have you back and the wedding on. We’ll just chalk the little running away episode to normal pre-wedding jitters. It’s not even a thing.”
“Nate—” Savannah tries to cut in again.
“Here,” Nate says, tossing a little blue velvet box to her. “Put it on, and we can get going and get this whole mess sorted out.”
“This whole mess?” Now I’m fucking seeing red. I grab the box from Savannah, flip it open to reveal some blinged-out engagement ring, and hurl the goddamn insult at his head. “This is not ‘this whole mess.’ The sadly mistaken idea that you have that you’re going to marry my girl, or go anywhere with her, is. Do you understand? Let me spell it out for you. Savannah. Is. Mine.” I am over by the couch at this point and have him up in the air by the collar of his shirt.
“Baby,” Savannah is back over by me. “Please don’t hurt him. We need to all talk rationally about this—but I’m not marrying you, Nate. I’m not marrying him, Cooper, I don’t want any man but you.”
I put him down, but not before giving him a good glare. “If you dare act like Savannah is your property again, I’m going to make you wish you were never born.”
Nate nods vigorously and looks sufficiently rattled, so I am finally content for the moment.
“But Savannah,” Nate looks nervously at me. “You know we have no other option. There’s the war, for starters, and I will be disowned and exiled if I don’t bring you back by next month. We are running out of time and we never had any options to start with. I’m so
rry, I really am, but it’s just the facts.”
“First, let’s all sit and calm down,” says Savannah, her voice surprisingly level. She is a strong woman. She takes me by the hand and leads me back over to the loveseat. “Okay. Now, Nate, the fact is that things have changed since you last saw me. Cooper and I are together now and I can’t marry you.” She pauses to look up at me. I lean down and give her a kiss, her lips as soft as silk against mine. Then she turns back to Nate. “I can’t marry you because it would serve no purpose. There would be no blood on the sheets when they come to check the next morning and the terms of the peace agreement would thus have been violated. There’s no going back. Marriage isn’t an option anymore.”
Nate’s face is blank with shock as he takes in the news.
“Nate, I have given myself to Cooper,” says Savannah. “Entirely.”
Chapter Seven
Savannah
There is a moment of silence as it sinks in. Then Nate groans, lowering his head into his hands.
This is it. Now Nate is definitely turning us in. There is no amicable way for us to deal with the situation now. There will definitely be some serious repercussions, one way or another at this point, and there is no need for Nate to suffer repercussions because of something that I did. Yes, he also broke the purity rules by having sex with Nikki, and most likely many others over the years, but he is a man and the rules work differently for him. It’s why he was able to date in high school and sleep around to his heart’s content. He doesn’t have to be pure, and when the son of a motorcycle club king sleeps around, everyone turns a blind eye. When the daughter of a motorcycle club king tries to get involved with someone, it’s dishonor, disgrace, and a good reason to pummel her lover into a bloody pulp.
It is simple and as old as time itself. I have—or rather, had—a virginity to protect and he did not.
So even though both of us committed the same transgression against the engagement clause of the peace treaty, only I will be punished for it if he turns me in. And Cooper. But Nate and Nikki would come out unscathed. If Nate turns us in, he not only won’t be disenfranchised, dishonored, and exiled, but he also won’t have to marry me.
It’s an almost ideal situation for him, minus the fact of the massive gang war that is about to erupt because of me. But that will happen either way.
I count the seconds until he jumps up for the door. My throat is starting to close up. I know Cooper won’t let him leave and I know that Nate leaving would spell doom for us, but I really, really don’t want to see Cooper kill someone. Even if it’s Nate. I know he would only be doing it to protect me, but that doesn’t change that it would be hard to look at him as the same kind, if rough around the edges, man that I fell for if I saw him take someone’s life.
Cooper jumps up, his biceps tensing in anticipation as he curls his hands into fists. His sleeves of ink ripple on his skin as his muscles flex for action.
But instead of jumping up, Nate scoots back further on the chair, putting both hands up. “Chill, let’s not do anything rash,” he says quickly. “We have to figure this out. But I’m not going to try to make a break for it. I’m not turning you guys in. We just...we just have to think. This really complicates things, of course.”
I am surprised, but relieved. Cooper seems skeptical. Instead of sitting back down, he pulls the loveseat, with me still on, over to the door, barricading us into the room. Only then does he sit down, putting his arm around me.
“And don’t think about the windows,” said Cooper. “Or do, if you want. That makes this easier for me. It’s a long drop and I know I won’t shed a tear if they’re scraping you off the sidewalk.”
Nate pales a bit, then clears his throat, trying to regain some of the power in the room.
“Okay. Well, let’s all just think rationally about our options, then.” He clears his throat again. “So, um, marriage isn’t an option. Or maybe we could cut you—” Cooper snarls and Nate quickly backtracks, “I mean, cut me, and they won’t be able to tell the difference.”
“You aren’t marrying my fucking girl, punk!” Cooper yells. I immediately wrap my arms around him in a hug, so he can’t jump up and knock Nate’s lights out then and there. Just feeling his strong, familiar body in my arms calms me a bit and I hope my touch is doing the same for him. Nate’s continued existence counts on it.
Nate throws his hands up. “My bad, man! You’re right, I’m not marrying Savannah. She’s your girl. But we have to come up with some solution.”
“We can’t turn ourselves in or Cooper and I are dead. You can’t go back without me or your life is fucked,” I say. “We only have one option.”
“We’ll all get new identities,” Cooper said.
“You think the motorcycle clubs don’t have people on the inside in the government?” Nate scoffs. “That would last five minutes, if that, before we would be ratted out.”
“I didn’t say anything about going to the government, did I?” Cooper says. “I will take care of it. We leave tomorrow.”
Nate shakes his head. “Look, man, even if you can get new identities for us that the motorcycle clubs can’t crack and can’t bribe some government official to leak, I can’t go.”
“And why not?” I ask. Is he really going to whine about starting over, because he won’t have his fancy toys anymore? Grow up.
But what he says next is far from what I expected.
“Nikki is pregnant,” Nate says, holding his head in his hands. “With my baby.”
Chapter Eight
Cooper
Fuck.
Up until this point, I was ready to do whatever needed getting done. I was ready to take Nate on the run with us or kill him, his choice. But this? This changes everything.
I can’t take some innocent kid’s dad from him before he’s even born. I never knew my dad. Hell, my mom never even knew who my dad was. Since she was whoring pretty hard back then and didn’t take a pregnancy test until she was almost four months pregnant, there’s a pool of hundreds of nameless guys out there who could theoretically be my dad.
Not having a dad really messed me up. I had to listen to my single mom fake loud porn star orgasms with strange, trashy men in the next room over, because she was out of food stamps and I was a growing kid with a big appetite. I didn’t learn real discipline or how to respect a male authority figure, or any authority figure for that matter, until falling for Sarah gave me the kick I needed to go to the Navy and get my life in order.
I will not do that to some innocent, unborn baby. I am not going to make another kid grow up without a dad¸ even if that dad is this punk.
But I am also not about to let Savannah die, either.
I get up and pace around the room. I have a crazy idea. Definitely crazy, but sometimes crazy can be just what you need.
“Okay, punk, listen up,” I say, stopping pacing. “We only have one chance to do this and if it’s going to work, you have to be all in. We all have to be all in. If there has ever been a time in your life where you need to man up, where there is no room for error, this is it. But if we pull this off, we, and Nikki, could all walk free. Do you understand?”
Nate nods. “I am all in. What is the plan?”
“When I was tracking Savannah, I went all into her background—looking up everything from birth certificates, to the 103.2 degree fever she had when she had the chicken pox at age five, to the juvenile detention record of her father, Flint Santos, for aggression against an officer of the law.” I look at Savannah. I know it’s pretty fucked up to research someone you’re with, but I didn’t do it out of curiosity. Her big eyes are open wider than normal and I can’t read her in the moment. “Sorry, babe. You know I wouldn’t have gone prying in your background if I didn’t have to. But I needed to find you, fast, and I didn’t know what would provide me with the key to track you down.”
Savannah nods. “It’s okay, baby,” she says. “I understand.” She pauses and gives a little tired laugh, shaking her head. �
�It’s a little weird to think that you know everything about me and my family now, but I have to admit that I actually feel a little relieved. Babe, don’t worry, I don’t feel at all violated. After keeping such huge secrets from you for such a long time, I’m just relieved that now you know everything there is to know about me. And you still want me.” Despite the terribly somber situation, Savannah smiles and it’s like a million-watt sun breaking through the clouds. I lean over and give her a kiss on her perfect rosy lips.
Nate clears his throat pointedly. “Guys?” he says. “I’m still here, you know.”
I know. I wish you weren’t. Then I could do what I want with this beautiful woman and you better believe it wouldn’t just be a tame kiss on the couch.” The thought gets me going a little, but I hold myself back.
“Anyway,” I say, turning my attention back to Nate, “I found some big things the motorcycle clubs are trying to hide.” Nate leans forward, a little too eager. Savannah shifts on her seat, looking concerned. “Both of them,” I say, directing it at Nate. “Don’t get so excited. This isn’t something you have over the Santoses. Both of the motorcycle clubs They’re both hiding lots of tax fraud.”
Nate rolls his eyes. “So what? Everyone and their grandma screws up on their taxes sometimes.”
“This isn’t your grandma’s miscalculated taxes,” I snarl. The little shit thinks he’s a lot bigger and stronger than he is. There are few things I would like more right now than to make the little punk feel some real pain for all the shit he put Savannah through. I grit my teeth and count to five silently to keep myself from knocking his cocky smile in. “I’m talking about millions of dollars in unpaid taxes. Apparently, they’ve been paying off some guys on the inside to let records disappear conveniently whenever it’s time to pay up. Believe me when I say the IRS will have their heads for this, if they find out.”