46
Annabelle
“What?!” I could feel my face going white. Carrick ratting out the club would have been unthinkable but this?! Oh God, in his mind it made perfect sense: he’d save me, save the club...the only person who’d suffer would be him. “You can’t!” I flung myself against him. “I won’t let you!”
But Carrick was looking over my head, towards Agent Trent. I followed his gaze. Trent was trying hard to keep a poker face but I could see him weakening. He’d bring in the killer of a federal agent and solve a years-old case at the same time. He’d probably get a freakin’ commendation. He nodded.
“No!” I almost screamed it. “Carrick, no!”
He looked down at me and shook his head. “It’s the only way. You’ll be safe. You’ll get a new name. You can start again.”
“I don’t want to start again. I want—”—my voice caught—”I want you and this, I want Haywood Falls and the club—”
“Volos is never going to stop coming. Not until he realizes you’re gone. This is the only way to keep everyone safe.”
I clung onto him. I pressed my face between the cool leather sides of his cut and into the warm valley between his pecs. I could feel myself pressing the heels of my sneakers into the dirt, as if I could anchor him there if I only hung on hard enough. “No!” I said stubbornly. “There has to be another way!”
I felt that big chest twist as he shook his head. “There isn’t. Not even you can come up with another way. Even with your big brain. This is the way it has to be.” He bent over me, putting his lips to my ear. “All the pieces have fallen into place, Annabelle. Like one of your machines. This wouldn’t work if I hadn’t killed that agent. I’d have nothing to offer them. I’ve been living with this for years. You helped me deal with it and now it can finally do some good.”
I thumped him on the chest. “No! It’s Briggs who should answer for it, not you! He used you!” I looked up at him, panting and desperate. “You promised you’d never leave me!” I sobbed.
I’d changed him too much. The world didn’t need men like him in jail. I had to make him see that before—
He leaned down and kissed me. At first, I tried to fight it because I knew what this kiss would mean. I tried to pull away but he put one big hand on the back of my neck and held me in place. And as soon as those hard Irish lips parted mine, I just crumpled. This was it. This was goodbye.
I slumped against him and gave myself up to it, tears rolling down my cheeks. My lips opened under his and I kissed him back, one last desperate attempt to make him see sense, to see what he was going to lose—
But it was no good trying to make him love me. He already did. That’s why he was doing this.
So it became about us, about remembering, about drinking in as much of the other one as we possibly could because this was the last time we’d ever see each other. Every perfect press of his lips, every touch of his tongue, all of it had to be stored away forever.
He broke the kiss and when I opened my eyes I was looking up into clear blue, no sign of torment. He’d finally made peace with himself. My heart twisted. I was the one who’d told him people could redeem themselves, but I’d never wanted it to be like this.
He looked down at me as if there was so much he wanted to say. But in the end, he just put his palm against my cheek, kissed my lips one last time and said, “You’re my love.” And before the beautiful, Irish silver of it had fully faded from my ears, he was turning from me and presenting his hands behind his back, and one of the guys in suits snapped on a pair of handcuffs.
The other guy opened the rear door of the SUV. Agent Trent scooched over to make room for me and gave me a reassuring smile. He looked nice...normal. I knew he was only doing his job. But the thought of starting a whole new life, without Carrick, made my insides contract down to a hard little ball.
I climbed in and the guy in a suit slammed the door, then stepped back to stand with his buddy and Carrick.
Agent Trent took a deep breath and then let out a long sigh of satisfaction. He turned to me and spoke for the first time. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m going to take very good care of you.”
I recognized that voice. For a moment, I was in the back of another car. Outside a bar. With a man in a mask.
I started to scream.
And Volos threw back his head and laughed and laughed and laughed.
47
Carrick
It was her scream. The look in her eyes as she turned to me. Only one man in the world could scare her that much.
Trent is Volos.
I didn’t even have time to process the how or the why. I just knew that I’d put Annabelle in a car with that psycho. I had time to lunge towards the SUV’s door...and then the back of my head exploded in pain and I fell to my knees in the dirt.
Before the world had even stopped spinning, I was trying to struggle up to standing. But my hands were cuffed behind my back and the guys in suits leaned on my shoulders, putting all their weight into pinning me in place. I was bigger than them but without my hands I had no traction.
When I looked up at the SUV’s window, Agent Trent—Volos—was leaning over Annabelle to gaze out of the window at me. That meant he must be pressed right up against her. The thought made my skin crawl. She was pressed back in her seat, face deathly pale, absolutely frozen with fear.
This can’t be happening. This isn’t possible. But...Annabelle had never heard Trent’s voice, until just now. And she’d never seen Volos’s face at the auction. And I’d never met Volos at all, only Trent.
“Are you even FBI?” I croaked. I thought at first that he’d lied about that. All I’d seen was a badge and badges could be faked.
But no. It was much, much worse.
“Oh, I’m the golden fucking boy of the FBI,” said Volos. “They love me. Do you know how many people I’ve brought down?”
It all started to make horrible sense. Everyone had said that Volos was connected. Protected. Of course he was. Anybody who pissed him off went straight onto the FBI’s most wanted list, courtesy of his alter-ego, Marcus Trent.
And of course no one could catch Volos. Of course he was a fucking ghost. He was sitting right there in the FBI office alongside the people trying to catch him.
“Why?” I shook my head. “Why do all this? You could have just rolled into town, shown your badge and taken her into protective custody. I never would have even known.”
Volos leaned forward. Annabelle whimpered and tried to shrink even further into her seat cushion. He looked right into my eyes and that’s when I realized what we were dealing with. People had thrown around words like psycho but I hadn’t known, until that moment, just how broken he really was.
“Why?” Volos asked. “Because I had to destroy you. I wanted to see you tear yourself apart, agonizing over whether to save your fucking club or save your girl. I wanted you to watch your business burn. I wanted to see you grieve for your friends.” He looked at Annabelle. “Because she’s mine. And you stole her.”
Oh Jesus. It all replayed in my mind, everything since we’d made the Blood Spiders back off. The fire at the warehouse: no wonder he’d shown up so fast. He’d burned the place and then offered me a way out. He’d put Ox in the hospital and then called me again. He’d tried to kill Mom and known I’d finally call him to make a deal. All just to torture me, like a kid pulling the legs off a spider.
He was a grade-A fucking psychopath. And I’d brought Annabelle right to him. I growled and managed to rise a few inches before I was slammed back down again.
Volos nodded to the guys in suits. “They’re going to kill you, now. But I want you to know this before you die, since you worked so hard to save your club. The state police are about to get a tip from the FBI that three pounds of coke is hidden in the club’s compound.”
“They won’t find shit,” I said.
Volos smiled politely. “Yes, they will.” He nodded to his men again. “When they set the fire
in the old woman’s trailer, do you think that’s all they did?”
Oh, Jesus. The whole club would go down. And the way I left it with Mac, they’d think—
“That’s right,” said Volos. “You’ll have disappeared. No one will find your body. Your friends will go to jail and they’ll think you planted the coke and ratted them out.”
No! Jesus, no! I struggled again and got a gun butt to the back of my head. I slumped forward in the dirt.
The SUV pulled away. The last thing I saw was Annabelle’s terrified face.
Then the cold barrel of a gun pressed into the back of my head.
48
Annabelle
Ever since I was a kid, I’ve needed to touch something. I’ve needed that physical grounding to fight back the monsters when I’m really, really scared. Maybe, if you asked a psychologist, they’d say it’s because I lost my mom and then my dad. Maybe I’m just weird. But I clung onto Perkins and then I clung onto the necklace a biker gave me. And then I had one glorious week when I could cling onto something real, a solid, warm, badass man who I loved, who’d always protect me.
But now he was gone.
And I needed something. I needed it so bad because I knew what I was going to hear. I sat there next to Volos, eyes fixed on the seat in front of me, trying to somehow close my ears, trying to not hear, trying to—
The shot rang out behind us, an explosion that echoed off the trees. I gave a single, agonized cry, as if it had been me that had just been killed.
“And that’s what happens to heroes,” said Volos to himself.
It all came out, then. I cried: big, hacking sobs that shook my ribs and scalded my throat. I cried for myself, for the nightmare my future had just become. I cried for Carrick, the big Irish biker who’d just tried to do one good thing. I cried because our story was over and everything good that had happened since the auction had been undone.
Once, I’d thought I’d been lucky. A desperate phone call to the twelve year-old number of a near-stranger: it should never have worked. He should never have saved me. Now, I realized I’d gotten it all wrong. That chance in a million had made everything worse. I was right back with Volos, just as if Carrick had never come. Except Carrick was dead, Ox was lying in the hospital and the club was ruined. I’d cursed them all.
Volos took my purse, dug out my cell phone and dropped it out of the window. “Stop crying,” he said absently.
I just turned and looked at him, incredulous. “F—Fuck you,” I sobbed. I wasn’t being brave. I was just broken.
He put his hand on my cheek, just like Carrick had. Then, with his thumb on my other cheek, he squeezed. He squeezed so hard my mouth distorted into a tear-stained pout. He squeezed so hard the inside of my cheeks scraped on my molars. He was terrifyingly strong: one of those men who aren’t physically big but who get scary strong when they’re angry...and his anger seemed to come without any warning. “Do you know where the name Volos comes from?” he asked.
I couldn’t even shake my head. I just stared at him, panting in fear.
“Volos was a god. Of, among other things, cattle.” He put his face close to mine. “Do you understand? That’s what you are, now. That’s what all of you are. Cattle. Don’t get the idea I wanted you back because you’re special. I wanted you back because I bought you and you’re mine. You’re livestock and if you don’t do as I say, I’ll hurt you. Understand?”
He released my cheeks so abruptly that I didn’t realize what he wanted. I just stared at him.
He grabbed my face and rammed the back of my head into the door pillar. I saw stars. While my face was still crumpling in agony, he pulled me forward again. “Understand?” he repeated.
“Yes!”
He released me and turned to face front.
And for the rest of the journey I sat there too scared to cry.
49
Carrick
They say your life flashes before your eyes.
Most of mine, I’d relived enough times in my nightmares that I didn’t want to see it again. My mum, changing into a different person. My dad hitting her head against the floor. Pulling the trigger and killing the FBI agent.
Maybe I deserved this. I certainly didn’t deserve much better. What kind of happy ending had I expected, as a one-percenter?
But right at the end of that shitty life, crammed into the final seconds before the movie ended, there was something new, something that changed everything. A smart, sexy, lovable woman who saw things in ways no one else could, who saw things in me that I couldn’t, who had hair the color of copper and pale, soft skin that made me crazy. And maybe a guy like me didn’t deserve her. But that wasn’t what this was about.
She was going to die, too. In a month or a year, when they had no more use for her. And her life until then would be a fucking horror movie.
Maybe I deserved this. But she didn’t.
And her only chance, her only hope in the world, was me.
Behind me, I heard the trigger creak as the guy started to squeeze it.
I knew that, logically, there was no way I could win. I was handcuffed and they had me down on my knees with a gun to my head. There were two of them. I wasn’t sure whether they were actual FBI too or whether they were just mercenaries Volos had hired, but either way they’d been trained and I hadn’t. Logically, I was going to die.
But I was way beyond logic. I was into pure, angry, Irish bloody-mindedness.
I stood up.
It was the last thing the guy was expecting. Maybe he thought I’d beg or cry or piss myself, but he’d never known anyone to just plain not cooperate. He had the barrel of his gun pressed so hard against the back of my head that it got dragged along with me, tilting back and back towards the sky. By the time he remembered to pull the trigger the rest of the way, I was almost on my feet.
The gun went off. The whole back of my scalp erupted into blistering pain, like someone had thrown a pan of boiling water at my head, and I smelled blood and smoke. But I could still move, so I turned around. The guy was standing there gaping at me.
Now that the shock of the whole Volos revelation was wearing off, the rage was starting. I could feel it spreading and heating, an anger like I’d never known before. He’d fooled me. He’d taken my club. He’d taken my girl.
I head-butted the guy as hard as I could.
He went down straight down in a heap. The other one was trying to get his gun up so I lurched forward towards him. I didn’t know what the bullet had done to the back of my head, but I was unsteady as hell. So instead of trying anything fancy, I just used myself as a battering ram. He hit the ground first and, a second later, my whole weight slammed down on top of him.
I lay there for a second, my head throbbing. I couldn’t believe I was still alive. Given how much my head hurt, I wasn’t sure how long I’d be alive for. But if I was going to help Annabelle, I had to get out of there. Already, the first guy was starting to get up.
I levered myself to my feet. The sun was going down. My bike was up at the top of the hill and, even if I could get to it, I couldn’t ride with my hands cuffed behind me. I had to get away first and somehow get the cuffs off.
Both guys were on their feet, now, and searching the ground for their guns. I turned towards the lake...and ran.
50
Carrick
I’ve never been a good runner.
Aedan, the brother who got into boxing, used to tumble out of bed and hit the streets for five miles before breakfast. But I’m too big, too ungainly. I’m used to smashing through things, not running from them. And with my hands cuffed behind my back it was even harder.
Running with no hands was exhausting and terrifying. One slip and I’d go headfirst down the slope with no way to stop myself. I couldn’t put my hands up to fend off twigs so I had to just close my eyes and let them scrape across my face.
But I couldn’t slow down. I could hear the two guys in suits tearing down the slope behind me. Occasionally, a sho
t would ring out. I was far enough in front and the light was low enough that they’d missed so far, but twice I’d seen a bullet take a chunk out of a tree, scarily close. I was already out of breath but I had to push myself faster, faster—
I stumbled and had to crouch so I didn’t go right over. I slid on my ass for a few seconds and then managed to regain my balance, panting. Shit! Now they were even closer.
And they were boxing me in. I’d been planning to skirt around the edge of the lake but they’d spread out so that, whichever way I turned, I’d be coming right at one of them. The only way I could go was straight downhill, towards the water, and that was a dead end.
The closer I got to the lake, the boggier the ground got. At first, my boots just slipped a little but soon I was running on a thin crust of leaves and moss on top of a thick, black quagmire. And as the light faded, I couldn’t see where to put my feet. The ground would be solid, solid, then suddenly I’d go in up to my ankle and have to waste precious seconds getting free. It tired me even more, my legs throbbing and aching. And every single step jolted my injured head, sending fresh pain shooting through my skull.
Lungs burning and muscles screaming, I burst out of the trees and skidded to a stop. I’d reached the water. In front of me, inky-black smoothness extended into the distance, as if someone had laid a colossal sheet of glass. Shit! I looked left and right, my heart thumping in my chest. I couldn’t see them but I could hear them scrambling through the trees towards me.
Outlaw's Promise Page 20