by Lane Hart
“What?” he answers.
“How could you?” I grit out.
“Excuse me?” the governor asks in his holier than thou tone.
“How could you ask me to do this to Isobel when you know how important it is for her to live her life, her limited life the way she wants.”
“So she told you about the Huntington’s?” he asks as if it’s a life choice and not a fatal disease.
“Yeah, she finally told me, so you and I are done. Do what you have to do, but I won’t be a part of your plan any longer, you selfish fucking prick!”
“Then you better warn your friends to say goodbye to their families and get their finances in order before the feds put them away for life.”
Squeezing my eyes shut at the pain this is going to cause them, I yell, “Fuck you!” before I end the call.
When I turn around to go back inside, Isobel is standing there on the back stoop in one of my t-shirts and nothing else, her arms wrapped around herself. The bottom of her new cherry blossom tattoo on her upper thigh sticks out, making her even sexier than before.
“Who were you talking to?” she asks softly, her voice still hoarse from sleep.
“No one,” I answer automatically.
“You were yelling at them, so it must have been someone you know. What’s going on?”
“Nothing, it’s just club bullshit,” I reply.
“Sax, please don’t lie to me,” she pleads, the look in her hazel eyes so sad it physically hurts my chest. “If it was no one, then let me see your phone,” she says, holding out her palm for the device.
“Isobel,” I start.
“Sax, just give me your phone.”
“I can’t,” I tell her. “Listen, Iz, I-I hate lying to you.”
“Then just tell me!” she snaps.
“Please promise me you’ll hear me out,” I beg. “Give me a chance to explain.”
“Fine.”
I’m not completely convinced, but I still begin to give her the truth. “Your father blackmailed me and the MC. He threatened to send us to prison for murder.”
“Did you really do it? The murder?” she asks quietly.
“Yes, and he had evidence,” I respond.
“God, Sax!” she exclaims, and I wait for her anger to rain down on me. Instead, she says, “I’m so, so sorry my dad did that. He really is such a dick. He’s probably pissed because I lied and told him you and I were together.”
“No, Iz, that’s not it at all. You didn’t do anything wrong,” I assure her, because I see how guilty she feels and it’s not fair for her to blame herself.
“Then why? Why would he blackmail you?” she asks.
“He blackmailed us, because…because he wanted me to convince you to stop running, to go back to nursing and make amends with him to, ah, help his reelection.”
Her gasp of surprise and disbelief is so intense that I’m pretty sure she sucks all the air from my lungs.
“How…” she eventually asks. “How could you?”
“I’m done, okay?” I assure her. “I didn’t know about the Huntington’s or I never would have agreed! I told him I won’t do it; I won’t slow you down. I didn’t know you were racing the clock! I just thought he was worried about the press seeing you on stage or drinking, th-that he was trying to control your life.”
“Wow,” she scoffs with a shake of her head before she starts to go back inside the house. I grab her arm to try and stop her.
“Let me go,” she snaps.
“No. Never,” I tell her honestly. “I’m falling in love with you, Isobel. So go wherever the hell you want. Just please, I’m begging you to let me come with you.”
She shakes her head the whole time I’m talking while tears stream down her face.
“Please, Isobel,” I beg. “Give me another chance.”
She jerks away from me and storms back inside the house wordlessly. I follow behind, shutting our bedroom door while begging her not to leave without me. Despite my pleading, she never pauses as she gets dressed and throws her things back into her luggage.
“I’ll do anything,” I tell her. “Anything to make this up to you!”
Finally, she stops packing long enough to come up to me…and shoves her phone into my chest.
“Here!” she shouts, and the phone falls to the ground when she lets go. My hands feel numb, and I couldn’t have caught it if I’d tried.
“What are you doing?” I ask. “I want you to sit down and talk to me, not give me your fucking phone!”
“Take it,” she says. “There are photos on there, photos of the fake obituary and my mother’s death certificate with her actual date of death. They should be enough to blackmail him right back. He would be ruined if the press figured out what he did. You can have them, just promise me that we’re done. I never want to see you again.”
“Isobel, no,” I say as I reach for her face, but she steps backward.
“No, you don’t get to touch me anymore!” she yells as she throws her purse on. “And if you try to follow me, I’ll…I’ll tell the MC everything you told me!” she threatens before she grabs up her luggage and guitar case and starts to the bedroom door.
“Please don’t leave me. I love you!” I call out, and she pauses at the door for a second, her shoulders slumped. For one single moment, I think I may have gotten through to her. But then she yanks the door open, and War and Torin are on the other side.
“Everything okay in here?” Torin asks, looking between us.
“Get out of my way,” she tells him before she shoulders past with her things. “Make sure he doesn’t follow me!”
“Fuck!” I exclaim to the ceiling because I know I’ve lost her for good.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Isobel
My head is so messed up that I have to pull over on the side of the road just a few miles from the house. I don’t have the slightest idea what I’m doing or where I’m going.
Somehow that pisses me off more than Sax’s betrayal.
Yes, I’m angry at him for lying to me and not telling me the truth about my father’s blackmail from the beginning. But mostly I’m distraught because I had a plan. A good plan! One where I did whatever I wanted, when I wanted.
Now, I don’t have the first clue how to pick back up and continue on my journey alone, the one I had once been so excited about.
Sax took that joy from me, and I want it back!
How the hell do I get it back?
Tears continue to stream down my face for several long minutes and I let them, hoping that, as soon as they dry up, things will be clearer.
I was wrong.
I may have stopped crying, but I still don’t know what to do or where to go from here. I need a drink or ten to try to forget where I’ve been and who I’ve been with.
Then I remember the bar in Charlotte.
It’s better than sitting in my car crying alone, so I plug in the address into my GPS and follow the robotic voice’s step-by-step directions.
I still have three states to sing in, and North Carolina, my home state, is ironically one of them. Why haven’t I done it before? I suppose I didn’t want to chance being recognized as the governor’s daughter.
Now though? I really don’t give a shit. I hope someone sees me with my hair back to normal again and then my father is inconvenienced for a little while. It would serve him right, since he doesn’t seem to mind screwing with my life.
***
Several hours and three drinks later, I’m feeling slightly better as I sing away my sorrows on stage.
Right up and until “I Hate Myself for Loving You.”
God, the lyrics have never been truer than now.
I don’t hate Sax for what he did. I hate myself for trusting him, for falling for his good looks and charm.
I can’t even begin to find the strength to sing “Angel of the Morning” to the small lunch crowd, so I thank them for letting me vent my feelings through music and then leave the
stage.
Maybe I need to get out of this state, out of the country.
I could still make it to the Balloon Fiesta if there’s a flight…
But the idea of leaving just doesn’t feel right. Not even the excitement of checking off an item on my bucket list makes me feel better. If anything, it feels empty, unlike before I met Sax when I felt euphoric.
I’ve never felt more alone than I do now, and it’s all Sax’s fault.
God, I wish I had never met him. Except, I don’t wish that. Not really. Damn him and his ability to give me so many orgasms he short circuited my brain and made me fall for him!
I also hate the thought of Sax spending the rest of his life in prison because of my father. So what do I decide to do?
Maybe the stupidest thing ever.
I go home to ensure Sax and the Savage Kings won’t suffer by my father’s hand.
Not that I really have a home anymore, but I drive back to Raleigh all the same.
The mansion is locked when I get there, so I bang on the door until it opens. Even after almost four years, dear old dad never gave me a key, the jerk.
Imagine my surprise when he opens the door for me and not one of his minions.
“What did you want?” I ask him. “Me to dye my hair back? Done. Get back into nursing? I’ll try. Go to town hall meetings with you? Fine, I’ll do five and no more. And finally, I’m guessing you wanted some of mom’s money.” Pulling out a pen and my checkbook from my crossbody purse with shaking hands, I ask him, “How much? I’ll write you a fucking check. But if I do this, you will never go after Sax or his friends again.”
“Okay,” he agrees, almost too easily as he blinks at me.
“Swear it to me. Swear it on mom’s grave!” I yell at him.
“I-I swear.”
My fingers tremble as I fill out all the little blanks on the check. And I get really pissed off when I even drop the damn pen. Twice. But I get it done eventually. Tearing the piece of paper free, I fold it in half and slip it into the front of his dress shirt pocket.
“I hate you more than words could ever express,” I say truthfully before I turn to leave.
“Where are you going?” he calls out.
“Danny’s,” I answer. “You can send all messages and dates of appearances through him. I don’t want to see or speak to you ever again.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Sax
I haven’t heard from Isobel since the day she left, but I didn’t really expect to. She has every right to be pissed at me. What I did was the worst betrayal imaginable to her because it involved her father, who had lied to her about her mother and her own health. Still, I’m not going to give up.
First, I just need to take care of business with the Kings, and, if I’m still alive after I tell them the truth, I won’t stop until I find Isobel, or I’m thrown in jail by the governor.
And while I have the photos Isobel gave me that cast the governor as a horrible human being who lied about his wife’s death, I’m still not sure if it’s enough to keep him from coming after the Kings. When I sent him screenshots of the photos from my phone, telling him I would send them to the media if he made a move against any of the Savage Kings, his only response was “We’re good.”
We’re. Good.
I’m anything but fucking good, missing Isobel like hell these past few days, and hating myself for hurting her. But hopefully that means he’s actually backing off. Still, I need to warn the guys, which is why I call a meeting as soon as Cooper is up for it. He didn’t get the best news from the audiologist today, and we’re still looking for who’s responsible for the bombs.
“Any updates on suspects?” Torin asks Reece first, before the meeting begins.
“Actually, we just received one,” the military man says solemnly. “This was spray painted in red on the side of the Savage Asylum last night. The sheriff deputy ran the artist off before they could finish. I was just waiting for Kira’s parents to translate what was written for us.”
“So it was in Russian. So we sure it’s the Russians coming after us to get revenge?” Torin asks him.
“Looks like that’s a safe bet.” Reece’s phone dings in front of him on the table. He picks it up and reads the screen before sharing it with us. “The Savage Kings will all be poor dead peasants when I’m through with – and that’s all he had time to write.”
“Wow,” I mutter to myself as everyone else reacts.
“They said I, does that mean it’s only one person?” Maddox speaks up and asks.
“That’s a possibility,” Reece agrees. “One angry Russian could be more dangerous than twenty, though, because it’s easier for him to hide.”
“Dammit,” Torin grumbles. “How do we find him?”
“I’m running down close friends and family members of the men we killed. If I had to bet, I would put money on a close connection.”
“Keep at it and let us know if you find out anything else,” Torin says.
“Could someone please write all this shit down for me?” Cooper shouts, not only because his hearing is still fucked up but also because he’s angry we’re leaving him out.
“I’ve got it,” Dalton says since he’s sitting next to Coop. “Anyone got some paper and pen?” he asks, which of course reminds me of Isobel and her bucket list she always had close at hand.
“Ah, here,” I say when I retrieve the tiny notepad and pen she gave me from my back pocket and toss it down in front of Dalton.
“Do you keep your deep dark secrets in here or what?” he asks. “Doodle Isobel’s name in hearts, maybe?”
My glare tells him that I’m not in the mood to joke. But it does segue into the discussion we need to have now despite everything else we have going on.
“There’s something all of you need to know, and it has to do with Isobel,” I start. When I have their attention, I give them the cold hard truth. “The governor has a drone video from Escapades the night we killed the Russians. You can see us going in and coming out clearly enough to identify everyone at the table that was there.”
“Holy shit,” someone mutters, followed by more swears.
“It gets worse,” I warn them. “The video also shows Ivan’s guys throwing out the trash into a food truck. And Washington had the food truck followed all the way to the dump where they confiscated some of the bags of body parts.”
Once I finish talking, the room is silent as they all try to digest just how fucked we are.
Eventually, Miles huffs and throws his hands up saying, “I knew it was too fucking easy!”
“But wait,” Chase says as he rubs his fingers over his beard. “If the governor has this shit on us, why are we sitting here instead of in jail right now?”
“Because of Isobel,” I say simply.
“She talked him out of it?” Torin asks.
“No, Lawrence, the governor, made me a deal. If I could rein in his wild child, convince her to go back to her old life and make amends with him so she could help his campaign, then he would leave us alone. He said we actually did him a favor by taking out the heroin trade trash.”
“Is this what you and Isobel were yelling about?” War asks.
“Yes, I came clean with her right after I told her father that I’m done manipulating her for him.”
“What the fuck?” Torin snaps. “How can you be done when that means we’re all screwed?”
“Because she has a fatal genetic disease, the same disease that killed her mother when she was a kid. At best, she has ten good years left before she ends up in a wheelchair, unable to take care of herself. I can’t make her give up on her bucket list to save our asses!”
“Shit. So what the hell are we going to do?” Abe asks.
“Hopefully the photos she gave me will be enough blackmail on the governor that he’ll keep his blackmail to himself. I’m sorry. I think it’s over, but I can’t guarantee anything. He could come after us again, wanting something else. We need to face the fact th
at we’re fucked.”
“No fucking kidding,” Torin grumbles.
“And, ah, there’s something else I finally need to get off my chest,” I tell them. “I’ve never really felt like I belonged with you, with the Savage Kings. When I first started prospecting way back when, I was actually working for the DEA. If I had learned anything about the Kings dealing hard drugs, I would’ve helped them take the MC down.”
“Why the hell would you do that?” Torin asks as he and the other guys all glower at me.
“Because the girl I loved died in your bar from a drug overdose! I thought the Kings were dealing and were responsible. After I spent some time with you guys, I found out I was wrong. It was the Aryans.”
“April Neil,” Reece says.
“Yeah. How do you remember her name?” I ask him.
“Just do. A kid Chase knew brought her into the bar when she started seizing, but it was too late; she was gone. We made the one responsible pay.”
“I know that now,” I tell him. “I didn’t until I started prospecting. I even tried to turn in my prospect cut to Deacon when I figured out the Kings weren’t involved, but he wouldn’t take it. He told me the MC needed me; ‘a true north to guide the club in the right direction’ or some silliness.”
“Did you or Deacon know he was working for the DEA?” Chase asks Reece while pointing his finger at me.
“If he did, he never told me. This is the first I’ve heard of it,” Reece responds.
“Well, now you all know the whole truth. I’m a fraud,” I admit.
Slipping my arms out of my cut, I tell them, “I don’t deserve to wear the Savage King patch and never have.” Folding up the leather and placing it on the table, I look to Gabe and say, “I’ll cover up the ink on my back as soon as Gabe can black it out; then you all can decide on my punishment.”
“No,” Torin grits out.
“No?” I repeat before understanding dawns on me. “No, I guess I don’t need to bother covering up the ink. I’m a dead man, so no one will ever see it again. Do you even need to vote?” I ask.