Risking It All (Rebels 0f Forbidden Lake Book 5)

by Elana Johnson

  Declan had never dealt with them personally, but he hung in clubs, and traveled the world, and he hadn’t always been as drug-free and sober as he was now.

  He could barely move his wrists anymore. Even the slightest change brought huge pain, and he’d started trying to strain against the bindings on his ankles. Nothing seemed to be working, and he really didn’t want to be tied in this chair when his “lawyer” arrived.

  He hoped his language to her had been strong enough. Bring everything.

  He’d meant everyone. Tell Maverick. Tell Jed. Call the cops. Tell everyone.

  Bring everything.

  He wasn’t sure if she’d even think of them. He wasn’t sure where she was, as she’d wisely not said.

  She’s smart, he told himself. She’ll figure it out.

  He wasn’t even sure why he felt like he needed to call in all the reinforcements he could. Only that he did. Something was very, very wrong here, and things weren’t adding up.

  Stacy had been at Promontory the night he was there. So had his father. And she’d seen his plane, and then shown up in his house very soon after that. How did she have access to him? To that part of the airport?

  No, things weren’t right. He wasn’t sure who she’d gotten involved with, and he didn’t really want to find out.

  He needed to get out of here, though, and he started twitching a little bit. “Hey,” he said, but neither man looked toward him. “I have an itch,” he said. “I need help.”

  “An inch?” Jonas repeated, coming toward him.

  “Help me out, man,” Declan said. “It’s over here on my shoulder.”

  “I’m not touching you.”

  Declan flinched some more. “Come on,” he said. “Help. Haven’t you ever had an itch you can’t scratch?”

  Jonas looked back at the other man, and he nodded before slipping out the door. Jonas sighed like Declan was the biggest pain in the neck and moved closer. “Here.” He barely touched Declan’s shoulder.

  “No, around the front,” he said. “On my arm. Down a little.” He kept directing Jonas until he made it to the fake itch. He was leaning close to him, and Declan coiled every muscle in his body. Tight. Tighter.

  Then he exploded at the man, knocking him down and falling forward on top of him. Jonas roared, and Declan’s adrenaline hit an all-time high. He cocked his head back and headbutted Jonas in the face.

  He tasted blood in his mouth, and he reared back again, desperate to do whatever it took to get free.

  Jonas groaned, his eyes open but unfocused, and then he went limp and unconscious.

  Declan heaved at the air, horrified at what he’d done. With his arms and ankles tied to the chair, he couldn’t really stand up, but he managed to get to his knees.

  He gritted his teeth against the pain in his wrists, the ache in his head, the blood in his mouth as he patted Jonas’s pockets. In the inside one of his jacket, Declan found a pocketknife, and he whimpered as he tried to get it into position to free his hand.

  It slipped and clattered to the floor. He didn’t bother checking the door. If someone came through it, so be it. His fingers followed the knife, and he left it on the floor, trying to hold it in place with his chin as he slipped the blade under the plastic tie keeping him bound to the chair.

  Once it was in place, he bit the knife between his aching teeth and pulled with his wrist against the blade.

  Mercifully, the zip tie released. With tears in his eyes, he used his free hand to cut the rest of his limbs free, and then he stood up. Everything hurt, but he wasn’t going to stay in this room and wait for the next attack.

  He was a tall guy, with some muscles, but the bodyguards surrounding Stacy were much more impressive in physical stature.

  The doorknob turned easily, and he cracked the door a couple of inches. To his great surprise, the hallway beyond the door was brightly lit, with carpet on the floor and artwork on the walls. No one stood there, and down at the other end of it, people walked by.

  He was in a club.

  A very dangerous, very sinister club. Pieces started falling into place, as Stacy would have to be well-connected in the club scene to be at Promontory, and to have access to fly back up here so quickly.

  The man who’d been standing guard with Jonas came back around the corner, his phone stuck to his ear. He was talking, because Declan could see his mouth moving, but he couldn’t hear what the guy was saying.

  He eased the door almost all the way closed, leaving enough of a gap that he could hear him when he approached the door.

  The other man paused outside it and while his voice was muffled, he still heard the guy say, “I don’t know, Sal. Rocko’s in a mood.”

  Rocko.

  Declan’s blood turned cold and sour.

  Rocko Federov was not one to be trifled with, and if Stacy had gotten caught up in his world, then yes. Declan was in real trouble, because now she had access to money, connections, bad cops, and dirty lawyers. She had protection, and worst of all, she had unlimited resources to enact the revenge she wanted.

  Revenge on Declan.

  “No, I’m not going to kill him. Rocko said he wants to do it when he gets here.”

  Declan backed away from the door, his grip on the tiny knife tightening. He didn’t know what else the other man said, but when he came through the door, Declan rushed him, knife raised.

  The man managed to get his hands between the knife and his face, but Declan still hated the sound of metal against flesh. The man yelped and Declan left the knife in his arm and fled down the hall.

  He’d been in plenty of clubs before. Now he just needed to find a way out of this one before someone from the Federov clan recognized him and sounded the alarm.

  Ducking around the corner, he pressed his back into the wall and took a moment to take in the scene before him. Typical club, but it wasn’t extremely busy yet. Probably too early on a Saturday night for the real riffraff to be out. He had no idea what city he was in, or who was in charge. He could probably identify Rocko Federov in a lineup, but in a semi-dark club with flashing lights? Probably not.

  He spotted the bathrooms to his right, and he edged that way, hoping his usual rocker gear in black would keep him in the shadows. He’d just put his hand on the bathroom door to enter it when someone came out.

  And he came face-to-face with Rocko Federov. Turned out, Declan could recognize him. And with Declan’s lip bleeding from the headbutt and the flashing lights, Rocko definitely recognized him.

  Rocko opened his mouth to say something at the same time the man Declan had stabbed entered the club from the hallway. He screamed nonsensical words, but it was enough of a distraction for Declan to duck around Rocko and sprint toward the doors.

  Which exploded inward when he was within five strides. He got blown back, and the last thing he heard before his head hit the ground was “Nobody move,” spoken through a robotic megaphone.

  Pain shattered through him, but he still managed to think, The Sentinels made it, before he lost consciousness.

  * * *

  When he woke, the surface beneath him wasn’t gritty or hard. Soft, and light, and something beeping so incessantly he wanted to punch it until it stopped.

  “Declan,” a woman said, and her voice was like music to his ears. He struggled to open his eyes, and when he did, he found Mia at his bedside.

  Tears poured down her face. “You’re awake.”

  “Hey,” he said, trying to smile. But it hurt. Everything still hurt. “Don’t cry.”

  But she didn’t stop. He didn’t know everything that had happened, or what she now knew about him, his past, or his friends.

  He was so, so tired, and his eyes drifted closed again.

  The sound of the door opening caught his attention, and he opened his eyes to see Mia’s mother and father walk into his hospital room. He wanted to snap to attention at the same time he didn’t. He didn’t owe them an explanation, though he knew Mia had never wanted to sneak aroun
d behind their back.

  “Come on, Mia,” her mother said while Wayne looked down at him.

  “I’m disgusted that you thought you could go against our wishes,” he said. “We’re taking Mia with us, and you’ll not speak to her again.”

  A rage built in Declan that he didn’t know he had. At least not since his early twenties when he’d liberated his step-siblings and his mother from his step-father’s abuse. “You can’t—”

  “She doesn’t want anything to do with you,” Georgia said. “Tell him, honey.”

  Mia faced him, those eyes so beautiful when they were shining with happiness. He couldn’t believe she was going to walk out on him now.

  “Good-bye, Declan,” she said, and the three of them left his hospital room.

  Stunned, he stared at the door, sure Mia would come rushing back in, whisper that she’d be back later, after she could sneak out and get away from her parents.

  She didn’t.

  He turned numbly to the heart monitor, wondering why it was still beeping when the woman had ripped his heart out and shattered it right there on the hospital floor.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Mia endured a dozen hours of questioning, first from the authorities, and then from her parents. She’d learned so much about Declan in the past week, and she understood more about why her parents were concerned about him.

  He’d run with some shady characters in the past. Nothing illegal, just rough. The type of men who kept explosives in their saddlebags, or the kind of men who’d seen hard action in war.

  She tossed in her childhood bed, feeling half-grateful she had parents to watch out for her, and half-annoyed she was being treated like a little girl who couldn’t make her own decisions.

  The raid at the club in Williamsburg was seven days old, and she’d broken up with Declan a few days ago as he’d woken for the first time in days.

  She’d had to tell her parents everything, though there wasn’t a whole lot to tell. One stolen night in Chicago—which happened to be the worst night of all to skip town with a secret boyfriend. A forbidden man.

  One she still had very strong feelings for.

  One she needed to figure out how to get back.

  She was thirty years old, and she didn’t have to do what her parents said. At the same time, she loved her family, and she wanted to be able to attend the family dinners on Sunday, the beach picnics, the weddings, the births, all of it. That was so important to her, and she didn’t know how to be the Mia that stood up for herself and still got to participate in family activities.

  “Maybe you can’t have both,” she murmured to herself, and that was the real problem. Why did she have to choose between Declan and her family?

  It hadn’t mattered that Declan hadn’t smoked or drank in five years. That he donated huge amounts of money to charitable causes. That he’d been the one targeted here, not the other way around.

  Her father was unrelenting in his opinion of rockstars, motorcycle club leaders, and ex-Army soldiers. Mia didn’t have a problem with any of them. Without the Sentinels, Declan could be dead right now.

  She rolled over again, so unsettled that she’d never fall asleep. Getting out of bed, she padded down the hall to the kitchen where she made herself a cup of broth. Back in the bedroom, she curled into the armchair and sipped, her thoughts tangling no matter how she tried to unknot them.

  Morning came, and she didn’t bother to get dressed before she went down the hall to the kitchen. It was the weekend, and she didn’t have to go to work. Not that she’d gone in this week either. She was lucky she still had a job at all, and she suspected her father had done something to help her keep it.

  That angered her too. She didn’t need his help for everything. Didn’t even want it. She was a big girl and could handle her own problems.

  She ached to call Declan, but she didn’t. It wouldn’t be fair, and she needed to figure out how to exist without him, plain and simple. When her mother came into the kitchen, Mia got up to leave.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Back to bed.”

  “Mia,” her mom said, exasperation heavy in the name. “Come back. Let’s talk.”

  “I don’t want to talk,” Mia said.

  “It’s just hard right now,” her mom said. “You’ll see we’re right in the end.”

  Mia spun back toward her, her fingers curling into fists. “And what if you’re not, Mom?”

  “What?” She blinked as if she’d never considered she might be wrong.

  “What if you’re not right? What if he’s the one for me, and we could be blissfully happy?”

  Her mother scoffed and got a mug down from the cupboard. “He travels the world and screams lyrics. That’s not the life you want.”

  “How do you know what I want?”

  Her mother simply looked at her. “I raised you, Mia. I know you better than he does.”

  “But not better than I know myself.” She returned to the kitchen. “Please, Mom, try to see things from my perspective. He’s handsome, and kind, and good. He takes care of his family, and he writes beautiful songs about hope and love.” Desperation filled her from top to bottom.

  Surprisingly, her mom sighed. “Mia, he’s just not right for us.”

  “Us? Mom, it’s not about us. It’s about me.” She clutched both hands to her chest. “He makes me happy, and that’s all that should matter.”

  “He’s too old for you.”

  “No, he’s not,” she said, some of the fire Declan had claimed to love about her bursting back to life. “I’m in love with him.”

  “Love can be blind.” Her mom stirred in a spoonful of sugar as if Mia hadn’t just poured out her soul.

  “I’m going to talk to him.” She spun on her heel and marched away.

  She still heard her mother say, “Mia, be reasonable.”

  She closed the door behind her and locked it, her heart beating out of control. But she was doing this. She had to. She needed Declan in her life, and it was time to stand up for herself.

  * * *

  Hours later, she’d been to the guest house on the back of Jed’s property only to find it cleaned out. Jed wasn’t home, and Maverick’s phone when straight to voicemail. Mia stood at the edge of the woods, wondering if Declan would answer the phone if she called him. She didn’t think he would.

  Her phone rang, and she glanced at it to find Father on the screen. Anger filled her and she swiped the call to voicemail without a second thought. Her mom called next, and Mia ignored her too.

  A minute passed, and Mia walked toward the company truck she’d been driving since her car had been stolen a week ago and then suffered horrible fire damage when the Sentinels had basically blown up the club in Williamsburg where it was parked.

  Her phone rang again, and annoyance mingled with the fury already coiling in her. “What, Mom?” she barked into the phone.

  “I just wanted you to know Declan is at the airport.”

  Mia froze. “What?”

  But her mother said nothing, and when Mia checked the call, it bleeped at her, indicating that her mom had hung up.

  “The airport.” Mia hurried toward the truck again, hoping Declan would get detained in security or something. Which was ridiculous. He probably had priority boarding, with bodyguards that whipped him through the line like a celebrity.

  After all, he was a celebrity.

  Not only that, he didn’t go through regular security like normal people. He had his own blasted plane.

  And she was twenty minutes from the airport, had no ticket, and likely wouldn’t be able to just pull up to that fancy gate like she had last time.

  “Doesn’t matter,” she said, pressing the accelerator as far down as it would go. She didn’t necessarily want a crowd for her make-up with Declan, and she hoped he could somehow forgive her.

  She pulled up to the airport in the pickup lane and glanced around. The last time she’d been here hadn’t been that long ago, and Sam
i had been shivering in the night, surrounded by cops and people—one of whom was Declan.

  She hadn’t spoken to him then, instead allowing her father’s glares to keep him at bay. But he’d come to the beach right after that. Only a few days after that.

  Emotion choked her as she bypassed the regular terminal and turned to go into the private area where she’d gotten clearance to fly with Declan a few weeks ago.

  Only a few weeks. It felt like so much longer than that. So much had happened, and Mia just wanted to see him. Would he accept her apology? Would he even be willing to try a third time?

  Mia pulled up to the booth and looked past it, relief spreading through her at the sight of Declan’s plane still on the ground.

  “Name,” the woman said at the booth.

  “Oh, hi,” Mia said. “Remember me? I’m the Princess.”

  She frowned, first at Mia and then at her clipboard. “We don’t have a Princess today.”

  “Well, the Prince’s plane is right there.” She pointed toward it. “Maybe you could call him and see?” See what, she wasn’t sure.

  The woman pursed her lips, but she stepped back over to her booth and shut the sliding door. She picked up the phone and started talking, and not fifteen seconds later, she opened the door again and said, “Go on.”

  The plane was already closed, the stairs nowhere to be found. As she parked around the side of the booth, a couple of people came out to get those things back in place. As soon as the plane opened, Declan emerged, his hair shorter now but his eyes just as dark.

  Mia stood at the bottom of the steps, her pulse ricocheting around inside her chest. She started up the steps, her breathing uneven and her footsteps shaking.

  “Hey,” she said when she joined him on the small platform at the top. “I’m so sorry to delay you, but…I’m so sorry.” Her voice cracked, and she just wanted him to smile at her. Draw her into his chest and tell her everything would be okay.