by Zoey Parker
“Do you really think I would steal from you?”
“Honestly, brother? I don’t put anything past you anymore. And forget me! What about the rest of the club? They don’t know you the way I do.”
He nodded. “It’s all safe. You’ll find every penny. I didn’t spend it. But I was afraid if you found out before everything was settled, you’d think I was stealing from the club. I wasn’t, I swear. The club’s the only thing that ever mattered to me. But I knew they would have me killed if they thought I was going behind their backs.” He was right. They would have. There were two things you never fucked with, when it came to an MC: their bikes and their money. Even their women didn’t mean as much to them.
“Okay, fine. It happened. We’ll find a way out of it.” I didn’t know how. Now, I’d look weaker than ever. I hadn’t known what my own goddamned VP was doing under my nose. Not just my VP, but my best friend. This would all fall back on me.
But Thorn had thought about that, too. “They’ll all think you made the deal. That you were making us strong by trying to make the peace between our clubs. I want you to be the hero. Don’t worry about me.”
My heart went out to him again before I could stop it. Was this really my best friend? This pathetic person? He had fallen so far, and I hadn’t been able to stop him.
I shook myself, remembering the goal in this. He was getting too far off track, and Kat was still sitting in the room. I held tightly to Sabrina. “Fine. We’ll work it out. I won’t let you go down for this, man. But you have to let Kat go. Let her go. She’s innocent in all of this. And look! You didn’t kill Sabrina, so she has nothing on you. Let her go.”
He stood straight, shaking his head. “No, man. She can’t know what I did. She knows I hurt Sabrina, and I could get in trouble for that. I won’t take the chance.”
He was fucking insane. No doubt about it. His logic made no sense. “Then I’ll kill this one!” I held the gun to Sabrina’s head. “It would all be for nothing!”
“You’d never do it!”
“Try me! I swear to God, don’t push me! You have no idea how far I would go.”
He watched me. I could tell he didn’t know if I was bluffing or not. He knew I would never shoot a woman, but then again, he couldn’t be sure. Had I been pushed too far? I pressed the gun tighter against Sabrina’s head.
“I love her, man.” He sounded pathetic.
“I know you do. That’s why I know you’re gonna give me Kat if you wanna keep Sabrina safe. Right?”
Just then, I saw another guy behind Thorn. Tony. Damn it. He looked scared. Stupid kid. He thought he was a hero too, I guessed.
He could be a hero now if he wanted to. “Tony! Get her for me!” I saw him move like he was going to do it.
“Stop! No!” Thorn turned to hold Tony back. I knew what I had to do.
I let go of Sabrina, shoving her behind me, and took aim at Thorn. Then I pulled the trigger and watched as he went down.
Clutching his leg.
Tony froze, then turned to me. “I said, get her!” I still had the gun pointed at him. I heard Sabrina burst into tears behind me. I put an arm around her, trying to comfort her.
“You did great,” I said, patting her on the back. “You saved her life. You were really brave.”
“Get her, please.” She sat on the ground, and I approached the doorway. Where Thorn was grimacing in pain, holding his leg.
“Why did you shoot me?” he asked, looking surprised. I took off my belt, wrapping it around his leg to hold back the bleeding.
“Why the hell do you think?” I asked. He was lucky I’d changed my mind at the last second and aimed lower. I couldn’t kill my friend, no matter what he had done. “I told you. I wasn’t going to let you hurt her.”
Then I looked up into the room. It was filthy, dark, and it stank. But there was one good thing about it, and she was getting up from a chair. My chest felt like it might burst.
Chapter 25
Kat
I had never been so terrified in my life as I had while listening to the back and forth between Gabriel and Thorn. I was constantly worried Gabriel would push Thorn too far. I knew he would never hurt Sabrina—that was one thing I was certain of. He would protect her, even if meant stepping in between her and Thorn.
But I was afraid for him, too. I didn’t want to see Thorn pushed too far, to where he shot Gabriel. I worried he would do it just to free Sabrina.
Tony kept looking back at me. “Let me go!” I whispered, wriggling on the chair. “Please! I don’t know what he’s going to do! I can’t be tied down like this. Give me a chance to get away!”
He looked uncertain. I pleaded with my eyes for him to let me go. Finally, he sighed and made a motion as though to come to me.
Mike held him back. I whimpered. “No,” he said, looking at me. I realized he was just as frantic as I was. “If we let you go now, there’s no telling what he’ll do.” His eyes shifted to Thorn. So he thought Thorn was just as crazy as the rest of us did. He was trying to keep us all safe, too.
I nodded, understanding even if I didn’t like it very much. “Gabriel will know what to do,” he said, looking levelly at me. “You have to trust him.”
“Do you trust him?”
“I do. He’ll think of something.” I nodded. I had to believe him. Otherwise, what did I have to go on?
Meanwhile, Thorn was still talking to Gabriel, having forgotten all about us. Why didn’t one of these two idiots shoot him while Gabriel was diverting his attention? I would have done it myself if I had a gun and my hand was free. No wonder they were so easily led. I wondered if they had an entire brain between the two of them.
The tension crackled in the air. I hated feeling so helpless. If Thorn decided to turn and fire at me out of nowhere, I had no way to defend myself. I couldn’t even duck.
Please, please, let this work, I begged silently.
“How does she look?” I asked, nodding to the window. Mike glanced out.
“She looks fine,” he said. “Gabriel’s holding her, but he won’t hurt her.” I knew he was right about that. Gabriel would never hurt a woman.
I realized, just then, that I loved him. I had wondered if I might. I knew I cared about him, almost as much as I cared about Sabrina’s safety. But…I loved him. Wasn’t that what my would-be final thought was? I love you, Gabriel.
I heard him speaking, and I strained my ears to listen closer. What was he saying? He was telling Thorn to let me go. But I could see from Thorn’s body language that it wasn’t going to be so easy to convince him.
“Tony! Get her for me!” Tony was frozen. I could tell he didn’t know what to do, and he had a good reason. Mike was right—Thorn might lose it if either of them went against him right now. He was only holding on by a thread.
Then it all happened at once. Thorn cried out, then turned to grab Tony. A shot rang out. I screamed, more from surprise than anything else. Thorn went down.
“My God!” I cried out, shaking from head to toe. Was it over? Was he dead?
No. He held his leg. Of course Gabriel couldn’t kill him. He’d tried to hide his heart for so long, but it was in there, and it was a good one. There was no way he would kill his best friend, no matter what the stakes were. Tony came to me, cutting the tape from my ankles while Mike freed my hands. I flexed them, shaking the blood back into them after having them bound so tightly for so long. It hurt, but I was happy to feel it.
And there he was, standing in the doorway. Tears filled my eyes. He was safe.
“You came for me…” I fell into his arms, weakly wrapping my arms around him as I sobbed. “You came for me. You saved me.” We fit perfectly together, just as we always did.
“Of course I did.” He was shaking, too. I knew he had been as scared as I was. He did a good job of acting otherwise, for sure. Never would I have guessed from his tone of voice that he’d been afraid.
I leaned back to look into his eyes. “I didn’t think I’d ever s
ee you again,” I admitted.
“Did you really think I would let anything happen to you?”
“Honestly? I didn’t know. Especially after I got so mad at you and threw you out. I didn’t know if you cared about me anymore. I didn’t think I deserve for you to, when I doubted you.”
He held me close and kissed me. I took his face in my hands, wishing I never had to let go.
“He told me you didn’t have anything to do with it,” I said once the long kiss ended. “You were only trying to protect the club, and him. I know how much you care about them, and I’m sorry I doubted you.”
“It’s all right. I don’t blame you.” He kissed me again, running his hands over my head. “Just do me a favor, okay?”
“What’s that?”
He grinned slightly. “Don’t ignore my texts.”
I groaned, leaning my forehead against his chest. I knew what he meant. If I had stayed home, as he asked, this wouldn’t have happened.
Then I remembered something. “Sabrina!” Thorn nodded, leading me outside, to where my sister sat. We stepped over Thorn, still sitting in the doorway. I couldn’t bear to look at him. He didn’t make a move or a sound.
I only had eyes for Sabrina. When she saw us coming, she stood. She looked thinner, with dark circles under her eyes and sallow skin. She was wearing a cheap, shapeless t-shirt and leggings—a far cry from her usual colorful wardrobe.
But it was her. I thought my heart might explode from happiness. There she was, alive. My arms ached for her, and I held them out as I rushed toward her. She whimpered as we threw our arms around each other.
“Oh, baby,” I cried, holding her tight. “I thought you were gone. I didn’t think we’d ever be together again. I missed you so much!”
“I’m so sorry,” she wept. “I should have listened to you. I should have.”
“It’s okay. You’re safe now.” I would never, ever let her go.
***
I sat with her against the wall of the room. We were just outside the door, and I’d heard the questions police were asking Tony and Mike. It didn’t sound like they had any awareness of Thorn’s plans for me.
By this time, we had attracted a lot of attention from others around the hotel, but I only cared about Sabrina and Gabriel. Onlookers stared at us, whispering to one another. “Just ignore them,” I murmured, my arm around her shoulders. “Tell me what happened.”
“I woke up in my car, in the woods. I didn’t know how I got there.” She wiped tears away with the back of her hand. “My head hurt. I thought I must have banged it.”
“Why didn’t you to go the hospital?”
She shrugged. “I wasn’t thinking straight, you know? And I was scared that he would find me. Thorn, I mean.”
“You were afraid of him? What had he done to you?”
“Nothing, before that last fight. He had never laid a hand on me. Only that fight, and the one we had before it…they were brutal. He was screaming, like a different person. I knew it was because he had started doing drugs. He wasn’t himself. We were fighting about that.”
The police arrived, and I watched as they swarmed on the room. “Yeah. He told me about that.”
“I don’t know why I didn’t let it go. I should have left him then and there. No questions, not another word. I knew that was what you would have done. It was stupid of me to hang around as long as I did.”
“Not stupid. You wanted to help him. It’s who you are,” I said.
She shrugged. “It almost got me killed.”
“Why did you come here? Why didn’t you come to me?”
She cried a little. “I remembered this place. Thorn had been here before. I knew it was cheap—I needed something cheap, something I could afford. I thought he might come back, so I hid my car at the far end of the parking lot, under some trees. I’ve been here ever since.”
“But didn’t you want to come home? Why didn’t you call me? I thought you were dead!”
“I knew you would want to go to the police, and I was too scared to do that.” She looked up at me, her big hazel eyes full of tears. “I thought the rest of the club might come after me. You know. To get even. And then they might have come after you, too. I thought I was protecting you.”
I watched Gabriel. He was talking with three of the cops on the scene. I saw him gesture toward the room, toward Thorn—now being loaded into an ambulance—and toward Mike and Tony, now in the backs of two police cars. I nodded grimly. “Yeah. I guess I would have been worried about that, too.”
“Do you think they will now?”
I smiled down at her. “No, honey. I don’t think so. I think we’re okay.”
She leaned against me, her head on my shoulder, and I closed my eyes. I was so full of joy. She was sitting with me again, right here. She wasn’t dead. I had found her.
Well, with a little help.
She cleared her throat, which she always did when she was about to ask an uncomfortable question. “Can I ask you something?”
I looked down at the top of her blonde head. It didn’t matter what she said. I just wanted to hear her voice. “Of course.”
“Are you and Gabriel…you know…”
I laughed. “Why would you even think that?”
“Because of the way he came here to save you. And the way he told Thorn to let you go. I heard it in his voice. How much he cares about you, I mean.”
I didn’t answer for a long time. I only watched Gabriel as he managed the situation. He had taken charge right away. A born leader.
“Would it make me a hypocrite if I said yes?” I asked Sabrina.
“No. You’re not a hypocrite. You were right about Thorn being wrong for me. He’s no good for anybody. Not even himself. Believe me, I’ve had a lot of time to think about it.” Then she looked up at me. “But Gabriel could be right for you. You’re very much alike.”
“Oh? How so?”
“I don’t know. It’s just a feeling I have. You’re both smart. You understand people. You’re good leaders. You take care of the people around you, too. You don’t just hang around in the background, I mean. You step up and do what you need to do. Usually, what other people are afraid to do.”
I thought this over. She had a point. Hadn’t I put myself in danger by looking for her? Everyone had told me it was a bad idea—the police, the entire club. Even when Thorn threatened me, I was coming up with new ways to find out the truth about my sister.
“I guess you’re right,” I admitted. “But I don’t know about Gabriel. There are too many differences. Like, do I want to be part of his club?”
“You don’t have to be.”
I laughed sarcastically. “Sure I don’t. It’s only the biggest part of his life.”
“But you don’t have to have anything to do with it. Besides, I know he wants to make them more legit. That’s why Thorn’s plan wouldn’t have worked—about the drugs, I mean. Gabriel doesn’t want to have anything to do with them. He wants the club to be above board, all the way.”
“He never told me that,” I said, marveling at her words. I hoped she was right. If that were true, I would move heaven and earth to be with him. Even if it wasn’t, I wanted to find a way for us. He meant too much to me. He’d saved my life and had brought my sister and me back together. And I loved him. How could I not want to be with him?
“I don’t know, sweetheart,” I finally said, after thinking about it. “I care about him very much. Too much, maybe. But there’s a lot going on, too. I want to make sure we’re both safe—you and me. You’re what matters most, and I won’t let you go or put you in any danger. Even if that means saying goodbye to Gabriel.”
As I said the words, my heart ached a little. But I had to be strong. For her sake, as well as mine.
“Even if he cares for you? Because it’s so obvious that he does,” Sabrina pointed out.
“Yeah, well…he cares about his club, too. Sometimes I think he cares about them more. I don’t want to be second t
o any MC. I would need to know that I came first.”
He turned to me, and I saw a little smile on his face. My heart ached even more.
Chapter 26
Gabriel
It was a long day. It took hours for the police to finish questioning me in the parking lot of the hotel. I knew there would be more questions to come, especially when it came time to sign a formal statement. I’d been down this road before.
I kept looking back at Kat. She wouldn’t let Sabrina out of her sight, and for that matter, Sabrina didn’t want to be without Kat. I knew the two of them would be inseparable for a long time.