by Toni Blake
“Get up!” She pulled on his arm. “The house is on fire.”
Finally, this jolted him fully awake. He rolled out of bed in a pair of boxer briefs, snatching up a pair of blue jeans on the floor as they exited the room. Blood pounded in Tessa’s ears as they jogged back toward the front door.
Once outside, where Lucky could see the flames, he said, “Jesus Christ—I gotta call the fire department.”
He made a move back toward the door, but Tessa grabbed his arm. “They’re on the way.”
Lucky just stared at the burning garage, nearly half of it engulfed now, his expression a mix of bewilderment and horror. Still sounding a little out of it from sleep, he murmured, “How the hell . . . ?”
Still watching the fire, too, Tessa took his hand and held on tight. “I’m pretty sure it was that guy with the scraggly beard, the one you don’t like—Red. I heard his car and saw him out my window.”
Lucky turned to her then, jaw dropping. “Are you sure?”
She blinked, trying to replay it in her mind. “I think so. I remembered the car he came in to pick up his bike. It was the same one.”
Fortunately, only moments later, a siren split the night air, growing closer each second. Lucky stood hand in hand with Tessa in only a pair of blue jeans as the big red fire engine came into view, screaming up the curvy, hilly road and into Lucky’s driveway. Several fireman jumped down, hoses in hand, and Tessa recognized one of them as Logan Whitaker, Mike Romo’s lifelong best friend. “You guys need to step back further,” he yelled in their direction.
Lucky could barely make sense of what was happening—it felt surreal. This . . . this was the kind of shit he’d expected to happen ten years ago, but it never had. And Red had done it. And that meant . . . oh God. God damn it to hell.
He just swallowed, trying not to think, not to feel. But Jesus—what if Johnny had been there? What if Tessa hadn’t seen what was happening out the window and called for help so fast? What if it had spread more quickly by the time she’d come in to get him? What if they’d both been there, fast asleep?
Lucky’s blood ran cold. The worst had finally happened—his past had come back to haunt him. Red had lied—that sneaky little bastard had lied to him, fooled him for Christ’s sake—and was obviously still doing Wild Bill’s dirty work. Son of a bitch! To think they’d been looking for him all these years! And now they’d found him. Here, of all places. Where his son was, where his girl was. And his brother. His grandmother, for God’s sake. He’d endangered them all by just being here.
He watched—a weird sense of numbness disguising his rage—as the Destiny Fire Department blasted thick, powerful torrents onto the flames, which were beginning to die down. He realized his heart beat violently fast.
Okay, so maybe the house isn’t gonna burn. That’s good. But what about the rest? How much of his equipment would be ruined? What about the three customers’ bikes inside the garage? He had business insurance, but . . . shit, this was still bad.
His own beloved Harley was down at Tessa’s—and he suddenly felt damn thankful he’d pulled into her driveway instead of his this afternoon when they’d come back from a ride. As far as he knew, the helmet he’d painted for her still sat on the bike’s leather seat. A little thing to be worrying about now, but his mind was racing, and he didn’t like the idea of his gift to her being burned up by the Devil’s Assassins.
Although the very thought struck fresh fear and outrage into his heart. The Assassins knew where he was. Jesus fucking Christ.
He blinked in surprise when a police car pulled in behind the fire truck and Mike and Rachel got out, both with messy hair, dressed in jeans and T-shirts, clearly having gotten out of bed for this. They headed straight for Tessa and Lucky, and Mike met his gaze. “You all right, man?”
Lucky just nodded, still in shock.
“How did you . . . ?” Tessa asked, clearly confused.
“Logan called me on the way,” Mike replied, then looked to Lucky. “An officer on duty is coming to do the official stuff, but Logan knew I’d want to know.”
“Thanks,” Lucky said. “For coming.”
Mike simply gave a short nod, yet Lucky still felt it—that new, shockingly thick reconnection with his brother. He hadn’t expected it when it had happened—and he definitely couldn’t have predicted it would run so deep. But it just plain made him feel a little better that Mike was there.
Soon, another squad car came—and as Mike had promised, it brought another Destiny cop, Raybourne Fleet, to investigate.
When Tessa was questioned, she explained all she’d seen. And when Lucky was questioned . . . he didn’t tell the entire truth. He described Red as someone he’d known socially many years ago, keeping the Devil’s Assassins completely out of it. Mike sat in on the interview, and Lucky could pretty much feel Mike’s doubt when he got to that part, but he just kept going.
“Well, reckon that about wraps it up,” Officer Fleet said, finishing up notes on a clipboard. “We’ll try findin’ this fella’s sister tomorrow and see if we can’t track him down.” Then the tall, buzz-cut cop looked back to Lucky, his eyes narrowing slightly. “You sure you don’t know what beef this guy has with you, why he’d want to do somethin’ like this?”
Lucky shook his head and gave the same answer he had a few minutes ago. “Other than the fact that my buddy and me weren’t very friendly to him at Gravediggers, nope. When I painted his bike, I thought we’d left things on good terms. But like I said, he’s always been a little . . . off. That’s all I know.”
Just then, Logan Whitaker approached the small group of men and Lucky saw that the fire appeared to be completely out now. “Been a long time, Lucky,” Logan said, compassion in his voice. Lucky had known Logan as a kid—he’d lived just up the road and had been at their house a lot when they were young. “Sorry to be seeing you for a reason like this, though.”
Lucky gave him a nod, shook his hand. “I appreciate that. And it’s good to see you, man.” Then he motioned toward the garage. “How bad are things?”
“Well, the good news is that the house is fine. The door connecting to the garage is a solid fire door, with good seals on it, so no smoke got inside your living space. The other good news is that less than half the garage burned and some of the stuff in it is salvageable.” Then he sighed and shifted his weight from one fireman’s boot to the other. “The bad news, though, is that it looks like some of your painting equipment was destroyed, and there’s significant smoke damage to the motorcycles and other stuff that didn’t burn. Tell me you have good insurance.”
Lucky nodded somberly. “I do.”
Logan smiled, clearly trying to lighten a bad situation. “Good. Now tell me whoever owns those motorcycles aren’t the scary kind of bikers who are gonna wreak havoc over this.”
Lucky thought through the rides he was currently working on. “Nah,” he said. “They won’t be happy, but they won’t hold me responsible.”
“Weird thing,” Logan said, looking back at the garage. “We’ll have to get an arson investigator out here, but best we can tell, for this being arson, this guy did a pretty crappy job of setting a fire. There are signs of an accelerant, but only around one corner of the garage. This could have been much worse if he’d been even a little more thorough.”
Lucky took that in, thought it over. “Tessa said she banged on her window when she realized he was probably up to no good. Maybe he heard it and cut the job short.”
Logan nodded, and Mike said, “Makes sense.”
As Mike walked the other guys back to their vehicles, Lucky sat down by himself in the grass on the hill, looking toward Tessa’s house, exhausted by it all. Tessa and Rachel stood over by his deck and he could have joined them, but he just wanted a few minutes alone—to think.
It didn’t surprise him that Red would fuck up an arson attempt. The guy was generally inept, a screw-up. But that created a big question in Lucky’s mind. Of all the bad-ass bikers in the Devil’s Assa
ssins, why the hell would they send Red to do a job like this?
Maybe . . . his first assumption upon seeing the fire had been wrong. Maybe the Assassins hadn’t been following him, watching him, after all. Because if they’d known where he was for any length of time, why wait until now to strike? So maybe part of Red’s story was true—maybe he really had just stumbled onto Lucky and Duke that night at Gravediggers. He’d surely reported back to Wild Bill about it—but if Red was the one out doing the dirty work, it might very well mean that Bill and the rest of the club were nowhere near Destiny. At least not yet. Which meant he had a little time to puzzle through this before being forced to deal with Wild Bill himself or any of the other Assassins.
By the time Officer Fleet’s cruiser pulled away, Lucky saw Logan and the rest of the firefighters reloading their equipment, soon climbing back up into the fire truck, ready to leave as well. A glance beyond to the charred black remains of half his garage, now strung with yellow police tape, made him cringe—both in anger and dread. The pungent scent of burnt materials filled the air.
When he saw Mike walking back toward him, he stood up. And Mike’s eyes dropped to his chest. He looked stunned. “God, how did I not see that until just now?”
Lucky glanced down—to the tattoo of their sister’s name over his heart. “Got it after I first left home. I was thinking a lot about her then, more than usual.”
Their eyes met again and Mike said, “You okay, man? You look upset.”
“Somebody just tried to burn my fucking house down,” he pointed out.
“I know. But . . . who’s this guy really? Part of the MC?”
Lucky nodded. “More or less. Once upon a time.”
“Why the hell didn’t you say so?” His brother sounded put out, and Lucky guessed he couldn’t blame him—being a small town cop, Mike probably expected honesty, and from most people, he probably got it.
“Look,” Lucky said, “the less people who know this might be related to the club, the better. I’ll figure out how to deal with it.”
But Mike lowered his chin, his look mired in doubt. “How the hell will you do that? These guys have had you hiding out for years and you suddenly think you can beat them on your own if they’re after you?”
Lucky shook his head. “I don’t even know for sure how firmly this guy is still associated with the club. He’s mostly a weasely tag-along who looks for attention. So I need to find out more before I jump to any conclusions.” Then he looked Mike in the eye. “And the other reason I didn’t mention it is . . . I don’t want my kid to know I was in a gang. There’s no reason he should know. All it could do is upset him and make him afraid of me.”
He then motioned to where Tessa stood with Rachel. “Can you do me a favor? I know it’s late, but can you and Rachel take Tessa home with you for a couple hours?”
“Why?” Suspicion laced Mike’s tone.
“Just need to go on a fact-finding mission, like I said. I won’t be long, but I just need to guarantee she’s safe—just in case he decides to come back while I’m not here, you know?”
“Of course,” Mike said. “But for the record, I don’t like this. I don’t want you getting yourself in any more trouble.”
Lucky gave his brother a piercing, honest look. “Too late for that—I’m already in it. Now I just need to figure out how deep, and how to get back out of it.”
As Lucky’s bike sped down Whisper Falls Road a little while later, Molly Hatchet’s “Flirtin’ with Disaster” pounding in his ears, he again suffered the gut impulse to run. To just keep riding and not look back. His presence was putting the people he cared about in danger and it suddenly seemed safer if he just got the hell out of their lives.
But it was a fleeting thought, only momentary. An old habit, maybe—the idea that running solved things. It took only a second to realize that if he were to leave, the people in his life might still be in danger because of him—and besides, he had way too much here now to willingly leave it behind. And way too much to take this lying down.
Despite what he’d told Mike, Lucky felt he had to assume the worst case scenario here—that Red had done this on behalf of the Devil’s Assassins. It was the only logical explanation.
But before he did anything, he had to talk to Duke. And that was where he was headed.
When he pulled in at Gravediggers, the place was still open for business—but it was late and the parking lot was mostly empty. Lucky pushed through the door to see a few leather-clad bikers shooting pool and a dude with a bad scar on his cheek making out with a blond biker babe in one corner.
And that guy wasn’t the only one getting lucky at Gravediggers tonight—as Lucky approached the bar, Duke was leaning across it, delivering an open-mouthed kiss to the very same girl he’d suggested fixing Lucky up with a month or two back. The sexy girl with ebony hair hanging to her ass moaned a little against Duke’s mouth.
But Lucky didn’t have time to be polite here, so he stepped up and cleared his throat with purpose. When Duke glanced over, looking surprised and a little pissed off, Lucky said, “We need to talk. Important.”
“Stay put, hon,” Duke instructed the girl, then followed Lucky to the opposite end of the bar to tell him, “This better be damn good.”
“It is. Well, damn bad, actually.”
Duke’s expression shifted from irritation to concern. “What is it, brother?”
Lucky proceeded to tell the whole story, and when he was done, Duke just lowered his gaze for a minute and let out a deep sigh. Lucky knew exactly what he was feeling, since he felt it, too: You finally think it’s over, you finally think you’re safe—and then you’re not.
“The way I see it,” Duke said when he looked back up, “is that, first things first, we need to take care of Red. Nobody else from the club is here, at least not yet, so we deal with Red now, before we have a whole crowd breathing down our necks.”
Lucky nodded. He didn’t like it—not one damn bit—but his biggest concern at the moment was protecting Tessa, who Red had seen with him a couple of times, and Johnny, in case Red knew about him, too.
“So I’ll go after him,” Duke went on then, like it was nothing.
And Lucky barked, “What? No way.”
“You got a lot more to lose than I do,” Duke pointed out. Which was damn noble of him, and just the kind of friend he was. But that reasoning wasn’t good enough for Lucky.
“If it wasn’t for me, neither of us would be have to deal with it,” Lucky reminded him. “I should be the one to do it.” And though Lucky nor Duke said what going after Red really meant, they both knew what they were talking about. Lucky, for one, just didn’t want to put a name on it. The whole idea made him sick, in fact. Yet he didn’t feel they had much of a choice. He hung his head and muttered, “Shit, I hate this. This isn’t my life anymore—I can’t go back to living that way.”
But Duke didn’t respond to any of that. “Smart thing,” he said instead, “might be to track him down together. Outnumber him.”
Lucky gave another nod, deciding Duke was right to keep it simple, stay focused—this was no time for something as useless as emotion. But in the end, he replied, “I’m fucking exhausted—I can’t think straight anymore. I’m gonna go home, get some sleep, clear my head.” Then he motioned to the hot brunette still waiting patiently, playing with the straw in her drink. “And you got business of a better kind to take care of.”
Sighing, Duke said, “Maybe you’re right. We should both sleep on it. We’ll talk again tomorrow.”
If Lucky hadn’t already felt like an asshole, he would have by the time he stopped at Mike’s in the middle of the night to get Tessa. These were good people—and because of him, the lights in their house were burning bright at three a.m. When Mike came to the door, he just said, “Sorry. For keeping you guys up. For everything.”
Mike looked tired, but mumbled, “It’s all right,” as he let Lucky in.
He found the girls in the living room, drinkin
g coffee, and when Tessa saw him, she stood up, anger blazing in her hazel eyes. “Where have you been? What the hell’s going on?”
Jesus. This night just kept getting better and better. He tried to speak calmly. “Can we just go home? Talk there?”
She sucked in her breath, appearing to weigh the request, and finally said, “Fine.”
Lucky only had one helmet with him, so he insisted Tessa wear it. And the wind on his face gave him the sensation it was clearing away the cobwebs in his brain so he could sort through this thing logically.
Was there any other way to deal with this besides the one he and Duke had discussed? Damn, how he wanted there to be another way.
But no matter how he examined it, he came to the same conclusion: He’d caused too much trouble for everyone, Duke included, and he should be the one to end it. His fault, his mess to clean up. He was tired of running from shit. This was the only way to protect the people he loved.
And he needed to take action quickly, before Duke figured out he was going Lone Ranger.
When Lucky pulled the bike into his driveway, the sobering sight of his charred garage met him, one whole wall and half the door gone—everything inside either burned to a crisp or blackened by smoke. And while he didn’t look forward to what he had to do, the sight was like a punch in the gut, reminding him he had no choice.
Walking inside, it relieved him to see Logan had been right—everything in the house seemed fine. He’d shut the windows before he’d left, and turned on the A/C, and after closing the door he couldn’t even smell the remains of the fire anymore.
“Are you gonna answer my questions now?” Tessa asked. She sounded a little less upset than she had at Mike’s, but not much.
In response, Lucky took her hands and led her to the couch—and he sat them down there, facing each other, cross-legged. He might be deceiving Mike a little, and maybe even Duke, but that was for their own protection. And when it came to Tessa, he owed her the whole truth. “Babe, there’s . . . some stuff I need to tell you.”