Red Eyes MC: Books 1 - 3

by Grey, Blair

  “I know,” I said, smiling to let her know that I understood. “But I’ll see you again soon?”

  “Yeah,” Anne said, and this time, she sounded surprisingly sure. Like she was done running away. I counted that as a little victory, even though I didn’t know what had changed between us.

  She finished getting dressed just as I was buttoning my jeans. “Can you lock up as you leave?” she asked, leaning up on her toes so that she could kiss my cheek.

  “Yeah, of course,” I said.

  She slipped out of the room and down the stairs while I pulled on my T-shirt. I heard the front door open and close, and then she was gone. I smiled to myself, feeling like I had won some sort of victory since she hadn’t kicked me out this time.

  I headed outside as well, locking the door behind me as I went. I frowned at the black van sitting in front of her house. It looked vaguely familiar, but what’s more, it looked out of place here. It definitely wasn’t the kind of vehicle that Anne would drive, so why was it parked in front of her house?

  I walked closer to it, trying to figure out why it looked so familiar. But as soon as I got close, the vehicle pulled away. It was as I watched it retreat that it suddenly hit me. That was the car that Braxton and I had chased. The one that the Mambas had been driving. And they had just watched me leave Anne’s house, right after she had left.

  I felt a sickening churning in my gut remembering what that first shopkeeper had said. The Mambas weren’t like other MCs. They didn’t go after you specifically. They went after those that you cared about. First, they had sent me that note, threatening Braxton. And now, they had to know about Anne.

  I immediately headed home. “Braxton!” I yelled the minute I was in the door.

  “What’s up?” he asked, running down to the hall. “Jesus, Landon, what’s going on? Has something happened to Neil or the other guys?”

  “No,” I said shaking my head. “But we need to grab Jason and head over to the pharmacy. Now.”

  “What the hell have you done?” Braxton asked, but he was already putting his shoes on.

  “I think the Mambas are following Anne. And I’m worried what they might do to her. I just saw that van, you know the one that we chased, parked outside her house. They watched me leave there.”

  “Fuck,” Braxton muttered, running a hand back through his hair. “All right, let’s go.”

  We grabbed Jason. And drove toward the pharmacy. “So who is this chick?” Jason asked as we went.

  “She’s his fuck buddy,” Braxton said, rolling his eyes. He gave me a look. “I told you that you shouldn’t get involved with her.”

  I gave him a look. “Did you tell her that?” I asked. “Because she was after me yesterday about some sort of…” I trailed off and started swearing under my breath. In retrospect, it was so obvious. It wasn’t Braxton who had come to see her at the pharmacy. He wasn’t the reason that she thought I was involved in some sort of trouble.

  I put my foot on the gas, speeding up and just praying that I didn’t get a ticket.

  “So what’s the plan?” Jason asked as I idled across the road from the pharmacy. I was scanning the street, but I didn’t see the black van. That could be a good thing. Maybe I was just imagining things.

  Or maybe they had already come by and grabbed Anne and taken her hostage. I felt sick just thinking about it.

  “She’s still in there,” Braxton said, pointing toward a silhouette in the window. I might be the brains of this operation, but he had always had sharper vision than me. I had to trust that he was right.

  I exhaled noisily, feeling all the tension go out of me at once.

  Jason raised an eyebrow at me. “You really care about this girl, huh?” he asked speculatively.

  “You don’t know the half of it,” Braxton said before I could think of how to respond. He shrugged at me and then shook his head. “Come on, I’ve never seen you go after someone with such single-minded focus before. Especially not when you knew we were in the middle of such a dangerous mission.”

  “You just told me to stay away from her because we weren’t going to be in Florida forever,” I reminded him. God, he was acting like he had known this was going to happen, that the Mambas were going to go after her.

  I guessed I probably should have expected they might if I had bothered to think about it. That fact just made me even angrier—with myself this time. He was right, I should never have dragged her into this. I just hoped it wasn’t too late to save her. But no, it couldn’t be.

  “There!” Braxton said suddenly. “Three guys, walking up the street.”

  We watched them enter the pharmacy. “Let’s go,” I said grimly, already worried that we’d given them too much of a lead.

  When we got inside the three guys were trying to get behind the counter where Anne was standing, looking pale as a sheet. Donald, to my surprise, was there with a baseball bat, but he looked like he wasn’t sure whether he really wanted to use it or if he wanted to retreat to the back room again.

  Jesus, just hand the bat to Anne, I thought wildly. She, at least, would have no qualms about using the thing out of self-defense.

  As soon as Donald saw us enter, though, he hightailed it into the back room, taking the baseball bat with him. Fat lot of good that would do us. Fortunately, we shouldn’t need a baseball bat. Braxton and I immediately jumped into action, automatically picking our targets, fists flying.

  I had to admit; it felt kind of good to get this done, to get a little action after so much uncertainty and waiting here in Sarasota. When the third guy fell after a sickening crack to the head dealt by one of Braxton’s fists, I turned to look at my twin. His grin was even wider than mine.

  “Well, that felt good,” he said, shaking out his knuckles as he surveyed the three goons.

  I kicked one of them to make sure that he was still out cold, and then I bent down and grabbed his wallet. Quite a bit of cash, plus identification. They all seemed to be carrying the same. I tsked and shook my head. “Shouldn’t be carrying so much money when you’re on a job,” I muttered.

  “Right?” Braxton asked.

  Finally, I straightened up, already wondering what to do with these three. But that was when I realized there was another problem that I needed to contend with. Anne was still there behind the counter, watching us. She was pale, but she didn’t look like they had gotten to her at all.

  In her eyes, though, I could see clear betrayal. She had asked, after all, if I was in trouble. And I had promised her that I wasn’t. Now, I knew that she could see through the lie, and she wasn’t happy about it.

  30

  Anne

  As I watched Landon and Braxton loot the three guys’ pockets, my mind was furiously trying to piece together what had happened and what I was feeling. To be honest, I hadn’t been totally surprised that the three guys had come back again. I had a feeling that they had left unfinished business when they had departed the previous day. And what’s more, I had a feeling they knew that I was lying.

  It was why I had tried so hard to get Landon to tell me what was going on. When he had denied being in any trouble, I had wanted to let myself believe him. I had wanted to pretend that everything was okay and that he was telling me the truth. That he was totally clueless and that these three guys were just trying to stir up some sort of trouble.

  But in my heart, I had known that that wasn’t the case. And here was Landon, just proving me right. He was involved in this mess, somehow. I knew that for a fact now. How else would he have known to show up right after those three?

  They had burst into the shop and immediately strode toward me, looking menacing. “You lied to us,” the leader said, his eyes narrowing at me. “You know exactly who Landon Stevens is.”

  I had swallowed hard, wondering how to respond to that. But before I could, one of the other guys continued, “We had to wonder why you had lied to us. But I suppose the fact that he spent the night with you gives us our answer. You’re in love wi
th him. And you wanted to protect him.”

  “I’m not in love with him,” I’d said weakly, as though that made any difference. But that lie, I knew they could read off my face. I might still be afraid to even admit it to myself, but I definitely had feelings for Landon. And they knew it.

  The question was, what were they going to do about it.

  They had tried to bust through the door to get behind the counter. That was when Donald had appeared, a baseball bat in his hands. But when he saw that there were three of them and only one of him, Donald had frozen, and what little hope I’d had that we might get out of this all right had died.

  The worst part of it all was that I had forgotten my phone next to my bed this morning, in my haste to get out of there before things became awkward between Landon and me. Before I said something that I wasn’t supposed to say. And the guys were closer to the store phone than I was. There was no way to call the police.

  It turned out that I hadn’t needed to call the police, though. Because there was Landon and Braxton, saving the day by punching out the three guys, easily taking them on. Just like they knew what they were doing. Like they had been trained for this.

  And I realized with a sinking feeling that there was more to Landon than he had told me. A darker side to him, just like Lina had said.

  Landon somehow vaulted over the counter, coming toward me, a serious look in his eyes. He held out a hand entreatingly. But I was still trembling, and I backed away from him, not wanting him to come any closer to me until he told me what was going on.

  “Anne,” Landon said in a breath, looking hurt. As though he had any right to be upset about this. He, at least, seemed to know what he was getting into. All of this was his fault. “It’s going to be okay,” he murmured.

  “What the hell is going on?” I asked, wishing my voice didn’t quake so noticeably. “Who were these guys? How do you know that everything is going to be okay?”

  There were so many other questions that I wanted to ask, but I needed answers to those ones first. I needed to start piecing together the truth.

  Landon ran a hand back through his hair. “I’m really sorry that I’ve involved you in this. I didn’t realize that they would come after you. But you’re in danger.”

  “You think I don’t know that?” I asked, a hint of hysteria in my voice. I didn’t want to be one of those scared females who couldn’t protect themselves, but I also knew that I was no match for three big, brawny dudes like that, even if I had been armed with pepper spray or been able to call the police.

  “I’m going to figure this out,” Landon assured me, using tones that I knew were meant to soothe me. “But for right now, you need to leave. You can’t be here. It’s not safe.”

  I found myself nodding. “What about Donald?” I asked. Then, I immediately shook my head. I couldn’t leave him here by himself. We’d have to close up shop. I mechanically set about doing that, just like I had done a hundred times before. When I went into the back room, I saw that Donald had headed out the other entrance, leaving the door wide open. I closed that up and locked it as well, making a mental note to call him and explain. Once I had an explanation of my own.

  “Should we call the police?” I asked as we went back into the main room. I looked down at the three guys who were still sprawled out on the floor. A couple of their faces were already starting to purple, and I tried not to feel weirdly proud at Landon’s ability to protect me.

  “Who are you?” I asked Landon, looking down at the guys. But Braxton and another guy, who I didn’t know, were already dealing with the three, dragging them out the door.

  Landon pulled me off to the side and turned me so that I wasn’t watching the bodies get moved. I knew the guys weren’t dead, and I also knew that they had deserved what they got for coming after me like that. But at the same time, I was glad not to have to watch the boys dispose of them.

  “I’m part of a motorcycle club,” Landon finally told me. “We operate out of Las Cruces, New Mexico, and I’m just here on business, helping another chapter of the same MC.” He paused. “There’s another gang looking to hurt me by getting to you.”

  I stared at him for a long moment. I had to admit that it all made sense. His whole demeanor, the way he wanted to remain just friends. He was just here to do some business, and then he’d be right back to his “family” in New Mexico. Because I wasn’t stupid enough to think that that family he had told me about before was real, or at least not in the way that he had talked about them. It was his MC, I was sure.

  God, how could I have been so blindly trusting of him? He even looked the part of a biker. Of course he was involved in some sort of shady MC business.

  “What the hell were you thinking, getting involved with me?” I asked in a low voice. I couldn’t help it; I was pissed at him for dragging me into this.

  Landon reached for me, but again, I took a step back. This time, it wasn’t out of fear. “Anne, please,” he said.

  I shook my head. “No,” I told him, barely controlling my temper. “I can’t believe you got me tangled up in all of this. You’re ruining my business, but what’s worse, I could have gotten seriously hurt!”

  “I’m going to make it up to you,” Landon promised. “I’m never going to let those guys hurt you. I swear. Or anyone else, for that matter.”

  It was close enough to a declaration of feelings for me that it made my eyes sting with tears. But I wasn’t going to let him see me cry. I tried to cling to the anger.

  “No,” I repeated, even more firmly this time. “I’m not going to give you a chance to make it up to me or to prove that you don’t want me to get hurt. I don’t want anything to do with you. Or your MC. Not after this.”

  “But, Anne,” Landon said, a pleading look in his eyes. “I meant it when I said that you were in danger. You can’t stay here. We don’t know how many of these guys there are. There could be more of them after you. No matter where you go, they might be after you.”

  I gave a harsh laugh. “I’m not going to stay here, but I’m not going anywhere with you either,” I told him. I had to get out of there; it felt like the place was suffocating me. I had never expected things to work out between us, but I had never expected something like this either. I had been naive. I had been an idiot.

  I practically ran out the door, ignoring the fact that Landon was still in there and that I hadn’t gotten it locked up. I might never be able to work there again if things continued along this vein. And I hated Landon for taking that away from me.

  I felt betrayed, and that was the worst part of it. He had had so many chances to tell me that he was involved in this stuff, but he hadn’t. And what’s more, he had gotten me caught up in it, too, against my will. It was worse than just a breakup. This had the potential to totally ruin my life.

  Did he really care about me at all? How the hell had I ever felt safe with him?

  I got in my car, ignoring the way he came after me and pleaded with me. I couldn’t listen, because I knew as soon as I listened to him, I was going to forgive him. It might be a silly thing to do, but I could still remember how safe I had felt that morning. How perfect it had been waking up next to him. And when I really thought about it, I knew that Landon wouldn’t let anyone hurt me. There was a reason he had been there in the nick of time to deal with these thugs. If I let him, he would keep protecting me.

  But there was someone else out there who was meant to protect me. Someone who wasn’t just a thug from some MC in New Mexico. I put the car in drive and headed straight for the police station.

  They brought me in with a detective nearly straightaway. Guess there wasn’t much bad stuff happening there in Sarasota. The thought almost made me laugh. Why was it that everyone else seemed to lead perfectly ordinary lives? I didn’t want to pity myself, but it seemed like all the bad stuff always happened to me.

  The detective sat down across from me, flipping open a notepad. “What can I do for you today?” he asked.

 
I opened my mouth, but the words didn’t come out. In order to tell the police about the three thugs at the pharmacy, I was going to need to tell them that they were after Landon. And that Landon and his brother had shown up at the pharmacy just in time to beat them up before they could hurt me.

  Then, the police would start investigating Landon. He hadn’t told me much, just that he was part of a motorcycle club, but I had seen enough TV dramas to know what that meant. The sorts of work that he was involved in, whatever it was, would be quasi-legal at best. Harassing local businesses, maybe, or possibly dealing drugs. Whatever it was, turning Landon over to the police was a sure way to get him arrested and at least investigated. And I knew the police wouldn’t be too kind to him.

  I wanted to believe that Landon deserved that. After all, he had screwed up my life and livelihood. But there was still so much of me that wanted him. I had feelings for him, gang member or not. And I couldn’t just turn him over to the police.

  I stood up, shaking my head. “I’m sorry,” I said to the detective, who looked confused. “This was a mistake.”

  I headed out of there, ignoring the detective’s sharp response. Whether he was mad that I was wasting his time or that I was obstructing justice, I didn’t know. I just knew that I couldn’t go through with this. I wanted justice. I wanted to be able to go back to work and to know that I was safe. But turning Landon into the police wasn’t the way to go about it.

  Not least of which because if Landon was behind bars, there was no one left to protect me against the other thugs that Landon seemed sure were out there. I swallowed hard, just considering that. I should never have left Landon’s side that morning, no matter how angry I was with him for not telling me the truth right from the start. But it was too late for that now, and I was too stubborn to go crawling back to him.

  If I couldn’t turn to him and I couldn’t turn to the police, I just didn’t know what to do.