by Wilde, Kati
Goose.
I stare at my brother’s waxy face with the rage inside me spinning in all directions. The others are quiet. Just Blowback, Stone, and Gunner are here. “How?”
“A needle in his arm.”
But if Stone brought him here instead of leaving Goose where he was found, that means this is something the Hellfire Riders are going to take care of. It’s not just an overdose. “Who found him?”
“His old lady,” Stone says. “He was out in their backyard shed. She called me.”
Cheryl. “Where is she?”
“I took her to stay with Old Timer and Helena.”
Where she’d be both protected and under watch, if she had anything to do with this. I cover Goose’s face. “A needle? He smokes his shit. When did he start shooting up?”
“He doesn’t. And that’s not all.” Blowback looks fucking grim. On him, that expression means this is all worse than I thought. “He had crank in his stash. I expected that. There was also $50K of heroin.”
Goose is too small-time to have that amount stashed away. Which means it was planted. The back of my neck tightens, as if I can feel an enemy creeping around behind me. If Cheryl had called the cops instead of calling Stone, the Riders would be undergoing a real hard look from the authorities right now. “Did you go through the clubhouse?”
“Yeah. Had the brothers clean it out. There’s nothing that they couldn’t personally account for.”
“The Den?”
“I found more heroin in the freezer. Just a little. But I bet it’s the same batch.”
So the Eighty-Eight isn’t just going after the Riders now. They’re specifically targeting me.
And they already got Goose. I look into the truck. “What are we doing for him?”
“Cheryl says he always talked about a Viking funeral. A boat burning on the water.”
“Get it for him. Let’s take this out of here.”
We head out into Stone’s back yard. The sun is hot as fuck, and the bright shine feels like an axe blade right between my eyes. Dropping into a deck chair, I pop a beer and ignore the splitting pain. “Was Goose the one talking?”
“He was,” Gunner says. “Cheryl gave us his phone. He was sending regular messages about where we were going on runs, when you left the clubhouse, all kinds of shit.”
Anger boils in my gut. He betrayed us. That’s fucking hard to take. “And he kept the messages?”
“They were twisting his arm. He apparently owed them money. Maybe he was keeping track of what he was paying back.”
Blowback fills the chair opposite. “They went after him.”
“What do you mean?”
“They saw his weakness—his addiction. He was clean, wasn’t he? Then he was using again. I’m guessing they targeted him. They don’t have the fucking balls to come after us. They go for the weak spot.” My veep leans back, shaking his head. “I told him I was watching him. Gave him that warning. He passed it on to them, let them know he had to be careful.”
And his usefulness to them was suddenly gone—except as the star in one last play. Now I have to decide how to spin it around. “How many know that he was passing on info?”
“Just us.”
And Red knew someone was leaking info, but not who. I could smooth this out with him.
“No matter what Goose was doing, he was ours.” His fate might have ended up the same but it should have come from us, his brothers—not the fucking Eighty-Eight. “They’re going to keep trying to take us out in these little fucktwit ways. It’s not enough to push them past the county line; we’re going to have to raze their house. But we need the Titans for that and I don’t want this shit about Goose raising doubts about Rider loyalty.”
“We’re with you on that, boss,” Stone says and Gunner nods.
Blowback adds, “It’s not the only doubt.”
The ache in my head grows. “Don’t you fucking say a word about the First Lady clause. Not now.”
“Someone’s going to say it. They’re going to put it up for a vote and decide whether it matters, and if you get even one holdout saying you’ve got to follow through—and then if you don’t follow through—that’s going to undermine every decision you make from here on out. It’ll just take one vote.”
“So I’ll rewrite the fucking Constitution.”
“It doesn’t matter now,” Gunner says quietly and I know he’s right.
The anger in my gut rolls into something heavy and sick. My head is fucking pounding.
He continues, “It doesn’t matter which way you go, the talk is going to twist the other way. You had most of them after the meeting. The two clauses are in conflict. Then just one fucker says that it’s not the clauses in conflict, but that your woman isn’t worthy.”
“Fuck that.”
“We’re not arguing,” Stone says. “But it’s not even just Knucklehead or Burnout anymore. It’s just fucking talk, but it’s growing. You change the Constitution, your word is no good. You ignore their vote to see the clause through, your woman is no good—and if you stay with her after, that means you’re ignoring the Constitution. And if you can say ‘fuck the rules’ then they will, too.”
“If they say Jenny’s not worthy, I’m going to walk.” I say it quietly but it hits them hard. I don’t fucking care. I’m going to lay it out now. “But it won’t matter because there won’t be anything to walk away from. She’s Red Erickson’s daughter. It’s going to be rough enough bringing the Titans in. They’re going with it now but if we say Red’s daughter is unworthy it’ll blow the whole fucking deal. And what’ll we have left? Three dozen assholes who are squabbling over seeing a woman get fucked. You think the Eighty-Eight won’t pick up on that? Find someone with enough resentment to stick a few kilos of coke in our house? To poison the taps at the Den? To build a fucking bomb? They’ll pick us off one by one.”
“You’re not wrong,” Blowback says.
“You’re not,” Stone agrees and shoves his hand through his hair. “Have you put this in front of Jenny?”
I stare at him. “You mean ask her to do it?”
“Would she?”
“It doesn’t fucking matter if she would. I’m not going to lay this on her. Her father’s fucking dying, you know that? She’s spent months terrified and watching her back, because Reichmann’s after her. Now I’m going to tell her that my brothers have their heads so far up their asses that I need her to save my club by fucking me in front of them?”
“You think she’d walk?”
Pain rips through my chest. I don’t know. She loves me. But she doesn’t need me as much as I need her. And she doesn’t need this shit piled on top of everything else she’s dealing with. She’d be better off going than sticking with me—and I wouldn’t blame her if she did. “You start spreading the word that we’ll lose the Titans if anyone says she isn’t worthy. You use Goose to rile them up and make them understand that if they really want to see the Eighty-Eight bleed, we need to be as strong as possible. Maybe they’ll have enough sense to let this go.”
Gunner nods. “We’ll spread it.”
Yet I see their doubt. Not doubting me, but thinking that in our next meeting when we vote on whether I’ll need to observe the First Lady clause, there’s going to be some holdout who says he’s standing on principle when he’s really standing on a pile of shit. Someone who doesn’t give a fuck about that clause, but who just wants to be right and it won’t matter that there’s no sense in what he’s standing behind. I stood behind Zoomie joining because her service to this country meant something. The First Lady clause doesn’t mean anything; it was just Lucifer stroking his dick.
And I’m going to lose my club over it.
My brothers here see it. They’re all fucking pissed by it. But there’s not a fucking thing that we can do about it that we haven’t already done.
So I’ll take care of business and clean up my house, leaving my brothers in as strong a position as I can give them. Then I’ll take t
he ride that doesn’t bring me back.
At least I’ll be riding toward Jenny.
There’s nothing else left to say. I finish my beer and take my leave. My bike is parked out front and my gut feels hollowed out as I walk through Stone’s house.
And she’s here. Jenny. Pulling up in her truck with Anna in the passenger seat.
Her smile is bright and beautiful as she bounds out of the rig and comes for me. “Hey! I didn’t think I’d see you for another day!” Her smile fades as she nears me. Her step slows. “Is everything all right?”
I can’t answer. Catching her against my chest, I kiss her long and deep, until the ache inside me eases. My throat feels like sandpaper when I let her go and my voice is hoarse when I ask, “Can you stay with me tonight?”
“Yes. Of course, yes.” Her worried gaze searches my eyes. “What’s going on?”
I bury my face in her hair and breathe deep. “I just need you,” I say.
• • •
Jenny
I shouldn’t be doing this.
Hayden’s Auto sits in front of my idling truck. It’s early. I haven’t slept and that might be why I’m contemplating something so stupid.
But something’s not right. Saxon’s a hard man to read but I don’t think I mistook the bleak pain that flattened his eyes every time he looked away from me. Goose is dead, but I don’t think that’s the reason he’s hurting. At least, I don’t think it’s the only reason. Instead I think it’s closer to something Anna mentioned.
Lily was right. The talk had shifted. Anna heard the brothers question whether I’d be worthy. But in what she was saying, I heard something else: They were questioning whether Saxon would keep his word.
I’ve been around MCs for a long time. I know what it means when doubts trickle in. No matter how small they begin, they roll on top of each other like a snowball loaded with shit and boulders. Everyone in its path either gets crushed or comes out stinking.
But I know what Saxon would say. It’s nothing.
I think Blowback will tell me whether it really is or not.
Steeling my spine, I make myself leave my truck. Blowback has an apartment over the garage, but I’m glad when I see a light downstairs. I knock on the door to the reception office and Blowback opens it a few seconds later, his hands black with grease and his eyes as empty as death.
I’m not comfortable with him. Not afraid—though maybe I should be. But the way he just looks through me makes me want to squirm. I know what he sees right now, though: A woman who was fucked all night by a man desperate to touch her. A woman who left him pounding a heavy bag and sweat dripping down his back. A woman who wonders why the man she loves looks as if he’s about to lose everything.
When I was in my truck, I’d been trying to imagine how to begin—to try to acknowledge that Blowback wouldn’t talk club business but ask him to anyway. But all of that doesn’t really matter. Only one thing does.
“Do I need to do it?”
He studies me again, as if I’ve surprised him and he has to reassess. “Can you?”
With Saxon, in front of others? Yes. I don’t know if I’d really enjoy it or get past my embarrassment, but if I’m with him, I know I’d feel safe. Could I let the others touch me, though?
A cold tremor rolls through me as my body instinctively rejects the thought. But I’ve done it before. I wasn’t a virgin with Saxon. When I was younger, I thought I could just force my way through the terror. That magically the fear would go away if I just let a guy fuck me. So twice—once about twelve years ago, and again a year later—I made myself lie there and bear it. I can bear it again.
“Yes,” I say and I don’t think Blowback believes me. I don’t care if he does. “Is he going to lose the club if I don’t?”
He doesn’t want to answer that. But he finally responds. “Sooner or later. Probably sooner, because he’ll walk.”
My eyes are burning. The club made Saxon feel a part of something when he was injured and in a bad place. But I know that’s not the only reason it matters to him. They’re his brothers. Some might be assholes, but leaving the Riders would be like ripping out part of himself.
“Are there any other options?”
Blowback nods. “He leaves you.”
Shit. Shit. All at once I’m crying and I can’t stop it. “He won’t.”
“No.”
“Because he’ll keep his word. They’re fucking saying he won’t, but he’ll go with me even if he’d rather stay.”
“Yes.”
And then what? Oh, God. Despair suddenly rips me open and I’m bawling into my hands, just fucking bawling while Blowback looks on as if I’m folding laundry. If Saxon walks away so that he can keep his promise to protect me, how long before he begins wishing that he never had?
But it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. Because it won’t happen. I’m not going to let him walk.
I lift my head out of my hands. My breath comes in hot shudders and my chest feels hollowed out. Empty.
Determination is slowly filling it. “Will they have a leg to stand on if the terms of the First Lady clause are fulfilled?”
There’s suddenly a glint of life in that flat gaze. Surprise? Admiration? I don’t know.
“No,” he says. “It’ll cut their legs out from beneath them.”
I nod and take a deep breath. “All right, then. What exactly needs to happen—and when is the next meeting?”
Chapter Seven
Saxon
Blowback is texting while the hands go up on the Titans vote. Unanimous. If the Titans vote the same way, they’re in. It’s what I wanted and yet right now I’m not celebrating. I’m five seconds away from slamming my fist into my veep’s face. Texting as I call for a vote. Showing such fucking disrespect. On today, of all fucking days, because as soon as the next item of business is finished the First Lady clause goes up to vote, and I’ll probably be walking away.
Widowmaker begins reading the next item on the agenda. I rub my eyes and pinch the bridge of my nose. My head is pounding. I can barely fucking hear him. Then I realize he’s not talking. He’s just silent. Everyone is silent. And they’re looking toward the entrance leading from the garage.
Jenny is standing there.
My heart slams right up against my ribs. Why the hell is she here? Is she hurt? Being chased by the Eighty-Eight? I come up off my stool but she doesn’t look afraid. Her chin is up and she…
Looks fucking amazing. A black dress with two tiny shoulder straps fits her like a glove from her tits to her upper thighs. She’s wearing heels that make her legs seem endless. Her hair is loose and hanging down in thick waves, and I’ve never seen her eyes so smoky or her lips so red.
She focuses on me and starts coming. My brain lurches ahead like a choked engine. She’s here, looking like that. And Blowback was just texting.
Letting her know when to come in?
Anger slams through me like a runaway train. I whirl on him, fists clenched. “If you said a fucking word to her—”
“She came to me,” he interrupts evenly.
This isn’t going to fucking happen. I push away from my seat and head her off. Her eyes are on me, her shoulders back, and she walks past the club members as if she doesn’t give a fuck, but does she think I can’t see how nervous she is?
I meet her halfway. She grips the edges of my kutte and smiles up at me but I don’t let her get a word out. “Come with me.”
“Saxon—”
“My house,” I snap out and I’ve never been this ripped up. So pissed. So fucking overwhelmed. She would give this to me? I would never ask for it. Yet she just offers it as if it’s something I deserve. “You’re quiet until we’re upstairs and we can talk about this.”
She seems suddenly twice as nervous. Her teeth catch her bottom lip as she nods. I know I’m being too rough but I can’t deal with this. Not here.
I lead her toward the stairs climbing to the loft that serves as the executive board’s
private space but I don’t miss the grins that flash across some of the brothers’ faces. They’re watching her walk away. But not looking at her ass, I realize. She’s got four words embroidered down the back of her dress.
Property of Saxon Gray.
Jesus Christ. She’s going to fucking break me.
• • •
Jenny
I’m not going to throw up. I’m not going to throw up.
It’s been my mantra since I woke up this morning, yet I’m more nervous now that I was walking into the clubhouse. Saxon’s expression burned with rage when he turned on Blowback, but now it’s the dark and mean look that says he’s barely holding onto his control. And since he’s taking me up to the loft to talk—not just hustling me away from the clubhouse—I’m not just nervous but feeling guilty. I should have warned him I was coming. We should have talked it out before I sprung this on him.
I know why I didn’t, though. I was afraid that he would say the clause was nothing and that I would let him persuade me that was true. I was afraid that I’d take the easy way out.
He leads me into the conference room and shuts the door. With a sigh, he asks, “What are you doing, Jenny?”
“Cutting the legs out from beneath anyone who intends to hurt my man.”
His eyes gleam a little at that. “They aren’t doing it to hurt me.”
“They’re just stupid, then?”
A short laugh breaks from him but it deepens into a groan. He pinches the bridge of his nose and shakes his head. “Maybe. Fuck.”
That sounds resigned, not angry. “You’re not just going to forbid it? Or tell me it’s nothing?”
“I was going to. I was going to say that there was no fucking way this was going to happen.” Dark blue eyes steady on mine, he crosses his arms over his broad chest. “But I’ll lay it out, Jenny. It’s easy for me to sit out there and let you ride my cock. And I’m not one to pass up an opportunity. I would never have asked for this from you, but I’m not going to throw this gift back in your face. I’m also not going to make this decision for you.”