by Mia Miles
We pulled to the edge of the parking lot, with Mr. Jones’ goons training their guns on us. They hadn’t fired, and they surely could have squeezed a couple of shots off before anyone got them. We weren’t ready to drop them, not like that. I still wanted to give Spade a chance to call us.
We parked, killed our bikes, and waited. I held my hand up to hold everyone back. The suits looked at each other as if they were confused about what we were doing.
My phone rang, and I pulled it out to find a number I didn’t recognize calling me. I handed the phone to Ren and swiped to accept the call.
“This is Ren,” my president said. He sat and listened quietly for a moment with a contemplative look on his face.
Then, he looked at me and nodded. I got up with the other guys, and we walked toward the door with our guns drawn, aimed at the two men guarding it.
“Put your weapons down,” I said calmly, shifting my gun to reinforce what I was telling them to do. They dropped their weapons and kicked them our way. They put their hands up after they did.
“Turn around,” Jay said as he reached down to grab their guns.
Roach popped them in the back of the head with the butt of his riffle, knocking them out. We didn’t want to have to kill anyone if we didn’t have to, especially if we were waiting on some sort of law enforcement backup.
Ren walked up and handed me the phone back. I took it and checked the screen.
“He said to do whatever we needed to do and to let him know if we need any help,” he told me.
“Good.” I nodded. Vicky had come through.
Just then a text came through on my phone from her. Got a few FBI field agents on their way. Get in and out. I showed the text to Ren.
“Alright, guys, look, we need to make this quick,” he announced.
Everyone looked up and turned to him, nodding in agreement. They looked surprised to hear him taking charge the way he was, but that was what he did sometimes. He’d just suddenly become our president again.
While he explained his plan, I texted Vicky back. Got an ETA?
5 min.
“You’re shitting me,” I said aloud.
“What?” Ren asked.
“We gotta cut it short, guys. We have to get in there now and get Missy. Vicky says they’ll be here in about five.”
Ren looked at me and almost looked horrified.
“We got it, man,” I told him. “Hop back on the bike and wait for us.” I turned to the other guys. “We’re going in,” I told them, holding my gun back up.
“One problem,” Jay said with his hand on the door.
“What’s that?”
“It only opens from the inside apparently. Or with a key,” he told me, pulling on it.
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.” I laughed hoarsely. “This is too much. Back up.”
I aimed at the door as he stepped aside, figuring I’d try to shoot the lock off so we could get in. I pulled the trigger and hit the lock dead on. Jay tried again, but it still wouldn’t budge.
As he stepped back and I took aim again, the door flew open. I immediately lowered my gun, not knowing who was going to head out that door. I held my hand up to hold everyone else back and to keep them from shooting. There were only three people I knew it could have been.
Then, the strawberry waves and blue eyes I’d been waiting to see came out. I slid my gun under my belt and caught Missy in my arms as she fled the building, crying.
“It’s okay,” I told her, smoothing down her hair.
Then, from within, we heard a gunshot, and she flinched. I waved my hand to signal to everyone that we were done and needed to get on our bikes before things really got ugly for us. The FBI was going to be there any minute, and we had to hit the road before we were spotted. The last thing we needed to do was answer any questions.
Still, it felt wrong leaving the scene without a fight. It almost felt like we were fleeing ahead of Missy’s father. Really, we were getting out of the way so law enforcement could handle its job without any of us getting in trouble.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Missy
Alone in the room, I glanced at my wrist and waited to make sure they weren’t coming right back in there with me. The doctor had unbuckled the strap around my wrist and just left it there, ready for me to pull my arm out. I was surprised no one had noticed.
While I waited to make sure it was safe for me to leave, I heard the motorcycles coming. Cutter was on his way for me. At least I knew there was one man in my life I could count on to be on my side when shit went wrong. I pulled my arm out of the strap and unstrapped my other wrist and ankles from the operating table.
Then, I heard Alec’s men running down the hallway toward the door. It sounded like they had their guns drawn. I got off the table and walked over to the door. I listened for any sign of what was really going on.
“No, you’re going to wait right here,” I heard Alec say, presumably to his doctor.
I stuck my head out into the hallway to see where he was. I couldn’t see him, but I imagined he had the doctor with a gun to the man’s head. Thankfully, no one had thought to check on me yet. That gave me some freedom to leave, but I was still nervous. It would only take a moment for any of them to think about me.
I heard the motorcycles get louder all of a sudden as Alec’s two associates opened the back door and stepped outside. I could still hear him talking to the doctor down at the other end of the hall, his voice little more than a distant, threatening growl.
I looked down both ends of the hallway. I didn’t know which way to go. There was only one way out that I knew about, and even it didn’t seem safe, but I knew I stood a better chance against those two guys with guns than against the man who wanted my child out of his life.
Did he really think I was going to be able to look him in the face when all of this was said and done and call him dad or daddy again? Alec had given that up by threatening my child. I hoped he didn’t think I hadn’t noticed that my mother was missing in all of this. She wouldn’t have stood for the shit he was trying to pull. I didn’t know where she was, but I was pretty sure she didn’t know what was going on. Hell, for all I knew, he had her tied up somewhere back at the house. He might have had a third person at the house watching her. That was always an option as well, I figured.
I stepped into the hallway and walked down to the backdoor. It was still open, and I could see the two men standing there, talking, with their guns out. I took a deep breath. I was going to need to do something to get past them, but I didn’t know what to do. I knew they wouldn’t have heard me if I had decided to approach them with the noise from the motorcycle engines outside.
Then, the motors stopped. One of the guys pushed the door closed. I stopped dead still. Behind me, Alec was still growling at the doctor, probably accusing him of calling the bikers out to stop him. Who the hell knew?
I took a deep breath and started walking toward the door again. Outside, it was dead silent. I imagined a quiet face-off between the guys and the bikers. I wondered who was going to shoot first. It would have been stupid for those two gunmen to think they could do anything against Cutter and his men.
For one, they were outnumbered. And knowing what little I knew about motorcycle clubs, I figured they were probably outgunned as well by Cutter and the rest of the Renegade Lions. Still, I should have heard something, right?
I stood and listened, knowing that at any moment, the asshole who called himself my father was going to get curious about what was going on and come to the back or at least go to check on me in the operating room.
I heard a shot. Outside.
I stepped back from the door. There wasn’t another shot, so I quickly pushed the door open and found Cutter standing there with a few other guys from the MC. He grabbed me and pulled me to his bike.
Before his engine roared to life, we all heard a gunshot from inside. I closed my eyes, hoping it wasn’t my father. In spite of everything he’d done, he w
as still my father. And because of everything he’d done, I didn’t want him to be able to take an easy way out. I also didn’t want the doctor who had helped me escape to have to go out like that.
“Why are we leaving?” I asked Cutter.
“Your father has company coming, and we don’t want to be around for it.” He gunned the engine and I threw my arms around his waist.
I didn’t know if being on the back of his bike was a bad idea or not in my condition. I hadn’t been a good mom-to-be, but I made a silent promise to myself and to my son that once I got back to safety, I was going to be a much better mom. I was going to start taking care of my body so that I could take better care of that baby.
I had someone else counting on me, and I had to be there for them.
I glanced back over my shoulder as everyone pulled out of the parking lot. We were pulling out the rear entrance as several black cars with blacked out windows pulled into the front. They looked federal, like FBI agents. They got out of their cars and stormed the building, guns drawn.
I hugged Cutter tighter and rested my head on his back as we sped away from the scene. I saw why he hadn’t wanted to stay around. I didn’t imagine anyone in an MC wanted to talk much to the feds. I was also sure the feds must have known who had tipped them off.
We pulled up to the clubhouse a little while later. My whole body felt shaken. He’d only taken me out on his motorcycle once before. It probably wasn’t the best idea for me to be riding one, but I figured it couldn’t have hurt the baby too much. I would have felt it, surely.
I was shaking when I got off the bike. I couldn’t tell if it was from the ride or from the adrenaline rush. I had been just a few minutes away from starting an abortion, a few minutes away from losing my baby. It really hit me how close I had been and how lucky I was that Cutter and the other guys had arrived when they did.
I threw my arms around his neck before we walked inside. I was overwhelmed with gratitude for everything he had done. Everything. He had spared me from having to get on stage with those other girls and offered me a place to stay. All I had to do was share his bed, and that had quickly become so much more. He’d offered me more than just sex. He’d offered me more than a roof over my head.
“What’s that for?” he asked, laughing as we pulled back from our embrace.
“Everything,” I told him. “You have given me a chance at a new life.”
He looked into my eyes, and I saw how much my words meant to him. I ran a hand gently over his cheek, and he smiled at my touch. He turned his face and kissed my fingers as they slid down past his lips.
“Get a room,” Jay said, nudging his MC brother as he walked past us.
“Hey, Jay,” I said, stopping him.
“What’s up, Missy?” he asked.
“I wanted to thank you, both of you, for giving me the opportunity you have. Is there still a place for me in your office?”
Jay glanced at Cutter, as if he had to ask his brother’s permission to give me my job back. Cutter nodded slightly at him.
“There’s always a place for you, Missy, and I’d be happy to have you back whenever you’re ready to return,” he said.
I turned from Cutter and put my arms around Jay’s sides. Jay was massive. He was the size of a bear, but he was solid muscle. I couldn’t get my arms around him, but his arms reached around me, and he smothered me in a hug.
“Thanks, Jay.”
“No problem.” He smiled as he walked off, leaving me standing there with Cutter.
We looked at each other for a moment. So much had happened so quickly that we really didn’t know what to say anymore. There was just too much for either of us to take it all in quickly enough to say something to the other.
“Hey, look, I don’t think I ever apologized for leaving the way I did,” I said.
“You didn’t need to,” he assured me. “You panicked. Coming home was apology enough.” He put an arm around my shoulder and pulled me close to him. He kissed the top of my head.
“I just… I’m sorry,” I said. I buried my face in his chest. There wasn’t a whole lot else to say yet. I was just glad to be back where I belonged, back in his arms, back with my Renegade Lions family.
We walked into the clubhouse and were met by the cheers and applause of the members who were hanging out. There was food – more grilled steak and baked potatoes, the usual for those guys. Plates were passed around to everyone by some of the girlfriends and old ladies.
“So, this is what family feels like,” I said under my breath as we sat down on one of the leather couches around the room.
“I suppose so,” he told me. “Welcome home, baby.” He kissed me on the cheek and turned to his food.
“It looks good,” I said.
“It’s always good. You know that,” he added.
It was always good. I knew that everything wasn’t always going to be great. I knew there were going to be struggles ahead. I knew I could never go back the way I came, and I didn’t have any desire to anymore. I had seen what kind of man my father really was, and I wasn’t interested in having anything to do with him again at that point. I figured it was best to let the FBI handle him, until someone somewhere decided it was time to handle him for good. Maybe that wasn’t the right way to feel about my father, but he’d led me to my real family, and I didn’t need him anymore.
I looked around the room at the men and women eating, talking, laughing, and having a few drinks with their food. I looked at all the leather, the ink-covered arms, chests, hands, and necks. I was sure each person in their probably had their own stories to tell, but I was sure they all had something in common. They were all loyal to one another, and they all had trouble dealing with people who didn’t accept or understand that kind of loyalty.
They may have had alternative ways of handling things – they certainly didn’t call the cops to handle situations they could handle on their own, and I would have been willing to put money on the fact that they called the MC when they couldn’t handle their problems. They may have had different ways of making a living, or a killing in some cases. But no matter how they lived their lives, no matter how they made money, they treated each other like family. They stuck by each other in good times and bad.
And they really did stick together, unlike my family had done.
“What are you thinking about?” Cutter’s voice interrupted me, lowly, almost as if he were in my head.
“Just how lucky I am to be here. I took a chance that night, a shot in the dark, when I walked into your club and asked about the dancing gig.” I didn’t look at him while I was talking. I didn’t want to lose myself in his eyes. I had lost myself enough, I thought. I wanted to stay grounded.
He laughed. “You looked so scared when you came in there. I thought to myself, this little kid needs to go home to her daddy.”
I chuckled. “How ironic. That was exactly what I was running from.” I leaned against him while I laughed.
“Well, I’m glad we took a chance on each other,” Cutter added. “I think it paid off very well for both of us.”
“You think?” I asked, turning my head to look into his face.
He nodded. “I’m pretty sure. And I’m pretty sure things are only going to get better from here. The worst, my love, has ended. Now, eat, before it gets cold.” He winked as he carved off another piece of his steak.
Epilogue
Missy
“I just need your signature here, and here,” Vicky said, standing over me at the desk in Cutter’s office back at his club, The Bare Cut. She wore her trademark black suit with a blood red blouse underneath the jacket. She had become a fixture around the MC, helping the Renegade Lions make sure that all of their legal business was on the up-and-up. She had even minimized police harassment, which everyone thought was nearly impossible.
Now, she was overseeing a new partnership. The contract she asked me to sign was one authorizing the transfer of half of Cutter’s ownership of the club over to me.
I was now his partner at The Bare Cut. Or, I was going to be as soon as I signed the papers and handed them back to her. I scrawled my signature at the bottom of the last two pages of the contract and set the pen down on the desk.
It was happening. I was really happening. I thought he’d been joking about it at first, but he hadn’t.
“There it is,” Vicky said with as much happiness in her voice as I figured anyone had ever probably heard.
She shook Cutter’s hand, and turned to shake mine. Cutter started to stand up to escort her out, but she put her hand out to stop him.
“You two have some celebrating to do, I would imagine,” she said. “Congratulations! You are now business partners.”