Hard Love (Guns & Ink Book 2)

by Shana Vanterpool

  Madison: He’s gone. Landlord said he paid out five months in advance when he got the apartment. Funny thing about it is that the apartment’s in your name. And it’s fully furnished. What’s going on?

  My tears begged to fall, but I shoved them back so I could think. He left me his apartment? The dread in my guts made me sick with worry. Why blow his bank on a trip to Hawaii, hotel stays, and leasing out an apartment? Unless he never planned on coming back.

  I’d never fainted before. Until that exact moment and I realized what Brando planned on doing. He didn’t need money, if he wasn’t alive to spend it.

  He hadn’t taken us to Hawaii for love. He’d taken me to Hawaii. For one last war in our twisted love story.

  I woke up on the airport floor with strangers standing over me and Trixie licking my face. I denied their help and dragged us to the ticket counter. All flights were cancelled to the western states, but I managed to get a flight to Vegas. After that, I plugged in Klay’s Uber account—I was in the negative in my bank account, after having spent over two thousand dollars to get home—and drove head first into a snow storm. When I got to Brando’s apartment complex, I was out of breath, strung out on exhaustion, and motivated by heartache.

  I found the leasing office and the manager confirmed Madison’s text message. Brando leased his apartment in my name. The manager hadn’t minded, what with an all cash deposit and five months’ worth of rent.

  “So you’re saying it’s mine?” I asked, shaking the snow from my hair. Trixie was over by the water cooler sniffing the carpet.

  “All yours,” he assured, giving me an odd look. “You signed the lease, Mrs. Hawkins.” He pointed to my name on the lease. Catherine Hawkins.

  “Sure looks like I did.”

  As much as I wanted to put on my armor and pick up my sword, I didn’t know where to go. I had to figure things out. I didn’t have a key, however, but I figured if Brando was smart enough to trick me into falling over and under for him, he was smart enough to lay out a trail of breadcrumbs. I took the stairs to his apartment on the third floor. I touched my hand to his door and tried to feel him.

  But love wasn’t cultivated by touch or distance. It was grown by emotion and fed with sacrifice.

  I dropped my luggage and kneeled, searching through the contents. I’d torn my bag apart before I accepted there was no key in it. I sat on the floor in the middle of the empty apartment hallway and tried to think like a lying ex-cop who owned my damn heart.

  My eyes fell on Trixie. In my haste and the chaos of travel, I hadn’t stopped to see the gold key hanging from her collar. Right next to her purple cheetah dog tag.

  “Come here, girl.” I kissed her face, hugging her to my chest. “I miss him already. Is that crazy?” She nuzzled me. “Let’s go inside. See the rubble.”

  Brando’s apartment was in fact fully furnished. And it was so me. Black furniture with pops of color. Yellow throw pillows, a deep gold rug. A painting on the wall of a dandelion weed turning into a rose. I could see that he’d painted it. I could feel him in it. The energy of trapped emotion, the love burning on the edge of everything he felt painting it. On the corner of the painting was his signature. BH.

  He might as well have signed it on the corner of my heart.

  In a defiant act of rebellion, I decided right then and there that my heart was his. I would never seek magic in anyone else other than him. And if not him, my magic would fizzle.

  I sank onto his sofa numbly and pulled out his letter from my back pocket, rereading it. Everything we’d done in the past couple months felt like a lie. Every step he made, every choice he decided—I had to wonder why he’d done what he’d done. Quitting his job and coming out to Portland.

  Getting his own apartment only to put it in my name.

  I burned to know what was in his safe. A search of the apartment told me everything I needed to know. He’d taken it. Of course, he had. I hated that damn safe suddenly. Hated that I’d toted it around for him. Toted around his lies. I’d seen past all the signs.

  But that was the stitch, wasn’t it? Love was worth the insight, and it was stronger because of the doubt.

  Trixie and I slept in his bed, rich of his scent. I inhaled his pillow with every breath until I passed out from the tears. When I woke up, I expected to be in Hawaii. That Brando leaving me was a nightmare. But it wasn’t, unfortunately. The nightmare part was true, but the waking up and going back to paradise wasn’t.

  Trixie was sniffing around his bedroom when I woke, head pounding. Crying headaches were the worst. I tossed the covers aside and padded into the kitchen wearing the same clothes I’d worn since I left the island. He’d thought of everything to make this easier on me. The apartment was stocked with food, coffee, and booze. Everything I needed to forget him.

  I turned the coffee on and then hopped into his shower, lathering my body in his soap until I smelled of only him. The entire city was drenched in snow. I took Trixie down for a pee break. My breath clouded in the snow-covered street. I felt truly alone in that moment. Ripped free of all that I found in Hawaii.

  When I made it back upstairs, I immediately searched through his apartment. He’d barely lived in it. But he had to have left something behind other than me. After a search turned up nothing, I started to feel crazy. My reality from a few days ago, and my reality now crashed into the other. One was happy. The other was lost.

  I’d given him space, not knowing that the space I’d given him was also giving him all the room he needed to hunt.

  I ran my hand through my hair in the middle of my new apartment and hated every inch of this space. I hated being in those four walls without his storm kicking up my windfall.

  “How could he do this?” I demanded out loud.

  His intentions seemed so harsh in contrast to his heart. His heart was like mine. Damaged but alive; it beat harder when we were together. Apart, our hearts barely made a sound. Brando couldn’t possibly be hunting the men who killed his family. Why wait this long? Unless he’d had nothing to go on until now. I swallowed the betrayal—I’d deal with it later—and tried to think like him.

  A man in pain.

  I took a cup of coffee with me to the sofa and logged into the apartment’s free Wi-Fi. I opened my internet app and punched in one name. Brando Hawkins was the same on the internet as he was in real life. Stoic, cold, and dressed in a suit. Most of the articles I found tied him to Madi’s disappearance and the manhunt for her abductor. There were articles from small time newspapers listing him as a responding officer when he worked patrol, but nothing that didn’t revolve around his career. The man had a squeaky-clean past.

  He didn’t even have a Facebook page.

  Status: Broke Cat’s heart. But I still have my safe.

  “His safe,” I whispered, trying to remember what he’d said about his past.

  I opened a fresh tab in my phone’s browser and punched in Hard Riders in Texas. My heart did a fearful flip. They were in fact a motorcycle gang that spun chaos and danger in San Antonio, Texas for the better part of two decades. The article clippings were endless. Petty crimes like robbery ranging up to larger crimes like first degree murder. They put the Sons of Anarchy to shame. I typed in Hawkins Hard Riders Texas. There was nothing concrete—people were obviously afraid of the Hard Riders MC Gang—and what there was available was cryptic. Allegations on the president of the MC, Franco Hawkins, preceded by Harlow Hawkins, his brother, and Brando’s uncle.

  Then I found the news article about his family’s murder.

  Family slain two nights before Thanksgiving.

  Officers responded to a 911 call at 1713 Lowend Road in San Antonio at two in the morning with calls of shots fired. When officers entered the property, they found a bloodbath. Three homicides and one stab wound victim. The homeowner was a known gang member in the notorious motorcycle club, Hard Riders. The second responding officers engaged in a foot pursuit with two suspects, both officers perishing in the chase from gunfire.
It is not known if the slayings were gang related at this point.

  I scrolled too quickly, unaware that there were scenes from the murder included in the article.

  My heart seized at the image of a woman lying in her bed, on her back, a bullet hole in her skull. Melanie Hawkins. Beside her murder picture was a picture of her smiling. My heart stuttered at the sight of her. Her hair was golden blond and her eyes were the color of clear, blue glass. She was sweet looking. My eyes teared up at the light in her eyes, and then shot to her lifeless body. The blood on the back wall looked like a twisted abstract painting smeared in red.

  Melanie Hawkins, mother of two, slain while sleeping in her San Antonio home, execution style.

  I knew I’d hate what I found, but I kept scrolling.

  There was a murder scene photo posted about his father, Franco, shot five times in his garage in cold blood. His black hair was matted in blood. The picture beside that one was a startlingly handsome man. Dark, vibrant green eyes. Long black hair. Gorgeous and bad. I knew why his mother had fallen for him. He looked like Brando.

  Franco Hawkins, suspected member of the Hard Riders MC, found murdered in his home.

  I kept scrolling, on the edge of puking. The coffee was lead in my stomach.

  There was an image of a little boy killed much the same in his bed. My tears spilled over at the sight of his alive picture. He looked like Melanie, vibrant and alive.

  Kenny Hawkins, nine-year-old, shot execution style in his bedroom.

  The last image was of Brando. A thirteen-year-old teenager lying on the floor in a pool of his own blood. Horror was etched in his face and there was a large gaping gash on his throat where his scar was now. Paramedics were in the background, moving toward him.

  It was two nights before Thanksgiving. The anniversary of his family’s murder.

  I knew where he’d gone.

  I covered my face in my hands and choked in my sob. I forgave him immediately. Let my anger go. He hadn’t betrayed me. He’d remained loyal to his family.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Brando

  San Antonio in November could be a beautiful place.

  The sky was cloudless blue; the temperature was in the mid-eighties. But to me it would never be beautiful. It would always be the first and last place I ever truly lived.

  Angus Joel and Monty Unger. I’d waited thirteen years to find the people who killed my family. I wondered if it was a fluke or the universe giving me a gift, the night they broke into my house in Denver and shot me in my back. They’d known who I was. Why else would they break in? And they knew what I had in that safe. Why else would they risk killing me?

  What I couldn’t figure out was what tipped them off. I’d been careful, researching them when I had free time, spending my entire life since I lost my family trying to find the fuckers who took them. I quit the force. I wasn’t a cop now. I was a civilian with a bone to pick.

  I sat in my Charger across the street from my familial home. There was a beat-up, rusted truck in the back, and a tricycle on the lawn. I could remember playing baseball out front with Kenny. The thought punched me in my ribs and made it hard to breathe.

  For the longest time, I hated my father. It was his fault no matter how much I tried to put the blame on someone else. Mom begged him from the moment I was born to get out of the gang. He was only a low-level member then. He never would have been missed. But his family was born into the gang, and even love wasn’t strong enough to pull him free. He gave himself to the gang until he was voted in as president when I was ten. That’s when things started to go downhill. More killings, more danger—so many of the Hard Riders were in prison now.

  Or buried.

  The gang didn’t exist today other than the few wannabes who still wore the cut. After I killed Angus and Monty, my past would finally be buried. There was a darkness in my soul reserved for them. Maybe I never dealt with my pain, maybe I ran so far away it never caught up, and though the same could be said for the darkness, it resurfaced now with frightening ease.

  Ready to burn my world down with revenge.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Catherine

  “Please, Klay. You have no idea how much I need this.” I was so close to crying.

  “Hell no am I giving you eight hundred bucks for a flight to San Antonio. You ditched out on me and the shop to go to fucking Hawaii.” His chest rose and fell under his anger; even Madison didn’t go near him. She hung back in the living room. I’d risked the snowstorm to drive here. “What’s going on with you?”

  “You don’t understand. I have to go now if I’m going to stop him.”

  “Stop who?” He glared down at me so darkly I would have been mildly worried if I wasn’t so worried already.

  I decided honesty was my only chance here and told him everything I knew about Brando and what I thought he was going to do to the people who killed his family. “I need to stop him, Klay.” I grabbed his hands and begged him with every ounce of my soul left.

  “Call the cops. They should be the ones handling this. You’re not going down there. You could get hurt!” he roared.

  Klay’s anger masked what he really felt. And that was oftentimes fear and pain. “What would you do if Madison was on the other side of the country about to risk her life killing the man who hurt her?”

  He blanched but didn’t drop his scowl. “That’s not the same thing.”

  “Yes, it is. I need your help. If he does this, he’ll get killed or go to prison. He’ll be the bad guy. He isn’t the bad guy. He’s literally every-fucking-thing good in my world. I need him, Klay. Please.”

  “Cat,” he growled desperately. “Don’t look at me like that. This is insane, don’t you get that? Murder? Gangs? You don’t belong in a world like that. That’s why Brando took off. To protect you. Listen to him.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “Look, Klayton. I’ll get there somehow, even if I have to walk. But if I’m too late, I’ll always blame you. So you’re going to lose me anyway.” That was low, but I was desperate too. “At least give me a chance.”

  He ran both hands through his unruly brown hair and then scrubbed one over his beard, his eyes dripping worry. “Call the cops in San Antonio. Tell them everything. And then I’ll give you the money.”

  I sighed in acute relief and hugged him. “Thank you, Klay.”

  I broke the rules a bit. I called his old partner Ethan Cook instead, relaying everything I knew.

  “Shit!” Ethan cursed. “What the hell is he thinking?”

  “He’s not,” I said. “What do I do?”

  “You don’t do anything. You set one foot outside of your door and all bets are off. Do you hear me, Catherine? You don’t walk into gunfire unless you’re willing to never walk out. Give me thirty and I’ll call you back.”

  I paced Klay’s living room, ignoring Madison’s concerned gaze, and Trixie’s big brown eyes following my feet. When Ethan called back, I ducked out the front door and into the cold. “What’s up?”

  “I’ve got good news and bad news. Good news is his Charger still has GPS location with the police department. I tracked it to a hotel in San Antonio. Bad news is it’s out of my jurisdiction and the police department in San Antonio won’t move in without cause. Does this have anything to do with the men who broke into his house?” he guessed.

  I closed my eyes in realization. “They were going after his safe.”

  “They got away. We never identified them. How did he?” Ethan asked.

  “Maybe he just knew. Brando has this weird ability to read between the lines. Or maybe he recognized them. He saw the men who tried to kill him.”

  “There’s not much more I can do,” he said, a sad edge to his tone. “We have to wait for Brando to resurface.”

  I refused to fall victim to his negativity. There was always something more to be done. Brando deserved it. “What’s the name of the hotel?”

  “Catherine,” he warned.

  “I’m
not afraid of gunfire, Ethan. I’m afraid of never seeing him again. Tell me where the fucking hotel is!”

  He sighed, the heaviness of it whirring on the other end. “I’ll text you the address.”

  I had to stop a good man from doing something bad.

  There was no return from murder. Revenge was a savage beast. It was soulless. I’d felt it too many times to count after being raped. I dreamed of all the ways I’d make him pay at my lowest points. I knew how twisted up revenge could make you. How it could start to alter your choices. Make you think it was worth the years of suffering later.

  But revenge was wrong. It wasn’t worth the pain later. Not when we had suffered through so much already.

  When I came back into the apartment, Klay was standing on the other side of the door, check in hand. I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything. He’d never appreciate my thanks anyway. He didn’t do good things for the pat on the back. He did them so they’d matter later.

  “Take care of Trixie?” I asked, two hours later, a fresh bag packed and over my shoulder.

  Madi nodded, holding her on her lap. “I’ll make sure Klay doesn’t throw her away.”

  Klay snorted, sitting beside her on the couch. But his eyes were grave. “Be safe, Catherine. Do you fucking hear me?”

  I didn’t answer. There was a time when Klayton was my whole world. Now Brando was. Walking into his storm wasn’t dangerous. Not coming out of it with him was. I backtracked, taking an Uber down to Reno to catch a flight down to San Antonio. By the time I landed in Texas, it was close to midnight. The heat rising off the asphalt belied winter.

  It felt like danger clung to the heat in the air. I caught a cab to the hotel, checking the distance between where the murders occurred from the hotel. They were within walking distance. My heart fell. The road beside both was a major interstate. Hop on that after giving up his soul and fade away forever.