by Kati Wilde
Of course she did. It’s beyond her to think any Cooper might willingly sacrifice his legacy and future children. “I didn’t fake it.”
“I don’t believe it, man.” Laughing, he shakes his head—but his reason for doubting is different than my mother’s. He can’t imagine any man voluntarily undergoing the operation, because he never would. “But it doesn’t matter. Mama made sure those conjugal visits between Adam and his wife bore fruit. Benjamin and I took care of that; we can do the same for your woman.”
Just stand back and watch my brothers breed my wife. Jesus. Sometimes I think my family can’t sink any lower, then they surprise me by digging the hole deeper.
And I’m done here. I finish my beer, get to my feet.
I stop short when he reaches for my arm, his fingers wet with the girl’s pussy juices. Quickly he grins again, pulls his hands back in a placating gesture.
“Just a heads-up,” he says and I pay attention, because his amusement’s gone—and no matter how fucked up our family is, maybe because of how fucked up our family is, he’ll look out for me. A heads-up means there’s a threat lurking. “These fuckers I’m doing business with, they told me you were up in the ring today. You won your fight?”
“Yeah.”
“You ought to stop doing that. Winning, I mean.”
The back of my neck tightens. “Why?”
“You’ll need to wear a different kutte before I tell you that.” His smile is hard. “You come home and maybe we’ll talk.”
Fuck that. “Who you doing business with?”
“Blind fuckers, that’s who.” Now his amusement’s back. “But I guess I’ve got to thank them for that. They mistook you for me a little while ago and tipped me off to where you were.”
“Who?”
He shakes his head. “Come home.”
That’s not a price I’m willing to pay. And I’m giving him too much by pressing for the club’s name. It’s never smart to let the family know you want something.
I’m pretty damn sure I already know which club it is, anyway. All at once, my memory of the scene on the street with the Iron Blood starts playing another way. Paladin doesn’t watch us because he wants to fuck with Stone after losing to him in the ring. No, he’s looking at me, thinking I’m Strawman. And Chef doesn’t pull Paladin back because he’s smart enough not to start a fight. Instead the enforcer recognizes that I’m not wearing the right kutte.
Shit. It could be nothing.
But it doesn’t feel like nothing.
Still, I’m not giving Strawman any more of my time. Stepping around him, I head for the bar.
His farewell follows me. “See you soon, little brother.”
Not if I can help it.
My brain’s working over the heads-up again as I close out the tab. Old Timer’s going to have our ass when we turn in the expense report, but if my gut response to this info about the Iron Blood pans out, it’ll be the first new lead we’ve had in connection to the Cage. Well worth the cash we spent.
The motel lies a short hike up the main drag. Inside the room, the featured amenities are a shag carpet and a sagging mattress. I’ve slept in worse. And a short time ago, I wanted nothing more than to get my ass into bed, but my adrenaline’s still coursing after meeting with Strawman. My body’s not ready to settle, though the crash will come soon enough.
I don’t want to sleep with his filth on me, anyway. I’ve done some questionable shit in my time—hell, I even crawled through shit during a few combat operations—but nothing leaves me feeling dirtier than crossing paths with the family. Not because they rub off on me but because I remember how I used to be exactly the same. And how some part of me still is.
That filth doesn’t wash off, but I’ve spent seventeen years trying.
In the bathroom, the ancient pipes shriek and groan when I turn on the shower. Waiting for the water to heat, I grab my phone with the intention of texting Stone.
Anna’s face pops up after the security screen. The photo Stone sent me earlier.
My chest tightens. Jesus. What if I’d pulled this out while my brother was looking? Nothing I said about Anna would have made a goddamn difference if her selfie was right there in my hand.
So fucking careless. I always delete every photo Stone sends right after I get it. I look, I memorize, I erase. No matter how much I want to keep every single one. But I didn’t erase this.
What was I thinking? I wasn’t thinking.
Or maybe I was thinking that if I could take her out just once, if I could have one kiss, maybe I’d get to keep this photo, too.
But I won’t get any of those. Not with my family watching. Not with them already focused on her.
Fucking hell.
My throat’s a solid ache as I step into the shower and stand under the hot stream, head bowed, fists braced against the plastic tile. Eyes closed, I hold that image of Anna in my mind, slowly letting all the other shit go. I see her brown eyes, striated with gold and sparkling with irritation, her hair spread out on that big red rug.
A few months ago, she brought that rug home from an estate sale by tying it to the top of her Prius like a canoe, then she recruited Stone and me to carry it into the house for her. She’s never afraid to commandeer the use of our muscle in her renovation project. Over the years, we’ve hung drywall, wrestled solid oak furniture up the stairs, installed kitchen cabinets, and held steady a dozen big picture frames while she leveled them off. Each time she thanked us with a beer or a meal—or both, depending on how hard the job was and how much time it took.
Each time I imagined her thanking me a different way.
And it’s so easy to slip into that now, fisting my stiffening cock in a soap-slicked hand. Holding her image in my head, watching her eyes go from irritated to soft. Watching her bite her lower lip, like she does when she’s got something to say but isn’t sure if she should say it. Watching my fingers slide into her thick hair, feeling the rough texture of that rug against my knuckles, then claiming her mouth, because she doesn’t need to say anything. She sure as hell never needs to say ‘thank you’ to me.
But I’d take it. Because I’d take anything she gave.
I’d take her soft, breathy moans and the heat of her mouth. I’d take the grip of her hand stroking my thick cock, her palm softer than mine, her fingers teasing—not jerking on my shaft in the same rough pulls that I’m doing, savagely fucking into my fist, imagining her smiling up at me, knowing exactly how she’s driving me crazy, and looking as if she’s never needed anything more than she needs me.
Looking at me as if I’m everything.
And— Fuck.
The orgasm rips the image away, rips everything away. Abs clenching like I’ve been punched, I curl over, my left hand slapping the tile as I come hard enough to see spots behind my eyes, my cock jerking in my fist.
For a long minute, I stand under the cooling water, my chest heaving. Jesus. I didn’t even get to the part where I’m buried deep inside her pussy. All because I imagined her looking at me as if she loved me.
With unsteady fingers, I angle the shower head down and rinse the cum away. The hell of it all is, as much as I want her to look at me like that, this is better. This torture—of wanting her, of knowing I’m just her brother’s friend, of staying away from her—is better than the alternative. Because if she loved me? If she was hurting like this, dreaming of a single touch she knew she’d never have, praying for a single loving look from me? I don’t know what the fuck I’d do.
Except that’s a lie. I do know.
I’d go after my brothers. I’d go after my mother. I’d make sure they could never touch her. I’d break every single hold they have over me. I’d break them hard, I’d break them bloody.
And lose Anna anyway. To prison…or because she couldn’t accept a man who killed his entire family in cold blood. Even if I did it for her.
So this pain—of not having her, of knowing I never will—is better than the hell of losing her comple
tely.
At least she’s safe.
I wrap a towel around my waist and leave the shower. Without stopping to look at it again, I erase her photo from my messages, then dump the cache of recently deleted pictures. I check the cloud storage. Gone.
Anna isn’t here.
And I’ve just got to keep living with that. Somehow.
3
Gunner
The alarm wakes me at what-the-fuck o’clock. Prying my eyes open, I roll over and message Stone.
Drag your ass out of bed. I’m checking out in thirty. Breakfast is on you.
Knowing Stone, that means the McDonald’s drive-thru, but I don’t care as long as there’s coffee to wash it down. We need to be on the road in an hour to catch our flight out of Phoenix.
The phone chimes while I’m in the bathroom, lathering up my jaw with shaving cream. I finish up, haul on my jeans, and take a look. Not Stone’s reply, as I expected.
It’s from the prez and his message is as long-winded as usual.
Call me.
I do.
Saxon answers on the first ring. He doesn’t waste time with greetings. “You heading back now?”
“About to.” As soon as I drag Stone out of whatever hole he ended up in.
“When you get into town, head to the clubhouse instead of the Den. Red’s taking his final ride this morning.”
The air shoots out of my lungs and I sit down hard on the edge of the mattress. His final ride. I knew it was coming. I didn’t think it would be this soon.
I scrape a hand over my face. “Jesus.”
There’s silence on the other end. I can’t imagine how the prez feels, making a call like this.
No. I can imagine. He doesn’t give a shit about this call or how I take the news. I’d bet anything he’s only thinking of Jenny Erickson, and of how losing her dad is going to rip her apart. Just like I’m thinking of how it’ll gut Anna.
My own gut feels like a lump of lead. “Tell Red it was a goddamn honor to ride with him.”
“I’ll do that,” Saxon says. “Is Stone with you? I’ve been calling him for a fucking half hour.”
Shit. “He hooked up with some girl. I’ll find him, shake him awake.”
“Do that. Have him call Red direct.”
“I will.” Because the Wall family and the Ericksons are tight. Red’s the one who put Stone on his first motorcycle—and Stone will never forgive himself if he misses this chance to say a few final words to the man.
I disconnect and put the phone on speaker, dialing Stone again and again while I finish dressing and transfer the cash from the safe into my pack. His battery’s not dead. If it was, the calls would go straight to voicemail instead of ringing first. Maybe he’s got it on silent but he’s a light sleeper. Even the vibration usually wakes him. Unless it’s buried under a pile of clothes and someone’s ass.
God damn it. I didn’t want to have to track him down. Thank fuck there’s an app for that.
Logins and passcodes aren’t a problem. He’s got mine, I’ve got his. Most of the time, we use them to find out the other’s location when one of us is on a bike and can’t answer the phone. But it’s insurance, too. Not everyone the Riders run into is friendly. It’s best to know where to find him if he can’t tell us himself.
I’ve never had to use it to haul him out of bed, though.
His phone shows up right around the Ponderosa—the same bar we were at last night. When the girl said she had a room, she must have meant close. Probably in one of those apartments above the shops flanking the bar.
I head out, then don’t make any new friends in Cactus Gulch when I pound on those apartment doors while the sun’s still rising. Stone and the redhead aren’t in any of them.
The Ponderosa’s next. The joint is still closed but I recognize the manager inside—the woman who arranged our reservations for the private party. She’s behind the bar, prepping or tallying receipts, who knows. I tap on the glass door and she pokes her head out. Stone’s easy to remember, what with those scars on his face, but the manager tells me she hasn’t seen him this morning.
Which leaves me in the middle of fucking nowhere. Running around like a dickhole, chasing after him. That boy needs his ass handed to him for going incommunicado. And if I don’t find him in about five minutes, I’ll take great pleasure doing it.
I circle around behind the bar, scanning the houses across the back lot. Maybe one of those. Somewhere close enough his phone’s picking up the wireless from the Ponderosa. That might be what’s fucking up the locator, because according to this app, I should be right on top of him.
Fuck. I call again, hoping he’ll answer before I start waking any more townspeople this goddamn early on a Sunday morning.
A muffled ringtone sounds nearby. The muscles in the back of my neck tighten to steel.
Slowly I turn, and the steel becomes ice. That ringtone’s coming from a Dumpster.
I don’t remember crossing over to it. Instead I’m remembering that redhead and how she was so jumpy. Afraid of someone. And Stone can take care of himself, but there’s some shit you can’t protect yourself from. A bullet to the back, for one.
Overseas, at home—I’ve walked into some hairy situations. Not one second of combat was as harrowing as lifting the lid of that Dumpster.
No body. No blood.
Thank fucking God.
Breathing air stinking of piss and rot, I haul out the garbage bags sitting at the top of the pile inside—probably the trash they took out late last night or first thing this morning. Stone’s phone is sitting under one.
So is the key to the Escalade.
What the fuck? I grab them both, checking out the phone. A handful of missed calls from the prez. A dozen new texts. The earliest unread message is from me—the one I sent after deleting Anna’s photo, just before heading to bed.
If he didn’t read it, the phone was probably already in the Dumpster by then. Maybe even while I was still inside the Ponderosa. But I didn’t get wind of any fights going down out here last night. That kind of news travels through a bar fast.
No blood. No cracked screen. No scuff marks on the case. Stone would never go easy. If someone wanted to get these off him, there’d likely be some sign.
And no message to me, telling me what the hell Stone was thinking. Is he out there playing the hero? If so, maybe leaving the key fob was message enough. He’d have known I’d find his phone. Maybe he thought whoever was after the girl might find them that way, too, but by leaving access to the rig he wasn’t leaving me stranded.
I take off for the Escalade. Whatever was going on, he’d have grabbed a few weapons first. Maybe left a message there.
As soon as I reach the rental, I check the stash behind the front seats. My blood runs cold.
He didn’t take a weapon. There’s no scenario in this world where he wouldn’t have grabbed one of these guns before heading off with the girl.
Which means the scene I’d been playing out in my mind—he heads for the Escalade, arms himself, then tosses the phone and keys somewhere I’ll find them—just got blown to hell.
He never got as far as the Escalade last night. Maybe never got farther than the Ponderosa’s back lot.
Fucking hell. Heart pounding, I strap on a .45 before double-timing it back toward the bar. A block away, a message comes in over Stone’s phone.
Anna. I freeze in place, reading it.
Red called. He asked me to go out to the ranch to be with Jenny today. Does that mean what I think that means?
I close my eyes, teeth clenched. This is a line I shouldn’t cross. But Anna won’t know. And Stone will forgive me. He’d rather that I answer her than make her worry about why he’s not responding—and it isn’t hard to guess that she’s texting instead of calling because she’s crying. Something this important, she wouldn’t leave to a message. So she must be hurting enough without me adding fear for Stone to it.
And I’ll find him. She’s got nothing to worr
y about.
Yes. I text back. The boss called this morning. Red’s taking his final ride.
There’s a long pause before her response appears.
I knew it. God. I should be heading out there but I’m just sitting in the car bawling.
A groan rips from me, reading that. Wishing I could say what I wanted to. You’re tearing me apart, sweetheart. Because I can’t hold you. Because I can’t make it better.
My chest aching, I make myself say what Stone would. That’s easy. I’ve seen them together hundreds of times. They tease and poke at each other viciously, but when shit gets rough, Stone’s softer with her than I’ve ever seen him. The affection between them runs deep but it’s not hidden.
You’ll be all right. Just hang in there, pipsqueak. I use his favorite nickname for her.
I will, she replies, and I can almost see her pulling it together, wiping her eyes, drawing a deep breath. Are you and Gunner coming back today?
Just seeing her write my name twists me up. I wish I had something better to tell her than, Don’t know yet. Something came up here. We might be delayed.
Hurry.
I’ll try. With everything in me.
Let me know when you have an ETA. Stay safe and I love you.
God, those words. They hit me like a sledgehammer. And she says them so easy. Stone would say them right back.
My fingers hit the wrong letters a hundred times, but I finally get it out. Love you, too.
The first time I ever said it. She doesn’t even know it’s coming from me.
And I could stay here longer, reading her last text over and over, but now it’s time to get moving. I pocket the phone and head toward the Ponderosa. They’ve got security cameras. One way or another, I’m going to find out what the fuck happened to Stone. Then I’m going to find him.
She’s not losing her brother. I’m sure as hell not losing my friend.
And I won’t stop until I bring him home.
4