by Regina Cole
Not that one would have been forthcoming anyway.
“Who the hell are you?”
The voice came from a broken-down La-Z-Boy in the corner. As Trey’s vision adjusted, he recognized the speaker.
Justina, a former dancer at Cherry Ice, was seated in the corner and smoking a J. In contrast to what she’d worn on the job, she was dressed in ratty sweatpants and a stained T-shirt.
“It’s Trey Harding.”
She stubbed out the blunt and stood, rolling her hips suggestively as she walked over to him. “Why are you here, baby? I don’t lay for pay anymore, but I might just be willing to do you for free.”
Trey stepped back to avoid the brush of her hand across the front of his jeans. “No thanks, Justina. I need some information.”
She rolled her eyes. “Since I stopped dancing, all anybody wants to do is talk to me. I still got it, you know.”
Trey gave her a cursory glance, and he had to admit that she did. Any other time, he might have been tempted to take her up on the offer. Justina’s dark skin accentuated a plethora of curves that seemed designed to fit a man’s caress.
But the only person he wanted to touch was completely off-limits forever. The voicemail he’d left her four days ago was proof of that.
He’d thanked his lucky stars she hadn’t answered the phone. No way could he have said what he needed to directly to her.
Bethany, it’s Trey. Look. I’m sorry. I… My job is getting too complicated. I didn’t mean to ghost you, but the situation is tougher than I’d thought. I’m going to have to end this… Us, I mean. It’s not because of you. I just want to keep you safe.
He’d had to stop to clear his throat, which had gone curiously thick. Anyway. I’m sorry. I… I’m so damn sorry.
And he’d ended the call, feeling like the biggest coward in the world.
The way he’d broken up with her was criminal, but the Shadows needed him.
If he was going to prevent anyone else getting hurt during this mission, he had to take charge of it himself.
“I need to know who’s giving Hampton his orders.”
Justina’s previously sultry expression fell, and she turned and walked toward the tiny kitchen area. Her bare feet padded against the linoleum, making a soft slapping sound.
“Why do you think I know that?”
Trey followed her, his hands in his pockets. “Because Rocco saw you out at Georgie’s the other day. Hampton and Georgie are tight, but you and Georgie are tighter.”
Justina shot him a dark glance as she poured herself a glass of water. “Georgie’s my brother. I don’t agree with everything he does, but I protect my own.”
“I understand that,” Trey said smoothly, “and I’m not trying to put you in an awkward position. But Hampton’s moving meth through this area again.”
Justina’s shoulders tensed instantly, and he knew why.
“You’re still clean, right?”
Her terse nod belied the tremble in her hand.
“It’s hard as hell, isn’t it? Why don’t you let me help by getting that crap out of here. Hampton is the head dealer, that much I’m pretty sure of. But I need to know who’s cooking. I want to cut it off. For you, and for all the rest of the people that finally have a chance because that shit’s out of their lives.”
“I didn’t know,” Justina whispered, her wide brown gaze turned back on Trey. “I swear, I didn’t. I wouldn’t have let them into the warehouse if I did.”
“The warehouse?”
She nodded. “Hampton told Georgie that he came across a trailer full of stuff from a department store. Purses, jewelry, perfume, high-end merchandise. He wanted somewhere to go through it to prep it for sale. So I gave Georgie the keys to the warehouse behind Cherry Ice. It’s empty back there, just old broken furniture and props that the owner didn’t throw away. I swiped the keys a long time ago, before I quit.”
A tear rolled down Justina’s cheek. “I wouldn’t have given it to him if I’d thought…if I’d known—”
“Hey,” Trey said and gripped her arm. “I’m going to fix this. And you can help.”
“Tell me how.” Justina swiped her cheeks, and the tilt of her chin was defiant. “Tell me how to fix this. That shit almost took my life, and I don’t want it anywhere near here.”
“Find out from Georgie who Hampton’s been hanging around lately. As much as you can without tipping him off. I’m going to get my crew together, and we’re going to check out that warehouse.”
Justina followed him to the front door. “I’ll do what I need to. But you be careful. Hampton’s got a mean streak a mile wide.”
“Good thing mine’s two miles wide,” Trey said with a dark grin and strode out into the light again.
As he swung his leg over his bike, his mind whirled as his helmet settled into place.
They were prepping for something big. But what? Why did Hampton need that much space? That old warehouse had been used to sell tobacco many years ago. What kind of operation was he planning that would possibly need that kind of space?
Trey didn’t know. But he was going to gather his men together to figure it out.
Leaning low over his handlebars, he took the curves of the back roads toward home at a much higher rate of speed than was probably wise. But the velocity felt good. The sting of the wind on his exposed skin felt good. The sharp bite reminded him he was alive—
Even if he was a rat bastard for leaving her.
As if on cue, once he’d made the turn onto the gravel drive that led to his property, his cell phone started to ring in his pocket.
He pulled over to the side of the path and looked at the screen.
Bethany.
Again.
His finger hovered over the answer-call button for a half second.
He wanted to talk to her. The longing was so bad it was almost a physical pain, shredding the inside of his chest like a chain saw without an operator.
He hated what he’d done to her—to them. Promising her so much, and then bailing with a piss-poor excuse for an explanation. But every time he thought about going back to the way things were, he remembered the other promises he’d made.
The ones to his brothers.
Seeing Jameson in that hospital bed had reminded him that he was the one who’d effectively put him there. That he alone was responsible for leading these men and keeping them and what they treasured safe.
Bethany had been fine before him, and she’d be fine after him.
And his family—he winced and swallowed. Not his family. The Yelvertons. Their questions had been answered, mostly. But like it or not, Samuel Yelverton had really died when that nurse had whisked him away in the middle of the night.
Trey Harding was not Samuel Yelverton, and he never could be. It was time to stop pretending.
The phone fell silent in his hand, voicemail having kicked in after so many rings. He shoved it into his pocket and drove the rest of the way down the path.
When the trees opened up, his stomach sank as he took in the view of a familiar green Corolla and the beautiful fall of blond hair that the driver was pushing back over her shoulder.
His chest suddenly cracked open inside, the most hideous mixture of love and longing and sheer magnetic draw shoving him toward her.
But he couldn’t… He couldn’t.
“Hey,” she said, climbing out of the driver’s seat. “I’ve been trying to call you.”
“I know,” he said, cutting the engine. He did his best not to look at her as he climbed off the bike. “What do you need?”
The hurt and confusion was clear in her tone. “Well, first of all I think I deserve an explanation for that sudden breakup. Also, in about fourteen days there’s a wedding, and we still don’t have a venue. Unless you’ve found somewhere…”
Her vo
ice trailed off. He didn’t answer.
His footfalls were heavy on the porch steps as he climbed. She was right behind him. He closed his eyes for a moment as the fresh, clean scent of her blew past on a momentary breeze.
He wanted—no, he needed—to draw her into his arms. To apologize for all this, to fix it for her.
But he couldn’t.
“I’m sorry,” he said without turning, his hand on the knob of his front door. “I can’t do this anymore. Not with you, not with the Yelvertons. I can’t handle it.”
“I don’t buy it. Sorry, I need more information than that. You can’t just leave me a voicemail, and it’s over. Besides, your mom, and your sister—”
“Sorry,” he repeated and shut the door between them.
Closing his eyes, he leaned against the portal.
The pain was eating him up from the inside out. His heart was on the other side of that door.
But his loyalty to the Shadows wouldn’t let him go. He’d given them his word before he’d given it to her.
If he were a different man, he’d step away from it all to be with her. But like it or not, he was Trey Harding. And Trey Harding was a man who wasn’t meant for the softness that Bethany Jernigan provided.
As much as it was killing him to admit that.
It was over. The dream was dead.
And he was the one holding the smoking gun.
* * *
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
She said it to the closed door in front of her, but it was mostly directed to the man who’d just shut it in her face.
Bethany’s temper surged within her, a good dose of fear cresting the wave.
“Trey!” Her fist connected with the door, more a pound than a knock. “Open up and talk to me! You can’t just disappear like this!”
But there was no answer from the other side.
Turning, she slumped against the door. What now?
When she’d set off for his place that afternoon, she’d been full of determination and righteous anger. He’d been dodging her for a week, that single voicemail the only indication he wasn’t dead in a ditch somewhere. She’d been worried sick. But now that she’d seen him, seen the empty, cold look in his beautiful eyes as he’d turned away from her, she didn’t know what to do.
“I love you, you idiot.” She said it aloud, but there was nobody there to hear her words.
Setting her jaw, she stood and faced the door once again.
“I love you, Trey! You can’t just walk away from me. It’s not fair.” Her voice was strained, but she didn’t care. “It’s not even about the wedding anymore. Not the wedding, not Sarah, not your mother. It’s about you and me. And I need you.”
Silence. Thick, heavy, silence.
The pain grew so big that it threatened to swallow her. But she wouldn’t crumble. She wouldn’t give in.
She was too angry for that.
“Fine. You don’t have to love me back. But your family… You can’t turn your back on them. And I will prove it to you or die trying.”
Glaring at his door, she turned on her heel and stalked toward her car.
The windows of his house were blank, empty as she climbed into her car. He wasn’t there watching her. Had he even heard her shout? She had no way to know. The engine rumbled to life, and she slowly drove away from his house, away from him.
Semper fi. Always faithful. The words echoed in her head as she left him.
There was too much of her father in her for her to give up now.
* * *
Tears clogged Trey’s throat, a thousand knives lodged in his windpipe as he tried to breathe.
God. Why had she said that? Why had she told him the truth?
He could have pretended to be indifferent to her. He could have told himself that her infatuation with him had waned the moment he’d walked away from her.
But then she’d gone and told him the one thing he’d never heard from anyone’s lips.
Ever.
I love you.
He didn’t deserve it. He didn’t deserve her. His soul was stained, dirty. Had she sullied herself by giving her heart to him?
Stumbling away from the front door, he looked out the window of his living room.
A faint cloud of dust hung over the gravel drive, empty except for his bike and his old pickup, as if she’d just passed over it.
She was gone.
As if drunk, he staggered down the hallway and into the bathroom. Without waiting for the water to warm up, he stripped and stepped into the shower.
Clean. He had to fix this. He wasn’t clean enough for her, wasn’t good enough for her love. He had to get cleaner, scrub the stain and sin and ugliness away.
But no matter how hard he washed, he couldn’t scrub away Trey and reveal Samuel.
Tilting his head toward the spray, he shivered as the soap ran down his naked body.
He couldn’t stop this. Couldn’t change it.
But he could use it.
The cold suffused his limbs, filling his chest with an icy numbness that he embraced. And when he shut off the water and stepped out, it was with purpose.
Deftly toweling himself off, he stepped into his bedroom.
Boxer briefs. Leathers. A plain, black short-sleeved shirt, leaving the tattoos on his arms exposed. The damp ends of his hair left wet circles on the shoulders of his shirt.
He didn’t give a good damn.
Stopping by the code-operated safe in his hall closet, he armed himself for the showdown.
A knife in the sheath at the back of his belt. Two handguns. Another smaller knife secreted in the top of his boot. He wouldn’t leave anything to chance. There was a good possibility that he would put himself in the position of getting harmed, or even killed.
And honestly? That was okay by him. If he died in defense of the Shadows? It’d be a good way to go out.
“Wolf,” he said into his cell phone as he walked to the other house. “I need everyone.”
“No problem, Boss. We’re all here.”
Trey hiked up his eyebrow in surprise as he rounded the bend and took in the sight of a plethora of bikes clustered around the other house. “How’d you know I’d want to see everyone?”
“I didn’t. We’re working. Come on in, the door’s open.”
Wolf cut the call, and Trey stared at the phone for a moment before resuming his walk to Wolf’s house.
Why the hell were they already together?
The easy chitchat and laughter that met his ears when he neared the front door would have sounded welcoming at any other time.
But now? With the ice still running through his veins, the cold need for violence still humming inside him?
It just pissed him off.
He shoved open the door.
At one point, he’d thought that nothing this band of bastards could do would surprise him. He’d watched them in all manner of odd scenarios throughout the years. From pranks that any teenager would have been proud to pull off, to drinking competitions culminating in wild escapades, to motorcycle tricks à la Evel Knievel.
But this? This was a whole new circle of hell.
“No, no, that’s way too much essential oil.” Ace was chiding Dean as the other man was hunkered over the stove, stirring something. “That’s going to smell like a Tropicana factory butt-fucked a Bath and Body Works.”
“Get lost, asswipe. I’m working on the wax. It’s trial and error. Go harass Lars with his burlap bows some more. These last ones are hopeless.” Dean pointed at a row of mason jars on the table where Lars was affixing brown fabric bows around the necks. The row at the end looked like little, drunk Doctor Whos.
Rocco, Flash, and Doc were pouring wax into jars and tying strings to little skewers, suspending them to form candlewicks. Jam
eson, his arm in a cast, was glowering at the rest of them from the corner.
“What the hell is going on here?”
Trey’s roar barely registered on the Yankee Candle assembly line.
“Wedding favors,” Wolf said casually as he hefted another box of mason jars onto the table beside Lars. “We realized that we hadn’t done any yet.”
Ace grinned. “My idea. I had a girl that was really into Pinterest. Downloaded the app so I could impress her. Found some cool shit. Apparently, handmade and rustic are ‘in.’” He made air quotes.
Hands fisted at his sides, Trey stared at the sight in front of him.
No.
No.
Everything was different.
He’d screwed up. He’d screwed up so much.
The numbness inside him dissipated, the temporary bandage on the wound of his heart ripping in two, the pain spilling out and turning into rage.
“Get this shit out of here,” Trey snarled, surging toward the table. He gripped the edge, sending jars crashing to the floor. He’d have flipped it if Wolf hadn’t grabbed his arms and spun him away.
“Boss!”
“That’s it. This is over. Drop this wedding bull, and don’t think about it again. Suit up and get what you need. We’re moving on Hampton tonight.”
Eleven stunned gazes were trained on him, but Trey didn’t give a damn.
“Fine with me,” Jameson grunted, standing.
“Your ass is staying home. You need to heal up.”
“But what about my candles?” Ace glowered at Trey, his jaw set as he crossed his arms over his chest. “This beeswax is expensive, and it takes time—”
“Fuck your beeswax! It’s over. We’re not doing this wedding anymore.”
Without another word, Trey stalked from the house. A heavy set of footfalls was close behind him. Goddamn it. Wolf. He wanted to turn around and deck the man, but he’d done enough.
He’d done more than enough.
“Boss.”
Trey kept walking. He’d get to his house and get on his bike. If the rest of the Shadows knew what was good for them, they’d be armed and waiting for him when he got back there.