by C. M. Owens
I step aside to let him crawl up them, and he never even glances at me. Quirking an eyebrow at his tattoo that definitely shows his high rank inside his crew, I idly wonder how much of Sarah’s reputation is myth versus fact.
I hope most of it is made up.
However…he just cracked like an egg, and he works directly under her father, given the tats. I know how crazy Kara is, and her father is way less of a monster than Sarah’s. That says a lot.
“Do the song and dance routine often, do you?” I ask like I’m not completely disturbed by the extreme variety of crazy she brings to the table.
“Pick your weapons. It’s time to cover my back and make good on your favor. Also, I need a ride,” she chirps as she starts following the blood trail up the stairs, still humming that song.
Cursing, I go and grab a few, checking the sights. By the time I finish and get up the stairs, following the blood trail out, I find Sarah hovering over the interrogation victim’s lifeless body on the front porch.
She glances over her shoulder at me as she struggles trying to pull him in.
“What?” she asks defensively when my brow lifts in confusion. “I only told him he could walk out of here. I didn’t say how far he could walk before I killed him dead and stuff.”
She groans when she can’t get his dead weight to budge, before adding, “A little help, please.”
Glaring at her, I shake my head. “Your brand of crazy makes me really uncomfortable,” I remind her as I go, grab one ankle, and start dragging the heavy fucker back inside.
“Yes. Yes, I know.”
Chapter 9
KARA
I’m practically chewing my nails off by the time the door swings open at two in the morning, and I glance up at the cuffs that are holding me in place.
Maya cuffed me down. I didn’t object. I have no idea who Maya or Sarah are, but I do know they seem to be completely unafraid of the club…even dismissive.
Rush staggers in, beer bottle at his lips as he curses and stumbles against a wall. The cuffs rattle when I try to lift up, and he flips on a light, squinting against it to see me.
“Wake you up?” he mutters, a slur to his words as he…
Holy shit.
He’s covered in blood.
“Fuck,” he groans, lifting his shirt to where he has bandages that have bled through.
“Did you get shot, you idiot?” I gripe like I have some reason to.
“No. Stabbed. Looks worse than it is,” he mumbles as he strips out of the shirt the rest of the way.
If I wasn’t so distracted by all the blood, I’d be distracted by how much of a man he’s turned into. I blink a few times, remembering I’m not supposed to be turned on by a bloodstained killer just because he whips his shirt off. It’s just my damage and not my healthy new normal.
“Did you go to the hospital?”
“No. Colleen patched me up,” he says.
I have no idea who Colleen is. I’m sick of all the girls who sound important, yet no one tells me anything about them.
Everyone knows I’m curious by paranoid nature, and they deliberately keep shit vague.
He crashes into the wall next to me, and he fumbles with the cuff keys until he can reach over and undo me.
“Gonna need you to be useful. Fuck with me, and I’ll keep you tied down all night and day from here on out,” he warns me.
Now would be the perfect time to seize the upper hand and send him down to his ass. But…I’m not that stupid. Too many guys are downstairs. I’d never get out of—
He crashes to the ground at last, and I scramble off the bed to where he’s half passed out. Fortunately, most of the blood isn’t his. I think he’s just drunk off his ass and making the wound bleed worse than it has to.
“Idiot,” I mumble as I go to the bathroom to pull out the bandages I found under the sink earlier when I was scoping things out and wondering about Sarah.
Rush and the mysterious blonde seemed…familiar in a weird way. Hopefully not romantic, even though I shouldn’t care.
He’s snoring when I return to the room, and I sit down beside him with the wet, soapy sponge I prepared. This is going to take a while.
My eyes flick over all the new ink he’s acquired over the years, studying the intricate designs and tribal patterns. My fingers even trail over a few of them, idly wondering what all he’s gone through in here since I left.
He’s more jaded now than he was before, but I always knew that would happen.
Sighing, I brush some of his hair off his forehead, and I start cleaning there as well, my eyes drifting over his face.
“Who are you now?” I ask him as he unconsciously leans into my hand and wraps an arm around my waist.
My brow furrows when I hear him muttering my name like it’s a curse, even as his hand tightens on me. Once again, he relaxes, but he moves his head to my lap like he’s seeking out…comfort.
A full breath exhales harshly as I glance up at the ceiling and close my eyes. I fucking hate Halo. The bad only get worse. The good get crushed. And the souls stay stained forever.
Chapter 10
RUSH
“I’m not sure why you’re still cuffing me every night. It’s been a week, Rush. I haven’t tried running away yet—”
“Because you’re still working out a full escape plan,” I interrupt, glancing over the top of my newspaper at the door when it opens, letting light spill into the mostly dark warehouse.
Kara stops talking, and we both watch as Snake stalks in, eyes narrowing on me for a minute. “Watch how close you get,” he tells me like it’s a warning.
It’s obvious he’s talking about his ex that he swears he hates.
“Trust me, I don’t want any fucking closer than I’ve gotten. It’s a business arrangement only,” I assure him, giving him a cold smile just because he really does hate the fact Sarah keeps coming to me.
“She’ll just keep impressing you so you ask for more favors, and you’ll keep being in her debt. It’s apparently her AJ thing,” he goes on.
“I know. She told me as much. You’re overestimating the level of psychotic I can deal with,” I go on.
He narrows his eyes like he doesn’t trust that I’m not into his stabby ex. Finally, his eyes shift to Kara. He doesn’t say a word to her before walking off.
“He used to find me worthy of speaking to,” she mutters so quietly I almost miss it.
“He’s had issues lately,” I tell her around a yawn, stretching out as she huffs in frustration and crosses her arms over her chest on the couch across from me.
“We’ve been cooped up for too long. I can’t stand this. I hate staying in one place so much,” she goes on.
Just as I open my mouth to speak, the doors to the basement swing open, and Drex walks out with a bloody fist and angry eyes.
“Violence. Violence. And more violence. Feels good to be home. I think things have gotten worse, or I’ve found my sensitivity more than I realized,” Kara grumbles as she lies down and puts her arm over her eyes.
“They didn’t know anything worth hearing,” Drex says to me as he walks by and goes to the bar.
I take a bite of my sandwich, kicking up my feet as I lazily rake my gaze over Kara’s body. “Told you as much,” I tell him absently, watching the way her chest subtly rises and falls with her breaths.
Drex has barely acknowledged she’s even here. She pretends not to care. They’ve got issues to work out that neither want to work out, and Kara’s getting more agitated by the day.
“I think we should swing by the strip club and wait to see if we hear any idle chat,” I suggest, wondering if Kara can still work a pole like she used to do when she was ‘working out’ her abs.
“Eve’s not feeling good. Take a few of the guys and do that. I’m going to stay here with her,” he answers.
Kara snorts. “Guess he’s knocked her up.”
I cast a questioning look toward Drex, and he shakes his head at me while
eyeing his sister.
“Take her with you. Get her out of here before she climbs the fucking walls or some shit,” he adds before turning and heading toward the stairs.
She pops right up like she’s been given the keys to freedom.
“You’re not going to escape, and if you try—”
“You’ll leave me tied to the bed twenty-four hours a day. Yeah, yeah. I know,” she says over her shoulder as I finish eating and stand.
Axle and Dash are talking with Drex on the stairs, and they give me a nod, signaling they’re coming too.
Drex’s eyes flick over Kara as she walks toward the door like she’s on a mission, and then he glances over at me. A lot gets said without words.
It’s time to put the bait to the test.
My hand moves to the small of Kara’s back, and we walk out front. I let my eyes dip to her ass, checking it out in the tight little shorts she’s wearing.
“Any chance my brother is ever going to acknowledge we have a lot of history to cover outside of wanting Herrin dead?” she drawls as she stands next to my bike.
“None of my business,” I answer as straddle my ride and start pulling on my helmet.
I feel her when she slides in behind me, her legs spreading as she likely pulls on the helmet I have back there.
Her arms slide around my waist when I rev the bike, and I ignore how very fucking distracting it is to have her on the back. It takes me a second to realize I haven’t put the damn thing in gear, so it just sounds like I’m continuously revving.
“Problems getting things started, Rush?” Kara asks from too close to my ear as she presses against my back.
Some things never change.
She squeals a little when I snap us forward with zero finesse, acting like this is my first time driving a motherfucking motorcycle.
I play it off like it was intentional, and her arms tighten around my waist as she leans into me.
Axle rides up on my left, arching a curious eyebrow at me, before taking lead, since that’s his spot instead of mine.
Am I really trying to fucking impress Kara right now with petty shit like running up front?
If she notices, she doesn’t react. Considering the speeds we’re reaching and the pressure against the center of my shoulder blades, I can only assume she has her head buried and can’t see a thing.
Her adrenaline has to be pumping, because high speeds scare the shit out of her. And fear does twisted things to her that I used to benefit from.
My head really needs to clear. My damage is too compatible to her damage. She used to be an endless drug for me.
But times have changed.
Her thighs tighten against my legs, and she squeezes me tighter as I take a turn too fast for her comfort. The second my dick starts being painful, I realize what a fucking rookie I still feel like with Kara Caine on the back of my bike.
Chapter 11
KARA
Girls dancing on poles. Men punching each other for laughs. Girls sucking guys off in corners between sets. Beer sloshing during riotous laughter caused by violent story retellings…
I’m definitely home.
Rush isn’t much of a laughing fella. Neither is Axle. Dash laughs a lot. So does Maya…
I’m not even sure when or how she got here, but she’s sitting in Axle’s lap like she’s a hood ornament. What’s weird is how she seems to work hard to stake her claim on him, side-eyeing any woman who glances at our table.
To be honest, I think the girls are checking out Dash. Rush looks murderous, Axle is scarred on the vast majority of his body and never cracks a grin to soften up his appearance.
Dash is the smiling charmer—by comparison, that is.
Still, Maya glares daggers at any girl who steps too close, while giving them a twisted, slightly horrifying smile. This bitch has to be crazy.
I watch as she pulls him toward the bar with her to get a drink, and Dash slides to the end of the booth to chat up a pretty redhead.
“Okay. I give up. What’s the deal with Maya and Sarah? Who are they?” I ask Rush, finally unable to help myself.
His beer pauses at his lips as he glances down at me, but before he can decide how to respond, a familiar, gut-dropping sound permeates the air with force.
The breath slams out of me as Rush tackles me to the booth seat, and then we roll to the floor. The breath gets knocked out even harder when he lands on top of me and covers me completely with his body, as the loud, thunderous vibrations of heavy gunfire seem to come in from every angle.
“Shit,” he hisses, but all I can see when I open my eyes is his chest.
I feel the fluff of the seats tickling my hands as it rains on us, someone shooting close above our heads now. My mind is firing too quickly to assess where the gunfire is coming from. I’m too out of practice.
It’s not like I’ve never been in this situation before—someone covering me while bullets endlessly fly—but it’s amazing how low your guard drops when you’ve been out of the game for a while.
I cling to Rush, pulling him down farther, keeping him as low as possible in case they’re coming from outside.
The gunfire carries on, but it’s not blowing up around us anymore. Now it definitely sounds like it’s coming from outside and only outside, and it grows more and more intense as Rush rolls off me, cocking his gun as he scrambles out from under the table.
“Stay fucking put!” he snaps at me before he slips out the side door nearest us, carefully peering around, and then disappears from sight.
“It has definitely gotten worse—”
My hushed words end on a gasp when I spot Dash’s eyes on mine. He’s on the floor just in front of the stage where dead strippers are staring back at me with wide, vacant eyes.
Staying low, I quickly crawl to him, eyes assessing the damage to his torso. Too much brightly colored blood is spilling out of him, and I quickly press my hands to the wound.
“Shit,” Maya hisses from my side as she scrambles to help me, pulling one of her shirts off and pressing it to the wound as well.
The bullets cease, and my heart thumps in my ears as Dash gurgles something I miss. My eyes dart up to the door as Axle and Rush both walk in, though Axle moves with a slight limp.
Ambulance sirens wail in the distance, as Rush’s eyes land on us and widen. Axle drops his gun and seems to forget about his limp as he comes rushing toward us, panic in his stride as he pulls his phone out and dives beside us.
I lose sight of Rush, because others are all scrambling around to check the wounded as the sirens draw closer.
“Stay awake, you fucker. Don’t you dare close your motherfucking eyes on me,” Axle snaps.
It’s the last thing I hear before it all catches up to me, and the world tilts and dims at the same time.
Chapter 12
KARA
The pungent aroma of antiseptic spray. The sound of fluorescent lights humming. Idle chatter and distorted speakers paging doctors…
I feel a body against mine as I slowly come back to the world. I almost panic, until I see the finger tats on the hand that’s resting on my thigh.
Without moving, I dart a glance around, seeing that we are in fact in the waiting room of a hospital.
“Dash,” I say on a harsh breath as I jerk upright.
But…it feels like a brick crashes to the front of my skull when I move too quickly, and I groan.
“Exhaustion, dehydration, a delayed response to trauma, and a few other things knocked you on your ass,” Rush says in a patient tone from behind me, his hand sliding off my thigh. “Lean back in your seat before you fall over. The doctors have done what they can for now, but Dash is still labeled as critical, so we can’t go back to see him until he’s out of the woods.”
I notice we’re the only ones in here, and I sigh out a breath as I look over my shoulder at him.
He’s staring absently at the wall ahead as he runs a hand over his jaw.
“Where are the others? Who
shot at us?”
“Who do you think?” he asks with a cold smile, eyes finally moving to mine.
“Was I the target?”
He slowly shakes his head. “As far as I can tell, they still have no idea the prodigal daughter has returned to her brother’s side to team up against the devil who spawned them,” he answers with a detached tone, eyes flicking back to the wall. “Dash or Axle were the targets.”
My mouth is so dry that it hurts to talk, but I manage to ask, “Why?”
“You’re a smart girl, Kara. Surely you can figure that out all on your own. I’ll get you some water. Stay put,” he says as he stands and walks out without another word.
I glance at the door, wondering if now is a good time to make a break for it. But one of my brother’s best friends is possibly fighting for his life, and Herrin is really trying to set Drex off so that he makes a stupid, careless move in true Drex Caine fashion.
Pop is more calculated and cunning. My brother is a Hulk-smash sort of guy.
Both are unapologetically ruthless.
The difference is, in his own way, Drex actually fucking cares about the ones he calls family. Herrin only cares about himself.
Rush pops back in with a bottle of water, looking both surprised and relieved to find me sitting right where he left me.
“That was your only chance to run,” he tells me as he hands off the bottle.
“My brother is going to get himself and all of you killed if his emotions run too high. He has two gears—anger and thoughtless retribution.”
“He has a few more gears in his wheelhouse now that the girl from the suburbs shares his bed on the regular,” he answers quietly. “I’m more concerned with what happens if he pictures her being the one lying in that hospital bed next. It may quickly dissolve those new gears and put him back into his old frame of mind. I knew she was trouble from day one, but she also made Drex open his fucking eyes to Herrin’s true sociopathic self, so it’s a double-edged sword.”