Wanted: An Outlaw Anthology

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Wanted: An Outlaw Anthology Page 112

by Lane Hart


  “See?” Flash coaxes. “That’s all I want. Just give it to me and you’ll never fucking see me again.”

  “Not so fast, fuckface,” I growl, turning. “You’re gonna need to tell us what that key is for first.”

  I can almost see the calculations he’s doing as he works his swelling jaw. He must want that key pretty fuckin’ bad, because he starts talking almost immediately. “You’re not the only one who’s been on the run, Stace,” he starts, glancing at her. “You remember Paco and Grimm? The key is ours.”

  “Oh. Shit,” Six breathes.

  “What does that mean?” I demand. Six starts to answer but I cut her off. “I wanna hear this from fuckface.”

  Flash ignores the insult. “These guys, Paco and Grimm. Them and me used to do some business together,” he says vaguely.

  “They’re thieves,” Six inserts flatly. “Felons. So’s Flash, for that matter.” She looks at me. “Paco and Grimm are in prison.”

  “Were in prison,” Flash corrects.

  “Flash pulled a heist with them a few years ago. This was before we met. I didn’t know any of this until Flash and I had been together for a while.” Six’s eyes are full of disgust. “It was a jewel heist. But they got caught. Paco and Grimm took the fall, but Flash managed to escape. They’ve been in prison for years, but I guess they must have made parole now. Huh, Flash?”

  “Yeah,” he agrees. “And if it wasn’t for you taking off, I woulda been long gone by now. I was waiting to fence the jewels when they weren’t so hot.” He shoots Six a look of anger. “But you skipped town with my goddamn jacket, and the key to the fucking safe deposit box.” Flash’s face turns violent as he stares at Six with loathing. But one look from me and he tamps that shit down fast. “I been tracking them through the system. Pac got out last week. Grimm’s hearing was yesterday. They’ll be coming for me. I gotta get that key, Stace.” He tries a pleading look. “I gotta get out of sight. You know what they’ll do if they find me.”

  Six shakes her head. “Jesus, Flash.” Her lip curls. “Why the hell couldn’t you have just told me?”

  “So let me get this straight,” I cut in. “You mean to tell me, you were gonna take the key from Six and leave her to face these two thugs without even a warning?”

  Flash frowns in confusion. “Six?”

  “Babe, we don’t know what these guys Paco and Grimm know. They could be coming for you to try to see if you know where he is.”

  Six looks at me. “Do you really think that’s a possibility?” she half-whispers.

  “We can’t take any chances. I’m gonna call in the Lords for backup.” I grab my phone out of my back pocket. “Meanwhile, we’re gonna store your friend here in a warehouse nearby for a while.”

  “What?” Flash chokes out. “You can’t fucking do that! I gotta get gone!”

  “Don’t worry, princess,” I growl. “You’ll be under guard. No one will be able to hurt your delicate self.” He starts to holler and struggle. “Oh for fuck’s sake,” I mutter. Grabbing the duct tape from the top of the dresser, I pull off a strip and tape it over his mouth. Fuckface keeps tryin’ to yell, but now nothing’s coming out.

  “There. Jesus, that’s better, ya fuckin’ pansy.”

  I punch in Angel’s number on my phone and wait for him to answer.

  “Hello, prez?” I say when he does. “You know that situation I was tellin’ you about? Well, turns out I’m gonna need a few more men.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Six

  Half an hour later, there’s a knock at my door.

  Bullet lets in two men in Lords of Carnage cuts I don’t recognize.

  “This is Tank and Hollis.” Both men lift their chins at me and wordlessly follow Bullet into the bedroom. When Flash sees the two men, he starts trying to yell again through the duct tape over his mouth. Tank, the larger of the two, unceremoniously punches him in the jaw, knocking him cold for the second time tonight.

  I almost feel sorry for my ex-boyfriend. Almost.

  Tank and Hollis load Flash’s unconscious body into a large duffel bag, which Tank tosses over his shoulder like it’s a sack of potatoes. “You know where we’re takin’ him,” Tank mutters at Bullet, with a glance at me. “Hollis is gonna guard him overnight. Angel will send someone to take over in the morning.”

  Bullet nods. “Sounds good. I’ll be in touch.”

  Tank and Hollis leave with the bag. Bullet looks at me. “You ain’t staying here tonight.” It’s not a question. “I don’t care that we got Flash. We don’t know if anyone’s coming for him yet.”

  “I’m not arguing,” I say with a shiver. “This whole thing just got a lot bigger than I thought it was. I don’t know Paco and Grimm. They were in prison already when I met Flash. But what I’ve heard from him about them isn’t good.”

  I’m subdued as we ride back to Bullet’s place. He doesn’t push me to talk, for which I’m grateful. I’m having trouble digesting everything that’s just happened. I want to talk about it — I want to talk to Bullet about it — but I need some time to collect my thoughts.

  Once we’re back at his house, I go out into his back yard and grab an old plastic lawn chair. Sitting down on it, I stare out at the trees at the edge of his yard, fingering the key that’s now nestled in my jacket pocket.

  A few minutes later, Bullet comes out to join me, a bottle of beer in his hand.

  “Well,” I joke grimly as he sits down. “At least Flash isn’t an unhinged stalker like I thought he was.”

  “Yeah,” he agrees. “He’s just a dumb shit petty thief with a couple of jewel thieves after him.”

  “I can’t believe it,” I breathe. “I spent all this time on the run from him, thinking he was crazed with possessive anger because I broke up with him.” I take the key out of my pocket and hold it up at eye level. “When if I’d just known he was looking for this…” I snort softly. “So much trouble for one little key.”

  “Whatever’s in that safe deposit box must be pretty valuable,” Bullet agrees.

  “I gave up my whole life for this key. My whole identity. I’ve lived a lie for three years for this thing.”

  Suddenly, I have the irrational urge to go find a lake and fling this damn thing to the bottom of it.

  “You miss it?” Bullet asks. “Your old life?”

  “I’m tired of running,” I reply. I pause, thinking about his question. “I’m tired of worrying. Of being afraid to get close to anyone. But… no, I don’t exactly miss my old life, as such. It wasn’t all that great, to be honest.”

  “How come?”

  “Well… I told you my dad died when I was a teenager. And I love my mom, but she’s had a drinking problem for as long as I can remember. So, uh, I didn’t exactly have a lot of great role models growing up. Or a lot of family.” She pauses. “Flash isn’t the first shitty boyfriend I’ve had. My first one, Jesse, stole cars. I was fifteen. I thought it was true love. I don’t know, I pictured us as this sort of Bonnie and Clyde thing. Until he got arrested for grand theft auto. I was in the car with him. I ended up in juvie. I guess I was just lucky it was my first offense, and I was young and a girl.” I look over at Bullet and shake my head ruefully. “I really know how to pick ‘em, don’t I?”

  But Bullet doesn’t question it or make fun of me. “Sounds like kind of a lonely life,” he observes instead. “Maybe you just ended up being a target for men who wanted a girl they could take advantage of.”

  I scoff. “That just makes me an idiot.”

  “No.” His voice comes out harsh. “That just makes you someone with a big heart. Maybe you’ve made some mistakes. Everyone has, Six. Shit, you think I’m in an outlaw MC because I’m a fuckin’ choir boy? I told you about what brought me here. We both had a rough childhood. What matters now is what you make of it in the rest of your life.”

  I consider his words. Truth is, I haven’t been making anything of my life. There hasn’t been time. When you have to be ready to move at a mo
ment’s notice, you learn to exist in a kind of holding pattern.

  My job at Rebel Ink — and actually learning how to be a tattoo artist — is the closest approximation I’ve come to making a life that includes plans, or any sense of having a future. And hell, even there I just kind of fell into it by chance. I just happened to meet Hannah one night at a bar when her date stood her up. If she hadn’t been by herself and pissed off enough to complain to a stranger — and if I hadn’t been a couple drinks in and more willing than usual to exchange female confidences — we never would have started talking. She never would have volunteered that her boss was looking for a receptionist, and encouraged me to apply.

  Even that — arguably the only good decision I’ve made since I skipped out on Flash — wasn’t even really my doing.

  “That’s just it,” I say somberly to Bullet. “I haven’t been making anything of it. I’m not sure I know how to. I don’t really have anything to offer. Other than being reasonably competent at tattoos, I guess.”

  Bullet fixes me with a hard stare. “Stop that. You know a shitload about computers, don’t you? Enough to change your identity over and over without any trouble. How the hell did you learn that?”

  I shrug. “Necessity.”

  “Well, if you can do that, you can do anything you put your mind to.”

  “Maybe.” I yawn. I’m suddenly exhausted by all the events of the day. And I’m sick of talking about how dumb and pathetic my life choices have been. “Right now, I think I’m gonna put my mind to going to sleep.” I glance at him. “Right after I take care of something. Do you have a needle and thread?”

  Bullet wrinkles his brow. “Uh… I have a needle. Not sure about thread. Why?”

  I pull the key out of my pocket again and dangle it in front of him. “I want to sew this back into the lining of the jacket for now.”

  Bullet manages to find a needle and some dental floss in a junk drawer. It only takes me a few minutes to sew the key back into the lining. Anyone who looked closely would notice the stitching right away, so it’s not exactly invisible. Still, right now I care less about that, and more about not losing the key before we figure out what to do with it.

  The next morning, Bullet decides to take me to the place where they’re keeping Flash.

  “We need to talk to him,” he rumbles. “Ask him more about this safe deposit box. Where it is, and exactly what’s in it. He ain’t gonna tell me, probably, but you might be able to get it out of him.”

  “I doubt it, but I’ll try,” I frown.

  “Thing is, this place where we’re going… it’s secret. No one outside of the club knows about it.”

  “So, what, you’re gonna blindfold me?” I joke. Then I see the expression on his face. “Wait, you are gonna blindfold me? What the hell, Bullet?”

  “It’s not a big deal. Just until we get there. It’s for your protection.”

  I roll my eyes. “Whatever.”

  Bullet doesn’t want me hanging on to the back of his bike with no eyesight, so we take my car. I bitch a bit about him driving instead of me, but I know he’s not about to back down. So eventually I just accept it and let it go.

  We drive for about half an hour, I think, on windy, hilly roads that make my stomach dip and flip since I’m blind. Eventually, the car slows and stops.

  “Okay, we’re here. You can take that thing off.”

  I pull off the bandana he’s given me and look around. The landscape is nondescript, the building even more so. It’s an old ranch style house, with weeds growing all around it. I climb out of the car and follow Bullet toward the front door.

  “Hold up for a sec.” He taps on the front screen in a series of knocks that must be a code.

  We wait. Nothing happens.

  Bullet taps again. When no one answers, he frowns at me and reaches into his waistband, drawing out a gun. I freeze, not realizing he was armed.

  “Go back out to the car,” he murmurs. “Get in and slide down so no one can see you.”

  I open my mouth to ask why, but the question dies in my throat. Wordlessly, I nod and slip down off the concrete porch. I get into the car and close the passenger door as quietly as I can.

  In the silence of the car, I can hear my labored breathing. My heart is thudding in my chest. All my muscles tense up as I wait for a gunshot or a scream or something, and my mind races as I try to think what I should do next.

  But when the sound does come, it’s none of those things. It’s Bullet’s voice.

  “Six,” he calls.

  I heave a giant sigh of relief and slide back up into the seat. I open the car door again and stand up, grinning at him, but the grin freezes on my lips when I see the look on his face.

  “Flash is dead,” he mutters

  “What?” I gape up at him, thinking this is some sort of joke, but his eyes are dead serious. “How —?”

  “Hollis is dead, too.” His jaw sets.

  “Oh my God!” I start to go inside, but Bullet bars the entrance.

  “No. Don’t go in.” I try to go around him, but he grabs my arm. “Six. They’ve both been tortured. There’s a lot of blood.” He shakes his head once, emphatically. “You don’t want to see it. Trust me. Stuff like that, it stays with you a long time.”

  “Bullet,” I whisper, my legs weakening under me. He catches me by the shoulders and leads me away from the house.

  “I know.” He pulls me toward the car and opens the passenger door, nodding at me to get in. “We have to get you out of here, Six. We’re leaving town. I’m taking you to someplace safe.”

  I can only listen to his words through the muddiness of my brain and try to arrange them in a way that makes sense. “Will you be with me?”

  “I’m not leaving you,” he says fiercely. “I promise. Now give me a minute. I gotta call the Lords. Tell them we got trouble.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Bullet

  Six is white as a sheet as I peel away from the house where Flash and Hollis’s bodies lie in their own respective pools of blood. I’m glad as shit Six didn’t see any of that. I know she’s had a rough life, but I can tell just by how basically sweet and innocent she is that she’s never seen a dead body. Especially one that’s been tortured like those two were.

  That shit sticks with you. It comes up to torture you in your sleep. I don’t want her to have to live with those visions in her head.

  She’s afraid but quiet as I race down the highway, yelling into my phone to Angel. “Two bodies. Hollis is one of them. The other is Six’s ex. The state of the bodies suggests they were tortured for information. Has to be the guys he was running from. They’re looking for a key to a safe deposit box with a cache of stolen jewelry and maybe some other shit.”

  Angel swears. “Fuck. Hollis’s girlfriend is gonna lose it. I’ll have Brooke and a couple of the other old ladies go break the news. How the fuck did they find the house?”

  “No clue, brother. No telling where they are now, either. I’m taking Six to Connegut.”

  “I’ll send you some backup.”

  “Thanks, brother. I’ll be in touch.”

  I hang up and turn to Six. “We’ll be good as soon as we get to where we’re going. My VP is sending men to guard the place.” I reach over and take one of her hands in mine. It’s cold. “Don’t worry.”

  “What’s Connegut?” she asks, her voice so soft I can barely hear her.

  “It’s what we call the safe house. It’s on the Connegut River.”

  “‘Safe’,” she repeats, a little sharply. “Like the place you were holding Flash?”

  Point taken. “No.” I shake my head. “It’s isolated. Protected.” I glance at Six and give her hand a squeeze. “No one is going to hurt you,” I say fiercely. “I’ll end anyone who tries to lay a hand on you. You trust me?”

  Six hesitates, then dips her head. “Yes.”

  We drive mostly in silence, but the tension in the car is thick enough to cut with a knife. I’m trying to
figure out how these fucking goons found where we were holding Flash. They must have followed us, I conclude. Which has me glancing in my rear view mirror every couple of miles or so, even though there’s almost no one on the road.

  “Angel, my prez, is gonna send backup to the safe house,” I say, breaking the silence. “It won’t be just me there. They won’t get anywhere near you.”

  “Okay.”

  Six’s voice is flat. I don’t know if she believes me.

  “You scared, babe?”

  She’s quiet. Then: “A little. But in a way, this is almost a relief.” She blows out a breath. “I’ve been running for so long from something I didn’t even understand. This is a lot scarier in a way, but at least one way or another, it’ll be over soon.”

  “Not one way or another,” I growl. “This ends with them dead.”

  Six swallows. “Bullet…”

  “Yeah.”

  “You shouldn’t be putting your club in danger for me. Breaking the law for me.”

  I snort. “The law? Fuck the law. We go by our own codes, babe. And we protect our own.”

  “But that’s just it,” she insists stubbornly. “I’m not one of your own. None of you has any obligation to protect me.”

  “Like hell you’re not.” My voice comes out louder, angrier than I intended. Six flinches, and I force myself to calm down. “You’re with me. That’s good enough for the Lords. So, shut up and let me protect you.”

  For the first time, a little humor slips through in her voice. “Really? That’s a little caveman, don’t you think?”

  I roll my eyes and pretend to be irritated. “So sorry, milady. I didn’t mean to offend your delicate fuckin’ sensibilities. Would you be so kind as to allow me to defend your honor?”

  Six snickers. “You suck as Sir Lancelot.”

  “Good. Wasn’t that chick he was defending married, anyway? I don’t do married chicks. Too much goddamn work.”

  “You’re a pig,” Six laughs.

 

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