by Violet Blaze
Jesus Christ.
I lift my bow up and move into the shadows, running low and fast, pausing when I cross paths with a man making rounds near the fence, seconds away from spotting the fight between Glacier and the other guard.
My bolt takes him through the throat as I step over his body and continue around until I can see the front of the mansion. Our second group is there; I can see the Seattle Sergeant-at-arms ducking back into the shadows, dragging a body behind him.
“Front's clear.”
It's the only message I've authorized the others to radio over to our group.
I glance over my shoulder and watch as Glacier moves the dead cartel member into the safety of the trees.
“Back and sides are clear,” I report, my voice dark and dry, a monotone line that I hardly recognize.
I want Lyric in my arms. Now. Fucking now.
She makes me feel human.
All of this right here, it makes me feel like a monster.
“Let's go,” I say when Glacier appears at my side, leading him to the back deck and meeting up with Smoky, Mug, and Dober. At the very least, I couldn't think of a better group to storm this place with. “We'll go in through the back bedroom, since the back entrance that leads to the main part of the house funnels through a tight hallway. No way we're getting stuck in a death trap like that.”
“You got it, boss,” Smoky says as Glacier and I drop our crossbows and switch to semi-automatics with subsonic ammo and silencers. Best way to keep things quiet. “What do you want us to do with Clayton and Becca?”
I have to swallow hard at the easy sound of Rebecca's nickname sliding from Smoky's lips.
“Shoot 'em,” I say and then turn, leading my boys up the steps, quiet as mice.
When we hit the French doors, I feel a gut wrenching twist of disappointment to find the room empty.
My fists clench around my gun as Glacier bends down and picks the lock in a New York minute, sending the five of us into the room like a SWAT team, spreading out and covering all the nooks and crannies in less than ten seconds.
There's nobody in here.
“We're inside. Back bedroom clear.” I send the message over the radio and wait for a response.
“We're heading in the front now,” Mannon says before cutting out.
I move over to the hall door and open it slowly, staying behind the wood for cover as Glacier and Mug make their way through, checking the crooked hallway as I move back into the room and take up the rear.
There are goddamn doors everywhere, like this place is a fucking hotel or something. Room after room after room lines the hallway and to our left, another short hallway, the one that leads outside. It also has a door off of it.
Dober heads that way, checks the room and gives us an all clear as I wait, my arms tense and aching, for Smoky and Mug to clear out the first room on the right.
And then the one on the left.
The right.
The left.
“Where the fuck is everybody?” I snarl when we run into Mannon and the group from the front.
“There were four guys in the living room that we took care of,” he says as the rest of our boys continue canvassing the bottom floor of the mansion. I follow him into the cavernous white living room, hating the way our footsteps echo around the mostly empty space.
On the floor are four men that I don't recognize. No Clayton. No Rebecca.
In my gut, I have an awful twisting feeling.
They saw me, somehow. When I was staring like a goddamn creeper through the glass.
So where are they now? How the hell did they get out without being seen?
Shots ring from upstairs as one of the other groups starts in on the top floor, but I don't have time to worry about it.
“The goddamn motherfucking clubhouse!” I roar as I think of the script Lyric told me about. A bait and switch.
Again.
I have to hope the reinforcements that we left can handle the cartel until we get there.
“I'll be waiting at the clubhouse then.”
Fucking no.
“Clayton and Rebecca are gone,” Smoky says as he comes down the steps at a gallop and pauses in front of me.
I could give two fucks less about them now though.
“Leave a few boys to clear the house; everyone else get back to the compound as fast as you can. Don't worry about law enforcement or being seen. Just get there.”
I'm running before I can finish the words, Glacier and Dober at my heels.
I failed Lyric twice before.
I won't do it again.
Fauna is lively with good color in her face. That, and she manages to wolf down half the food I brought with me to the hospital. Seeing her awake and smiling makes it all worth it. Shooting Mia was … awful, but if I had to do it again, I would. A million times over. Especially when I see Fauna with her daughter.
“Thanks for the ride back,” Serenity says when we pull onto the quiet grounds of the compound and park near the clubhouse. “Mom and Dad will be up all night talking. I wanted to give them some space.”
“Of course, honey, anytime,” I say as I smile and we both climb out of the car, heading up the steps and inside the warm building. There are men everywhere: scattered near the gates, patrolling the empty parking lots, outside by the door, gathered in the bar area.
It sounds loud and raucous in there, tense. In any other situation, walking into a building like this at five two with a gorgeous seventeen year old girl by my side, I'd be terrified. Being alone in a room full of men like this is not my idea of safety. But I know Royal, and I saw the way Dober looks at Janae, how Jack held Fauna's hand in the hospital. If these men even look at us sideways, they'll get their asses handed to them.
“Lyric!” Janae calls from behind us. I turn to find her helping Glinda in the front door. “I thought we could open the café and make some mochas. We have the best barista on the compound with us after all.”
Serenity grins and tosses some red streaked blond hair over her shoulder, shrugging in that loose, easy way that all teenagers but me somehow seem to master effortlessly. I was such a freaking awkward kid.
“I guess I could cook up some coffee—but I want to be on the clock for it.”
“Hah, you wish,” Janae says as we move to meet the other two women, crossing the parking lot with hushed whispers as we stare at the virtual army surrounding us. “This is insane. In all my years married to Dober, I've never seen this kind of activity before.” Janae shakes her head, smiling at the men who nod respectfully to her as we pass. “It's awful.”
I suck in a deep breath, feeling that empty gaping pit in my stomach that says you're leaving this behind forever. I should be glad because what kind of sane person would want to put up with this shit? But instead, I want to throw up.
I'm leaving Royal.
I'm leaving Trinidad.
I'm leaving my family.
But mostly … Royal. God.
But I've made up my mind. I can't let myself get consumed in the heat and fire of that man. It'll eat me up, burn everything I have away until I'm nothing but his. I need and want and have to be more than that. I have to.
I just wish I hadn't come to that decision today. It's Friday, and the flight I've just booked is for Monday evening, giving me days to question and worry and fret over this.
I spent the few hours before our meeting at the hospital to call some old contacts, make connections, and even managed to line up a job interview for Tuesday. Tuesday.
Everything feels like it's happening so fast, but the one that I know is that I can't leave until I convince Royal to use Heather Shelley's help. All my plans hinge on that, on being able to convince him that I'm right about this.
Janae unlocks the doors to the café and holds them open while I help Glinda in and over to a small black velvet booth in one corner. Very biker chic. Royal definitely knows how to attract and keep all the wealthy vacationing housewives happy.
; “Mochas for everyone?” Serenity asks, pointing between the three of us as she raises an eyebrow and smiles.
“Put an extra shot in mine,” Glinda says as she leans her head back against the black cushion and sighs. “Mick's 'round here somewhere,” she says, referring to her husband whom I've met only briefly. Seems like an okay guy though. “I want to get caffeinated up and then find him. Soon as he knows I'm here, we'll be off to one of the dorm rooms.”
She lifts her head up and laughs at my look of complete shock.
“He … asks you to … sleep with him with a GSW?”
“No, honey, hell no. No. Mick might look like an asshole to the outside world, but he's a sweetheart with little old me. I meant that I would drag him to one of the dorm rooms. I mighta been shot, but I'm still a healthy red-blooded woman.” She raises one of her perfectly arched blond brows at me. “You telling me you came all the way back here to wait for Royal, so you could say hi to the man? I wasn't born yesterday, sugar tits.”
I snort with laughter as Janae grins big and a strange warmth comes over me for the second time that night.
Trust me when I say I have zero girlfriends. Zero. Zilch. Zero guy friends either, to be truthful. I make connections with people, contacts, business understandings. But not friends.
At the hospital, and here, now, I feel like I have at least a few. Or I could, if I stayed.
My heart sinks, but I smile anyway, trying to enjoy the moment.
“Okay, well, he said that when he was done, he'd need me. I promised to be here.”
My face flushes a little, but I stay sitting straight and proud, enjoying the darkness of the café, the only light coming from the industrial beasts that light the whole compound. That, and moonlight, leaking in all the windows and bathing us in silver.
“So,” Glinda begins as she turns toward me and cringes a little, taking a long, deep breath and putting a hand up to her shoulder. I don't know the exact medical details of either Agent Shelley's shoulder wound or Glinda's, but the way they handle themselves couldn't be any more different. Glinda still looks like someone in the midst of recuperating while Heather looks like she could kill an ox. “Tell us about Royal—in the bedroom, I mean. We all know the asshole better than we probably want to.”
I almost say something stupid like, didn't you hear enough details from Mia? but that's my stupid, jealous asshole side talking, a side that has no business existing. Not after what I did to to her. I shut those feelings down hard, aware that they're happening only because of the decision I made to leave for D.C.
“What do you want to know?” I ask and Glinda hoots with laughter. Janae claps her hands a few times and flicks dark hair over one shoulder as the two of them exchange a look.
“See, told you she wasn't as big a prude as you thought.”
“You win,” Janae says with a loose shrug of her rose colored blouse, turning her brown eyes over to me, a bar of moonlight making her nose glow strangely. I smile. “Tell us stupid sexual trivia. We live for that.”
“Like, how many times can he go in one night? How do you make up for your height differences? Is he anything kinky or weird?”
“Serenity, plug your ears!” Janae shouts through cupped hands, and I glance over my shoulder to find the teenager rolling her eyes dramatically. “Serenity's a virgin,” Janae states in a theatrically loud whisper as she drops her hands to her lap.
I grin at Serenity, but the way her face shifts … something's off. Maybe not a virgin anymore? I wonder as I watch her shake off the emotion like it was nothing and set about preparing our coffees with military precision.
I turn back to Janae and Glinda, not wanting to draw their attention to Serenity's mood. If there's something she wants to share with them, I'll leave that to her.
“Well,” I start, trying to think of how to explain the crazy chemistry between Royal and me, “he can … go and go. Seriously, I've never seen endurance quite like he's got. It's as if he turns into a seventeen year old boy when we're together or something.”
“Is he gentle? He acts tough around the boys, but he's kind of like Mick. He's a sweetheart deep down, always joking and smiling with everyone. But he's really matured a lot, since he became president I mean.”
“Gentle when he wants to be,” I say and the girls croon with laughter as a grin takes over my own face, cheeks flaming as I think about that chaise, about the snapping sound of my panties tearing as Royal tore them off of me. “He … we did it on his bike last week.”
“And here's your official welcome to the club,” Janae says as she holds up a hand and gives me a high five. “Hopefully he didn't accidentally fuck you right off the back like Dober did me. I fell right onto the cement, cracked my head. Let's just say, it wasn't half as sexy as I thought it would be.”
“Oh, it was pretty fucking sexy,” I say as I remember dragging Royal into the house to keep up our game on the bearskin rug. “It worked out although it was a tad awkward. I both love and hate being a foot and then some shorter than him.”
“Four mochas,” Serenity says, sitting two mugs in front of us and heading back to the counter for two more before sitting down in the chair to my left and giving us all looks. “You ladies are dirty as hell, you know that?”
“One day you'll be trading stories with your girls, too,” Glinda says as she reaches out and takes Serenity's hand. “Though hopefully you don't end up with some stupid meathead biker asshole like the rest of us.”
The look on Serenity's face … it's hard to interpret.
I'm not the only one that sees it.
“You alright, honey?” Glinda asks, peering into Serenity's blue eyes. “I was just playin' with you, sugar.”
“I—” Serenity starts and then pauses at the harsh, cracking sound of gunfire pinging through the trees. “What was that?” she asks, her voice stiff and uneasy.
The sounds come again, more of them this time, staccato and unbroken like an automatic weapon's being fired somewhere near the back of the compound. Looking out the front window, I see men running toward the sound while others stay to watch the gates, backs stiff and eyes focused toward the commotion.
Seconds later, the deep roaring growl of bikes fills the air and I see a pack of Wolves come around the corner, Royal leading the charge on his red and white beauty.
He speeds through the front gate and parks haphazardly, tossing his helmet aside and sliding a pistol from inside his cut.
I stand up without meaning to, drawing his attention suddenly toward the café's front windows, like he can sense me inside. In a split second, he's tearing across the pavement and bursting into the room.
“Royal,” I breathe, my voice low and rasping and needy. God. I really do have to get the fuck out of Trinidad while I still can, before I grow some kind of soul mate tether to Royal and can't pull myself away. Gross. “What's going on?”
“Dear Jesus, thank you,” he whispers, putting an arm around my neck and pulling me close, kissing my forehead with his warm lips. Despite the wind chill from riding, there are drops of sweat on either side of his face as he looks down at me with darkness crawling through those deep brown eyes of his. “We've got action on our borders, ladies. Do you have your guns?”
I produce my Glock from my purse and Glinda and Janae follow. Even fucking Serenity has a gun, a small revolver in pink. Pink. Yep, this is that kind of place.
“Get in the storeroom and hunker down. Keep the door locked and don't come out until I come get you.”
“Let's go,” Janae says, putting on what I'm coming to recognize as her Queen Bee voice. She helps Glinda to her feet and grabs Serenity's wrist, tugging them in the direction of the counter. “Lyric?” she asks when I just stand there and stare at Royal's taut, angry face.
“Go,” I tell them as I nod my chin in their direction. “I'm staying out here.”
“Fuck that shit, Pint-Size,” Royal says, but I jerk away when he goes for my arm, disengaging the safety on my weapon.
�
�No. No, Royal. I won't cower in the storeroom like a mouse.”
“This is … it's club business,” he says, but that sounds like bullshit to me.
“You're my old man, right?” I respond curtly, feeling like the words are a lie, even as they're still coming out of my mouth. “I have a right to defend my man, don't I?”
“Jesus, woman, you've really lost the plot if you think I'm going to willingly drag you out to meet a bunch of cartel men with machine guns. Bloody hell.”
“If you keep standing here arguing with me, your men are going to fight without a leader. Take me or physically hold me down in here because those are the only choices you have to keep me in this place.”
“Fuck,” Royal snarls, grabbing me around the wrist and dragging me roughly toward the door and out into the cool, moist air of a Trinidad evening. He makes us run low to the ground, all the way over to the clubhouse and inside, darting down the hall and into a supply room.
When he tosses a bulletproof vest my way that's far too big for me, I don't argue, slipping it on and letting him help me with the straps; I notice he's wearing one under his cut, too.
A minute later, Royal's pulling several other weapons off the shelves and having them to me: a knife, a can of mace, another gun.
“Stay behind me and follow my orders like you're a bloody soldier in my army, you hear me? This isn't the time to argue, Pint-Size. I swear to fuck that if you disobey me one fucking time, I will knock your ass out and lock you in with the girls.”
“Got it,” I say, breathing out and feeling this weird sense of calm wash over me.
Royal guides us back down the hall where we run into Glacier.
He gives me a weird look over Royal's shoulder and blinks his blue eyes several times before speaking. When he does, his voice is cold and low and terrifying.
“Where is Serenity?” he asks, the words flowing like ice across my skin. I shiver.
And then it all clicks.
Oh.
Oh.
Ooooooh. Oh my God.
“She's safe, locked in the café storeroom with Glinda and Janae,” Royal snaps before I can respond. “Where she should be.”