“Comes in handy from time to time,” I chuckle. “Come on, you’re crashing at my place tonight.”
She seems surprised as I lead her back to my bike, but I feel her arm wrap around my waist as I do, and I know she’s happy with the arrangement. “Nobody’s going to question an impromptu party in the middle of a war with the FBI, huh?”
“You must not have spent a lot of time around bikers, Cherry,” I say in response, and she giggles lightly as we get pull out into the night.
In the back of my mind, I know there’s another reason I want to set up this get-together. The thought has been in my mind since I claimed her on the hillside earlier tonight, ploughing her into my kutte with her ass slapping against me with each thrust.
I want everyone in the club to be really fucking clear about what Cherry is to me: my old lady.
The way this town can pull something together last-minute never ceases to amaze me.
When news spread that the Union Club was hosting something this evening, it spread like wildfire. The town’s been starving for something to raise their spirits, apparently. Before noon even rolled around, we were swamped with people calling club members to throw money into the thing and offer to cook or bring drinks. By the time people started showing up at the warehouse, you’d think it was a city-wide organized event.
I’m sitting at the end of a long table, laughing at one of Anya’s jokes as we put down another beer. Cherry is on my lap, already blushing after a couple drinks, her arms around my neck.
There’s music echoing throughout the whole warehouse, and Genn is up on the stage playing guitar with a handful of his buddies from work. He’s had a garage band going for a few years, and he’s been too shy to show it off to us, but his bandmates practically forced him to get up on stage with them for tonight.
Vasily and Roy are in the corner, taking on some of the locals at arm-wrestling. They threw together something of a tournament for the night, and now some of the factory workers from around town are trying their arms against them.
I practically ordered our bartender Rod to take the day off and enjoy himself, so I hired another local guy to run the show for him. He and I shot the breeze for a while before he snuck off to take part in what looked like a poker game among some of the other club members. Unfortunately for them, Rod has been around all of them long enough to know all their tells, and he’s cleaning house, much to their chagrin.
Outside, I’ve heard that the mechanics from across town are being shown the club’s bikes, and as news spreads, some of the club’s gearheads slip out to take part. From what I’ve heard across the warehouse, Eva’s already come close to getting into a brawl with someone over an engine modification.
“I can not believe I ever left this town,” Cherry laughs as Anya slips off to chat with the young carpenter she’s had her eye on all night. Cherry hugs my neck tight, planting a kiss on my cheek. “Leon, look at all this! This was less than a day’s prep!”
“It’s something else, yeah,” I chuckle, giving her ass a squeeze and pulling her closer into me. She giggles, bringing her forehead to touch mine with heavily lidded eyes.
“I can’t believe you, you know? It’s like you can get this whole town moving, just by the force of your personality. But you don’t use it for yourself, you know? You just kind of... inspire them.”
The grin on my face spreads, and my hand runs up her back. “I’m not the only one who’s inspired someone lately,” I whisper in her ear in a husky tone, and Cherry bites her lip a moment before pressing her lips against mine.
I let her meld into me, tossing my beer aside as my hands grip her ass and we make out right there in view of everyone. It only makes my cock harder as I feel her up, and her hands slip inside my kutte while her tongue dives into my mouth.
“There’s an empty office room in the back,” I whisper into her ear, and she starts to grin and stand up when the warehouse front door swings open and Eva sprints in, waving her hands.
“Everyone! The feds are here!”
The next instant, half a dozen police officers flood through the door, one of whom grabs Eva’s arms and presses her against the wall as he slips handcuffs on her wrists. A number of the cops shout out as they pour in: “County police! Everyone freeze, hands in the air!”
The crowd explodes.
Club members and townsfolk alike dive for windows, surge towards backdoors, or get run down by the county police. I realize that they’re only grabbing the patches and anyone who’s been seen with our club regularly. Immediately, I grab a shocked Cherry’s arm and bolt towards the back office I meant to fuck in a few moments ago.
Chaos takes over in a matter of moments, and my heart sinks as I hear Agent Doyle’s voice just outside the entrance.
“FBI, FBI! Everyone remain calm, I have a warrant!”
Inside, things are anything but calm. The county sheriffs that have crashed the party waste no time in overturning tables, sending the home cooked food the town had brought in scattering across the floor, and the sound of broken glass tells me the drinks are following after in short order.
The club gets the worst of it. Vasily gets tackled by two of the cops, one of them sticking a knee in his neck while they handcuff him on the ground. It takes twice as many to keep Roy down. I don’t see Anya or Genn, and I wonder whether they’ve already been hauled into the cars outside or if they made it out in time.
Cherry and I dart to the back office, and I make sure she’s inside before glancing back at the front of the warehouse. Nobody seems to have noticed yet, but I can’t count on that for long.
“Cherry,” I breathe, slamming the door behind us and looking back at her, “there’s a vent you can climb into here, just above that filing cabinet. Here, I’ll help you up. Stay here until things cool off, they won’t think to look for you.”
“Wait,” Cherry protests as I push her towards the cabinet, “what’s going to happen to you?!”
“I don’t know yet, Cherry. But if they’ve got us for the hit, then I’m sorry. You were right,” I admit, a grim look on my face, but Cherry’s face only shows concern for me.
“I don’t see how, it isn’t even that late yet, there’s no way they could know about — ”
Outside, I can hear footsteps getting closer, and the look on Cherry’s face tells me she’s heard it too. Without another word, I help her up, and she pries open the rusty vent shaft with little issue.
Whatever happens, Leon,” she says as she clambers in, casting another look at me as I watch her slip inside, “I love you.”
“I love you too, baby,” “I say, my meaning absolute with every word. She closes the vent over her, and without another moment, I dart for the window on the other side of office. It would look suspicious if I was just standing there, but I know what’s coming.
As if on cue, the door to the office smashes open just as my hands reach the window.
“That’s far enough, Mr. Volkov,” Agent Doyle says calmly, “you can keep your hands up against that window for us, thank you.” I can practically hear the smile on his face.
“Sorry, did we forget your invitation?” I ask, keeping still as I three county sheriffs surround me and pull my arms behind me.
“Leon Volkov,” Doyle proceeds, unfazed, “you are under arrest for obstruction of justice.”
19
Cherry
I hold my breath and watch in wide-eyed horror as Agent Doyle wrangles Leon’s arms behind his back and clinks the handcuffs around his wrists. Part of me wants to kick the vent back open and launch myself at him, tackle that smarmy asshole to the ground and bloody his nose for daring to put his hands on Leon. But I know that anything I do now will only exacerbate the issue. I can’t fight back that way. I’m not powerful enough to take anybody down with my strength (or lack thereof) and besides, we are outnumbered and outarmed. The feds have legally-recognized and sanctioned weapons to use against us, and I’m just a skinny, trembling girl curled up in a dust-caked air vent.
So I have to bite my tongue and try not to breathe deeply while Doyle and his black-suited lackeys drag Leon away in cuffs, placing him under arrest. My heart is hammering loudly and I’m terrified that they might actually hear it. I cautiously wrap my arms around my chest as though to muffle the sound, my lungs growing tight and painful from holding in my breath for this long.
I wish Leon had actually escaped through the window. Maybe then he would have had a fighting chance. And he would have been able to evade arrest if not for the fact that he wasted time trying to conceal me and keep me safe. As the men leave the back office with Leon, I’m struck with mingled gratitude and overwhelming guilt, realizing just how much Leon might have just sacrificed for me. He didn’t have to do that. He didn’t have to take up precious seconds helping me into this air vent. God knows he’s a fast enough runner — if only he had leaped out the window and took off into the sunset. But instead he put me first, willingly throwing himself under the bus just to give me a small chance at escape. And he did it without hesitation, without question, like it was an instinct rather than a conscious choice.
I don’t think I’ve ever felt so protected and simultaneously so upset.
When I hear the last of the voices and scuffle fade away as everybody is either arrested and herded out the door or able to break free and run off, I take a deep breath at last. I want to punch myself in the face for letting Leon get in so much trouble over me.
Maybe if I had just minded my own business and stuck to my usual, stupid, pointless article content none of this would have happened. If I had just accepted my father’s death as accidental rather than trying to build some big, overblown conspiracy around it, Leon would be okay. But no, I just couldn’t keep myself out of trouble.
And now Leon is paying the price.
I sit here in the air vent beating myself up for what feels like at least an hour, too upset and afraid to move. I have no idea what to do, where to go from here. I’ve been following Leon’s directions, tailing after him like a dopey, lovesick puppy, too enraptured to admit that I’m in way over my head. God, how could I have been so stupid?
My father would be so disappointed in me. We failed. And it’s all my fault.
Without Leon to lead them, the Club will probably fall apart. And who knows if any of them even escaped from the party? Maybe they’re all in handcuffs right now, being lugged off to jail, never to investigate anything else or save anyone else ever again.
Tears burn in my eyes and I angrily rub them away before finally stretching out my legs and carefully pushing the air vent open. Once the grate clatters to the ground, I extend one foot to cautiously get my balance on the filing cabinet beneath me. Then I slowly, carefully lower myself down through the square hole and clamber down the cabinet. I stand there in the empty room, looking around.
Then I tense up at the sound of footsteps.
Coming toward the door.
Oh, I’m an idiot! Of course the cops would still have someone stationed here just in case! And here I am, just standing here like a deer in the headlights, waiting to be cuffed and dragged away. But it hits me now that I don’t really care. It’s all over. There’s no hope, anyway. Besides, I deserve to be arrested for the trouble I’ve caused.
So I just cross my arms over my chest and wait.
The door pushes slowly open, the rusting hinges whining. A tall, impossibly burly frame peeks around the door and walks into the room: Genn. I heave a sigh of relief.
“Oh, it’s you,” I murmur, exhaling deeply. Quickly, I add, “You escaped?”
Genn nods, scratching at the back of his head. “Yeah. I bolted when I heard the cops coming, hid in the musicians’ van. None of them thought to check there, I guess. They just see motorcycles and think ‘bad guy.’ They didn’t suspect any of us would be hiding in a van with an airbrush mural of a mermaid drinking vodka painted on the side of it.”
“Hide in plain sight,” comments a voice from behind him. I jump at the sound, but then Lukas shoves into the room, looking nearly apoplectic with rage. With his fists clenched at his sides and his teeth bared like a growling wolf, he swears, “Fucking rats. Just fucking stormed in here like they owned the place, but they’re still too stupid to even get all of us.”
“Who are you talking to? Someone in there?” pipes up another familiar voice. Vasily walks into the room, too, his eyebrows shooting up at the sight of me. “Cherry!” he gasps.
“How’d you manage not to get arrested? I saw that motherfucker Doyle and his stooges come into this room and grab Leon,” Lukas asks, putting his hands on his hips.
I turn and point to the air vent. “Leon stashed me up in there. He — he took the time to hide me instead of just running away through the window like he should have,” I explain, hanging my head guiltily. I expect Lukas to fly at me angrily and start cursing me. And I almost want him to.
Instead, Genn just says, “That sounds about right.”
“Don’t feel bad,” Vasily says, shrugging. “He would never have let them take you. Just be glad he managed to find a way to save you without having to kill a cop or something.”
“Yeah, you never had a choice in the matter,” Lukas adds. “He would have literally shanked Agent Dickhead in the chest with a shard of glass or some shit, just to keep his old lady safe.”
“So at least he’s not going down for murdering a cop,” Vasily says, genuinely relieved.
“What do we do now?” I ask, biting my lip, afraid of the answer. I want them to tell me there’s a backup plan, that they’re prepared for this kind of armageddon. I want them to give me the details to some over-the-top rescue mission they’ve been holding onto just for this kind of catastrophic turn of events.
But instead, they all just exchange world-weary looks.
“Good fucking question,” Lukas comments bluntly.
“Well, the cops took him away, but surely we’ve got some guy on the inside who can help us out? A cop on the take who can break him out or at least relay us information?” I suggest, almost pleadingly. But Vasily shakes his head, giving me a pained expression.
“They’re not taking him to the local precinct, Cherry,” he tells me sadly. “Those weren’t our usual everyday schmuck cops. Those were the feds and county sheriffs. They’re taking him to the county jail.”
“And we… we don’t have anybody there?” I press weakly.
Lukas scoffs. “Hell no. Those guys are a little above our pay grade. It’s hard enough to infiltrate the force here in Bayonne. But out there, things are tighter.”
“The county guys aren’t on our side,” Vasily agrees. “They’re in the pockets of the feds, and they’re like the FBI’s trained pitbulls when it comes to this stuff.”
“And as you know, the feds are already more than okay with straight-up human trafficking and murder, so there’s not really any chance of appealing to their moral conscience, either,” Lukas snaps, gritting his teeth.
“This could be the end of the line,” Genn concludes sorrowfully.
“But they don’t know Leon is connected to the threat on Chandler’s life,” I remark, still trying desperately to hold this shitstorm together. “Doyle arrested him for obstruction — not murder or conspiracy or anything. Obstruction is, what, a misdemeanor?”
“They’ll run it as a felony,” Vasily says.
“And anyway that’s just their excuse for dragging him in. Once they’ve got him in a cell, that’ll give them plenty of time to find all kinds of other shit to pin on him,” Lukas says.
“We — we can’t give up this easily,” I beg, shaking my head and taking a step forward. “It can’t be over yet! Leon needs our help!”
“Cherry, we can’t touch him now,” Genn says gently.
I can’t blame them for wanting to throw in the towel. After all, when I was sitting in that air vent just five minutes ago, I was thinking along the same lines. When things are this grim, it’s definitely hard to see past it. But every time I think about how qu
ickly Leon jumped to save me, throwing himself in the crosshairs just to give me a fighting chance — I realize that I won’t be able to live with myself if I don’t at least try to return the favor.
Besides, a life without Leon is not one I’m particularly interested in living anymore.
Not when his words are still ringing in my head: I love you, too.
“No,” I protest, folding my arms across my chest defiantly. “I refuse to just lay down and let these feds ruin everything you all have worked so hard for. We’ve all come too far to just give up now.”
“We’d probably only make it worse,” Vasily comments, but I can tell he’s starting to cave a little bit. There’s a spark in his blue eyes indicating to me that he isn’t ready to give up yet. I decide to stoke that tiny flame. If I’m really going to do this and take on the feds, I damn sure don’t want to do it alone.
“Besides, we don’t have anything on the feds,” Genn says.
“They’re dirty as fuck, but they’re pros at looking squeaky clean,” comments Lukas.
Suddenly I gasp, remembering something so small and seemingly insignificant that I did on a whim much earlier. Something I totally forgot in the rain of gunfire as we ran away from the docks the other night.
I took a picture with my phone at the scene of the crime.
“Hold on,” I mumble, reaching into my jeans pocket to extract my cell phone. I scroll through the gallery of photos to find the blurry, grainy shot I took of Agent Doyle standing next to Chandler on the docks, overseeing the immigrants’ grueling procession. I zoom in on Doyle’s face. It’s not the best quality photo, to be sure, but it definitely looks like him. Bingo.
“What are you doing?” Vasily asks, confused.
I hold up the phone for them to see the picture. “Look!”
All three of them lean in and squint at the phone screen. I wait expectantly for them to all realize just how valuable this evidence is. But instead they all just look defeated.
“Cherry, this is never gonna be enough,” Genn tells me sympathetically.
Saved by the Outlaw: A Bad Boy Romance Page 15