by Zoey Parker
Two minutes. Time was slipping by too fast. “I can’t.”
“Even after what I did?” His voice was almost a whisper.
“Yes. You’re still my best friend. I can’t let go of that just because you fucked up. Come with us, please.”
It looked like he was thinking it over. We had a minute and a half to get out of the building and far enough from it to avoid the blast. “It’s now or never, man. Come on. We’ve gotta go, now.”
“No, I won’t go with you. But I’ll cover you.” He pulled his gun.
“It’s suicide,” I whispered. I was horrified.
He smiled grimly. “I know. Better to go this way than put a bullet in my head. You don’t know how many times I thought about doing that tonight when I knew I had nowhere to go after this.”
Erica squeezed my hand again. I knew we had to do it, though my chest ached when I thought of my best friend giving up his life like this.
He sounded very tired when he said, “You would do it for me. Or you would have before I fucked it all up. Let me make it right, a little.”
I couldn’t spend any more time trying to convince him. I felt the clock ticking away the last seconds of his life, and maybe of mine if we didn’t run soon.
I nodded, crossing the room. “I love you, brother,” I said, hugging him briefly.
“Same here. I’m sorry.” He looked at Erica, standing to my side. “I’m sorry.”
“I know,” she said. She was crying.
He looked at the door. “Let’s do this. Stay low behind me.”
I checked my watch. Thirty seconds.
So much happened at all once. He opened the door quickly but quietly—not that it mattered, since the music from the radio was blaring so loudly. It was still a celebration as far as they were concerned. At first, nobody even looked up.
Onyx walked out in front of us, shielding us with his big body. He waved us on.
“Come on,” I whispered, taking Erica’s hand and pushing her out first. I wanted to be behind her on the way to the door. If shooting started, I wanted to be between her and them. We dashed for the door.
“Hey! Wait!” Chairs overturning, bottles breaking. Shots fired. Erica screamed, but I pushed her on, screaming back for her to keep moving. I didn’t dare turn around. I could only hope Onyx had got a few of them before they took him out. The door was just in front of us.
We ran out the door, flying past the long row of bikes along the front wall. “Run!” I screamed. I took her hand again, pulling her along this time. “Keep going! Don’t look back!”
We almost reached the end of the block of warehouses before the explosion rocked us. We fell to the ground from the force of the blast. I threw myself over Erica, protecting her from the burning bits of wood which fell around us. Windows shattered, car alarms went off for blocks all around.
I saw feet running toward us. I couldn’t hear anything but a low roaring. Somebody pulled me to my feet. Axel. He was screaming at me. I couldn’t hear anything but the roaring in my ears and a faint sound from him. Like there was something over his mouth. I saw Frankie and Ralph dragging Erica to her feet. She looked all right—in one piece. They threw us into the back of one of the SUVs and we sped away.
It was over. I couldn’t believe we made it out. I held Erica tight, looking out the window at the inferno behind us. Ralph had done the job and then some. The building was gone, a pile of burning rubble.
I looked down at Erica, who looked up at me. Her face was dirty and streaked with tears. We couldn’t have spoken to each other if we tried—her ears had to be ringing as badly as mine were. We didn’t need to speak, though. I saw everything in her eyes.
###
“He covered us. He gave us the chance to escape. He was sorry for what he did, and he told me this was his way of making it right. He wanted you to all know how sorry he was for everything.”
I looked over the room, everyone gathered on the sofas and chairs in the lounge. It had been a few hours since we got back, but my hearing had only started to return. Nobody could wait any longer to find out what happened.
I knew I had to tell them about Onyx. He wouldn’t have wanted me to, but I couldn’t let him die as a traitor in their eyes. They had to know he cared enough about me, and them, in the end to do what he did.
I took a swig from my beer, thinking it over. “I honestly don’t think he had any idea how big it would get. I think York told him what he wanted to hear, just like he did to Lance. Probably like he did to all the guys in his club. He was a master at manipulating people. Probably a psycho, or a sociopath. He didn’t care about anybody but himself.” I shrugged. “It’s over now.”
Brett’s eyes overflowed with tears. “He sacrificed himself for you guys.”
I nodded. My throat was too tight to speak. The girls cried, comforting each other. I smiled to myself, knowing Onyx would have laughed if he knew they saw him as a tragic hero.
“How is she?” Brett asked, and we all knew who she meant.
“Fine, I think. They didn’t do anything to her. Onyx made sure they didn’t.” As soon as we arrived at the clubhouse, Erica had collapsed into bed. I didn’t blame her. The shock was finally wearing off, and she was exhausted. “She might need her wrists bandaged, but I didn’t get a good look at them. They had her tied pretty tight.”
“Poor thing,” she murmured, shaking her head. I was proud of her for taking Erica under her wing the way she had. It meant more to me than I could say that everybody accepted her.
I was proud of all of them. My guys had stepped up in more ways than one. They’d shown me how far they were willing to go to keep our club safe and running the way it always had. We were a family.
“I have one more thing I wanna say to all of you, and I want you to take this to heart.” It wasn’t easy for me, but I had to do it. “If any of you don’t agree with the club pulling out of the drug business, I understand. If any of you disagree with me on anything, I want you to tell me. This isn’t a dictatorship. I’d rather have you come to me so we could work it out. I don’t want this happening again.”
Everyone nodded. Frankie looked around the room, then spoke. “I think we all proved tonight that you’re our guy. We don’t want anything else but this.”
“You can count on us,” Axel added. “The others…they were stupid and greedy. They believed that bastard when he told them what they wanted to hear. He used them. We get it. It won’t happen again.”
I believed them, and it filled my heart.
It was almost dawn, and everybody broke up to go to bed. It would be a late morning for us, but for the first time in over a week, we would all wake up feeling more positive. I’d mourn Onyx quietly, privately. Otherwise, there was nothing on the horizon but hope.
And Erica. If she wanted to be.
The thought of her leaving crossed my mind while I sat on a bar stool, watching everybody else go upstairs to bed. I was holding an icepack to my bruised temple on Brett’s orders. She came over and asked to take a look.
“What are you thinking about?” she asked, lifting the pack from my skin.
“Why do you ask? Maybe I’m not thinking about anything.”
She smirked. “Please. Like I don’t know your thinking face.”
“I have one of those?”
“Definitely. So what is it?” She looked at me with narrowed eyes. “Erica?”
“When did you become a mind reader?”
She chuckled. “You spend enough time with a person, you start to know the way they think. Besides, it’s normal for you to think about her. What’s she gonna do now?” She peered at me again. “What are you gonna do?”
I shrugged and looked away while she put some ointment on a gauze pad and taped it to my temple. “I don’t know. I guess it’s up to her. We didn’t give her the best impression of this life, did we?”
“I guess you’re right. She’s seen a lot of bad shit. But there’ve been good things, too. She played poker with us w
hile you were gone.”
“She did?”
“Yeah, she fit right in. She could have been a snob about it, you know? Like she thought she was better than us since she comes from another world. It wasn’t like that at all. She offered to help. She wanted to be part of things. That’s probably pretty rare, don’t you think?”
I mulled it over. What she said made sense.
“That leaves you. What are you gonna do?”
“Is it wrong to say I don’t want her to be part of this because I think she’s better than this?”
Brett sighed and sat down next to me. “Better than what? We’re a family. Yeah, we’re dysfunctional as hell, but we’re here for each other. Do you have a problem with what you do?”
“Brett, I killed people. A lot of people. I fucking strangled York.”
“It was self-defense. He would have killed you if you didn’t do it first.”
“Still, that doesn’t make me a good person. I ran out of a building that was wired to explode without giving anybody a chance to make it out. That doesn’t make me a good person either.”
“What do you think would have happened if you told them about the C-4? What if they lived? Do you think they would have left you alone for the rest of your life just because you gave them the heads up? No. They were the bad guys. Bad people. No souls. You have a soul. You’re a good person. Sometimes you do things that aren’t good, but you have a reason. This time, it was to protect the club from York and the Wolves.”
I was looking at the floor when she spoke. “Look at me. Look me in the eye.”
I did. She was crying.
“What do you think they would have done to me if you died tonight? Me and Tyler and Sam? Why do you think there aren’t any girls in that club like there are here? Everybody knew how they treated women. They were animals. If they had found us here, forget it. I would have killed myself.”
It hurt me to hear her say it, especially since I knew she was right. York was a pig; his men were pigs. “You might have saved my life, and the other girls. We can never thank you enough for that. You did a good thing, the sort of thing a leader does.”
I hugged her tight. She didn’t know it, but that was the best thing she could have said. It was the one thing I needed to hear more than anything when York’s words were still playing in my head. Taunting me, telling me I was no leader, that I had no right to sit at the head of my club.
“I love you,” Brett whispered. “I’ll always love you.”
I smiled over her shoulder. I wasn’t used to saying it, but she made it impossible not to. “I love you, too,” I said. “Thank you for always being my friend.”
She pulled away to wipe the tears from her face. “So? What will you do about Erica?”
I shook my head. “I have to wait and see what she wants.”
Brett nodded, accepting that, and went upstairs.
I took one more look around the clubhouse before heading up myself. It was my clubhouse. My club. Nobody else’s.
I wished I could say the same about Erica as I slid beside her in bed. She was out cold. I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her to me. Letting her heat warm me. I felt cold all of a sudden.
I loved her. And that meant being ready to let her go if that was what she wanted.
Chapter Thirty
Erica
When I woke, it was with Vince’s arms around me. I let myself experience the feeling for a little while before opening my eyes. No thoughts, no worries, nothing. It was just the two of us. This was the first time I’d woken up with him where there was no anxiety. Only peace.
I didn’t feel anything about what had happened to me, and I knew that might not be a good thing. It could have meant that I was in shock, or denial. Or maybe it just meant that I didn’t care about that entire clubhouse full of men being blown to smithereens. I didn’t care, because if it hadn’t been for Onyx, they would have done whatever they wanted to me. Even Alexander had said he wanted to keep me. I didn’t think he was kidding at the time, and I didn’t think he was kidding as I remembered it the morning after.
I wondered about the mess we’d left behind. I used the word we when I thought about it, and it wasn’t a mistake. I was one of them. I hadn’t intended for it to turn out that way—who would?
I told myself as I lay there with my eyes closed that any sane person would run hard and fast after what happened. I’d seen too many things that turned my stomach. I’d witnessed murder, I’d run from gunshots, and been kidnapped and tied to a chair. What else needed to happen for me to realize this was a bad, bad idea?
Vince’s arms tightened slightly, as though he heard my thoughts. It was his arms that convinced me, and the feeling of his warmth and solidness behind me. The sound of his slow, soft breathing. The way he’d walked into a building filled with people just looking for an excuse to kill him—all to save me.
Only one thing bothered me. I knew I would worry about him all the time. If we were together, I would have to insist he legitimize them as soon as possible. I wanted him on the right side of the law. I wanted him to come home to me at night.
Was I really going down this road? Was I seeing us together for the long haul?
I was. And when I admitted it to myself, really admitted it, I felt so much better. It was easier to give in. Why had I fought how I felt? What a waste of time.
I opened my eyes for the first time since waking up. Sunlight streamed in through the little sliver of space left between the drawn curtains. I didn’t remember what time we had gotten in—three thirty? Four? I had to be mid-morning at the earliest.
It occurred to me that I had no idea where Vince actually lived—was it here? I couldn’t see how. He had to have a place of his own somewhere. Then I thought about the armoire full of books and I wondered if this wasn’t his actual home. My heart ached for him. He’d been without a home and love for so long.
Scratch that, I thought. He had love. The love of his friends, his club members. They’d put themselves on the line for him. And for me. I could never thank them enough.
Now, he would have my love. If he wanted it.
Did he want it? He wasn’t used to loving. I was sure that before me, he’d been through dozens of women. I hated to think of the actual number. He didn’t want to be tied down to them. Was I crazy to think that I was any better than any of the others? What was so special about me that he should change his ways just for us to be together? The thought made me feel selfish.
He could have died for you. Yeah, but that could have been his male pride, too. I knew he had plenty of it. I was sure without even talking it over with him that he’d been more pissed than anything else over Alexander York thinking he had won. I probably didn’t even come into it until later, when his temper cooled down.
When I thought about it that way, I felt foolish. There I was, being a stupid girl. Creating a relationship where there wasn’t one.
I shifted a little, my thoughts making me physically uncomfortable. I rubbed one of my wrists against the pillows and winced in pain.
“What happened?” Just like that, Vince was awake. I wondered how deeply he could have been sleeping if just the sound of my gasp had woken him.
“My wrist. That’s all. Go back to sleep,” I whispered.
“Does it hurt?”
“Just a little. No worries.” I was touched that he cared so much. Don’t read into it, Erica. But I wanted to. I wanted to believe he cared that much about me. That he hadn’t walked into near-certain death just because of his pride.
He pulled me closer to him, his mouth on my hair. “It feels so good to have you here,” he whispered. “I can’t even tell you how it felt thinking I had lost you.”
I shivered a little at his words. Was he saying what I thought he was saying?
I took a chance. “I know what you mean. When I thought you were walking into a trap, I could have died. I wanted to warn you somehow. I tried to…get free.” I almost slipped and mentioned Onyx, how I wante
d him to let me go. I caught myself just in time. The last thing I wanted to do was upset Vince. It would take time to get over the wound.
“I believe you did. We had a close call.” He kissed my shoulder. “Too close. How about we take it easy from now on. What do you say?”
I laughed softly. “It’s a deal. I’ve had enough excitement to last me a lifetime.”
He kissed my shoulder again, then further up, toward my neck. I sighed softly. What a gift it was, being kissed like that. When I thought it would never happen again, that we were both dead.