“So, you don’t want to kill Diego,” Willow said.
“It’s not that simple. And it isn’t about what I want.”
“Then, make it simple and about what you want. You said you had other clients fall into your lap. What happened after Brie?”
“Leti.”
“Whatever her name is.”
I sighed as I tried to gather all of the pieces into a coherent puzzle. Holy fuck, my club had really dug themselves into an expansive hole because of this cartel. And because of our women.
Well, their women.
“I guess the next one was Gabby,” I said.
“Who’s that?” Willow asked.
“Maverick’s girlfriend. Or fiancé, I guess. Now, at least.”
She grinned. “You guys make a habit of screwing your clientele?”
“I mean, you’re not a client. Olivia is, technically. So, not all of us,” I said, winking.
And when she giggled, I felt a little easier explaining all of the bullshit we’d gotten ourselves into, as well as the issues we had with Dean. I wasn’t sure if it was smart, but I knew if I wanted her on my side, I had to be honest with her. I knew if I wanted to keep her, I had to be honest with her.
And truth be told, I wasn’t ready to lose a woman like Willow.
Not when I hadn’t had an ample amount of time to explore why it was I felt so drawn to her.
Chapter 11
Willow
I listened intently to Thor’s story. The shootout. The raid on Gabby’s home. The safehouses people were in and the tangled web the women of their club wove with regard to the cartel. I listened to Thor’s passion to wrap all this shit up before Jace and Leti had their child. I listened to his personal passion to wipe the cartel out of the town because he vowed to keep this place safe, despite how unsafe he felt in it sometimes. I even listened to him rant about how their president was very quickly making decisions no one agreed with. Including the decision to take Diego out. They had all been backed into an impossible corner. And while I didn’t agree with everything his club had been doing up until this point, I did give them one thing.
It was commendable that their efforts were in an attempt to stop the cartel.
“You could just let the DEA do their work and back out of this,” I said.
“Not when we’re this deep. Not when one of ours is being threatened,” Thor said.
“With all due respect, Liv isn’t ‘one of yours.’”
“She’s with an in love with one of our men. So, yes. That makes her family.”
“She’s not in love with Colt. That woman doesn’t fall in love with anyone. She’s not that kind of woman. She’s cold. Calculating.”
“Like you?” he asked.
My eyes held his and a silence fell over us. After listening to his rumbling voice for almost an hour, those two words stopped me in my tracks. Was he mocking me? Making fun of me? Yes, like me. What the hell was wrong with that?
“The DEA is in the area to take down the cartel. You heard Liv yourself. You guys held up your end of the bargain. You guys forked over this Diego dude with a pass that your names would be kept out of it. Right?” I asked.
“Right. When the DEA descended into a meeting between him and the Blood Tubs.”
“The who?” I asked.
Thor chuckled. “Yeah. Everyone thinks it’s a ridiculous name.”
“Kind of is,” I murmured.
“But anyway, yes. We did hold up our end of the bargain. But our president has ordered this, and we don’t really have a choice.”
“You’ve always got a choice. Aren’t you guys outlaws or something? Just tell the old man ‘no’ and keep trucking.”
“We’re not outlaws. We live in the shadows and the gray area, sure. But we abide by the law as much as we can. All of our guns and ammunition and equipment are legal. All of the clients we take on, we use legal tactics in order to do what has to be done. We never shoot to kill unless it’s necessary.”
“Have you ever protected or guarded someone conducting illegal activity?”
Thor fell silent at my question.
“That would make you an accomplice. Sounds like your noses aren’t fully clean,” I said.
“Our club is in the middle of a transition period, Willow. Things are delicate right now. And if we go around backlashing against our president, mutiny could happen.”
“This isn’t a pirate ship, Thor. This is a very ruthless cartel, from what I can see. They’ll go after anyone who stands in their way. You. Me. Liv. The entire club. They don’t give a damn what your supposed orders are.”
“I don’t expect you to understand. All I wanted to do was fill you in on what’s happening. On what’s going on with us,” he said.
“You need to let the DEA do what they do best. Liv is the best at her job. She was at the FBI, and she is now that she’s at the DEA. She has personal emotions invested into this case. And when things get personal with Liv, she gets more precise and ruthless than ever. With her at the helm of this, Diego will go down. And if he’s as nasty and as brutal as you say he is, he’s probably put some men in jail for stupid shit. Just to prove a point. Right?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Probably.”
“Then, the second he lands into jail, someone will probably take him out. Just because he’s a shithead. You guys don’t have to do it. You can still keep your hands clean of all this,” I said.
“The DEA hasn’t done much without our help, Willow. That’s what I’m trying to get you to understand. Without us—without my connection to the Blood Tubs in the first place—”
“Wait a second, you had the connection to them? How?” I asked.
Thor paused. “I know the current head of the gang.”
“And how is that?” I asked.
Thor drew in a deep breath. “Me and the man went to high school together.”
“Oh. Wonderful. Okay, so you think that without your connection to some dumbass gang, the DEA never would have come upon that meeting?”
“No, because it never would have been organized.”
“What?” I asked.
“I organized that meeting, Willow. I cashed in a favor from a long time ago with the head of that gang to reach out to Diego. To say they were interested in peddling his product. Then, we passed the information onto Liv, who set up her sting mission. We worked together on that. It was a joint project. The DEA never would have snagged Diego had it not been for that.”
“Okay. So, are you going to work with the DEA on taking him out?” I asked.
“Willow—”
“No, Thor. This is madness, and you know it. Liv has sensitive information on you guys. On what really happened with that sting operation. If you go behind her back and fuck with this and it comes out that you guys did it? They’re going to be looking to her for answers because she’s the one who got Colt out of jail in the first place. You’re risking the only friend you have in the federal authorities to obey some bullshit president you don’t even think is in his right mind.”
I watched Thor turn over my words. At this point, we’d been talking for over an hour. Sitting in a couple of chairs, facing one another. Colt and Liv had already left. They’d gone somewhere. Where they went, I had no fucking clue. Colt reassured Thor that she’d be safe, and that they were simply going to blow off some steam.
I knew what that meant. The only thing I could do was let it be known that if anything happened to her, I’d take Colt out first.
And after how we first met, I knew he knew I wasn’t joking.
“I’m not saying your argument doesn’t have merit,” Thor said.
“Then what are you saying?” I asked.
“I’m saying that it isn’t applicable. Even clubs abide by rules and laws. And until we can figure out how to make a move on our president, there’s not a thing in hell we can do about what he’s ordered. We can postpone. We could attempt to botch the mission. Hell, we could probably watch it botch itself, with
all the bad decisions Dean’s made up until this point. But we can’t shoot it down.”
“And why not?”
“Loyalty.”
I scoffed as I sat back into my chair. Loyalty. All of this bullshit boiled down to loyalty. This was exactly why I didn’t get tangled up with people. This was exactly why I cooped myself up as much as I could. This was why I didn’t fraternize with co-workers or try to get to know my bosses or any of that bullshit. The only person I felt loyal to was Liv, and that was because she was my best friend. We had a give and take relationship. And if I did something stupid or she did something stupid, we had no issues calling one another out on it.
“Well, let me tell you a little something about loyalty,” I said.
My eyes locked with Thor’s as he straightened his back.
“It only works if all parties are loyal to one another. And right now, the only thing your president seems loyal to right now is his own selfish want to push the cartel out by any means necessary. No matter who or what it costs him,” I said.
Thor’s face fell into stoic stone.
“That sound like the kind of loyalty you want from a man in charge?” I asked.
I stood up from the couch and walked over to the door of my bedroom. I needed a change of clothes. I felt stifled in what I was wearing. While Thor digested all the shit I’d thrown at him on the couch, I’d change into something looser. More comfortable than the jeans and sweater I had on my body. The air conditioning was cranked up in this damn place because Thor was practically a heater. He was comfortable, sure. But Liv and I were about to be frozen out. I slipped out of my clothes and grabbed a long shirt, pulling it over my head.
And just as it dropped down my body, I felt his eyes on me.
My back slowly straightened as the skin on my legs puckered. The air conditioning kicked in and I felt myself shivering. Even though my thighs warmed and even though his gaze heated the nape of my neck, the shiver was cold. I slowly turned around. I wore nothing but that long shirt and my knee-high socks I’d had underneath my jeans. My eyes connected with that brooding stare as he stood in the doorway, looming in it as his body blocked all of the light attempting to filter in.
He looked positively evil.
Yet, there was a softness to his stare as his eyes raked over my body.
“Yes?” I asked.
“You’re right,” Thor murmured.
I furrowed my brow as he took a small step into my bedroom.
“I’m what?” I asked.
“You’re right,” he said again.
He closed the door behind him, and I heard him throw the lock.
“I know I am. Just didn’t think I’d hear you admit it,” I said.
His chuckle rattled my ribcage, and it startled my heart. He stood there in my room, behind a locked door with me. And the only thing I could think about was the tightness of his large hands against my waist. His lips on my neck. The sound of my name rolling off his tongue. I couldn’t deny the pull we had to one another. I couldn’t deny the way my heart leapt every time I saw him ever since our encounter at the back of that bar. But, as I watched him stand there, his eyes falling time and time again over my body?
Something switched.
Something foreign came over me. Something positive. I had no idea how to define it. I didn’t really have the word for it. All I knew was that it weakened my knees and made it harder to stand up. It wasn’t lust. I lusted after Thor more than I cared to admit. It wasn’t want. It wasn’t that kind of sensation. My shoulders suddenly felt lighter and my eyes suddenly watered with tears. I furrowed my brow at the sensation as a knot gathered in my throat.
“Are you all right, Willow?” Thor asked.
A tear rushed down my cheek and I rose my fingertips to catch it.
“Yeah. I-I-I… think so?” I asked.
“You’re crying,” he said.
I snickered. “Thanks. I got that.”
“Why are you crying?”
I rose my eyes back up to his, watching as concern dripped over his features. The sensation happened again. It expanded my gut and poured into my chest. It felt like my heart was swelling so much it would burst. My body careened out of control. Tears continued to fall. I wiped them away as quickly as I could, but they just kept coming and coming.
“What is happening to me?” I asked.
And then, I felt Thor’s strong hands come down against my upper arms. Squeezing them. Massaging them.
Was he trying to comfort me?
“Why am I crying?” I whispered.
Chapter 12
Thor
It pained me to watch her struggle like that. To watch a woman who was so in tune with her surroundings, yet so out of tune with herself. I knew that life. I knew what that type of loneliness felt like. I understood why her tears fell. Why she was so annoyed and so confused as to what was happening. If she was anything like me—and I had a feeling she was very much like me—she didn’t talk with anyone about how she felt. She compartmentalized and tossed everything off to the side. She didn’t deal with it. She didn’t express it. She didn’t talk about it. She didn’t acknowledge it. She simply let it exist until she forgot about it. Until a certain moment surfaced an echo of those feelings and emotions and memories she never sifted through.
Losing Debra had been my tipping point.
And for some reason, this was hers.
“It’s okay, Willow,” I said.
Her breathing grew ragged. Her body shook. I pulled her into me, encompassing her body with my arms. I felt her fists clench my shirt. She pushed and pulled. Tugged and tore apart. Well, tried to, at least. It was like she didn’t know if she wanted me near or far. If she wanted me clothed or naked. Her entire body and mind spiraled out of control, and she couldn’t contain herself any longer.
“What’s… what’s happening t-... to…”
“Just let it out, Willow. Okay? Don’t try to suck it down and don’t try to hide it,” I murmured.
“Liv is in so much trouble,” she whimpered.
I felt her knees give way and I caught her in my arms. That was it. That was her trigger. The only person in this world she considered friend or family was in trouble, and she didn’t know how to help. Oh, Willow was so easy to read. Once I clawed through her walls and used dynamite on the rest of it, the only thing that remained was a woman who wanted her friend to be safe. A woman who wanted her best friend to be healthy and happy. Not stalked and hunted like a wild animal. She sobbed into my chest as I picked her up. She gasped for air as she tucked her head into the crook of my neck. I kissed her forehead mindlessly as I walked her into the ensuite bathroom, gazing around at what I had to use to calm her down.
She was shaking more than I felt comfortable with.
“It’s so fucking cold in this damn hotel room,” Willow whispered.
“I told you girls not to worry about making me comfortable,” I said.
“Shut up,” she groaned.
I chuckled as I walked over to the shower.
It was a massive walk-in shower. Larger than any I’d ever seen. I set Willow down onto the top of the toilet seat, then reached into the shower and turned the water on. I let it grow hot. I let the steam gather as Willow used her shirt to wipe away her tears. I tugged my shirt over my head before I went and locked the bathroom door, then I walked back over to her. I saw her eyes watching me. Dancing over my tattoos. I had them all over. I’d started my collection when I was seventeen years old and got my newest one only a few months back. She watched them. Studied them. Took in their dark colors and shadings. I knelt down in front of Willow and picked up her trembling foot, then slowly slipped one sock off.
Then, the other.
“What are you doing?” Willow breathed.
I looked up into her eyes as I massaged her foot.
“You need to relax. You’ve been hit with a lot, and I think it’s bringing up a lot of emotions you don’t know how to process right now,” I said.
/> “How—how would you even—”
“We’re more alike than you think,” I said.
She wiped at her tears as her eyes grew red. Puffy. Swollen with the tears she’d held back for years.
“Are you going to join me or something?” she asked, snickering.
“If you want me to,” I said.
I watched her neck flush as goosebumps puckered against her arms.
“But if you don’t—”
“It’s fine,” she said quickly.
I buried my grin, not wanting her to feel self-conscious about what she wanted.
This time needed to be hers. It needed to be about her and what she wanted. What she needed. There was a look in her eye I couldn’t explain. One that was hard to pick apart. Once the guilt and the fear faded away, there was something akin to confusion. Possibly wonder. Like she had a question she didn’t want to ask. Part of me wanted to prod, but the other part of me was too focused on massaging her feet. I settled one foot down and picked up the other, feeling the steam of the hot shower filling the bathroom around us.
“How does that feel?” I asked.
Willow nodded softly. “Good. It—it feels good, Thor.”
“Good.”
I slid my hands up her legs, watching as goosebumps followed my trail. I slipped my hands underneath her long shirt, my fingers hooking into the hem of her panties. She rose her hips, allowing me to slip the cotton fabric down her soft legs before I tossed them to the side. She reached underneath her shirt and unhooked her bra. I stood, pulling her shirt over her head before the last of her clothes fell from her body. I stood and turned away from her, trying to keep my wants and lust away. Trying to control the urges I had for her as I undressed myself the rest of the way.
But then, I felt Willow’s arms wrap around my waist. Her cheek pressed into my back. Her hands slid slowly up and down my abs and her fingertips danced around the rings of my abs.
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