by Bourne, Lena
But he breaks the kiss and smooths my hair back from my face, tucking it behind my ears.
“I gotta head back,” he says. “And you should go see your sister.”
I glance at the house, but the pull to go in, to finally hug Misti again after all this time is equally strong as the one he has on me.
“When are you coming back?” I ask.
“Do you even want me to?” he counters.
There’s sparkles in his calm, kind eyes, but they’re not all from the smile stretching across his face. Some of them are harsh and burning. Angry, almost.
“With all my heart,” I say seriously, my mind, my eyes, my soul, all of me willing him to know this. Begging him to believe me.
He smiles wider, the sparkles in his eyes now gorgeous sunlight reflecting off calm ocean waves.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he tells me. “But I don’t know when that’ll be. Is this where I’ll find you?”
“I can give you my sister’s phone number. I don’t have a phone of my own, but you can reach me on hers,” I say, reaching for the glove compartment to find a pen.
He gently stops me from opening it. “Just tell me the phone number, I’ll remember it.”
I snap my head sideways to look at him, and he chuckles at what he clearly correctly interpreted as doubt.
“I’m good with phone numbers,” he says and smiles, and even though I should be more skeptical of this whole arrangement, I’m not. I trust him. I love him.
I recite the number and have him repeat it three times before I’m finally satisfied that he’ll remember it. He kisses me again, which makes all the good I ever wanted unfold in me again immediately, expanding like a bubble inside me. And like all bubbles, it pops as he breaks away from the kiss and reaches across my lap to open my door.
“I’ll see you soon, Stormi,” he tells me and I climb out, giving him one last smile before shutting the door. All seems well in the world when he smiles back.
But as I’m standing alone on the sidewalk, hugging myself against the early morning chill and watching him drive off, I’m very painfully aware that just because he memorized my phone number does not mean he’s gonna call.
“Stormi?” my sister’s perpetually breathless voice floats to me. I turn to find her standing on the porch, wearing her yellow church dress under a pink robe and matching fluffy slippers.
I smile wide and open my arms, then stride toward her, feeling like a being from the best possible dream, despite the fact that I’m wearing an huge man’s flannel shirt over clothes I’ve been wearing for the last two days, and that I haven’t even combed my hair for that long either. If my mascara wasn’t already smudged, it’s gonna get that way now because tears are streaming down my face unchecked.
Tears of happiness, of joy, of finally being safe again.
“I’m home,” I whisper as I hug her and the only way this moment could be any better would be if Ace’s strong, warm presence was standing behind me.
She feels like a tiny, fragile little bird in my arms, her bones frail, her skin thin, her poor heart thumping and skipping beats. We’re of a height, my sister and me, and even look a lot alike, where the shape of our noses and faces, eyes and lips is concerned. Where the shape of our bodies is concerned too, but that’s where the similarities end. She’s much thinner than me, and her skin is porcelain white, tinted blue and lilac. That’s because of her disease, because her heart is too weak to pump enough blood through her body to carry oxygen everywhere it’s needed. That’s why she’s so pale, it’s why she’s breathing hard just from her walk down the porch steps to me. And of course, because of the shock and excitement of seeing me again too. Her hair is nearly white and never grows much past her shoulders. She’s wearing it in a cute bob cut now.
“You’re home,” she echoes and those words carry love, devotion and happiness.
They carry everything I hoped to find here. If Ace were here too, I’d have everything I ever needed and wanted. Everything anyone could ever need and want.
22
Ace
I was so exhausted when I started the drive back to help the Devils deal with Horse, Piston and the rest of the Sinners, that I couldn’t spare a single thought beyond staying awake and keeping my eyes on the road.
By the time I finally reach the gates in the fence around the weapons storage facility, all I can think of is falling into a bed. The white van in which I transported Horse and Piston here is nowhere in sight. The brothers probably got rid of it by now. There are over thirty bikes parked in the area around the compound though.
Colt is watching the door and waves me to stop as I drive past him to park the van at the edge of the building.
“Cross wants to see you right away. He’s in the office,” he tells me as I roll down my window. “I’ll park the van.”
I nod, get out and start walking toward the building, wishing I could just ignore this summons and go sleep for a couple of hours. But I expected things to start moving fast now, that’s why I returned right away. That and the fact that I have no idea if Stormi even wants me around anymore.
“You look like shit,” Tank greets me as I enter the office. Cross is there too, as are Hawk, Ice and Ink.
Cross shoots him a look, then fixes his piercing, black gaze on me. “I wish you’d just stayed put last night, Ace. You’ll have plenty of time for that woman of yours when this is handled.”
I nod, my over-tired brain trying to come up with an excuse, something that’ll make my leaving last night sound like the only thing I could’ve done.
“Her sister’s dying,” I mutter, which gets me a confused look from Cross, and a knowing nod from Tank.
“Where’d you take her, anyway?” Ice asks. “I expected you to be gone an hour, two tops, when I told you to go ahead and take her home.”
“Vegas,” I say.
“We didn’t have time for this last night and we sure don’t have it now,” Cross says. “I’m all for helping a woman that needs help, you know that, but you should’ve stayed here last night.”
I stand up straighter as I nod, my tiredness melting away under his black, determined gaze. I’m shamed that I messed up, but I can’t say I wouldn’t do the exact same thing again, so I don’t say anything about it at all.
“Did you get anything out of Horse and Piston?” I ask instead.
He shakes his head. “Horse is passing in and out of consciousness from that blow to the head you dealt him, and Piston might look like a little coward, but he knows how to keep his mouth shut. Taking them hostage seemed like a good, fast way to get to the bottom of all this fast. Get them to talk and just quietly take out the ones who are snitching, but they’re not talking and we don’t have time to wait any longer. We’re gonna hit the club tonight. It’s a bigger profile job than I wanted, but we’ll make it fast and thorough. I need you to tell us everything about the clubhouse and the members.”
“I’m almost certain it was only Griff talking to the cops, and maybe his Spy. Along with Piston and Horse,” I say.
“How sure are you?” Cross says.
I tell him all I learned, all I overheard, all the pieces I put together, and it sounds like very little by the time I’m done talking.
“Part of your job was getting close to them and finding out as much as you can about the way they run things, who’s who, that kinda thing, and you did that well,” Cross says. “You actually finding the identity of the snitch and everyone who’s in on it was always a long shot. I think you could be right, but could isn’t enough in this case. These snitches are too dangerous to us.”
“I can get the truth out of Piston and Horse,” I say, realizing just how personally I took the job of finding the real snitches. “Why should we risk our lives to get rid of all of them when only a few of them need to die?”
Cross gives me a sharp look, but then nods. “We gotta do what we gotta do. One of the prospects that joined us in the last month was an undercover. Hawk barely man
aged to catch it in time. The feds are getting bolder and they’re getting more aggressive. They’re able to do that because they have snitches spilling our secrets. I wish there was another way, a more peaceful and less dangerous way to do this, but we can’t afford to risk looking for it right now. The snitch among the Sinners has to be dealt with.”
I get now why he told me to abandon my mission with the Sinners. It wasn’t because I was failing at it. It was because there’d been a change in plans. I should’ve assumed that from the start.
“I can get more out of them,” I say. “Let me at them.”
Horse and Piston tried to kill me, and, what’s worse, they tried to kill Stormi. They’re gonna answer for it. And I’m sure I know enough of their buttons to press to get more info about who among the Sinners needs to be killed first. My tiredness is gone, and with its absence my anger at those two fuckups returned with a vengeance.
Cross just looks at me for a couple of moments, then nods slowly. “Fine. Give it a try. The more info we have, the better. It’ll tell us where to start, at the very least.”
I assure him I’ll do my best, then leave the office and head for the cells. I’ll start with Piston. He’s the more gullible of the two, the more eager to please. The less guilty and the one with more humanity, maybe.
* * *
Scar is smoking a cigarette at the beginning of the long, basement hallway lined with rooms we use as cells. This concrete compound is huge, and I doubt we’ll ever need more than half the rooms it offers. According to Viper’s Bite MC, the guys who handed over their whole weapons running operation to us a couple of years back when they when legit and needed us for one last job, this place was built in the 60s and was meant as a bunker sort of thing where the whole MC and their families could hide if the Russians dropped the bomb. Me, I’d probably risk being outside during a nuclear war if the alternative was living behind these drab concrete walls buried underground for the rest of my life.
“Neither of them are talking much,” Scar tells me after I explain why I’m here. “Doesn’t much matter, though, if we’re just gonna take them all out anyway.”
Before he hooked up with his wife, Lynn, Scar used to be all about the torture and making grown ass men shake in fear of him. Hearing him say there’s no point torturing someone to get answers is like hearing a dog meow, but I kinda get it now. Loving a woman makes you softer, but not in a turning you into a pussy kind of way I thought about it before I met Stormi.
“I’m here to give it one last shot,” I tell him. “No point all of us risking our lives to kill all of them, if only a couple of them need to go, right?”
Before Stormi, before Lynn for Scar, I wouldn’t say something like this and Scar wouldn’t look at me and nod knowingly at it like he does.
He unlocks the cell door, and Piston gasps and shakes as Scar peers in. The bruise developing on Piston’s left cheek is probably the result of my shovel uppercut and not any torture on Scar’s part. He’s not tied up either.
“You,” he slurs at me when I enter right behind Scar. I’m pretty sure his jaw is broken. He’s wobbly in getting to his feet and has to use the wall for support the whole time, then kinda sways in place once he’s up. Dizziness. Probably from a concussion.
“Me,” I say as I stride into the room. He stays in his corner, safe with the two walls behind his back.
“We trusted you,” he slurs. “We trusted you and you betrayed us. You’re a fucking Devil.”
“The last time we saw each other, you were gonna kill me,” I say, advancing on him slowly. He’s got nowhere to go, but he tries to take a step back anyway.
Scar is leaning on the wall by the door. Every once in a while Piston shoots him a quick, frightened glance.
“You were gonna kill Stormi too. After raping her,” I continue, feeling the anger that was already boiling in me while I walked here turn to rage.
“You were gonna make me dig our graves first,” I go on. “And I can only assume you were gonna kill her first and make me bury her before you killed me too.”
“You were gonna die first. She was gonna have to bury you,” he croaks, trying to be tough, but he just sounds like a scared little boy. “Horse thought of it. That bitch humiliated us and stole from us. And she wasn’t punished enough.”
My throat feels like I’ve swallowed a ball of fire.
I walked in here with some pity for Piston. Now there’s no mercy for him left.
Fucking low-life scum. They made Stormi’s life a living hell for stealing less than ten thousand dollars.
I lunge at him, and he leaps back in fear, slamming his head into the wall. I grab his throat and squeeze to prevent him from crumpling to the ground, then lift him off his feet while he claws at my hand.
His eyes are bulging and he’s struggling hard, dumb as he is. He should be relaxing, taking whatever air he can get. But they never do. They always struggle.
“It’s real simple, Piston,” I tell him. “You can die slowly and in pain, or you can tell us what we want to know. What’s it gonna be?”
I squeeze tighter, even though he’s nodding like a mad man. I knew neither him nor his brother were very brave, but him backing down this fast is just ridiculous. One hint of violence and he’s ready to do anything?
I set him down on the floor and let him catch his breath.
“We know your father’s been snitching to the cops and most likely the feds too. We’re also pretty sure you and Horse were in on it. Who else?”
He just glares at me, rubbing his throat.
“Did you not understand my question?” I ask.
“What…what do I get if I tell you?” he croaks.
“You get the chance to save those of your brothers who had nothing to do with the snitching,” I tell him.
He’s confused by that, stares at me like a second head just sprouted on my shoulders. I should’ve known this was a bad idea. I should’ve known what looked like humanity was actually just his stupidity.
“I’m no traitor,” he says, dropping his hand away from his throat. “You can kill me now.”
I turn back to Scar. “Can you believe this? Says he’s not a traitor after admitting to snitching to the cops?”
Scar laughs. “He’s either very stupid or a very bad liar.”
When I look back at Piston, the half of his face not covered by a bruise is almost as dark with anger.
“Stupid, that’s what he is,” I tell Scar.
“And, no, you’re not getting off that easy,” I say to Piston. “There’s shit we gotta know and you know it. Scar here will make you talk now. You had your chance to make it easy on yourself and your brother by talking to me.”
I turn and walk away from him. Scar gives Piston a smile, which makes his scarred face even more monstrous, since it stretches out the nasty scar on his cheek to cover half his face. I consider leaving the room altogether, since I have no real stomach for torture, but at this point, that would make me the coward. I will stay and witness what I started to the bitter end.
Scar pulls his huge hunting knife from a sheath on his belt, the hiss of it as it leaves its leather enclosure erasing all other sound for the seconds it takes to emerge.
“I think I’ll start by making you look as pretty as me,” he tells Piston pleasantly enough.
Piston gasps, but it sounds more like a shriek. No, wait, it was a shriek.
“Wait, wait,” he pleads, both his hands stretched out in front of him, warding off Scar. “OK, alright, I’ll tell you, alright? Pop didn’t have a choice, OK? No choice. Horse and me we messed up on a job, messed up real bad. They were gonna put us away for a long time. It was murder, OK? And they caught us red handed. We were gonna get life, maybe even the chair. But then Griff made a deal for us. The deal was that he’d help the feds get rid of all outlaw clubs on the West Coast. He’s had a real hard time sleeping at night since he made the deal. But what else was he gonna do? To save his sons? He was gonna do anything. Wouldn’t anyone?�
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I turn, my stomach tight like I just smelled something disgusting, and I don’t know if it’s because he sounds like the most spoiled bitch in the world, or what he’s saying.
“How exactly was he helping the feds?” I ask.
“He was to set up all the big West Coast clubs, arrange meetings with them and then tell the feds so they could raid them,” he says. “They especially wanted you, Devil’s Nightmare MC.”
He makes it sound like a taunt.
“Who else was in on it?” Scar asks.
“Only me, Horse, Pop and our Spy knew about this,” he says. “I swear.”
“He swears,” I say in an aside to Scar and we share a laugh.
“Buster and Popeye knew too,” Piston adds. “But that’s it.”
“Anyone else?” I ask.
“Brick suspected, I think, and Mac too,” Damn, pretty soon he’s gonna name the whole fucking club, and I’ll be right where we started.
“Make sure he tells you everything he knows,” I say to Scar. “I’m gonna go see the brother.”
“Gladly,” Scar says and grins at Piston, who shrieks again.
“The brother is in the cell opposite this one,” Scar says and hands me a set of keys. He points out the one I’ll need as I take it.
“You said…you said—,” Piston mumbles, but the cell door slamming shut behind me cuts him off.
“Ace, hold up!” Blaze calls as he strides towards me down the hallway. “They sent me to check how it’s going.”
“Piston is singing like a canary,” I tell him. “I’m about to see what I can get from Horse.”
Blaze chuckles. “It’s like Ink keeps saying, isn’t it? These two really are more like daughters than sons.”
“Yeah, they’re a couple of world-class fuckups,” I say, not adding that they’re young, because I think Horse is about the same age as Blaze, and I’ve never known him to whine or scream, or fuckup on the jobs he’s been on.