Текст книги "Walk Through Fire"

Автор книги: Kristen Ashley

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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 32 страниц)

I listened to them then.

And I knew they might mean one thing to Candlebox.

They meant another to Hopper Kincaid and the family I once had that I loved called Chaos.

Last, they meant something else entirely to me.

And as he tore through me with that song, intentionally lashing wounds that already were laid bare and never would heal, I heard Kellie snap, “I didn’t buy into this shit,” and I knew.

I.

Fucking.

Knew.

I was not there because Kellie got a wild hair to drag me back to life.

I was there because of something else.

I ripped my stare off Hop and looked through the bar knowing what I’d find before I found it.

Then I found it.

Off to the side of the stage, at their own table with a RESERVED sign on it, sat Tack Allen.

With him was his woman, Tyra.

Also the one they referred to as Lanie.

Worse.

Boz. Hound. Big Petey.

And Logan.

The men were aiming their loathing at me. It hit true, the toxin coating my skin and sinking deep.

The women were looking shocked.

They got to Kellie.

They got to my girl.

And she’d jumped on board being fed promises of healing wounds that had no cure not having any clue their play would end me.

I shot out of my chair, tucking my purse under my arm, and rounded the table, winding my way their way, eyes to my guess at the ringleader.

Tack’s new woman.

“Millie!” Kellie screamed.

I ignored her and kept going, brushing people, twisting past chairs. Well before I got to the Chaos table, all were standing, the men in aggressive defensive postures, the women uncertain.

I stopped at their table, Hound stepping mostly in front of me, but I kept my eyes pinned to Tyra.

“Stop!” I shouted, knowing my face was twisted, certain it was ugly, but not caring, only needing one last thing before I ceased to exist.

And that was to get my message across.

“I—” she began, but I cut my gaze to Tack.

“Make her stop!” I demanded.

“Millie—”

That was Logan. He was close. I could hear it and I could feel it.

But I had eyes to Tack, who was injecting my bloodstream with the venom of his gaze at the same time opening his mouth to speak.

Kellie got there before him. “You motherfuckers!” she screeched. “Total fuckin’ bitches. You played me! You goddamned fuckin’ bitches. Got me to play my own girl!” she shrieked.

Tack looked from me to Kellie, then down to his woman.

“Tell me you did not,” he growled.

She looked up at him, face pale. “Kane, honey—”

“Millie.”

That was Logan again and I felt his hand on me.

It burned.

God, it burned.

Seared.

Scorched my flesh to nothing.

I twisted my arm viciously, yanking away, slamming into Kellie and tipping my head back to look up at him.

I lifted my hand, pointing a finger an inch from his face.

I couldn’t shroud the agony and I didn’t care about that either when I shouted, “Make them stop!”

“Babe—” he began, lifting his hand but before he could get to mine I tore it away.

“I’m done walking through fire for you, High!” I yelled. “I’m done not because I’m done but because there’s nothing left of me to burn. You have it all! You’ve always had it all! I gave up everything so you could have it all! Please! God! Leave me to my nothing!” I swung an arm out to their table. “And if you gave one single shit about me, ever, make them let me have my nothing!”

On that, I pushed, shoved, desperate to get to a place where I could completely fade away and do it alone. Having been given too much too soon and paying the price by having it ripped away so that was all I’d ever have. Nothing. All I’d ever be. Alone. With all that, I made my final dash through the flames, making my way through the bar, out, and I ran to my car on my high heels.

Destined to fade away.

Ready to fade away.

Needing nothing but to leave it all far behind.

High

“Woman, I fuckin’ told you.” High heard Tack snarl.

But he couldn’t pay any mind to what was unraveling because Cherry couldn’t keep herself to herself.

He was moving.

Moving to get to Millie, her words battering his brain.

I gave up everything so you could have it all!

And then he was not moving because Kellie was in his space, in his face.

“You fucking motherfucker!” she screamed, shoving at his chest.

His body locked, his jaw tightened, and both were good because they stopped him from reciprocating in any way when she shoved him again.

“You ruined her!” she shrieked, and his locked body strung tight. “Wasn’t that enough?” she asked. “Do you and your bitches gotta get your jollies by fucking her up again?” She looked beyond him in the direction of the table. “Newsflash, assholes, there was nothing to fuck up. She was gone. You didn’t need to make the effort. But awesome,” she snapped sarcastically, “you hit it just right, bringing back the only fuckin’ thing on this earth that would tear her shreds into tatters.”

And on the last, she jerked a thumb High’s way.

“Memory serves, bitch, someone else was in shreds after your gash laid him to waste,” Boz returned.

“Oh yeah?” Kellie asked, eyes narrowed dangerously on his brother.

“Yeah,” Boz shot back.

“You didn’t see.”

Hop was now at their table, the band still playing onstage, but the players embroiled in the current mindfuck could be anywhere, their attention completely on what was happening right there, right then.

Especially when Kellie whispered those three words.

And how she did it.

They all heard it; High could sense how they heard it.

But he felt it.

Each word.

“What didn’t we see?” Pete asked.

High watched Kellie’s body twitch, then she shook her head. “You don’t deserve to know that. You don’t deserve,” she looked to High, “dick.” She raised a hand to point a finger in his face. “Keep the fuck out of her life, asshole. Leave her alone.”

“She left me,” High growled.

“Wasn’t her who walked away,” Kellie returned.

High’s shoulders strained taut in a way it felt any movement would make them snap.

Jesus.

Fuck.

Jesus.

“Was her told him to get gone,” Boz pointed out angrily.

“Wasn’t her who walked away and didn’t come back,” Kellie replied to Boz, but the words were for High and he knew it from more than the fact that she didn’t take her eyes from him. She was whispering in a heaving bar with a rock band playing but he heard every word clear. “You didn’t come back.” She repeated, got up on her toes, her gaze locked to his, and sneered, “So who left who behind, asshole?”

On that, she rolled back on her heels, sent a poison look through them all, turned, and stormed through the tables.

High watched her go, frozen.

You love a man, Millie, you believe in him, you take him as he is. You go on his journey with him no matter what happens, even if that means you have to walk through fire.

He’d said that.

Twenty years ago, he’d said that, looking into her eyes, feeling so much, he didn’t see shit.

He didn’t see what was in her eyes.

I’m done walking through fire for you, High!

Jesus.

Newsflash, assholes, there was nothing to fuck up. She was gone.

Fuck.

She was gone.

He knew it. He saw it. Her house. Her clothes. Her office.

The only time she was back was when he had her in his arms.

So who left who behind, asshole?

Fuck!

He came unstuck just as a hand landed on his shoulder.

He turned to it.

“Brother,” Tack said low.

“Control. Your. Woman,” High ground out, shrugged off his brother’s hand, and pushed through the bar to the door.

He got to his bike, swung on, and took off.

He hit every red light, every fucking one, before he parked right in front of Millie’s house.

He saw it was dark.

He found this concerning.

Jesus, her face at the bar.

That was not anger. It wasn’t frustration.

It was anguish.

Etched there.

Hidden until then.

It had leaked out. He’d seen it in her office.

But he’d still refused to see.

Fuck.

He prowled up to her house, pounded on her door, and kept doing it.

Nothing. No lights coming on, he sensed no movement through the sheer.

He continued pounding.

She could be ignoring him.

The look on her face in that bar, she could be in there doing something else.

He didn’t have his picking kit and he didn’t have time to go get it. Furthermore, upon testing it, she had a deadbolt, so a credit card didn’t work.

That meant he had to take off his cut, wrap it around his fist, and punch through her glass.

He did it, unlocked the door, pushed it open, and went in, his boots crunching through the shards.

He went right to her bedroom switched on the light, and his lungs expanded so sharp, he thought they’d explode.

Shit was everywhere. Clothes, shoes, drawers open, stuff hanging out.

He jogged to the bathroom and found more of a mess.

Fuck, did she do this or was someone waiting for her?

Was this a struggle or a frenzy?

Was someone paying attention to what High was doing, where he was going, who he was doing, and they targeted Millie to get to High? To Chaos?

Shit, had Valenzuela finally lost patience and made his play?

With Millie?

Fuck, could their luck suck that bad?

He jogged out of the bathroom, her bedroom, into the house, finding switches, turning on lights.

Everything in the rest of the house was as it should be.

Immaculate.

He moved to the back door, pulled the curtain aside, and looked through.

No red SUV.

He swiftly moved back through the house to the unused bedroom, going straight to the closet.

Her luggage was gone.

It was frenzy.

It was Millie.

It was Millie packing in a rush to get away from him and to get away from Tyra and her crew’s bullshit.

“Goddamned... fucking... shit,” he bit out, yanking out his phone.

It was then High made the call he’d not made in twenty years.

It rang five times and then he heard, “Hello, you’ve reached the voicemail of Millie Cross of Cross Events. I’m unable to take your call right now but leave a—”

He hung up and tried again.

Voicemail again.

He went to the email with the file Shirleen sent and pulled it up.

He stared at it, scrolling through with his thumb to get the number he needed.

He decided to start with phoning. He’d see where that got him and make his next move.

So he punched in Dottie’s number.

It was picked up on the second ring and High got a pissed male voice who didn’t bother with a greeting.

“I know who the fuck this is and I know your shit is done,” the man stated. “She’s gone. Let her be gone and stop dicking with her head.”

High studied his boots and ordered, “Listen to me—”

The man cut him off, “You got nothin’ to say I wanna hear. Nothin’ Dot wants to hear. Sure as fuck nothin’ Millie wants to hear. It’s over, man, and it’s that in a way you got no choice. So let it go.”

“I don’t know you, bud,” High started. “But I know you weren’t around then, so you don’t know dick about what’s happening, so you don’t know I gotta speak to Millie and you don’t know how I gotta speak to Millie. You got no call to trust me but I’m askin’ you to trust this, it’s urgent.”

“Only chance you got of gettin’ your urgent message to her is if you can send smoke signals, she can read them, and she sees them before she gets her ass on a plane. Dot and her are on their way to the airport. She’ll be gone before you can get your bike parked out there.”

Fuck!

“DIA?” High prompted.

“Far away from you,” the man replied. “First hit, red-eye to New York. Second hit, Paris. Think that’s far enough she can get her head together and sort out her life. But, man, I’m tellin’ you this for the sole purpose that you’ll get the message. She’s not comin’ back. She’s puttin’ distance between her and here, which means her and you, and she’s gonna keep that up one way or another and I mean physically. Denver is a memory for her because you need to be a memory for her. And while I got you, bud, thanks,” he spat the last word. “Thanks for takin’ our girl away from us. The aunt my kids fuckin’ love, the sister my wife adores, the woman I met who’s got no light in her but she’s still got enough love in her to light up the worlds of the people who matter. That’s lost to us now ’cause a’ you. Thanks for that, asshole. Thanks a fuckin’ lot.”

And with that he hung up.

High dropped his hand to his hip, fingers still curled around his phone, and he studied the toes of his boots.

Not sure you can get a passport in a day, Logan.

You wanna go to Paris, I’ll find a way.

She went to Paris.

He knew from what Shirleen and Brody found that Millie had never left the country but she did have a passport.

And she was using it to go to Paris.

Without him.

Leave me to my nothing!

High had a choice.

Lead with his heart and get an emergency passport, get Brody on finding her, and get his ass to France so he could find out what in the fuck was going on.

Or lead with his gut, knowing a woman could not change her entire life from Paris. She had a business. She had a home.

She’d be back.

And when she was back, she’d be calmer. She’d have taken the time to get herself together.

And he’d know when she was back because he’d have Brody on that too.

Then he’d talk to her right there in that fucked-up, immaculate house and then he’d finally find out what in the fuck was going on.

He wanted to lead with his heart. All he could see was her face at The Roll. All he could hear were her words clawing at his soul.

But he’d gone with his heart with Millie before. He’d sustained the blows she was delivering, not paying a lick of attention, walking away in an effort to end the pain.

If he’d gone with his gut back then, he’d have paid attention. He’d have seen. He’d have heard.

He wouldn’t have left her behind.

He would have known all she spewed was shit and he would have gone back.

“Fuck,” he muttered. “Gut,” he decided.

It cost him but High went with that decision.

But before he did, he went to get his truck, drove to Ride, got some plywood, and went back to Millie’s to board up her door.

Tyra

I followed Tack into our bedroom.

He turned on the light, moved to the bed, sat on it, and bent to his boots.

I closed the door behind me and stood leaning against it.

The drive up the mountain was silent and uncomfortable.

My man was mad.

“Kane—” I started.

He lifted his head to look at me and I shut my mouth.

“I told you,” he rumbled.

“You don’t understand, honey,” I said softly.

“No,” he bit, standing. “You don’t understand, Tyra.” He planted his hands on his hips. “Fuck, woman, can you honest to God stand there and fight your corner after witnessing how your fucked-up shit played out tonight?”

“There can’t be that much feeling unless there’s that much feeling, Kane,” I pointed out.

“Tell me, Red, when we were gettin’ together, you gutted me and I walked away from you, made it clear I wanted nothin’ more to do with you even if you sorted your head out. Some bitch you didn’t fuckin’ know got up in your business, shovin’ you at me only for you to take the hit of gettin’ shot down again and again and again, the brothers at my back delivering the same kind of blows. You’d want that?”

“If I got you back, yes,” I whispered. “I’d take any hit over and over and over again until I got you back.”

He stared at me.

I held his stare and let the silence stretch.

Then I ended it.

“Tell me you saw her tonight,” I said.

He looked away, tearing his hand through his hair.

He saw.

“She’s in pain.” I told him something he now knew.

He looked back at me. “None of our business.”

“Honey—”

His next came as a warning whisper.

“None of our business, Red.” He drew in breath and kept his eyes locked to mine. “You know it. You know how it is. Those boys, my brothers, your brothers, they fuckin’ love you, babe. Totally fuckin’ love you. But you know men like us. You fuckin’ know down to your soul men like us. You know this shit is not on. Your purpose is compassionate. But men like us, your methods are unacceptable.” He kept hold of my eyes and dropped his voice to gentle. “And you know it, baby. So you know this is none of our business.”

“She might do something—” I started.

He cut me off. “I’ll keep an eye.”

I nodded. I’d take that because I had to but also because I knew he would.

“You done now?” he asked.

I shook my head and saw his jaw grow hard.

But I told him, “I don’t like it. But I think I have to be.”

His face relaxed and his order was quiet and coaxing. “Get ready for bed, darlin’.”

I nodded again and went about doing that.

I joined my man in bed.

I didn’t sleep.

My husband felt it.

“You need to relax,” he said.

“Do you think that High’s going to—?”

“I think it’s none of our business.”

I lifted my head. “Tack—”

“Babe. No.” Two words, firm. And he went on just like that. “You are who you are and I’m with you because a’ that. I am who I am and you’re with me because a’ that. What we got, it works. Phenomenally. We do what we do, we are what we are and we get off on it, no holding back. But this is us. That’s the Club. That’s a brother. The same does not hold true with the brothers. You got your place in the Club. I got mine. We know our places, Red, and we don’t deviate. So until a brother makes somethin’ our business, it’s none of our business, yeah?”

“I’m worried,” I shared.

There was a vein of amusement in his gravelly voice when he muttered, “No shit?”

“Tack.” It was a lame snap.

He pulled me deeper into his arms and held me close.

“High and me have not seen eye to eye on numerous occasions over the years but that don’t mean he isn’t Chaos. He’s Chaos, down to the bone. He’s a brother of my soul. So what do you think he’s gonna do?”

There it was.

Exactly what I needed.

“Take care of Millie,” I whispered.

“Yeah,” Tack whispered back, starting to stroke my hair. “Now, you gonna relax and go to sleep?”

“I’ll try.”

He sighed.

Then he rolled into me.

Once there, he muttered, “Know a way to make you relax.”

He knew about seven thousand of them.

Before I could say a word, he dipped his head to me, took my mouth, and set about making me relax.

High

THE NEXT DAY, High was back at Millie’s to be there when the men he called replaced the glass with another thick, bevel-edged sheet.

Due to the fact that he swiped an extra key, he was also there three days later when the men he called installed the alarm system, which meant all the glass, windows, and doors throughout her house were wired for break-ins.

And he took the call when Brody told him what hotel she was staying at in Paris. He also took more calls when she used a card so Brody could tell him where she had breakfast, lunch, dinner, got money, what tours she went on, where she shopped and what she bought.

Last, Brody told High when she’d be back.

Two weeks.

He had to depend on his gut for two weeks.

He applied for an emergency passport anyway.

Just in case.

Millie

Twenty-one years ago...

“Brother’s bummed,” Dog stated.

I looked from the recruit behind the bar at the Chaos compound—a recruit who was no longer a recruit and that was why we were all partying since he and his new brother Brick had been fully initiated into the fold the day before—to the couch where Dog’s eyes were aimed.

Boz was slouched there, deep in the seat, legs splayed wide, eyes aimed across the room.

Dog was right.

Boz looked bummed.

Someone had to do something about that and I decided that someone would be me.

I turned back to Dog and grinned. “This is a party, so that can’t happen.”

He looked to me and winked. “Go get ’im, girl.”

I slid off my barstool, grabbed my beer, and said, “Tequila. Stat.”

Dog turned, nabbed a bottle of tequila from the back of the bar, and handed it to me.

I lifted it. “Perfect medicine.”

At that, he smiled and muttered, “No doubt.”

I tipped my head and smiled back, then moved through the room, past the pool tables, toward Boz, my feet in biker boots, my ass covered in cutoffs, my top barely covered in a halter.

As I approached Boz, he didn’t even look at me.

The guys looked. They hugged. They even touched, a hand or a waist, sometimes a tug of the hair. I was a girl. I was showing skin. They were men in the sense they were men. This happened.

But I was an old lady, so it happened in a certain way that would not communicate anything that Logan wouldn’t like.

It was respect to him.

It was also respect to me.

It was Chaos.

I finally got Boz’s attention when I threw myself onto the couch beside him and declared, “Know a boy who looks like he needs a buzz.”

He smiled a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, then tipped his head to the bottle. “You gonna take care of that for me?”

I extended the tequila. “Absolutely.”

He grabbed it, murmuring, “Gratitude, sister.”

Sister.

I sighed happily and slouched next to him, our bodies touching from shoulders to knees.

He uncapped the bottle, flicked the top, and it flew then skidded across the floor, unheeded, several feet away.

I watched as he took a healthy tug.

When he dropped the bottle, I asked, “You okay?”

“I’m good, Millie,” he told the room.

And he lied.

I looked from him to the room and I saw the party.

I also saw something else.

I was an old lady, so I wasn’t let in on a number of things. If the boys were at our place and conversation turned to something that wasn’t mine to know, Logan gave me a look I knew and acted on without question. I then would get out of earshot, going upstairs to listen to music in our bedroom or going to the second bedroom to study.

That didn’t mean I didn’t hear things or see things.

And right then I saw things.

What I saw was Tack, Brick, Hop, and Black standing in one corner, huddled and talking, beers in their hands, none of this happening in a way that seemed they were at a party.

I also saw Naomi, Tack’s old lady, sitting at a table with Keely, Big Petey, and Bev, a new girl who was hanging around that Boz normally, if he wasn’t in a crappy mood, would be paying attention to. Keely, Bev, and Big Petey were shooting the shit. Naomi had all her attention focused on her old man and she didn’t look happy.

The woman rarely looked happy but in this instance, she looked less happy.

And last, in another corner, I saw Chew and Arlo talking with my man.

They stood with Crank.

Crank was Chaos’s president. Crank was a decent guy but he was also the only one who kind of freaked me out.

I couldn’t put my finger on it but every brother I knew was genuine. They were who they were and showed it, no bullshit.

I got a weird feeling that what made Crank went deeper, possibly darker. That feeling told me he didn’t share it all. And it was so stark compared to how all the other brothers were it freaked me.

I watched and saw that Crank right then was not paying attention to Chew, Arlo, or Logan, who were also huddled and talking.

He was staring at Tack in a way I found chilling.

I didn’t know what this meant. All I knew was that Brick and Dog were fresh brothers. Hop too.

And they’d all been recruited by Tack.

All the brothers could put forward a man to become a recruit but Tack had been busy the last few years.

I also knew Chew, Arlo, Boz, and Logan had all been recruited by Crank.

So had Black.

But Black was standing with Tack.

There was a split. I felt it. It wasn’t tension, nothing with the brothers was that perceptible.

But there was a vibe.

Things were changing in the Club in a lot of ways. The store and garage were getting busier, the Club pushing for that, which meant Logan was working more. It also meant, since the brothers split any profits equally, he (which translated to we) was making more money.

Like, a lot more money.

Though there was more and that more meant Logan was busy far more than he’d ever been before on Club business that had nothing to do with the store or the garage.

I got the sense he liked it at the same time I got the contradictory sense that it troubled him. I also got a sense that whatever this was was a moneymaking venture that had nothing to do with selling auto supplies and building custom bikes and cars or even growing and selling pot.

Logan didn’t talk about it and I knew he wouldn’t so I didn’t ask so I couldn’t know.

This troubled me.

That concern didn’t run deep. I wasn’t out and out worried. I wasn’t questioning things. I knew these men. I knew this family.

I also knew they were bikers, lived in their own world, had their own rules and did things their own way and those things were whatever the hell they wanted to do.

Last, I knew that if they stayed solid and strong, they could get away with doing whatever the hell they wanted to do. In fact, their bond was so powerful, if they stuck together, they could achieve anything.

This was the part that troubled me.

Because I sensed a split. I sensed that Boz didn’t know which way he was leaning. And I saw that it seemed that Logan had cast his lot with Crank and I didn’t know if that was the right choice.

I sipped my beer, staring at my man, watching him nod at something Arlo was saying, lost in these thoughts until I felt my knee nudged by Boz.

I looked to him and at what I saw in his eyes, I held my breath.

“It’s always gonna be good,” he said quietly.

“Okay,” I replied just as quiet.

“High will make it that way for you, babe. You know it. Yeah?”

Something was wrong in the Club.

But I knew what Boz said was right.

And that was all that I needed.

“Yeah,” I whispered.

He grinned at me and it again didn’t reach his eyes.

Then he kept doing it and finally committing to it when he offered the bottle of tequila to me.

“Time for us to get smashed, gorgeous,” he declared.

I took the bottle from him and replied, “No truer words were spoken.”

Then I threw back a healthy slug.

“That’s my girl,” Boz stated, and when I looked at him, he had humor and approval gleaming in his eyes. His earlier look of uncertainty and disquiet was gone.

I’d done my job.

So I handed him the bottle and slouched deeper into the couch, slouching into Boz as he shifted to curl an arm around me and I shifted to curl my legs on the seat, resting my head on his shoulder.

“Don’t get comfortable,” he warned, giving me a squeeze. “After another coupla shots, I’m kicking your ass at pool.”

“The hell you are,” I returned. “We’re fifteen and twelve with me being the fifteen and about to make it sixteen.”

“Bullshit.”

“You’ll see,” I muttered, sucking back more beer.

When I was done, the tequila was in front of my face and I took the bottle from Boz.

I also threw back another slug.

When I was done with that, my eyes hit on my man.

He was smiling at me, his smile content and not troubled.

I knew it before but I knew it even more then.

Boz was right.

Whatever was happening in the Club would happen.

But Logan would keep it good for me. It’d never touch me.

Not ever.

Not ever.