Текст книги "Walk Through Fire"

Автор книги: Kristen Ashley

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Текущая страница: 30 (всего у книги 32 страниц)

“Would it be foolish to ask that you wait ten minutes after I leave before you make your call?” he requested.

“Yes,” I declined his request.

That amused him too.

God, I fucking hated this guy.

“When this is over, if you want to fuck a winner, I’ll be sure a line’s opened to you,” he offered.

Okay, now I was going to have to shower for four hours.

I didn’t reply.

He grinned his disturbing grin. “Until then, Millie.”

I stayed silent.

He moved, walking to the door like he was just walking to the door. Not like he was walking through two corpses with half their heads blown off.

I swallowed bile and looked away from the bodies. I didn’t like Pedro and Carlos much but I preferred to see them shackled and breathing, not this way.

The door closed.

I didn’t run to it to lock it. I wasn’t going anywhere near there.

Instead I jumped to the bed, crawled on hands and knees to the phone on the opposite side, and reached for it. I took it with me as I turned my back to the carnage, curling into myself.

I didn’t have Logan’s number memorized because I had it in my phone and I could just press the screen to get him.

I was memorizing it later that day for sure.

I called 911.

I reported my emergency.

I made it through giving the operator my name, the motel, the room number, my location, and the fact I’d just witnessed a double homicide before I dropped my forehead to my knees and dissolved into tears.

In other words, I held it together through the important stuff and fell apart only when no one was watching (even though the 911 operator was listening).

Like any good old lady should.

I was standing outside the motel room on a walkway exposed to the elements, surrounded by uniformed police officers, squad cars glutting the parking lot below, folks everywhere. Out of their rooms and standing outside the police barrier that an officer was now rolling out to span the parking lot.

When the first unit had arrived, they’d thankfully not wasted any time and even more thankfully the brawnier one picked me up and carried me out of the room so I didn’t get anything on my bare feet that would never mentally wash off.

An added plus to this was I got to shove my face in his neck so I didn’t see anything more than I’d already seen even if what I’d seen was burned into my brain.

I didn’t need more.

I’d barely been out there five minutes, only long enough for them to get a blanket to wrap around my shoulders and pull a chair from another room so I could sit on it, I was trembling so badly. I’d just begun to share what happened when I heard the roar.

My head jerked so I could look over my shoulder and I saw them roll in in formation.

And I was not surprised to see that Tack wasn’t leading the crew.

Logan was.

Like he had Millie Radar, he rode in, eyes up and on me.

“Mizz Cross, I know you’re Chaos but I need you to stick with me,” the officer said quickly.

I didn’t stick with him.

I jumped out of my seat and ran, sprinting down the walkway, the blanket falling from my shoulders, my eyes glued to Logan who had parked his bike outside the police tape and he was dismounting.

I was going so fast down the walkway I had to throw out a hand to grab the post holding up the landing by the stairwell. My body went flying to the side, but I held on tight, forcing its momentum toward the steps.

Then I dashed down them watching Logan race my way.

We collided two steps from the bottom and I didn’t know how Logan didn’t fall to his ass when that collision included me throwing myself bodily at him, wrapping my arms around his shoulders, my legs around his waist and shoving my face in his neck.

I drew in deep breaths, audibly sucking in air to hold it together as his strength became real all around me, he held me tight, and I tried to keep my shit together.

But I couldn’t stop the shaking.

“The girls?” I forced out.

His arms held tighter.

“Big Petey got a call. They know you’re good,” he replied, his voice, low and harsh, scratching into my skin.

I nodded, my body bucking painfully as I fought back a sob.

“You’re good, Millie. You’re here. I got you. You’re good, baby,” he whispered, gliding a hand up to tangle in my hair.

“I’m good,” I whispered back. Iit was shaky and uncertain but I said it anyway.

“Hold on,” he ordered.

That I could do.

So I did it and Logan held me back.

That gave me the strength to pull it totally together, and after I absorbed enough of it, I lifted my head to look at him.

His gaze immediately went to the swelling around my eye and a scariness that was exponentially scarier than that day he’d charged into my office and then dragged me around my house to show me the alarm system he’d set up snapped into place over his features.

“I’m okay,” I assured him hurriedly.

He stopped looking at my eye to look into both of them.

“Yeah,” he muttered. It was not shaky but it was skeptical.

I dropped my forehead to his, holding his gaze.

“Chaos has a problem,” I shared quietly.

“Think we know that, babe,” he replied just as quietly.

“No, Snooks,” I went on. “He’s planning something. Something he thinks means a guaranteed win. I don’t know what today meant. I just know he’s convinced he can’t lose.”

Carefully, still holding me close, Logan jiggled me so I knew to drop my legs. He put me on the step in front of him so we were still eye to eye but he didn’t let go.

“He’ll be convinced otherwise,” he announced.

I moved my hand to curl it on the side of his neck, rolling up on my toes to get closer to him.

“You need to be ready for anything,” I warned. “You need to be ready and you need to be smart. He has something, Low, an ace up his sleeve. He’s determined to use it to bring Chaos down and I don’t think he means to harm anyone physically. I think he means to force you to do stupid shit that would end the Club.” I pressed even closer. “And I can see it in your eyes, baby. You’re fired up to do stupid shit and if he brings you down, he takes you away from me. From Cleo. From Zadie. And, Snooks, you gotta be smart because you cannot let that happen.”

He studied me without replying and in the middle of this, we heard, “Sorry, High, but gotta get her statement,” and Logan’s eyes went beyond me.

I looked over my shoulder at the officer who had begun to question me and looked back to Logan when I felt his hold on me loosen. He nodded to the officer as he took a different hold on me, wrapping his arm around my shoulders and moving me around so he could guide me up the steps with him.

We followed the officer, and with Logan guiding, I could look behind me.

Chaos was standing there.

All of them.

I shot a weak smile in their general direction.

I got no smiles back.

Not even a lip curl.

They’d been nudged.

A different kind of fear started slithering through my insides as I looked away to make the turn on the first landing.

One could say I’d not had a very good day. If the kind of day I had happened to someone I cared about, I’d be pissed in the extreme. I might even consider doing something crazy.

And I wasn’t a biker.

That meant it was up to me to stop them from doing anything stupid.

The brothers did what the brothers had to do and any good old lady let that happen.

Except in circumstances like these.

This meant I had to rally the troops. I had to do what I could with my Chaos sisters to be certain the brothers stayed strong.

I had to.

And I was going to.

Like any old lady should.

*  *  *

There were a variety of cars wedged in my courtyard when Logan took me back home after I’d done what I’d needed to do with the cops.

Mitch Lawson and Brock Lucas had showed. I’d also gotten to meet Elvira’s boss, Hawk Delgado.

It was lucky I met him then, after seeing Zadie with Valenzuela’s men, getting punched in the face, being kidnapped, and then witnessing a double homicide. If I hadn’t, with the Chaos boys, Lawson and Lucas, the addition of Delgado would have been hot guy overload and I might have spontaneously combusted.

As it was, I just gave him a handshake, said hey, memorized his dimples when he gave me a small smile so I could take that memory out later and savor it, and Logan carried me (I had bare feet, but I probably could have negotiated the parking lot, though he didn’t let me) to a truck delivered by Roscoe (who was riding Logan’s bike back to my house).

“Don’t get out,” Logan ordered before he even stopped in my courtyard. “I’m carryin’ you in.”

I didn’t get out. He wanted to go over the top taking care of me, I’d let him.

Instead, as he parked wedged in with the other cars, cut the ignition, and angled out, I planned the rest of my day.

Make sure the girls were okay. Call my sister, Kellie, Justine, Ronnie, and get their asses to my house so I had my personal sisterhood close to prop me up so I could continue holding it together. Take a shower that might last a decade. Get out, call Tyra, and get her to set up an emergency Chaos sisterhood meeting.

Then spend the rest of the day attempting not to have a nervous breakdown.

Logan came to my side of the car, opened my door, and lifted me out. With me in his arms, he shut the door and stalked to my back door.

He was still pissed. Then again, he’d stood close throughout the whole story I’d told to the police so he wasn’t actually still pissed. He was more pissed.

Not good.

We were several feet away when the door was opened by Big Petey.

He gave Logan a look I tried to ignore, then turned a relieved smile to me as he vacated the door so Logan could carry me in.

He also shut the door behind us as Logan walked me to the edge of the bar and dropped my legs to put my feet on the ground.

Through this, I saw I didn’t have to call Tyra because she was already there. So were Lanie, Tabby, and Carissa.

It was a minor relief to tick that off my to-do list but I didn’t really get to feel that feeling.

This was because I was suddenly hit by a small force that, although small, sent me slamming into Logan.

I looked down and saw Zadie with her arms around me.

Okay, maybe my shower wouldn’t last a decade.

Maybe I wouldn’t take one at all.

And I definitely wasn’t going to have a nervous breakdown.

I already knew a kid’s hug had healing powers beyond the beyond.

But getting that from Zadie was beyond anything.

I put my hand to her hair as her hold spread warmth through me.

“I’m okay, sweetie,” I whispered.

She jerked her head back, giving me a red face, wet eyes, and an agonized expression.

“They said they were Daddy’s friends!” she cried. “They said they had something special for him!”

I struggled against her hold to crouch down in front of her. When I got into position, I took her in my own hold, not loose, not scary tight.

Just safe.

“We all, every one of us, make mistakes,” I said gently. “We trust people we shouldn’t. And it makes us feel dumb.” As she took a hiccoughing breath, I smoothed her hair away from the side of her face. “That’s not right,” I went on. “Someone does something wrong, it’s their bad. Not yours.” I moved my face closer to hers. “That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be smart. But you also gotta stop beating yourself up. You didn’t do wrong. They did.”

Her damp eyes went to the swelling on my face. “They hit you.”

“They did,” I reminded her. “Got my arms around you, Zadie. Am I here? Am I home with you and your sister and your dad? Am I okay?”

She drew in another hiccoughing breath but didn’t answer.

“I am, sweetie,” I answered myself (though it was a kind of lie, I wasn’t exactly okay, but I wasn’t going to share that).

“I was mean to you,” she whispered.

“Sometimes, learning how to do right isn’t the easiest lesson,” I told her. “And you were feeling a lot for reasons that were real, darling. There’s nothing wrong with wanting your family together. I get that.” Her lip quivered and her bright eyes got brighter so I cupped her soft cheek in my hand, stroking it with my thumb. “But you saw your daddy happy. You saw your mom was good. You didn’t handle the situation right in the beginning, Zadie, but if you get there in the end, that’s all that matters.” I gave her a small smile and asked, “Are you there?”

She took in another broken breath and nodded.

“Will you be my friend?” I asked.

She nodded again, this time more decisively.

No, definitely no nervous breakdown.

With that, no matter what happened to me that day, I was all good.

Everything was all good.

So I gave her a full grin and shared that.

“Then we’re all good.”

I saw Logan’s hand reach beyond me to cup the back of his little girl’s head.

“Love this sweetness, Zadie, but you gotta let your old man take care of his woman,” he said gently.

She looked up to her dad, her chin trembled, then she nodded and let me go.

I started to straighten but didn’t get there because the second Zadie stepped away, Cleo hit me hard, wrapping her arms around me and holding on tight.

“Glad you’re okay, Millie,” she whispered, her voice frail.

To combat that, I curved my arms around her and gave her a tight squeeze to let her know I really was okay.

When I started to release, she pulled away and moved directly to her sister to guide her deeper into the living room.

Pure Cleo, taking it on herself to do anything she could, great or small, to help out her dad.

I gave her a wink and as Logan guided me firmly to the hall, I turned my gaze to the women in my living room. I tried to give them a look that said we have to talk.

I wasn’t sure if they got my message before I had to look away to go down the hall.

We were in the bedroom when I asked, “How are you gonna explain all this to Deb?”

Logan kicked the door shut with his boot, kept moving me into the room but did it giving me his eyes.

“What do you need? Rest? Coffee? A shot of bourbon?”

I stopped in a way it stopped him. Then I turned into him and wrapped my arms around his waist.

“What are you gonna say to Deb, Low? You have to tell her because if you don’t, the girls will, and she’s gonna freak. That could mean she won’t want the girls—”

He lifted his hands and put them to either side of my neck.

“Deb did not spend our marriage in a vacuum, Millie,” he stated. “She knew what I was when she met me, when she took my ring, and when she shared my bed. She knew how Chaos changed. She knew our activities after we changed. I didn’t lay all of it out for her but I told her what she needed to know. She isn’t gonna like this. She’s gonna freak. Then she’s gonna trust in the brotherhood. It might take her time to get there. But she’ll get there.”

I found this hard to believe.

“Are you sure? Today was extreme,” I pointed out the obvious.

“She never bought into the biker life, babe, but she lived a long time connected to Chaos. She knows us. She wasn’t into it because she wasn’t into anything. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t know us. She’ll get there.”

I found this easier to believe but not by much.

I decided not to pursue that.

Even so, I didn’t get a chance before he declared, “And if she doesn’t, the gig we got goin’ that’s workin’ good will stop workin’ good. No one is gonna keep my daughters from me for any reason. It just is not gonna happen. She tries, she’ll learn quick she shouldn’t have. But she knows that too. So she ain’t gonna try.”

That I could believe.

So I nodded, suddenly feeling exhausted.

“I think I need a shower,” I told him. “Then I wanna call Dot and—”

“Unh-unh,” he denied.

I blinked up at him.

He saw it and tipped his head so his face was closer to mine.

His tone was firm, but gentle, when he stated, “You got a big family. That family is yours, all of it, but that don’t mean the bottom line is that you really got two families. You know the gig, too, baby. This is Chaos. You got your sisters in Chaos. You need them, they’re right down the hall. Other than that, no go. This stays in Chaos, and it fucks me to lay down this law after the shit that went down with you today, but that’s the end of it. Hear?”

“Dot won’t—” I began.

He cut me off, “Alan will.”

I shut my mouth because he was right.

Alan would.

He’d totally lose his mind.

“Hear?” he prompted softly.

I thought of my Chaos sisters in the living room. They’d descended, probably immediately, to look after Logan’s girls.

I didn’t know them all that well. I just knew I liked them. I trusted them.

And I was Chaos, in this situation, they were all I had.

As well as Logan, that was.

So it was good that was nothing to sneeze at.

With no other choice, because I’d already made it years ago when I chose Logan, I did what I’d been doing all day.

I nodded and whispered, “I hear.”

Like any good old lady should.

I knew it was the right thing to do even before I did it.

But when Logan’s hands slid up to my jaw and he used it to pull me up to my toes so my mouth could meet his and he could kiss me light, but long and wet, relieved but determined, that knowledge was confirmed.

Tack

It was dark.

There was only one light lit in the room.

Tack sat at the head of Chaos’s table.

Hound was standing, his back to the wall opposite the door.

But Tack had his gaze on the Chaos flag under the Plexiglas in the middle of the table.

“High told us what Millie said,” Tack told the table.

“Yup,” Hound replied.

Tack stared at the flag.

But his mind was filled with hearing High’s voice over the phone earlier that day when he’d first gotten the call.

He felt deep what he heard in High’s voice. The anger that hid the fear.

He knew how that felt. He knew how it felt to know your woman was in the hands of a madman. He knew how it felt not to know where she was or how to find her. He knew how it felt to know you’d give anything to get her back safe.

Even if it meant giving your life.

Even if it meant that would take you away from her, your kids.

You’d do it.

Without a thought.

He knew exactly how that felt.

And hearing it in his brother’s voice, remembering it in a way that cut like a blade, knowing he had to do everything he could to stop High from giving everything he was, after years of that feeling being gone, it again haunted him.

He looked from the flag to Hound.

“You’re on this,” he ordered.

Slowly, Hound grinned.

“Alone, Hound. You got that?” Tack asked.

The grin didn’t waver. “I got it.”

“No blowback, brother,” Tack ordered.

Hound lifted his chin.

The door opened and both men looked to it.

Tack straightened in his chair and felt the alert coming off Hound when they saw who walked in.

Keely Black.

Every time Tack saw her, the wound of losing his brother, a wound that never closed, opened wider.

And every time he saw her, he thought the waste of the end of Black’s life carried on.

The woman was beautiful. Years had passed and that beauty matured along with her. Throw in her being sweet as candy and funny as hell, the way her life ended when her man’s did was a tragedy. She had a lot to give in ways that goodness couldn’t be given just to her sons.

Tack thought, over the years, all that goodness bottled up, it’d explode and she’d find her way out from under the blanket of grief that was smothering her.

She never did.

And with eyes that were dead even if they were shining with anger, Tack reckoned it never would.

“Keely, darlin’, you know, the doors are closed, this room—” he started.

“Fuck what I know,” she bit out.

As asked, earlier that day, she’d hightailed it to Millie’s to look after High’s girls.

But the minute Pete got there, she took off.

It wasn’t his first choice to ask her to step in. Fuck, he’d never ask her to step in unless the situation was what it was and High needed his brothers around, and fast, to contain him.

Clearly, she hadn’t liked it.

“What we asked today, honey, we won’t ask again,” Tack told her quietly.

“Damn straight, Tack,” she returned, moving into the room and slamming the door behind her. “ ’Cause, in case you didn’t get it the last time shit went south. And then the time before that and the time before that. You should get it now. For God’s sake, they took Millie.”

“You shoulda stuck around to see she was good,” Hound told her, and her eyes shot to him.

“I didn’t because I know Millie. Happy for High she’s back. Took forever and it’s good that shit is over. But if she sees me, she’ll be all up in my shit to heal me. I had enough of that from Pete. From Beverly. From all you all,” she returned. “Only reason Bev’s still around is because she stopped that shit.”

Bev was Boz’s ex. She and Keely remained tight.

And it wasn’t lost on Tack that was the reason.

“Keely—” he began.

Her eyes snapped to him and she ordered, “Pull back.”

“Woman—” Hound tried.

Keely didn’t look from Tack. “Whatever it is you boys are stuck in this time, pull back.”

He shook his head. “That’s not possible.”

She crossed her arms on her chest. “It’s not possible because your pride is at stake. The Club’s pride is at stake. But other, more important shit is at stake, too, Tack, and you’re far from dumb. You know it. Whatever this lunatic wants from Chaos that’s making him get into it with old ladies, give it to him and pull back.”

“Babe, you’ve got a place deep in my soul, straight up,” Hound said, and Keely looked to him. “But bottom line, you don’t know what the fuck you’re talkin’ about.”

“I know why you two are here,” she returned, lifting a hand, finger pointed, to indicate him and Tack. She dropped her hand. “I know you, Hound. I know when you’re called in.”

“And you know I get the job done,” Hound replied, his voice soft, even tender, and Tack narrowed his gaze on his brother’s face when he saw the same reflected there.

Fuck.

That was a look in all their years as brothers Tack had never seen from Hound.

And that was not a look a man was giving the widow of his dead brother.

Fuck.

“It gives me no joy to say that at least when this asshole takes you out, Hound, you’re not leavin’ anyone who loves you more than the breath they take behind,” Keely shot back.

Tack watched the nearly imperceptible flinch strike Hound’s face.

Fuck.

Tack drew her attention to him. “Keely—”

“Do not call me again, Tack,” she demanded.

His mouth got tight.

She looked to Hound and everything about her changed. She went from pissed and belligerent to sad and defeated.

Seeing that, it also cut like a blade.

He remembered her. He remembered her young and in love and so fucking happy, she walked into a room attached to Black, or walked into a room Black was in, that happiness would warm every inch of the space.

Just like Millie was with High back in the day.

But Millie could get hers back.

Keely never would.

“Be careful,” she whispered to Hound. “Be super fuckin’ careful, Hound. Because you might not have a woman who loves you more than her own breath, but you still got folks who love you. So please, God, be careful.”

With that, she turned, her hair flying, yanked open the door, stalked out, and slammed it behind her.

Tack looked to Hound.

Hound was in control. His face neutral.

But his eyes were glued to the door.

“We done here?” Tack asked, and Hound cut his gaze to his brother.

“Yup,” he answered, pushing away from the wall.

Tack watched him walk around the other end of the table. He waited until Hound’s hand was on the door before he called his name.

Hound looked back at him.

“You know,” he said carefully.

“Know what?” Hound asked.

“You know you don’t go there.”

Hound’s brows drew together. “Brother, you call me when you got somewhere to go no one else can go. What the fuck?”

Tack shook his head but did it with his eyes locked to Hound’s.

“You know you don’t go there. She’s Black’s. Dead or alive, she’s Black’s. She can move on. I hope to fuck someday she does. But she can’t move on with Chaos.”

That got him something.

Hound looked pissed.

But his voice was quiet when he replied, “You think I don’t know that shit?”

“I know you know,” Tack returned. “Just remindin’ you.”

“Don’t need a reminder, brother,” Hound grated out. “Lived with that for years, bein’ in love with a woman I can’t have.”

Without hesitation, after delivering that, he threw open the door and prowled out. When he slammed it, it was louder and the door shook.

Tack stared at the door.

Then he leaned to the table, put his elbow on it, and bent his neck to run his hand through his hair.

He’d curled his fingers around the back of his neck, the wood of the table all he could see, when he finally muttered aloud, “Fuck.”