Текст книги "Walk Through Fire"

Автор книги: Kristen Ashley

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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 32 страниц)

“Everything go okay?” she asked on a small smile.

“Don’t,” he replied, not even having come all the way in, standing in the open door.

This wouldn’t take long but his message would be clear.

She looked uneasy before she asked, “Don’t what?”

“Respect,” he said softly. “You got it, Cherry. You know it. Don’t lose it. Just don’t. Hear?”

She swiveled her chair his way, starting, “High—”

“Don’t,” he repeated. “Hear?”

She stood. “I don’t think you understand.”

“No, babe. You don’t understand. And I’m askin’, Tyra, listen to me. I’m askin’ for you to stop. No matter what she said to you. Stop.”

He watched her brows knit and she asked, “What she said to me?”

He wasn’t going there.

“Done with this,” he told her. “And you’re done with this. Then we’re good. You’re not done, we’re not good, Cherry. And honest to fuck, I don’t want that so don’t make it that way.”

Then he moved out of the door and kept moving even when he heard her call, “High!”

He jogged down the steps, got in his truck, and turned around in the forecourt even as he saw Cherry moving down the stairs.

He then drove out of Ride and didn’t look back.

*  *  *

“You think she’ll let it go?” Boz asked.

High and his brother were sitting at Boz’s kitchen table, vodka bottle and glasses in front of them, no ice or mixers.

It wasn’t that kind of night.

They were talking about Cherry.

And Millie.

Fucking Millie.

She was back.

Twenty years of her as a ghost in his head, haunting his memories, plaguing him, making him wonder how the fuck he was so goddamned stupid that he read it so fucking wrong.

And she was back.

Not a ghost.

Looking for him at Bill’s.

Throwing herself at him.

Christ, when the bitch had pulled at his belt so she could get to his dick... Christ.

Shit like that, he could talk himself into forgetting.

He could talk himself into letting her have whatever the fuck she wanted... again.

Giving it all... again.

Just to have it back even if it was a lie.

Hell, he could talk himself into taking the pain, twenty more years of it, just so he could have it back.

Even if it was only for a day.

He poured more vodka in his glass, looked to Boz, and answered his question, “She’s Cherry. No tellin’ what she’ll do.”

Boz took up his own glass and threw back a slug, dropping it to the table, saying, “Tack’ll talk some sense into her.”

“Boz, brother, you been ridin’ the Tack and Tyra train with the rest of us for almost a decade. Woman does what she does. He gets off on it. It’s the way it is.”

Boz leveled his gaze on High.

“It is,” he said quietly, “in any other thing. But this is you, High. You and Tack got your history but this is you, a brother, and this is you and that cunt. He knows. He knows that bitch. Cherry does not know.” His voice lowered further. “He’ll talk some sense into her.”

High tasted sour in his mouth, listening to Boz calling Millie those names.

He’d long since stopped wondering when that reaction would leave him. The automatic need to defend her. He was used to it now, and at least he no longer wanted to shove his fist down the throat of any man who referred to her that way. And in the beginning when the brothers had been so ticked at what she’d done, that had been a serious struggle.

High didn’t reply to Boz mostly because there was nothing to say. With Cherry, especially if she and Millie had roped in Elvira and Lanie—the first crazier than the last, but not by much—there was no telling what would happen.

He just hoped none of those women pushed him too far. He liked them all. They were Chaos, even Elvira, who held no claim to a brother. Family was family and they were family, the kind that earned a thick thicker than blood.

But too far for a man like him was just too far.

He also didn’t reply because he was done for the night.

So he took up his glass, threw back the vodka, then put it to the table.

“I’m turnin’ in,” he muttered, shoving his chair back.

“Right,” Boz replied. “Later.”

“Later, brother,” High returned as he moved to the back door, out it, down the long fence at the side of Boz’s house and into the big space where Boz was letting him keep his RV.

This was where he was staying since he’d given the house to his recently made ex-wife, Deb. And this was something he’d done because he didn’t want his girls’ lives fucked any more than they already were.

Cleo, his oldest, was hanging in there. She was tough, like her dad. She was also smart. And she was his girl. She loved him completely. She loved her ma, too, but she was her dad’s girl. And no matter how hard he and Deb tried to hide it, she’d sensed they weren’t happy and now he sensed she was relieved it was over.

Which sucked.

Zadie was having problems. His baby girl had her head in the clouds in a way he could look back and see her in her crib, staring up at the mobile, not seeing that shit but seeing her tiny baby dreams. She didn’t sense anything. His baby was ten years old and she believed she was going to marry a prince in a way that scared the fuck out of High because it was a way where she wasn’t going to let go of that dream.

She never let go of any dream.

Like having a happy home with Mom and Dad together.

So she wasn’t hanging in there. She hated that they’d split.

Which also sucked.

He needed to get them settled. Get in a house so the change didn’t seem temporary. Get them their own room, a space that was theirs in a place that was his.

At twelve and ten, they needed their mom now, so he didn’t go for half custody. They needed stability. They got their dad every other weekend.

He and Deb had made a deal. They weren’t at each other’s throats. They’d just lucked out and came to the conclusion at the same time that enough was enough. They didn’t love each other, never did. He’d knocked her up and he was not the kind of man to let that responsibility slide when she said she was going to keep it and she’d needed him financially. So they got married.

But they liked each other and they both figured it would be better to end it still doing that than it turning bad, something, as both their lives slipped away in a marriage neither enjoyed, that was happening.

So Deb was good with him coming over for dinner. Going to the girls’ recitals and sitting with her. Picking them up and having them at the Compound or taking them out for pizza or ice cream when it wasn’t his time to have them.

He didn’t get to see them every day, which didn’t suck.

It totally blew.

But he needed to give them what they needed.

And when they needed their dad, when he had a place, when they felt safe there, when they got in a zone (or close to it) where they would become women and they’d have their mom right there when they did, a time Deb and he agreed would be when Cleo was fourteen and Zadie was twelve, they’d have their dad. So after two years that he knew would be two long years, they’d do half custody.

It was all in the agreement.

He just needed to find a fucking house and he didn’t want to wait two years to do it.

His RV was the shit. Even Deb, who didn’t agree with hardly anything he did the last thirteen years, dug that RV and she did this even knowing how much that fucker cost.

But he’d been living in it off Boz’s house for nine months.

He needed to find a fucking house.

He got to the side door, unlocked it, went in, and powered her up.

He turned on one of the TVs (the thing had four, including one built into the outside) and sat to pull off his boots.

He didn’t get the first one off before something caught his eye and he tensed.

Then instead of taking off his boot, he pulled the knife out of the side.

Slowly, he got up and moved to the cupboard, alert while opening it, reaching high, pushing aside the bag of flour that was there just to hide what was behind it. He reached in, grabbed his gun, and moved carefully down the hall, stopping in front of the bathroom.

Standing outside, cautiously, he curled his hand around the door and flipped on the light. Even more cautiously, he looked in.

And saw nothing.

He proceeded until he hit the bedroom.

He did the same thing as with the bathroom.

But no one was there.

Chaos didn’t have many problems these days, not like back in the day when they had their allies... but they also had their enemies.

They did still have one problem, though. A big one. A psychopath with power called Benito Valenzuela who wanted to undo all the work Chaos had done to get clean and get their turf clean, work they’d kept strong now for years.

Things with Valenzuela had been quiet. But things had been coasting too long, the men were getting antsy and players in Denver weren’t taking the Club seriously, so Chaos recently stepped up their maneuvers to warn him off, which meant all the brothers were on edge.

And these days with Millie back, High was on edge about a variety of things, not just Valenzuela.

He clenched his teeth and stared at the big blue plastic crate on his bed with its white top.

Then he made an annoyed noise in his throat when he saw a folded piece of paper on top with High written on it in Cherry’s handwriting.

He’d loaned Tack and her the RV more than once for them to take the boys to stay at state parks and do other shit.

She had a key.

“Fuck,” he muttered.

Shoving his gun in his back waistband, tossing the knife to the bed, he reached to the paper.

He unfolded it and read:

High,

Millie gave Lanie, Elvira, and me this crate. She said she couldn’t bring herself to get rid of what’s in it so she asked us to do it for her. When we saw what it was, we couldn’t bring ourselves to do it either. I’m guessing, from our conversation today, that you can.

So go for it.

I’m really sorry I stepped into it with you and Millie. I upset you and Millie was in a really bad way. Clearly, she also just wants to move on. I should have left it alone.

Now I’ll leave it alone and I’ll talk to Lanie and Elvira so they will too.

Sorry again, High.

xCherryx

Not wanting to but not able to stop himself, he flipped the latches, tossed back the lid, and sucked in breath at what he saw.

“Fuck,” he whispered. “That fuckin’ bitch.”

He didn’t waste time reaching beyond the crate, nabbing the lid to put it back on, and refastening it.

Then he stared at the crate.

Jesus, but she knew how to play the game. What was in that crate would have Cherry and her crew panting to dig in, do it deep and not quit until the job they wanted done got done.

He just did not get what she wanted. He didn’t put it past her to come after him just because she was rabid for his cock. The lie they’d lived didn’t include sex being fucking spectacular.

It was.

Every time.

And she’d panted for it.

Every time.

Maybe she’d hit a dry patch.

Maybe she was just bored.

He didn’t give a fuck.

Whatever it was, he had to shut it down.

Why she kept those pictures, he had no clue, except she kept everything. Concert stubs. Half-ripped movie tickets. Ribbons from gifts. Plastic cups with their names written on them from parties. Strings of Christmas lights that didn’t work that she was sure she could fix if she could find the blown bulb (then she never found the blown bulb, but the woman tried, sitting on the floor pulling out one and sticking in another for fucking hours).

And every picture taken of them together, even if it was out of focus or one of their faces was cut off or half the shot was obscured by a finger.

Those didn’t make her albums but she didn’t get rid of them.

She kept them.

All of them.

For twenty years.

And she’d found a use for them.

He lifted the crate, hauled it through the RV, set it down to open the door, and then tossed it out into the cold. He heard it land with a thud but paid it no more mind as he shut the door and locked it.

Then he went back to taking off his boots, doing it thinking again that he had no idea why she’d come back. He had no idea what she wanted from him. He didn’t even fucking care.

He just knew she was all in to get it.

And no man could fight a war and win without information.

He thought he knew Millie Cross twenty years ago, but he didn’t.

He didn’t know dick about her now.

So he reached into his back pocket, pulled out his phone, went to his contacts, and touched the screen to connect.

He put the phone to his ear.

“Tell me you’re callin’ to set up a game,” Shirleen Jackson said into his ear.

“Take your money any time you want,” he replied.

She drew out her, “Please.”

But she was all bluff. This was why she was always losing. That and the fact he could read her hand by looking at her face.

Hell, the woman used to run poker games in Denver and she was the worst player he’d known.

But now she was also the receptionist at Nightingale Investigations, the premier private investigation firm in the entire Rocky Mountain region.

And she was a friend.

Shirleen and High had history. She’d do anything for him and he’d return the favor.

It wasn’t about markers.

It was about bond. The kind circumstances in life can make that can’t be broken.

She’d been dirty.

He had too.

But she’d been dirty when she’d had only her nephew at her back.

He’d been dirty when he’d had all his brothers at his, but the Club was broken.

He still had his brothers and she’d only had Darius.

Darius was loyal and he was smart but he was only one man, one man Shirleen felt the need to protect.

So there was a time when there was no one to protect Shirleen.

Except High.

He’d done it.

She’d never forgotten it.

And she was the kind of woman who never would.

“Need somethin’,” he told her.

“Hit me,” she invited like he knew she would.

“Anything and everything you can dig up on Millicent Anna Cross. Female. Forty-one. Lives in Denver. I’ll text you what else I got on her that’ll make it easier on you. But first, I’ll need an address.”

“You got it,” she replied.

“Boys aren’t in this, Shirleen,” he told her. “Nightingale or any of them. You keep this on the down low. Only you know. Yeah?”

“Yeah, High,” she agreed, then asked probingly, “You good?”

He didn’t hesitate to give it to her.

“In a game I don’t wanna be in but I’m in it, and this time, I intend to win.”

“Right,” she said quietly. Then, quieter, “Met you after it was over, boy, but anyone who was a player in Denver back then knew you had a girl named Millie.”

He drew in a deep breath.

Then he said, “Just get me what you can get.”

“Okay, High.”

He rested back against the cushions of the couch. “We’ll set up a game soon.”

“Just don’t bring Hound. Sure that boy’s a cheat,” she muttered.

With anyone else, that kind of slur against a brother would invite retribution.

But for High, Shirleen was family, so nothing invited retribution.

“Hound sniffs out a game, no stoppin’ him from showin’.”

“Whatever,” she muttered. “Now, we gonna shoot the shit or you gonna let me get my beauty rest?”

“Wouldn’t dream of disturbin’ your beauty rest.”

“Already did, boy.”

After delivering that, she hung up.

High took the phone from his ear and grinned at it.

Then he tossed it on the cushion beside him and saw the stack of dishes in the sink where he’d left them that morning telling himself he’d take care of them that night.

He wasn’t going to wash dishes.

He was going to hit the sack.

This he didn’t delay in doing.

The RV was a mess.

But his sheets were clean. He’d made sure of that in order to wash Millie’s scent away.

Unfortunately, in the dark, lying in the bed where he’d had her ass in his hands, his tat on her back inescapable so he’d eventually had to cover it with his hand so he could concentrate on coming instead of fucking her for as long as he could, even if he managed to do it until his last breath, he couldn’t keep his mind off her.

Cleo and Zadie.

Deb had picked his oldest girl’s name, High had picked his baby’s.

Neither of them were anywhere near the ten names he and Millie had picked out.

Five for boys. Five for girls. That way they were sure to be covered whatever happened.

Her two top picks for girls were her two grandmothers’ names.

Katherine and Ruth.

Katy and Ruthy.

He wondered if her girls were with her now or with some ex.

He clenched his teeth at that idea but that didn’t stop the thoughts, which included wondering, if she’d instead had boys, if she’d picked the top names they’d decided. Flynn and Chance.

He wouldn’t put it past her, even though giving another man’s kids his boys’ names would be beyond the pale, even for her.

But she’d been rabid about picking the right names. Three fucking years they went over it. It was like a game, one they both enjoyed, going from the bizarre to the sublime in choices, trying to make each other laugh, but also being serious, settling in on some, rearranging favorites, until they were sure.

But they never quit talking about it, running a name by the other just to see if it’d make the cut.

Until a couple months before she sent him packing.

Then she’d quit doing it and any discussion they had about it when he did was stiff and forced, like she wanted him to think she was still into it when she absolutely wasn’t.

He hadn’t really noticed at the time.

Like Zadie, he was living in a dreamworld.

Then Millie booted him out.

And now here he was, forty-four years old and he’d fucked up huge along the way. He’d had a loveless marriage that lasted for thirteen years. He’d had so many close calls of so many different varieties that could have bought him a different life, or an early death it wasn’t fucking funny.

But out of his life he still had his brothers and he had his two girls.

And he’d had three years living a dream.

A dream that was a lie.

But at least it felt like a dream before he found out it was a lie and he’d take that.

In High’s life since he’d lost Millie, he’d take it.

And be glad for it.

Twenty-three years earlier, Chaos Compound common room...

“She’s it for you, ain’t she, High?”

At Black’s words, Logan tore his eyes off Millie, who was across the room with Chew, giggling as Chew’s tarantula crawled all over her.

Chew’s tarantula and the fact he had seven of those fuckers and had always had one—by his word even since he was a little kid—being why the brother was called “Chew.”

“So light!” Millie cried. “And furry. She tickles!”

Chew grinned at her in a way Logan didn’t like but he didn’t do anything about it because he knew, even though Chew clearly had a thing for his girl, she was Logan’s girl and Chew was his brother. Not only would Millie not act on it, Chew wouldn’t either.

Millie looked to him. “Logan! We need a tarantula!”

He did not want a fucking tarantula.

But if she wanted one, he’d get it for her.

He did not say this.

He just grinned.

She turned back to the spider crawling up the arm she had lifted in front of her face.

Logan turned to Black, who was standing with him, as was Tack.

“Yep,” he answered.

“Moved in fast,” Tack muttered, eyeing him, friendly but there was concern.

Logan liked Tack but the brother freaked him because he was like a genius or something. He saw shit others did not see. And he thought not a step ahead, or two, or five, but fifty.

There was trouble brewing because of that.

A man like Tack was not a soldier.

A man like Tack was a leader.

All the men knew it.

Including their current president, Crank, who didn’t like it.

“Yep,” Logan repeated, answering Tack’s question, because he was right.

Millie and him were living together and had been for a couple of weeks. She was in school and had a part-time job. He’d been initiated into the Club officially and had a brother’s cut of Club profits.

So it was all good, by his way of thinking.

That said, her parents had been ticked they’d moved in together. They’d agreed to cover her tuition, pay for books, but because she’d moved in with him, done it quick and done it without a ring on her finger, they were giving nothing else.

This meant Logan was covering her even though she was working her ass off, both at school and at the shit job she had at a store in the mall that she took so she wouldn’t have to lean on him too much.

He didn’t give a fuck.

He went to bed beside her, he woke up beside her, she was his. She could quit and sit around watching television and eating M&M’s all day for all he cared. As long as she smiled at him like she smiled at him, like no other man breathed on the planet, he’d take care of her.

“Good choice,” Black noted, and Logan gave him his attention to see Black had eyes on Millie. “Face of it, she ain’t no old lady.” His gaze slid to Logan. “Deep down, where that shit needs to be, she’s all about it.”

“Yep,” Logan said again because this was true.

She was all about family. Hers. His. The one they were going to make one day.

So, yes. Definitely.

She was all about it.

Old lady through and through.

But only because he was a biker. She’d be what he needed her to be.

That was Millie.

“Happy for you, brother,” Tack said. “Your age, men don’t find the right one.” He clapped Logan on the shoulder. “You did.”

Logan jerked up his chin.

“Yeah, I did,” he agreed.

Another giggle erupted from Millie and all the men’s eyes went to her.

She now had two of Chew’s tarantulas crawling all over her.

And she loved it.

And Logan loved her. He didn’t give a fuck what it said, how impossible it was that was the case since they’d only been together a couple of months. He fell in love the minute he laid eyes on her. More in love at her first “hey.” Then more when she told him her name. And more when she looked so adorably hurt when she thought he was laughing at it.

And then more.

And even more.

It’d go on forever, he knew it.

Every day until he died, he’d fall more in love with her.

He’d been a lucky fuck and he knew it. He had a good family. Left that, had some fun, caused some trouble, found Chaos, and earned himself a new family.

Then he found Millie.

Yeah, he was a lucky fuck.

And staring at Millie with her tarantulas, feeling his lips twitch, he knew it.