Breaking It All: A Hellfire Riders MC Romance (The Motorcycle Clubs) (4 page)

Then her emerald eyes meet mine and my stomach drops, heavy with sudden dread. Not because she seems interested in me after getting a look at my face. That happens sometimes with the girls Stone hooks up with.

This time it’s because I’ve seen eyes like hers before. Stone’s got a real soft spot for a girl in trouble. This one, though. I’ve seen eyes like that in Afghanistan, in women who lost their families, their homes, and who don’t believe help is ever coming. I’ve seen it more recently in one of the women we found when we raided the Eighty-Eight’s compound near home—after she’d been chained, sold, and raped God knows how many fucking times.

Shit. Stone does
not
need this.

Eyes locked with mine, her body seems to tremble before she looks up at Stone. Her face softens and the shattered expression blinks out, replaced by something like desperate hope. Then even that’s gone, and she simply looks bright and vapid, with a smile curving her cherry red lips.

She curls her fingers around his empty glass. “You want me to get you a refill before we go, baby?”

“I sure would, darlin’.” His hand lingers at her hip as she moves away, his eyes following her when she walks out of reach.

“Jesus.” I lean back against the wall, shake my head. “You gotta be careful with that one, man. She’s broken.”

“I know.” His voice is grim, his hard gaze steady on her back. “But if she believes my dick might fix her, I’ll happily give it my best shot.”

And tear out a part of himself when there’s nothing he can do to really help her. Especially not before we take off tomorrow. “Maybe you don’t know this, but the white shit that shoots out of your dick isn’t glue.”

“You sure?” He flicks a surprised glance my way. “Because I was hoping to make Christmas cards this year by jacking off all over some paper and throwing down some glitter.”

“And sending one to your mother?”

He grimaces, looking suddenly sick. “Sweet baby Jesus, that turned around on me quick.”

Bringing his mom into it turned around on me, too. My skin crawls, thinking of Clara Wall touching a card covered in glittery jizz. She’s a hell of a woman—and Stone’s one lucky asshole, getting her for a mother.

He shakes his head as if to get rid of the image. “You don’t have to worry, brother. I’m not walking into this blind. You think she came straight up to me because she liked the look of my face?”

“Maybe.” After all, he likes girls in trouble. Some women like scars.

“Nah,” he says easily. “She told me she saw me at the fight. So I figure she’s looking for protection from someone she knows can handle his own. You see how jumpy she is?”

It’s hard to miss. She’s tense, her gaze darting around. My first thought was drugs—maybe meth—but although she’s scrawny, her skin is clear and her teeth are fine. No track marks mar the pale, bare skin of her arms. If she uses, it’s probably not habitual, or what she’s using isn’t the really hard shit.

So, maybe drugs. But scared fits, too.

“Protection from whom?”

“‘Whom?’ Your nerd is showing.”

“Fuck off. Who’s scaring her?”

Stone shrugs. “Don’t know. But I’ll get it out of her.”

“Then what?”

“Then I figure if she’s afraid of someone local, a bus ticket and enough cash to see her through a few months might fix what’s broken. And if I give her money, I can call it a donation and ask Old Timer to deduct it from my taxes.”

A goddamn marshmallow. “You heading back to the motel?”

He tears his gaze from Cherry to give me a wry look. “She knows how much I won.”

I huff out a short laugh. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out we’ve probably got the prize money stashed in that room. Even locked away in the safe isn’t always safe enough—and it wouldn’t be the first time some sweet pussy set a guy up, either cleaning him out herself or using her body to get into the room and letting a boyfriend hold a gun to the sucker’s head until he gives up the combination to the safe.

Stone would probably give her every dollar, if he thought she really needed it. He wouldn’t care about the money itself. But he’d care if she stole it or if she fucked him over. So he’d rather not even risk it.

“She mentioned a room she’s staying in,” he says.

Shit. That’s not much better. I dig the Escalade’s key fob out of my pocket and hand it over. Better for him to swing by and grab a weapon before he heads off to her place. But that reason goes unspoken.

“You can fold the back seat forward and the cargo hold is about as big as a bed,” I remind him. “Might be better than holing up in a room where some asshole might come knocking.”

“True that. I’ve got enough scars.”

Which he got after going home with another girl in trouble. Except that one had an ex-boyfriend who liked using his fists on her. And that ex-boyfriend brought friends. Stone can fight like the devil, but he barely made it out of there alive—and he went out through a window, not a door.

He’d have bailed before it came to that, except he was still trying to protect the girl, who turned around and accused him of raping her to save her own ass from the jealous bastard who was going to kill her for straying.

Considering the circumstances, how terrified she was, Stone forgave her that. But he’s been wary ever since.

Even now, there’s caution in the way he watches Cherry return, drink in hand. Her smile falters, emerald eyes searching his expression as she gives him the beer. “Are you all right?”

“Better now,” he tells her. “Just discussing the perils of defenestration.”

Her eyebrows rise. “Being thrown through a window?” She hesitates, her gaze lightly touching on his jagged scars. “Is that what happened to you?”

His body stills and I’ve got the sudden feeling there’s going to be three of us on that flight home tomorrow.

“Don’t you be pretty
and
smart,” he warns.

“I’ll try.” Humor flashes in her eyes before it flickers out. “I’d rather be something else, anyway.”

“What’s that?”

With a shake of her head, she seems to draw into herself, and all at once there’s that broken woman again. Her face is a mask of hopeless desperation as she gestures at his beer. “Why don’t you finish that up and we’ll head out?”

His eyebrows pull together in a frown, but he obediently chugs, watching her over the end of the glass. She’s shaking again, her emerald eyes bright as she looks everywhere but Stone.

I can’t hear his heavy sigh over the noise in the bar, but I see the deep rise of his chest and read the beleaguered look he gives me as he turns to set down his empty glass.

I’m laughing at his expense even as he slings his arm around Cherry’s shoulders and leads her away. He’s screwed. Not in the fun way. Cherry is so desperate, having sex with her would be like fucking a woman in chains. Stone’s an asshole, but he won’t take advantage of a girl who obviously needs more help than a dick can give.

So that’s two of us who won’t be getting laid tonight. The difference is, I’m not sorry.

Hell. Even I wasn’t hung up on Anna, I’d be too damn tired to get it up, anyway. Nothing sounds better than heading back to the hotel and hitting the bed, but I’ve still got a tab to close out.

But maybe not yet. Buster’s still going strong and showing no signs of stopping. I find a seat by him and finally sit my ass down, stretching my legs out.

I watch in amazement as he downs another pint. Plenty of bikers are heavy drinkers, but he must be setting some kind of record for staying upright. He slams down the empty and regards me steadily, a thick foam mustache hovering over his upper lip.

“You heading out?” he asks, his tone forlorn, as if the prospect of no more free beer is almost too much to bear.

I tip my head to indicate his empty glass. “I’m waiting to see if it’ll catch up with you. You should be on the floor by now.”

Swollen cheek bunching like a squirrel’s, he grins that lopsided grin. “A fist is the only thing that can make me go down.”

“Your old lady must pack one hell of a punch, then.”

His sputtering laugh sends the foam mustache flying. Grinning, I turn my head to avoid it, and when I glance back he’s blinking off into the distance.

“Maybe it’s hitting me harder than usual,” he says with a shake of his head. “Because now I’m seeing double.”

I follow his gaze and my grin freezes in place. Icy tension stiffens every muscle.

He’s not seeing double. He’s seeing one of my brothers.

Jacob. The second of six sons in the Cooper clan. Spotting him is like spotting a glimpse in the mirror eight years into the future. The same angular face, the same pale blue eyes. Look close, he’s a little thinner and shorter than me, with gray salting the black hair at his temples. But at first glance—even at second and third glance—a double.

We’ve got four other doubles, but one of them’s rotting in the ground.

I look for Benjamin and Isiah—the eldest of us, Adam, is in prison, which is a hell of a lot better than he deserves—but the only other man I see sporting the Notorious Few’s colors is a big bastard I don’t recognize.

Careful not to show any emotion, I lock eyes with my brother again. I won’t think of him as Jacob. He goes by Strawman now. Better to call him by his road name, because there’s still a part of me that thinks
Jacob
and remembers the older brother I used to admire. Back when I was a kid who didn’t know beating me to teach me how to be strong wasn’t the sign of affection he claimed it was. Back when I thought a man was defined by how much blood he drew from his enemies and how many women he fucked. Back when family meant falling in line.

His smile appears as he sizes me up—pleased to see me in the same way a poacher is pleased when a tiger crosses his path. I can always tell what he’s feeling, and not just because I grew up tagging along behind him. It’s easy to read a face just like your own.

Keeping my gaze on Strawman, I lean closer to Buster. “You mind giving me and my brother some space?”

He rises to his feet, belching all the way up, then gives Strawman a once-over. “He’s not a Hellfire Rider.”

“He’s not.” Thank fuck for that. A club that patched in anyone sharing my blood isn’t a club I’d want to be a part of.

“Well, I’ll be over there just drinking my beer.”

I nod. Unsaid is the promise to have my back if shit goes down. Part of that’s simply because Buster’s a good sort. We aren’t from the same club and only see each other a few times a year, but making another man bleed forms bonds between you and him. Often those bonds look like anger and revenge, but sometimes spilling each other’s blood leads to trust and friendship. Buster’s so damn cheerful it’s impossible to go in any direction but the second.

But the other part is that, despite me calling Strawman my brother, despite the similarity in our looks, Buster must recognize what else the other man is—a fucking atom bomb, walking around and pretending to be human. And like any nuke, it’s not just the explosion you’ve got to worry about, but all the dirty radiation in the fallout.

I left home at seventeen and I still don’t feel clean. That was half my life ago. But the dirty shit, it lingers.

Maybe Buster smells it. Maybe he can see it by the cold glee in my brother’s eyes. Or maybe he recognizes the patches on Strawman’s kutte—the white skulls, the gray skulls. There’s more than a dozen, each one representing a man he’s killed.

That’s not so remarkable. I’ve killed more. Most in service to the country, and some protecting the Hellfire Riders. I don’t slap a patch on my kutte or a tattoo on my skin to count them, though some Riders do. Plenty of bikers in other clubs do, too. But the boys of the Cooper family—and by extension, the Notorious Few—they’ve got their own system. The white skulls show how many
pure
white men he’s killed. The gray skulls represent men of any other color, and that patch is smaller, because those men aren’t worth as much.

And the blood running through my veins? Not pure, though they like to say it is. It’s fucking poison. The only thing pure in this family is the bullshit they all spout.

“If it ain’t my little brother, Zachary!” Strawman spins the chair Buster vacated and straddles the seat, wearing a big toothy smile. “Been a long time.”

“Not long enough.”

“Long enough for you to finish growing up, get some muscle on you. You’re not such a scarecrow now. You’re starting to look like one of the family. Well, almost. One detail’s wrong.” His gaze lingers on the shoulder of my kutte, where my road name sits below the HRMC patch and my rank. “Sergeant at arms? You could hold the same position as one of the Few.”

Not a chance in hell am I joining them. But I just take a swallow of my beer, holding his gaze. I’ve got nothing else to say to him.

His smile fades. “Mama misses you.”

My stomach tightens. The warmth and concern on his face—that’s real. One thing the Cooper boys do well is love their mama.

We hate her well, too.

But I still don’t respond and he heaves a sigh, then turns his face to the side. And fuck.
Fuck.
I’m so wound up I didn’t even notice he had a girl with him. Dark hair, tight skirt, strappy top. I spotted her near him earlier but didn’t realize they were together. She’s not a threat but if she had been one, I’d be fucked right now. My focus is too tight.

She comes up to his side and skims her fingertips along his neck. “You need anything, gorgeous?”

“Just your mouth shut and your ass warming my knee.” He pulls her down so she straddles the lower part of his thigh, her panties on display as his hand circles around to her belly and tunnels under her top. Playing with her nipples in the same absent way some men play with their keys, he regards me steadily. “Mama’ll be happy to hear I ran into you. But you’re not even going to ask how she’s doing?”

I’m not. Because they tried to bring me home once by saying she was sick.
She just wants to see you again. She might not have that long to live.
But she’s as hale and hearty as she’s always been.

I know that for certain, because I learned my lesson. I don’t visit but I keep tabs. Partly so I’ll know if they’re lying, partly so I might see them coming.