Firefight: The Soul Scorchers MC (The Scorched Souls Serial-series Book 2) (5 page)

I decided to be honest and see how they would react. “Well, I had a couple of new memories I’m not sure how to process.”

Each boy stiffened as if on cue, and they glanced quickly at each other before turning their questioning gazes back on me.

It didn’t take a rocket scientist to sense something was going on.

“Now I’m going to ask you the same thing. What’s wrong? You both look like you saw the same ghost.”

They shared another glance, and Joey spoke first. “We’re just worried. We don’t want you to be upset.”

I tilted my head, trying to keep my expression open and friendly. “Why would I be upset? I want to remember all the awesome times we’ve had together as a family.”

JV hung his head, and a lone tear, trailed down his cheek. Joey elbowed him.

“Joey!” I admonished. “Why would you do that to your brother when he is clearly upset about something?”

Joey just shrugged. I could tell they were becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the direction of our discussion. It was apparent I’d stumbled onto something major that involved our family’s history. I didn’t like where this was heading, not at all.

In less than ten minutes, I’d gone from complete certainty about my past with the Richards’ ‘men’ to a whole new level of suspicion. So what if there were pictures? A Photoshop expert could manipulate any image to suite his or her agenda.

Boone couldn’t get back soon enough. He would be answering my questions. If he refused, I would demand he take me into town, where I’d finally do what I should have from the beginning – go to the police.

Boone

Trudging back to the cabin with Grinch, gave me time to think. I wished the killer had done a better job with the body. Maybe then it would have found its way to the Pacific Ocean and its final, watery resting place.

Wasn’t ignorance supposed to be bliss?
Fuck if this wasn’t one more thing I didn’t want to know about. What I wanted was to claim ignorance, but it was too late for that now. And in this case, what we’d discovered would only serve to stoke the fire already simmering between us and the Hells Guardians.

Just yesterday, Bones and Rowdy had negotiated a new clause to the truce, stipulating that the presidents would notify the other if war became imminent. Both clubs had voted and approved the change. After the seventy-two hour deadline for action came and went, Rowdy’s investigators were just as baffled as we were. Nothing made sense. We were now actually trying to pool our clubs’ resources in order to find the source behind such a masterful manipulation; but, as before, even after the votes, there were still disgruntled brothers, from both sides, dead set on starting a war.

This latest find wouldn’t help the more peacefully inclined.

Doc had discovered a chain with the Guardian’s logo twisted around the corpse’s ribcage along with the rotting flesh. A quick call from Bones to Rowdy had confirmed two of their guys had gone missing around the time of the strip club fire. Rowdy was sending his Road Captain, Ringo, and a couple of other guys to pick up the remains.

Ringo wasn’t just a road captain either. He led a kill team the Guardian’s dispatched on an as needed basis. Sending Ringo served as a warning like nothing else could.

I’d argued against notifying the Guardian president, but Bones had pulled rank, insisting it was a show of good faith, and said he’d expect no less if the situation was reversed. I didn’t trust Rowdy’s word as much as my father seemed to. I was also surprised he’d made the decision without a vote. Lately, we were entering uncharted territory with more secrets amongst us than ever before.

This fucking arsonist had two of Oregon’s biggest motorcycle clubs by the balls. If we didn’t catch a break soon, I hated to think what would happen. I wouldn’t be surprised if both clubs’ national chapters got involved. That would just add to the already escalating chaos.

To make things worse, it had been almost a week since the youth center fire, which led me to believe we could expect another attack any day. Bones had increased security and manpower at all our businesses and was keeping families on lockdown, something no one liked.

“You fucking her?” Grinch broke into my thoughts like a burglar into a bank vault.

“You asking so you can tell the prez or cause you care?”

With Bones and Doc dealing with the dead Guardian, it was a good time to catch up with my friend. I wasn’t sure how much I should tell him.

“Your pops ain’t stupid, and neither am I. You like this girl. She likes you too.”

“If you say so.” I didn’t let on how much his observation pleased me. I sure as hell hoped she liked me. “What about you. Got your eye on a certain stripper?”

Grinch ignored me and kept walking, using his high beamed flashlight to light up the overgrown path. I just chuckled, shaking my head. We were such a communicative pair. Two emotionally stunted bikers, not the best conversationalists when it came to sharing feelings about females. He must have agreed, because the subject was dropped.

Eager to get back to Olympia and the kids, I was shocked by her icy greeting. Even stranger, were the boys’ haunted expressions. They looked lost, staring at nothing. When we’d left, the mood had been borderline festive. Not now. It was anything but.

Picking up on the atmosphere, Grinch turned right back around and headed for the porch, where I knew he would light up his nightly cigar, leaving me to deal with the latest family crisis.

“How’d the coloring go?” I decided the kids would be easier to deal with than Olympia. “Can I take a look?”

Joey glanced at JV, but neither moved. “Okay…did you guys get into trouble? Something you want to tell me?”

Olympia answered for them. “I think maybe the question should be is there something you, Bryce Richards, want to tell me? Then I will decide how much trouble
you’re
in.”

Holy fuck.
This was not good. She was using my given name, never a good sign.

“Joey, take your brother to the spare bedroom and watch TV. I’ll get you when it’s time to go.”

I knew things were really bad when the kids hurried to obey me without complaint.

“You want a drink?” I headed to the kitchen. There was no way we were having this conversation, whatever it was about, without a glass of Jack. I poured one for us both.

She accepted it and gulped it down, before moving to the couch, where she perched on the edge, flipping through the photos Bones had provided. The photos I thought would give her the peace of mind she’d been lacking. They’d somehow done the opposite.

When I joined her, she scooted away, making sure our legs didn’t touch.
Fuck.
This was even worse than I’d first imagined.

Handing me a picture, she finally leaned back and crossed her arms over her chest, a smug look distorting her features.

At first, when I saw her in her hot little cheerleading number, I grinned. I remembered the outfit and that day at her house well. It had been the first and only time I’d seen her in her cheer gear. I wasn’t sure why this particular image had her so fired up. I also wasn’t sure why it was in our couples only shots. It took me a minute to figure out why she was upset.

Shit. Shit. Fuck
. She was supposed to have been a white trash whore with multiple boyfriends, pregnant at fifteen. Girls like that typically weren’t stars of their schools’ cheerleading squads. Still, there had to be more than the photograph alone causing this reaction.

At last I met her gaze. “I’m not sure I understand. You wanted to do a photo shoot. Pretend you were a cheerleader, babe. Having dropped out of school in ninth grade, you never got a chance. It was your dream, you know.” I tried to seem sympathetic without looking like I pitied her.

Her smug look morphed into an ugly sneer. If silence could slap someone across the face, her silent stare qualified as the face-slapping kind. I waited for an actual crack against my cheek. She never raised her hand. Instead, her lower lip started to tremble and her eyes reddened and filled.

“I had more memories tonight. One that clearly showed we weren’t romantically involved when I was fifteen. I also remembered another fire, where my mom…” she choked down a sob.

“Fuck, babe. I’m so sorry about your mom.” I didn’t know what to say. I had no clue how much or what exactly she’d remembered, but things were unraveling fast.

She surprised me and continued, “I asked the boys a couple of related questions. You should have seen their faces. They were oozing guilt, if that’s even possible. Whatever lies you’ve told, you have involved them. That’s unacceptable and unforgiveable.”

I sighed, running my hand through my hair. “What do you want me to do?”

“You could start by telling me the truth.”

Olympia

Before Boone had a chance to explain, his father returned with Doc, insisting we all pack up and head to the clubhouse compound. He’d told the ATF that Boone was on a road trip to Seattle but had returned and was ready to talk. More lies. On top of that, they were expecting visitors from the enemy bike club. As VP, Boone’s presence was required at this meeting. In addition, it seemed my supposed father-in-law now deemed the underground fortress safe enough for me to return to. I hoped he was right.

As for my newly acquired awareness, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do yet. I was too exhausted and overwhelmed to make a rational decision, especially without all the details more memories would provide. And regardless of the lies, the fact remained, there was an arsonist who had tried to kill me, and if my recent memory was accurate, he’d managed to murder my mother.

My heart swelled with pain for a woman I couldn’t remember but was somehow connected to through my grief. She wasn’t the only person I was grieving. In the short time I’d been with Boone, I’d fallen for him, hard – head-over-heels hard.

I was in love with a lying, cheating, bastard-of-a-biker, who, despite my anger, I still wanted to be with. My betraying body was addicted to Boone’s domineering ways. I’d also grown incredibly fond of the two young boys who called me ‘mom.’
Crap.
I didn’t know what to believe.

Unwilling to be with Boone in the car, I chose to ride back with Doc, who’d driven solo. Boone and the boys followed in the rusty car we’d escaped in, with Grinch and Bones bringing up the rear. I wondered if we’d be forced to crawl through the secret tunnel again, dragging the decomposing corpse with us.
Please no!

Respecting my sullen mood, Doc left me alone to brood.

I drifted along in that strange, semi-conscious realm right before sleep’s embrace. There, I was flooded with more memories. At first, they came so fast and were so disjointed I couldn’t make any sense of what I was seeing. I ignored the urge to alert Doc and took deep breaths, allowing the visions to form, and letting them ebb and flow, slowly revealing my forgotten life story.

Key points flashed like neon signs in my mind: I was rich,
very
rich; My dad was Seal Cove’s mayor; I was engaged to an ATF fire investigator, Conner Mills; I’d had a love hate attraction to Boone since high school; someone had indeed tried to kill me in a fire; I’d been hopelessly lost and injured in the forest; Boone had saved me, offering his protection along with a list of lies; and…oh no!
Not that!

Yes, that.
He’d stolen my virginity.

No, he hadn’t stolen anything,
my mind quickly corrected.
You willingly gave yourself to him, even when he’d attempted to resist.
Now I understood why he’d wanted to wait.

Oh. My. God.

It was all so obvious now. The clean sheets, hot bath, my
way
-too-tight pussy; I wasn’t a two-time mother. I was a freaking twenty-two, not twenty-eight, year old virgin…or at least I had been before Boone.

I was tempted, in that moment, with memories slamming into my mind, to leap from the car. We were traveling at a slow enough speed through the dark forest; I’d likely survive the jump, but then what?

Putting a final stop to the jumping idea, the vehicle bumped and shimmied over a patch of rough terrain; a good reminder there were no guarantees. And quite frankly, I didn’t want to die or end up injured again. There was no way I was providing
my husband
with an easy way out of this mess.

Oh, God…what was I going to do?

I wanted to cry, scream, rant; mostly I wanted to kill Boone Richards for playing with my body, my heart, and my entire life.

Why had he lied to me? What was his purpose in all this? He’d wanted to get even and punish me, but why? Sure, I’d been a bitch to him and everyone else –
okay, maybe a huge bitch, but…

It didn’t matter why. He’d made a fool of me. I knew what I was going to do, for now anyway.

Absolutely nothing.

I was going to stay and pretend I’d been confused by the memories, convincing Boone I wasn’t angry, not anymore. Then I’d find a way to make him pay for what he’d done. When the time was right, I’d throw him and his stupid biker buddies to the feds or their enemies, maybe both.

A picture of Joey and JV invaded, threatening to derail my get even plan. Was I willing to toy with two young boys who obviously adored me in spite of their father’s deceit? What about the old ladies and other kids? Everyone had been so kind. Had they known my true identity?

I wasn’t ready to consider those questions. Not yet. I’d allow the Soul Scorchers to protect me while I figured out the smartest and safest way to destroy them, from the inside. I’d do my best to avoid unwanted casualties, but I couldn’t make any promises. War was war, after all.

I was fighting to win back my pride and the life Boone had ripped from me.

You didn’t like that life. You even wished on a star for something new, something different and exciting.

“Shut up!” I hissed, silencing the betraying inner voice that was suddenly intent on confusing me more.