Inflamed: A Shadow Riders MC (65 page)

"Fuckin'. Christ," muttered River. "You knew Mia back then, asshole. Long before she showed up at the fuckin' club -- was dropped in front of our fuckin' gate. You sent us out on those goddamn wild goose chases out to Tampa, knowin’ good and fuckin’ well that son of a bitch wouldn’t be there ‘cause YOU TIPPED HIM OFF! SON OF A FUCKIN' BITCH!" He threw his hands into Wolf's chest and sent him flying down on top of the pool table, rattling it so goddamn hard that all four legs damn near broke in fucking half. Blue hurried over to pull him back, but River, in his righteous anger against his old man, a man he was convinced had no other purpose in life outside of ruining his own, was strong enough to force him down to the floor and on his ass. River leaned down to Wolf and spit directly in his fucking face, watching with indignation as the saliva mixed into his blood. "You knew who the fuck she was before she came back here askin' for my goddamn HELP! You're the reason she nearly died that night -- the goddamn FUCKIN' REASON THAT HOUSE BURNED DOWN WITH ALL THOSE GODDAMN KIDS INSIDE!"

"I didn't know the kids were still in the house," said Wolf. "If I'd have fuckin' known--"

"You'd have burned the place down anyway, asshole, if only to save your own goddamn ass! How the fuck did that shit start up about us bein’ the ones involved with it?!"

“Ricky’s men had deep connections to the feds before he was officially locked up. They put the word out about us to keep the heat about the fire off his back.”

“Son of a bitch.” Angrily, River reached into his back pocket for his knife, and like Styx to Tiny before him, held the blade directly to his old man’s neck. "What the fuck did he promise you? What the fuck kinda deals were you two makin' behind the club's back?"

Wolf gulped against the blade and nicked the skin just beneath his Adam's apple. "I knew that Ricky was gettin' out long before your bitch showed up askin' for your help. I never expected her to come back here after bein' dumped off, but--"

"Why the fuck did Ricky really dump her here? And don’t give me the same bullshit he told her about our goddamn rep.”

"He dumped her here as a warning to me and the club," replied Wolf. "Motherfucker wanted to make sure I wasn't gonna go against our deals after the fire. Dumpin' her here was to show that if he could do that shit to his own girl, he had no goddamn problem doin’ the same to any of our women inside the club."

"You know about Courtney too?"

"No," he said. "I didn't know a goddamn thing about her bein’ his sister 'til the day you fuckin' mentioned who she was."

"That’s why you tried to blame that shit on her,” he said. “You were runnin’ outta options and tried to make us all think that she was in fact the fuckin’ rat when it’s been YOUR ASS the entire fuckin’ time!” He grinded his teeth. “Did Tiny know about this shit?”

“No. All he knew was that you were my boy, and that I paid those motherfuckers to attack your mother--”

River jerked him forward, then slammed his head back down on the table. He leaned in, sneering. “Why the fuck did you agree to help Mia out knowin' that the asshole you were in fuckin' cahoots with was wantin' to take her and her kid for himself?" River pressed the blade even harder against Wolf's skin. He flinched.

"I knew exactly what Ricky would want. And I knew Mia and her kid wouldn't be safe with him roamin' the streets again, so I sent Styx and Trucker out to Tampa to look after her around that same time without her knowin' a goddamn thing about it."

"Jesus Christ," muttered Blue. He jumped up from the floor and shook his head.

River shook his head. "You didn't have ‘em look after her to keep her safe--"

"I had ‘em look after her to keep
us
safe. Once that son of a bitch got what he wanted in her, he was gonna surrender proof to the cops and FBI about my bein' with him and his crew at the house that night, recordin's and shit about me tellin' him the reason why we needed that goddamn house burnt down in the first fuckin’ place." He paused. "The only way I knew to keep that shit from happenin' was to agree to a trade. With Trucker and Styx lookin' after her, I'd convinced that son of a bitch that she was already ours, and told him that I was willin' to hand 'em both over to him, if he was willin' to leave town quietly and to burn every piece of evidence he had against me and the club.” He gulped. “I never expected her to show up here askin' for your help, son, like I told you. But the minute she did, Ricky knew exactly what the fuck was up. That’s when I was forced into his back pocket for fuckin’ good."

“Forced. You dropped the club into a debt we didn’t even know we fuckin’ had ‘cause of your shit.” River eyed his old man with fury and disdain. “Mother. Fuck.” He released him and dropped back, rattling his head and scrunching his brows. Death was far too kind for this motherfucker but it didn't stop River from somehow wanting to make it happen at some point. "And you agreed to all this," he said, "while riskin’ Mia's life, riskin’ Avery's life, all so that you could keep yourself from lookin' like the piece of shit motherfucker you truly fuckin' are! Keep yourself from lookin' like the Big. Bad. Wolf. and bein’ outed to the goddamn public and the rest of us who already knew you were full of fuckin' shit. And now my woman has been snatched the fuck up by this fuckin' MANIAC all cause of your BULLSHIT and continued fuckin’ LIES!" He waved his arms and hands so hard that he nearly tossed his goddamn knife straight into the center of Wolf’s throat. In a fury, he turned back to Blue. "Did this motherfucker leave any hints as to where the fuck he'd take her?"

"No. But I'm assumin' if he knows where Avery is, they're headed out there--"

"He's got no clue where the fuck Avery is." Wolf sat up on the pool table and wiped his hand down his face. He smeared the blood onto his pants and glared.

River grimaced. "And how the fuck do you know that shit?"

"'Cause if he didn't, he wouldn't have needed your girl first. He'd have just ended her right the fuck there and taken off to get Avery for himself. Mia ain't who he's after anymore, it's that little girl, like I fuckin' told you before--"

"Yeah, you've said a whole lotta fuckin’ things over the last few years, old man. A whole lotta fuckin' things that have amounted to nothin' but fuckin' BULLSHIT."

Wolf hopped down from the table and stood before his son. "If you don't listen to another goddamn word from me today or ever again, listen to this shit. There's only one place he'd take your girl and that's to finish the job he started with her all those years ago."

"You sayin' he's bringin' her here?"

"No. A few years ago, he had a house rebuilt in the same fuckin' area as the last one we burnt down back in Daytona.”

"Why?" asked a curious Blue.

"He planned to take her out," answered Wolf. "Motherfucker’s been plannin’ this shit for years--”

“Yeah, he’s one nostalgic asshole,” said an enraged River. “How do I know you ain’t fuckin’ playin’ us again with this shit? And that this sick asshole ain’t really on his way to Montana with her right the fuck now? How do we fuckin’ know that you ain’t tipped him off AGAIN about this shit?”

“You don’t. But at this point, trustin’ what the fuck I say about this asshole is all you’ve got.”

“
Yeah
. And that’s unfortunate as fuck.” River took another step back dropped his eyes to the floor, where he spotted Wolf's cut soaking in the blood. He glimpsed at his old man before reaching down and yanking it up. He turned on his heel and threw it on top of the bar, then slipped his knife directly underneath the “
PRESIDENT
” patch and viciously sliced it from the leather. He turned back to Wolf and held the patch up high enough in his hand for his old man to see it clearly, as the edges remained stained in his own goddamn blood. "You no longer run this shit," he told him. "I may not be able to slice you the fuck up for this shit right now, but your time is comin', old man. It's fuckin' comin', and soon." He stuffed the patch inside his pants pocket and turned to Blue. "I don't give a fuck if it takes all goddamn day and into the motherfuckin’ night," he said. "We're gettin' Mia back in one goddamn piece, and I'm personally gonna put that asshole Fontaine to fuckin' ground once and for goddamn all."

Chapter Fifty-One

The whiff of ammonia waving back and forth beneath my nose forced my eyes to fly open and stare straight up into the face of the devil himself, better known as Ricky Fontaine. It had been eight years since I had laid eyes on him in this way, and it was obvious that eight years plus a set of steel bars wasn’t enough to keep him at bay.

After breaking into River’s house and having one of his men shoot and stab an unsuspecting Trucker right in front of us in the living room, while another of his men slammed the butt of a gun over Jolene's head and tied her up, he forced me to sit at the kitchen table and write a note for River explaining his purpose for choosing this particular time to show his face again, which despite what he had demanded I say in the letter, seemed to be about a hell of a lot more than just taking Avery and getting rid of me.

Grudgingly, I did what he asked, if only because he threatened to off Jolene, followed up by Trucker if I didn't. It wasn't until after that, until I was finished that he forced me back into my bedroom to get dressed. And then he happily knocked me out by slamming a fist into the back of my head, and for hours I remained just as I had before waking up here, completely unconscious and unaware, and more than anything in the entire world, scared the hell out of my entire damn mind.

His full, pink lips split into a grin so wide as he stared down at me, with shiny white teeth and brown eyes sparkling so damn bright that if it weren't for the giant red horns sticking out on either side of his head that seemed to be invisible to everyone he came in contact with but me, he would've almost looked like an angel sent from heaven instead of one that had been kicked out and crashed straight down below earth as a result.

"Morning," he said to me. The fact that he sounded absolutely nothing like River made my stomach curdle. Not to mention, it seemed as if his thick Italian accent had all but vanished from existence. I blinked up at him and turned my head from one side to the other. "I hope you slept well enough on the way here because I'm planning for this to be a big day with a lot of tasks that I can't complete without your help, Mia. Come on.” He snapped his fingers at me as if I was a dog.

"What?" I felt groggy as hell as I tried sitting up. It was only when I dropped my feet to the floor that I realized I was even laying down, and on a couch on top of that, inside a living room, inside a house that I didn't remotely recognize from top to bottom. I shoved my brows together and peered while trying to get a better look around the place, which looked more like a log cabin out in the middle of nowhere than an actual place of residency. The walls were made of wood; actually, everything in the room and from what I could see beyond it was made of wood too. There was hardly any furniture outside of the couch I was laying down on and two wooden chairs across the room. The windows were all boarded up, which meant there was little to no sunlight in the room, and every time I took in a breath, I coughed up what felt like pieces of my lung due to so much dust and what had started to smell like fumes from an ashtray. I threw a hand over my chest and bent my head down toward the floor and coughed again. "Where the hell am I?" I asked him, my voice dry and scratchy. I was thirsty but no way in hell was I desperate enough to ask him for a drink of anything; no doubt in my mind that he would’ve forced a bottle of Drano down my throat if I had.

"THIS." He threw up his arms and spun in a circle, and landed on the balls of his feet, facing me again. "Is your new home." He bellowed and ran his fingers through his slicked back dark hair, then brought his hand down to the front of what looked like a purple and white three piece suit, and unleashed a few buttons on his vest. "Ahhh." He walked over to the chair on the other side of the room and dragged it over in front of me, and sat down. I peeked down at his shoes and noticed they were patented leather dress shoes. And the tips were covered in red dirt and gravel which was something I hadn't realized before he knocked me out. "So!" He slapped his hands together in my face, which forced my head to ring as if a bell had just been set off inside my ear. I leaned back against the couch and he dipped his head to get a better look at me. "You're old now," he told me.

I reached for my head to stop it from ringing, and turned my eyes up to him, glaring. "Twenty-five is old for you?"

"No, not the age," he said. "Given what mine is now. I mean your face. You look worn and tired as hell. Not the ‘beauty queen’ I remember.”

"That's what happens when you spend years on the run from a complete and utter maniac; you sort of lose time to sleep or eat or do anything else productive that you're supposed to in order to stay healthy--"

"But you had time to fuck, right? Fuck that asshole Jacob Hawkins? Mia.” He threw a few ‘
tsk, tsk, tsk
’ my way and shook his head. “Of all the men in the world, an old ass biker? I’d say that’s a big ass step down from--”

“A drug dealing, crack addicted, serial killer?”

“I didn’t kill people unless they needed to be dead and the crack was used as a substance for getting up in the morning -- Look, let’s get back to you and this biker and all the fucking that you two were apparently doing, because it seemed to me as if it was some kind of insanely healthy activity. At least that’s what you said once, right?”