Knight (109 page)

It wasn’t enough to be hunted and wanted for murder. I had to hold the gun to my own head.

Three bikes parked outside a once abandoned factory. The faded ivory decals were as recognizable now as they were chasing me and Martini through the back-ass roads in Pennsylvania. The inverted crucifix shaped by two crossed spears glared at me.

The line between Temple and Anathema territory shifted as the years passed. If Thorne wanted, he might’ve pushed and earned some of the surrounding district—an isolated desert with more than enough space to conduct unsavory business beyond the eyes of the town.

But Anathema and Temple retained an unsteady alliance. Borders were fluid. Anathema supported Temple, and Temple needed Cherrywood Valley for a path. Pushing drugs was a lot easier with mules. Mule an entire town, and Temple earned a cozy foothold away from the Feds. As a result, Anathema thrived in proximity to a much stronger club, all thanks to the alliance forged by Blade Darnell.

The MCs weren’t supposed to meet at the old factory situated on the border. The crumbling building sat too close to the city, highway, and law for the clubs to meet without raising alarm. But what had been an Anathema property changed hands. The Coup claimed ownership of the factory after the split. And the lone blue bike that pulled into the lot solved my mystery.

Luke “Knight” Halley.

Now there was a son of a bitch who would stroke out if he knew I was alive.

The last time Anathema and The Coup fought in the street, Thorne killed the usurper president. Anathema’s truce with The Coup ended with that one shot, and my betrayal sealed the coffin on any chance for peace. Thorne no longer trusted Temple, but Knight was still trying to salvage the alliance.

And it must have worked. The only reason my father was out of jail was because Knight and I spent every waking moment betraying both factions of Anathema to earn the necessary money. My father was free, and Temple hadn’t killed Knight.

I guessed the new plan. Expand the business. Move out East. Encroach on Kingdom’s territory and take the Great Lakes and their borders for Temple’s new routes.

I studied the factory. The bikes parked outside belonged to high ranking members, but Knight probably facilitated most of the deal. He was smart. Too smart for this business. If he got caught, he wouldn’t get gunned down in the street like a common criminal.

But that didn’t mean he didn’t deserve it.

Because of him, The Coup targeted Rose. They drew her in to my betrayal and nearly killed her.

Or worse.

I had a shot on Knight.

No one knew I was alive. Temple and Knight were too preoccupied with sucking their own cocks and counting their money to assume somebody watched with a clean shot and no conscience. My legacy to Anathema was already tarnished, but what better way to punish the traitors than by one of their own dragging them down to the innermost circle of Hell?

The gun wasn’t good enough. The pain that Knight caused Rose wasn’t a sin forgiven with a quick flash and burrowing slug of metal. But it was selfish of me to want to end his life. Especially when I caused just as much pain.

The gun chilled my hand.

Would spilling more blood protect her?

The endless civil war drew too much attention from the Feds and the police. Blade’s death wouldn’t seem suspicious. He was an old biker with more enemies than hair on his head. He got off easy on a sentence that should have killed him. With his connections and history, no agency would bother investigating a long-overdue vendetta.

But Knight? The president of an illicit club with illegal origins and more enemies than members? Taking him out would right a wrong, but risking that backlash put everyone in danger. Without Luke, The Coup would dissolve, but not before every renegade and bloodthirsty member satisfied their own petty business with Anathema and put us in the federal spotlight. It wasn’t worth it.

I returned to keep Rose safe.

And that was what I planned to do.

I rode into town with the sun at my back. I replaced my lost jacket but nothing fit right, not with my phone constantly buzzing in my pocket. For three days, Martini tried to contact me, but the phone was silent now, as if she realized where I was. At least she had a little fucking decency.

I didn’t let myself think about her. Not after I pushed my body to the breaking point of exhaustion riding cross-country.

Except Martini was alone, and that thought threatened to sink me to my knees. I wasn’t ready for that.

Not now. My only responsibility was to Rose.

I didn’t know Rose’s schedule. Hell, I didn’t even know what classes she was taking. I parked at the campus and took a chance outside the auditorium that housed the music department. It took an hour, but a flood of coeds bolted from the stairs and scattered to their dorms and classes.

One girl stayed behind, waiting for her ride. She tangled in books, backpacks, and an unwieldy guitar case that finally cracked under the pressure and dropped her instrument onto the cement.

She dove after it, wincing as the guitar clanged. She shushed it with a wave of her hand before falling to her knees and inspecting the wood for damage. Her thick, curly hair fell in front of her face. She wove it into a ponytail. Her scowl intimidated no one, it never would. She wasn’t a flirt like Martini, and she wasn’t a hard-ass like the strippers who acted as surrogate girlfriends for Anathema.

She was Rose.

She was perfect.

I hopped off the bike, but I didn’t help her with her things. Two of Anathema’s prospects launched themselves at the department stairs to collect her straying music. She thanked them, but she didn’t let them hold the guitar. They loaded her in one of the club’s trucks. She didn’t like it, but at least Anathema was keeping her safe.

They left the campus and dropped her off at a little house—white picket fence and flowers in the yard. Her new home. Something stable and real and pretty, all paid for by the blood money Thorne earned smuggling cigarettes, trafficking drugs, and assaulting those who disobeyed him.

Once, she demanded to be free of the club’s shadow. Now she was halfway there, living in a nice home in the suburbs instead of the cramped apartment or my family’s drug den.

But appearances weren’t everything. Rose was as much Anathema as any of us.

My father didn’t give me an inheritance. No college funds or investments. He gave me a name.
Darnell
. And that name was more powerful than anything I could’ve achieved with a normal life, earning an honest living. I never wanted that. When I was younger, I prided myself on the open road and a weapon at my side.

Now I knew better.

Now I survived by the road and my weapon, and my name was the reason I ran. And the life I never wanted was the only stability I could give to Rose.

The prospects left her at home and drove off. I crossed to the door, but I stopped before my fist pounded on the wood.

The guilt suffocated me. My fists did a lot of damage. Drugs. Fights. Theft. Everything that scared Rose and the only way I tried to take care of her.

I wasn’t a good man. I only had one baptism that ever cleansed the blood from my hands.

The first time I held Rose.

My mother pushed the squirming four year old into my arms and told me to watch her. She needed a break. Had to go get high. I bitched, but Rose stared at me with eyes baby-bunny brown and curls so thick I couldn’t see her rosy cheeks. One look and I was lost.

So I clung to that child—the only pure thing I ever held in my arms. With her, I was clean. Washed of the sins that put me in jail and left her without a protector for four long years. She only sat still long enough to throw a piece of tin-foil over my head and declare me a princess. I played along until she decided I was supposed to be an astronaut and whined for a cookie.

I had no fucking idea what to do, so I took her to the store and bought her every sweet she asked for with the money I earned from doing a job for my father. The blood was still under my fingernails as I comforted her through the tummy-ache a handful of Oreos and chocolate milk did to a kid who hadn’t had a full meal in two days.

The baptism didn’t last long. Neither did Rose’s smile.

I knocked. Too softly, but I didn’t want to scare her by beating down her house. A minute passed, and the door opened. She launched herself at me, a baseball bat in one hand, her cell phone in the other. Both dropped as she wrapped her arms over my neck.

She was still just a kid. Freckles and tears dotted her cheeks, and her fists gripped my jacket. She didn’t realize nothing could drag me away from her.

It was dangerous enough coming to see her. I wasn’t going to let her bawl in the front yard. I pushed her inside, closing the door behind us and waiting until her sniffling stopped.

It didn’t happen.

Rose cried strained, angry, bitter tears. She swore at me in a whimper and held me closer when I tried to part us. I deserved it. Ignoring phone calls was just cruel. I held her too tight and whispered for her to stop crying—an order instead of a comfort.

Christ. It was like I had no idea how to interact with Rose. When she was growing up, I ruled her life. I thought controlling who she was and where she wanted to go and what she needed to do was the same as love. But it didn’t keep her out of trouble. And it didn’t keep her from harm.

I really fucked her up. It was a wonder she was still standing.

“You okay?” I asked, as if twenty-one years of abuse, neglect, and destruction could be acknowledged in a simple yes or no answer.

Rose wiped away her tears and nodded, but she always did cry first and deny it later.

“You’re here,” she said.

“You called me.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t think you’d come home.”

If the tears hadn’t done it, her honesty destroyed the last bit of my pride. I grabbed her arms, shaking her just so she’d look up at me. Her eyes widened.

Fuck. Even when I tried to help I menaced her.

“If you need me, I’m here. No questions asked.”

She bit her lip. Not the tease of Martini, but genuine anxiety. “They’ll kill you if they find you.”

“That doesn’t matter.”

“It’s so dangerous—”

I squeezed her. “Tell me what happened.”

I let her go only because she squirmed. Like she always did when she talked about him. Her voice tried to steady. She was a good singer but a shitty actress.

“Dad’s out of jail.”

I got that much, but she didn’t offer any more. I wished her cheeks hadn’t turned crimson. She looked away from me when I just wanted to see her face.

“Did he try to find you?” I asked.

“Yeah.” She nodded. “He came to my gig.”

She perched on the arm of the couch. The house was perfect for her, but no leather-bound men from Anathema would ever sit on the white leather, all gathered around the pretty little cobblestone table in front of the cozy fireplace. Thorne set the house up nice for her. Someplace normal. Safe.

“It was a good gig too. I wasn’t at Sorceress. It was a nightclub like…” She didn’t mean to say it. Hesitated. “Like the one I played at when The Coup…”

When The Coup kidnapped her and threatened her life if she didn’t betray Anathema and traffic the drugs to pay for Dad’s bribes.

“I get it,” I said.

“I was in the middle of a set.” Her eyebrow twitched. “My
own
music, not even covers.”

“Did you sound good?”

“Very good. Except...then he walked in.”

The sunny little living room was built for tea-parties, not for the vulgarity of my father. I kept silent. Rose forced through the story with a mock bravery that would have made Martini envious.

“I never,
ever
expected to see him…not there.” Rose fiddled with her hair, dark curls that matched mine if I let it get too long. “I froze. Played nothing. Totally bombed it. Forgot my accidentals. Messed up the verses. It was horrible.”

She had a bad habit of obsessing over music when life got too real and Dad got too close. She’d focus on the gig instead of him. It was for the best. No Darnell had the luxury of sorting through our shit like normal people. The music obsession wasn’t healthy, but it gave her something to control.

“Where’s Thorne?” I asked.

She checked her phone. “He’s out with Scotch and Gold. Didn’t say what he was doing.”

“Probably better you don’t know.”

She agreed, drumming her fingers on her legs. I didn’t think it would be this hard to talk to her, but I couldn’t remember any time we had a good conversation. The last time I saw her, Thorne tried to kill me. Before that, I got shot saving her from The Coup. Before that? I forced her into Anathema after she spent six months on her own trying to build a stable life—away from us.

“I thought Thorne was going to kill Dad,” she said.

Me too, given his history. “Who stopped him?”

“Keep and Lyn hauled him out of the club, and Scotch went over to greet Dad. I slipped out, and they took me home.”

There was more to the story. More tears, more fighting. Probably one hell of a sleepless night for her and Thorne. I didn’t push it. I ran to her side after three days of no sleep and redlining the bike, but my father wasn’t an idiot. He wouldn’t hurt Rose—not while she wore a patch that read
Property of Thorne Radek--President
.

“It shouldn’t bother me.” She looked down. A tattoo encircled her hand like a bracelet, delicate but dark. The branding of thorns coiled over her wrist.

I clenched my jaw. Thorne tattooed her, but she didn’t hide it with a little pink scarf. Instead, Rose rubbed the ink like it comforted her, as if she gained courage from the jagged design.

“I’m older now,” she said. “All that was in the past. It’s been…years since all that happened.”

“Rose.”

She held my gaze. Her eyes weren’t as dark as mine, but she still emulated my strength. Always did, but she never knew why.

“I’m over it.”

“You don’t have to be
over
it, Bud.”

“I’ve accepted it. I’ve…acknowledged it. I understand how it impacted me.”