Knight (2 page)

But Temple MC could.

And, apparently, this was how we met now.

I thought we settled this shit. My men hadn’t pissed on Temple MC, and Temple ordered no contact between us unless they initiated it. The arrangement benefited everyone if only because it kept me alive after the world burned and I was forced to sift through the ashes to make a living.

I expected men to go bad, but never the deal.

I might have freed my wrists, but unless I was smoking a cigarette before this hanging, I couldn’t do much with unbound hands. I never looked for mercy, and I accepted hospitality whenever it was offered. Ropes over my wrist were a hell of a lot better than one tight around my neck.

An hour passed. We didn’t drive straight, but I knew where we headed. The desert warehouse situated on a border of two municipalities, one paid to look the other way, the other smart enough to set the police details off the dirt road. Privacy was expensive, but Temple MC had the money to exist in perfect solitude.

Hard hands with harder intentions hauled me from the truck. They pushed me to the ground, but as long as I didn’t land six feet beneath it, I had a chance.

They didn’t need to kick. I moved on my own. Only dogs and whores waited on the ground.

I didn’t know where traitors belonged.

The sack was ripped from my head as the metal doors slammed shut. The echo raged through a warehouse that specialized in their import/export business. I doubted many men saw the inside of Temple’s distribution hub. I wasn’t stupid enough to think they trusted me or that it was a political move. The Coup didn’t have money for a ransom, and our splintered mother chapter, Anathema, couldn’t afford a bounty. Hell, they’d raise the funds just to kill me.

“Luke Halley. Figured it was time for a business meeting.”

I blinked. It cleared my vision, but I blinked again, expecting a far different man.

Heathen
wasn’t my usual contact. I didn’t think Temple would let the psychopath handle much besides blood, bones, and the occasional whore who chose the wrong bed that night.

If insanity had a face, Heathen slashed it. If violence could be personified, Heathen gave life to it.

If the Temple MC completely disintegrated, Heathen would be the first to gain control.

We were fucked.

The leather-bound men at my sides let me move because I had no weapons to defend myself. They stripped my guns and trashed my bike when they captured me. I held up my hands. A show of good faith and a delay while I figured out what happened to my goddamned life in the last four months.

“Sit him down.” Heathen took as much pride in the caterpillar mustache engulfing his face as he did the ink scaling his arms. The tats revealed how many bones he broke and men he killed. Not a lot of unmarked skin remained. “Knight and I got a lot to discuss.”

Yeah, right. My contact from the Temple MC was only their president, Toviel Aren. But he hadn’t surfaced for a month. That meant a couple things in our world, and none of those possibilities spelled
retirement.

They led me to a table, slamming me into the seat as if they impaled my head on a pike. I didn’t need the warning. I was nothing to them, just a man from a tiny club made smaller through an internal civil war. But I had offered them a plan with generous percentages, a pledge of loyalty, and a guarantee to get the job done.

A year had passed, and everyone was still breathing.

For now.

Heathen rapped the table. The thick gold rings obscuring his knuckles pounded the rhythm—unstable, like everything else nowadays.

“Knight, you comfortable?” He wasn’t polite. I didn’t answer. “This shouldn’t take long. Just looking for a few answers.”

“Don’t need all the theatrics, I’d have made arrangements to meet with you.” I was honest. At the end of the day, a man had two things to call his own—his balls and his word. The lucky kept both. “Where’s Toviel Aren? I do my business with him.”

“Our president...” Heathen smirked at his men. “He ain’t been feeling too good. Had an accident. Decided to walk in front of a couple bullets.”

Son of a bitch. “Sorry to hear that.”

“These things happen. Toviel traveled to Pittsburgh to handle a problem. Got a little too close to the wrong girl and humped the shot gun.”

That didn’t make sense. Toviel was more cautious than that. So was I.

I didn’t answer.

“The girl pulling the trigger was some whore, a sweet-butt belonging to one of your friends.”

“You gotta be more specific. I don’t have many friends.”

“Can’t imagine why.” Heathen paced the table. “You’re a traitor, Knight. Sliced the Anathema MC right in half when you left. Inherited the club once your usurper president died, but the bullshit with Anathema hasn’t gotten any better, has it?”

“My issues with Anathema have nothing to do with Temple. I run my club. They run theirs. You run yours. It’s worked that way for a while. No problems.”

“You sure about that?”

I shifted. The men at my side reached for their weapons. This wasn’t going to end nice. They bound my hands, but they didn’t bind my tongue. Either they wanted to hear me scream or they needed information.

And I wasn’t feeling very cooperative.

“Why the hell am I here?” I asked. “You don’t want a history lesson on why I split from Anathema.”

“Always heard you were a man of few words, Knight. That’s fine by me.”

Heathen flipped a knife from his belt. The blade shimmered clean before imbedding in the table. I wasn’t a betting man, just profited from the vig, but I’d place money that my chest would become the knife’s next sheath.

Christ. What the hell else could go wrong from buddying up to Temple? We were down a president, up a psychopath, out a shit-ton of allies, and in harm’s way. My only remaining move was to bend over and take what was left.

Heathen pulled a chair, his legs too long for the table. Whatever junk he injected amped him up. His feet bounced worse than a bike on Highway 9.

“Why don’t you talk to me about Blade Darnell?” he said.

Hearing the name soured my mouth, like I suffered from one of Blade’s benders but without the high and just the misery of the crash.

“What about him?”

“Where the fuck is he?”

“Do I look like his keeper?”

Heathen leaned in close. “You don’t wanna know what you look like right now.”

I knew exactly what I looked like. Pissed off. And I had every right to curse that cocksucker Blade Darnell. The founding member of Anathema and current VP should have rotted in jail. Instead, I busted my ass, broke my bones, and plotted my life to get Blade out.

Temple refused to do business with us unless they had that son of a bitch presiding over the deal. Said he was the only one they trusted. I ruined everything trying to save his miserable hide from County.

“Blade’s probably knee deep in meth and banging two whores.” If we were lucky. Blade’s taste in women ran too close to his home. “He’s partying it up now that he’s out of jail.”

 “You got a specific place?” Heathen asked. “Name it. We’ll take a little ride. Get our man.”

“I don’t know where the fuck he is.”

“You sure?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

Heathen ripped the knife from the table. He rubbed the silvered edge over his fingers, pressing the blade but not drawing blood. Yet.

“Because you
do
know where he is,” he said. “And if I were you, I’d start thinking pretty fucking hard about your answers.”

I wasn’t a liar. I was a traitor. It wasn’t a big distinction, but it was all I had. Blade Darnell wasn’t worth a knife to the back, even when I thought he was our only hope of appeasing Temple and preventing war.

Heathen exhaled. “Knight, you and me have some things to discuss. Right now, I got this thorn in my side. Digging in. Making problems.”

Yeah, I had one of those too that I tried to avoid. “I have problems of my own. Difference is, we used to work them out man-to-man.”

“Sounds good…except, Knight?
You
are my problem.”

“I’ve done everything Temple asked.”

“You ain’t telling the truth.”

“Don’t accuse me of being a liar.”

Heathen scowled, but I wasn’t dead yet. I hated to tell him no one was around to hear whatever message he hoped to send. The Coup fractured and existed in controlled chaos. Killing me was doing a favor to Anathema.

Temple wanted to rule Cherrywood Valley, and the only thing preventing their strike was the agreement I made with Toviel Aren. If I died, nothing would stop Temple destroying our club.

So I tried again. “You made a mistake—”

I expected the punch to the kidney, but I hoped they wanted to make me wheeze, not piss blood.

Heathen ordered his men. “Go get the girl.”

What
girl
? What the hell was going on?

Temple’s men moved, slinking to a secondary door to escort yet another
visitor
inside.

Their prisoner didn’t protest. She didn’t swear. She didn’t let them touch her.

She didn’t have to.

I’d murder the son of a bitch for involving her.

Jocelyn Hart reigned like an executioner masquerading as a queen. She didn’t fight the men forcing her to the table. A strike would only break her nails, and she’d need the perfect manicure to scratch out their eyes later.

The kidnapping was an inconvenience she probably wouldn’t forget. Judging by the lacey silk costume hugging her curves, the interruption cost her more than pride. Lyn was as good an accountant as she was a stripper. She’d remember every man who dared to challenge her and every penny she lost.

“You!” Lyn hissed, less like a viper and more like a hellcat. “I knew it’d be
your
fault, Luke!”

The Temple brother escorting her now had to restrain her. He laughed. I didn’t.

Lyn wasn’t a part of Anathema or The Coup, but that made her more dangerous than any meth-head biker trying to make a name for himself. Her troublemaker, red lips charmed and insulted with the same smirk, and it once cost Anathema a thousand well-spent dollars to prove she was a natural blonde.

Lyn was one hundred and twenty pounds of pure dynamite, and every man prayed she’d blow him instead of her fuse. She was alive and unhurt, which meant she hadn’t mouthed off. That was lucky. If someone had called her a whore, they’d face a bitch, not a stripper, and her heels hurt like a motherfucker when she corrected those insults. Her Highness just had to grovel with the peasants for a few minutes, and I’d get her out of there.

I’d no idea why they kidnapped her.

But they’d die for it.

“What the hell is this?” Lyn’s pout disarmed the men, but it was calculated, letting her count guards, exits, and weapons. “A gun to the head is not normally how I take appointments.”

“Sit, beautiful.” Heathen offered her a chair. He was no gentleman, and Lyn was no lady. She sat because she knew a smile would get her farther than a fat lip. “We got a lot to talk about.”

“Men don’t normally want to talk with me.” Lyn crossed her legs—beautiful, toned, tempting. She took the motion slow. “Better make it worth my while.”

“You’re breathing. That worth your while?”

“It’s enough to make me listen. That’s more than most men get.”

 Lyn didn’t cover herself or the lacey scraps of her costume. Her skirt belonged in a harem, not a warehouse. It protected her most dangerous asset. Her hips would put a man in debt, but it’d cost him his soul to get in her thong.

“I ain’t paying for your company,” Heathen said.

“No charge for a conversation, and I’m not in the mood for games. Where the hell am I, and why did you bring me here?”

Heathen snorted. “Mouthy little thing.”

“Not my mouth you need to worry about. It’s my teeth.”

Yeah, and if she wanted to keep them, it was time to tuck her tongue behind her fangs. I motioned for her to quiet. Lyn saw the bindings and tensed.

“She’s not involved in this.” I pretended the woman at my side didn’t squeeze my heart just to rush the blood to my cock. “She’s not under The Coup’s protection.”

Heathen nodded. “Who you paying off then?”

Lyn dropped the name like it’d intimidate him. “Anathema MC.”

“You outta get your money back, beautiful.”

She didn’t flinch when he leaned close. “With interest.”

“How is Anathema?” Heathen twisted his finger in her hair. That mistake wouldn’t cost him money. One of us would earn it in blood, depending on if Lyn or I got there first. “Down a VP from what I hear.”

“Heard wrong,” Lyn said. “Last gossip in my club was that you sprung their VP from jail. Spent a pretty penny to get a monster out of a cell and into a cut.”

“Well, word gets around. How many cocks you suck to get that info?”

“How many throats did you slit to get him out of prison?”

Heathen launched. I leapt between them, earning a slam to my head that should have clocked Lyn. That was one blow I took for her—though I doubted I’d get repaid in coke or with her lips.

Heathen shoved me into the seat. My ears rang, but I wouldn’t miss anything except Lyn running her mouth. He flipped the knife into his hand and aimed it for her throat.

“Let’s try again,” he said. “This time, we only fuck around once I bend you over the table.”

Wouldn’t happen while I lived. If Lyn couldn’t behave after I slayed myself in her honor, she deserved her fate.

“Where is Blade Darnell, beautiful?”

Lyn frowned. “Blade?”

“Take your time.” The knife plucked at the lace of her costume. Her tits didn’t need any help spilling from the silk. “I don’t mind the wait.”

“I have no idea where Blade Darnell is.” She batted the knife away. A bad move, but Heathen already wetted his lips in preparation for a wrong answer. “And I’m not part of Anathema. I pay them to protect Sorceress.”

“Yeah? The last place anyone saw Blade Darnell was at Sorceress. Three weeks ago.”

Shit.

Lyn’s eyebrow cocked, a silent
So?

I couldn’t prevent the smack. Heathen backhanded her, and Lyn tumbled to the floor, the silk and lace floating over her. He forced her into the chair without another hit. Her pride was bruised enough.