Knight (29 page)

Vega leaned to Luke, towering over him like a monster instead of the teddy bear I knew he was. “We got a problem here with Lyn?”

Priest swore, pushing me away. If I had worn heels, I’d have driven them into his foot. I counted my blessings and stormed away with my pride and panties intact.

Banner day for me. Not so much for my girls.

I led Roxie away from the guns.

“You okay?” I whispered.

“Yeah.”

“Get out of here. Take the girls. Get them checked out if they’re hurt.”

Roxie’s eyebrow rose. “Take them to Pixie?”

My heart ached. I had no idea where was safe for them. “Tell them to avoid both clubs. Hunker down and hide for a while.”

She didn’t understand, but I wasn’t about to explain. I pushed her to the door. She fled. I pressed against the wall as the guns loaded and aimed.

“You want out of The Coup?” Luke’s voice hardened, a grind of sword against stone. Vega and Grim held their positions. “Get out. Either you respect me, follow me, and do as I say, or you can take your chances bleeding out in the street.”

“Beats chopping our balls off here,
prez
.” Priest holstered his gun. His men did the same. “Next time we meet, I’ll deliver your head to Anathema and ass to Temple.” His eyes passed to me. “And I’ll fuck the whore in a puddle of your blood.”

Luke had more restraint than Thorne, Keep, or Brew. He didn’t react, but his voice dropped another octave. “You won’t have a chance. Get the hell out of my club.”

“Not much of an MC left, huh, Lancelot?” Priest gestured for his men—half of the damn Coup—to follow him. “Time’s running out. You’ll have to answer for a lot of shit.”

He already was.

But we were beyond answering for the past. Now we needed to bind together to give ourselves the tiniest of futures.

Futures that Priest and his band of monsters would sooner destroy than protect.

The Coup dissolved around us.

It was just the beginning of this nightmare.

Sorceress was a murder scene.

The Feds conducted their investigation, lining my property with yellow tape and little markers. The agents constructed a tent where they brewed stale coffee. Too many cars filled my parking lot. The first time I saw it without any bikes between the lanes.

The agents scurried over the parking lot, eager to find anything and everything they could to solve their case, earn their bragging rights, and make my life a living hell.

My heels crunched over the gravel. They missed a bullet shell. I doubted it would have aided their investigation. They were good with ballistics and forensics, but Anathema was better at keeping a low profile. Their guns were unregistered and the men disciplined.

Usually.

Agent Greene welcomed me with a flashy smile. “Lyn. Didn’t expect to see you here.”

Then why did she offer me a freshly poured cup of coffee? “I have to do payroll. I need my records.”

“What a coincidence. So do I.”

Little Miss Shoulder Pads got on my bad side first thing in the morning. “Absolutely not.”

“It would be in your best interest to cooperate in some way, Lyn.”

“What do my records and schedules have to do with this investigation?”

She blew on her steaming coffee. “Well…since,
apparently,
no one witnessed anything unusual the night two men were murdered inside this club…and since no one knows where the bullet holes came from or why the inside is trashed…I might have to speak with your dancers individually. I’ll need to know who was working.”

“You can’t harass my girls.”

“I’m not harassing them,” Agent Greene said. “I’ll be questioning them.”

And God only knew what they would say.

My girls had no loyalty to Anathema, and unless they had a cock in their mouths, some were more trouble than they were worth. Shannon and Alexis got their kicks pissing with The Coup. They were in a perverse relationship with some of the guys, the ones who nearly murdered Luke over a piece of ass.

And, of course, it had been my ass. I took pride in my ability to launch entire armies, but splitting The Coup? That took real talent.

“You don’t like that idea?” Agent Greene took too much pleasure in this. “Then it’s your lucky day. I happen to have a few minutes now. Go get your payroll and meet me here. We’ll have a cup of coffee and chat, woman-to-woman. Get everything out in the open.”

 “You’re worse than the customers who send me flowers to get in my panties.” I looked at her over my sunglasses. “Believe me, baby. They had better luck than you.”

She knew it too. I ignored her huff and stormed through my club, ducking under the police tape.

Sorceress was trashed. It wasn’t firebombs this time, but scorches were easier to cover. A couple bribes and dances offered to the fire marshal and he forgot all about the investigation.

Agent Greene wasn’t as easy to handle. I sorted through my paperwork and photocopied the payroll for the pain in the ass. Fortunately, the dancers weren’t technically employees—they contracted with me to use my stages and paid me from their tips for the privilege. I doubted I’d see that money anytime soon. But my bartenders, DJs, and cleaning crew deserved a paycheck. I had no idea how I’d manage it without my computer, but that was a small detail compared to the rest of life’s chaos.

Nothing had been this messy before. Nothing had trapped me this much.

Without Anathema, I should have felt alone. Instead, I went to sleep next to Luke. For the first time, I didn’t triple check my locks or stuff a gun under my pillow.

Agent Greene waited for me at the entrance with a donut. Without a stage to dance on and burn off calories, I was swearing off carbs. I offered her the payroll.

“Consider it a gesture of goodwill,” I said. “Now leave me the fuck alone.”

“Just give me
something
, Lyn.”

“You
do
realize you’re in Cherrywood Valley?” I waved over the parking lot, the desert, and the two tiny clubs hell-bent to destroy each other. “Why are you wasting your time chasing the little fish when there are sharks up north that deserve your…persistence.”

“You mean Temple MC?”

“Yes. For Christ’s sake, they’re a goddamned
cartel
. Why the hell aren’t you harassing them?”

“Would you believe me if I said you’re better company?”

I sipped my coffee. “It wouldn’t surprise me.”

“I know, it’s so unfair,” Agent Greene said. “You and your little fish had this nice pond all set up, and then the lady with the net showed up. But come on, Lyn. You know what little fish are best used for.”

“Sushi?”

“Bait.” Her eyebrow rose. “If we make a big enough fuss in the Valley, I’m sure we’ll find something that leads to Temple. Say…Blade Darnell for instance.”

“Blade was part of Anathema,” I said. “Check your net. He swam locally.”

“He had ties to Temple.” Agent Greene’s hand squeezed her cup a little too hard. The coffee sloshed. “If you tell me about him, we might be able to cut the tape here and let you reopen ahead of schedule.”

Corpses didn’t make good dancers, and they certainly couldn’t put on a show in the aerial silks I was determined to master. If I ratted, I was as good as dead, especially after mouthing off and abandoning Anathema.

“I stayed clear of Blade,” I said. “Don’t know where he went or who he talked to, only that he was lousy tipper and a danger to my girls. Now, I have to do my payroll. Good luck.”

I slipped the paperwork into my purse. Agent Greene called to me before I made it to my car.

“Does your boyfriend know Blade’s son, Brew Darnell, is alive?”

I should have kept moving. “Brew Darnell is dead.”

“Please. At least be honest among us ladies?” Agent Greene called me with a twist of her finger. She flashed a picture on her phone. “This is from our standard surveillance. Nothing fancy, just a tail. We lost them a couple days ago, but Brew certainly doesn’t look dead to me.”

Oh, fuck. The picture was clear, crisp, and taken in broad daylight. Brew Darnell and his little blonde Tootsie Roll riding north. In fucking wine country.

“Now, if my sources are correct, everyone believes Brew is dead. Wouldn’t that make for a fun revelation?” Agent Greene grinned. “I bet quite a few members of Anathema and The Coup would be interested to hear this.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Well, I bet Temple MC would
love
to learn about this. Telling them it was a man raised from the dead who killed Blade? Seems important. It might take some heat off of Knight….” Her eyebrow rose. “Or maybe it wouldn’t. Word on the street is that Temple doesn’t care
who
killed Blade Darnell anymore.”

I stiffened. “Why not?”

“Because they’ve decided that anyone who dealt with Blade needs to die.”

“Why?”

“They’re protecting themselves.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Don’t tell me
I
have the information
you
need this time.” Her voice twisted, edging with a threat I recognized. The tone of a woman who knew danger and brought most of it on herself. “I’ll make you a deal. You give me all the information you have on Blade—who he talked to, what he was doing before he died, if he had any other contacts—and I’ll be your new best friend. We’d have so much to discuss.”

It wasn’t smart to trust her. Whatever she had on Blade, whatever she wanted to find, wasn’t part of her normal investigation. She let me go, but as long as I stayed in the Valley, I wouldn’t be far enough from her.

God only knew what she wanted with the information.

I wished it didn’t make me so uneasy.

Luke waited for me at my penthouse. I locked the door behind me and kept my shoes on in case we needed to run.

He didn’t greet me. His expression twisted, darkened.

I guess we were running sooner than I thought.

He tossed me his phone. “Listen to the voicemail.”

The tension gripping him also seized me. I played the message on speakerphone. The garbled, intentionally distorted voice spoke plainly, insistently. The tinny echo unsettled me. Someone who wanted to be heard, but didn’t want to reveal who he was, what he really wanted, what chaos he meant to cause.

“
Meet me off of Highway 5. Ten miles outside of the Valley. Eleven o’clock. Tonight
.”

That was all. No other details or instructions. Every syllable the traitor spoke dripped with dark intent.

It had to be a trap.

“You can’t go.” I handed him the phone. “Tell me you aren’t going.”

“I have to.”

Oh, Christ. There was the Luke I remembered. The one who suffered an excess of idealism and nearly destroyed the Valley in a crisis of faith.

“Are you sure it’s the traitor?”

Luke’s voice didn’t waver. “Absolutely.”

“And you still want to go?”

“I have to. There’s a reason they want to meet with me.”

“Yeah, he wants to
kill
you,” I said. “Nothing good will come of this. A traitor won’t solve any problems. The man you need to deal with now is Thorne, and he’s only looking to bury you.”

“You don’t understand.”

“Yes, I do. I saw you do this before, Luke!”

Admitting my feelings was harder than getting into bed with the man. It shouldn’t have been. If I revealed just how much I cared for him a year ago, we might have avoided some of those mistakes.

“You’re a good man,” I said. “You don’t believe it, but I do. Too much blood has spilled, and too much has changed. I know you want to do what’s right, but you’re the only one. The Coup’s split. Anathema is against you. That traitor isn’t going to help. Anything he does will make the conflict worse.”

“That’s why I have to go.”

“Don’t be an idiot.”

“The traitor expects me to lead a war against Anathema.”

“And what are you going to do?”

Luke rubbed his face. He still looked exhausted, hurt. Any other time, with any other man, I might have told him to find a girl, drink his weight in whiskey, and fuck until he couldn’t feel pain anymore. But we were beyond cheap pleasures now. They only delayed the end. Bandaged a cut while the bone shattered beneath.

Our happily-ever-after faded away, and, in its place, a future of uncertainty and blood.

Luke’s royal blue eyes faded, losing itself in snowstorm gray. “I’m going to kill the traitor.”

My nails punctured my leather couch. “
Kill
him?”

“I’m not escalating this war. If he’s desperate to destroy Anathema and I refuse to help, he’ll go to Priest. And I guarantee you, Priest will take up that fight.”

This wasn’t happening. Every word pounded my stomach like a punch. I wasn’t ready to lose another man from Anathema.

But we couldn’t afford to keep him alive.

“Lyn.” Luke gripped his phone. His knuckles turned white, and I feared he’d break it. “I don’t make these decisions lightly.”

“You don’t even know who the traitor is.”

“No. If I knew it was Keep or Gold, at least then I might have a chance to reason with them. But if it’s not?”