Steel 4: Blackthorne MC #4 (2 page)

I looked up into his beautiful eyes, and they made me want to melt. “Was that a gun?”

Nick shook his head. “It was just a bike backfiring. You don’t have to worry, Ella. I know I’ve let you down, but I promise you no one will hurt you so long as I’m around.”

He said the words so sincerely and so sweetly I almost believed him.

I was pathetic. I was falling for it again. I pulled away from him and scooted back on the bed. “Yeah, sure. Whatever you say.”

“I’m serious.”

I sighed. “I can’t trust you, Nick. I never know if you’re telling me the truth, so it’s better if I just think everything you say is a lie.”

Nick ran a hand through his hair. “Fair enough. I deserved that. But I’ll tell you the truth now if you’ll listen.”

I shrugged, pretending I wasn’t interested, but really I wanted to know what he was going to say.

“What do you want to know?” Nick asked.

What should I ask first? There were so many things I wanted to know. I had so many questions.

“When Victor’s bodyguards let you in to speak to him, but made me wait outside…What did Victor say to you?”

Nick nodded slowly as if he’d expected that question.

He looked down at the floor for a few moments and then said, “He told me I needed to get you to stay, to persuade you to stay here.”

I swallowed hard. I believed him. That sounded just like the type of thing Victor would say.
 

“And how exactly are you supposed to persuade me to stay?”

Nick raised an eyebrow and smiled softly. “How do you think?”

I flushed and took a deep breath.
 

A million thoughts were racing through my mind. Had this been their game plan all along? Was this the only reason Nick had been paying attention to me?

I turned to him, but before I could ask anything else, he said, “I’m telling you the truth, Ella. I’m sorry if it hurts. But you have to know that I like being with you. I’m not doing it because Victor tells me to.”

I nodded, but I still felt sick.

My next question was inevitable. It was the question that had lingered in the back of my mind since I first realized he was in the Blackthorne MC.

“Why are you part of this? Why did you join in the first place?”

Nick shifted back on the bed and leaned against the wall. “That’s a
long
story,” he said, giving me a twisted smile. “Are you sure you want to know?”

I nodded.

“Okay, it started with my father. He was part of the MC back in the day, and I thought the world of him. I grew up in Seattle with my mother and only saw my father maybe once a year. But I worshipped him. He died just before my sixteenth birthday. I felt like I’d never really gotten to know him, and I wanted to find out more about him. Does that make sense?”

I nodded again. I wanted to reach out and put my hand over his, but I resisted. Just because he was feeding me a sob story didn’t mean I was going to be taken in.

“After he died. I went off the rails. I loved my mom, but I was too much for her to handle. I decided to come down here and find out about him. My plan was to try and find out all those parts of his character and his past I’d never known.”

Nick smiled and shook his head. “It seemed good at first. I was a sixteen-year-old kid from Seattle, and they let me ride the Harleys, they let me drink whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. It was a teenage boy’s dream.”
 

Nick smiled regretfully. “My mom was always strict and I missed her, but this new world was intoxicating to me.”

I could see how it would be. I pictured Nick as a sixteen-year-old boy suddenly surrounded by all of this. Perhaps too young to realize how serious and dangerous the whole thing was.

“Victor was just a young, cocky kid at the time. His father was the one in charge of the Blackthorne crew, and I know you’ll find it hard to believe, but he was even more feared than Victor. No one crossed him. Victor’s father took me under his wing. I don’t know why…maybe I amused him. But I liked him. The night it happened…”

Nick paused and looked at me. His eyes were tormented. “Are you sure you want to hear this?”

“Yes, please tell me.”

Nick nodded and took a deep breath. “Okay, that night, I tried desperately to protect him. I guess a psychiatrist would have a field day with me. They’d say I was searching for a father figure or some crap like that. Maybe I was, but I was there the night he was ousted from the group. I’ll never forget it.”

I didn’t dare move. Nick was talking as though he were almost in a trance as he remembered. I didn’t want anything to distract him.

“A group of rebels from the crew decided old man Blackthorne was too old school, and they needed some fresh blood, someone new. They intended to replace the old man with Victor.”

Nick closed his eyes and tilted his head back, and I waited for him to continue.

“Victor replaced his own father at the head of the group?” I asked, thinking that was cold. How could he betray his own father?

“That’s not the worst of it,” Nick said. “He didn’t just oust him.” He turned to me, his eyes searching my face as if he was trying to work out whether I was ready to hear what he was going to say next.

I moved closer to him, resting my hand on his leg, and waited for him to continue.

He stared down at my hand as if it was burning a hole through the denim of his jeans.
 

Then he took a deep breath and said, “Victor murdered his own father so he could take control of the crew.”

My mouth dropped open, “He
killed
him? His own father?”
 

My voice was barely a whisper. I couldn’t take this in. I knew Victor was evil, but I hadn’t realized how sick he really was.

Nick nodded. “I was there that night, and I saw everything. It was two weeks before my seventeenth birthday… I tried to save him.”

“You tried to save Victor’s father?”

Nick nodded. “I came into the bar, and they were all around him.”
 

Nick clenched his jaw as if the words were hard to say. “He was outnumbered, and I couldn’t see who stuck the knife into him first, but my money would be on Victor.”

My hand involuntarily rose to my mouth. God, that was awful. How could Victor have murdered his own father in cold blood?

“When I saw what was happening, I ran forward and tried to push them away, but they just laughed. I was just one young kid against a bunch of grown men. They walked away and left him dying on the floor. While I was trying to stop old man Blackthorne bleeding out, Victor kneeled down and told me that I was one of them now. I could never leave or I’d meet the same fate.”

Nick bowed his head, lost in the memory. “I did what I could. I tried to stem the bleeding, but it was impossible. He must have been stabbed over fifty times.”

My stomach churned. I couldn’t even imagine how horrifying that must have been to witness at seventeen.

“What did you do?”

“The only thing I could do, Ella. I stayed.”

I shook my head I didn’t understand it. If I’d seen something like that, I would have run away at the earliest opportunity.
 

“Why didn’t you leave?”

Nick looked at me, his intense eyes burning into mine. “I stayed because I knew if I left Victor would hunt me down. As part of the crew he was assured of my loyalty. Without it, I’d be a liability and one that needed to be eliminated.”

While he’d been telling me his story, I’d forgotten about my own situation.
 

I couldn’t imagine the horror of seeing something like that and how much it must’ve scarred him. I knew witnessing an event like that would change a person, but I felt if he could leave here, he could live a good life. He wasn’t a bad man. He was a victim of circumstance.

“I bet you wished you’d never asked. Pretty gruesome story, isn’t it?” Nick asked, trying to lighten the mood.

“You’re not kidding,” I said.
 

Nick looked pale, and I could see the mixture of emotions in his eyes. He was barely holding it together.

I decided to try and change the subject by asking another question. “What happened the night you got shot? After I met you in Vegas?”

Nick took a deep breath before he continued, “The night I met you, we were on a job. A Vegas crew had encroached on Blackthorne turf, and it was our job to make sure they were punished in a way that made sure they never tried anything again. Go in hard, go in fast,” Nick said, wryly, shaking his head.

“But things went wrong?” I prompted.

Nick nodded. “Yes, they went majorly wrong. Someone had tipped them off and they were expecting us. It turned into such a mess and led to a shootout.”

He paused to take another deep breath and then continued, “As you know, I caught a bullet in the shoulder.” His hand absentmindedly travelled up to touch the dressing on his shoulder. “But someone else came off worse.”
 

He looked down at his lap. “Someone was killed that night. Right there in the bar.”

His gaze travelled upwards until his eyes met mine. “You were there that night in the bar, Ella. You saw everything.”

I thought I was going to throw up. My hands flew to my mouth. “But I don’t remember anything.”

Oh, no. A feeling of dread overtook me, sending shivers running through my body. Claire?

Oh, God, no, please don’t let it be Claire.

I shifted my position on the bed and grasped his T-shirt. “Was it Claire? Tell me did Claire get shot?”

Nick put his hands on my arms and shook his head. “No, it wasn’t Claire. Ella, calm down.”

I knew I had raised my voice and Nick was worried that someone would overhear us. He was telling me the crew’s secrets, and I suspected that could get him killed.
 

But how was I supposed to calm down? He had just told me I was witness to a murder I couldn’t remember.

It didn’t make any sense. How could I have forgotten everything? I wished I hadn’t drunk so much that night. But then maybe it was a good thing… Maybe I didn’t
want
to remember.

I stifled a sob as I realized now that Victor would never let me go.
 

I was witness to a murder and my evidence could put him away. There was more chance of him killing me and burying me in the desert than there was of him letting me go home.

“Was Claire there when it happened, too? What happened to her?”

Nick shook his head again. “I’m sorry Ella I can’t remember. It was all such a rush. She may have been there… I don’t remember seeing her.”

I hoped she was okay. I couldn’t bear thinking that something had happened to her.

I rested my head against Nick shoulders and welcomed the feeling of warmth as he wrapped his arms around me. I needed to feel him close to me, and try to process everything he’d just told me.

I tilted my head back and leaned towards him, kissing him gently on the corner of his mouth.

He looked at me, surprised, as his eyes searched my face. I knew he was looking for forgiveness.

I kissed him again, pushing my tongue gently into his mouth. This time he responded. His arms tightened around me, pulling me close to his body as he kissed me back passionately.

Then just as suddenly, he pulled away.
 

I looked up at him, confused.

“I’m not sure I should be doing this,” Nick said.

“What do you mean?”

“I know that I’m part of the reason you’re in this mess. And you’re feeling sorry for me because of what I just told you. I don’t want us to do anything you’re going to regret.”

“I won’t regret it,” I said firmly. I needed this more than anything. I needed to clear my mind of everything apart from how it felt to be with him.

I was starting to see that Nick was almost as much a victim as I had been.

Brazenly, I shifted, opening my legs and putting one on either side of him, so I sat on his lap, straddling him, and looked into his eyes.
 

“I know exactly what I want right now, Nick,” I said. “I want
you
.”

***

I heard his sharp intake of breath as my hands reached for the zipper on his jeans.

I didn’t want to wait. I couldn’t. I needed him inside me. My eyes flickered down to his crotch. He was hard already, and the bulge in his pants strained at the denim.

He licked his lips, and his gaze locked with mine as I slid my hand inside his jeans and closed my fingers around his length.

The breath left his mouth in a hiss as I tightened my grip around him. I was enjoying being in control and having his body respond to my touch.

I shifted to the side and awkwardly peeled off my jeans and then my T-shirt.

Nick’s hot gaze travelled down my body, and I could feel myself growing wet in response.