Authors: Kaylee Song
Thrash (17 page)
“Mercy – Mercy!” he finally begged, grinning.
I pouted, but stopped. As his cock slid out of me, though, it rubbed and caught, taunting my body inside and out. I groaned again and collapsed on top of him.
“I love that,” I murmured into his chest.
“Hell, yeah.”
We didn’t have a whole lot of words to throw around just then. He held me until I wasn’t sure how much time had passed.
Finally, he sat up, wiping himself clean with his boxers. “You ready to get going, sweetheart?” Thrash asked as I clung to him. I wasn’t ready. Not yet. But we had to.
I slid off him and slipped back into my borrowed clothing. I watched him as he pulled his shirt on, then his pants. He didn’t bother with the boxers.
I smiled at him and waited for him to say something to me. Anything at all. He didn’t, instead he pulled me into him and kissed me softly. Then he started the truck back up and drove through the alley and out, out to an apartment I had never seen.
20
I woke up and rolled over to see the sleeping face of the most beautiful girl in the world.
She was next to me still. Nora.
It wasn’t just a dream.
This woman was everything I’d ever wanted. Her art, her passion, the way she saw everything. She saw me, understood me. I’d never seen anyone so beautiful.
When she slept, her face was soft, fragile. And her hair really did radiate around her head like a halo. I grinned.
She was an angel. My angel.
I stared down at her, caught up in a whirlwind of bliss and fear. Because even as I stared at her in awe, I wondered how in the hell we were going to make this last.
I wanted this woman around for the rest of my life. This felt amazing.
It also scared the shit out of me. I wasn’t about to let fear stop me, but fuck if this didn’t freak me out. In my experience, if everything was going perfectly, it would fall apart somewhere. I didn’t want her to get hurt.
I didn’t want to get hurt, either.
I knew I was putting her in harm’s way for the club. Fire and Steel always came first, they always would. But for the first time, that rule was threatening to break me. I’d lived with it after Beast had died, but I hadn’t gotten him killed. I already had a plan forming in my mind, and the truth was, if I didn’t play it just right, we were both going to die. Or in her case, she might wish she had.
The dread that filled my body almost drove me from the bed. I stayed though. I wouldn’t leave her. I just had to figure out how to tell her, make sure she knew the risks, make sure we were both sure she was ready to be a part of this. I’d have to go one way or another. We had to know what Bones was up to. But if she couldn’t handle the risk, really couldn’t handle it, I’d find another way to reach Rage.
I couldn’t just put her in the middle of Bones’s goons and pretend I didn’t understand the risks.
“Thrash?” I heard her sleepy voice call out to me.
“Yeah, baby?” I asked.
“Hold me?”
She was so cute the way she asked me, her voice high and faltering. She wasn’t awake, not really.
I pulled her into my body and snuggled her close. “You’re beautiful,” I whispered into her hair. I wasn’t just talking about her body.
She sighed with relief like she was actually safe in my arms. But the truth was that I had blood on my hands. I wasn’t going to stop either. I intended to stain them even more.
Bones had to die. I was willing to risk anything to see to it he died.
Anything but Nora. I swore it to myself right there in the pitch black of night. I was not going to let anything happen to her. She would be safe.
From her pouty lips to those feet that twitched right before she came, I would give her everything she deserved and more. I would be the man she deserved to have. I was going to be there for her. Nothing would get in the way of that.
And if she couldn’t live with it? If she walked away? Then the risk wouldn’t mean anything. I’d face Bones and die if I had to. But I couldn’t live without her. I wouldn’t.
I was the sinner in this equation, but I was sure as hell going to keep her safe every step of the way.
I pulled her tighter into me and closed my eyes, willing away the darkness. Her touch, her smell, the sound of her breathing were like prayers against my worries. But nothing could make me forget what I was about to do for the club. Not even Nora.
That was the cost of being the right hand of the club. I could never forget where my loyalties lay.
21
Might as well keep them bored.
A motorcycle rounded the corner, pulled up into the alleyway. I knew it before I even saw it. The sound of Bones’ bike always made the same rumble.
It was an instinctual habit to recognize the sound of something. Dogs did it, hell, even babies knew the sound of their mother’s voice.
This was no different for me. I could hear the sound of his bike before it even pulled up. I knew it was him. Stirrings of old loyalty lifted in me, and then I remembered. He was the one who betrayed us. That was where the anger came in. I was going to have to steer that rage into something or I was going to give myself away.
“I’m glad you came.” Bones walked toward me, his helmet in his hands.
“Yeah?” I asked looking him over. “You’re late.”
“Couldn’t be helped.” He flashed me that smile, the one that had gotten him through more than one bout of trouble. He used it for a lot of situations. It told me nothing really. “I had to make sure you weren’t followed.”
“Look, man, you want me here or not? You asked me. You told me I was the one you could trust.” I glared at him. Anger was what he would expect if I was true.
I pushed myself away from the wall and started walking towards the other end of the alley where my bike was parked.
“Okay, okay,” he held up his hands, all good humor for the moment. “Don’t go and get all pissed off. I have to be careful. I got a lot of boys. Not about to get sloppy. That’s how you get double-crossed.”
“So you are the only one who can do that?” I asked, a slow smile spreading across my face. The asshole made me sick.
“That’s the way of the world. You boys got sloppy. Whatever. You’re wiser now. You want in or not?” His patience was dwindling. I needed to get serious.
“Yeah, man. I want in.” I rubbed my arm and then looked up at him. “You know me. I’m not good without a clear leader. I thought about what you said, and as much as it pisses me off that you left, I get it. You want more than some shitty little clubhouse on the hill. There is no room for expansion there. I watched you work at it. You tried, it failed.” I shrugged.
“You ain’t lyin’.”
“I need a leader. And I wanna go big. You still want my skills?” It was a little cockier than was wise, but I was a good wingman. I wasn’t going to sell myself short, not for Bones, not for anyone.
Bones just laughed. “Come on kid, I got some people I want you to meet.” He tugged a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and lit one, taking a long drag. When he opened the door on the building, it caught in the frame with a loud clunk. No one was getting in or out this side of the building quietly.
Bones watched me knowingly. “It’s a shithole, but it’s a good base. We’ll expand when we are ready.”
“Yeah, well, keep the door like that,” I said. “The way it is, keep a few men on it to fuck up anyone who tries to break in.”
He bared his teeth at me, eyes gleaming. “There’s the boy I remember. You don’t use your fists until you mean it. Think you can use that head of yours to make us bigger?”
I nodded, following him down the empty aisles. “If you’ll let me.” That was the Bones I knew. Always thinking about “bigger” and “better” and never focusing on what he had right at that moment.
“Oh, I’ll let you. As long as you remember who’s boss.”
“I’m not interested in leading, Bones.” And I really meant that. I didn’t like the leadership position. Never had. I was damned good at support. Less posturing, more power. My name would never be sung from the rooftops, but I would be remembered by the people who mattered to me, and perhaps by their kids.
Of course, Bones knew just what to say to belittle that. “Good man. You know your place.”
The comment pissed me off, but it also told me something very important. Bones was a man who only talked about his own priorities. As a result, he missed a lot. What he paid attention to told me what he was missing.
His preoccupation with me “knowing my place” told me that he had upstarts challenging him in his new ranks. That would distract him a bit. It would also make him cagey. A cagey Bones could be good or bad for me. Depended on how I played it.
I definitely needed him to trust me or this was going to get messy fast. “I’ll keep my eyes open,” I replied. “Let you know if anyone is looking to pull shit.”
That seemed to please Bones. “Yeah. Yeah, you do that, that’d be real good. This way.”
I followed him down a little corridor, and let my eyes adjust. There was tagging on the paint-chipped walls and cracks in the plaster. I’d seen this shit before. This place had been a crack house before Bones got it. Fuck, it still might be.
Bones had his own addictions to deal with. I wondered if he’d had the sense to keep the crack and any lady acquisitions out of the warehouse. It was always a bad idea to keep the “rewards” in the same place one kept the army. Bones’s ‘little army’ would get lazy real fast.
That would suit Fire and Steel, but it would also put Nora and I at greater risk.
“Damn, I hope you got this place for a steal,” I commented, avoiding a long peel of plaster.
Bones batted the hanging debris aside out of habit. “Five-thousand dollars. Not too bad. We have some repairs to do on it, but it’s stable. All this shit?” he patted the wall. “It’s just cosmetic.” He waved it away as we ducked down another hallway to a stairwell. “Down we go.”
“To the basement?” I’d seen a little too much of basements lately, and what they held was never good.
“That’s where we process intake. We check you for wires, supplies, your cell, whatever.”
“My cell?” I asked. I wasn’t surprised, but I wasn’t happy, either. I didn’t want to give up my only lifeline if I got in trouble.
“Don’t want you calling people like Cullen.” Of course he was paranoid about that, he had every right to be.
“What about my girl?”
Nora was the only way I was going to get any communication through, and besides that I needed to see her, to hear her voice.
“Don’t worry, we have a house phone. You can call your girl. You’ll get a burner when I am sure you can be trusted.” He grinned.
I eyed him. “I mean can she come over and shit?”
“That important to you?”
“She’s claimed,” I said, my jaw hard. “And I ain’t interested in a trip to the lab.” Most of these boys probably hit the streets and shit for a quick dip, but that came with risks. “I have a steady thing.”
He laughed outright. “Why go without when you got it close, eh? Just keep an eye on her. The boy’s will be.”
“I’ll fuck them up if they bother her,” I growled.
“She that hot?”
Like I’d tell him. “I like what she’s got.”
“It serious?” His wolf like grin made me sick. The way he went after Layla, the way he kidnaped her, it sent ice through my veins. I was putting Nora in the same position, making her possible bait.
I shrugged. “She wants a family.”
“Damn.”
“They better not touch her.”
He thought about it for a second, then nodded. “Any of em try, you mess them up. But do it right. Break ‘em, get ‘em back to me.”
“So we’re good?”
He nodded. “So long as you’re my right hand man, your woman’s sacred.”
It was a tricky answer. Let me know I had to stay valuable to him if I wanted the right to keep my lady safe. It was shit, but that was the way of things. At least that was the way he ran things.
There was a reason I liked working for Rage. At Fire and Steel, your lady was your lady. And it didn’t matter what you did. No one was going to use her like rag. They might throw her out, but they wouldn’t mess her up.
Some groups took out grudges on the women, passed them around. It was effective. It was also fucking sick. War-time horrors shit. Same fuckers would get together and say they did it for ‘good reason.’ Men like that were fucking cowards, making excuses to get their dicks wet.
I pushed the thought away, unclenching my fists.
I knew I could stay valuable to Bones at least as long as it took to bring him down. “So? You said we could do big things, or was that just a line to get me here?”
“That wasn’t a line. You work with me, you can buy that bitch the best ring in this city. And a real house, too, none of those shitty row-homes in South Braddock. We’ll be walking high in a few months. I got a thing going.”
“You got a woman?”
“The wife left me. Still got Audrey. I don’t share either, so don’t get any damn ideas.”
I wasn’t entertaining any ideas about her, and it had nothing to do with her looks.
I remembered Audrey. Italian-Irish woman. Reddish brown hair, olive skin, dark eyes. She was pretty enough, but she had been twisted by abuse and neglect.
She had become an angry, vicious woman. In some ways, Bones had probably been good for her. In other ways, he just fed the worst in her, making her sicker, sadder, angrier.
I wanted to feel bad for her, but she had helped Bones kidnap Layla. He had planned to rape Layla, and Audrey had supported his desire to do so. She didn’t love Bones. She hated Cullen. She hated him so much she’d rather see her man fuck up another woman than stick to her. I would have said they deserved one another, but the truth was that I just wanted to see both of them stopped.
I definitely wanted to keep both of them as far away from Nora as possible.
Bones descended what looked like a newly built staircase, the creak of the wood under his weight announcing us to anyone lingering below.
I followed after, taking in as much of my surroundings as I could in the dimly lit basement. It was made of brick and mortar and had aged poorly, but the building was still structurally sound.
“Showed up, did he?” a voice from the back called out. Turf, one of my old crew members, stepped out into the light. He sized me up. He’d been a prospect. Had a nickname and was so close to being asked to join, but he’d left anyway. For Bones.
“Turf, that you?” I asked, holding out my hand as if we were lost friends. We’d never hated one another, anyhow.
“Yeah, man. I told him you’d come over. I mean, you aren’t stupid. Always knew how to pick the winning side.”
I left that alone. “So how does this work?” I asked.
“Need your weapons, your cut, and your phone,” Turf said, pointing for me to set them all on the table.
I quickly retrieved everything he asked for. No complaint. There was a small collection of knives, my cut and two cell phones planted on the table.
“No guns?” Turf asked.
“No, this one is more of a knife guy.” Bones volunteered, watching it all. “Always has been, right Thrash? Good with a gun, but hates to carry them. Knows how to shoot, though. Knows when, too.”
I nodded. For the right leader, I’d follow orders. For a poor leader, I’d do nothing.
“Did you leave any weapons on your bike?” Turf asked.
“Yeah, got two in the saddle bags. They’re good pieces, but I didn’t want to wear them in. Check them if you need to.”
Bones nodded. They’d be checking my bike, too.
“What else?”
“Normally we do a questioning session. But your induction is going to be a little bit different.”
And here it was: the test.
“Sit down and tell us everything you know about Fire and Steel.”
Bones pulled up two chairs. He took a seat in one and then gestured to the other for me.
“Why?” I asked. I knew the answer before he gave it, but I still needed to ask it. “I mean, you were there. You know what it was like.”
“Because any information you have, we can benefit from. Any weaknesses, any chinks in their chain.”
I nodded slowly, quiet a moment. When I spoke, I chose my words carefully. “You know Cullen is running it. He’s got his own… problems.”
Bones lit up another cigarette and smiled grimly. “And what might those problems be?”
“He let in a bunch of new recruits, trying to make up for losses, but he doesn’t vet them the same way.” I was feeding him a partial truth. Rage and I had already discussed what I would say. We had been admitting a lot of recruits, but we hadn’t patched any in that weren’t up to snuff. We kept strict values and they fulfilled them or left. But from the outside our system probably looked erratic and reckless. Bones leaned in and I could see the calculation in his eyes. The tension in his hands gave away his interest. “He’s a kid, ruining everything for good intentions,” Bones said, his old shrewd mind a buzzing. “Was always too slow to succeed, though.”
Compared to Bones, yeah, Rage looked slow. At least until it came time for check-mate. If I looked at the amount of time Rage had been President, he had more concrete ‘wins’ on his roster than Bones. But the only reason I knew that was because I had been in the inner circle.
