Viper's Pit (Diamondbacks Motorcycle Club Book 1) (3 page)

CHAPTER FOUR

Her name was Trinity. There was no question that wasn’t her real name, but Lind couldn’t afford to care. Once she had made a trip to the bathroom in the diner where they stopped and cleaned herself up, her beauty became all the more striking. She had a round face with soft feature and the skin of a peach. Her hair was golden blonde and a few errant curls escaped the tall ponytail she had resorted and fell in front of the largest, deepest eyes Lind had ever seen. The irises were dark brown, like pools of liquid chocolate. Her frame was slim but strong, telling tales of sensuality and power.

Under other circumstances, Lind might have gone for it. He was certain she could give him a night to remember. But this wasn’t the place, and it sure as hell wasn’t the time.

Over coffee and cake, they told her about Gary contacting the club to propose a partnership. His business was flourishing, he had said. More sophisticated clients walked in every night, and he wanted to offer them the kind of high-end recreation that they could find in the fancy clubs of downtown Los Angeles. He knew the Diamondbacks had been establishing strong dealing relationships and that they were also expanding to high-end drugs. He thought it might be the perfect opportunity to expand together.

So, they had agreed to meet at his nightclub…where they were promptly ambushed.

“How do you know those who ambushed you were part of a cartel?” Trinity asked. Her full lips curling around the brim of her cup did things to Lind that he wasn’t ready to admit to.

“They have been on our trail for a while now,” Jacob said. “They don’t like that we’re getting more involved in the drug scene. We’ve tried to make things work with them, but so far it hasn’t worked out great.” He paused. “And after tonight, I can’t imagine it ever will,” he added as an afterthought.

“A couple of the people who shot at us tonight are sure members of the cartel,” Lind said.

“That doesn’t seem very subtle,” Trinity observed.

“They didn’t want to be,” Lind said. “They wanted us to know who they were.”

“I still can’t really see Gary giving you guys up,” Trinity said. She held up a hand to stop their protests. "Wait, let me finish.”

Once again, Lind didn’t know why, but he let her. And so did Jacob.

“You said it yourselves, Gary is new at this kind of thing. There’s no love lost between us. He’s just my boss, and I’m just an employee. So, I say this with the most objective attitude…Gary is not a backstabber,” she said. “He’s just not smart enough to be.”

Lind and Jacob exchanged a look. In retrospect, it made sense.

“Who, then?” Jacob wondered aloud.

Trinity shrugged. “Could be a number of people.”

“Like who?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “And I don’t
want
to know. Leave me out of it.”

“Oh, but we can’t,” Lind said.

Trinity’s chocolate eyes snapped up to him. “Excuse me?”

“Sweetheart, you’re so
in
it that you could drown.”

“What are you talking about?” she protested. “I told you, I know nothing about what happened. I stole your bike before hell broke loose.”

“Exactly,” Jacob said quietly, just now coming to the realization that Lind had figured out the minute she had told them what she had done and, most importantly,
when
.

She looked between them. That lost look coming back to her beautiful, delicate features. “What do you mean?”

“You stole the Viper’s bike just before the cartel came in with guns blazing,” Jacob said. “It will look suspicious to our club and to your boss…provided that he really wasn’t involved.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Trinity said, but she didn’t look too convinced. “I’ll talk to Gary and tell him I had nothing to do with it.”

“And, of course, he’ll be inclined to believe you,” Lind said. “Especially given the amounts of love not lost between the two of you.”

“You’ve said it yourself, you’re just an employee,” Jacob said. He let the rest unsaid, but Lind could see that Trinity heard it loud and clear.

She slumped back in her chair, looking stunned and afraid.

“I just…I guess I’ll have to disappear for a while.”

“I guess so,” Lind said.

“We have just the place for you.”

Lind’s head whipped around so fast that for a moment he feared he might have pulled something in his neck. He stared at Jacob in shock.

“No,” he said pointedly, “we
don’t
.”

Jacob rolled his eyes. He punched him in the arm and stood. “Give us a minute, sweetheart.”

Reluctantly, Lind followed him outside. He took a cigarette out of his pack and watched as the smoke swirled in the night air.

Jacob batted at the tendrils. “You’ll get lung cancer,” he protested, as he always did.

Lind rolled his eyes. “Shut up and tell me just what the hell that was in there.”

Jacob shrugged. “Well, it’s not like we can leave her.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Because she’s in danger. Gary Merchant may not be a backstabber, but he sure isn’t a saint. When he hears that one of his girls has stolen the Viper’s ride moments before his deal was literally shot to hell, he’s going to go after her.”

“So?”

Jacob arched a reddish-blond eyebrow at him. “
So
, we can’t let that happen to an innocent woman.”

“She stole my bike,” Lind grumbled. “She ain’t that innocent.”

Jacob smirked, knowing he already had Lind. “Whatever,” he said. “Still, we just can’t let her leave. And besides, she might be useful.”

“Useful how?”

“She works in that nightclub. She knows everyone. She knows their habits, their characteristics. She may be helpful in figuring out just whose heads have to roll for this.”

Lind thought about it. “She does seem pretty smart…” he conceded. Trinity had proven observant, and they sure could use an observant eye to a reality that they knew little to nothing of. “Do you believe her story?” he asked.

Jacob thought about it. “I do,” he finally said.

Lind nodded. “So do I,” he admitted, reluctantly. “Are you sure about this?”

Jacob shrugged. “She could be our best shot.”

“We’ll have to lie to the club,” he said. “When Alec hears about one of Gary’s girls stealing my ride moments before he got shot at,” he said, quoting Jacob’s words, “he’s going to suspect her.”

“Then, we keep our pretty little secret until things have blown over,” Jacob agreed.

Lind hesitated. “I don’t like lying to Alec. He can always find me out.”

Jacob laughed. “I’m sure you’ll find some tale to spin until the time comes to tell him the truth.”

Lind scowled. He hated this. He hated lying to his best friend and to the club. He hated games. He wasn’t a man of games; he was a man of action. Games and schemes were more Alec’s territory—and Jacob’s, who wasn’t second in command for nothing.

“You’ll be fine,” Jacob said, clapping his shoulder. “Now, let’s go tell our little bird the good news.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Eve woke up with a killer headache. She rolled over onto her stomach and groaned, burying her face into the pillow. The sunshine streaming in through the white curtains of the window was searing behind her closed eyelids. There was a pounding in her temples. It took her a while to find the will to move. She dragged herself slowly out of bed and gingerly walked out of her bedroom…

…only to discover that the one she had just come out of wasn’t her bedroom at all. This wasn’t her apartment.

Just like that, everything came rushing back. The Diamondbacks, Lind Addams, the drinks, the dare. The stupidity of it all. The story of the ambush. The night ride from Los Angeles to Pasadena, without even allowing her to stop by her place to pick up a few things. According to what Lind and Jacob said, they were protecting her. Eve wasn’t so sure.

She took a few minutes to walk through the apartment with an entirely sober brain back at her disposal. It was a small but comfortable place, a condo adorned with modern and yet cozy furniture. It had large windows that let in plenty of lights, and the bright sunshine did nothing but shed light on the absurdity of her current situation.

How had she ended up here? It seemed unreal.

Looking down at herself, Eve realized that she was wearing a man’s sweatshirt. She panicked for a moment, but then she realized that she would definitely remember it if she had (or were forced to have) sex with either of the two men from last night.

She needed more clarity. She ran a shower and let the hot stream hit her back, slapping some extra sharpness back into her mind. What was she supposed to do now? She certainly couldn’t stay here. No matter what Jacob or Lind said, Eve wasn’t about to let two strangers “take care of her” and keep her away from her life “until things blew over” (which, as far as she saw it, could mean just about anything from one week to one year).

Head still spinning with everything that had happened, Eve quickly put on the clothes she had been wearing the night before and packed her purse. It was just as she was about to zip it up that she realized that something had been pulled out. Her cell phone and wallet were nowhere to be found.

“Son of a bitch!” she hissed under her breath, heart beginning to pound in frustration and anxiety. She had the sudden, sinking feeling that she may be in way over her head.

She would need to do something about her cell phone and wallet, but chances were she wouldn’t be able to do anything while stuck in this apartment that wasn’t her own, in a town that wasn’t her own, in a life that wasn’t her own (that is, either one of her lives). She had to get out of there, and she had to do it fast—before they came back.

While she wasn’t all that surprised to find the door was locked when she went for it, Eve couldn’t help the rising wave of panic that overtook her then. She was completely isolated. She briefly considered banging on the walls for people in the neighboring apartments to hear her, but she quickly reconsidered.

Eve paced around the apartment like a caged wild animal, frantically looking for an exit that she knew just wasn’t there. She didn’t know how much time she spent wandering from room to room, looking out windows that were too far up for her to climb out of. She didn’t know how long it was before she heard the key turn in the lock, but when she did, she ran to the living room and waited for the door to open fully so that she could give those bastards a piece of her mind.

She may be trapped, but she would let them know that she was
not
helpless…even if that was exactly how she felt.

When Lind walked in, carrying a paper tray with two cups and a bag which Eve really hoped was a bacon-and-egg sandwich, she was hit with yet another wave of fury. How
dare
he? How dare he dump her into a situation so absurd that she felt like she didn’t know where was up and where was down anymore?

“That had better be my breakfast,” she said.

Lind looked at her—
really
looked at her. She saw how his still-impossibly-blue eyes ran over her figure. In turn, she couldn’t help but feel a shadow of the same thrill his gaze had given her the night before at the club when their eyes had met for the first time.

“It is,” he said. “I hope you like bacon-and-egg sandwiches.”

Eve didn’t bother to tell him that it was her favorite kind of breakfast; she was not going to give him the satisfaction.

She shrugged. “They’re all right.”

She followed him to the kitchen and reluctantly sat down at the table. She watched as he went to sit in front of her and took a hearty sip of his black coffee. They ate their breakfasts in silence for a while. Eve dug into her bacon-and-egg sandwich, and he, surprisingly, bit into a blueberry scone too large for comfort. She idly wondered what the twins would say if they found out that the Viper had a sweet tooth.

“So,” Lind eventually spoke, finally breaking the
very
uncomfortable silence. “Did you sleep okay?”

Eve stared incredulously at him from over the brim of her paper cup. “Are you shitting me?”

He had the good grace to look embarrassed. “I was just making conversation…”

“You want to make conversation?” Eve all but growled. She took a long swig from her vanilla latte to get some extra courage, and then she set her cup down and stared into the Viper’s face. “Fine. Where is my phone…and my wallet?”

Lind cringed. “I was hoping you wouldn’t notice that just yet.”

Eve arched an eyebrow. “Kind of hard not to.”

Lind rummaged in the inside pockets of his leather biker’s vest. “The wallet is right here,” he said, producing it and placing it on the table in front of her.

Eve picked it up and, without thinking, began to go through it. Nothing seemed amiss—from credit cards to cash to IDs.

Lind scowled. “We didn’t steal from you, you know.”

“
Now
I know,” Eve said, satisfied. She ignored Lind’s affronted snort and put the wallet down. “And my phone?”

“Your phone is gone.”

“Excuse me?”

“We took out the battery, crushed both pieces, burned the SIM card, and chucked it all.”

There was the hint of a smirk on his lips, suggesting that he was only going into so much detail in order to unnerve her. It was working.

“Why would you do that?” she asked, appalled.

“We can’t risk someone contacting you or tracking you down,” he said, as if it were the most normal thing in the world to say.

Eve swallowed. Fear was rapidly taking over and surpassing anger in its intensity. “What do you plan to do with me?”

Lind frowned. “I thought we talked about it last night. Were you still so drunk that you don’t remember?”

“You said you wanted me to stay here and lay low,” Eve said quietly. “You said you needed me to help you find whoever it is that set you up last night.”

“Exactly.”

“What happens after?”

Lind shrugged. “We all go back to our lives.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.” Lind stared at her. “We don’t kill women, Eve.”

Eve bit her bottom lip so savagely that she almost tasted blood. There was just
something
in his eyes that told her she could trust him. Still…better safe than sorry.

He reached out across the table and took her hand in his, squeezing reassuringly. “I promise, we’ll keep you safe.”

In spite of her best efforts, Eve found herself squeezing back. His hold was strong, warm, and soothing. She wanted nothing more than to give in to his reassurances, but something held her back.

“I’m basically your prisoner,” she said. “You’ve locked me in here.”

“For your own safety.”

“‘For my own safety,’ my ass,” Eve snapped, abruptly taking her hand away. “What if someone came after me? What if I needed to run?”

“I’m going to give you a copy of the keys now,” Lind said. “I didn’t do it before because I knew if I did before we had a talk, you would try to run away.” He leaned across the table and all but impaled her with his baby blues. “But you’re not going to run away, are you, Eve?”

Eve swallowed. “I’ve got a job to go back to…” she protested weakly. “A daytime job, I mean.”

“Oh, I know.”

She blinked, taken aback. “What do you mean, you know?”

Lind sat back in his chair. He nodded to the wallet on the table. “We spied your IDs and ran a few background checks.”

“You did
what
?” If she had felt violated in her freedom before, this was even worse.

“You can’t really expect us to take risks for a complete stranger,” Lind said. “Besides, the more we know, the easier it will be to protect you. Jacob called in to your job earlier today. He posed as your uncle and faked a big family emergency. They’ll be saving your seat for you.”

Eve stared at him. “They bought it?”

“Jacob is a really good actor.”

She wasn’t sure what she was more impressed with—Lind and Jacob’s resources, or her bosses’ stupidity.

“What about my family?” she said after a moment. “They’ll look for me.”

“I’ve got the feeling a nightclub in the outskirts of L.A. will be the last place they’ll look,” Lind said.

Eve realized then that this man truly knew all that there was to know about her. “You know who my father is, don’t you?”

“Yep,” Lind said. “Harold Robinson, big-time entrepreneur. He’ll probably have a SWAT team out looking for you in no time.”

“And you don’t think he’ll find me?”

“Sweetheart, I really don’t think he will. And neither will that fiancé of yours, what’s his name?”

Eve scowled. “Alan,” she offered reluctantly.

“Right. Alan Sutherland. Your daddy’s right-hand man, the heir to his professional empire. Honestly, it’s all so cliché I almost want to throw up.”

Eve glared at him. “My personal life is none of your concerns.”

“Except that it is,” Lind said. “
If
you want me to protect you, that is.”

“You know, I’m not sure I do.”

Lind shrugged. “Tough. Now, I will give you the keys if you promise you won’t do anything stupid. I mean this, Eve. You’re a smart woman, but it’s all too glaringly obvious that you come from another world. One wrong move, and this could end very badly for you.”

“Is that a threat?”

“No, it’s a fact. I’m not the enemy here, okay? I’m trying to help you out…although why the hell I’m doing it is beyond me.”

“You’re doing it so I’ll give you insights on the club.”

“Well, that’s something that’ll help both of us,” Lind admitted easily.

“We’re in Pasadena, right?” Eve asked after a few more minutes of silence. She remembered something about Jacob saying how this apartment used to be his grandfather’s, and how nobody in the club even knew he had it.

“Yes,” Lind confirmed. “No one will ever think of looking for you here.”

“So, I can go out and about as I please?”

“Well…sort of. I would like you to be very careful and limit your going outs as much as possible.”

Eve scowled. “I can’t very well live like a recluse for God knows how long.”