Whisky on My Mind (9 page)

Whisky could tell by the look on
Sawyer’s face he could see how different this woman before him looked compared to the one he’d seen in the bar only a week or so before.

“Well?”

“Bell, I called Sawyer because I didn’t know what else to do…we can’t just let this guy do this.”

“
We
don’t do anything…this isn’t anything to do with you guys. It’s my problem.”

“Not anymore. You don’t have to face this alone now,” Whisky said.

“Damn it, Sky!” Bella gave a frustrated sigh as she ran her hand through her knotted locks. “I didn’t even want
you
to know. But you hounded me until I told you. It wasn’t an invitation to go and tell everyone else.”

“I didn’t tell everyone,” Whisky said, hurt that Bella would think she’d do such a thing.
“Just Sawyer.”

“I’m glad she did. This guy needs to be stopped,” Sawyer cut in.

“I can’t risk him releasing the photos,” she said in a voice that had lost all expression.

“Give me his name and details and I’ll make sure he doesn’t release them,” Sawyer said, holding Bella’s exhausted gaze steadily.

“Just leave it.”

“No can do.”

“Call off your attack dog, Sky. There’s nothing anyone can do. I have no choice but to go along with him. End of story. Now excuse me, I would like to get a drink and forget about all this for another few hours,” she snapped, waiting to reach around to grab the bottle from the bench behind Whisky.

“This bottle?”
Whisky asked, turning to hold it up before quickly unscrewing the lid and tipping it down the sink.

“Hey!” Bella shouted
, making a dive for the bottle.

“Whoa,” Sawyer caught Bella and pulled her away. “Calm down.”

“Get your hands off me. Both of you just leave me the hell alone!” she screamed, but her voice broke and she began sobbing in Sawyer’s arms.

Whisky moved across to lay a hand on her
friend’s back and stared up at Sawyer. It hurt so much to see someone she loved going through this hell.

After a few moments, Bella pushed out of
Sawyer’s arms and walked back slowly, wiping at her face with her fists. “Don’t touch me,” she cried. “I don’t deserve anyone’s help.”

Whisky watched helplessly as her friend walked down the hallway to her bedroom and slammed the door. Sawyer blew out a long breath and shook his head. “What a mess.”

“I don’t care what she says, we have to do something. His name’s Paul Sorenson,” Whisky said with a hard calmness that sounded foreign to her own ears. “He can’t be too hard to find, he might be on campus. I’m going to go and ask around and maybe I can find out where he lives.”

“No. You’re not going to do anything. I’ll go and see what I can find out about this dick. You’re going to stay away from it, understand?”

“Excuse me?” Whisky asked, glaring up at him with her hands on her hips.

“You heard me. Stay out of it. This guy didn’t think twice about drugging a woman and having a bunch of guys gangbang her…who knows what else he’s capable of. I’ll go find him. I mean
it, Whisk,” he said, in that president of a God damn motorcycle club tone. “Stay out of it.”

“I want to know what you’re going to do,” she conceded, narrowing her gaze.
“
Before
you do anything.”

“I’ll go see him and see if we can settle things…friendly first,” he agreed, although she noticed he didn’t exactly give his word on anything.

“Yeah, well, maybe not too friendly. This asshole hurt my friend,” Whisky muttered. “But don’t do anything stupid…I don’t want you in any trouble.”

“Trouble’s my middle name, darlin’
,” he said, flashing her a cocky grin.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you,” she said quietly, with a seriousness that came from knowing he would do anything for her…even at great risk to himself if she asked. “Promise me,” she said firmly when he moved to kiss her in order to stop her talking.

“Okay, I promise not to do anything stupid,” he agreed. “Now come here, woman. I’ve missed you something fierce.”

Despite her concern for Bella and knowing what those men had done to her, she couldn’t resist Sawyer or the sudden pull of attraction. Later her words came back to haunt her…
what would she do without him if something happened?
She couldn’t even imagine…and that thought scared her even more.

****

Whisky tip toed into Bella’s room later and sat down on the edge of the bed. She knew she was awake, her breathing had changed, but Bell refused to look at her, lying on her side as she stared at the wall.

“It’s going to be okay.” She gently stroked Bella’s hair back from her cheek, her heart breaking at the warm tears that were flowing silently down her friend
’s face.

“I don’t even care about the stupid job anymore,” she said quietly. “I just feel…dirty. No matter how many showers I take, I can’t seem to wash the filth off my skin, Sky. I don’t even remember them doing anything to me…but I know that they were there…they used me like a piece of trash.”

What do you even say to that?
Whisky thought desperately. “Maybe we should still go to the hospital and see if they can get…”

“No,” Bella growled. “No hospitals. It’s too late now anyway. There wouldn’t be anything left to test.”

“But what about…diseases.” God she hated even thinking about it, but it had to be said. “You need to go to a doctor and have some tests…I know you don’t want to think about it…but what if you’re pregnant…or something?”

“I don’t care.”

“Well, you’re going to have to!” Whisky said, rolling her over to look at her.

“I’m taking you to my doctor. You don’t have to tell her what happened, and she won’t judge you, but you need to make sure you’re okay. Now get up and get dressed.”

Whisky thought for a minute that Bell was going to refuse, but eventually she sat up and slowly swung her legs off the side of the bed.

Sawyer called while she sat in the waiting room of the doctor’s
office waiting for Bella later that afternoon. She glanced around to make sure no one was within earshot. “Did you find anything?”

“The guy’s due to fly in tonight. We’re
gonna’ give him a ride home.”

A ride home?
Was he crazy?
“He’s not going to just
go with you
…how are you going to get him to go quietly?”

“Don’t worry about it. We’ll handle it. I’ll call you tomorrow when I’ve got some news.”

“
We?
How many of the guys know about this?”

“Baby, I told you I got this. You take care of Bella and I’ll deal with the scumbag.”

“Be careful.”

“Always.
I love you.”

“Love you, too,” Whisky said, closing her eyes briefly.
Please, please, please make sure he’s okay,
she prayed silently. She didn’t want to think about the little place inside her that was appalled that she’d asked Sawyer to step in and deal with this. She hated the thought of Sawyer and his guys getting mixed up in it. She knew they were used to violence on some level dealing with club business but she’d learned to ignore the cuts and scrapes Sawyer came home with sometimes. He never told her how he got them and she gave up asking. It didn’t sit right with her to turn a blind eye to what went on…but she knew that the club did things their way and she didn’t get a say in it. This was not club business, though…this was personal and she felt like a hypercritic asking him to step in.

She sat back in her seat and slid her phone into her bag. She hoped that the doctor might have more luck in getting through to Bell. Maybe there was still time to call
off Sawyer and the boys and let the police deal with it.

Chapter
8

Sawyer waited in the international arrivals lounge of the airport and scanned the faces of the passengers as they walked through the gates.

He saw Shaggy glance down at the photo in his hand and look around. The younger guy, Mouse, a new addition to the club who’d proven himself quite a few times in the last few months, was also carefully searching the oncoming traffic of zombie-eyed people disembarking. The arrival area was crammed with people eagerly awaiting loved ones, and outside was the usual chaos of traffic, which actually suited him fine. The more people around the less conspicuous three men would be hustling a guy into a car.

They’d found out that there was only a driver sent to collect the kid. No family waiting around made it an easy snatch-and-grab job and the hired driver was easy enough to pay off.

Sawyer caught sight of him the moment he came through the gates. Dressed in skinny, stonewashed jeans and a black t-shirt
, his ensemble was topped off with a scarf wrapped around his neck and a pair of expensive designer sunglasses perched on top of his head. He carried his laptop bag over one shoulder and was busy typing out a text message. As soon as they spotted the little freak moving into the arrivals lounge, Sawyer gave the nod and the three men converged on him, smoothly surrounding him.

Immediately Dog lifted the laptop case and Mouse slid the phone from the stunned kid’s hand, passing it across to the older biker who quickly walked away in the other direction
, heading to his bike parked at the opposite exit. It happened within a heartbeat and Sawyer would have chuckled at the look on the guy’s face had it not been crucial to keep moving.

“Just keep walking and act natural, or I’m going to slit your throat right here in front of everyone, got it?” Sawyer whispered to the kid as he threw an arm across his shoulders
, looking for all the world as though he were greeting a long-lost friend.

“Where are you taking me? Who are you?” Sorenson demanded, although his voice came out somewhat high pitched as Sawyer applied a little friendly pressure to his neck in warning. “We’re going to go someplace quiet so we can have a little chat about a certain friend of mine you’ve been doing some pretty shitty things to lately.”

“What friend?” he squawked.

“We’ll get to that later,” Sawyer promised him with a cold smile as they approached the sliding glass doors of the terminal to head outside.

Stepping from the cool air-conditioned environment out into the warm outdoor air was a noticeable shock to the system. The sound of traffic and honking horns even at this hour was in stark difference to the loud announcements blaring over the speakers inside announcing flights arriving and departing that they’d been listening to as they’d waited.

There was a sudden loud roar of bike engines and Sawyer barely had time to glance up as four bikes roared past the curb and gunfire sprayed the air around them. The men threw themselves to the ground, automatically reaching for their own weapons only to discover the bikes were out of range and too many pedestrians stood between them and the retreating bikes.

Getting to his feet, Sawyer’s gaze flew to his men, relief flooding him as they slowly stood and brushed themselves off. “Anyone hurt?” he demanded, searching each man for any sign of blood.

“We’re fine,” Shaggy said, spitting a small amount of blood from his dive to the ground. “They were
Switchbladers.”

“
Bastards,” Mouse added.

“I guess they’re getting tired of waiting for our answer,
” Sawyer snapped, as his gaze traveled back in the direction the bikers had taken off in. “Looks like we’re gonna’ have to move forward with our plan, boys.”

“Oh my God.
I think he’s dead,” a woman’s high-pitched scream reached Sawyer’s ears and he turned quickly to follow her horrified gaze.

“
Aww, fuck no,” he said with a frustrated growl. He looked at the spreading pool of blood seeping from the kid nearby. There was no doubt he was dead—his wide-eyed stare heavenward was unflinching and blank.

Sawyer went over their options. If they walked away now the cops would be all over them once they watched any security footage of the incident. They weren’t wearing their club cuts, but they would be hard to miss, three burly guys escorting their victim out of the airport before the shooting. They’d have to stay and give statements.
Shit,
he thought irritably.
What a colossal fuck up this job had turned into. As if they didn’t have enough problems of their own. God damn it.