Chapter 18
“ W hat do you mean you just let ‘em leave?” Wrath has Rocco pinned to the gate when I arrive back.
“Whoa,” I remember the promise I made to Finn and quickly get off my bike, rushing over to resolve whatever's going on. “What’s the issue?”
“This idiot let Alicia and Freya leave here this morning alone. They still ain’t back,” Wrath explains, and I shove him out the way and grip the little prick up myself.
“You did what?” I slam him back hard against the metal panel. “Where did they say they were going?”
“I don’t know, some baby appointment. Saul cleared it.” He flinches, and when I notice Wrath looking at me strangely, I quickly release him and straighten myself out.
“You tried calling her?” I check, running my fingers through my hair and calming myself the fuck down.
“Of course I have, it just goes straight to voicemail.” His answer makes my chest feel tight, there’s a killer on the loose, not to mention a whole club of fuckin’ Reapers who just killed one of Cliff Adams’ daughter’s. What’s to stop ‘em from wanting to kill another?
“You know the rules, Rocco, it ain’t safe for them out there,” Wrath reminds him.
“And you think it’s safe for them in here? Are you forgetting about Jenika?” The kid proves he really has found his voice lately.
“No one’s forgetting about Jenika, especially not me. I’m the one who found her in the pool pit,” I remind him.
His words are haunting and a reminder that no one is really safe here. I hate the idea of Freya being in that motel room alone at night. She belongs with me, and now I don’t even know where she is.
We hear a horn beep and when I turn my head and see Alicia’s car, with Freya in the passenger seat, my chest sags with relief.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” Wrath rips open the passenger seat door and drags her out. “I’ve been worried sick, do you have any idea?—”
Alicia quickly finishes chewing, then swallows so she can interrupt him.
“It’s my fault, she came with me to Griller’s mom’s place. I had to tell her about the baby and Saul was supposed to come with me. I was nervous and wanted to get it over with. If you wanna blame someone, blame me.” She takes another bite out of the pickle in her hand.
“Don’t fucking do that again.” Wrath shakes his head at Freya. “Don’t ya think I gotta enough to be worrying about?” He looks disappointed in her as he storms off through the arch, and Alicia takes the huge jar that Freya’s holding out of her hands and quickly follows after him.
Rocco shrugs and gets back to his post while me and Freya stand awkwardly staring at each other.
“I guess you’re mad at me too?” she asks once Rocco is out of earshot.
“Uh-huh.” I nod my head, trying not to unleash a lecture. I have to remember what this is. She ain’t my old lady, I can’t tell her what to do.
“I can tell.” She laughs as if this is all a fuckin’ game.
Checking around us, I grab her hand and drag her through the gate that leads to the beach, then I force her back against the wooden fence panel.
“People are dying, Freya, we wouldn’t have these rules in place if they weren’t necessary. What you did today was dumb, dangerous, and?—”
She shuts me up when she kisses me, holding my face between her hands and rolling her tongue around mine.
“I’m sorry,” she tells me as she pulls away. “Try not to stay mad at me for too long.” She takes advantage of my shock and slips under my arm, heading back through the gate.
I take out my cigarettes and light one up, sitting on the sand, and as I stare out into the ocean I wonder what the fuck I’ve got myself into.
I head into the clubhouse once I’m finished with my smoke and when I see her sitting with the girls in their usual spot, I look away and move to the bar. I shouldn’t have gotten angry with Rocco the way I did in front of Wrath. If his mind wasn’t somewhere else right now, he would have noticed and probably questioned me on it.
“The others not back yet?” I ask Raze as I join him and Finn at the bar. The Stetson he insists on keeping on his head is the only thing convincing me that he ain’t back here for good.
“Vike checked in about an hour ago, they should be home soon,” Raze assures me, and I light up another cigarette when I notice Freya making her way over to the other end of the bar.
It’s hard not to look at her, I wanna study her every move. I wanna touch her the way Raze and Wrath touch their girls, and I want every brother in this room to know she’s mine. Wrath moves over to join us and my muscles instantly go rigid. Even being around him feels like a betrayal.
“I made as much space in the bunker as I could, but it’s gonna be tight,” he explains to Raze, before ordering himself a drink. The atmosphere between them has been a little frosty since they disagree on how the Reaper situation should be handled, and Finn must pick up on it too because he furrows his brow at me. “We’re also gonna need to look at these watch schedules, Rocco’s been out front all day,” Wrath explains.
“Grunts do grunts work.” Raze shrugs, and although it seems to ease a little tension between him and his VP, I can tell his comment don’t sit well with our visitor.
“Speaking of.” Wrath takes out his cell and shows us Rocco’s name as it flashes up the screen.
“What’s up, kid?” he asks. “What d’ya mean he’s here to see Freya?” He suddenly looks mad, and I instantly start paying closer attention.
“Who’s here to see me?” Freya must hear it too because she moves closer, and when Wrath holds his hand to silence her, she looks pissed at him.
“I’ll be right out.” He hangs up and starts marching for the door, naturally I begin to follow after him, but I notice that Freya is behind me and I spin around.
“Stay in here,” I warn her.
“I heard what he said, someone’s here to see me,” she argues back.
“That don’t mean they get to.” I put her straight, and see how badly she wants to bite.
“Stay where ya are, Freya,” her brother calls out before swinging the door open like he’s ready for a fight. I swear, if that prick has come here to try and take her back, this time I really will kill him. I follow Wrath out through the yard and under the arch and when I see the stunt bike parked on the other side of the gate, I realize that it ain’t her ex on the saddle. This guy’s much younger and looks as if he’s really been through it.
“What do you want with my sister?” Wrath calls out as we both march closer to the gate. I give Rocco the nod to open it as we get closer, and I see that the guy really is in a bad way.
“I need to speak to Freya.” He spits blood outta his mouth onto the asphalt.
“You ain’t speaking to no one until you tell us why you're here?” I tell him.
“Josh,” I hear her voice come from behind me, all high pitched and full of concern. “What happened to you?” She races past me and goes straight to him, aiding him off his saddle and checking him over.
“Don’t just stand there, help me,” she cries out at us, and Rocco takes hold of the guy’s bike while me and Wrath stare at each other in confusion.
“Drew lost his temper when I told him you weren’t ever gonna come back and we… we got into it.”
“Josh, I’m sorry.” She looks hurt by his suffering and the way that makes me jealous is pathetic.
“You need a doctor.” She starts to walk him inside.
“I got no health insurance.” He laughs then winces from the pain it causes him.
“You're a stunt rider with no health insurance?” Rocco looks at him as if he’s crazy.
“Come on, we can have Polly fix you up.” Wrath sees his sister struggling and rushes over to help her, taking the guy’s arm and pulling it round his shoulder.
“How the hell did you ride here in this state?” she asks Josh, or whoever he is, as they help him through the arch.
“They kicked me out.” His eyes drop in shame.
“Seriously?” Freya looks stunned.
“He’s gonna come for you, Freya, you know what he’s like. I came to check you were okay, and to warn you. I guessed after he took you that you’d be here and so will he.”
“Let’s not worry about me, right now,” Freya tells him softly. “Let’s just get you seen to.”
Freya’s buddy has the attention of everyone here as he sits on a chair and has Polly and Freya seeing to his injuries, and when I see that Wrath is about to lose it, I grab his arm and drag him into church.
“ Fuck, fuck, fuck! ” Wrath throws the glass he’s holding at the wall once I’ve closed the door and with his palms resting flat on the table, I see him seething.
“I can’t sit back and lose another sister, Ruck.” He shakes his head. “I’m gonna head to that show and?—”
“You ain’t going anywhere, not like this. It’s too fucking public.” It feels a little hypocritical after what I pulled last week, but that was different. I had nothing to lose then. All that seems to have changed now.
I can’t have Wrath going off the rails and doing something that could get him arrested.
“So what do we do, Ruck? Sit back and wait for the fucker to come to us?” He looks at me as if I’ve lost my mind.
“He ain’t gonna come to us, we got this place locked down,” I remind him.
“I can’t rely on that, look at what happened today. Rocco was right when he said about Jenika. It’s gonna be tight, and it ain’t ideal, but I’ll just have to have Freya stay at the houseboat with me and Eden.”
“No!” I call out, sounding way more desperate than I intended. “I mean, you got no space there, and you and Eden ain’t been married five minutes, you need your privacy.”
“So what do you suggest, Ruck? Because I can’t have her here alone at night, not with murderers, Reapers, and now crazed ex’s all on the loose.
“I don’t know, maybe she could stay with me.” I shrug.
“Stay with you?” Wrath laughs, despite his bad temper. “Are you forgetting that the two of you hate each other?”
“I don’t hate her, she just rubs me up the wrong way sometimes.” I don’t count that point as a lie. In fact, it’s totally true. “I can watch out for her, either here or at my place, between us we can figure something out. What matters is, she’d be safe.”
“You’d do that for me?” Wrath narrows his eyes.
“You're my best friend, ain’t ya?” The words burn my tongue like they are laced with acid. I swear I just secured my place in hell.
“I don’t know how she’ll take it, you know how stubborn she is.”
“She’s just gonna have to accept it. I can take the couch in her room or the one in my apartment. It’s only gonna be until this asshole and his show move on,” I point out, feeling like a fraud, but being close to her every night just became fuckin’ essential.
“It would be tight on the houseboat, and she and Eden get on so well I wouldn’t wanna test their friendship with all that pressure.” Wrath sounds as if he’s coming round to the idea. “Ya sure?” he checks again, still not convinced.
“I’m sure, but you can break the news and tell her that she got a new roommate.” I smile, wishing I didn’t have to lie or deceive him. I wanna tell him that there’s no better man for the job of taking care of his sister than me. But Freya’s right, he’s got too much going on right now to have to learn that his best friend’s a liar and has betrayed him.
I’ve sat and thought a lot about how I’d break it to him. I know he should understand since he’s shacked up with our president’s sister. Tawk made no secret of his intentions with Willow, and Wrath seemed to accept it. But with me it would be different. I’m not just his club brother, I’m his best fuckin’ friend.
“That means a lot to me, I really owe ya.” He pulls me in for a hug, then releases me and heads straight for the door.
“Guess we better get this outta the way.” He heads toward Freya, who’s dutifully bathing Josh’s knuckles in a bowl of water. The rest of the boys are back and the clubhouse is much fuller than it was before.
“Freya, it ain’t safe for you to be here alone,” Wrath starts, and she looks disappointed as she stands up with the bowl still in her hands. “I’ve spoken to Ruckus and he’s gonna look out for ya, he’ll be taking the couch in your room, and I don’t want you making it hard on him.” She looks across to me in shock.
“Ruckus.”
“I don’t want to hear no complaining. This is for your safety. He’s got commitments at the gym and if he asks you to stay there, I don’t want you to argue. I ain’t losing another sister, Freya. I’ve trusted this man with my life since I was fifteen, and now I’m trusting him with yours.”
“Jeez, no need to be so dramatic about it.” Freya sighs, and I can see that her response shocks him. It shocks me a little too. We made an arrangement last night to be friends with benefits, now we’ll be spending every night together for the foreseeable, surely that’s gotta piss her off.
“Good.” Wrath looks relieved that he doesn’t get the protest he was expecting, and she heads over to Eden and Freya, quickly getting back to work, seeing to the hero of the fucking hour.
“Will ya look at how that worked out?” Sinner slaps me hard on the back and laughs darkly. I got no choice but to ignore him, ‘cause I ain’t got a comeback. I’m a bad person, I won’t even try to deny it, but if that's what it takes to spend another night beside her, holding her in my arms and protecting her from the bad in this world, then I’ll happily be the worst of ‘em.