Chapter Two
Denver, Colorado
Wolf Connor, President of The Road Devils MC, leaned back in his chair and glared at the cell phone on the meeting room table.
“What do you mean that there’s no sign of that prick Michael?” he growled at the phone. “How’s that fuckin’ possible , man?”
“Dunno.” Ice Johansson’s voice over the speaker was as cool and detached as ever. “All I can tell you is that I’ve been camped outside the goddamn Desert Bloom cult compound for almost two weeks now, and he hasn’t shown up.”
“Any chance that someone is leaving the compound to meet him somewhere else?” Scars Innis, the MC Vice-President asked. “Maybe in town?”
“Nope.” Ice’s tone was firm. “Not a chance in hell.”
“You’ve been followin' people who leave the place?” Wolf asked. “Keepin’ tabs on everyone?”
“Nuh-uh. No need,” Ice said. “Nobody has left since all that shit went down back in Utah. People have gone in , for sure, but none of them have been Michael and nobody has walked out again.”
“How many have gone in?” Scars asked.
“Between what I’ve seen with my own eyes, and what the hidden camera I set up has shown while I’ve been at the hotel, I’ve counted thirty-seven men.”
“Shit,” Wolf said. “And what’s your take on that?”
“Well,” Ice said. “It’s a two-fold theory, really. Three of the men who showed up were definitely Guardian assholes that I saw at Gideon’s Garden of Hell in Utah, so it’s obvious that a few followers got themselves here safe and sound. They’ve returned to the mother ship, so to speak, and found sanctuary.”
“Okay.” Wolf ran his large hands through his already-messy hair. “No big surprise there.”
“Nope.”
“And the second part of what you think is going on?” Scars asked.
“It looks to me like the cult is gathering here in New Mexico, like shoring itself up. Getting as many people as possible in one place. Maybe gearing up for some kind of action or event, though who the hell knows what these people would get up to without Gideon or Michael. Without them, there’s no established leadership, so who knows who’s calling the shots, and what kind of fucking psycho they’re gonna be.”
“Yeah,” Wolf said morosely. “Unless Michael’s giving instructions remotely – orders over a phone are still fuckin’ orders.”
“True,” Ice conceded. “But my second point still stands… the sudden influx of men tells me that they’ve gathering their numbers for something . Whether it’s happening on Michael’s say-so or it’s on the initiative taken by some other dickhead, the problem is the same: lots of Gideon’s cult lunatics in one place, all pissed at Briley for shooting Gideon smack in the chest, and maybe at us for helping that night.”
“Yeah,” Wolf said. “God knows how much they’ve managed to put together about you and the boys after you took down the fuckin’ Garden. Accordin’ to Briley, Gideon had blackmail shit on loads of people, includin’ police officers, so if someone got a good look at you and Vikin’ and the twins, they could well have tracked that whole clusterfuck back to us usin’ CCTV from the town or the local roads, even without any plates on the van.”
“Pretty easily with a clear image,” Ice agreed. “And that’s worth worrying about.”
“Yeah. On top of everythin’ else we already got goin’ on,” Wolf said darkly. “Shit never ends, seems like. Lately, goin’ legit is way harder than bein’ in the one-percenter MC life under Kirk Jensen’s thumb. Livin’ honestly shouldn’t be this fuckin’ impossible, guys.”
The men fell silent, thinking about the staggering body blows that had hit The Road Devils in the previous three years. From the club’s tattoo parlour being burned to the ground, to Scars’ terrifying injuries after running into the fire to save his fiancée Zoe’s baby girl; from Jo, the club accountant, being stalked by her abusive ex-husband, to Jo killing him in her boyfriend Silver’s house; from Elle – formerly Iris, a woman-servant in Gideon’s Garden of Divine Light in Utah – escaping the cult in the back of Viking’s van, to her being kidnapped and the boys blowing the hell out of the compound to rescue her, along with Violet, another woman-servant. And now they had that asshole Right-Guardian Michael on the loose and who-knows-where-the-fuck, while Briley and the twins hauled ass across the country looking for a safe place for her to land after killing Gideon.
So yeah, all in all, it had been a goddamn rough ride and Wolf was right… it still wasn’t over, as this call with Ice showed all too clearly. Until they had Michael pinned down and neutralized, there would be no resting easy and relaxed, that was for damn sure.
“OK,” Wolf said abruptly. “Anythin’ you need, Ice? Maybe it’s time to send Holt and Cain out to join you?”
“Yeah.” Ice sighed. “I think we’re there, man. If this merry band of assholes decides to leave the compound and take off in all different directions, I’m utterly screwed.”
“The boys will on the first flight out of Denver, I swear. Today, hopefully.”
“Thanks, Wolf.”
“You got it. I’ll text you what time they land, and they’ll rent cars and get to you as soon as they can.”
“Excellent.”
“Talk soon,” Wolf said, then disconnected the call.
He stared at Scars with those mesmerizing wolf-gray eyes, and Scars stared right on back, waiting for his President to say something. Wolf was hands-down one of the toughest, smartest, most decisive sons-of-bitches that Scars had come across in the whole of his life, but none of that made his Prez indestructible. Wolf was looking wound up tight and stretched thin, carrying all kinds of weights and worries on his massive shoulders, and Scars was hoping that maybe the time had finally come for Wolf to hand some of that burden over to his number two. Not that he was holding his breath for it to happen – Wolf Connor was nothing if not fiercely proud and independent.
But Scars was about to be surprised, as it turned out.
“I need some help, man,” Wolf told him, his voice its usual ‘drinking whiskey at midnight’ dark smolder that sent the ladies wild. “Shit’s gettin’ real all over again, and I think I’m losin’ perspective.”
“What do you need?” Scars asked immediately. “What can I do?”
“Book Holt and Cain on a plane, and get the hidden camera footage from Ice. Have Elle and Violet take a look at it and ask them if any of the men that Ice saw looks familiar. Maybe they were regulars at the Utah compound, and if so, maybe the ladies know somethin’ about some of them that can give us a lead on where that bastard Michael might be hidin’ out.”
“OK.”
Wolf paused and gave Scars a long, searching look. Scars knew what that meant, so he waited for whatever question was coming. Then Wolf asked:
“Am I fuckin’ paranoid, man? Thinkin’ about some phantom cop who may well not exist, worryin’ about him either goin’ to the cult to sell us out for a payday, or comin’ direct to us for a payday to protect our people?”
Scars took a deep breath. “Truth, Prez?”
“Fuckin’-A. Always.”
“I don’t know, but that’s the point: none of us knows. Not Ice, not you, not Briley. And when we don’t know something, I think it’s safer and smarter to take the watch-and-see approach, even if that means a slight over-correction towards paranoia. If anything happened to Zoe or Keira…” He stopped talking, fighting the tightness in his throat that happened at even the thought of something coming for those two.
“Yeah. Yeah, you’re right.”
Scars nodded. “So – get the boys out to Ice, and show the ladies the footage from the compound. Anything else?”
“That’s it for now.” Wolf stood up. “I’m gonna check in on Silver and Jo… I think they’re due back from Open Skies this weekend. I’m feelin’ like I want the rest of our people here, close to home and the club.”
“You think trouble’s coming?”
Wolf gave his Vice-President a twisted little grin, one with zero humor or light. “Hell, man… when ain’t it comin’ lately?”
**
Jolene Angeles gazed out the cabin window at the lush green of the Rockies, falling in love with them all over again. She was a pretty recent arrival to Colorado – after being born and raised in New Mexico – and a big part of the draw to the state had been the mountains. Years of looking at them in photos had just cemented her belief that the Rockies were the most breathtaking backdrop for a life, any life at all. So when Jo had been looking to get the hell away from her physically and emotionally abusive husband, Brian, she’d gone looking for accounting jobs in Denver.
Coming to work for The Road Devils motorcycle club had been, without a doubt, the craziest and the best decision that she’d made in recent years, maybe in her entire life. From the word go, she’d been welcomed and respected, treated better by a bunch of rough-and -ready bikers than she had been by her own husband.
She’d escaped her marriage one weekend while Brian was away at a law conference, just packed a backpack and a single suitcase, rented a car and pointed the wheels east and away from the hell that had become her new normal. Stopping in Nebraska for an overnight stay had started with meeting Zeke ‘Silver’ Bennett in a bar, and had ended with her leaping into her first-ever one-night-stand.
That encounter with Silver had shaken Jo to her absolute core, and in more ways than one. He wasn’t the first man that she’d ever slept with, obviously, but he was the first to truly show her what her body was capable of, to show her what pleasure a man’s body could give her.
But it wasn't just the physical and sexual equivalent of an atom bomb that had left such an impact on Jo. It was the intoxicating mixture of tenderness and passion that Silver had shown her: being taken against a wall with abandon and trust was something that she had never experienced before, most certainly not with Brian. Silver’s touch had awakened something within her that she had thought was long, long gone…he’d brought her fully back to herself in a single night of lust and desire and need.
Then she’d woken up the next morning and he was gone. All that had remained of their shared night was an indentation in his pillow, and the faint scent of rose bubble bath from the previous night’s wild, abandoned frolics in the massive tub.
That had hurt, to be sure, but Jo had gamely shaken it off as she packed up all of her earthly possessions in her rental car, and made her way to Denver. After one interview with Wolf Connor, the sexiest-slash-scariest man she’d ever met in the flesh, she’d accepted the job offer on the spot – all the while totally unaware that Silver was a fully patched-in member of The Road Devils MC.
It had been one hell of a shock when he’d turned up the next day to meet the new accountant, and realized that the one-night-stand that he’d taken off on a few states over was actually standing in front of him. It had been rough – it had actually been hellish – between them for a while. But Jo and Silver had worked it all out, they’d opened up and been honest, and rediscovered each other while fully clothed. It had been nothing but a revelation to them that the sizzling sexual chemistry between them, in many ways, took second place to the fact that they really really liked each other.
Jo had built a whole new life in Denver, first despite Silver’s resolved ambushes and then resolutely with him, and she’d been happy. Deeply, truly happy.
Then one night Brian returned. Just strolled on up to her cute little house, knocked on the door and stupidly, she’d opened it, thinking it was the pizza delivery guy. What followed was about ninety minutes of sheer hell on earth, five thousand, four hundred seconds of pure, shrieking terror: she had thought she was going to die, no doubt and no hope. That had been soul-destroyingly terrifying – and the feeling somehow managed to ratchet up several levels when Silver showed up, just dropping by to surprise Jo after returning from his road-trip.
At gunpoint, Brian had forced her to talk to Silver through the door, and she knew – she just knew – that if she gave herself away at all, Brian would blast a bullet through the wood, killing the unsuspecting Silver where he stood.
She was utterly convinced that she was going to die that night, but Silver didn’t have to join her as she was brutally yanked off this mortal coil. So through the door, she’d called Silver ‘Zeke’ – his non-MC name that he never used anymore – and for the first time, she told Silver that she loved him. Then hoping against hope that he’d received her coded message, she listened to him turn and walk away, leaving her in a living nightmare. In those seconds, Jo realized that even if Silver hadn’t caught on that she was in trouble, at least he knew how she felt about him. She would leave this world telling the pure, shining truth to the man that she loved.
Thankfully, he’d known that something was very, very wrong, and so he crept into the house through the back door. To that day, Jo couldn’t imagine the scene that he’d stepped into: her on her bed, trapped under Brian, beaten and bloody, snarling and spitting at him, defying him one last time and with her last breaths.
From there, things got a bit hazy in Jo’s memory. Vaguely, she remembered Silver pulling Brian off of her; as if in a dream, she remembered the men fighting (though Silver had had the advantage from the word go, partly thanks to the element of surprise, partly because he towered over Brian, partly due to his black belt in karate). At some point, Jo had picked up Brian’s gun, and this is where things snapped back into sharp focus:
I shot him. I shot him three times, as he knelt in front of me and begged and blubbered for his vile, pathetic life. I blew his face off even as he wailed for mercy.
As always when she told herself I shot him , Jo probed her feelings, hard and deep and unforgiving. And as always, she didn’t regret killing Brian. Not at all. She did , however, feel guilt for other reasons. Namely, the fact that she had dragged The Road Devils into her murder and its aftermath.
Silver. Wolf. Scars. Ice. Viking. Cain. Jo knew for certain that the six of them had been directly involved in disposing of her husband’s blown-apart body, and then initiating a CIA-worthy coverup. She didn’t know the details – Wolf had seen to that damn quick – but she knew that because of those tough, hard men, Brian had disappeared, as surely as if he’d never even been.
Oh, she knew that the MC had a shady, questionable past, so she was sure that this wasn’t their first body dump. But still… this one was a direct result of her actions. It was because of her that they’d been put in the position of hiding a bunch of bloody evidence.
Evidence of what she’d done.
She felt guilt about that, and no matter how often Silver told her that the guys were OK with it, that they’d do it again a hundred times over if it meant that she was safe and breathing, she still felt guilty.
She figured that she always would.
This is my penance .
She heard a noise behind her now, and she turned from the strong, beautiful mountains to see a strong, sexy mountain of a man standing there. He studied her for a few seconds, those clear, shimmering eyes as astonishing to her now as they had been that first night in the bar. She still couldn’t believe that a patch of moonlight had left its heavenly home and just decided to take up permanent residence on a human face, but there it was. There he was.
Blond and silver, broad and muscular and bearded, always bringing a strange, rough grace and power to even the simplest of movements: shutting a door, crossing a room, talking to people, removing his jacket to show dark tattoos the length of both arms. Ridiculously square jaw, chiselled cheekbones, full lips.
Silver Bennett. My personal filthy fantasy brought to life, as I live and breathe .
“Hey, angel,” he said in that rough voice that was somehow the safest and most dangerous thing she’d ever heard. “You OK?”
She cocked her head at him, gave him a smile. “You want the truth?”
“Yeah. Always.” He put his cell phone in his jeans pocket, came closer. When he took her in his arms, Jo let herself fall into that body, with its muscles and grooves and ridges; she always felt like she was home when she was up against Silver. “So, are you? OK?”
“Better.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes. Much better.”
“No bad dreams again last night,” he observed. “That’s what now? Five nights in a row?”
“Six.”
“That seems like progress to me, but I’m no psychiatrist.” He curled his fingers in her hair, gently tugged her head back so he could see her eyes. “What do you think, Jolene?”
“I think…” Jo took a deep breath, said what was truly on her mind. “I think I’m ready to go home.”
Silver stood stock-still, holding his breath, his hands tangled in Jolene’s dark, wavy hair. God , he’d waited to hear those words from her, because as much as he loved being up here at Open Skies Ranch, he knew that it was possible for a place of healing and refuge to become an escape and avoidance strategy. Jolene had needed the time away from Denver – no fucking doubt about that – and he’d given it to her with zero expectations of timeline. She’d take what she needed, and that was that. Silver could and would wait.
Of course he wanted to get her back to the city, and he wanted to live with her. He wanted her stuff mixed with his stuff; he wanted their lives to meld and merge completely and for good. Open Skies was a respite, a halfway station to the final destination that he had in his sights: to Jolene bringing her entire life into his home. Then they’d start for real… in what would become their home.
But after the phone call with Wolf just now, suddenly he wasn’t so sure that getting her back to the scene of the shit-show was such a great move. Too many red flags, too many unknowns, too many complications with Michael, an utter asshole who just wouldn’t show himself. Add to all of this the fact that Jolene’s not-so-dearly-departed husband had had direct contact to Dawson Kinney (a former Road Devils brother who was nothing but a traitor) and Crusher Alcott (a living, breathing, one-percenter nightmare over in Utah), and there were far too many elements floating around that Silver couldn’t get a goddamn handle on.
Too many ways for her to get hurt again, just because I wouldn’t be able to see the danger coming in time. After all, what the hell would I even be looking for?
“Ohhhh-kaaaay,” he said slowly. “If that’s really want you want, baby, then we need to talk.”
“Talk?” Her tone was affectionate and light. “ More talking? Like the kind that led to us not talking on the sofa this morning?”
“Yep,” Silver said, and he saw her face change as he didn’t respond to her teasing. “This conversation is important, Jolene. If you want to go back, then you need to know what’s happening over there.”
“Oh, God.” He felt her knees go under her, and he slid his grip down her body to hold her tight. “Is it to do with – with Brian? Are the guys in trouble with the police?”
“Let’s sit, OK?”
He led her over to the massive sofa where they’d made love just an hour earlier, Jolene writhing under him, her nails scratching his back as she came, her sweet lips parted and her face flushed. She was deathly pale now, though, small and afraid, and Silver hated that. But he hated to lie to her more, so this conversation had to happen, as much as he cursed himself for scaring her.
Jo held Silver’s hand in both of hers, his other hand light as a baby’s breath on her cold cheek. Her dark eyes searched his face as he spoke, looking for any evasion or holding back, but he told her everything: he explained what Ice had seen over in New Mexico, and what (and who) he hadn’t seen. Silver told her about Briley and the twins on their cross-country hunt for a safe spot for the ex-cop to land. He filled her in about how Brian was scattered around Utah in pieces, and anybody in the cult who might have had any interest in him was either dead from the compound attack, or in the wind, scattered and desperate and looking for a chance to regroup.
“So… what is Wolf worried about then?” Jo asked him. “What exactly?”
“That there’s maybe still a cop back in Utah who was being blackmailed by that fucking cult leader Gideon.”
“Like Briley was?”
“Exactly, angel.”
“Well… so what if there is one?” Jo shrugged. “If I were them, I’d just shut my damn mouth and be eternally grateful that it’s all over, right? Gideon is dead, the compound is a crime scene, the cult is inactive. The women are all rounded up and being reunited with their families, if that’s what they want, and they weren’t privy to any information, so they can’t share anything much. All the men are either dead or on the run. I’m not seeing how a cop would be anything but relieved that the blackmail is done and dusted. I sure as hell wouldn’t poke my head up and draw any attention to myself.”
“But what if the cop wants to do a little blackmail or extortion of their own?”
“To who?”
“The cult members.” Silver paused. “Or us. The Road Devils. Whoever handed over the most hush money.”
“About what? With what information?” Jo stared at him, and Silver saw the penny drop in that sharp little brain of hers. “Oh. Oh, no . You mean – the night that the guys went and rescued Iris… I mean Elle, don’t you? The night that Briley –”
“Killed Gideon,” Silver finished. “And Ice and the twins and Viking blew everyone else away before peeling out. All on CCTV on the roads if anyone would care to take a look.”
“I thought you said that Ice took off all the van license plates before they busted into the cult compound.”
“He did.”
“So… so what would be visible on CCTV?” Jo was puzzled. “Just a – a van speeding away? What’s to be found from that?”
“Ice,” Silver said heavily. “He was driving and he’s – well. He’s pretty goddamn distinctive looking, don’t you think, baby? If you were a cop investigating that fucking mess with the cult, and you saw a video with a van hauling ass away from the compound, wouldn’t you take a good, hard look at the driver?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “Of course I would.”
“So there we are.” Silver leaned back, took a deep breath. “What if Briley wasn’t the only cop that Gideon had in his pocket, and who he had investigating The Road Devils? Remember, Briley found out about us long before we even knew who she was… what if someone else out there was also checking us out for Gideon? Someone who knows our names, and our faces from criminal records and military records, and who knows where we are, and who knows all of our business addresses?”
“Then – then even if Ice’s face isn’t visible, or the CCTV is bad quality and doesn’t show much to use, then a clued-in cop could put two and two together,” she said numbly. “It wouldn’t be enough for someone coming in cold and blind, especially with no plates on the van, but someone with some background could make some pretty shrewd guesses who attacked the cult that night.”
“Exactly.”
“So… so Wolf is worried about being blackmailed to protect Briley and Ice and the twins and Viking? Like, he has to pay the cop so he doesn’t – what? Work with the cult again and turn you guys in, assuming that he knows about the New Mexico compound? I mean, Briley knew about the place in the desert, right?”
“Honestly? I think that Wolf is worried because he doesn’t have enough hard information. Everything is just ‘maybe’ and 'what if’. Lots of blind alleys. Wolf doesn’t do well with that level of uncertainty, baby. The man is a serious control freak in some ways, and the number one thing he likes to know is what an enemy or threat knows that can be used to hurt us. He also likes to know where exactly that enemy and threat’s ass is , and right now, everyone is just ghosts. Wolf hates ghosts, he specializes in dragging them out into the light and knocking their heads clean off. But right now, he just can’t find them.”
“So what does he want us to do?” Jo looked around the beautiful living room. “He wants us to stay here?”
“Nope. The exact opposite. He wants us close.”
“He wants us in the potential line of fire? That doesn’t sound like Wolf.”
“I know it seems contradictory, but Wolf feels better when all his people regroup and stick together. He’s a big believer in strength in numbers, and protecting his family, and he doesn’t think he can do that properly when we’re all scattered around the goddamn country.”
“How would he protect us all?”
“My guess is that he’d have you and Zoe and Keira living at Satan’s Bar, in the bedrooms upstairs, along with Elle and Violet. You’d be sort of locked down, and he’d have all of us men on shifts to keep an eye on things.”
“What?” Jo’s tone sharpened. “The women locked away upstairs, and you guys prowling around with guns on guard duty?”
Silver reached for her hands again. “I know how it sounds, angel. I do.”
“It sounds like I’d be trapped and controlled by a man. Again.”
“Hey,” Silver said gently. “If you don’t want to do it, then you just tell me, Jolene. I’ll call Wolf back right now and tell him that we’re staying here. Or if you really want to go home, then I’ll tell him that we’re moving into my place together, and we’ll just ramp up our security.” He stroked her lips, loving the sensual curve. “What do you want? Because whatever it is, that’s what we’ll do.”
“What – I decide for both of us?”
“That’s right. This is about you , what you can handle. You’ve been through hell, and if you need some more time before we head back into the wild unknown, then we stay here, in the wild known of the Rockies.” He grinned at her now, watched in relief as she returned his smile. “We do still have a couple more pieces of furniture to christen, baby, so I’m happy to do that.”
“Really?” To his eternal relief, her tone was teasing again. “Are you sure that we missed some, handsome?”
“Uh-huh.” Watching her eyes, Silver parted her bathrobe, his thumbs just grazing her nipples. Jo arched at even that slight touch, her breath coming a bit faster, a bit tighter. “For instance, we haven’t made love on the chair by the door.”
Jo huffed out a laugh which ended on a squeak as his fingers slid down her belly, skimmed her pussy. “The spindly wooden one? It would never take our weight.”
“I was thinking maybe you’d sit on it while I kneeled down in front of you.”
“Oh, yeah?” Jo tried to look casual. “What would you be doing down there?”
“You know what I’d be doing,” he growled. “So get naked, hop that hot little ass over to that chair, and open those legs, angel. You’re going to come on my tongue in the next ten minutes.”
It was actually seven minutes later that Jo did exactly that, her head thrown back, her legs wrapped around Silver’s shoulders, her whole body shaking with release, gasping that she loved him. And just nine minutes after that – after Silver had dragged her to the carpeted floor, flipped her over and taken her from behind, his breath hot and harsh in her ear – they were in a tangled, exhausted, sated heap on the floor, Jo’s head against Silver’s chest, his arms holding her and calming her.
That was when Jo lifted her face and told Silver that she wanted to go home: she wanted to go to his home and make it a home that they shared. She told him that she was ready to do what had to be done to reclaim the life that she’d worked so hard to build up in Denver, and she needed him beside her while she did that.
Silver smiled. “That’s my girl. My kick-ass little angel.”
“I’m scared, though,” she said. “I mean, this is what I want to do, and it’s the absolutely right thing to do… but I’m not a lunatic. I know what Wolf is worried about and why.”
“And you’re going to do it anyway.” Silver kissed her, brief and hard. “ We are.”
“Damn straight, querido .”
“I love you, baby, so damn much. You're gonna thrive and be amazing. You know that, right?”
“You think?”
“I do think.” He tucked the top of her head under his chin, holding her close and breathing in the scent of her tumbled hair. “And I'm gonna make it my personal mission to make sure of it.”