Chapter Seventeen
Theo
I twist the throttle and lean to the right, briefly riding the shoulder to zip around an SUV.
The speedometer steadily climbs, and with each number, the wind in my brain clears.
But it doesn’t matter how loud the exhaust roars or the wind howls, I can still hear her fucking voice.
That little breath hitch when my hand went around her throat still plays on repeat at a deafening volume.
James was right. She’s gotten too far under my skin. I’ve only ever felt that blinding rage mixed with drowning desire with one other woman.
And her death nearly ended me.
“FUCK!” My shout is lost to the rushing air as the needle tips into triple digits. I fly down the center of a somewhat empty two-lane highway until the red tinge fades from my vision.
My next breath feels cleaner, and I let up on the throttle.
Ten minutes later, I’m slowing to a semi-safe speed several miles outside the city limits.
Dirt and pebbles kick up behind the tires as I pull off the road.
I stop next to a small cactus and push out the kickstand before climbing off the bike.
I’ve always had a temper. It kept me from sticking to a foster home for longer than a few months at a time and got me thrown into juvie twice before I turned sixteen.
It was Rocket who taught me there’s a way to secure a leash on my temper and only let it out when it was beneficial.
He and James are the sole reason I wasn’t thrown in prison long ago.
Sure, it’s still slipped my grip a few times, but never so quickly or without any warning like it did with June.
It wasn’t even the slap that did it. It was the accusation. The sanctimonious look in her eyes when she asked me about last night. Like she finally saw who I truly am under the mask.
What really pissed me off is I’m afraid she did. Maybe she realized I’m nothing but a hypocritical lowlife criminal happy to get other people arrested for the exact same crimes I commit on a regular basis. If she knew about last night… I shake my head, guilt forcing me to relive that conversation.
“He wants us to frame June Graves for murder. But it’s not her, is it? She can’t be a… fuck.”
Kip saw the truth in my eyes last night. My story about some bullshit debt June owes went up in smoke in that moment, and though I didn’t explain the details, he knows enough.
Not just him. His brother-in-law. A cop is on June’s trail. Soon, Lorry will learn that June lives with me and is apparently my girlfriend. If he hasn’t figured it out already.
“Maybe it’s a test,” James had suggested.
“What fucking for? To see if I’ll send my girlfriend to prison for him?”
“Will you please explain what’s going on?
Is Lorry right? Did June kill his cousin?
Has she killed others?” Kip asked. He was thinking out loud; he didn’t need us to verbally answer.
Maybe we would’ve had time to explain if Luna hadn’t come outside asking what happened and where June went.
As soon as I realized she was gone, I knew. I could feel it in my bones.
If I’d been five minutes later in finding her, she’d be behind bars right now.
The thought makes me feel sucked dry.
Something buzzes in my pocket, shocking me from my thoughts. James’s name flashes on the screen.
“Wanna tell me why I just found your girl digging through drawers in your bedroom?” he asks in a laughable interpretation of a greeting.
“Of course she’s snooping.” I rub my thumb and forefinger down the bridge of my nose and blow out a heavy breath. “Is she okay?”
“Besides a suspiciously red neck and a really pissed off attitude? She’s fine.”
I turn and stalk back to my idling bike. “We got in a fight.”
“I figured. Did you tell her about Lorry?”
“Fuck, no! You didn’t, did you?”
“Did I tell the already unhinged serial killer that me and her fake boyfriend slash jailor were hired to frame her for murder? Totally.”
“Hilarious, James, really.”
“Kip texted. He wants to come over and talk about it.”
“Not with June around.”
“I’m not an idiot, T. But what do you want me to do? And where the fuck are you?”
I give him my estimated location, then ask, “Can you get her out of the house for a few hours? Tell her she can go see her friend Sadie or something.”
“You want to send her off while she’s this angry at you? Are you an idiot?”
“She won’t do anything, trust me.”
“What makes you so sure?”
Absurdly, the first thing I think of is the way her lips parted and her eyes squeezed shut as she moaned and came all over my fingers.
I clear my throat and say, “Mutually assured destruction.”
His pause tells me he’s not at all happy with the command, but he still says, “You’re the boss. I’ll tell her.”
“Thanks. Make sure Kip doesn’t show up until after she’s gone.
I’ll be back in twenty minutes.” After a few more quips from James about how I’m going to get us all murdered, I hang up and push back the kickstand.
A ring of dust fills the air as I spin around and head toward the city and my mutually assured destruction.
~
“Is someone going to start explaining any time soon?”
I hear Kip’s voice even before I’m inside.
Our head road captain is usually quiet, controlled, and meticulous, so hearing this loud, ruffled version of him is more than unsettling.
At least I know June somehow listened to James and left.
She was probably eager to seize the opportunity to escape for a few hours.
With a heavy breath, I throw open the door and stroll in, hoping to appear more in control of the situation than I am.
Kip spins around at my entrance. His location between the kitchen, dining room, and sunken living room suggests he’s been pacing.
James is sitting at the dining room table, the dark bruise on his cheek and slightly ungroomed beard lending to his overall stressed appearance.
“I’ll explain, but you have to calm down,” I say.
“Boss,” Kip says, every muscle in his body taut. “What is going on?”
I let out a heavy sigh and drape my jacket on the back of a chair. “It appears your brother-in-law is a much better detective than I ever gave him credit for.”
Kip crosses his long arms, tattoos climbing out from under his sleeves. “There’s no way this is true. Are you fucking with me?”
“You know T doesn’t have a sense of humor good enough for a joke like this,” James says.
“Thanks,” I grumble. Then to Kip, “It’s not a joke. I don’t know for certain if June did kill Lorry’s cousin, but it wouldn’t surprise me if she did. June has a bit of a temper… and a very low tolerance for asshole men.”
“So, she’s a serial killer?”
“Kind of.”
Kip’s mouth drops open. “How can someone kind of be a serial killer?”
“T’s giving her more credit than she deserves. She’s one hundred percent a serial killer. She has some sort of revenge murder honor code and targets men who abuse women. In fact—”
I whip my head in James’s direction, my glare successfully cutting him off before he can reveal that June tried to kill me.
That part must stay a secret, because the more Saints who know of June’s failed plans, the more likely one of them will try to get revenge on my behalf.
And I’d really hate having to kill one of my own for laying a hand on her.
“About a month ago, I found her watching the club,” I say, filling the awkward moment with the story I came up with on the ride back.
“She was hunting for her next target and thought he’d be a member of the club.
I tried to convince her no one here deserves her vigilante justice, but she had no reason to believe me.
So, we agreed on this arrangement. She gets to know the Saints and no one dies. ”
“You mean you willingly let a murderer into our midst knowing she was spying with the intention of killing one of us?” Kip asks, disbelief in every word.
That’s where I felt my story snag, too. But it’s the most believable without being the truth. The best I could come up with in half an hour, at least. Still, I’m not sure how to respond in a way that’ll stop Kip from asking more questions.
Thankfully, James comes to the rescue, as he always does.
“She’s not a threat if none of our men are abusing women, which they’re not. And June already had plenty of evidence of our club’s one percent activities stashed away as a contingency, so we couldn’t just kill her. Besides, T didn’t want to kill her. He really is smitten.”
“I’m not fucking smitten.”
James snorts. “Sure you’re not.”
I glare at him. His help always comes with strings.
“Sorry, boss, but you’re something . That much is obvious,” Kip adds.
I fist my hands. These two will make me break our code by fucking strangling them. “Whatever. That’s not the point right now. The point is, yes, June has some stabby tendencies. But we will not be helping Lorry lock her up. In fact, we need to figure out how to get him off her trail completely.”
“That won’t be easy. He called me this morning to ask if I’d talked to you guys about it. He’s nervous because he’s been watching her house for nearly a week and hasn’t seen her once. I didn’t tell him she’s here, of course.”
“And he doesn’t know?” James asks, sounding just as suspicious as I feel.
“This is all new, June dating Theo and hanging around the club. Lorry was busy with another case and couldn’t get back to his June investigation until Tuesday.
Since it’s unofficial and on his own time, he only has so many resources.
He mentioned June arriving at her office with another woman on a bike last week, but he didn’t know it was Luna. Must not have seen her jacket.”
“You’re sure he doesn’t suspect June’s involvement with the Saints?” I ask.
Kip shakes his head. “No, I’m not sure. But I think he would’ve asked about it if he did. He’ll figure it out soon, though.”
“Maybe we should let her drive to work on her own for a few days,” James suggests.
“No.”
“T—"
“I said no,” I interrupt before I’ve really considered the suggestion. It’d be a good idea, and I’m reasonably confident June won’t try anything.
But no. Ubering every once in a while is one thing. Letting her drive her car wherever she wants is something else entirely.
“Either way, Lorry will figure it out. Clearly, he’s not terrible at his job,” I say. “We have to come up with a plan that’ll convince Lorry of June’s innocence without making him suspicious of us.”
“He’s been looking into this for years,” Kip says. “Anything you say will make him think you’re trying to cover up for your girlfriend. There are only so many crimes he’ll overlook for us.”
“Can you get his research? We need to know what he knows and what he suspects.”
“He keeps all his files for active cases in a safe in his home office if they’re not at the station.”
“Does your sister know the code to the safe?”
Kip shakes his head. “She doesn’t even have a key to his office.”
“Picking the lock will be easy. We just need to figure out a way into the safe so we can make copies of his file on June.”
“We’ll need to get him and Bethany out of the house for a few hours,” James adds, referring to Kip’s sister. She and Lorry have two children, but they’re both away at college.
“I could do that,” Kip says.
“Perfect. Then James and I will get in, make copies of the files, and get out.”
“We should make sure Luna is here watching June,” James says. “If she suspects anything, she’ll follow us. And I’m assuming you don’t want to tell her about this?”
“Fuck no.”
“So, a Luna distraction it is. She’ll have a blast.”
An image of how exactly Luna might occupy June’s time for a few hours fills my mind, along with an intoxicating combination of jealousy and lust. If I think about Luna distracting June for too long, I’ll be stuck with a raging hard-on.
I force my mind to move on from the daydream. “Once we have the files, we can figure out next steps. We need to do this quickly, before Lorry learns June is here.”
“I can’t believe you’re letting a serial killer of men live under your roof,” Kip says.
“You have no idea,” James mutters.