Chapter 23
As I face Ogre, I flick my eyes toward Helo, just in time to see her eyes roll back. With no time to consciously think about my actions, I throw myself in her direction, my fist closing around her hand, the one that’s holding the detonator. I’ve faced a myriad of fucked-up situations which could have ended in my death, but I don’t think there’s ever been a time when my heart’s felt so much like it was going to leap out of my chest.
For a second, I just hold my fingers tightly around hers, my chest heaving as if I’ve run a record-breaking mile. When my blood pressure starts to lower to a measure more reasonable, gently I lower her unconscious body to the ground, kneeling beside her, then prise the detonator out of her hand. It’s only then I feel I can breathe normally once again.
Closing my eyes briefly, I send up thanks to any possible but unlikely deity that’s been looking out for me. When I open them again, it’s to see Ogre’s completely blood-drained face staring down.
He swallows once, then twice. “She wasn’t fuckin’ kidding, was she?”
“She never fuckin’ kids,” I respond with a growl.
“What the fuck’s wrong with her?”
“What those fuckin’ bastards put her through left her with PTSD. You know, the shit you were just laughing about? It makes her pass out.” I sneer at him. Gently I stroke my hand over her head, pulling her into my chest, knowing my heart is still beating too fast. It’s not about how close I came to death—she could have died. Something tells me that Queenie “Helo” May still has a mark to make on the world.
He gives me an incredulous stare, then sinks to his haunches, his hands coming far too close to my woman.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I snarl. “Get the fuck back or I set this thing off now.”
Scrambling backward so fast that he falls on his ass, Ogre raises his hands. “I was just trying to get the vest off her.” He narrows his eyes. “What the fuck? You’d blow yourself up and her?”
I shrug. “She’s got the right to a life, but one which is worth living. She’d rather die on her terms than anyone else’s, and where she goes, so do I.”
My explanation doesn’t make colour come into Ogre’s face. In fact, he seems to pale more. “You’re both as fuckin’ mad as each other.”
He’s probably right. But I don’t want to live without Helo, and she, in true hero style, would only go taking the bad guys with her.
As normal, after one of her blackouts, it isn’t long before Helo starts to stir. At first, it’s with a soft groan and a touch to her forehead, then she pulls down that same now-empty hand and stares at it in horror. Anticipating her reaction, I hold the detonator in front of her eyes. I don’t need to use words for her to understand how close we all came to losing our lives. The way her throat works as she swallows fast shows me how much she comprehends.
Ogre gets back onto his feet and holds up his hands as if trying to ward off madmen. “You let an unstable woman come into my clubhouse with a bomb strapped to her chest? What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
“It wasn’t me.” I narrow my eyes at Helo, knowing she knows as well as myself that had I been listened to, I’d have forbidden this course of action. As it is, it came too close to mutual destruction for my liking.
Ogre seems torn whether to believe me or not. He’s confused and I don’t blame him. “If not you, then who the fuck was the lunatic who decided this was okay?”
A gruff voice announces loudly, “That would be me.”
All eyes swing around to the man who’s just entered. But it’s not only him who’s arrived. All around, Dominators are reluctantly surrendering their guns. Having been so embroiled in watching the drama in front of them, they hadn’t noticed my brothers invading their clubhouse.
Slugger doesn’t resemble the cowed man who’d dropped me off, but Ogre recognises him anyway. He also realises the now hatless, strong, confident man with his back ramrod straight, with the voice oozing with confidence, bears a strong likeness to someone else. It doesn’t take the prez of the Dominators long to recognise the mistake he’d earlier made in letting him drive away. This man is no prospect.
“Travis ‘Slugger’ Winslow,” Ogre spits out.
Slugger shrugs, clearly not devastated by being recognised. He gives Ogre only a cursory glance before turning to me. “You can let go of that now.” He nods to the device I’m holding in my hand.
Instead, I tighten my fist. Has he gone completely mad?
Helo, now fully back to herself, has fire spitting from her eyes. “Is this vest a dummy?”
The Dominators seem to breathe a collective sigh of relief and some start flexing their muscles at the idea of there being no immediate threat. But Slugger disavows them of that hope in just a second.
“The vest is carrying enough C4 to blow everyone here to hell,” he replies to her casually. “That detonator though, that’s not the real one. I have that here.” He frees his hand from his pocket and reveals a device almost identical to the one I hold in my hand.
I couldn’t define exactly what I’m feeling right now. Rage, sure, but at what? If I’d known the plan all along, I wouldn’t have reacted the same. Both Helo and I had been taken in, which in turn meant the Dominators believed the ploy, giving my club the chance to infiltrate their clubhouse. But I could also, surprisingly, hug Slugger for not actually putting her in the situation I thought he had. In my head I’d been cursing him for being a bastard from the moment Helo had appeared. Now though, I realise that it’s this devious thought process that has made him into the man for whom all clubs have a healthy respect.
Ogre appears to be on my wavelength. “Fuck it,” he yells, his fingers brushing back through his hair before he lowers his hand to point an accusing finger at Slugger. “You’re a conniving fucker.” For a second, he lets admiration shine through, before regret covers his face. “You let us think you’d thrown Chaz out bad, and her?” He spares a second to glare at Queenie. “Why would she have any connection to you?” He slams one fist down onto the other, making an audible thud. “We didn’t think to watch our backs, believing all the danger was inside…”
“Letting me and my crew, well, Chaz’s,” Slugger corrects with a nod my way, “to walk in undetected.” He doesn’t even allow Ogre to react before continuing, “And now we’re here, why don’t we put the dick measuring aside and concentrate on what matters?” Being who he is, he doesn’t wait to be invited, and just kicks out a chair and sits.
Ogre must be in a quandary. His men disarmed, he’s at the disadvantage. What choice has he got? After a moment’s pause, he copies Slugger and draws up a seat, indicating for what’s presumably his inner circle to come closer. In turn, I grab two chairs, and Queenie and I join the group. After looking around and reading the room, Ogre indicates that his prospects should get the beer flowing.
While people are distracted, I lean into Helo. “Why don’t you take that fuckin’ vest off now? We’ve got the Dominators under control.”
“What?” she asks, her brow furrowing. “They’ve no hidden weapons on them, are you totally sure of that? And this is their clubhouse. They could have all manners of shit at hand.”
I just hate seeing her wearing it. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the terror I’d felt watching her going down, and only just having a second to take the detonator from her hand. Dummy detonator, I remind myself. But I can’t even be thankful for that. My heart had all but stopped as I dove to reach her in time.
“Then just take it off.” I glance around, my eyes spying Shitface. “I’ll get the prospect to hold it.”
“Chaz,” she says, in a remonstrating tone. “I’d rather I was at ground zero if this thing goes off. Poof, gone, not surviving as a bloody mess with body parts missing.” Her brows, rise in challenge, and the curve to her lips shows she’s part yanking my chain, but mostly fucking serious.
I turn and eye Slugger who seems to be overly casual with the remote device capable of mass destruction, noticing StoryTeller’s helping him to get the button taped down for now. But it seems all too much is depending on a small patch of sticky tape.
“Let me wear the vest.” I wouldn’t want to live without her.
Her smile broadens as she whispers into my ear, “Promise you this, Chaz. If it looks like Slugger’s about to lose control, I’ll give you a hug.”
Give me a hug?I snort when realisation dawns. Mutual destruction, as in she’d take me with her. Fuck, this woman. Even in a situation like this, she can make me laugh.
The sound of caps being popped off beer bottles has ceased, and the liquid is being downed. But even with liquid refreshments, the air is far from relaxed. My brothers are still holding the disarmed Dominators at gunpoint, and trust is the one element that’s nowhere to be found. I’m only too conscious that the only thing keeping tempers from flaring is the bomb worn by the woman at my side. I hope like hell that Slugger has a plan.
Before he starts speaking, Slugger rubs at his temples. His eyes then rise and focus on the prez sitting opposite him. He shakes his head slowly. “Already know it’s pointless asking you for information about who wants Helo taken down.”
A skeletal-like grin spreads across Ogre’s face. “You’ve already threatened to blow up our clubhouse. Reckon we’re dead men whether or not we open our mouths.” His shoulders rise and lower. “Rather take secrets to our grave knowing that she,” he jerks his head in Helo’s direction, “will eventually be taken down.”
Asshole.I cast an eye around Ogre’s men, showing not all are comfortable with the death sentence uttered by their prez. Enough, though, seem as equally determined that so be it if that is the only way out.
It’s an impasse. Before Slugger can speak again, Helo suddenly rises from her chair, takes the couple of steps that bring her face to face with Ogre, then leans forward, her hands resting on the arms of his seat and her nose so close to his I suspect he can feel the warmth of her breath.
“You and me? We’re so fucking alike, it’s a joke.”
Ogre rears back at her strange announcement, and, clearly uncomfortable with her proximity, uses his hands to push her back. A growl comes from my throat at his audacity to touch her, but a major part of me is too interested in knowing where she’s going with this, that I force myself to stay otherwise silent.
The Dominator prez stands, and now it’s him leaning into her face. “Ain’t nothing like you, bitch.”
Again I’m tempted to intervene, but also intrigued to see where this will go.
Helo throws her head back and belly laughs at his words. Straightening again, standing tall, back like a ramrod, it almost puts her eye to eye with his squat figure. Slowly her smile slips from her face. “Both of us are prepared to die.” Ogre’s eyes widen. Her hands open in a casual gesture. “When I signed up, I was made to write a will. I accepted then I might not return. Every time I was deployed, every time I took the helicopter controls, I knew it might be my last.” She shrugs. “Couldn’t let that worry me. Couldn’t be controlled by fear. Instead, I used the edge to do my job better.”
Ogre sneers. “And that makes us the same, how?”
She points to his vest. “You wear that patch. You knew when you put that cut on?—”
Without waiting for her to finish, he interrupts, “That my life might be a short one?” He snorts. “Better that than a slow death preceded by illness and having to have someone else wipe your ass.”
“You’re prepared to give your life to protect your brothers and the life that you know.” Helo stares him straight in the eye. “I’m the same. Before it was my country, now it’s my friends who have my back.” She shoots me a glance which I interpret means me and the other Soulz. “But ask me to make that sacrifice just to satisfy someone else’s insane desire for revenge, or whatever the reason is, then I refuse to comply. I know what I did. I also know there were a hundred different ways things could have played out. Don’t you think I’ve been over and over it again in my head?” Her eyes appear unfocused as for a few seconds she seems lost in the past. “But the delay to the helicopter taking off wasn’t my fault. Any decision to risk the storm and we’d never have made the extraction site. The Black Hawk could have been downed and all of us would have died. When we lost comms with the team we were heading to rescue, there was no way of knowing why other than the best guess that their batteries had run out. I had to balance the precautions I should take to prevent risk to my crew’s life with the wellbeing of those we were sent to save.” Her voice falters slightly. “It was nothing different to anything I’d done before. Only, this time, we fell for the ploy. When captured, I did all I could to prevent further loss of life, even though it killed me to keep my composure as I was forced to watch men die. I felt their misdirected hatred, their misassumptions that I was leading a cushy life while they were suffering. I refused to play into my captors hands?—”
“Helo,” I say sharply, then when that fails to bring her back from the past, snap, “Queenie!” When dazed eyes meet mine, she closes her eyes briefly, then when she reopens them, gives me a slight nod, giving me the assurance she’s back with us now. I glance at Ogre to see if her emotionless recount of her situation had any effect on him, having to remind myself he probably knows nothing of her past, or only what the person or people after her have told him. To my surprise, he’s now watching her with new regard in his eyes.
For a moment, I’m not certain he’s going to speak, and when he does, the two words surprise the fuck out of me.
“Chet Netherton.”
As a wave of what can only be described as pure hatred floods over Helo’s face, I can only think to myself, huh?