11. Havoc
Havoc
Aimee’s body relaxes against mine as the bike leans. Her chest presses to my back, and I soak in the comfort of having her arms wrapped around me. I’ve always known this is where she’s belonged.
On my bike.
With me.
I’m starting to forget why I was ever mad at her, even if she did disappear without a word. Or maybe it’s that I’m starting to realize there’s more to the story than I’ve been telling myself.
Guilt takes another sweep through my nerves with that thought.
At least she finally agreed to get on the back of my bike. I’m still in shock that she let her guard down long enough to say yes. For Aimee, it was never as simple as a ride—it was acceptance that this is who I am. A biker. A fact that constantly stood between us .
Leaning with the next turn, I detour from the road that leads to the Twisted Kings clubhouse. When I said we were going for a ride, I meant it. If she’s going to give me this chance, I’m going to take it for what it’s worth.
We ride until we’re so far out of the city it’s just us, the sagebrush, and the sunset painting the sky.
Only then do I pull to the side of the road.
“You finally had enough of me, huh?” Aimee climbs off first, surprising me by accepting my hand for help. “Is that why you brought me to the middle of the desert? To dig my own grave?”
She slips her helmet off her head, and her dark hair waves with the breeze. Behind her, the orange sky adds warmth to her strands.
“Nah.” I grab her helmet and climb off my bike. “You’re more likely to be the death of me, firecracker. Not the other way around.”
Aimee drops her gaze, but not before I catch a glimpse of her cheeks turning pink. And even if she refuses to look at me, I notice her keeping tabs from the corner of her eye. She takes in my every movement as I pull a blanket out of my saddlebag.
“What are we doing?” She kicks a rock with her sneaker, watching me stretch the blanket across the dirt.
“Sitting. Getting some space.” I shrug, dropping onto the blanket. “Getting some air.”
“Very funny.” She drops down next to me but keeps a foot of space between us. “Do you do this often?”
“Not really. Just when I need to think. It’s quieter out here than it is back at the clubhouse. ”
“I see that.” Aimee sets her gaze on the horizon.
At least she’s not scowling or frowning.
She’s not even glaring at me. As she stares out at the empty desert, she’s lost in her thoughts.
And while I’d like to take a moment to appreciate it, I’m not naive enough to think Aimee’s mood has anything to do with her finally letting her guard down for me.
Something is on her mind.
“Everything okay?”
She shrugs. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
“You’re just in a… different mood than you were earlier.” I tread carefully. “Figured I’d check.”
“Mm-hmm.” She slides her gaze to me. “Yeah, I suppose I am.”
“What changed?”
“Apart from Ghost charming me with his super sweet and sugary personality while he interrogated me this afternoon?”
I tip my head back in a laugh. “I’m going to tell him you said that.”
“No need.” Aimee shrugs. “I already did. Luna found it hilarious, which at least he seemed to appreciate.”
Her tone turns from playful to a little sad, and she turns her gaze to the horizon again.
“So what’s wrong?”
She shakes her head, avoiding my gaze. “It’s just different from what I expected at the clubhouse.”
“Ah.” I lean back on my hands, realizing what she’s comparing in her mind .
My nerves are wound tight as I stare at the horizon. The sun is a breath away from kissing the dirt as it prepares to set.
“How long were you with the Iron Sinners, Aimee?” I’ve avoided this question up until now because I’m a coward.
It’s easier to think she was taken around the same time as Reagan and that they didn’t get the chance to do anything too terrible to her. But when I turn to find her bathed in the glow of the setting sun with a broken look in her eyes, I know that’s not the case.
How could anyone hurt her?
My firecracker.
The most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on. Inside and out.
Aimee shrugs. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Really?”
She looks at me. Really looks at me for the first time in years. Nothing but raw honesty shines in her eyes.
It might have been her discussion with Ghost, or seeing the shop, or the ride.
Maybe it’s the effect of being out here where nothing but earth and wind can hear our secrets.
But her eyebrows furrow, and the barriers I’ve been scaling since I first saw her at the top of the staircase are a little lower.
“How long, Aimee?” I ask again.
Finally, she answers, “Which time?”
Two words that send ice shooting through my veins.
“What do you mean by that?”
“You haven’t talked to Ghost yet? ”
I shake my head. “How many times were you with the Iron Sinners?”
And how many men am I going to need to skin to make them pay for it?
At least I manage to keep that question to myself.
Aimee lies down, relaxing back on the blanket with hands clasped over her stomach. “I was with them twice. This recent time it was only for a couple of weeks. But before…” She bites her lip, her gaze drifting to me. “Are you going to hover and stare at me while I tell this story?”
I lie down on the blanket beside her. The last splashes of orange and red start to fade as the blues of night fill the sky above us.
“I told Ghost bits and pieces because he asked about my connection to them. But the rest…” She sighs, but it doesn’t seem to ease the tension. “About a year after you shipped out, something happened.”
My gut turns to lead with that admission, and I wish I didn’t expect those words from her. That I hadn’t already started assuming the Iron Sinners played a role in her disappearing on me when my club found her in that basement.
It was easier to hate her, so that’s what I did. But deep down, I knew she wouldn’t have gone quiet on me like that without a reason.
It didn’t make sense, but I was too far away to dig into it, so I let it go.
I let it go.
Fuck .
“Remember my photography program?” she asks, pulling me back to the present.
I clear my throat. “Yeah.”
“I was up late one night putting together a project when the house alarm went off. I thought it was a mistake because it stopped after only a second. But then…” She grips the bridge of her nose between her thumb and index finger, closing her eyes.
“My father ran into my room and told me to hide, but it was too late. And there were too many of them.”
“Iron Sinners?”
She nods, dropping her hand. “They took us back to their clubhouse. That was the first time I saw it.”
“That doesn’t make any fucking sense.” I wipe my palm over my face. “You had no ties to the club. Why would they just show up—”
“I had you.”
I turn to look at her, but she refuses to do the same. “No one knew about you. Not my club. Not my enemies. I made sure of it. And if they did, and that’s the reason they came for you, the first thing they would have done is gloat about it to the Twisted Kings.”
“Maybe they did, and your club just didn’t tell you. You weren’t there anymore.”
I don’t like that answer any better.
“It doesn’t really matter.” Aimee sighs.
“The Iron Sinners took us, and once Titan figured out my dad was a lawyer, he decided that was more important than anything else he was planning. They locked him away and forced him to help with God only knows what, and they kept me as leverage to make sure he cooperated.”
“How long, Aimee?” I don’t know if I’m ready for the answer, but I need it.
All this time, I thought the love of my life had walked away from us, and now that I know the Iron Sinners took her—that they’re the reason she stopped responding to me—I’m itching to burn this city to the ground so they pay.
“Eleven months.” Her answer is nearly a whisper. “But it felt like longer. That place,”—she shakes her head—“it’s not like your clubhouse. Titan isn’t like Steel.”
She wipes beneath her lashes, refusing to let so much as a tear fall before she blinks them away. And I’m thankful she had so much fight in her because most girls who spend time with the Iron Sinners don’t leave as whole as she still seems to be.
“Titan—”
“I don’t want to talk about being there. Or what happened. Or any of it. So please don’t ask me whatever it is you’re going to say because I’m tired enough that I might actually answer you, Levi.”
“Understood.” That single word burns my throat, but I mean it.
Even if it’s going to eat me up inside.
“I’m going to have a talk with Steel.” I swallow hard. “I’ll find out if the Iron Sinners came to the club after you were taken. If we’re the reason they did it.”
“It doesn’t even matter anymore. ”
“Of course it fucking matters.” My voice is louder than I intend, swallowed by an empty desert.
But I’m tearing apart.
My enemies took her. The only girl who ever made me want to do something more with my life. And I was too far away to do anything about it. Aimee suffered because of me.
I wrangle that regret and swallow it down. I do what I do best: bring logic to the situation and pretend I’m keeping it together for the people around me.
“Besides, if you were originally a bargaining chip for them to get to the Twisted Kings, that might still be the case now. It’s my job to figure that out.”
I drag my hands through my hair and close my eyes, trying to reconcile all the mistakes I made. All the ways I did this wrong.
“I guess some things don’t change, do they?” Aimee leans her head to look at me. “You’re still always trying to fix things, no matter how unfixable they are.”
That comment shouldn’t make me laugh, but an unamused breath comes out regardless. “It wouldn’t have come to that if I’d done more sooner. I should have known you wouldn’t have just vanished. That house was all wrong.”
Aimee tenses. “The house?”
“After you stopped writing, I had this feeling that something was off. I was overseas, so I asked Steel to swing by your father’s house.
He said it was empty and there was a For Sale sign out front.
My gut told me something wasn’t right, but I didn’t fucking listen.
When Ghost couldn’t trace you or your father, I should have come back sooner—”
“You had your club look for me?” Aimee rolls onto her side, her face screwing up when I turn to face her.
“Of course I did. You just stopped answering my letters. What else would I do?”
“I—” She cuts herself off as something swells in her expression. Too many emotions mix together to read any of them clearly. “Thank you.”
“You shouldn’t thank me.” My throat is tight. “It didn’t do any good.”
Her fingers brush mine with such hesitancy, I think she’ll pull away immediately.
But she doesn’t. She laces her fingers through mine, her gaze drifting down to our clasped hands.
And as bad as I want to roll to face her, I don’t for fear of scaring her away.
I stay on my back, committing her face to memory while she stares at our hands.
“Maybe it didn’t.” She brushes her thumb over my hand. “But it’s good to know at least.”
I lift my gaze to the sky and wish that were enough.
I wish for a lot of things that aren’t possible.
But the conversation ends there. Aimee rests her head beside me until the silent desert is filled with the hum of her steady breath as she falls asleep. The night becomes colder, but I don’t move.
I can’t.
I stare at the stars and wonder why it is that I can’t just grab this hourglass and flip it. Go back in time until I’m able to fix this.
I lie in the desert until my back aches from the hard dirt and rocks. But I don’t move because I deserve to suffer for failing Aimee.
It isn’t until night has fully settled that I finally dare to roll onto my side and face her. Surprised how she still manages to look so peaceful when she sleeps. I brush a silky strand of hair off her forehead and trace the cut of a scar through her eyebrow.
Wounds I can see.
Simpler than the ones I can’t.
I lie in the darkness and make a promise to the stars that I’ll do it right this time. For her. For us.
“When do you meet with your recruiter?” Aimee snaps my picture.
She lured me to the Strip to take shots of tourists for a photography project, but every so often, she turns the camera on me.
“Next week.”
“That’s soon.” She lowers the camera, revealing a hint of a frown.
“You going to miss me?” I wink.
That’s enough to get a pretty little eye roll out of her. Aimee shoves my arm and grunts her annoyance.
“You’re insufferable.” She shakes her head, lifting the camera again. “Now, look happy this time.”
“I thought you were supposed to be taking random strangers’ pictures?”
“I will when you stop being so pretty. ”
Her comment has a smile stretching my face, and her camera clicks a second later.
“Got you.” She grins, lowering the camera again.
“That’s not fair.”
She shrugs. “Then don’t make it so easy to use your ego against you.”
I open my mouth to say something, but my thought cuts off at the rumble of motorcycles rolling down the Strip. Turning, I spot the glare of sunlight against chrome first. Until they get a little closer and I take in their cuts.
“Is that your club?”
Aimee’s question snaps me into focus because it would be bad if this were my club. But this is so much worse.
“No.” I swallow hard, seeing Titan lead the pack of Iron Sinners.
“Do you know them?”
“Come here.” I grab Aimee’s elbow and move us so I’m blocking her from their view. “Stay like that.”
The chorus of engines gets louder as the Iron Sinners roll past us. But I don’t dare turn around. Even when I know they won’t miss my cut in this thin crowd. I stand still, blocking Aimee from view until the sound of motorcycles starts to quiet.
Only then do I realize I’ve pinned her against a wall. That my body surrounds hers. That I’d be the shield for this girl in any situation, but that she deserves so much more. She deserves a man who wouldn’t bring this trouble on her in the first place.
Maybe the Marines will be enough to cut those ties.
Maybe I can be that man someday .
Aimee stretches her neck to look up at me. “You say I worry too much. But you’re one to talk, Levi. How bad could your world possibly be?”
“Bad.”
Aimee hums, narrowing her beautiful eyes at me. “Good thing you’re getting out then.”
If only it were that simple.