Chapter 20
Annalese
T hese men. I don’t know exactly what to make of them. Haze gunned down Trevor and Rick—or whatever his real name was—in cold blood. My brain automatically corrects me. It wasn’t exactly cold blood. He was rescuing me and protecting himself. My heart was in my throat when that hired gun shot him right where his beautiful heart beats. I thought I had lost him forever. Even though he was wearing body armor and survived, it still humbles me that he put himself between me and danger. This man took a bullet for me. He also stood up to his club president when he was confronted about deviating from the plan in order to save me.
If I’m being honest, I’m not only head over heels in love with him, I’m also in awe of him. I gaze up at Haze, as his brother, Vapor, and his brother-in-law, Tracker come up on either side of us. This feels like where I belong, with Haze and his family. Regardless of the fact that they are bikers, they’re good men.
Suddenly something cold and clammy touches my leg. I jump back when a bloody hand tries to grab my ankle. “What the hell,” I gasp.
We look down to see that Greg has somehow crawled a few feet closer. Vapor moves forward at the same time that Haze pulls me back. Greg gets a boot to his face and Vapor growls, “Do not touch my brother’s old lady, you stupid fucker.”
“I just want to talk to her,” Greg says tiredly. My stepbrother looks like he got mangled by a meat grinder. His face is bruised, scratched, and bloody. It might not be very compassionate of me, but all I can think of is ‘good’. After he and Trevor tried to have me killed, any shred of affection I might have had remaining had gone.
I squat down several feet out of his reach, “I don’t understand why you did this. Our father left you all his money. It must have been millions. Couldn’t you be satisfied with that?”
“You don’t understand,” he gasps.
Before he can go on, a van pulls up and a man I recognize as their club medic jumps out. “Is everyone okay? Where’s the woman we rescued? Let me have a look at her.”
I come to my feet and tell him, “I’m fine. I don’t have a scratch on me.”
Greg waves from the ground, “Over here. I’m hurt.”
The medic ignores him and looks around, checking that all the brothers are okay.
Siege comes closer and stares down at Greg. That’s when I notice that Siege’s knuckles are all torn up. The look on their club president’s face is pure disdain. My heart unthaws a little for this gruff biker who’s made it his life’s work to fight for justice on behalf of people like me who can’t always stand up to the men trying to wreck our lives. “Frisk him, Haze. Then I want Vapor to drive the van back to the clubhouse while you and Anna try to figure out what’s going on. Rage, see that he doesn’t die on route. I want to have a word with him myself when I get back.”
Rage, the club medic, states, “Whatever you say, boss.”
Haze quips, “Don’t worry, we’ll get to the bottom of this, or Greg will die trying.”
Siege snorts a laugh that makes me think this is biker humor. I get it, after something like this, you need to decompress. However, the next moment Siege is glaring at Haze. “I’m serious this time, do not let that fucker die before I can talk to him personally.”
Haze sighs, “Fine, we’ll do it your way.” When Siege doesn’t stop staring at him, Haze throws, “sir” onto the end of his sentence.
I squeeze his arm, in a silent bid for him to shut the hell up while he’s ahead. “Don’t worry, sir. I’ll make sure my stepbrother lives long enough to tell all his secrets.”
Siege’s expression turns warmer when he looks at me. “You’re a good woman, Anna. Haze did well by choosing you to be his old lady. Cleo and Trix think the world of you.”
I can’t keep the smile off my face for anything.
But Siege turns to Rigs, “How about you and I see what this hired killer has in his cabin and then see what we can do about disposing of his body? At least he made the cleanup easy for us by getting himself shot in his tent.”
“I’m always up for burying the dead and stealing their toys,” Rigs says looking all kinds of serious.
When Siege chuckles, I realize this is another biker joke.
I look around, Vapor and Tracker are already carrying my stepbrother over to the back of the van. When Haze and I make our way to the back door, I see they have it set up like a little ambulance with a gurney and all. Once Vapor and Tracker climb back out and move around to get into the front of the van, Rage hauls himself up into the back and begins strapping Greg down so he doesn’t go sliding off the gurney when the van moves. I can hear him muttering angrily under his breath.
“I hate having fucking enemies in my van, bleeding all over the place and making a mess. This one is a fucking waste of skin. He doesn’t deserve to live. Putting money over his own sister. He should fucking be ashamed but I’m fucking sure he’s not, cause he’s a total douchebag motherfucker if ever there was one.”
I joke, “Your club name is Rage because you’re angry all the time, right?”
He glares at me. “Not all the fucking time, no.”
Suddenly, Haze is in the van and slams the back door and we start to drive off. “Yeah, that’s exactly where his club name came from. I’ve never heard the fucker say one nice thing. It’s just complaints, complaints, and more complaints.”
He starts giving Greg the once over. “You would say that, because life’s a fucking breeze for you. All I’ve ever seen you do is laugh, joke, and fuck club girls.”
“Cranky bastard,” Haze mutters.
I look from one to the other. “Wait. What’s going on here? Are you two really arguing? I can’t tell.”
Haze shoots me a lopsided grin and gave a little shake of his head to let me know they aren’t being serious. I sit back on the bench and wrap both hands around the bar running along the inside of the van. My mind was officially blown about most of what I had witnessed since Haze’s club brothers arrived.
I really should be sadder that Trevor was dead. I wasn’t though, particularly after hearing him trying to get Greg to let him and their hit man, rape and torture me. Yeah, fuck Trevor. He really was a pathetic waste of a human being.
Watching Rage tend to Greg while still muttering complaints under his breath made me wonder why he tracked me down, was it really just for more money? Curious, I couldn’t help but ask, “How much money would it take for you to be truly satisfied, Greg? How much before you could leave me alone with whatever dad left for me?”
“You don’t fucking need money. You don’t value it, or know how to invest it, or even understand simple shit like compound interest. You were meant to be a working-class person. That’s why you were going to college, remember? To spend the rest of your life working for minimum wage.”
Haze reaches out and slaps him across the face. “Stop fucking being disrespectful to your sister, you asshole.”
Greg spits a mouthful of blood in Haze’s direction. “Stepsister, you fucking crazy biker. Your boss said you couldn’t lay a hand on me. I’m gonna tell him what you just did.”
Haze reaches out to slap him again, but I grab his arm. “Leave him be. I want answers to our questions more than I want you to slap him senseless.”
Rage doesn’t miss a beat. He just keeps on tending to Greg’s wounds while muttering under his breath. “Can’t believe this crazy fucker thinks Siege cares whether you tune him, Haze.” Glancing up at my overprotective boyfriend, Rage almost smiles before looking back to Greg. “Our president said we had to keep you alive. We can hit you and torture you all we want. Lucky for you, I’m not into that shit.”
Greg rolls his eyes, “Yeah, lucky me.”
“What’s taking so long with probate, Greg? Surely you could get your money, even if I wasn’t there to cash in the insurance policy.”
“It’s fucking cute you think there’s an inheritance. Mom and Dad just spent the last fifteen years blowing money like there’s no tomorrow.”
“Don’t try to lie to me, Greg. I know my father was a wealthy man. You were the one running through money like there’s no tomorrow.”
“And why shouldn’t I? They were spending my inheritance at the speed of light. If I wanted any, I had to spend it right alongside them.”
“I still don’t believe what you’re saying. My dad’s law firm was paying him long after he took early retirement. He was the founding partner for crying out loud, so he had a share in the profits.”
“You don’t get it, Annalese. The partners all starting retiring, and the new partners couldn’t manage to turn a profit. There were too many new offices going up in the area. People were spoilt for choice. So Dad was spending his savings to keep up the appearance that everything was fine for my mom.”
“Now, I can actually see that happening. He always put her first, before you and me. She was younger than my mother and loved nice things.”
“The old man knew she didn’t have much time left on this earth and decided to spend his personal fortune making her last few years a never-ending fantasy of wealth and prestige.” Greg spits out. He groans when Rage wraps bandages tightly around his torso.
“You’ve got a couple of broken ribs,” Rage states roughly.
Tracker turns around and speaks to us over his shoulder. “I’m sure Siege can get Smoke to hire a forensic accountant to verify if any of that is true.”
“It’s fucking true. About a week after the funeral, I finally went back home to clear out their belongings and found a note. It was from Dad saying that Mom had a very aggressive form of cancer and instead of waiting until she was weak and in pain, they decided to take one final drive together.”
My hand flies to my mouth as the realization of what he’s saying sinks in. My stepmother was dying, my father was getting older himself but still had a few good years left in him. Yet they decided to end their lives together on their own terms. A suicide pact.
“So, the money that Anna was due from your father’s life insurance policy was the only real inheritance?” Haze asks.
Greg nods.
“Though if they found out your father committed suicide then you’d not get a dime,” Haze adds.
“The coroner ruled their deaths an accident.”
“I’m sorry, Greg. I didn’t know anything about your mother being sick or them having money problems.”
“Yeah, it doesn’t matter now. Your biker blew Trevor’s head off, and I’m a dead man walking.”
***
A long silence spins out in the back of the van as we make our way back to Las Salinas, and I turn the situation over in my mind. The realization that my stepbrother would have gladly killed me for the money. Hate is a strong emotion, but that is certainly what I was feeling for him right now.
My heart broke for my father. Even though he stopped loving my mother when he met Andrea, and his cheating tore our family apart, she must have truly been the love of his life. I find myself conflicted about the situation. On the one hand I hated that he threw me and my mom away and allowed Andrea’s jealousy to keep him from supporting us financially the way he should have. It was hard growing up broke, while watching Greg get everything he ever wanted.
Yet, I wouldn’t have wanted him to do without his true love. Me and my mom made it through somehow. Struggling together brought us closer.
Rage sat by Greg’s side staring down at him, like he was considering something. After a long few moments, he speaks, “You and Trevor were a couple, right?”
“Of fucking course not! I’m straight as an arrow,” my stepbrother’s words are clear, but his tone is off, and he won’t look at us.
I sit up straight, not sure what to make of this.
Rage doesn’t give up quite so easily, “But you were intimate.”
“That doesn’t mean anything. Best friends do that sometimes. Why are you guys digging into my friendship with Trevor? You already murdered him tonight, so you can fuck all the way off with that shit.”
I rub both hands down my face, thinking over how fucked up this whole situation is. Why did my stepbrother try to hook me and Trevor up, if he was seeing him on the sly. Suddenly it hits me, “You wanted me and Trevor together so he could always be hanging round the house, going on vacation with us and shit. I remember you telling me if I accepted Trevor, I’d be welcomed back into my dad’s home.”
Greg’s voice was flat, “So sue me, I wanted to keep him close. He always had to have a woman on the side. I didn’t care if it was you or someone else, until I realized that if he was with you, he’d be welcomed into the family. Mom would have accepted it because Trevor was my best friend and it made me happy having him around. Dad would have accepted it because he wanted grandkids more than he wanted fucking air to breathe.”
I massage my temple, trying to rub away the migraine building there. Everything to do with Greg was always totally screwed up and dysfunctional. I noticed long ago that he was just one layer after another of drama, problems, jealousy, and this never-ending need for validation and attention from our father. I start to tear up because this whole situation is so overwhelming.
Greg’s voice turns sarcastic, “Don’t cry pretty princess. At least you still have your mother and your dirty little biker. I’ve literally got no one and am going to die a pauper. I’ll probably be dead soon and end up in a cardboard box instead of a casket.”
Haze leans over to look him in the eye, “Yeah, you’re absolutely fucking right about that, you stupid fucker.”
For once Rage is quiet. He seems to be contemplating everything he just heard. I have to admit it is a lot to take in.
I can feel myself shutting down after all the drama, the adrenaline is finally wearing off. I want to see my mom more than anything in the world at this particular moment in time. I just feel so drained.
The next thing I know, Haze’s arms are around me and he’s pulling me close. I burst out crying, pressing my face into his chest to muffle the sound. How could my family be so completely dysfunctional while presenting the outwards appearance of being the perfect upper-class family? How did I not suspect anything?
Haze rubs my back and just lets me cry it out as he murmurs soothing things to me. I almost didn’t notice how everyone else in the van is totally silent. Just as we’re pulling into the clubhouse, I pull back and notice that Rage has his hand wrapped around Greg’s wrist. My eyes lift to the medic’s eyes and know all the way down to my bones that this is the medical professional in him trying to support his patient during his time of need, even though he despises my stepbrother on a personal level. I give him a tired smile and jump out of the van the moment the door opens.
I just take off running. I don’t know where I’m running to or exactly what I’m running from. I’ve just got all this built-up energy that I don’t know what to do with. As I run, the sun crests over the horizon. Haze starts calling for me, until he realizes I’m not running away, I just need to do this. So instead, he jogs along beside me, just letting me run it off.
Feeling the sunshine on my face, I convince myself that I’m finally free from all the danger. My abductor is dead. My ex is dead. And I don’t suspect my stepbrother will pose much of a danger to me moving forward. The Savage Legion will see to that. It hits me that the brotherhood chose the perfect name for themselves.