Chapter 56
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
F ear clogged her throat at Viper’s promise. She wished he had waited to make the threat once she was in the free and clear instead of still standing in the middle of them.
The loud roar of motorcycles coming from behind them made the bikers holding her turn their heads.
Even though she easily recognized Stud, his brother, Calder, and their men following them, she still didn’t heave a sigh of relief. This was not going to be pretty, and she was standing smackdab in the middle of this mess. She didn’t have to be told these bikers were the reason Moon had told her not to come into town. From the way he was still looking at her, she was almost as afraid of him as of the bikers surrounding her.
At least he wouldn’t kill her and leave her body to be found years later, she tried to calm herself.
“Let the woman go,” Viper barked out his order.
“You’ll let us go if we do?” the biker holding her yelled back.
“No, but we’ll let you fight for your life instead of cutting you down where you’re standing. Maybe a couple of you can still come out alive.”
“Doesn’t seem like much of a choice.”
Viper shrugged. “Only one you’re going to get. You fucked around and found out.”
The biker holding her reached for something at his side. The next thing she knew, a knife was being pressed against her belly.
“I’m willing to bet this little mama is carrying one of your kids. Am I wrong?”
“You’re not as stupid as I thought,” Viper said snidely.
“Not stupid enough to let go of the only thing that could keep me alive.”
Viper stared at him in disgust. “ Me ? Not us ? Wow, they got a friend in you, don’t they?”
The knife jabbed at her when the man holding her wildly looked around him. “I meant us,” he corrected himself. “You know I meant us!” the goon shouted at his friends. “He’s trying to get us to turn against each other!”
“Move the knife; you’re hurting her.” Moon remained casually sitting on his motorcycle.
The knife against her eased back.
“You’ve got five seconds to step away from her, or you’re going to be lying on the ground next to your buddy,” Moon stated in an impassive voice.
Larissa saw her life flash before her eyes at the look settling on her attacker’s face. He wasn’t going to let her go. He thought using her would keep him alive.
One second, she was held pressed against his side, and the next, chaos erupted as the man holding her fell forward onto the gravel.
The bikers started pulling out their weapons while they all scattered, trying to find a place to use as cover.
Finding herself free, she started running toward The Last Riders when the one called T-bone caught her by the back of her shirt.
She had no more been forced to a stop than he was jolted backward by a bullet hole between his eyes.
She was pulled down on top of him, and started screaming at his sightless eyes so close to her face, unaware Moon’s bike had shot forward and was right in front of her.
Hysterical, she didn’t hear Moon’s loud yell of, “Get on, Larissa!”
She couldn’t make her body cooperate, frozen in fear that one of the bullets she could hear being shot would strike her.
“Dammit, Larissa!” Moon shouted.
A rough hand jerked her to her feet and practically carried her to Moon’s bike. Then Ginny’s husband roughly sat her down on the back of Moon’s motorcycle.
“Hold on.”
Gavin’s warning was the only one she was given before Moon’s bike took off, weaving through The Last Riders and the Destructors.
She belatedly realized The Last Riders had protectively surrounded them, providing them cover from the mayhem. She expected to be struck by a bullet at any second, until Moon went around a curve. As she held on to his waist with a death grip, they headed toward another curve. Instead of being frightened of the speed he was traveling, she felt safe and protected at the skillful way he handled his motorcycle.
When they turned another curve, Larissa saw the road had been blocked off by two cars with road flares spread across both lanes. Several cars were stopped, waiting for the cars to be moved. A third car had been parked off to the side, on the gravel. Sex Piston and Crazy Bitch were standing in front of it.
Decreasing his speed, Moon rode his motorcycle to where they were stopped.
“You know what to do,” he ordered the women.
Sex Piston and Crazy Bitch nodded.
“Come on, Larissa. You’re coming with us.” Sex Piston reached for her arm to help her off the motorcycle.
Grateful, she let her help her off then lead her to the car where Crazy Bitch had opened the back door.
As she started to get inside, Larissa watched Moon take off back in the direction they had come from.
“Moon!”
He was going back into that craziness.
Wanting to stop him, she tried to get back out of the car, but Crazy Bitch slammed the door shut before she could.
Sex Piston, who had gotten in the driver’s seat, turned around. “Keep your ass back there.”
“He’s going to get himself killed! They’re shooting at each other!” Larissa yelled as Crazy Bitch got into the passenger seat, slamming her own door.
“Your man isn’t the only one out there risking his life to get you safe,” Sex Piston told her as she maneuvered her car onto the road in the direction of Jamestown. “Girl, you might as well learn this lesson now: our men belong to a brotherhood. When one man puts their life on the line, they all do. That means until the danger is over, they’re all in. Then they ride away together or not at all.”
The harsh reality of being with a man belonging to motorcycle club hit her full force. Was she willing to live with the fact that Moon would be regularly putting his life in danger every time one of the club members needed him?
Did she really have a choice? When those bikers had tried to shove her into the back seat of her car, she knew if they succeeded, her life would be over. Despite overwhelming concern for her unborn child, it had been Moon whom she’d fought to keep herself alive for. Deep down, she knew he would recover from her death with little or no damage, but he would be burdened with the grief of losing his child for the rest of his life. That, she couldn’t bear for him. She loved him too much to ever let him experience that type of grief. She pressed her trembling lips together knowing the battle she had been fighting about loving Moon was over. She had lost. Somehow, she knew it wouldn’t be the last victory he would claim in the future.