Chapter Fourteen
Nero
Taylor is in the shower and I’m still sitting on the bed, dressed and staring into the open drawer by her bed, at the box of condoms.
How is it possible I’m jealous of a fucking box? Because I want to know every single asshole she has used them with. Tear the fucking hands of each man who has touched her before me.
I want to take the box and throw it in a fucking fire. Which is insane because if she hadn’t had them, we wouldn’t have fucked.
I’ve learned my lesson when it comes to being safe. As much as I would never regret Oscar, I don’t want to be one of those men who has kids with different women. Like my father. Although I’m screwed in that regard, if I ever want more, because it definitely won’t be with Sheridan.
Fuck what am I even thinking about. I grab my cut and boots and head downstairs. I don’t need to be in the room when she comes back out of the shower because I’m likely to bend her over the bed and fuck her again. I don’t have time for that.
I’m not going to bother lying to myself, it will happen again. I don’t know for how long, or when I’m going to have to move on, but I want her.
It worries me that she knows about Oscar. Women have got attached to me and tried to screw me over. If she tried to hurt me through him I’d have to handle it.
That thought makes me feel like fucking shit. My phone vibrates in my pocket and I grab it, checking the stairs for Taylor.
“Yeah?”
“It’s more than this one guy,” Blaze says. “And we might have a problem.
“Meaning.”
“They’re a gang. Not in the traditional sense, they’re fucking college kids, from rich neighborhoods.”
“They’re doing this for fun?” I grit out, my mind racing. “What’s the bigger problem?”
“His dad is a district court judge.”
“Shit…”
“It’s up to you. Stryker has never had a problem with high-profile targets.”
“He put his fucking hands on her.”
Blaze is silent, he would never ask, but I did slip up.
No one knows about Taylor. I don’t have to explain the things I do or ask my men to do, they follow orders no matter what.
But this is different. It is a problem. They need to know why I’m doing it if we take a district judges son off the map.
And I intend to. He is not only getting a beat down.
The fucker is a dead man walking.
“You know who the rest of them are?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, well, they need to be fucking stopped but we can’t let them know it’s us. Not if we’re dealing with this prick.”
“Understood. I’ll go talk to Stryker.”
“I want to be there, for him.”
It goes without saying so he doesn’t respond to that. “Anything else, Prez.”
“No.”
Blaze hangs up. The whole time I was talking I had one eye on the stairs. Taylor might think she knows something about who I am, but what she does see barely scratches the surface. I’m not a good man and she deserves better.
I should walk out the door, take care of the fucker who hurt her and never see her again. But I’ve always been a selfish bastard. She’s a good fuck.
Damn, it’s not even that. There is something about her that draws me in, that makes me want… something. I want to protect her.
“Everything okay?” Taylor asks, she is standing midway down the stairs, holding the railing with her good hand.
Seeing the bruises on her face again hardens my resolve. I don’t care how we do it, that kid isn’t going to see another fucking sunrise.
“I have to go. I have a lot to do,” I take a deep breath, and she comes all the way down the stairs but doesn’t approach me, she watches me watching her.
“Thank you,” she says, breaking the prolonged, somewhat awkward silence growing between us. “For coming around, and staying. I feel a lot better for the full night’s sleep.”
“Is that all you feel better for?” I arch a brow and her cheeks flush. “Come here.”
For a moment it doesn’t seem like she is going to move, then she takes the few steps across the room till she is standing in front of me. I stroke the backs of my fingers over the bruising, careful not to touch the delicate skin but enough for her to know I haven’t forgotten what I said.
She needs to know who I am. If she can’t handle that, then this is going nowhere. I feel bad for re-splitting her lip, but tasting her blood did something to me too. Fucking hell. I take out my phone and open the contacts then hand it to her.
“What?” she asks.
“Put your number in there and I’ll text you so you have mine. If you need anything, you call. It might not be me who comes, but I will send someone.”
“Noah, that’s… you don’t need to do that.”
“Don’t argue with me, Cherry,” I push the phone at her.
For a second, it looks like she is going to argue and I’d welcome it right now, cos I like it when she’s feisty. She blows out a sigh and taps her number into the phone. It says a lot about what the attack has done to her. I fucking hate leaving her alone, but I have no choice.
I walk to the door and she comes to see me out. “What if someone else can’t give me what I need?”
My head whips around to her. The thought of one of my men being near her like that.
“You know, if I need someone to make me the perfect cup of tea.”
“Cute,” I narrow my eyes at her, and she tries to hide her smile. “You need someone to fuck you, I’m the only one coming round.” Her breath hitches at that. “You’re having nightmares,” I add, getting more serious. “Same thing.”
Her head ducks but I grab her chin and lift her face up. I don’t need to say more, she understands. I need to leave before I do something stupid. And I need to get my mind into a whole different gear.
Outside I go straight to the planters on the windowsill and dig around until I find the spare key. Taylor watches me put it in my pocket. I’m about to turn away when she starts to laugh.
“What?”
“Dad had the door changed a few years ago. I didn’t even remember that key was there.”
“That isn’t funny.”
“It’s a little funny,” she tries to stop herself laughing. “And I’m not sure we’re at the key swapping stage anyway,” she gives me a sassy look then goes inside and closes the door.
The locks snap into place which goes someway to appease me.
And fuck me, I’m smiling as I walk down the path to my bike.
Going against what I really want to do, which is keep Taylor out of things, I will tell Blaze about her. I want a security system set up at her place, and Rebel has to know because he’s my VP. If anything happens to me, it’s his job to pick things up. Keeping secrets from your VP is bad news.
At the clubhouse I’m not happy when Rebel tells me we need to deal with the Cannon problem before the idiot wannabe bikers terrorizing the city.
“How did we not hear about this?” I ask him walking to the back room where the weapons are all locked away.
“Only a few have reported it to the cops. They’ve been getting more violent which is how it’s made the news.”
“Fucking assholes,” I snarl as I unlock a safe and grab two handguns, handing one to Rebel. Every gun in here is untraceable.
“Are you sure this is the route you want to take with them?”
“I don’t give a fuck who his daddy is, he beat her, he scared her. She’s having fucking nightmares.”
Rebel frowns. “Shit Nero, I didn’t even know there was a woman on the radar. You’re this fucking crazy about it, when the hell did this happen?”
“I’m not talking about it.”
“If it affects the club.”
“Fuck,” I rub a hand over my hair. “I don’t even know if it’s serious, I don’t think it can be. She’s just… Fuck.”
“You’ve said that,” Rebel grins.
“She’s Jesse’s fucking nurse,” I mutter.
“Shit,” Rebel says, watching me as I pace. “Well, that’s fucking messy.”
“Yeah, like I said, I’m fucked,” I shove the gun into the holster under my cut. “Let’s leave it at that.”
He starts to laugh as he takes the gun I offer and grabs another, loading up his holsters and locking the cabinet.
We meet the others out front. Rebel has already filled them in on what is happening tonight. As everyone gets on their bikes, a whistle makes me pause. I wait for Blaze. He’s not coming tonight, I’ve got him working on other shit.
“Chains got a text,” he says grimly.
“And?”
“They know we’re coming.”
This is some kind of ambush? My fists clench as I look toward. “Where is he?”
“In the bar,” Blaze says, his own face full of rage.
I call Rebel over. Blaze tells him what he told me.
“We’re calling it off, but we’re not letting him know that. We ride out, Blaze watch the fucker, see what he does. Text me if he tells them we’re on our way. Rebel get a couple of guys to drive out there. No bikes. They don’t engage, we need to see what we’re dealing with. Where’s Stryker?”
“He went up to the farm to get it ready for your other thing.”
“Tell him we have someone else coming up there instead. I’ll come back once he thinks we’ve gone to the club.”
“Prez.”
“I said, I’ll come back,” I snap at Rebel.
He nods and glances at the bar. “Raven?” He’s anxious about his sister. He doesn’t need to be, Raven would smash a bottle over Chains’ head if she knew what he’s done.
“It’ll alert him if she leaves. I’m not going to give him a chance to do anything. Blaze you, Gunner and Ronin be in there and be ready. It happens fast and quiet, no alerting the regular customers. Keep people away from the back hallway.”
Everyone agrees to the plan and we get back on our bikes. I look in through the front window of the bar to see Chains sitting on his traitorous ass, laughing at something one of the other brothers is saying, throwing back a shot as he does.
“Motherfucker,” I grunt.
As the engines all start and we move into formation, the little bitch looks over his shoulder and the laugh turns into a sly as fuck smile. The others move in close behind me before I get to see if he takes out the phone. But Blaze is there watching.
So many fucking assholes I need to deal with.
The real problem is Storm. How I’m going to deal with that shit is what I need to start planning for. Getting a look at the crew he has around him will help. First, we have a traitor to break.
Everyone is confused when we pull over but no one questions it.
We rode a mile out to be sure. Rebel refuses to allow me to head back alone and pulls Nashville over to fill him in.
As the sargent-at-arms, part of his job is to protect the Prez, act as a bodyguard.
I’ve never asked that of him but he can handle it if he needs to.
We ride back toward the clubhouse but pull into the back lot of the church so as not to alert anyone we’re here.
“This shit is messed up,” Nashville says as we walk around the back of the bar. “I know he’s working with the fucker, but setting us up like this? What is he gonna get from it?”
“That’s what we need to find out. And fast.”
“You think Storm is planning to take us out?”
“I think he’s always been planning something, only now he’s found an idiot to sacrifice so he can get what he wants.”
“What’s the plan?” Nashville asks when we go in through the back of the clubhouse and I fill him in as we walk into the corridor that connects to the bar.
I text Blaze that we’re in place, he replies, ‘two minutes’. We stand quietly in the dark corridor and wait. The door opens, light spills in but we’re around the corner out of sight.
“What do you mean something went wrong?” Ronin asks.
“I don’t know,” Blaze replies sounding panicked.
This is part of the plan to make him believe Storm has got the drop on us.
“Fuck what’s happened? Are we gonna have to go out there? We need to kick their asses if they’re going against the club.”
Sonofabitch. That he even has the fucking balls to say that shit. Blaze rounds the corner first and steps behind me, Chains is next, and he stalls when he sees me. He looks confused, his head turning this way and that, not sure what to do.
It’s clear when he realizes he’s fucked cos he goes to pull a weapon, but Ronin and Gunner are behind him and grab his arms. Nashville takes his gun and I move to stand in front of him.
“What is this, what’s going on? Prez?”
“Before the end of the night,” I snarl. “You’re gonna wish you’d never heard the name Storm.”
A moment of fear flashes before his eyes before I pull back and hit him right in the center of his face, knocking him out cold.
“Van’s out back,” Blaze says, not even the slightest bit bothered by the sight of Chains hanging limp between our two brothers, blood pouring out of his mouth.
They drag him through into the clubhouse and throw him into the back of the van. Ronin rolls him onto his stomach, grabs his hands and zip-ties them behind his back. He does the same to his feet, then pulls a black bag down over his face.
He gets out and slams the door as Nashville and I get into the passenger seats next to Blaze.
Fury and Rebel catch up to us when we’re halfway to the farm, staying behind us all the way.
This was not the problem I planned on dealing with tonight, which means that asshole gets one more day of his normal, pathetic fucking life.
He doesn’t know the devil is coming for him. And if I don’t get what I want out of Chains, he’s going to feel my wrath even harder.