Sixteen
16
Tex
I waited for someone to tell me who the fuck Lick had in his arms. That raven hair was too fucking similar to Salem’s.
“Salem,” Pepper said as a tiny smirk played on her lips.
I’d heard the gunfire. The blood drained from my face, and I felt as if ice had replaced my veins.
“She’s fine. Just a little shook up. Seems that Lord son of a bitch wanted to take her home with him.”
“Lord? That was the fucking Landiagos? Did he touch her?” I seethed as the ice morphed into boiling rage.
I hadn’t realized I’d stopped walking when Pepper turned around and looked back at me.
“Come on. You can’t go back and kill him now. Micah let them go with a warning. The warning being Hatter and some ugly dude with a tattoo on his face. The Hatter guy was the first shot you heard. He was holding Salem when Lick put a bullet in his head.”
I ran my hand through my hair, trying to get some grip on the spiral of shit in my chest and head.
Hatter was Lord’s motherfucking brother. His only brother alive. The older two had been shot three years ago. He’d want revenge. He’d wanted Salem.
My eyes swung back to Lick as he reached the parking lot where we’d left our bikes. Lord hadn’t taken her because of Lick. I should have been in there, but, dammit, I hadn’t known Salem was there.
“Oh, and her boss was killed. Seems the gallery owner was helping the Landiagos smuggle in drugs, and he kept some. That’s why they were there. For Kendrix. I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess she’s never seen anyone shot,” Pepper continued.
I turned my attention back to Pepper. A single high heel shoe dangled from her fingers. That was odd, but I didn’t care why.
“She was here with her boss?” I asked. Why the fuck this mattered I didn’t know. The man was dead.
She nodded. “Yeah. They came in once or twice every week. They weren’t dating. Not that he didn’t want to. He had a thing for her, but she was either blind to it or ignored it well. Regardless, she saw his dead body on the ground with blood seeping out of his mouth. It’s going to be hard on her. She’d just began a fresh start too…” Pepper trailed off.
“Time to clear out,” Micah’s voice called out as he walked from the exit over to Dolly, who had been walking in front of us with Jars and Nina.
I watched her run to him, and he opened his arms for her to bury her face in his chest. I’d feared that his love for Dolly would make him weak. Seemed it had done the opposite. He was more focused now. Unlike Liam, who I knew was ready to hand the role of president over to Micah. His family kept him away more often than he was there or here. The fact that he even made it to church anymore surprised me. Every time I left Devil’s to head back here, I wondered if it would be the last time I called him Prez.
I waited until Micah caught up to me before falling into step beside him and Dolly. There were several things pressing on my mind right now, but one sat at the top spot.
“What are we going to do with Salem?” I asked him point- blank.
He glanced at me over Dolly’s head. There was a small pucker between his brow as he frowned, like he didn’t know who I was talking about. He’d just had a man shot over her.
“Is that the bit—woman Lick saved?”
I didn’t have to look down to know Dolly was scowling up at him for almost referring to Salem as a bitch. My own hand had started to fist. I knew it meant nothing. Just the way we talked, but Salem wasn’t a club slut or one of the girls who worked for us.
“Yes,” I said, trying not to clench my teeth and snarl at him.
“You know her?” he asked. He pressed a kiss to the top of Dolly’s head and winked at her.
He wasn’t taking this seriously enough. There were dead men in Pepper’s fucking bar, and we’d just made the head of a pretty damn big gang our enemy.
“That shit in there,” I said, pointing back at the bar, “Lick killing Hatter, just started a war. You’re aware of that, right?”
Liam would be.
Micah nodded his head once. “Yep. Lick chose to do that. I hadn’t planned on letting them take the woman. I think she’s a friend of Pep’s. I’ve seen her there more than once.” He sighed. “But Hatter pushed Lick’s crazy and got himself popped off. So, we go back to the compound. Lock it all up, get Liam on a call, and make our plans.”
We reached the others, and Pepper ran from behind us, where she’d been walking with Jars and Nina, to Salem. I allowed myself a moment to study her. Reassure myself she was okay. That the blood splattered on her creamy, flawless skin wasn’t hers. Her pale complexion and wide eyes didn’t ease me. If anything, it made the shit pounding in my head worse.
“You know her,” Micah said.
I jerked my gaze off Salem to look back at him.
No use lying about it.
I nodded. “Yeah. She lived with my mom for a few years. Bad home life. She was a student of my mom’s. She was special…to her. There with me when Mom died.” I left out the part that she’d been the air in my goddamn lungs.
Micah swung his gaze over to her. “I didn’t realize that. Then she’s more than just Pep’s friend. She’s important to you too.”
I hadn’t said that. “She was important to my mom.” The words were just there, on the borderline of sounding strangled.
He nodded. “Understood.”
I looked back toward Salem to find her eyes on me. The impulse to go ask her if she was okay was slowly inching its way up my spine, and it was getting harder to slap it the hell down. Especially when those cornflower-blue eyes looked relieved to see me. There was even some fucking color returning to her face.
Fuck.
“Tex!” Nixie cried out my name.
I reluctantly tore my gaze off Salem to see the other woman rushing to me. Tears running down her face, as if she’d been the one inside with the gang and held at gunpoint.
She hurled herself against me, grabbing on to my cut. “Oh God, I was so scared.”
I eased my leather out of her hands. “Easy,” I told her.
“I’m sorry. I’m just so glad you’re back. That was terrifying.”
“She on your bike then?” Micah asked, lifting his chin toward Nixie.
I nodded. I had to take her to Toxic Throttle. She wasn’t in any danger, and she was scheduled for tonight, as were the other girls.
“You taking her to work?”
“Yeah.”
He turned his head toward Lick. “You saved her. You get her to the compound.”
Understanding dawned on me, and I jerked my head toward Salem. She wasn’t looking at me anymore, but then with Nixie wrapped around me like I was the pole she was supposed to dance on tonight, I wasn’t surprised. Pepper was bent down in front of her, putting the heel on her foot. She’d lost it somehow. Probably when Lick was fucking carrying her.
“You good with that?” I heard Micah ask, and I turned back to him.
Was I good with it? Salem on the back of Lick’s bike? No, I wasn’t. She’d only been on the back of one bike that I knew of, and that had been mine. I’d thought she’d be the only female on the back after that first time. There had been more than I could count now.
“Who is that?” Nixie asked, not even trying to hide the jealous snark in her tone.
I ignored her and tore my eyes off the sight of Lick coming up to Salem. Seeing him touch her was fucking with my head, and Lick wasn’t someone you wanted on your bad side. He wasn’t mentally stable on a good day.
“You think she’s safe with him?” I asked.
“He killed a fucker for her. Hauled her ass out of there without a backward glance. I know he’s a messed-up son of a bitch, but he seems to like that one.”
Micah’s response wasn’t helping. It should have. She’d be safe with Lick. But I didn’t want her safe with Lick. I wanted her safe with me.
Dangerous territory, Tex.
I glanced down at Nixie, who was curled up to my side as if she had to stake her claim. “Let’s go.”
She smiled brightly up at me, as if there had been a contest and she’d won. Little did she know, that wasn’t it at all. She was a buffer. Something to keep me from making a mistake. There was no contest because the winner had been chosen long ago. I wondered if it would always be that way.
Walking over, I climbed onto my bike, and unable to stop myself, I took a glance in the direction I needed to ignore. Lick held Salem’s hand and steadied her as she climbed onto the back of his bike. Emotion surged in my chest with so much force that it fucking hurt.
She’d always looked adorable in a helmet. Seemed some things never changed. He was talking to her, probably giving her directions. I’d taught her how to hold on and lean with me. She knew it. I was sure she remembered. Her head nodded, and then she wrapped her arms around him. The smile that spread across that sadistic fucker’s face made my entire body tense.
Nixie pressed against my back, and her hands slid down toward my cock. I reached down and jerked her hand away from it. She knew that shit wasn’t allowed when I was driving.
“I can suck it before I get onstage tonight. You’re staying to watch me, aren’t you?” Her mouth was close to my ear, her voice breathy. She was trying too hard.
I cranked the bike and let the engine roar to life instead of answering. My focus was still solely on Salem. She was on the wrong fucking bike, and that was eating me alive. Her head turned then, and our eyes locked. But this time, it was her who looked away first.