Chapter 31
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
RATTLER
Fuck, these crutches are awkward as hell.
I’m trying my best to catch up with Ames, but she makes sure to keep at least one step in front of me.
It’s obvious she thinks I’m going to try to stop her confronting Stone, but that’s not my agenda.
If she wants to go head-to-head with him, then as long as he’s disarmed, I think she’s got that right.
He’s put her through hell these past few months, and she deserves the truth from his mouth.
She’s already at the bottom of the stairs. I, having found navigating the descent difficult, and only managed by sheer determination, am well behind her, as Freak and Tempest escort Stone in.
Stone’s eyes blaze when they land on her. He tries to move toward her, but Freak yanks him back. Then he catches sight of me, and his jaw visibly drops.
Raising a finger he points and snarls, “I saw you die. You and that fuckin’ man you call Prez.”
“Yet here we are,” Bullseye makes his entrance and drawls lazily, his arms casually folded.
“How the fuck?” Stone sounds stunned.
“Um, that would be me,” Pippa retorts, having exited her office. She’s got baby Jade in her arms, clearly having seen Stone’s no longer a threat. Nevertheless, Saint goes over and puts his arm protectively around both his old lady and daughter, clearly taking no chances.
He should be protecting his prez, yet he goes to his woman first. Then my eyes fall on Ames, and my gut tells me to move toward her and use my body as a protective shield.
And I would, if I didn’t need both fucking crutches for support.
Maybe I’m getting it now. My loyalty is to my club, but if shots started firing, it’s her I’d go to first.
Stone’s eyes go to Pippa, who’s currently projecting the image of a suburban mom, rather than the badass that she really is. If it wasn’t for her and her amazing brain and training, handling my crutches wouldn’t be a problem, I’d already be dead.
Stone sneers at her. “Sure.” He rolls his eyes. “And what did you do? Put in a call to the club’s explosive expert?”
Planting a kiss to Jade’s head, she retorts, “I am the club’s explosive expert.
” She’s not claimed that before, but after yesterday, I’m not going to question her appropriation of the title.
I do give a sideways glance toward Freak who’s looking amused.
“I hacked into those amateur cameras you set up and put them on a loop. All the time you thought you were just watching Rattler, I was talking Bullseye through how to disarm the bomb.”
“B…but,” he stammers as if unsure of himself.
“But I saw the bomb blow up. It was still on his lap.” He jerks his head back in my direction.
“I saw the orange ball of flame before it cut out. And the house has burned down…” He shakes his head as if he can’t believe he’s having to question the evidence he saw with his own eyes.
“Ever heard of AI?” she retorts scornfully. “I just gave you what you wanted to see.”
“The men I sent here?” He looks around. “Where are they? You’d never have turned them to work for you.
You couldn’t have fought them. You had only a skeleton crew here.
The rest of your gang shouldn’t have been able to get back from the rendezvous site in time.
” Despite the evidence to the contrary, he still seems unable to contemplate that there were holes in his plan, nor understand how he’s been completely outmanoeuvred.
Bullseye gives a slow grin. “You think Pippa’s just our resident hacker? She’s far more than that. She’s fuckin’ deadly when crossed. And…” His grin broadens into a wide smirk. “Your sister is badass. I have it on good authority she shot at least one of the assholes herself.”
For the first time, he spins around and looks straight at Ames, sneering in disbelief “You’re fucking useless. You don’t even know how to fire a gun.”
Ames just glances around and walks up to Words who’s standing the closest to her. “Hey, can I borrow your gun? I’d like to give my dear brother a demonstration.”
Words glances at me, and I give him a chin lift.
Then he takes his weapon out of his holster and hands it to her.
I grin when I see it’s another Glock, similar to the one I taught her on.
Taking it, she ejects the magazine and reloads it, then she adopts the stance that I’d shown her what seems like a lifetime ago, and aims the sight, pointing straight at her brother.
Her hands don’t give the slightest tremble.
“Want to say that again?” she asks.
Automatically, Stone raises his hands. “Don’t shoot,” he says quickly, and out of the two siblings, it’s his voice that doesn’t sound firm.
Bullseye raises a brow toward Words, who steps forward, covers Ames’s hand which is holding the weapon, speaks quietly to her, then reclaims his gun. But he doesn’t replace it in his holster. He holds it pointed down at his side.
Stone doesn’t miss the threat, and I see him swallow fast.
“They held the fort until Saint could get here, then it was all over for the men you sent,” Bullseye tells him. “We took five alive, though not all of them survived our questioning. But the one who saw the light called you on our behalf.”
It’s as if Stone had been thinking his men were somewhere around, that they’d suddenly rush in to rescue him, and now he realises he’s on his own. Any bravado he was still clinging to visibly melts away.
Ames steps forward, sensibly stopping out of his reach. “Malachi,” she starts, her voice hard. “For the last few months, I’ve been running for my life. Running from my own brother who wants to kill me…”
“I don’t want to kill you,” he cries out.
“Sure, you did. I heard you.”
His hands are lowered now, and he holds them out in supplication.
“You heard me on the phone that day you ran,” he says, accusingly, but doesn’t wait for her nod.
“At the time it seemed the only option, but then, when Rodion saw a picture of you, he came up with a different plan. He’s going to marry you, put a brat in you, then the money would be his, and my debt would be cleared. ”
“You were going to marry me off, against my will?” Ames hands go to her hips, and she blanches. “My God that’s archaic! You were going to stand by while he raped me?”
“I need the money, Ames, and hell, he wouldn’t have forced you. He’s a good-looking man. Look…” He moves his hand toward his pocket.
A multitude of guns are suddenly pointed at him.
He gulps, and with a quiver in his voice, states, “I was going to get out my phone to show my sister a picture…”
“I don’t care if he’s the hottest member of the Chippendales,” Ames spits out. “Unless it’s escaped your notice…” She raises her left hand. “I’m already married.”
“To this?” Stone doesn’t look at me. He just waves his hand in my direction. “I know it was all fake…”
“You don’t know shit,” she scorns.
“I should have killed him when I had the chance.”
“Why didn’t you?” Freak asks.
I step in, hearing he had an alternative groom in the wings, it suddenly all made sense.
“He had two reasons. Firstly, he was going to use me to convince Ames to give herself up. He knows her, knows she wouldn’t want anyone else to suffer, and if she thought she could save me, she’d sacrifice herself.
” I move closer to her, drop one crutch, grit my teeth as I take my full weight on unsteady legs so I can place my free arm around her.
As she looks up at me, I take advantage and place my lips on hers.
It’s almost impossible to pull myself away, but I do when I hear a pointed clearing of a throat.
I smirk, then grow serious. “His second reason was exactly what he just told you. He wants her free to marry someone else, hence the annulment document he forced me to sign. If he made her a widow, he would have had to produce a body, and there was a risk if I was found with a bullet in my brain that my death could have been linked back to him.”
Freak’s lips purse at my explanation. “But he was going to blow you up.”
I shrug. “Accidental death would work. As he’d arranged it to take out anyone coming to my rescue, cops might not have looked too hard at a bunch of bikers blowing themselves up.”
Saint raises his chin in my direction. “Bonus was he’d have taken a number of the club out.
And assuming we,” he points to himself, then waves at the other men who’d been with him, “Were too far away to help, he thought he’d take the opportunity to invade the ‘undefended’ clubhouse.
” There’s a roar of laughter at the well-placed finger quotes to emphasise the word.
Then he blows a kiss toward his wife. Even I grin, and my arm tightens around Ames, acknowledging she’d played an important part.
Stone shakes himself out of the reverie that my exposure of his plan had put him in.
He starts to get a sly look in his eye. “Look, it’s not too late, Amethyst. You can still annul this marriage, just sign the papers.
You’ll like Rodion, I promise. It will be a much better match, better than any criminal,” he sneers.
As my woman stiffens and opens her mouth to protest, he grimaces, clearly reading she’s about to refuse, and changes tack.
“Amethyst, sister. If I don’t get this money, they’ll kill me. ”
She places her arm around me, leaning in as if to prop me up, knowing without me telling her that I’m finding it hard to stand. Fuck, I love this woman.
What? I suddenly start grinning to myself realising it’s true.
“Sucks to be you,” Ames tells Stone, standing so close I feel as much as see her shrug. “The good news is I think the Kings have a cure for your gambling.”
Saint snorts. “That we have. A permanent one.”
Stone blinks furiously, then it’s almost possible to see the wheels turning in his brain. “Killing me won’t solve anything,” he starts, raising his brows and offering a twisted smile. “The Russian syndicate will just come after Amethyst instead.”