Chapter 7
Roishin
C arl knew what he was doing, sending me off with Bear . Instead of just one man to deal with, there were many. As I listened to their whispers and the names dropped, I realized that where you saw one Destroyer , there were many more behind the scenes eager to help.
And they all were armed and dangerous. Even Skinner , who didn’t seem intimidating at first, was quick to threaten me.
Bear ? He’d done nothing but threaten me. I had no illusions that these men weren’t deadly.
And yet… I felt safer with them than Carl .
And they truly didn’t know how far Carl would go to prove a point.
He adhered to one thing, his vow. And he’d vowed to make me obey him.
But it wasn’t the obeying he wanted. It was something darker.
He wanted to break my will, destroy my sense of identity, and reform me in his image. That was his goal.
I realized that about him a bit too late.
“ May I make that phone call?” I had to warn John that Carl was probably going to come after him or the children now that I wasn’t there to distract him.
Skinner was easy to read. He silently warned Bear that this was not a good idea.
Bear shot him a glare meant to intimidate and handed me a cell phone. “ Remember my rules?”
“ Completely .”
“ What are they?”
I rattled off all the demands he made by counting on my fingers ending with, “ You’ll be listening in. Did I get everything?”
He frowned.
Skinner , however, paid attention. He should never play poker because his eyes spoke volumes. Most of the expression was one of dumbfounded shock. But there was admiration in there, as well as anger. I’d managed to prove to him that I was a threat.
Bear , however?
He wouldn’t know a threat if it bit him in the ass. He’d relied too long on his strength to understand that some battles can be won with wits. In fact, most battles were won by strategy rather than strength.
Satisfied I wouldn’t be interrupted, I dialed John’s phone.
It rang five times before he picked up, announcing himself. He really shouldn’t do that.
I stared at Bear , waiting for him to get angry.
Surprisingly , he didn’t. “ How are you doing?” I asked.
“ Hi , yes, Beth is doing fine. And we’re holding up well.”
I paused. John wasn’t usually cryptic. I lowered my voice in case there was someone on the other end of this conversation listening in like Bear was. “ Is someone there?”
Bear frowned, obviously clued in on the fact that I wasn’t talking to my friend.
John paused. “ It’s okay, I got home from the hospital and my parents are here to help out. Her brother stopped by just a bit ago to see if we were doing well.”
Oh , fuck. Carl was there. “ Is Carl behaving himself?” I looked Bear in the eye, hoping he’d get the information I was feeding him.
Bear scrambled to get a pad of paper and scribbled something on it to pass to Skinner . Meanwhile , I paid attention to John’s rambling to read between the words as to what Carl was doing.
John paused and spoke to the audience on his end, “ Hang on, I’m going to step outside so I don’t disturb anyone.”
I heard the screen door open and shut. John hurriedly spat out. “ Where are you?”
“ I’m with two men, one is named Bear , the other is named Skinner . They’re bikers.”
John hurriedly asked as much as he could, “ Which bikers? Are you safe? I called, but Carl said you’d left, and when you didn’t show up here, I got worried.”
“ The Destroyers MC . Let me guess, Carl showed up there to make sure I didn’t arrive, right?”
“ Worse .”
My stomach twisted. “ Oh Goddess , what did he do?”
John’s anger was palpable. “ He demanded to hold June .”
“ He hasn’t hurt her, has he?”
“ No , I got Dad watching him like a hawk.”
“ John , you can’t let him near the children.” I motioned to Bear to give me a piece of paper and his pen.
“ I know. He —hey, Carl , do you need a ride home? You look kind of… tired.”
I heard Carl’s voice in the background. It gave me goosebumps knowing he was so close to John .
On the paper I scribbled, John is Beth’s husband, friend.
Bear read the paper and raised an eyebrow. He scribbled back, You should have told me before the call .
That didn’t need to be addressed.
John spoke, this time to me. “ I appreciate you for calling, I’ll let Beth know you’re praying for her.”
Praying ? No . Doing anything in my power to help her recover, yes. But Carl tied my hands by sending me to a bunch of over-testosterone-laden bikers. I wouldn’t be able to break free of this trap. “ I probably won’t be over.”
“ Absolutely . I think it will be a week or two before she can have visitors. Right now, it is family only. Call us then, okay? Thank you for the well-wishes.” He hung up the call.
I checked to see it was disconnected before deleting the call from Bear’s history.
“ Wait , what are you doing?”
He grabbed the phone right after I hit delete.
“ You deleted the number?”
Skinner chuckled. “ I’d have done the same thing.”
“ Stay out of this,” Bear grumbled. Then he turned on me. “ Why is Carl at your friend’s house?”
“ Beth is Carl’s sister.”
Neither of them were shocked by that. Maybe I’d underestimated them ?
“ Let me guess, you already did a deep search on Carl .”
The guilty glances they sent each other was enough of an answer. Noted , these bikers had collective intelligence.
“ What is Carl to you, anyway?”
Skinner asked the right question. “ A means to an end. And I’m guessing there’s no love lost between you two and him, either. And that announcing my plans isn’t going to get me killed, right?”
“ What end, and what means?” Bear was quick to put his hand on his knife sheath.
“ The end is getting what I want. The means seems to have changed in the last hour. Carl wants me to suffer at your hands. But you two don’t look like idiots who just do what other people want.” I made certain to appeal to their pride.
Funny , this time it was Bear giving me the scrutinizing look, not Skinner . He looked like a man who had experience with women using him for something. He proved me right. “ Nice try. We’re going to do what we’re going to do, Carl or not.”
I shook my head. That kind of thinking would walk them right into any trap Carl set for them. “ You are going to regret thinking like that.”
“ Who are you to tell us what to think?” Skinner stood up, laptop in hand. “ Bear , good fucking luck with this one. She might be able to recite your rules, but she ain’t going to listen to them.” He shot me a look and said, “ Not unless it serves her end game, that is.”
He left in a huff, taking my laptop with him.
Bear stretched his legs out from the rolling stool he’d perched on. He balanced there with easy grace. In fact, as I looked around, he’d probably spent much of his lifetime on a stool just like that. “ This is your shop?”
“ I said that. You forgot that part?”
“ My understanding of motorcycle gangs is that?—”
“ Buzz . Club . Not gang.” His heavy boots hit the floor with a thud.
Club my ass. I let my eyes drop to his gun holster. “ My understanding of motorcycle… clubs… is that property is co-owned.”
“ Where’d you hear that bullshit?”
“ Books .” And movies .
He had the nerve to laugh. “ Books ain’t going to teach you jack shit about our club.” He sobered and looked me dead in the eye. “ Life as you know it, it’s over. You’re going to live in my life for a month. That means, my world’s rules apply.”
“ You told me the rules.”
“ Naw , I told you my rules. The club has more. Number one is respect. Respect the club. Respect the brothers. And most importantly, respect the symbols.”
“ Symbols ?”
Bear scowled, apparently not used to teaching. “ The patch. The coats… the vests, the bikes . Unless you’re asked to touch, don’t .”
I logged that information right alongside of the memories where he ordered me on and off his bike. I’d touched his coat, his bike, even his patch. All without asking. But I guess, orders could be construed as “asking.”
“ Rule two, fuck authority.”
“ Not literally, correct?”
He coughed, trying not to laugh. “ Of course, not literally. Geesh .” Then he got a glint in his eye I didn’t like. “ Rule three, women are property.”
Oh , fuck that rule. There was no way I was abiding by that one.
He grinned and pointed at my face. “ I see you have a problem with that one.”
Shit . I was usually much better at controlling my expression than that. I had to be that way around Carl . When had I let my guard down?
Bear laughed. “ Now I see Carl’s game.”
“ No , you don’t.”
“ No , I do. He was having trouble breaking you. Wasn’t he?”
I slipped easily into the neutral expression I donned around Carl . “ Breaking ?”
Bear studied my face. “ Yeah , breaking.” He nodded to himself, or at his words, I didn’t know which.
“ And that’s where he fucked up.” He stood up and stretched.
“ I don’t suppose you had a chance to actually look at any of the flash inside the book while you were listening to Skinner and I , did you? ”
I scrambled for a lie. “ I’m thinking something with a tree.” In my mind’s eye, I saw branches snaking down my body, even to my fingertips. It felt right, but I’d never go that crazy.
Oblivious to my thoughts, Bear scratched his beard. He walked over to the book and flipped open the binder to a page, and practically found what he was looking for first try. “ Like this?”
He turned the binder around and held it out.
On the right-hand side, a gnarled ash tree spanned the entire width and length of the page. From top branches to deep roots, it filled out in a neat oval.
If I ever did get tattooed, this was really close to what I’d want.
Woven in the branches were runes. I scanned their patterns.
Protection , life, happiness… fertility.
Nope .
“ Can it be changed?”
“ Of course.”
I pulled over the paper I’d written on and drew out a symbol. Then added the right glyphs around it. As the design branched out, Bear leaned over to see my work.
“ Protection , strength, wisdom…” He nodded again. “ Good choices.”
I froze. He knew how to read witch’s marks? I’d outed myself.
He grabbed the pencil from me and laid a transparent sheet over the book. On it, he began positioning the items I’d drawn.
“ Any thought on where you’d want it?”
“ I don’t want a tattoo right now.”
He turned his head to send me a look I couldn’t read.
A yawn hit. I tried to stop it but couldn’t before Bear saw it. “ You’re tired. Got it.” He packed up the book and papers and dug in a bin. He pulled out a coat with the shop’s logo printed on it. “ My house isn’t far.”
Carl would have enjoyed my suffering.
He certainly wouldn’t have tucked my hands inside his coat pockets like Bear did on the short ride to his home.
A light came on inside the house next door as Bear pulled into his driveway. He made a sound of frustration and braced the bike to quickly text a message.
A woman walked out of the house, phone in hand. “ Just checking it was you.” She stared at me. “ I didn’t realize you had company.”
Bear dropped his hand on my leg again. “ Yeah , should have warned you. Speck doing his job?”
“ His name is Kane ,” she replied.
“ I know that. All the same, he ain’t out here and you are. Tell him he’s in trouble for that.”
The woman shook her head and laughed quietly. “ You bikers. Good night, Bear .”
“ Night , woman.”
“ Kate .”
That must be her name. The way she fired it at Bear was exactly how she mentioned the other’s name. Kane . Speck … was that short for prospect?
Kate stared at me for a moment. “ Good night, whoever you are. Good luck with this one. He’s a handful and a half.”
With that, she went inside.
Bear didn’t move. He stared at the door well after it closed and the light went off.
“ Everything okay?” I asked.
His fingers squeezed my leg. “ Just fine.”
He lied.
“ What are you waiting for?”
My question nudged him into action. He pushed a fob that activated the garage door.
Inside , the automatic lighting revealed an SUV , a jet ski on a trailer, and another motorcycle.
He had more vehicles than Carl . And a nicer home.
It wasn’t lost on me that this subdivision was so new most of the lots didn’t have grass growing yet.
Bear’s only had straw laid down to stop erosion.
He stopped the bike inside, and I took the rumble of the garage door coming back down as a cue I should climb off.
I was much less clumsy this time. I’d practically fallen when he ordered me off the first time.
The second time, I was a bit too nervous to execute the maneuver smoothly.
But this time, I almost handled it like a pro.
Except for my heel catching and my boot sliding off, leaving me lopsidedly barefoot.
I hopped around to avoid setting my flesh on the chilly concrete. One braid threatened to fall loose, so I slapped a hand on it as I bent over to retrieve my boot.
Bear laughed. “ Are you always so…”
“ Clumsy ? No .”
His gaze was glued to my ass.
“ Are you always so lecherous?”
That gaze slid up and locked on my eyes. The corner of one eye twitched into a squint. “ You’d be prettier if you smiled more.” The corner of his mouth lifted.
I opened my mouth to berate him, but the gleam in his eyes stopped me. He was enjoying this. Far be it from me to entertain him. I shoved my foot in my boot and waited for him to lock the bike down and open the house.