Chapter Thirty-Four
S haking, Liz couldn’t breathe through the terror.
She’d stabbed him. She’s stabbed Danil Oblek…and he was going to kill her; she could see it in his eyes; that demon was in there, that evil, and he wanted her dead.
Then Trouble shot him.
“Trouble!” she cried, her legs nearly giving out, but he was there to catch her.
He grabbed her in his arms, holding her against his trembling body.
“Fuck, Liz… fuck !” he rasped, shoving his face into her neck, his hot, shuddering breaths hitting her sweaty flesh. “I thought…I thought I’d lost you. I heard someone cry out—and I lost my fucking mind!”
Closing her eyes, melting into him, leaning into his strength, she whispered, “I stabbed him…when his back was turned, I stabbed him with my letter opener.” Actually, it was a scalpel, but it was razor sharp and did the job just fine. She kept it on her desk, and she’d found it beneath a stack of invoices, thankful that Danil had been distracted by that phone call.
“Fuck, baby, are you alright? Did he fucking touch you?” Trouble demanded, his voice like sandpaper on glass.
She shook her head, unable to speak through the tears in her throat.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here; the Russians can clean up their own mess.” With his arm still wrapped around her, he palmed his gun, holding it aloft. “I don’t know how many more goons he had here, but I dealt with the three at the front.”
“I-I didn’t see any in the back when I got here, but he said he had men at each door,” Liz supplied.
“Right. Let’s go.”
Stepping around the body and the pool of blood spreading over her office floor, Liz allowed Trouble to lead her out the back door. Immediately, the sounds of bikes roared into the heat of the afternoon. Squinting into the sunlight, Liz saw three riders roll into the back parking lot.
Obviously, Oblek had lied about having men at each door; she could have escaped out the way she came— yeah right, he would have shot you in the back before you even reached the door.
Odin parked and dismounted first, hurrying toward them.
“Report,” he barked, ever the commander.
Trouble tightened his arm around Liz, holding her to his side. She reached around him, her arm at his waist, and squeezed. He needed comfort just as much as she did.
“Three in the reception area, one in her office,” Trouble supplied.
“Any witnesses?” Odin inquired.
“I pushed through the door, they followed me inside, and I dealt with him. They’re still alive, but they’re going to hurt when they wake up. I’m sure Danil’s boss is goin’ to have words with them.”
Fang and Hawk came striding up, concern and rage on their faces.
“You okay, hermana ?” Fang asked, dragging her from Trouble’s side to pull her into a tight hug. Against his hard chest, she said, “Yes, I’m okay. Is Tessa okay?”
Once Liz had made that call before heading into the clinic, she knew that Tessa and Fae were getting a front row seat to what was happening in the clinic.
Fang pursed his lips but nodded. “She and Fae are with Skathi, so…they’re fine, though I’m sure they’re going to want to kick your ass for doing something so fucking stupid.”
“Watch yourself, brother,” Trouble growled, but Liz stepped away from Fang, and placed a hand against Trouble tightly coiled chest.
“He’s right, what I did was stupid…but can we talk about it back at the clubhouse? I really need a drink…and then a shower.” She felt so fucking dirty after being in such close contact with evil as she’d been with Danil Oblek. It was like a thick, oily sludge on her skin, and she desperately needed to scour it from her body.
Odin met Trouble’s gaze over her head. “We’ll debrief in Church; I have a feeling we’ll be getting a call from a certain disgruntled Russian oligarch. Take her car, we’ll send a prospect to drive your ride back to the compound.”
Sliding into the passenger seat of her SUV, Liz finally took a deep breath. As Trouble slid into the driver’s seat, he snatched her hand in his, holding it with desperate tightness against his thigh.
They didn’t speak until they were five minutes away from the clinic.
“I don’t even know where to begin with you, baby,” Trouble rasped. “What were you thinkin’, goin’ to the clinic alone, ditchin’ your escort—you could have gotten killed!”
Tears burned here eyes. She squeezed them shut against the anguish on his face.
“I-I know, but…I thought I was helping you. I got a call from who I thought was Lyle. He said he had the money, but I had to come pick it up from the clinic; he didn’t trust you and the club to not just take it without telling me about it, and not pay off the Russians. He had me convinced that if I picked up the money, made the call, then the exchange, it would all be over; Oblek wouldn’t have a reason to bother with me anymore.”
Trouble cursed, turned to glance at her quickly, before turning his fiercely burning gaze back to the road.
“Baby, Oblek didn’t need a reason to bother with you—the guy was a fucking psychopath. He’d been leaving women’s bodies all over the city, and he wanted you to be the next one.”
Her stomach dropped into her feet at that, as her breakfast tried to break free. She swallowed.
“They used some sort of voice cloning software, so I didn’t know it wasn’t Lyle. When I showed up, Oblek was waiting. He…he wanted me to call you, to lead you into a trap—”
“I know, baby. Tessa called us, told us what they were overhearing on the group call.”
Relieved, Liz nodded. “At least I didn’t go in completely unprepared; there was a part of me that knew something wasn’t right.”
“And I’m glad you listened to the part, baby, but you shouldn’t have ditched Slick, and you shouldn’t have gone to the clinic without calling me—fuck, you shouldn’t have gone at all! We had already wrapped Danil Oblek in a big, red bow for his boss to deal with. If you had just called me…none of this would have happened.”
Oh, this asshole! “You mean, just like you should have fucking talked to me about Stanford rather than blowing my fucking life apart?” she snarled, turning to throw daggers at him with her eyes.
He clamped his mouth shut, his jaw muscles twitching. She could see his nostrils flaring on his flushed face.
Finally, he grunted, “Touché.”
More moments of silence followed, when she asked, “Is Slick in trouble?”
Trouble heaved a sigh. “He’s not in trouble. But he is in the hospital—”
Liz gasped. “What happened to him?”
Trouble chuckled humorlessly. “ You happened.” He turned to look at her again. “Apparently, you nearly hit a car in the Albertson’s parking lot.”
“Yeah, nearly ,” she huffed, rolling her eyes.
“You missed it, but it didn’t miss Slick. It clipped his back wheel, and he and the bike went down.”
Struck with fear and guilt, Liz couldn’t speak for a few moments. Then…she remembered the commotion in the grocery store parking lot. It must have been Slick. Fuck…she’d caused an accident; it was her fault Slick was hurt, and she’d just left him there.
Tears swelling in her eyes once more, she confessed, “You’re right. It’s my fault he’s hurt. Is he…it is serious?”
Trouble offered her a soft smile. “No, baby, he just as a bit of road rash and a banged-up knee; he’ll be alright.”
Nodding, she turned to look out the window, watching as Vegas wooshed by.
In the packed conference room, Trouble reported what had happened, and what Liz had told him. There were growls and snarls of outrage, inquiries about how Liz was doing, and even more questions about what they fuck they were going to do now.
“Leonid is pissed that we killed his bitch boy,” Odin rumbled, annoyed. “You’d think he’d be grateful that we dealt with his little problem for him. That asshole was making moves to takeover, and Leonid didn’t know shit until we told him about it.”
Fang snorted. “It’s about respect to Families like that. They don’t care what Danil did, they cared that you took away their chance at revenge.”
“Yeah, I doubt Oblek’s death would have been as swift and easy if the boss got his hands on him first,” Hawk remarked.
“The sick fucks would probably force him to fuck a bear trap or some shit.” All eyes turned to Hell Hound.
Trouble curled his lip at the image of what Hound had said.
“That’s some fucked up shit, alright,” Fang admitted, his own lips cocked in a humorous smirk. The man had seen some shit in his years as a member of the Calderone Cartel.
“Well, no matter what they would have done to him, the problem is that they didn’t get the chance to do anything, because Trouble’s bullet hit it’s mark.”
“Of course, it fucking did,” Trouble drawled, grinning.
“So, we can put butt hurt Russians in our ‘not friendly’ column, but what do we do from here? Danil was their brigadier in Vegas; it’ll take a bit to put someone else in his place, that’s assuming that Medev can clean up Oblek’s messes.” Trouble had been right, Grimm had been pissed he missed out on the action.
AFK tapped a few keys on his laptop, and the screen at the head of the room came on. And the images that flashed up on it, made Trouble’s guts twist.
Girls. Young women, really, like Liz had been when he’d first met her. Every single one of the young women in the images were naked…their pale skin sliced open in so many places, they looked like they’d been tossed into a blender.
“What the fuck?” Hound barked, his face ashen. Every man in the room, their faces leached of blood, their rage bright eyes glued to the screen.
“These are just a few of the women I was able to pin on Oblek, but I suspect there’ll be dozens more. Apparently, he had a blood play kink, and he twisted it up with that knife play shit. The fucker never left a single one of those girls alive.”
His skin crawling, Trouble’s mind picturing his Liz up there on the screen, her sun-kissed skin slashed open, her dead eyes staring sightlessly into the camera. Motherfuck!
“That could have been Liz,” he croaked.
“Yeah, brother, but you got to her in time. And now she’s sitting in the common room, getting her ass reamed by the other ol’ ladies—she’s safe, she’s healthy, she’s here because you saved her.” Dragon’s words permeated the thick fog of desolation that had captured Trouble’s mind. Closing his eyes to hide the images on the screen, he sighed.
“Holy shit,” Grimm exploded, making all eyes shoot to him in alarm. The mischievous grin on his face kept Trouble from throwing himself over the table, and punching him in the throat. “I have never, not in six years, heard so many words come out of your mouth, Dragon. It’s like motherfucking poetry, like the most delightful haiku.”
Dragon grunted, but Trouble could see the slight curve of a smile on the corners of his mouth.
Much to Trouble’s shock, Raptor added, “More like a dirty limerick.”
Grimm gasped dramatically, slapping his palm against his chest. “Jesus is coming, isn’t He? There’s no other reason for there to be so much chatter between you two mute fucks.”
The room erupted into much needed laughter.
Odin hammered the gavel on the table. “Alright, you fucks, settle down.”
The laughter quieted down, and Odin’s gaze landed on Trouble.
“How’s Liz, really?”
Trouble’s mind rewound to when they made it to the compound. He helped Liz into his room, and she headed into the bathroom to shower, silent the whole time. He’d told her he had Church, but she should head downstairs to hang with Tessa, Fae, and Skathi when they arrived. It was the silence that told him she wasn’t alright…that and the look of anguish on her face.
And he knew what put it there.
“She’s fucked up because she stabbed Oblek,” Trouble answered.
“Shit,” Fang hissed. “She’s a doctor, swore to heal not harm, right? But he was going to hurt her, probably kill her, but she did what she had to do.”
Trouble nodded along with every other brother in the room.
“But I don’t think she sees it that way. I saw where she stuck the scalpel; she didn’t intend to wound him; it was a killing blow. I’ve seen wounds like that, shrapnel piercing that same area…even if I hadn’t put a bullet between his eyes, his lungs would have filled with blood in less than ten minutes. He’d have been dead of blood loss and suffocation.”
“Then it’s better that you struck the final blow, brother, otherwise she’d have his death on her conscience.” Fang’s words rang with truth, and Trouble couldn’t agree more. His Liz was a ballbuster, scrappy as fuck, and willing to defend those she loved using any means necessary…but she wasn’t a killer.
“She meant to kill him, to saver herself, and she can’t reconcile that with her oath as a doctor,” Odin remarked sagely.
“Yeah, and that ain’t goin’ to mesh well with her passion for savin’ lives,” Trouble admitted, hating it so fucking much. His Liz, with her beautiful soul and big heart, wouldn’t see things the way he did. He’d been shaped into the killer he was, the heartless, cold machine that saw an enemy, ended the enemy, and didn’t bat an eye. Liz, though…God…she’d break—but he’d be there to pick them up for her, help her glue them back together, and love her through the healing.
Odin must’ve seen something on Trouble’s face because he cocked his head, and gave him a slight nod.
“Right, well, that’s all for now. Just keep an eye out for any possible blow back. That last thing we fucking need is another issue to deal with right now.”
Odin slammed down the gavel, dismissing Church, and Trouble strode from the room, desperate to get to his woman. To hold her. To kiss her. To feel her against him, and know she was alive. She was there with him. He hadn’t lost her.
He took the stairs, two at a time, hit the floor in the common room with a jolt, and, chest heaving, stopped to look for his woman.
There! She was sitting at a back table with Tessa, Fae, Skathi, and Daisy, all their heads together. Skathi was holding baby Nielsen, and Liz was cuddled in close, smiling down at him. Gods, she was beautiful. His gaze moved to the corner where Saint was playing Super Smash Bros with Erika, who’d been escorted to the compound by Wolf and Dragon. She’d been apprehensive at first, rightly and smartly refusing to get anywhere near the two men, but they’d gotten Auntie Fae on the line to calm her as they loaded her into a cage and brought her there.
Slick was reclining in a booth, his banged-up leg on a pillow, Laurie hand feeding him loaded potato skins. The little shit was lapping up the attention, though he deserved it for taking one for the team. He’d texted Trouble that Liz had apologized, and everything was good.
A smile growing on his face, Trouble headed toward Liz, who sat up and looked in his direction, almost as though she could feel his gaze on her, his presence in the room. As he always had with her.
A squealing sound made him turn toward the door, where a tousled Amelia was standing. She was staring at Trouble with wide eyes. She ran at him, jumped, and threw herself at him. Instinctively, Trouble grabbed her, his arms wrapping around her as she wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist.
“Oh God, baby! I was so scared! I thought something happened to you!” she cried, rubbing her tits all over his chest. His guts rolling, his skin crawling, he dropped her and stepped back, his gaze immediately flying to Liz.
Shit.
She was glaring at them, fire in her eyes, her face flushed.
Fuck! This wasn’t going to be good!
“Fuck, Amelia, what the hell are you doin’?” Trouble barked, straight-arming her when she tried to throw herself at him again.
“What do you mean?” She pouted, stomping her foot. “I heard you went to the clinic and got hurt saving that bitch doctor—”
Amelia’s head snapped back, cutting off her words with a shriek.
Liz, who’d grabbed Amelia’s hair, yanked until the other woman was dragged backward toward the door. At the threshold, Liz released Amelia, who immediately swung around and lunged for Liz. Liz, practically vibrating with outrage, lifted her leg…and kicked Amelia right between her thighs.
Amelia screamed, dropping to the floor, cupping her battered pussy—and not battered in a good way, either.
His mouth hanging open, Trouble slowly made his way to Liz, who was panting and glaring down at a writhing Amelia, her hands planted on her hips.
“Tessa told me you were the one who warned Trouble about the Russians at the clinic, so for that, I’m grateful, but that’s where my motherfucking mercy ends.”
With a quick glance at Saint, Trouble saw him leading Erika into the kitchen and away from the throwdown happening by the door.
“You actually might have saved my life,” Liz continued, “so I’m not going to remove your diseased pussy with a rusty ice cream scoop and dirty pliers.”
The room filled with pained groans.
Amelia whimpered, her teary eyes pleading with Trouble. He shrugged; she brought this on herself.
“I know for a fact you were banned from club property for thirty days, and unless you can’t count, you have no reason to be here,” Liz drawled, making Tessa chuckle.
Sobbing, Amelia blubbered, “I was worried about Trouble; I love him.”
Liz snorted, shaking her head. She didn’t even bother looking at Trouble for confirmation; she knew to whom Trouble’s heart belonged, and it wasn’t to the woman bawling on the floor.
Odin came to stand beside Trouble, taking in the scene before him.
Grunting, Odin signaled Toke, who had door duty, to help Amelia to her feet.
“Amelia, you know our laws, you know that when one of the officers speaks, his word is law, so you coming here, breaking that law….” Odin tsked. “You are hereby officially banned from the Savage Raiders MC—permanently.”
Amelia screamed, her sobbing uncontrollable. “No! Please! I just wanted to check on my boyfriend. I shouldn’t be the one getting banned—” She swung her venomous gaze toward Liz. Raising a slender, claw-tipped finger, she hissed, “She should be banned for putting the club VP in danger!”
Tessa snorted. “Bitch, if we banned every woman who put a club brother in danger, there wouldn’t be a piece of ass in this place.”
Fang, coming up behind his woman, wrapped his arm around her waist. “And I wouldn’t have mi fuega , Odin wouldn’t have his beautiful family, and Hawk wouldn’t have his fairy woman,” he said, tipping his chin to where Hawk and Fae were mouth fucking by the bar. Fang chuckled. “What you don’t get, bruja , is that we brothers would die for our women, because that’s what we’re meant to do.”
Amelia huffed. “She isn’t his woman,” she snapped, which made Liz roll her eyes.
“You cannot be that dumb! He loves me, I love him, we have a kid together, we live together, and I just claimed him publicly by putting you in your place—we are a couple; I am his woman, he is my man. End. Of.”
Amelia sneered at Liz, then looked at Trouble with beseeching eyes.
To answer her silent question, he walked to Liz, slid an arm around her waist, and kissed her temple. God, he loved hearing her claim him, her admitting his claim over her…and… she loved him.
He’d fucking get back to that later.
“Get gone, Amelia, and don’t come back,” Odin commanded.
Amelia, seeing that she’d been defeated, squared her shoulders, lifted her chin, and turned to saunter from the clubhouse.
“Toke, make sure she gets off the property,” Trouble ordered, then pulled Liz into his chest.
Hard as fuck after that display, he took her mouth, devouring her with a need so voracious, his mouth watered.
“Get a room!” Hound shouted, making the room fill with laughter. “Matter of fact, take your woman and kid home. I’m thinking you guys need some family time.”
You didn’t have to tell them twice.