Chapter 5
FIVE
Locust had just pulled in through the gates of the compound when his cell dinged with a text. He’d spent the morning looking for his woman, but she was nowhere to be found. If she’d answer his fucking calls or texted him back, he’d get to see her, touch her, then smack her ass until it was red for ignoring him for going on seven fucking days!
He’d driven by her house, but her car wasn’t there, so he’d gone to Emerald Greens, that bougie country club where Nadia worked the front desk, but everyone took one look at him in his jeans and kutte and dismissed him. The lady behind the front counter—her nametag read Brittani—gave him “fuck me” eyes, but when he’d asked about Nadia Thompson, she’d curled her lip at him, told him Nadia was off that day, then proceeded to flirt with him—like he just hadn’t asked about another woman.
A woman who owned every goddamn inch of him. Remembering the last time they’d been together…how she’d touched him, kissed his chest, abs, and then took his hard cock into her mouth…then she’d ridden him until they were both yelling each other’s names into the ceiling. He hadn’t come that hard before in his life. And he was determined to get inside her again as soon as fucking possible—if he could fucking find her.
He parked his bike right as his cell dinged again, and he pulled it from the pocket in his kutte, hoping it was a certain blonde.
Reading the screen he cursed; it was a text from Redtube telling him that Frost had texted and wanted Redtube and Locust to get their asses to the common room. He didn’t say why, and Locust didn’t bother asking because he was right outside.
Dismounting, he headed inside, immediately catching sight of Redtube standing just inside the door, his hands planted on his hips, his face in a glower—and the man could glower. It wasn’t until he glanced across the room that he realized something was definitely fucking wrong.
He’d been looking every-fucking-where for Nadia, but she was at the bar with a pissed off looking Frost.
What the fuck was happening?
Concern and anger in equal amounts suffused him, making his heart stumble. Striding across the hardwood floor, he stopped by Nadia, his gaze pinned to her profile, his eyes taking her in like she was a fountain of cool water, and he’d been dying of thirst. Desperate to feel her skin against his for the first time in too long, he reached out to touch her for the first time in seven days.
She flinched and jerked away from him, stunning him for a moment, before his gaze snapped to Frost’s. Not once in the time they’d been together had Nadia rejected his touch—she’d all but begged him with her words, her hungry gaze, and her flushed, curvy body. And he’d given her everything she’d begged for, because he’d wanted it just as badly as she had, if not more. Never in his life had he felt such a connection, such chemistry and attraction to a woman, and he’d be damned if she took that from him now.
But something was very wrong.
Frost was red-faced, his chest puffed out like he was ready to tear someone’s asshole out.
What the fuck?
“What the hell happened?” he growled, and Frost gave a shake of his head, which told Locust fuck all.
Beside him, Nadia tense as fuck, spoke, “Now that our business is concluded, I’d appreciate it if you and your club stayed away from me. I don’t want to see any of you ever again.”
He was struck by her tone first—cold and flat, like he’d never heard it before—but then her words landed on his chest like a ton of bricks.
“Nadia?” he croaked, unable to breathe through the panic rising into his throat. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
She didn’t even bother turning to look at him when she burned him to ashes with her next words, “Congratulations, Locust, you can take that acid bath now, then you can fuck whichever clubwhore you want. Mission accomplished, you fulfilled your club duty, and now you never have to get drunk to fuck the fat, ugly prude.”
Without another word to anyone, Nadia turned and walked from the clubhouse, not looking back once.
Her words, once again, slammed into him, this time with the force of a hurricane.
Oh fuck…no, no, no!
She’d heard him, that morning after the party, when he was giving the shit to Cluster because the nosy asshole was asking too many questions about shit he had no business asking; he hadn’t been read into the assignment Frost had given him, not all of it at least. Cluster knew Locust was bringing Nadia around to keep an eye on her, and he knew about the money. The asshole put the clues together. Frost wanted it kept close to the chest, probably because he knew brothers like Patriot and Horde would have a problem with it. In the beginning, Locust hadn’t given a shit what or who he was supposed to do; he was loyal to the club above all else. It wasn’t the first time Frost had pulled him in for unsavory recon, but it had been the first time the target of the recon was a woman.
He'd fallen for Nadia on fucking sight; the picture Frost had given him did not do her justice, and he’d known immediately he was in fucking trouble. But…loyal motherfucker that he was, he couldn’t not go through with it; his prez had given him orders, and he was a faithful soldier.
And that morning, in the kitchen, with Cluster pestering him, talking shit about Nadia, and with his own guilt and anger about the whole fucking situation, he’d shot off at the mouth. He hadn’t meant a goddamn word of it—yeah, he was talking about using Nadia to get to her brother, which had been the truth before , but none of that shit about her, being with her, how he felt about her, had been true.
He loved the fuck out of that woman, couldn’t imagine his life without her in it—he’d fucking tear out his own heart and present it to her if she asked him. Fuck, he needed that woman like air and blood and water. The same woman who’d just demanded the Unchained leave her alone; that he would leave her alone.
How was he supposed to do that when his very soul cried out for her, his heart only beating for her, his body only craving her? He was nothing without his Nadia, his everything.
Speechless, his heart in his throat, he moved to follow after her, to beg her to hear him out, to give him a fucking chance to make things right. But before he could take a single step, a massive hand grabbed his arm, halting him in place.
Growling, he turned to chew the ass off the motherfucker who’d dare to keep him from getting to his woman, and looked into the glinting ice eyes of Frost.
Desperation filled Locust’s muscles, the urgency, the need to move flooding his veins with adrenaline. He couldn’t stop the thought that, if she left the compound, he’d never see her again. He couldn’t let that happen.
He jerked his arm, but Frost held fast, grunting at the effort.
Locust growled, “What the fuck? Why’d you stop me, I have to get to her?—”
Frost gave a hard shake of his head, cutting off Locust’s words. “No.”
Locust flinched at the command in that single word, then the rage nipped at him.
“What the fuck do you mean ‘no,’” he barked, snarling at the man he had a hard time respecting in that moment.
Frost pulled himself up to his full 6’7”, and stared down at Locust with such menace it nearly peeled the flesh from Locust’s bones. “I said no , fucker.” He pointed to the door through which Nadia had fled, and spit, “That woman is no longer our business. She gave me what she could to help us find her brother, and now we will leave her alone.”
Before Locust could open his mouth to object vehemently, Frost cast an icy glare at him, then waved Red over.
“Here,” Frost said, tossing an old cell phone to Red, who caught it and stared down at it with furrowed brows. “That’s Ratchet’s. His sister gave it to us.”
Locust stiffened. Nadia had that? Where? Why hadn’t he found it during one of his many searches through her house? The first time he’s stepped into her house, he’d marveled at how small but how comfortable it was. No larger than 900 square feet, the house was two-bedrooms, one bathroom, and had a kitchen-dining room combo. The living room was small, but it held everything a person would need to relax; comfy-looking couch, 60-inch flat screen on the wall, and all the streaming channels—his girl loved her fantasy TV shows. That first night, after he’d fucked her into a stupor, he’d done his first round of searches. It wasn’t a cluttered, overstuffed mess, but it was definitely a lot to search through to find something that could be as small as a flash drive with bank account numbers on it, to something as big as a duffel bag with stacks of benjamins in it.
That first time, and all the times after that, had revealed nothing about Ratchet, where he’d taken the money, or if Nadia was in league with her step-brother. But Locust knew, to his very bones, that Nadia had nothing to do with Ratchet…and if he’d fucking said something about it before, maybe he wouldn’t be standing there, his heart bleeding onto the floor, wanting to tear his prez’s fucking face off.
Unaware of Locust’s need for violence, Frost continued to Red, “I figured you could do your nerd magic on it and see what the fucker was doing when he was using it. Dig through everything—hell, I want to know what the fucker ordered on DoorDash. Just make sure there’s not somethin’ on there that could tell us where the fuck he went.”
Red flipped the cell over, his gaze drifting over it. “It’s a prepaid, but it should still have the SIM card, so I might be able to see if he ordered McDonalds or Panera,” he remarked, a slight curl in his lips.
Frost grunted, shaking his head. “Just get it done, chuckles,” he snapped. Shit, the man was edgy as fuck lately—the patch over from Bone Dogz was taking its toll, and the man Locust knew to be a good, honorable man, had become a grumbling, easy to anger bear, who was willing to cross a few too many lines to get what he wanted. The shit with Nadia wouldn’t have happened before the Bone Dogz contacted him. Yeah, Prez had sent him on infiltration and trap missions for the club before, but he’d never ordered Locust to target a woman.
Then again, at any time, Locust could have said no, though he’d get a beat down for it, or he could have offered another solution—fuck, he could have just gone in and bugged her house when she was at work, but he’d taken one look at her picture, and he couldn’t fucking help himself. He’d wanted to meet the chocolate-eyed, curvy goddess in the photo, and once he had, he’d fallen, headfirst, into a no-win situation.
And now he was reaping the consequences of his choices.
From beside him, Red gave a humorless, “Ha,” at Frost’s words, before tucking the cell into his jeans pocket, and heading back out the clubhouse door. The man used to exclusively use his room at the clubhouse, but recently, he’d been hunkered down at his own place off compound. Locust had no idea where, but he could guess the kinky fucker got up to all sorts of dirty shit there.
Turning his attention back to Frost, he didn’t miss the flash of something like regret in his eyes before it was quickly replaced with the hardass expression Frost usually carried.
“My office now,” Frost commanded, turning and heading down the hallway to his office without giving Locust a chance to argue. Not that he would; he wanted to tear Frost a new one for keeping him from following Nadia, but he also knew he couldn’t just disregard what his president ordered.
Yeah, loyal to the club at all costs, huh? Cost you Nadia, didn’t it, fucker?
Biting back a curse, he followed his prez into his office, shutting the door behind him.
Locust hadn’t even taken a breath before Frost spoke, his tone weary.
“Not once in my fifteen years as the president of this club have I felt as fucking shitty as I did when that woman walked into this club house, looking broken as fuck, and called me out for becoming what we fight against.”
Right before his eyes, Frost…crumpled. He fell into his creaky desk chair and dropped his head into his hands, and groaned, as though the crown he wore was too heavy.
“Shit,” Frost mumbled, scrubbing his hands over his face, and groaning. “If Em finds out about this….” He shook his head, a weariness Locust had never seen before weighing on his features. Locust wanted to ask what the fuck was going on with Prez and Emily lately, but he had more important things to deal with.
Like getting his woman back.
“I can’t just leave it like this, Frost,” Locust declared, making Frost drop his hands from his face and pin him with a glare. Locust lifted his chin, refusing to back down. This was too motherfucking important. “It might have started off as an assignment, my duty to the club, but that stopped being my priority the moment I met that woman. She knocked me right on my ass with one look, man. Yeah, I kept at it, looking through her shit, watching her when she wasn’t looking, having Red check into her, but I only did that to satisfy you—because I’m goddamn loyal to the Unchained.” Gritting his teeth, he let the anger, anguish, and fear flow through him, biting at his nerves and guts. “But Nadia….” He met Frost’s gaze and held, pleading with the other man to see into him, to know what he couldn’t say.
Frost cursed, throwing himself back in his desk chair.
“Do you remember where I found you; weak, broken, standing on the edge of that fucking building, ready to throw yourself over? You were ready for death, desperate to meet the Devil, and I pulled you back, showed you there was more, that that night wasn’t the end for you.”
Locust couldn’t forget that fucking night; he’d been at his lowest, high as a fucking kite, terrorized by memories of his best friend dead from an overdose Locust could have prevented. The guilt had eaten away at his reason, his heart and soul, and all that had been left was a husk he wanted to destroy.
But then a deep, gruff voice called out to him from the night around him….
“Yeah,” Locust rasped, his throat suddenly made of sand and gravel. “And I can’t thank you enough for saving me, brother, but?—”
“No buts, goddammit! We—you and I—made that woman a motherfucking victim of the Unchained MC. We will leave her alone, we will let her get on with her life, and we will never speak of this clusterfuck ever again.”
Locust growled, his hands fisting at his sides. He was ready to jump over the desk and pummel his prez in the goddamn face?—
“And you, asshole, owe me,” Frost snarled, his eyes glinting fire. “You will forget Nadia Thompson. That’s a motherfucking order, ya get me, brother ?”
He got it, alright.
Without another word, he spun on his heel and banged out of the office. He needed a fucking drink…then he needed to think. Because fuck if he was going to let Nadia slip through his fingers. He just had to figure out how to fix what he broke with the woman he loved without breaking his oath to the Unchained—because forgetting Nadia would be like slamming his own head against the wall, then ripping out his own heart.
Forgetting Nadia? Leaving her alone?
Not a fucking goddamn chance.