Chapter 5
The next morning comes like a fucking hurricane.
Well, in my head at least.
By the time I wake, it is because the scorching hot sun is powering through the window and blasting me. One glance at my phone tells me it’s midday. I can’t remember the last time I slept until midday. It takes more than a minute for me to force myself up, my head pounding and my stomach twisting.
Last night is a blur, but my eyes move to the empty chair in the corner where Knox was the last time I saw him.
I don’t know when he left, but on the floor beside me are two aspirin and a bottle of water.
I reach for it so fast I knock the water over and am thankful it has a lid.
I throw the aspirin into my mouth and gulp the water, regretting it almost immediately as my stomach turns.
Today is going to be a long one.
I spend the first twenty minutes of the day sitting there, trying to will myself to get up.
I debate crawling back into the sleeping bag and dying quietly, but my phone vibrates, and I feel a jolt of panic, my hands weirdly clammy as I snatch it up.
No new calls from the prison, but a spam email promising to make a thousand dollars a day working from home.
I delete it without reading, which pretty much sums up my career ambitions.
I pull on the cleanest T-shirt I can find and slowly make my way outside, hoping fresh air will help. The heat outside is a slap, but somehow less oppressive than the stuffy, whiskey-soaked inside. I take a deep breath, praying the aspirin works sooner rather than later.
I finish the water.
I only manage to shower, get a coffee, and start slowly working on the living area when I hear the sound of a truck rumbling down the drive.
It isn’t Knox’s truck, I can tell purely by the sound.
This one is rattling, clunking, and it sounds awful.
I peer out the window to see an old black truck coming to a stop.
Then the door swings open, and Ralston Cupp climbs out.
Fuck me.
This time, he’s not alone. A second guy gets out from the passenger side, tall and built, with a plain white T-shirt and a neck that is so thick it almost just blends in with his head.
The third man, clearly the driver, doesn’t get out; he just leans over the steering wheel and stares with the bored, cold expression of someone who has already sized me up and found me uninteresting. Or maybe already dead.
I freeze.
I look around for my phone, realize it’s still in my hand, and look for Knox’s number.
I don’t get a chance to dial before the front door swings open and Ralston steps in, as if he owns the place.
He is so loud in the small entryway that I flinch.
I press my back into the kitchen counter and hold my phone in my hand, refusing to let it out of my sight.
“Well, good morning. You look,” Ralston scans me up and down, “unwell.”
I ignore the greeting. “What do you want?” I snap. “Obviously you’ve never heard of knocking.”
He walks over casually, looking around, then puts both hands on my kitchen counter and leans in. The other guy follows, standing a deliberate two feet behind Ralston and crossing his arms, glaring at me.
“I hear you got a call from your brother.”
How the hell does he know who my brother is?
Who the fuck is this man?
My expression must give my confusion away.
“Oh, didn’t I tell you? Ruger and I go way back.”
What is happening?
I try to say something, but my mouth is dry and my brain is running on fumes. Ralston takes a thin, battered envelope from the waistband of his jeans and tosses it onto the counter. It skids and stops right in front of me, but I’m too scared to reach out and take it.
“You’re going to help us,” he says, casually. “Or the next call you get will be the prison informing you of Ruger’s death.”
My skin prickles as I look up at him.
“I don’t even fucking know you.”
“You don’t have to. I know you, well more specifically, I knew Harper, and she was helping us until...well...she wasn’t. Now, you’re going to finish what she started.”
What the hell is he talking about?
“Go on,” he nods towards the envelope before I can even ask a single question.
I reach for it, trying not to show this goddamned asshole how scared I am. Inside is one picture. It’s of my brother, his face bloodied and beaten, so badly I can barely recognize him. I clamp my teeth together so hard my jaw pops. I look up at Ralston. “What is wrong with you?”
“Oh, plenty.”
I want to punch him.
“I don’t even know what you’re fucking talking about. I don’t know what Harper was doing, or why. I’m only here to clean this place up and sell it.”
“Yeah, see, that’s the problem. We can’t let you do that until we are done with what Harper started. There is still too much invested here.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” I yell, frustration and fear rising in my throat.
“Everything you need to know is in here.”
The man behind him hands a large envelope over, and Ralston tosses it at me.
“I’ll give you a few days to figure it all out, then we’ll be back.
Oh, and Callie, don’t try and get any smart ideas.
One call, Ruger is dead. If your little biker friend tries anything, Ruger is dead.
Either way, you have no choice but to help me if you want to see your brother alive again. Anyway, have a wonderful day.”
And just like that, he’s gone.
A tear rolls down my cheek as I stare at the photo of Ruger, my heart breaking.
Then, I take the large envelope and open it.
None of it makes any sense.
How does this relate to Harper?
What the hell is going on?
Why did Knox keep all of this from me? He didn’t say a word when I mentioned Ralston a few days ago.
I guess one thing is for certain, I have no choice but to find out.
I DON’T KNOW WHAT KNOX is hiding from me, but one thing is for sure, I’m about to find out. I’m not going to sit back and wait while he is keeping secrets about my cousin, secrets that could change everything. Whatever Harper was doing, it was dangerous.
Getting into my car, I drive to the clubhouse, a rage fueling in my belly.
Has he been lying to me this entire time?
Has he been just the same as the men coming to my door, demanding things, only he has hidden behind a mask?
I don’t know what to think, but to assume he didn’t know what Harper was doing would be stupid on so many levels.
I’m halfway to the clubhouse before the speedometer even hits sixty, and the second I pull up, I don’t bother locking the car or checking my own appearance. I stomp toward the double row of Harleys out front, and then weave through them, storming inside like a woman on a mission.
I go barreling into the main room, which is packed as always. I spot Sable behind the bar polishing glasses, Nia at one of the high tables reading a book, and three, maybe four unfamiliar faces scattered around. I don’t look at any of them—I’m on a mission. Knox. Only him.
Nia looks up, raises her hand to speak, but doesn’t get a word in.
I barrel past two guys in matching black vests, one of them making a lewd noise as I go.
I ignore him.
“Where is Knox?” I demand to one of the unfamiliar faces.
He has the audacity to grin. I shoot a glare so deathly it only makes him laugh. “Down the hall, second door. Wouldn’t go in there if I were you.”
“Well, lucky you ain’t me,” I mutter.
I walk straight past him and down the hallway.
The corridor is narrow, more shadow than light, the breathless hush only making me angrier.
My boots are loud as hell on the old linoleum, and I make sure to stomp extra hard to warn him I’m coming.
I stop at his door, not even taking a second to pause before I swing it open.
He’s in bed.
He’s not alone.
I can feel all the blood rushing to my face.
There’s a woman half-curled around his back, platinum hair on the pillow and bare arm thrown over his chest. Neither of them is wearing much.
Knox’s torso is all muscle, shoulders impossibly wide, and as he pushes himself up—slowly, like he’s waking from a hangover—I catch a flash of the entirety of him.
Including the part that I have thought about, but tried to deny.
His cock.
Hard in all its morning glory.
So fucking big and thick I can’t seem to drag my eyes away.
He is fully naked.
I mean, in all my life, I have never, ever seen anything like it in person.
I’m blushing before my brain catches up.
“Fuck’s sake, you ever knock?” he rumbles, voice sleep-rough and unapologetic.
He rolls to the edge of the bed and stands up, stretching.
Even from across the room, I can see every muscle fiber in his stomach.
It’s unfair. It’s inhuman. And his cock—Jesus Christ—if there had ever been a time I needed to not see something, it was now.
I manage to pull my gaze away, and when I finally meet his, he is watching me.
He laughs, a mean little spark in his eye.
The woman on the bed makes a groggy sound and pulls the sheet over herself, shooting me a glare that says I’d be a dead woman if she could muster the energy.
“Put some fucking clothes on,” I manage, voice shaking with anger and something else I refuse to name.
He grins, not even trying to cover up, and takes his sweet damn time pulling on a pair of black jeans from the floor. He doesn’t bother with underwear. He zips up, then scratches his jaw, green eyes never leaving mine. The woman pouts but doesn’t move, just watches the show with tired, bored eyes.
“You could’ve called,” he says.
“You’ve been lying to me, Knox. I know it. I want the fucking truth.”
He cocks his head at me, the same way a wolf does just before it decides whether or not to bite. He looks somewhat confused.
“Out,” I bark at the woman. “Get out.”
She glares, but Knox jerks his chin, and she sighs and stands, pulling the sheet around her as she slips out, mumbling under her breath. He sits on the edge of the bed, shooting me an intense glare. “So? You goin’ to tell me why you came stormin’ in here carryin’ on, or do I have to guess?”
“I got a visit from Ralston Cupp this morning,” I say.
“He brought friends. And pictures of Ruger, beaten half to death. They threatened me, Knox. They threatened my brother. And you didn’t warn me, you didn’t say a word.
You didn’t tell me Harper was doing things she shouldn’t have been doing.
Instead, you let me move into that place knowing I was in danger. ”
His face doesn’t move. “Don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”
Some tiny part of me actually believes him because there is a look in his eyes that shows me he is shocked.
“They said Harper was working with them, and now I was supposed to finish the job. Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about.”
He just stands there, all six foot whatever of him, and his face goes hard as granite. “Callie, I don’t fucking know what you’re talking about.”
I glare at him, wishing I could slap the arrogance right off his face.
“Ralston Cupp. Ruger. Apparently, Harper was working with them, and now they claim I owe them a favor. Why the fuck would they say that if it wasn’t true?
You think I’m so stupid I’d come here and make this up and actually believe you don’t know that your woman was working with the devil? ”
“No,” he says, voice like a barely-tethered snarl.
I watch him, searching desperately for something—remorse, confusion, guilt, a mask slipping—but all I catch is the ridged edge of his jaw, straining.
“Stop lying,” I whisper-hiss.
“I. Don’t. Know. What. The. Fuck. You’re. Talking. About.”
“So you expect me to believe that Harper was going around behind your back, too? That the love of your life, the perfect fucking angel, was in bed with the big dogs, and you didn’t know about it?”
He takes a step toward me, fists clenching, and for a split second, I prepare for him to hit something—maybe the wall, maybe a chair, maybe even me, though I highly doubt his rage would ever veer in that particular direction.
I want him to do it; I want him to lash out, to give me a reason to stop believing in him.
“Don’t you ever,” he says, his voice a razor, “come into my home and start accusin’ me of shit I haven’t done.”
I think he might actually be telling me the truth, and that scares me even more because if he didn’t know what Harper was doing, then we could be in deep.
He doesn’t let me go on.
“Ever think they’re playin’ you to get what they want? I would have known if Harper was into that kind of shit. This is them messin’ with you and you fallin’ for it.
My nails dig half-moons into my palms. “Oh, fuck off, Knox. Maybe the real truth is you not wanting to admit she might have been lying to you, too. That maybe she wasn’t the perfect person and you all got fooled.”
I hate saying that because I love Harper. She mattered to me. But she could never do any wrong. She was fiery and beautiful, and people loved her, but that meant she could get away with whatever she wanted. Maybe this is one of those times.
His fist hits the table. I flinch. He shoves his face closer to mine. “Harper was not in bed with Ralston. She was better than that, better than you. If you’re gonna stand here and piss on her grave, then maybe you should just get the fuck out.”
His words sting. They hit me like a knife to the chest. Okay, I came in here looking for a fight, and he gave me one, but the fact that he is refusing to even consider what I’m saying hurts. It hurts because now I’m tangled up in something I didn’t ask for.
“Gladly,” I snap. “Should’ve never come.”
My hands are shaking as I shoulder past him, my heart pinging between rage and something brittle. I make it halfway across the room before I feel the tears sneaking out, hot and traitorous. I don’t look back, not once—not even when he yells after me, “Shut the fuckin’ door.”
I do.
I swing it closed with a blinding rage.
Then, I get the hell out of there.