Chapter 15
ZANE
I can’t deny that having her at my back as we ride, holding on for dear life like she always used to. Her fresh scent, which reminds me of summer is mixing with all the other scents of riding—cool wind, burnt rubber, asphalt—and making the world complete.
I missed her on the back of my bike. A lot. More than I ever wanted to admit to myself. Because she was gone and I was doomed and there was no changing any of it.
But is there any changing it now?
I don’t think so. So I won’t get too used to having her back. No matter how much she belongs with me.
I’ll go with her to get her things. I’ll make sure she has somewhere to stay. And I hope her husband really won’t be home, because I’m not doing murder for her again. No matter how alive she makes me feel. Like I could do anything. Be anyone.
I take the long way to her house. I didn’t need her to tell me the address, because I’d been watching her home for hours before revealing myself to her by the ocean. I want to make this ride last, because it will be one of our last.
Back when we were still together, I never made a point of remembering our rides and I don’t know which it was—maybe a ride over the hills of Hollywood, or a sunset ride by the beach…
one of those. Today, we’re riding by the ocean, the waters choppy and looking nervous.
But that turmoil is offset by the soft golden color of the sun washing over everything as it breaks through the clouds.
We reach her mansion-type home right on the ocean much too fast. I park across the driveway with a vague notion of preventing her ol’ man from running if he’s inside. Her ol’ man… I was supposed to be that!
“You coming?” she calls from the front door, which she’s holding wide open for me.
I probably should say no and just ride off. That would be best for my sanity and peace of mind. But I’ve got precious little of those left. Sanity, not for a while. But peace of mind, I got a little chunk of that back last night while she slept in my arms.
I jog over and enter the house before I start thinking even crazier things.
The house smells faintly of vanilla and feels like no one actually lives there.
The decor looks like something out of a movie set—all sharp straight lines, light-colored wood and metal.
Even the sofa in the huge living room looks like it’s made of metal and I’m willing to bet it’s uncomfortable as fuck to sit on.
The view out the large living room windows is gorgeous though—the sun-kissed ocean stretching out uninterrupted all the way to the horizon. I could get used to this view. And no sofa is too uncomfortable to sit—or fuck on—with Sienna.
There I go again.
“Go get your things,” I tell her harshly since she’s just standing there watching me look at the view. “And don’t forget to leave your husband a note.”
I suggested that because she didn’t leave me so much as a text when she disappeared from my life. That’s what I meant. She shudders as I say it, because she probably knows that perfectly well. We always were attuned on levels that went beyond speaking and fucking.
But all that’s been over for a long time now. I want to leave it in the dust. It’s safer that way.
She leaves and after a while I can hear her rummaging around upstairs. Maybe I should help her, since she’s bound to wanna pack more than will fit on my bike. But I don’t want to see the bed that she shared with another man for years.
“I’m ready,” she announces from the foot of the stairs.
She’s wearing tight blue jeans with holes in all the right places, a pair of riding boots and a leather jacket the hugs her perfect curves like a second skin.
She pulled her long hair into a high ponytail and on the whole, she looks like she just walked out of my memories from ten years ago into the here and now.
Like no time has passed at all since she was mine and I was hers and we had the rest of our lives to look forward to. Together.
All she’s carrying is a small leather backpack.
“You should take more than that,” I tell her. “Unless you’re planning on coming right back.”
“There’s nothing in this house I want to take with me,” she says and walks over. “And I’m never coming back.”
“Suit yourself.”
She extends her leg, showing me her boots, I guess. “Remember these?”
They do look familiar. “Are those your old boots?”
As I remember, she took a whole afternoon picking them out.
She’s smiling widely as she nods, but there’s a sadness in her eyes that’s as deep as a well. And just as dark. “The jeans are from back then too. But I had to get a new jacket, since I’ve filled out some since.”
“That you did,” I say. “And your helmet? But no, you left that at my place.”
Why the hell am I talking about that? She’s leaving here in her fancy Porsche and not on the back of my bike. I’ll escort her to safety and that’s it.
But there’s just something so whimsical and so sad about her holding on to the clothes she got so we could ride together for all these years. And buying a new leather jacket just in case… in case what? I came back.
I clear my throat. “So you got everything?”
Her eyes turn a little sadder as she nods.
“Your car keys too?”
The look she gives me cuts like a knife, mostly with the sharpness of sadness.
“No,” she says. “You’re taking me away from here. We’re riding away on your bike.”
“I didn’t come here for that,” I mutter wondering if that was ever the truth. But it has to be. She’s a liar. I can’t trust her. She buried me once and she’ll do it again.
“Didn’t you?” she asks quietly, kinda sadly as she runs her hand down my arm and holds my hand. “Well, I’m coming anyway. You can just drop me off on the side of the road, if that’s what you decide to do.”
The screeching of brakes outside saves me from having to say anything. It would probably be that I’d never just dump her by the side of the road like she dumped me.
A moment later the front door crashes open and her husband storms in, red in the face with rage.
“I knew you’d be stupid enough to come back here,” he says. “I knew it. But you and your boyfriend messed with the wrong man.”
He’s not alone. Three guys in tight black jackets and pants follow him into the house.
They look like bodyguards, the type only lots of money can buy, and I’m sure they can handle themselves in a fight.
But I’ve walked away from fights with guys like that before.
Because I fight dirty. And I’ve gotten real good at it over the years.
“We’re leaving now,” I say and wrap my arm around Sienna’s shoulders. She’s shaking slightly, because clearly these assholes scare her. They don’t scare me.
“You are not,” her husband says.
“I’d ask what army’s gonna stop us, but I’m assuming these three are it,” I say, giving the men a disgusted look.
They look very familiar in a way I can’t quite place.
I move so Sienna is behind me and keep my gaze on the three guys.
The only way they have a chance is if they all come at me together.
But even then, they don’t have much of a chance.
I’m assuming the husband will duck behind the nearest cover as soon as the fighting starts.
He seems like that kind of cowardly type.
I pull out my Glock from the holster at my hip and point it in the general direction of the men.
“We’re walking out of here now,” I tell them. “Best get out of the way if you don’t want this to escalate.”
“You’re not leaving here with my wife,” the husband says. “Get him.”
But the three men are smarter than to charge a man with a gun, even if they are three to one. Instead, they produce their own guns. Suddenly, three red laser dots appear on my chest, and I remember why these guys look familiar.
It’s from the war we helped the mob boss Matteo Rovina win. The enemy in that war also used handguns with silly little lasers attached to them. And they all dressed kind of like these guys. Hydra, they call themselves and Rogue Angels MC have had a problem with them since before I rejoined them.
“Drop your gun,” one of the Hydras says. “There’s no way you can shoot all of us before we kill you.”
He makes a very good point. And I don’t see an easy way out of this.
“You don’t wanna mess up your clean house with my blood, do you?” I ask the husband.
“Or keep me around,” Sienna adds. “You don’t really want that either.”
“You’re mine, Sienna,” the husband says with a sneer. “Until death do us part, remember?”
“I do remember,” she says and I recognize that wild tone in her voice. So I know something crazy is coming even before she adds, “But I’ll be walking away now. They can shoot me if they want to.”
She strides towards the front door, which is still blocked by the Hydras. They all look confused, and two of them point their guns at her. It’s the best opening I’m gonna get.
Luckily, I’m the only one here who knows this wild and crazy streak of hers well enough to not be shocked by the fact that she just walked right past two guys pointing guns at her.
She’s in the driveway now, two of the Hydras and the husband have their backs to me as they watch her and the one Hydra that still has his gun pointed at me keeps glancing back at her.
I don’t think too hard, I just charge him. And before the rest realize what’s happening, I have two of the Hydras incapacitated and am pointing my gun at third’s head.
“Game over,” I say. “Now you drop your gun, and we’ll be out of your hair. Or I can spill some blood. Your choice.”
He lifts his gun like he means to shoot Sienna, and I start squeezing the trigger. But he drops the gun before I squeeze it all the way.
“Good choice,” I say as I drag him behind me to my bike just in case any of the others wake and come at us again.
I tell Sienna to get on the bike, then knock out the Hydra with a well-placed blow to the back of his neck and get on my bike too.
They’ve boxed me in with their cars, but there’s a clear path out across the pristine green lawn.
“You’ll pay for this,” the husband yells right before my bike roars to life.
“You better stay away from her,” I yell back. “Or the next time there will be blood spilled. Yours first.”
Then I peel off across the lawn, grass and earth flying everywhere and Sienna holding onto my waist like she never means to let me go.
And I no longer want her to.
That goes against everything I thought I wanted and needed. But there it is.