Chapter 3
THREE
Bear
Ididn’t like this. I was sitting in the car with Hawk, Ace and Enzo as we waited for the drop.
Being in a different country, with a different MC that we didn’t know well, and doing runs was dangerous.
I didn’t like it. I also didn’t like leaving Orla after everything she’d been through, and especially after being balls deep in her.
She needed me.
Fuck, no, I needed her. Orla didn’t need anyone. She never had.
“You good?” Hawk asked me quietly. I turned to him looking at me like I was going to go on a rampage, and eased into the seat.
“Yeah.”
Hawk nodded. He knew that I wouldn’t actually tell him if something was up, but it was nice all the same. He’d grown up a lot since Morena came into his life.
Fuck they were all settling down now. The boys had always been lifers, on the road, living that nomadic life. So had I, but only because I couldn’t have her.
Orla had been my everything.
Until she wasn’t.
“We leaving soon?” I asked him.
Hawk nodded. “After this run, we leave.”
Good.
We waited a little longer and finally we had movement.
Enzo jumped out of the car, and headed over to complete the run.
The sellers were put off by the van, probably used to bikes but we didn’t have them here, and this was safer rather than getting lost in Milan on streets we didn’t recognise if something were to go wrong.
“I don’t like this,” I said out loud this time. “We shouldn’t have left the girls alone.”
Hawk tensed, probably realising for the first time we had left them alone with people we didn’t trust. One of us should have stayed.
“We’re good,” Ace said, issuing us with a warning to keep our fucking mouths shut. Enzo was making his way back, a parcel in his hands. He tossed it over to Ace who looked down at it. “What is it?”
“Take this back to Ireland,” he said without so much as an explanation. The look of it made me think bricks of coke, but I didn’t think the Rabid Wolves were drug runners, and they definitely wouldn’t trust a rival MC to deliver this.
Hawk shot me a look that told me just how much he didn’t trust this either, but we knew better than to go against Ace. He would give us orders, and we would do what was asked. That’s how it was.
The ride back was made in silence.
My hackles rose when Enzo killed the engine as we got into the compound.
“Your ride is waiting for you,” he said. “Take the package back to Ireland and give it to our contact there.”
“Why aren’t you giving this to your chapter over there?” Ace asked finally.
“You owe us a favour,” Enzo said with a deathly cool that brought a chill to my bones. “You do this and we’re even.”
“Once only.”
Enzo nodded, but he wasn’t confident. Before he opened the doors, he turned to us, each of us getting a meaningful look. “Dario doesn’t repeat himself and he doesn’t explain his reasoning. Take your people home. The flight will be safe, no regulations.”
He got out of the car and left us all reeling.
We could quite possibly be walking into one of the biggest traps known to man, and there wasn’t a damn thing we could do about it.
I needed to get Orla home safe.
“Watch your sixes,” Ace said before he exited the van and headed down to the cabin to round everyone up. I followed after him, and Hawk did too.
It was time to get out of dodge.
Orla
I’d been sleeping when I heard his boots on the floors before he opened the door to the room. Jumping up, I realised I wasn’t back in that place and it wasn’t Matteo at my door to degrade me a little more. Bear seemed to realise what he’d done and softened.
“Pack whatever you need,” he said. “We’re leaving.”
“What’s happened?” I asked him, sensing the urgency in his voice.
“We need to go,” he replied. “I can’t explain. Not yet. Please.”
I found myself nodding, but the Bear that had been inside of me before, the Bear that I recognised was gone.
He was back to being this cold, detached Bear I’d known since he had returned.
My hope was dashed, and I realised that earlier he’d just done that because he needed me to feel safe, to feel normal again.
Pulling myself together, I got changed into some of his clothes and followed him out of the cabin.
Sheridan and Ace were huddled together, and Hawk had Wolf under his arm since he could barely move without assistance.
Jesus, what the fuck had they done to him?
Bear grabbed my hand and we followed the others up to the compound parking area where Enzo was behind the wheel. We jumped in the van and were driven as if we were evading the law.
Oh god.
They’d shot up at the crime family here to rescue us. I had shot Matteo Barone.
They were probably coming for me.
I shook with fear, wondering what Italian women’s prisons were like here. Would I be someone’s bitch or would they be intimidated by my ink and make me their leader?
Sheridan put her hand on mine and squeezed, seeming to realise where my head was at.
She hadn’t really spoken, had only really been glued to Ace since we had been rescued.
I was okay with that because I knew she wasn’t as tough as me, but I wanted Bear to squeeze my fingers, to pull me under his arm and make the demons disappear. He wouldn’t though.
He was the same as he was earlier.
Detached.
He’d barely looked me in the eye since we left the cabin, even now as we were pulling up at a private airstrip and being shuttled toward the plane. It was a private jet, and I wondered whose it was.
Bear sat with Hawk and Wolf at the front, while I sat with Sheridan and Ace. They huddled together and she slowly drifted to sleep as the plane took off.
My eyes were glued on Bear, but he didn’t once look in my direction.
Giving up hope, I turned to look out the window at the scene below me, wondering exactly what the hell life was going to throw at me once we got back.
Bear
I got up from my seat, and moved over to where Orla was sitting in the chair at the back. Hawk and Wolf had started to drift off to sleep, and Ace and Sheridan were curled up together. Orla had fallen asleep looking out the window. I had felt her eyes on me, but I couldn’t lose focus right now.
She needed to be safe.
We’d received word that Matteo hadn’t died from the gunshot wound she’d inflicted and was looking for her. I had to keep her safe, whether she wanted it or not. Soon, she would hate me all over again, but there was no way in hell I was putting her in danger again.
I pulled the blanket from a cabinet behind her and threw it over her to keep her warm.
She shifted slightly under the warmth, but didn’t wake.
Taking her hand, I placed a kiss on her knuckles, taking in the delicate tattoos on her hands, they were older than the others, and probably her first foray into tattooing.
She practised on herself. I don’t know why, but it brought a smile to my face.
I’d kill to have her tattoo me, her soft hands holding my skin taut as she drew over me with the gun.
My dick was hardening just thinking about it.
I didn’t have much skin left that hadn’t been tatted up, but damn it, I’d find room for her art.
Even if she tatted up my dick, because damn, that thing was all hers.
Always had been.
I took the seat behind hers and waited for the plane to land, my fingers still itching from where I held hers.