Chapter 24
TWENTY-FOUR
brINLEY
I wondered if I’d ever get used to the feel of him sweeping in behind me. His presence overpowering as it blasted through the stuffy office.
Potent, delicious heat.
I really shouldn’t like it, but after last night and this morning? He was getting places I couldn’t let him.
“How are you?” That gruff, low voice hit me like the calluses on his fingertips.
A shiver raced.
I peeked at Silas from over my shoulder.
My stomach toppled over.
God, he was pretty.
Violently so.
“Just as frustrated as I was yesterday morning with this computer.” I managed to put a little snark into it. “If you actually want me to make any progress here, I’m going to need the correct tools.”
The barest smirk lit the edge of his plush lips. “It’s not sufficient for you?”
Clearly, he knew it was a pile of crap.
“This thing is as old as I am.”
Amusement drifted across his face. “You really think you’re going to whip this place into shape?”
“That’s why I’m here, isn’t it?”
Obviously, I knew that wasn’t true, but sometimes it was easier to pretend.
“Bookkeeping?” He said it droll, a question tacked to it. Head inclining like maybe he was trying to piece my job together with my personality.
It wasn’t quite what I’d promised my mother. Close, but with about ninety-five percent less pay. I was sure I was making her super proud, that and the fact that I’d allowed Dereck to go astray.
I hiked an indifferent shoulder. “What can I say? I’m good with numbers.”
Something passed through his features. Something calculating. Then he gave a clipped nod. “I’ll see what I can manage.”
“Thank you.” It left me far too fast and wispy. What was I thinking, getting soft on this guy?
As if aiming to prove my point, his expression hardened like dried clay. “I’ll be back. Stay out of trouble while I’m gone.”
I gave him a salute, and I was the fricking fool who giggled when he left.
“Passcode to get in is 85641.” Silas leaned over my shoulder, orating the numbers at the same time as he punched them into the keypad of the laptop he showed up with.
I quirked a wry brow. “Is that the code to get into everything around here?”
He huffed a disbelieving sound, as if he were offended I thought so little of him. “Just making it simple for you.”
I bristled. Now I was the one who was offended.
He chuckled a little, and his breath skated over my cheek.
I had to stop myself from clenching my thighs.
“Don’t worry, Little Wildfire, there’s nothing in here that will land you in hot water.
Just a bunch of old files and the software we used back in Moonlit Ridge. It should streamline things a bit.”
He clicked into the program, and I nearly jumped with joy. “I guess bikers do know how to run businesses, after all.”
He lifted his hand and dragged the back of it down the angle of my jaw, his mouth so close that I could nearly taste him. “I can think of a few more things I’m pretty good at.”
The words dripped sex.
Goosebumps raced.
I should shove him off. The most astounding thing was that I didn’t want to. My mind blown that rather than fighting back, I wanted to sink into the indulgent promise he was clearly making.
Wondering if it was a little of the good that Meems had been talking about.
I nearly scoffed at myself.
I knew how horribly bad it would be, but God, I wanted to bottle up this feeling, keep whatever he had seduced in me and put it on a shelf as proof that it existed.
The main door swinging open had Silas stumbling back, and I tried to shove off the reaction, totally flustered and probably flaming red since my blood raced at ten thousand degrees.
“Well, hello, dear brother.” Elena’s voice was full of an accusatory laugh. I couldn’t see her from where I was sitting, but if I could, I was sure her expression would contain a gleeful allegation. “I hope we’re not interrupting?”
“Hi, my Siwas.”
Kai was with her, and there was no stopping the soft smile that started somewhere in my heart and lifted to my mouth.
Silas grunted behind me. “Not interrupting a thing. Just was showing Brinley how to get into the laptop I brought her so she can make herself useful while she’s here.”
It could have hurt. Stabbed deep enough to cause a wound. But I knew he was covering. Covering for what he didn’t want to feel, either.
There was no way this was one-sided.
“Huh. I thought I heard some heavy panting in here.”
“Don’t be crass, Elena.”
“Crass? I live at an MC compound. That was hardly crass.”
“Cwass.” Kai giggled, and my spirit thrummed, and I was fighting a wild grin as I finally gathered myself enough to push to my feet.
“Oh, there she is.” Elena drew it out, her eyes widening with the tease.
“Here I am and totally breathing normally.”
It was a lie.
I’d been two seconds from hyperventilating from the mere brush of Silas’s hand.
“Mmhmmm.”
“What do you want, Elena?” Silas scuffed.
“Kai and I were bored and thought we’d come see what Brinley was up to. We thought she might need some help. We’re about to go bonkers inside that house, you know, since you won’t let me get a job.”
“You don’t need a job,” he grunted.
“Well, maybe I want one. I have a freaking bachelor’s in business and there’s absolutely nothing to do with it.”
My eyes must have bugged out of their sockets from the surprise because Elena sent me a pout. “Received online and without interacting with a soul. Shocker, right?”
“Don’t need this today, Elena,” Silas rumbled, agitation flashing through his body.
But it was hurt flashing through Elena’s. “I’m not a little girl anymore, Silas.”
“We’ll discuss it later.”
“We’ll always, ‘discuss it later’.”
Pain rebounded between them. Silas because he so clearly wanted to shield her from every horrible thing in the world and Elena because she so clearly needed to be set free.
A clear conundrum since I doubted there was a really good solution for either of them.
Silas finally sighed. “You can help Brinley out here in the office today.”
Elena squealed like she was that little girl that she wasn’t close to being.
“That is if Brinley doesn’t mind.”
Now he was asking for my opinion?
“Um, obviously that’s a yes from me,” I said, trying to coerce the thickness from my voice.
“Because we’re besties, obvi,” Elena added, grinning conspiratorially my way.
At this point, I wasn’t even sure that was an exaggeration.
Silas hesitated, narrowed attention pitching between us, before he shook his head and turned on his heel and walked out into the shop, Elena’s overeagerness robbing him of a response.
Then she laughed. “God, he’s so easy to rile up.”
“It’s only because he cares about you.”
Elena swayed Kai as she strode around the high counter, a smirk lighting her pretty face. “Ah, how the tables have turned. Now you’re the one sticking up for him?”
“Me? Sticking up for him?” I hooked a thumb toward the shop. “No way.”
Kai mimicked me, giggling as he gurgled, “No way!”
Crap, this kid could melt the polar icecaps.
“I just want the best for you.” I shrugged, like it was no big deal that I meant it.
“You want me to have a little of that good?” She wagged her brows the way she’d done earlier in the kitchen.
Amusement had me shaking my head as I plunked myself down in the chair in front of the laptop.
“And what good is it you’re looking for?” I deflected.
Elena pulled up another chair and plopped Kai onto her lap. “I want to own a gift shop. Maybe have a man who looks at me the way my brother looks at you. You know, the simple things in life.”
I could feel her rolling her eyes, like the thought of them was impossible.
With Silas, they just might be.
My mood turned serious as I looked across at her, taking us back to our conversation last night. “Are those some of the risks you’re willing to take?”
Air puffed from her nose, and I saw the flash of sorrow blanket her. “They are, but I doubt anyone would be brave enough to take one of those risks on me.”
I reached out and squeezed her hand. “I don’t think your brother would stop you from finding joy, Elena. He might be protective, but he’s not cruel.”
Well, at least toward her. I had a hunch the man could be sadistic.
“I think everyone around here is too terrified to find out.” Her breath hitched when she said it, and I was sure she wasn’t speaking ambiguously, but about someone specific.
“I doubt I’m worth dying for.” She attempted to play it a joke. I fully knew better.
“I’m pretty sure you’re worth everything, Elena. Don’t you dare give up on what you want. No matter what happened in the past.”
Kai was all snuggled up under her chin. Her chin that wobbled.
I probably shouldn’t have pushed, but I couldn’t help myself as I glanced over my shoulder to make sure we were in the clear before my gaze was back on her. “It’s related, isn’t it? What’s going on with me and what happened to you?”
She blanched, and she sniffled against the emotion. “I don’t know that for certain, Brinley. Silas doesn’t let me in on those things. He says it’s safer if I don’t know what’s going on.”
She hesitated then rushed, “But everything changed after I was held hostage. Silas quick to pack us up and move to another state. Now everything is more hushed, the guys always whispering and glancing my way, the secrets feeling like they might suffocate.”
She let go of a heavy exhale. “My brother has always been on edge, but there is something even more rigid about him now. And with you being here…”
She shrugged a little, but it wasn’t indifferent, her eyes pinching in urgency. “They’re really bad people, Brinley, and if it is related, then you are in the right place. My brother won’t let anything happen to you.”
I didn’t mean to feel deflated when she admitted it. I hoped that maybe I could glean something from her, some idea of what the hell was going on with Dereck, but I didn’t want to manipulate or use her, either.
Because I liked her. Far more than I should. All of them really. Verging on a negligent way.
There was my heart, dangling at the opening of a shredder.
I turned to the laptop and clicked around, trying to orient myself. Mostly it was folders with a ton of old files containing Talon & Torque documents for at least seven years.
I figured the best I could do would be to get their current payables and receivables up to date, send out late invoices to the umpteen service invoices that remained unpaid, and make sure their accounts were balanced.
I wasn’t sure how they stayed afloat, but I had an inkling the shop wasn’t their only source of income.
Those boys bad, even though it was getting harder and harder to view them that way.
Elena kept rocking Kai who was steadily drifting to sleep. The child seemed to be able to conk out wherever he was.
“So, what’s on today’s to-dos?” she asked, also trying to clear the heaviness away, a bright smile tacked to her face.
I made an annoyed sound at the back of my throat. “Getting all of those handwritten invoices into the system.”
I gestured at a giant stack I’d already sorted.
“Eww, why did I volunteer?” she teased.
“This is no gift shop,” I returned. “You won’t find any glitter around here.”
I got it then. All the notes and the cute things. It fit her perfectly.
“But one day you’ll have a store full of it.”
“I hope so,” she whispered, then both of us jolted with the clatter of activity that suddenly echoed through the air.
All the machinery clipped off in the shop while a bunch of shouts lifted.
Elena shot to her feet. I couldn’t stop her before she rushed out the entrance door.
I was right behind her.
“Goddamn it, Elena, get back in the office, right now,” Silas growled, halfway across the lot and heading in the direction of the big open gate.
Only she was frozen.
Pale and ashen.
So clearly going weak.
I pulled Kai out of her arms and stepped in front of her, trying to make sense of what was happening as a bunch of Crows went stalking toward a middle-aged guy who stood out on the other side of the gate.
Maybe in his mid-fifties. Salt and pepper hair and beard. Scruffy and mean.
He didn’t step over the boundary line.
I was pretty sure he was aware if he did, he’d be writing his own obituary.
Energy blasted and shook. Hate shivering through the rays of sunlight and setting them askew.
Both Silas and Brody were at the front of the pack, while Trevan and six other bikers I didn’t know the names of came up at their rear and sides.
The guy sneered, though he lifted his hands and shouted, “Want to see Kai.”
That was all it took for me to know. For my own hatred to blister like a forest fire through my veins.
A wave of protection rose over me, and I curled an arm tighter around Kai, somehow managing to grab Elena’s hand with the other.
“We need to go.” The whispered frenzy of my voice finally breaking her out of the trance.
I was taken over by the urge to flee. To protect. To break the cycle the way Silas was so desperate to do.
I wouldn’t let that bastard have him, either.
I didn’t take them back into the office.
I wanted to get them as far away from this asshole as possible.
So, I rushed with haggard breaths around the side of the shop, hauling Elena along behind me as I balanced Kai in one arm.
My single destination the house tucked at the back of the property.
Toward that structure that felt like a haven.
Like no one would have the chance to get to any of them there.
I didn’t follow the gravel road. I hit the path that cut through the cover of trees since it was about half the distance.
Brush and shrubs rose up beneath. A maze of woods that hugged like shelter.
I did my best to run with Kai in my arms.
He was still asleep, and he bounced against my chest, my efforts slowed by my heels that kept sinking into the soft earth.
I finally kicked off the hindrance and dropped onto my bare feet.
Then I ran. Ignoring the pricks of sticks and rocks that cut into the soles of my feet.
None of that mattered.
The only thing that did was getting them to the house.
Elena let go of my hand so I could hold onto Kai better and raced up to my side, a blur of tears on her face.
“Silas won’t let him get to him,” I promised on a rasp, a hand cupping the back of Kai’s head, pouring that same oath into him.
Elena choked with a nod, and I ignored the sharp bite of pain as my foot was pierced by a particularly sharp rock, sucking it down with the anger that had come at me from out of nowhere.
I wondered if Meems could feel it. If she’d felt the horror strike in the heavens because she was shuffling out onto the porch at the same second as we broke out of the thicket.
Dread and ferocity on her face.
A shotgun held across her body.
We barreled up the steps, and she lowered the gun so Elena could throw herself into her arms.
Her grandmother so clearly her safe place, while Meems gave me a knowing look over her head.