Chapter 53
Mia
“They’ve been back there too long,” I say to Roz as I swallow down a shot of vodka at least an hour later.
“If they’re working out their differences, it could be a while,” she says and continues to slice limes. She barely gets the words out before she’s gesturing to the back of the room. “Looks like you’re up, honey.”
Aiden gives me a nod, and I’m only halfway across the club floor when I realize his face is beat to shit. I’m gonna fucking kill Mason. I reach up when I get to him, placing my hand against his swollen cheek.
“You should see the other guy.” Aiden kisses me.
“Mm-hmm.” I grimace. “I’m about to give the other guy a pretty big piece of my mind.” I storm past him and down the hall to Aiden’s office, but when I swing the door open, Mason is sitting in the chair, and fuck, he looks just as bad. His lip is bleeding, and he’s definitely gonna have a black eye.
“I told you both to fucking play nice.”
“We did,” Mason tells me. “But I’m still not happy about this. I don’t want you anywhere near this life, Mia.”
“Well, that would be my decision, not either of yours.” I look between the two of them. “This isn’t 1952, for fuck’s sake.”
“Sit down,” Aiden says, gesturing to the seat beside Mason’s. “We have something we’ve decided to work on together.”
I raise my eyebrow. “Oh?”
“Oh,” Mason confirms.
“I was telling Mason about my visit to Henderson today…” Aiden starts, then goes on to tell me all about his visit with Arlo, and how he and Mason are about to go rogue to get answers out of Dagger. Ultimately, they both agree. He needs to die.
“How are you going to find him?” I ask, and they trade a look.
“That’s where you come in,” Aiden says.
“Me?”
“Bait,” he adds, concern written all over his face. “It might be the easiest way to lure him somewhere…private.”
My mouth falls open, and I’m not sure what to say as Aiden moves closer. “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to, Mia.” His eyes search my face.
“We think Dagger has been following you when I’m not around,” Aiden adds. “That this obsession runs deeper than any of us realized.”
“If we’re right,” Mason says, “we have the perfect place to take him.”
“Between the two of us, you’ll be safe the whole time,” Aiden assures me. “Dagger won’t be able to hurt you, but you’d need to feel comfortable with leading him—”
“Just tell me what I need to do, and I’m in.” I don’t have to think twice. I trust these men with my life. Unequivocally.
Mason and Aiden share a long, silent exchange, as if deciding whether they really want to go through with whatever they dreamed up in their Fight Club–style meeting.
“I’m waiting,” I tell them.
Aiden nods, then passes Mason a smoke and begins to tell me the plan.
* * *
I look in the rearview mirror as I drive slowly and intentionally out of town. My sweaty palms grip the steering wheel of my old car. There’s a car directly behind me, and a truck behind the car, but behind that, a little way back, is the headlight of a motorcycle.
Earlier, Mason and I executed our plan to perfection. I stormed out of Lavish, and he followed me into the parking lot where I yelled at him for beating Aiden to within an inch of his life.
Mason forbade me from ever seeing Aiden again, telling me that if I disobeyed him, his club would kill Aiden.
I pushed him away and told him sharply that I needed to be alone and I was going to our dad’s old cabin for the night.
Mason left on his bike in the opposite direction, and I waited, sitting in my car and fake crying for a full ten minutes, giving Aiden and Mason a head start—Mason on his bike and Aiden in the club van.
It didn’t take long for that motorcycle headlight to appear, around when I hit the city limits. If the bike follows me all forty minutes to the Disciples cabin, then I’ll know Dagger has been stalking me.
A shudder runs through me. Thinking about him lurking in the shadows makes me nauseous. Did his obsession grow every time he got away with it?
Trying to stay calm, I remind myself that Aiden and Mason will already be inside the cabin when I get there, ready to take Dagger down the moment they see him pull in.
The moon is high in the night sky. I check in the rearview again as I signal the turn onto the final road before my destination. Only a mile from Aiden, I remind myself. The car continues straight as I turn, and I expect the truck to as well, thinking it will be the bike that follows me.
But instead, it’s the opposite. The bike continues straight while the truck veers around me. I don’t have time to do anything as it T-bones me with a loud, cracking thud, and then I’m pushed off the road into a ditch.