Prologue #3
“If MV—” Poison clamped her mouth and eyes closed for a moment.
The moniker she’d used for years to describe the mystery voice on the other end of the phone now tasted like acid on her tongue.
She let a puff of air out through her nose, trying futilely to center herself.
Fury, though, won out, and it was a wonder laser beams didn’t shoot out of her eyeballs when she reopened them.
“If Rose,” she corrected herself, “wasn’t missing now, you wouldn’t be telling me this, would you? ”
Kitty shook his head. “She asked me not to.”
Poison nodded stiffly, her spine as straight as a board.
“And of course you would respect her wishes. It’s not like we were trying to build a life together.
It’s not like I didn’t open up my heart and my soul to you, like you didn’t bulldoze your way into my life and completely take it over.
” The sarcasm lacing her voice was as potent as venom.
“Why would you feel the need to put my needs above hers?”
“Would you have believed me?” he asked back, crossing his arms over his broad chest. “If I came to you with my suspicions in the beginning when you were so distrusting, letting me into your body but not your heart, would you have believed me?” Before Poison could respond, Kitty continued, “I’m not placing blame on you.
Rose asked me to keep her secret.” He pulled out his phone from his back pocket.
“Even now, she asked me to keep it, but I can’t anymore. Not if it means her life.”
MV: Don’t tell her. She needs to stay out of this.
Poison stared at the message for a long, agonizingly silent moment. “Do you know where she is? No bullshit, no ‘Jack says’. Do you know where my sister is and who is after her?”
Kitty lowered his hand, locking his phone with his thumb as he did. “No,” he answered softly. “I truly don’t. It’s why it took me so long with Jack to get even the smallest of answers.”
Poison nodded once, the gravity of her lover’s betrayal pulling her down into a deep, dark pit of grief and anger. “Good. Now get out.”
* * *
Kitty, though, didn’t budge. “No.”
As one, all the women, even Sissy, stepped forward and stood at Poison’s back. It was a show of force, but also solidarity. As much as he appreciated the show of feminine support for Poison, he would not let them forcefully remove him, even if it was Poison’s wish. She needed him, she loved him.
Yes, he’d kept this secret from her for a long, long time, but Rose had also kept his secret.
It wasn’t an excuse. He knew he’d fucked up.
He’d chosen Rose over Poison, though at the time he’d made that decision it hadn’t presented that way.
Didn’t change that that was the reality of what he’d done.
“I’m fucking serious right now, Robin.” Poison spat his ridiculous moniker out of her like it was the punchline of a fucked-up joke.
If she only knew the truth of it. He much preferred “Kitty”, and not just because she’d been the one to give it to him.
“If you don’t leave of your own free will, you’ll be leaving in a body bag. ”
Despite her statue-like appearance, Poison was far from calm, and Kitty knew he was owed her rage. But he wanted her to give it to him. Wanted her to shout, punish, scream, rage… So long as it was at him. So long as he remained at her side. He would fight until his last breath to remain there.
Kitty stepped forward, closing the distance between them.
Grabbing her chin in his hand, he tilted her head up to him.
Her blue eyes were cold as ice as she stared back at him.
But then, she blinked, and a single tear formed in the corner of her left eye.
It was so small. Something that minuscule should not be able to cause such intense agony to a man like him, but it nearly brought him to his knees.
He could handle her rage. He could take her anger. What he couldn’t take was her pain. Pain that he had caused her, even unintentionally.
Fuck. He really was the bastard his family thought him to be.
“Rurik,” he told her in a slightly accented voice. He ignored the sounds of surprise at his birth name from the others in the room. They didn’t matter. Only Poison did. “I’ll go, if that is your wish. You know how to get a hold of me when you’re ready.”
He leaned down and gently brushed his lips against hers. It was fucking excruciating, knowing he was the cause of her pain. If Poison needed him to leave, then that was what he would do, but he would never stop fighting for her, for them. Turning, Kitty walked out the motel room door.
He was barely halfway across the parking lot before he heard a harsh, “Hey!” from behind him. Unfortunately, the voice was masculine.
The motel was on the edge of a small Mississippi town bordering the gulf with a large parking lot surrounded by trees and swamp. When the club had checked in yesterday, the owner warned them of gators, snakes, and other wildlife that were native to the area.
Kitty stopped and turned. Ghost and Benjamin were storming after him across the parking lot. They looked pissed.
“What the fuck was that?” Ghost demanded. Poison might call him “Mercer” out of pure stubbornness, but Kitty had a simpler strategy. He called Ghost “Ghost” until the other Ghost was in the same room as them, and then he called the VDMC president “Ghost One” and Mercer “Ghost Two”. Easy peasy.
“You heard exactly what it was,” Kitty told them evenly. These two might be the closest people he’d had as friends, but he also didn’t owe them anything.
He owed Poison everything.
Benjamin scratched the scruff on his jawline. “Look, man, secrets aside, how can you just leave? Poison needs you right now, and you’re just going to walk out on her?”
Kitty snorted. Clearly, Benjamin didn’t know him that well if he thought that was ever a possibility. “Hardly. I’m letting her cool down, but I’m not going anywhere. You guys head back, be there for her. I’m going to go see what I can dig up on Rose’s case at the Marshals’ office in Gulfport.”
Ghost and Benjamin exchanged a look before Benjamin asked, “Like the U.S. Marshals?” His voice held so much doubt.
Amateur.
“Yeah. She’s in WITSEC, which means there has to be a file or something on her. Jack can’t get into their system, but if I can get into their server room and plant a trojan, maybe he can.”
“What are you planning on doing? Just stroll in and claim to be IT or something?” Ghost’s voice was as appalled as Benjamin’s.
Kitty snorted, offended at the audacity of the question.
“Please. I’m a thief. They won’t even know I’m there.
Which reminds me,” he added specifically to Ghost. “I’d prefer to borrow your keys than steal them.
Being friends and all that.” He held out his hand.
“I’ll catch up with the club once I have something. ”
Ghost just stared at him. “I’m not giving you the keys to my bike!”
“You can ride bitch with Phoenix for a while,” Kitty told him. It wasn’t that big of a deal; Kitty rode bitch behind Poison all the time. “Do what I do and play with her tits while she’s driving. It’ll make the time go by a lot faster, and then she’ll jump your bones the second the bike stops.”
Benjamin shook his head, blinking like he was trying to make sense of what they were talking about. “Kitty, you’re not making any sense. Just come back inside and talk with Poison—”
Kitty rounded on him, and for the first time, he allowed himself to feel the pain that he was keeping bottled up inside him.
Guilt ate away at his soul. “We’re bikers.
Poison is still mine just as much as I am hers.
There is no divorce, no break ups. I am her Knightmare, whether she likes it or not, and I will protect her.
With,” he glared at Ghost, “or without your help.”
That said, he pushed between the two of them, making sure to bump into Ghost’s shoulder harder than Benjamin’s. Then he headed towards where Benjamin and Waya’s camper van and the club’s bikes were parked. They had chosen the edge of the parking lot that wasn’t surrounded by marsh.
Without hesitation, he straddled Ghost’s bike.
“Hey!” Ghost shouted, and from their distance, Kitty saw him frantically patting all his pockets. But his keys were clearly not there as Kitty started up the motorcycle. Lifting his fingers in a Peace Out gesture, he rode out of the parking lot with Ghost chasing after him on foot.
* * *
The bell over the ice cream shoppe jingled as the club entered. They were all fucking exhausted, and a new tension had risen up in the club that had little to do with lack of sleep. They were divided, out of sync. Physically, mentally, and emotionally.
After Kitty stole Ghost’s bike, they packed up, but they needed to travel light and fast. Things were thrown in Benjamin and Waya’s camper van that were unnecessary on the bikes—including all Kitty’s belongings.
The women’s Knightmares were also left behind.
None of them, biker or Knightmare, were happy about it, but the club needed to ride hard and fast. They went straight for over a day before Viper overrode Poison as road captain and declared it was too dangerous for them to continue.
She found a pay-by-the-hour room, where the women slept for about four hours, and then got back on the road.
Waya, Benjamin, Ghost, and Sissy were riding in the camper van at a much slower pace.
The moment the seven women of the Non Cras Motorcycle Club crossed into Beaverton, Oregon, they aimed straight for the coordinates of the IP address where Rose’s dead man’s message was sent, which turned out to be an old fashioned ice cream shoppe.