CHAPTER 2
A scorned woman is a beautifully dangerous thing.
From the parking lot across the street, I have a clear view of the two-lane road leading up to the strip club. I’ve been sitting here for hours, waiting for the moment when the past comes riding back into my life.
But Finn is once again missing in action, and once again, I’m left wondering where in the hell he could be. As I wait, it’s all too easy to let my mind drift back to the days upon days where I did this exact same thing—paused my life for Finn.
I was three weeks from turning eighteen, full of hopes and dreams, when he went off to play hero.
For months after he left, I worried myself sick. Held out hope he would show up or send a letter, a fucking email—anything.
It took months of silence before I’d had enough and started searching for answers.
I’d been led to believe that, like so many other soldiers, he died while serving our country. The news had crushed me. Made my life barely worth living. Until I saw him alive and well with my own two eyes nearly five years ago, and realized the joke was on me.
At some point over the years, he’d traded his fatigues for leather and one brotherhood for another. And while I’d been doing anything I could to survive and forget the love I found and lost, he’d been partying, banging a slew of women, and drinking as much alcohol as his body would let him consume.
See, I’d had it all wrong. I wasn’t the girlfriend of a dead soldier. There wasn’t some remarkable man up in Heaven watching me, waiting for me. I was just someone he cared for once, and left in the dust of New Mexico.
He’d made it out alive… and me, well… I’d been abandoned.
The knowledge hurt, and it also hardened me. Made me critical of all my faults. If I couldn’t be loved, I’d be wanted. Desired. Envied. Feared. A weapon dressed in satin, lace, and perfume—perfect in every conceivable way. Talented. Beautiful. Fierce.
Turns out, men will pay dearly for the attention of a woman who doesn’t flinch at her own reflection, who owns her sexuality, and keeps them guessing.
And nothing pays better than rich and powerful men with dirty secrets, which is where I found my niche.
A short game, and a dangerous one. But backed by the most notorious motorcycle club in the country, I didn’t just survive—I carved out power and profit on my own terms.
This job, though, isn’t about that. It’s not about the money. It’s about paying back a debt no amount of money can repay.
Years ago, Deeds had helped me rescue my sister and kill the monster who’d invaded my childhood home.
My Stepfather. A man who’d made my teenage years a living hell, to the point I’d run away at sixteen.
Together, Deeds and I made sure he’d never lay his hands on another child.
Then we found a lovely family to take in Lacy, and over the years, with the money I earned working for the GBs, I ensured she not only recovered but thrived.
Now, Deeds needs me to repay the favor. To do that, I have to sneak back into the life of the man who left me.
Use my skills and my old connection with Finn to infiltrate the HOCs, discover how deeply their ties run with the Thirteen Devils, and figure out who among them might not be as loyal as they seem.
Because war is coming. The Greenbacks are preparing to face the Escarra Cartel, and figuring out how far the arm of the Cartel extends is paramount.
The Thirteen Devils aren’t all they appear to be.
We suspect some of them are cartel men—or in bed with them.
One in particular is another Monster from my past I plan to take care of while I’m here.
Veneno, Veno for short. He is back to his old ways, trafficking women after being released from prison when his case was overturned.
But his payback will come later.
It’ll be my last job before I take a sort of retirement and revel in the splendor my hard work has provided.
It’s something I’m looking forward to, the closure of this chapter of my life, an opportunity to finally put the past behind me and do all the things I’d dreamed of, once I was free of this debt, my past, and the remaining questions I had for Finn.
I want to travel around the world unburdened, with a new identity and a clean slate.
After another hour and another handful of roasted sunflower seeds, I decide to circle the building to see if I somehow missed him.
As a fresh wave of salt floods my mouth, I reach forward to start up my 1998 Honda Civic, which is part of my cover.
But that’s when I hear the sound I’ve been waiting for—the unmistakable rumble of a Harley.
I shut off the car and inch further down into my seat. My glasses shield my eyes, but I still make sure the brim of my baseball cap shades my face.
All too soon, I see him driving up a small incline a quarter mile south of me. As I take him in, my brain sort of short-circuits.
He’s now a personified vision of everything that makes a woman weak in the knees.
Long, dark hair.
Leather. Ink. Goatee.
Not the G.I. Joe I remember. More like an aged version of the biker I thought I’d willed back into existence five years ago.
He has the kind of facial hair that separates the men from the boys.
Like his hair, it’s speckled with gray; a harsh silver and black combo that you rarely see on a man who still has the face and body of a thirty-nine-year-old.
It’s a premature gray that runs in his family, something his father had too.
Even though he’s wearing mirrored shades, I can make out a few familiar features—straight brows, a perfectly proportioned nose, and the kind of jaw that would give Brad Pitt a run for his money.
He’s wearing a gray Henley and well-worn jeans, along with his cut—a leather vest with his club colors. One gloved hand hangs loosely on the handlebar, the other rests on his thigh, giving off the impression that the death machine beneath him is practically driving itself.
It’s a softail with ape hangers, painted deep green, teeming with custom parts and finished with chrome and gold highlights.
The details speak of a love for the open road and loyalty to the brotherhood he’s now part of.
I hate to admit it, but the bike’s beautiful.
The sight of him on it is a pretty picture I may never be able to scrub from my brain.
What’s odd, though, is there’s no seat beyond the one he’s sitting in. No sissy bar. The seat is small and made of brown leather. To the average person, it wouldn’t say anything. To a biker or someone versed in their world, it says a whole hell of a lot.
It’s symbolic.
It clearly states that company is not needed or welcome. I mentally throw a brick wall in front of that thought before it goes anywhere. I don’t give a shit.
He’s my way in, a means to an end. I remind myself.
Meanwhile, Finn McCown, known to his HOC friends as Goose, aka the abandoning bastard whose heart I’d like to impale with my six-inch heel, parks the bike in the lot across from mine.
He backs in close to the building, facing me.
When he finally stands, he reveals his lean but strong body and height, six feet to the mark.
As I watch from across the street, he bites the fingertips of his leather gloves and pulls them off before shoving them into his pocket. Lifting his corded arms, he rakes his fingers through his hair, slicking it away from his face.
It’s sexy as hell, and I flinch from the pinch it ignites in my chest.
Fuck. This man. Fuck him.
He has no damn right to look this good.
In a fair world, he’d have a mangled face, marred and mutilated, to match the vital organ he shredded years ago.
But no. Instead, men who go around breaking hearts age to perfection, while the women they leave behind walk around with ice in their veins, impenetrable walls surrounding their hearts, for fear of being made the fool a second time.
For a moment, he looks up into the cloudless sky.
There’s nothing but a few birds. Then he warily scans his surroundings, giving me a glimpse of the man I remember and all his rough edges, the tension held in his thick shoulders, the hard set to his strong jaw, like he doesn’t trust the world around him, or is worried about an attack he can’t see coming.
It shouldn’t please me, but it does until he pulls off the aviators.
I can’t see their color from here, but I know it well. Blue. Sometimes azure. Other times navy.
They bewitched me the first time I saw them. Shattered my resolve when I was seventeen, when I tried to put some distance between me and what I knew I couldn’t handle. A man who was way out of my league.
Meeting them eye to eye again may just be one of the hardest things I’ll ever do.
Then maybe you should’ve looked at the pictures.
Yes, inner devil, thank you very much. Maybe I should’ve. But I didn’t, couldn’t, and now I have to suffer the consequences.
I did my research. I know more details about the HOCs than probably any of their brothers do.
I saw picture after picture of each patch member, read their files.
Except him. Goose. Finn. I couldn’t. Not only because I wanted to put it off as long as possible, but also because if I had to look at him, then I wanted to do it for the first time with my own two eyes.
No picture. No video. He was never a ghost or a figment of my imagination.
He was real, and what he did to me did indeed happen.
He’d made me fall in love with him and then left me behind with no word.
I fight the reaction my body has to the sight of him.
My heart beating out of rhythm, stuttering one moment, and racing the next, as if it can’t decide whether to curl into a ball or make a run for it.
Both sound appealing as hell. But I can’t hide.
I’ve done that for too long. It’s time I finally face him and get some answers.
I shut down all the feelings. I flip the switch off with a click. It’s what I do, what I had to learn to do—to turn off my feelings when they become too much.
When he disappears inside the club, I glance at the clock on my dashboard. In less than two hours, I’ll face him, strip off my clothes, and convince him to give me a job.
I pick up my phone and text Deeds, the one person who is always on my side and somehow knows what to say to help me set my mind right.
Remind me why I agreed to do this.
He replies:
For the greater good.
A smile pulls at the corner of my mouth.
What did the greater good ever do for me?
He shoots back:
For world domination then.
I chuckle. Only he could pull that out of me when I’m feeling so unsteady.
I don’t want to dominate the world. We’re talking about me. Not you.
Hmmm… Right. Let me think.
A few seconds later, he texts again.
For me, baby. Because I saved you when it should’ve been him, and I can’t save this club without your help.
He sends another quicker than I can reply.
And this is your chance. To make him regret giving you up.
Those words cement every bit of what’s softened inside me. My resolve strengthens. My jaw sets. I take a few moments and relive the months I waited for Finn. The danger I put myself in by sticking around, and how, in the end, I barely made it out of New Mexico alive.
Veno nearly saw to it that I didn’t, and eventually he’s going to pay for that.
Deeds may be a little evil, but at least he’s honest about it. Yes, he uses me. But I use him just as much. It’s an equal relationship of give and take, take, take.
You highly motivated now?
Yes.
That’s my girl. Make him sorry, baby.
I plan to.
All right, Gypsy Girl. You do just that and call me tonight.
He quickly sends another.
You got this.
Taking a Goliath-sized breath, I repeat aloud, “I’ve got this.”
I’m not the girl Finn left behind. I’m the woman I’ve made myself into. One that can make a grown-ass man beg, heel, cry, and come on command if I choose.
My determination firmly in place, I grab my makeup bag from the passenger seat. My armor. When I’m made up, it feels like I’m inhabiting another body. Which is exactly what I need. To be someone else. Someone likeable. Someone sweet. Not the person I see when I look in the mirror.
I’m good at this, I remind myself. I can play any role to fit the needs or wants of my clients. Finn isn’t a client, though; he’s a target, but the same rules apply.
The first place I use the cover-up is over the tattoo on my forearm. It’s not much, but enough to push down the real me and that old pain hiding just under my skin. When I’m done, I get out of the car, ready to be a different person.
Once again, it’s time to put all those dancing and acting classes to good use.