Chapter ThirtyAinsleyReese
Chi Chi was waiting for me in the van. I don’t think he ever got out, not that it mattered to me. I was too angry to care. After Jinx set aside her plans for Louisiana and I tried to save him on her behalf, he betrayed her.
“I still got to get gas, Ainsley,” Chi Chi reminded me after a few minutes of driving and pulling into a little gas station with a small store and old pumps. “Do you need anything? I’m getting myself a pop. Want one?”
“I’ll have apple juice or orange juice. If they don’t have that, I’ll have milk.”
He smiled. “Okay—”
A bullet to the head cut him off. His eyes rolled back in his head and he fell against the door.
I screamed, intending to make a run for it, but Wizard opened the passenger side door, jammed the gun against my head, and snatched me out.
Instead of remaining on premises and interfering in shit I’d been warned away from, I waited until I was certain Chi Chi and Ainsley left before heading to my bike.
I hated feeling so fucking inept, which clung to me in the wake of Jinx’s curses and her demands that Louisiana let her go. More than anything, I felt as if I’d let Ainsley down— again . Once the heat of the moment cooled, I digested Razor warming to Ainsley and set aside my relief. She took it as a kindness, but I knew his gesture wasn’t as heartwarming as he made it seem.
I’d bet all my fucking money not only had he known about Nova’s death, but he’d suspected Louisiana was fucking around with her. He’d tested Ainsley’s loyalty to me, us . If she gave any of us up to save herself, I could only imagine how that would’ve turned out.
Fuck, I didn’t want to imagine.
Heading to Ma Siller’s, my plan to ask Ainsley to come with me to tour a couple of apartments I’d chosen played in my mind. She’d probably have a ton of questions, especially about the status of our relationship, so I worked out the conversation as I’d make it go.
It might be hard because Ainsley was so stubborn, but I just wouldn’t respond to anything that took us off-topic.
“Reese, I know you don’t love me. However, we’re having a baby together, and I’m so attached to you that, of course, I’ll move in with you.”
She didn’t really have to say the words, but she would. How many times had she said how much she liked me? Every time I wanted to make love to her, she gave in. And her response to Razor when he said she could stay at the club told me everything I needed to know.
However, Ainsley resisted me at every fucking turn. Fuck if I didn’t enjoy matching wits with her, but I intended to have my way this time.
“Ainsley, babe. What’s love anyway? You and I have a connection, something special. I feel it as much as you do. We should live together. One, you’ll need someone to rub your back once you get further into your pregnancy. Two, you’ll be able to fuck me any time you want. I’ve heard pregnancy amps up a woman’s sex drive.”
Information courtesy of Louisiana, and something I never thought I’d need to know.
“But, Reese, I just love you so much. We share more than sex. I want to have your name. I want our son to have your name. Let’s get married.”
My heart skips a beat, and tender satisfaction wells inside me. “You’re having a boy?”
Her whiskey-colored eyes are soft and sweet as she looks at me. “Dr. Purdue hasn’t confirmed it, but what else could your seed make, Reese?”
I puff out my chest.
“What do you say?” She smiles in adoration and drops to one knee. Ainsley and her 21st-century values will make her jump the gun and forget that I’m the one who proposes. She grabs my hands. “Reese Sinclair, will you do me the honor of becoming my husband?”
“Oh, sweetheart. You do me the greatest honor, but marriage is just a piece of paper. I know this crushes you. However, I can’t marry you. If that ever changes, I’m the one who’ll propose.”
Her eyes are huge and vulnerable. “I love you so much, Reese. You’re like the stars and the moon combined, shining brightly in my life.”
“I know, babe. I know.” I drop to my knees and pull her into my embrace. “Always remember, I got you. We don’t need marriage. We’re moving in together and we’ll live happily- ever-after. You’ll do as I instruct and know that I always have your best interests in mind.”
She kisses the bridge of my shoulder tenderly and nods. “Yes, Reese. Whatever you want, I’ll do.”
Okay, so maybe the conversation wouldn’t go exactly like that, but a guy could dream.
Somehow, I made it to Ma Siller’s place without wiping the fuck out. When I saw the pickup in her driveway, I scowled. I wasn’t up to socializing today, which she’d expect me to do until her guests left. But the Utah plates suggested they might be here for a couple of days.
Fuck. I almost called Ainsley and told her to come outside so we could grab a bite to eat. Ma wouldn’t question that.
However, as I bounded up the steps, a motherfucker that looked uncannily like Channing Tatum and wearing an unfamiliar cut walked out of the house and onto the porch, stopping inches from me.
“Roman sent me out to make sure you’re unarmed.”
I stiffened, and my hand immediately went to my gun.
“This is about Ainsley,” the motherfucker said quickly, raising his hands. “You didn’t get the messages?”
Ma Siller rushed out, tears in her eyes. “Bean called right before Easton—” she nodded to the motherfucker, “Tio and Roman showed up.”
Bean was a prospect who was Ma’s cousin so many times removed that I didn’t think they were really related. She did, and that was all that mattered. His father owned an old gas station that the club frequented to help him out.
“JT’s dead,” she sobbed. “B-Bean went to relieve his father after he finished his gate duty.” Tears fell fast and furiously. “He went to the bathroom and…and…”
Roman Mac walked out of the house, followed by a tan motherfucker I didn’t know—Tio, I presumed. He wasn’t my concern, though. Mac was. He should’ve been a fucking ghost. He was supposed to be bug food, but there he was, recovered and as lethal as ever, judging by his leather duster, a prosthetic hook he wore in place of one hand, and a mechanical hand for the other.
He was once again a threat. I should’ve shot him on that principle, but his eyes were tormented. When he looked at me, it wasn’t the stare of a man examining an enemy, but one in need of help.
This wasn’t some sort of ploy or revenge plot, which let me know something was very, very wrong.
“I’ve been tracking Wizard,” he said hoarsely. “But I got there five minutes too late. Bean hid around the side of the building and saw that motherfucker come out of the store, shoot one of your guys in the fucking head and take my sister. I couldn’t fucking save her.”
The pain in his voice reflected how I felt. The only time I felt such anguish was during the immediate aftermath of my family’s death. Then, I’d been a grieving child, alone in the world and terrified of what the future held for me. I was an adult now, who’d been too cowardly to man up and stand by the side of the woman who carried my child, a woman I’d grown to care for deeply.
I might never get the chance to correct my mistake, and the crushing regret added to my torment.
“No,” I croaked, my head filled with horrific images of what she might go through at those fuckers’ hands.
They’d make her suffer before they killed her, that I was sure of. The Royal Bastards showed no mercy to enemies, and we were even more ruthless with those who betrayed us. Razor didn’t allow rapists among our ranks, but everything I knew of the Scorpions told me they didn’t have such rules. Violating someone so intimately was a surefire way to break them.
Combined with the beatings and torture they would inflict, the Ainsley I knew and cherished could forever be gone, even if we saved her. Mental scars were harder to heal than physical ones, and her brutal treatment might render her a shell of herself.
But, fuck, at least she’d be alive in that scenario.
“Where’d they take her?” I pushed out, trembling from the rage and fear coursing through me.
Ainsley’s only crime was expressing her autonomy and allowing me entry into her bed. She’d been too na?ve to grasp what a grave offense that was to the Bloody Scorpions, one she might pay for with her life.
“If we knew that, why the fuck would we come here?” Tio asked, his bored tone pissing me off.
“Tio, shut the fuck up,” Easton ordered, looking between Roman and me. “One motherfucker can’t take on an entire club.”
Fucking try me. I didn’t care who or how many I had to kill to try and save Ainsley.
“Even if I stand with Roman, two aren’t a match against those fuckheads either,” Easton continued.
“That’s why I’m here,” Roman said, the dejection in his tone nothing like the man I knew of. “I had a fucking plan to avenge Ainsley and punish the assholes who harmed her. Can’t do that with her gone. I don’t know where she is, and I can’t get her back on my own.”
“You won’t,” I vowed, my dislike of him lessening.
He wanted to save Ainsley, and right now, that was the only thing I gave a damn about.