Chapter 21
CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE
Britton
The ride back to the clubhouse is strained.
I tune out the guys’ conversation; it’s full of threats.
I can’t blame them, but in this case, it’s better if I don’t know what they’re planning in case I’m ever questioned.
Ignorance can be bliss in situations such as this.
That way, if anyone questions me, I can honestly say I didn’t hear a damn thing.
I’m sitting in the back of the truck Riptide picked us up in, staring out the window as we hit the rocky road leading home. Then the property across the way sparks a memory.
“Stop!” I holler.
Riptide slams on the brakes, and the bikes behind us do the same. Tires screech around us from all angles and in deafening pitches. Tanner and Riptide twist around in their seats to stare at me.
“What the fuck, Britt?” Tanner asks. His emotions are already raw, so I let the bark in his voice slide and roll off my shoulders.
“Remember there was something I needed to tell you two and you told me to wait until after I’ve rested?”
“Yeah, I remember,” Tanner replies. “But do we have to do it in the middle of the road?”
I sink down into the back seat and bite my thumb. “Yes. Because seeing that plot of land brought the memory up.”
“What about that land had you remembering that you needed to speak with us, Britton?” Riptide inquires, glancing between me and the property.
“Because that’s where he watches the club and memorizes your activity,” I convey.
“Wait. Back up a minute. It’s where who spies on the club and where does he do it from, exactly?” Riptide asks, taking the lead as Tanner yanks off his seatbelt and leans forward, placing his elbows on the dashboard, surveying the area.
“Professor Stratton. He told me that he scouts the club from that property. He didn’t give me a specific area, just that it’s not monitored so that’s where he watches the comings and goings of the men and women.
He came back one time frantic because ya’ll switched up your routine and were riding in pairs instead of individually. ”
“Why is he watching us, Britt?” Tanner asks.
“Because he sees you as Trevor,” I explain.
“Who the fuck is Trevor?” Riptide probes.
“He’s the hero from one of my books. He won the woman, and for some damn reason, that set Mr. Stratton off.”
“Let’s finish this conversation in my office,” Riptide orders as he puts the truck back in gear and presses his lead foot on the accelerator, jolting us forward like we’re in a high speed chase.
A scream gets lodged in my throat as I reach up and dig my hand into the roof, trying to keep myself from toppling over.
I must be in shock because I don’t remember us pulling into the parking lot, getting out of the truck, or walking through the clubhouse. I snap out of it when I’m sat in a chair and a cold bottle of water is placed in my hands.
Tanner is kneeling in front of me when I come to. “You good, darlin’?”
Frenziedly nodding my head, I robotically reply, “I’m good.”
“Sorry about scaring you, Britton. Without having all the facts and details, the only thing I could think of was getting us out of the line of fire,” Riptide apologizes.
“I understand and it was a good call,” I comment. “Because I have no doubts that we were being watched and he knows I’m back.”
Riptide leans back onto his desk, one leg crossed over the other as he asks, “Tell me more about this character that the professor thinks is LoneStar.”
I give the the synopsis of my book including the kidnapping, Trevor rescuing Mara, Clint being arrested and sentenced to twenty years in the penal system, how they fell in love and formed an ever-lasting bond, and how Mr. Stratton wanted it revised to the way he thought it should’ve ended.
“Let me see if I’ve got this right, he wants this Clint fella to end up with Mara instead of Trevor?” Riptide asks, his brows drawn up into his forehead. “He does realize it’s fiction, doesn’t he?”
I can tell he’s upset because he’s all but repeating the same words in the same question. Van says he does that when he’s trying to work out a puzzle that doesn’t seem solvable, but I’d never heard it for myself until just now.
“If he didn’t have a marble loose he would,” Tanner mumbles, scraping his hand down his face. “So he’s reenacting this book you wrote and trying to rewrite it, am I getting that right?”
“Pretty much,” I corroborate, shrugging my shoulders.
“He’s wacko,” Riptide surmises.
“So he wants me gone so he can get the girl,” Tanner says, thinking out loud.
“You’re a real Casanova, aren’t you LoneStar?” Riptide snarkily asks, but to my ears, it sounds like an accusation. But when Tanner chuckles, I figure my hormonal emotions are in charge of my common sense and wave it off instead of getting huffy.
“I guess I’m gonna be bait to bring him out and into the open,” Tanner suggests, which has my heart rate spiking.
“No. No, no, no,” I chant, violently shaking my head. “He’s sick, you can’t deliberately put yourself in a perilous situation like that because he’s not rational! His thinking cap is on backward, there’s no reasoning with him, Tanner.”
“I think we’ve figured that out for ourselves, Britt,” Tanner states. “But I’d rather force his hand than have him catch me unaware. We need to do this on our terms.”
“Your terms suck,” I spit out, giving him my most fierce, angry stare.
Sighing, Riptide asks me, “What would you have us do, Britton? How would you suggest we do this in a controlled way where one of my men doesn’t get hurt?”
“I don’t know,” I admit, slumping back into the chair. “But not use my man as bait.”
“Britton, we have the home advantage here,” Tanner expresses. “Nobody knows this plot of land better than we do. Leaving him loose to live in his imaginary world puts our family in danger. Now that you’ve been rescued, he’s gonna get desperate.”
His statement hits me, and I reach up to rub my chest where it’s now aching. “I can’t lose you. We can’t lose you, Tanner,” I declare.
“You won’t, baby girl. I have my brothers at my back, they won’t let anything happen to me,” Tanner promises.
“It’ll be safer for us to take him on as a unit, Britton,” Riptide adds. “If it’s just LoneStar and one of the other brothers out and about, he’ll be an easy target.”
The wind gets sucked out of my sails with that prediction. “You’ll be safe, you won’t try and take him out by yourself? Promise me, Tanner.”
“I promise, darlin’. I won’t make a move without my brothers being with me,” he vows.
Holding up my hand and sticking out my pinky finger, I state, “Pinky swear. Give the mother of your child a solemn oath that you won’t get a wild hair up your ass and go through those woods without every single brother being there with you.”
He anchors his pinky with mine and shakes them. “I pinky swear that I won’t go out there without my brothers.” I notice that he doesn’t promise to take all of them with him, but I can’t argue that point because I’m feeling utterly exhausted and my brain has all but shut down.
It’s nighttime and after that emotionally draining conversation in Riptide’s office, I went up to our room and crashed.
When I came back down around dinner time, it was to find Tanner huddled with Riptide, Icer, Shade, Indiana, and Renegade.
Booker was giving them some sort of goggles, explaining how they work in regard to the outdoors as opposed to being indoors.
I raptly listen, finding the demonstration interesting and consider using it in one of my Security Corp books.
“What are they up to?” Jersey asks.
I’m not sure how much I can tell her without finding myself in hot water, so I recap what the professor confessed to me, figuring that’s not too much information.
“Are you kidding me?” she whisper-squeals, her eyes growing comically wide as she digests what I just told her. “He’s been watching us, all of us. That’s creepy, Britton.”
“Yeah, it is,” I say, agreeing with her, although I have a lot of other, not so kind, descriptive words I could tack onto hers. And all of them would be appropriate to use in regard to him. “I’m worried, Jersey. What if he’s set traps out there and they walk right into them.”
“They wouldn’t go out there if they weren’t aware of that and prepared for all outcomes, Britton,” she points out. “These guys think ten steps ahead.”
“I wish that made me feel better, but it doesn’t, Jersey.”
Jersey reaches out and grabs my hand with hers, squeezing it until I swing my eyes and meet hers, telling me, “Not too long ago, you told me I needed to learn and trust my gut, and that’s what I’m doing now.
In my heart of hearts, I know they’re going to be okay.
Your professor, however, may not be. I know you want him to get mental help, but Britton, he’s threatened not only you, but LoneStar.
The club’s not going to take that lightly and they’re going to want to eliminate the threat. Are you ready to deal with that?”
“As long as Tanner and the rest of the guys are okay, I will. I feel bad for Mr. Stratton, don’t get me wrong, but I won’t lose a wink of sleep if he loses his life because of the decisions he’s made, no matter how irrational they are.
If it comes down to my man staying alive or him getting the help he desperately needs, he’ll lose every single time. ”
“You have a good heart, Britton, because if it were me in your shoes, I’d want his head hand-delivered to me on a platter,” she harrumphs.
“Since when did you become so bloodthirsty, Jersey?”
“When some motherfucker stole my best friend and held her captive,” she retorts.
“Jersey! Did you just cuss?” I ask, laughing because she hardly ever lets a curse word fly.
“I can cuss, when the time calls for it,” she mutters.
I pretend to wipe a stray tear from beneath my eye, and sigh. “Look at my girl growing up and swearing. Release that anger, Jersey.”
“If that’s all it takes to consider myself an adult, I would’ve started using swearwords when I was seven,” she muses. “But I don’t think using profanities will release all the pent-up anger I harbor inside of me. It’ll take a lifetime for me to recover from what they did to me.”
Recalling what we have in common—self-destructive, cataclysmic parents who thrived on drama and belittling their children, people who should’ve been neutered long before they started reproducing, I reply, “Amen, sister. A-fucking-men.”