Chapter 7
Sloane
As attracted as I am to this man I don’t know if I can do this.
He’s nearly a decade older than I am and is still carrying so many scars—inside and out—that I’m not sure I’m capable of dealing with. Not after losing Billy.
The brothers I have left, Beau and Austin, are the main characters in every childhood memory I have. Billy was born a few years after me and while I resented him at first for stealing my limelight, he became my best friend and confidante.
Laying half-naked in Vector’s arms, after this huge revelation and applying the cream, hardly seems like the time to excuse myself, but I’m saved when an alarm goes off in the room.
“Shit!” he growls. “Get dressed.”
“What is that?” I ask, hurrying to pull my own clothes on as he picks up his phone and the remote for the TV.
“What’s happening?” He questions the person who immediately picks up and I see his nostrils flare as he listens. “I’ll be right out, then we ride. Swann and Crasher stay here with Bridget. Everyone without a patch … okay, good.”
I’m dressed and standing near the corner of the bed when the screen with boxes indicating camera numbers flicks on and my eyes scan over them, looking for the bar. I miss it at first, since I wasn’t expecting it to look so empty. Another box catches my attention due to the movement of the cars filing out of the parking lot.
“I should get going,” I say when he’s hung up and is pulling his jeans back on, like armor he wears over his scars. “Are you going to be alright?”
“I want you to stay,” he counters me. “If anyone’s watching, they might think to pick you off since you’re leaving separately than everyone else.”
Considering that the men left in the bar area all have cuts on, and the rest of the party goers are nearly through the gate, I can see his reasoning about being a straggler on the road. But …
“Who’s they ?” I ask him, even as I warn myself not to get dragged into anything club related until I make up my mind about us.
“I’m sure Bridget would like the company,” he tells me, grimacing but otherwise stoic as he pulls on his boots, disregarding my question. “And you can distract her from trying to follow us.”
Sighing, I nod in agreement, understanding not to pry into the club’s affairs.
Fully dressed again, he pauses in front of the door and reaches a hand out, wrapping it behind my neck, even though he doesn’t turn to look at me. “I’ll understand if you don’t want to get saddled with a cripple. No harm, no foul. But we have enemies and I ask that you let me make sure you don’t get caught up in anything, alright?”
My throat tightens up for a number of reasons, so all I can do is nod my head, simply committing to staying here until he gives the all-clear.
When we re-enter the bar, the men remain silent in my presence, and he walks me directly around to where the office is located. Bridget looks up at me as she’s clearing off the desk.
“I thought we could play cards,” she says, smiling like we’ve known each other for years. I nod, still in a bit of a daze as the events of the past twenty minutes play over in my mind. “I’ll be right back. Um, don’t touch anything. Please.”
Crap. I plop down on the seat in front of the desk to get settled in.
It’s one thing to distance myself from a handsome biker, no matter how good he treats me, once his club comes under some sort of attack when I’m here. It’s another to do that when he refers to himself as a cripple.
Because I don’t see him that way.
Vector
The Wretched Rebels have been amping up their attacks over the past few months. They’re nothing more than cast-offs from other clubs, including two guys who never made it past the prospect phase of my club.
Unfortunately, one of those guys, Able, turned out to be well spoken enough to get the others to follow him. And turn all their angst against the Northern Grizzlies. Of the two men I know though, it’s Tyre that I’ve always taken to be the brains, even as quiet as he is.
Tonight, they elevated themselves from pests to enemies when they attacked two of our guys and made off with the shipment. That ain’t the kind of shit that any MC would allow to stand, especially with a ragtag group, half of whom ride crotch rockets.
Those who know me will tell you, I’m slow to anger, but when I get pissed off, everyone knows to get out of my path.
We start at the hospital. Plot was riding as the lookout for Wheel, who was in the cage with the goods. Wheel was shot and left for dead, but being the lucky son of a bitch that he is, the bullet merely grazed his skull, so once he regained consciousness, he called their location into Doc and Oak.
On the other hand, Plot was beat to hell, and since Doc was one of the first on the scene, he called an ambulance as Oak tossed the kid’s bike around on the road, making it look like an accident. We know damn well that none of the cops around here would spend too much time on a Grizzly in an accident, so the appearance of a few scrapes and missing parts was all that was needed.
“They knew we’d be there, Prez,” Plot wheezes out. “Disabled vehicle with flares out. There was a woman. I did what I had been trained to do, I gave her a wide berth, but something hit me.”
I nod, almost able to picture what had happened. To say this kid learned his lesson is an understatement. With a broken leg, several ribs, and one of his collarbones he’ll be replaying each of his actions every day until he’s back on his bike.
At least I did, when I was in his place.
After checking on him, we split up into a couple of groups to check out the most recent locations the Rebels had been squatting in.
“You got any sign of them?” I ask Oak when he picks up my call.
We’re standing outside an abandoned warehouse. Well, mostly abandoned besides the usual array of addicts, but there’s no chance the Rebels have used this space in the recent past.
“Nothing,” he replies. “Roman and I were talking about hitting up some of our contacts, find out if they want to volunteer some information.”
“Stay in groups. I’ll check in with Chaser and see if he’s had any luck locating our shipment,” I tell him before hanging up and turning back to Tyrant.
He grunts, finishing up a text message before looking up at me. “All quiet at home, Prez. Last view of the truck that Chaser could find on any cameras it was heading to the highway.”
“No sense in running around until we know where to go,” I say, nodding to myself until I see the look on his face. “What?”
“Swann won’t say anything, but it’s pissing him off that he’s on full-time babysitting duty nowadays,” he informs me, keeping his voice low so the others won’t hear him criticize my decision.
“That’s too damn bad, isn’t it?” I circle my finger around, giving the others the sign that we’ll be heading home.
Swann’s wife was killed nearly two years ago. They had met in foster care and the club was their only true family, so there’s no fucking way that I’ll put him in the line of fire. Evon deserves to grow up with the only parent she has left.
Since the day we buried Marie, I’ve assigned Swann to stay back, protecting my sister and our home while the rest of us go on runs, or after whatever mayhem is afoot.
Whatever the girls have been up to in my absence doesn’t distract Bridget enough that she misses the security footage of us returning.
“Everyone alright?” she asks, popping her head out of the office door before obviously trying to keep her grip on it. “Stay put.”
“For the love of … Bridget, open the door.” We can all hear how annoyed Sloane sounds. When my sister gives up the battle, I can’t help but to smile when Sloane emerges with a glare in my sister’s direction. “Vector, I understand you want to keep me safe, but that doesn’t mean you get to keep me in the dark.”
“Bridget,” I say, sounding and trying to look taken aback. “You could have turned on the light in there.”
“Funny. Fine, I’m going home, and she sucks at poker,” my sister grumbles, sounding like a petulant child but my eyes are glued to the red head coming toward me and just for a split second I see a flash of mirth across her face.
“Tyrant,” I utter his name with a nod in Bridget’s direction, and he immediately follows her out. Looking back at Sloane, I try to get a read on where we stand now, but her face only shows her annoyance at being held here without any information. “We got a man in the hospital and a stolen truck we can’t track down.”
My announcement happens just as Crasher joins us from the direction of his office, giving me a subtle shake of his head to tell me he doesn’t have anything new before continuing, “There just aren’t enough cameras on the outskirts of town.”
“There are.” Sloane’s voice is soft as she stops beside me and I turn to face her again, my eyebrows knitting together in question. “Virginia Gas got funding from Homeland Security, in case of an attack on any of our substations. It’s not fully operational yet, so they’re still in testing mode. Um, Beta? I think.”
“Can you access them remotely?” Crasher asks her and she quickly shakes her head.
“No, just from work,” she replies, shifting her quietly assessing gaze from him to me.
I know what Crasher’s next question would be, but I wave my hand, cutting him off. Sloane shouldn’t be asked to jeopardize her job—or even get arrested, over something like this.
“What’s in the van?” she asks us.
“Nothing you need to concern yourself with, Sloane. We have other ways to find them,” I respond, making eye contact with my men, so they’re all crystal fucking clear I won’t let her get dragged into our little gun running arrangement.
Reaching out to put my hand on her back, I gently guide her back to my office.
“Are you alright?” she asks me, the moment I close the door behind her.
I nod, quietly exhaling as I start to stretch my back, at least until she shoves me hard enough that I bounce against the door behind me. “What the fuck was that for?”
“You aren’t a cripple! I mean how damn vain can you be to say that? ‘ I’ll understand if you don’t want to get saddled with a cripple.’”
I suppose I should be grateful that she deepened her voice there at the end to mock me. In retrospect, I did sound like a whiny little bitch.
Reaching for her, I slam my lips down on hers, as I pull Sloane into my chest. I’m relieved to feel her deepening the kiss, not hesitating to wind her arms around me; her response is all the answer I need, for now, at least.