CHAPTER TWENTY
Jess
I feel bad that I spun bullshit to Rose to get a ride out of the grounds. I don’t think she believed me, I wouldn’t either, but I also know if she thinks there’s even a drop of truth, it’s worth helping me. She doesn’t want Rush or Nikolai in danger.
In another life, I’d really want her as a friend.
But this is the only one I have.
I’m going to use it to rescue my brother.
Jack…and Rush.
I get the car to drop me at Bunny Munroe, and the moment it peels away, I steal a motorcycle. It’s not hard, a lot of the regulars leave their spare key hidden. Most probably couldn’t find the key, or wouldn’t dare to look.
But I know because I’ve been around these fuck knuckles a good majority of my life, and I also dare.
Besides, in the grand scheme of things, this is nothing. I dared to go back into the Wilder suite and that book I found? Gone. I searched the devil’s home. I got out of there. I’m about to probably die in a confrontation with the Ten64 in order to save Rush and my brother.
So yeah. I very much fucking dare.
I take a bike I know, parked at the edge of the lot. It’s Sam’s, probably one of the scariest looking dude’s around, but he likes me and has helped me toss out a trouble maker a time or two.
He probably won’t kill me, and I’ll make it up to him.
If I survive.
Yeah, not thinking about that. At all.
When I’m on the highway, outside of the city, I pull over and dig out my phone.
“C’mon.” I stare at it, willing it to buzz with a text or a call. “Don’t these fucks know the risk I took calling fucking Bunny’s to have a message passed along?”
Not to mention going there because…what if someone walked out when I was borrowing the bike?
“Fuckers, text.”
I’m sure they will, just like I’m sure they get my risks. It’s just they don’t care.
But I fed them tantalizing lies, claimed I have a book with all of Nikolai’s movements. I touch the book in my inner jacket pocket. Once they look…
I’m hoping they think the columns of what I think are chess moves and games are code. The writing’s messy, and I stole it from Rush’s room.
A car zooms by on the highway, kicking up a little smoke from a bad muffler, and I watch it go.
I’m as prepared as I can be. And I’m following what I was told on the phone at Bunny’s, to come out here and await further instructions.
I’ve got knuckle dusters, a gun and bullets I stole. My knife ring.
And along with my death wish, I’m parked two turn offs down from the one they said to wait at.
That one’s got a lot of trees leading up into outskirt homes. Here? I’m under a tree, but I can see anyone who might approach.
It’s the best I can do.
While I wait, I load the gun and slide it into the back of my pants, and the duster into the pocket of my jacket.
If they frisk and search, it makes sense to be carrying. But… They might not check me because, after all, what damage can I do?
Even I know not much.
I’m not completely equipped to take on a brutal and lawless gang, but better me than Rush who doesn’t play this game. I get he’s dangerous, but none of these people in his life deal with the wild gangs. The bikers and gangs in Queenstown? They bow to Nikolai and his people. They’re domesticated.
My phone buzzes.
Got it, bitch?
My fingers turn cold and clumsy as I type back. Do you have my brother?
Ur in no position 2 bargain.
Brutus in one piece, alive, or no information. Got shit on Smith, too. And their plans to wipe you out .
The phone goes silent.
Then it buzzes.
Stone’s Throw bar. Ten minutes. Or u both die.
I pat the stolen bike. “Showtime.”
T he bar is a real roadside dive, out further on the highway, and a good fifteen minutes outside of Queenstown’s outer boroughs, which means outside, I’d imagine, Wilder jurisdiction. There’s probably a small town farther off the road, but I’m not interested in looking. Jack and I stopped here at the bar once, years ago.
My phone buzzes but I ignore it. Instead, I tuck it away and take in a steadying breath as my heart slams erratically into my ribs. I walk across the parking lot to the door of the squat bar.
Bikes and pickups litter the lot. Not that many, but more than you’d think for a late afternoon stretch of highway.
I push open the door and the bartender looks up. If music was playing, it’d screech to a halt. As it is, the chatter in the room lulls. And the men, big and burly, turn to face me. Except one.
The two flanking him turn. They’re covered in tattoos. One has a beard, the other needs a shave. They’re probably mid-fifties and they’re in suits.
So is the other man.
He takes his time, drinking his beer, before he turns. “So you’re the little bitch of a cunt.”
“That’s my name, don’t wear it out.”
He doesn’t even crack a smile.
“You are?” I ask.
“You can call me King. I don’t think our acquaintance will be that long.” His gaze moves over me, lingering on my tits. “Nice, but you’re a little too old and too mouthy in the wrong way for me.”
I fight the panic that flutters. I don’t know a single man in here. They’re Ten64, but this must be the top tier, the ones who control it all, and judging by the suits, cheap as they are, the ones who are looking to carve a huge piece of pie.
They think they’re going to take out The Wilder outfit, and get hold of the Smiths, too. I imagine they want to take them all out and gut Queenstown.
My knowledge of crime’s low level, street shit. To see these people organizing… I want to back out, but I don’t make the mistake of moving. Nor do I look behind me.
Not even when the door opens and a man comes into view. A man with a big, big gun.
My knees want to wobble, but I’m not about to fucking let them.
“Hand it over,” King says.
But I stand my ground. Something tells me my little trick might work on other members I know, other outfits with their disorganized ways and general greed and urge to snatch and grab. I don’t, however, think it’ll work on this King.
I’m not getting out of here. Not alive, anyway.
But Brutus?
Rush?
The first, I’ll fight to have him walk out and not look back.
The second? I’ll die to make sure they don’t touch him.
If I can.
“I’m not that stupid.” I ignore the raised brow. “Let Jack walk out that door with the promise there’ll be no retribution on him, and I’ll hand over what you want.”
“And if you’re lying?”
“Then you still have me. The book has more than what you want, numbers, codes, all the details of his business. Take that, take over, and you’ve destroyed the Wilder/Smith hold on Queenstown. What’s more is the bar’s on important land. The port? Where it is? The police keep away. It’s the perfect spot.”
He clicks his fingers and from the door leading to the back, Jack stumbles out.
He looks like what he is, a scared kid in his early twenties. He’s skinnier than I remember and all cockiness is gone.
“Brutus?”
“Lady M.” He doesn’t smile, but I can see he’s not high. His dark hair’s too long and both eyes are black and blue, the right one almost closed shut after being used as a punching bag.
I swallow the anger and pain that burns in my throat.
He’s alive. He’s okay, even though he’s limping and there are bruises everywhere and his face is swollen.
He’s okay.
King doesn’t say a word as Jack comes to me and I don’t hug him, even though it kills me not to. And he squeezes his hands, eyes full of apologies.
“When they let you go, don’t look back.” I look up at him.
He frowns. “But Jess…”
“Go.”
At least I don’t have to tell him how to steal a bike. How to disappear. They’re skills we share.
Jack’s okay.
Then I turn from him, feeling all levels of traitor, and I focus on the once and future low-rent King.
He holds out his hand.
“I’m not stupid. You let Jack go and I’ll give you the book, and then when I know he’s safe, along with Rush—”
“Our little bitch is in heat,” King says.
The others laugh.
“When they’re both safe, I’ll give you the rest of the information on the Smith family, on Derek Finnegan, and where the body’s buried. But that book? The Smith info? That’s what you want.”
“And then what? You ride off into the sunset with Rhodes after that?”
“He’s useless. A fuck boy, a waste of space, nothing more.” The lies lacerate, but I push. “I have the key to the codes and more information. But you don’t get any of that until I know they’re fine.”
He shrugs. “You’ll have to stay with us. Earn your way.”
One of the men comes up, shoulders my brother out of the way, and grabs my tits. It takes everything in me not to stab the motherfucker.
“They’re real, gonna have some fun with these. Need a good titty fuck while someone pounds that ass?”
“Hey—” Jack’s cut off, and I hear the punch, the thump as he hits the floor.
“I’m okay with that. And with this,” I say. “Go, Jack.”
“Get rid of him.” King drips sarcasm as he gestures to the guy manhandling me. “As in, let him go.”
The guy sighs, twists a nipple viciously, and then escorts my brother toward the door. “You know the way fuck bucket.”
The rage burns jagged hot.
The moment the door shuts, King holds his hand once more out to me. “The book.”
On feet I order not to wobble, I cross to him. His nose has been broken more than once, and he’s older, mean, and the man who knows he’s in charge.
I pull the book out and hand it to him. He flips through it, then dumps it on the bar next to him as he withdraws his weapon.
“This, little girl, looks like a whole lot of bullshit.”
“I told you, they are codes. I spent weeks winning over the Wilder camp.”
He stands and comes to me, running the barrel along the side of my face and pressing it against my temple.
“Seems like fucking bullshit.”
“Would I still be here? I know the codes. I know a lot.”
“I’m thinking it might be better to kill you and take the Wilders out, starting with your Rush. I’ll let my men have fun with you first, of course.”
“Sorry to break up this fun little party,” says a voice behind me, “but are you offering my girl to your men? And did you mention me?”
I want to cry.
Rush.
Every single cell’s aching for him. Every single atom’s on full alert.
“Go away,” I say.
“No can do.” He moves in so I can see him, but he doesn’t look at me.
He’s still in his suit, looking gorgeous and bright and good to their filth and mud.
“Actually, you can have her,” he says, “I’ve had my fill. It’s just a man likes to be asked. Like with the book. You can’t have that. I’m going to need that back. She’s right, though, it’s full of a lot of information.”
“Who the fuck are you?” King asks.
“Oh yeah, I’m Rush. And you are?”
“King.”
“A little on the nose, but whatever floats your fucking boat, man.”
The man’s looking behind Rush.
“Oh, those are my people. You have yours, I have mine. You get how it goes. So are you the big cheese and these the important members? Because…” Rush laughs as he puts his hands on his lean hips, which is so not like him, I wonder if he’s lost his mind.
He has. He just walked into a viper’s den.
Walked in with zero cares in the world. I want to scream men like this aren’t going to be moved by his charm.
“Because?” King asks, keeping his gun pointed at me, sounding completely bored.
Rush shrugs. “Because I investigated the Ten64. This…this is new, isn’t it? You’re…actually I don’t care what defunct crime family you came from, but if I hazard a guess, someone who dealt with Derek the dead prick Finnegan? It’s the only thing I can think of for you thinking you could take on Nikolai.”
King looks at him. “He’s not here.”
“No, he’s outside.” Rush laughs again and I swallow a sob.
He’s going to die and it’ll be my fault.
“Don’t make jokes,” I whisper.
“Life’s fucking boring without jokes, don’t you agree, K-dog?” Rush asks King.
The man growls.
“Anyway,” Rush continues, “this group only became organized after you got involved, dude. But hand me back the book, and I’ll let you all live.”
“You?” King smiles with too many teeth. “You’ll be lucky to walk out alive.”
“Only if this is your real outfit, the ones who run everything. Otherwise, I’ll take my chances.” Rush moves a step or two from me, eyeing King and the others.
“This is the brains and the power,” King says as he moves back to his men, the gun still on me.
“Hear that?” Rush asks.
Tony says yes as a door slams, and a voice that sends shivers down my spine joins in.
“Every fucking word, Rush.” Nikolai.
“I really want that book.” Rush looks at me, drops his eyes to the ground a second and reaches into his jacket. “And I changed my mind about the pretty girl. I’ll take her, too.”
It happens in a blink of an eye.
So fast I don’t have time to draw my gun or drop as the world explodes around me.
Like snapshots in time, I see King, his two commanders in suits, and the dude who felt me up hit the ground, a bullet hole between their eyes.
I think it happens faster than I can take a breath.
Suddenly, I’m on the ground as hell rains down properly. Guns and shouts and I can’t move. There’s a heavy warmth I’m familiar with on me, and a clean scent that permeates the blood and sourness of urine from the dead that allows me to hold on to the moment.
“Don’t move, Jessie. I got you.”
I can’t see. Everything’s blurry, and I cling to his arm that’s around my head.
“You could have died,” I spit. “I was saving you.”
“Nah, they’d have raped and killed you, killed your brother and then I’d have had to really go Dirty Harry on everyone related to them and that’s not me. Except when it comes to family. You’re family, and I told you I was a fucking brilliant shot.”
A snort of a laugh rises as I start to shake. “Are you bragging?”
“Fuck yeah.” Then he whispers, “I’ve always got you.”
“Long live the king.”
“That king’s dead.” As he speaks, a heavy silence slams down.
“Done and fucking dusted,” Nikolai says. “You can get up with your traitorous prize.”
Rush kisses me and gets up, but Nikolai’s the one that holds out his hand.
I hesitate in taking it.
Rush sighs. “Dude.”
“You, Rush, are one of the few things I care about,” Nikolai says softly. “Your girl’s lucky I’m warm and soft today.”
This is warm and soft?
But I put my hand in his and he says, “You live for two reasons. One, Rush’s an idiot and I think he just might love you. And two, you were willing to die for your brother and for him.”
“I had to save my brother, and I had to make sure Rush didn’t get hurt.”
“I’m Rush,” says Rush, “I’m always okay.”
“You’re always an idiot,” Nikolai says, flicking an amused glance at his nephew. Then, he hauls me to my feet. “Go work your shit out. I have things to do.”
With that, he moves around the room with Tony collecting guns, ID, the bartender helping and it hits me, they own this, too.
“How…?”
Rush hasn’t moved from my side and he wipes my eyes with the pad of his thumb. “Tracked your phone, idiot.”
He wraps me in his arms and then says, “We’ll talk back at the mansion, but your brother’s outside.”
Rush sweeps up the book. “This is important. It’s got all the games I play with Nikolai in it, including the three where I’ve beaten him. I should have those pages cast in white gold.” His gaze hits mine. “Go.”
Rose is in a van, my brother lost in her spell, as she takes care of his wounds.
“A doctor’s going to look you over at the mansion,” Rose says, a smile on her beautiful face, “but you’re going to be okay. No bones broken, but you should get checked for internal injuries. Those animals.”
I go up to them.
Rose looks at me for a very long moment, then she just nods.
“I’m sorry—”
“We do things for love,” she says, and I don’t think she just means my brother.
She gets up, and moves off to her husband’s arms. Nikolai’s people surround the area and he’s on the phone, giving orders to some clean up crew.
How the hell do I pay them back?
Because if Rush hadn’t turned up with a cavalry he didn’t need—he took those guys out like a pro, like it was nothing—I’d be dead.
“You idiot,” I say to Jack, who’s staring after Rose with intent. “Do you want to die?”
“What—”
I grab him and hug him hard.
“That woman, Jack, is Nikolai Wilder’s wife.”
“Shit,” he says.
I lean on the counter in the kitchen as my brother wolfs down a meal Mia served him. “I could stay here forever,” Jack says, taking another bite of the thick sandwich.
“Don’t get used to it.” I dip my spoon in the homemade chicken noodle soup, but I don’t eat it, and Jack pops the last bite of his sandwich in his mouth, then swaps his empty soup bowl for mine.
“I think I am.” He looks around. “I’m so used to this I’m naming a wing here after myself.”
“No.” I glare. “You’re not.”
There’s silence. “Lady M—Jess, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to get so caught up, but…”
I pick up the nice whiskey I poured for myself. The bottle was out, and Mia said something about chocolate whiskey cake, so I wonder if this is considered cooking booze here, because this isn’t the caliber of the booze that’s in various rooms for drinking.
I take a swallow and set the glass down.
It doesn’t matter.
“I get it, Jack, I do. But we have to change. And the ease of jobs and housing that comes with gang stuff isn’t the way. We could go to New York, shit, even Canada. L.A. There’s a million towns and places we could go. Honest work.”
He tilts his head and dips the spoon into the soup. “Or we can stay here.”
“This is a crime family, Jack.”
“So? We’re not lily-white, y’know.”
“I mean it. New start. Be ready to leave tonight or tomorrow.”
There’s no pressure, but the urge is there.
And it’s not, no matter how it feels, running away.
But before we do anything, I need to see Rush.
Nope, not running away at all.
“R ush?”
His hair’s dark gold, bordering on caramel when wet, and his back’s broad and sleek, perfectly muscled.
The old denim jeans that he probably spent a fortune on—yet another reason why we’d never work—sit low on his hips, exposing the black band of his underwear.
“You guys got a shower in?” he asks, not turning as he sets his towel down in a deliberately dropped heap on the floor of his bedroom suite. “Not together, because that would be weird. Weird and wrong.”
I bite back my laugh. Oh, fuck, I’m going to miss him.
For a moment I close my eyes like I’m trying to block the memory of him talking of him calling me his girl.
Because I can’t think about it.
I want to belong when I can’t.
“Seems you found your place,” I say.
He flicks through his closet. “Master of mirth?”
“No.” I take a breath. “With your cousin.”
“It was my idea, Jess.”
His voice is hard and I swallow. “I know. It was wild and flamboyant and the kind of moment that begged to be pegged.”
Rush snorts. And I flex my hands, trying to work out how the short distance between us is so huge.
“It was stupid and it worked,” I say. “They wrote you off as a spoiled kid, and you were all Calamity Jane—”
“Calamity fucking Jane? Can’t you think of a damn gangster? Like…Bugsy Siegal?”
“Who?”
“Never mind.” He pulls out two T-shirts. “Continue.”
“You went in and took them out like they were your target practice pieces. Your cousin, I’m betting, is handy with a gun, but he couldn’t have pulled that off.” I wipe my suddenly sweaty fingers on my jeans.
“Nikolai let me do it. But he’d have had them all dead in moments.”
“You’re both different in your approach.”
“I’m learning that. And I see that’s okay. I had to save you, Jessie. And I had to wait, make sure the main players were there. Take the leaders out and the operation goes back to just groups of thugs. And yeah, I tracked your phone.”
“Figures, I got out of here way too easily.”
“It’s not Rose’s fault,” he says.
I move then, cross that vast chasm and hug him. I lay my cheek against the heat of his back and wrap my arms around him. It’s like coming home, and how he melts into me makes me want to cry. “You’re an idiot. I’m so angry at you.”
“I’m angry too.” He runs his hands with the shirts over mine.
“I’m angrier.” I turn and press my lips against him because I have major feelings for him. And holding him, I don’t know what I would have done if he’d died.
I can’t even…
I bite him. He laughs, the rumble pure honey for me.
“I could have lost you, Rush.” I squeeze him tight. “And I don’t want a world where you’re not in it.”
Because…oh, god. Because I love him.
He turns and captures my mouth in a deep kiss, his tongue seducing mine.
He tastes warm and wet and good. He’s like excitement and home. Rush is everything.
Lifting his head, his eyes spark. “Jessie…”
“Rush.” I take the T-shirts and drop them, and I know he wants control, and yet he’s waiting for instruction.
It’s a crossroad, a precipice, and I want to fuck him, but if I do then I’m a goner. I’m never leaving him, so I kiss my way down his body, pushing him back until he hits his bed. I pull off the jeans and his underwear, and I climb on him, kissing him in those slow, drugging kisses he likes, the ones he’s got me hooked on, the kisses I jones for, bad.
I kiss and kiss him, and they take us over, sweeping me to a sea’s edge, but I just keep us there. Because I wonder…he’s a master of seduction, able to make clothes and women melt, but does anyone seduce him?
And so I kiss him, kneading his chest, sliding up that warm silk-covered muscle to his hair, and I curl my fingers into it, lick his lips, teasing kisses free, making him come at me with his mouth.
I tease in nuzzling bites, feathering to his ear to kiss and suck at his lobe, and then down, to taste the skin of his throat. I suck and lick and nibble on his pulse point, the erratic beat music in me, like his sighs and moans and the way he moves and undulates against me.
Slowly, I breathe in the power of this, the high of being the seductress, and I kiss back to his mouth, delving in, playing with his tongue as his hands come up to capture me, and I let him.
I can’t get enough of his mouth, and it seems, neither can he. We drink at each other, our lips needing the other, his hard on pushing against my ass.
There’s nothing I want more than to climb on him, fuck him.
But if I do, I’m lost.
So instead, I climb off, and make my way down, kissing and touching and tasting until I reach the most beautiful cock I’ve ever seen.
I’m dominating him in a way I’ve never done, before and he’s there, open, naked, at my mercy. I slide between his thighs, pushing the jeans and underwear all the way down only to kiss up his powerful thighs until I get to do what he hasn’t let me.
Explore.
I take the silk-covered steel, big and thick and start to slowly pull, moving the skin, and he hisses. Oh, Christ, he’s so fucking hard.
I rub my finger along the underside of his cock’s head, hitting that spot and he jumps, his cock jerking. I jerk him slowly, running my thumb over the head, and that spot each time.
His balls beckon as I learn the veins and weight of him, what drives him mad and what makes his hands grab at me.
I suck his balls into my mouth, and then lick and kiss and nibble on the sac.
“Fuck. Oh, fuck, goddamn it, fuck.”
I lift my head. “Your powers of pretty speech go out the window when you’re all hot and horny.”
“Suck my fucking cock, Jess. Please.”
I kiss his balls and play with them a little longer, teasing the moment, and then I lick and kiss my way up his shaft until I take him in my mouth.
Just the head. I stretch my lips to engulf it, to allow myself space to explore the tip, and that sensitive edge, and then I finally go down on him. I suck him in, all the way, gagging myself, bobbing up and down, slow, faster, slow, until I find the right beat to drive him mad. Using that, I suck him down and come up, down and up, until it gets shorter and shorter the amount of him that’s outside my mouth with each bob of my head.
His breathing’s ragged. Wild. He’s not even forming words and when he’s about to come, I ease off, just enough to make him curse me, and then, I do it all over again.
I suck him and hold him, massaging his balls and pushing a finger in his ass, and he cries out and rises off the bed, grabbing my head and jack hammering me until his cock pulses and he lets out a guttural cry. And he fills my throat and mouth with his cum.
When I swallow, I spend time lapping him, licking him, leaving that sensitive head until last.
He grabs me and drags me up him and kisses me long and slow and hard, his tongue dancing with mine. He must taste himself, and I fucking love he doesn’t care. It makes me want to climb him and jerk him back to full hardness and impale myself.
But I don’t. I pull free.
“Jess…”
I look at him. Fuck. I’m in love with him.
I was probably half in love with him the first time I saw him.
Fuck.
I lean down and kiss him soft. And I cup his cheek. “Tomorrow we can spend all day fucking, Rush,” I say, lying. “But I need to make sure Jack’s okay.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“No, brother-sister boring conversations. I’ll set him up in that room Mia made up for him. Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” he says.
And holding back the stupid burn of tears, I walk out.
“J ack.”
I shake him into full wakefulness.
“We need to go.”
He doesn’t say a word, just grabs my bag and hoists it on his shoulder. We almost make it out, but someone steps in front of the door.
“Mia?”
She presses her lips together. “This is how you pay him back?”
“I’m bad for him,” I say. “And we…we need to go.”
“I see how you look at Rush. More, I see how he looks at you.”
“It’s why we have to go. I don’t want more trouble coming down from me or Jack. We need to move on. You know. And how I feel…” I take a breath. “I don’t feel the same as Rush. That’s why we’re going.”
“If you don’t, then maybe you’re right, you should go,” she says. “But there’s an alarm.”
And she goes to the box that has an unobtrusive red light and punches in a code. It turns green.
I go to say thank you, but I don’t think I can speak, and we just leave. It’s ridiculously easy, but it doesn’t feel easy. It feels like I ripped my soul out.
Jack’s silent until we’re a block away. He points across the road at two expensive and clearly weekender bikes. “You’re a fucking idiot, Jess.”
“We don’t belong there.”
“I might not, but I think you do,” he says. “And jobs and shit? They have them.”
“We need to start over away from crime.”
He shakes his head and crosses the road to hotwire the bikes. That’s when a siren pierces the night, and a cop car rounds the corner, lights flashing.
“Fuck,” Jack breathes.
I glance at him. “Calm down.”
A cop gets out, and adjusts his belt. “Hands on the hood. You’re both under arrest.”