Chapter 4
Chapter Four
ADELINA
I hated the motorcycle. The rumble between my legs and the wind messing up my hair were bad, but I couldn’t look down the road, because the wind hurt my eyes, and opening my mouth was out of the question. If a bug flew in, I’d barf, no matter how fast Rafe pushed the beast beneath us.
The rumble kept me from hearing my own thoughts.
Why would anyone think this was fun?
And the gas-fumes . . .
I curled my face into Rafe’s shoulder, smelling the new leather of his jacket. I used his wide shoulders as a shield, and I gripped onto him around the waist for dear life. The heat from the sun and reflecting off the black asphalt pressed into me, and the violent wind still did little to keep me from sweating. In fact, the leather stuck to my face.
Rafe stiffened in front of me, and I thought he was about to shove me off the bike. Instead, it was like he gave it more gas, pushed the bike harder. We hurdled through the air, leaning so deeply into the curves, I could touch the blacktop if I reached out. I wouldn’t of course. We were so close to crashing.
This was dangerous.
Terrible.
I tightened my grip around my already tense uncle, feeling the ridges along his stomach and hardened hips. His abs and back flexed, his arms tense and working the controls on the handlebars. Rafe and the bike almost seemed to want me off, as if they were a bull and I was the idiot who dared to get on his back.
If he didn’t want me riding with him, he shouldn’t have offered. Then again, he hadn’t. I had just stalked over, ignoring how my future husband kept trying to lure me onto his ride. I wasn’t his bitch until there was a ring on my finger, and then he would see how big of a bitch I could be.
The motorcycle slowed somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Geez, they didn’t even have truck stops down here, only portable shitters on the side of the road.
Once the engines were cut, it was too quiet. My body still vibrated, and my ears buzzed like there were bees zipping around inside my head. Birds cawed in the distance, and there was something in the sand and between the cactuses. Something was watching us.
Rafe leaned back on the bike, tapping my hands locked around his torso. “You can get off now, Adelina.”
I didn’t trust my legs. The vibrations made my muscles feel like they’d been in a blender. Fortunately, I had changed into boots before we left Park Ridge. But Rafe leaned the bike over and dismounted. I slid off and stumbled, my heel catching on a rock. When I started to list to the side, another one of the bikers caught me.
“You good?” asked Graff, his tattooed hand lingering on mine.
It was the first hint there may have been someone in this gang I could connect with, but that’s the opposite of what I wanted.
“Yeah, um”—I pulled my hand from his grasp—“Thanks.”
Sas laughed. “Does the princess have a problem with her steed?”
I flipped him off. So much for being ladylike in an unladylike position.
“You’re just pissed because she didn’t play your bitch like Kaos,” said Graff, shooting a smile back at Sas.
Sas’s eyebrows dipped into a V at the bridge of his nose. Why did that irritate him?
“Who the fuck is Kaos?” I smacked myself on the forehead. “Ya know what, never mind.” I pinched the bridge of my nose, shaking my head, and reminding myself that I didn’t give a shit who any of his whores were. With a deep breath, I reopened my eyes in time to see Graff return to Sas’s side.
“You just want your ol’ lady riding with you,” said Graff as he threw a playful punch.
“I don’t have an ol’ lady.” Sas sank into a crouch with his fists up.
For a big lanky motherfucker, he moved like the MMA fighters in the matches Cat and I liked to watch at the MGM Grand. I sighed. No more of that, I guessed.
“Yet,” accused Graff, but he backed away then and pulled a onie pipe and lighter from his pocket.
Sas laced his fingers and placed them on top of his head. His shirt and jacket pulled up, revealing his lower stomach and a trail of reddish blond hair led to the waistband. He cut his eyes over to me.
“She’ll never be my ol’ lady. Just my fucking wife.” My fiancé spat the word with venom and then turned his head and spat something brown into the dust.
“Disgusting,” I said, not wanting to admit that his words burned.
But I wasn’t his “old lady” or his lover. I was just a slab of meat passed around from one man on a power trip to another. My father sold me to these, these... savages. And the way he talked about women, Sas would probably hand me over to one of the other biker fuckers.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said, raising my chin. I was trying to keep any dignity I could. “We’ll go to Vegas in a week for the wedding, and then it will just be a piece of paper. Maybe I’ll find a bitch of my own.”
Sas stiffened for a heartbeat and then held his hand out to Graff, palm up. But I didn’t miss the shock that crossed his eyes. I almost smiled. Apparently, he could dish, but couldn’t take his own shit.
“Where are we?” I demanded, eyeing the porta john in the distance. My bladder screamed, and seeing the lonely thing off between a couple of cacti made me cross my legs.
“Piss break.” Sas lit up and took a long inhale.
My lip curled almost involuntarily.
Sas pointed with the pipe and wheezed out. “Go on, princess.” Then he coughed on the smoke.
I squinted at him. “Serves you right.”
Graff and Rafe both chuckled, but I ignored them and stalked off toward the disgusting shitter. I had no clue how long this ride would be or when I’d have another chance.
When I finished, I pushed the door open with my elbow and tried to squeeze a drop of sanitizer from the empty pump.
Nothing.
Revolting.
Stepping outside, I finally breathed again. The air might be dusty, but nowhere near as rank as boiling shit.
When I looked back toward my undesirable caravan, they were all standing with their backs toward me and staring off into the distance. I paused, taking in the line of men, and no matter how much I didn’t want to be here, I had to admire the view. Sas’s long and lithe legs, narrow waist, and the flare of his broad shoulders was something that a girl could stare at all day long. Graff stood a head shorter than Sas, but he was stacked like a brick house—wide shoulders, narrow waist, muscular legs that bowed slightly and made his ass look tight as hell. And then Rafe— Stop it, Adelina! No matter how much the Marines sculpted my uncle’s body, I didn’t need to be admiring him like that. I glanced around at the vast nothing except for plants that might kill me just as quickly as a sidewinder. No point in running. I’d die of thirst or a morbid encounter with some animal. That was if the bikers decided to let me escape.
And under the assumption I could escape, Rafe would hunt me down. He’d been on the search and rescue team in the military, so his nose was more trained than a bloodhound’s.
Resigned to staying with my unlikely protectors, I traced an imaginary line to a dust cloud they all seemed to be staring at. In the next few seconds, the roar of more bike engines reached my ears, and three new bikes crested the hill and pulled off the road where we had stopped.
When the bikes came to a stop, I recognized the guys as the ones Wilde had sent to follow the cartel truck that had escaped. They each kicked their legs over their seats and shook hands and fist bumped in the most cliché hey-bro manner I had ever witnessed in person.
As I approached, they joked with Sas... and Rafe. What the fuck was my uncle doing laughing with them? He supposedly belonged to the Mafia. Like me.
He was my only lifeline. My sanity. And I didn’t want to share.
The laughter quickly died when the bikers spotted me.
I had gone to private schools throughout my life, and the cliques there were brutal, but they had nothing on these men. I had been bullied before. I didn’t give a shit what the other girls in my grade thought of me, but to have six men shutting me out almost broke me.
This was a lion’s den, and I couldn’t be weak. As much as I wanted to scream at them to fuck off and fuck their mothers and fuck the world, I ground my teeth until pain shot up my jaw then lifted my chin and marched over to the group like I belonged there.
Sas blew out a deep breath. “You didn’t fall in. Damn.”
“Bet you’d like me in your bed after that.” I planted my hands on my hips.
He raised his eyebrows like he didn’t expect the retort, and I relished the tiny win. What did he think I was going to do? Roll over and take his shit.
Not a snowball’s chance in this desert hell.
In one fluid movement, Sas straddled his bike and sank down. “Get on.”
I moved toward Rafe, but Sas barked, “ My bike.”
“No,” I said and kept walking.
Before I took two more steps, a strong hand grabbed my wrist and whipped me around.
Sas seethed down at me. “You belong to me, little princess. You answer to me. Get the fuck on.”
Pursing my lips, I slowly shook my head. If he wanted me on the back of his bike, he was going to have to pick my ass up and put me there. And then, he would have to tie me down to keep me from hopping right off.
I turned on my heel and continued on to Rafe’s bike, and the last thing I wanted to admit was that my lower belly was purring and hungry for the vibrations between my legs. It felt like a promise from all the steel and leather and that engine that I now knew would roar to life and carry me away.
Shit, I am not really craving this. Am I?
When I reached my perch, I spread my legs with my hands on either knee and glared at Sas as I waited for this steel demon’s rider. Rafe shrugged and stalked over to his bike. To me. Satisfied that I’d gotten the upper hand, I wagged my brows at Sas.
Rafe didn’t pay attention to either my future husband or me, keeping his eyes on the ground as he mounted. He grabbed the handle with one hand and pressed the button that ignited the rumble beneath me. I almost groaned but swallowed it just before the pleasure-filled noise escaped my throat. Rafe reached back, grabbing my arms and pulling them around his chest like he was locking me into place, dragging my body forward until the front of me hit his back, hips included.
Rafe kicked a lever on the side and rolled the grip on the handlebar. The bike took off, gravel crunching beneath the wheel, and I latched onto him as my heart kicked into high gear.
As many times I had asked for death to just take me today, I didn’t actually want to die. The simultaneous fear of falling and thrill of the ride consumed me.
Sas’s motorcycle, a much leaner machine with far more chrome and longer handlebars—ape hangers, I remember reading on the internet—matched our speed. With one hand on the handlebar, Sas ran his thumb over his lower lip as he poked out his tongue in a rather suggestive gesture. I couldn’t see his eyes behind the wrap-around glasses, but his reddish blond hair danced in the wind.
I hugged onto Rafe and Sas blew me a kiss, just before he palmed the handle and raced ahead of us. The other rider who had left the body shop with us took the second spot in the staggered line, and Rafe fell into the third place.
When I glanced back, the others finished off the formation. One of the three gave me a two-fingered salute against his bucket-style helmet. I placed my cheek against Rafe’s leather jacket and melted into him, determined to lose myself in the constant rhythm of the engine and try my damnedest to forget my present company, Rafe excluded.
If I had to be here, at least this part, safe at my uncle’s back, felt secure enough.
With the herd of motorcycles, we left the flatter part of the desert in our trail, and within the next hour, the line of motorcycles veered onto the interstate.
I glimpsed a green sign: Los Angeles, 150 miles.
Finally, we were going back to civilization. We zoomed past cars and semi-trucks. If they didn’t move out of our way, we swerved around them, a snake of bikes slithering down the road. We could never do this with the limo.
It was just us and the highway, and as much as I didn’t want to admit it, it felt free. Wind whistled past my ears. Perhaps this is how birds felt when flying. Although I would never have the true freedom to fly like birds to a destination of my choosing.
Eventually, we started seeing signs of city life, neighborhoods sprawling into the hills and outlet malls lining the freeway. The grit of the desert gave way to suburbs and then smog. I was back in civilization, but now, the air tried to choke me. We no longer stood out. Everywhere in LA had cars backfiring in the parking lot of a highway with motorcycles zipping between the frustrated drivers.
We followed suit, and I gripped onto Rafe for dear life while squeezing my eyes shut.
His voice shouted over his shoulder. “I’ve got you, tesoro.”
“What?” I yelled. He’d startled me out of my fear with those words. That word.
“You’re safe!”
I scowled. As we navigated off the highway and into an industrial area, my mind reeled. Did Rafe just call me tesoro ? No. I must have been imagining it. There was no way my uncle would’ve called me darling. I’d never heard him use a pet name for anyone, and that one was a bit too intimate.
So why did it set my stomach aflutter?
When Sas and the others pulled up to a warehouse, I groaned. Of-fucking-course we were at a warehouse in a dingy neighborhood with a gate around the back, the motorcycles lined up before a steel door with a skull and wings painted on the window.
My father was one of the richest men in Vegas, and here I was, looking at something far below middle class. I never dreamed my inheritance would consist of a rundown motorcycle club in a sketchy part of LA.
“Grazie, Papà,” I whispered with an eye roll.
When my father had first mentioned the arranged marriage, my heart skipped with excitement. I’d imagined I would be kept in a high-rise condo with a full staff, a closet full of designer clothes, and all the comforts I’d grown up with. Reality had a sick sense of humor, because it appeared I would be huffing exhaust all day long instead.
Surely, this is just a stop on the way to a nice house somewhere.
“Welcome home, princess.” Sas slipped off his glasses and tucked them into a case mounted at the center of his handlebars.
“No such luck,” I grumbled.
“What’s that?” Sas whipped around and fixed a hard gaze on me.
“Nothing.” I slipped off the bike, managing to keep myself upright this time, and lifted my hand, holding back the sun.
The warehouse could be best described the Seattle version of 90s grunge. Graffiti covered the walls. It was... too artsy for a bunch of bikers, though some uptight art dealer would’ve thought it gorgeous. If the pieces were done on canvas, my mother would’ve paid a fortune for them and displayed them in our formal living room. She would’ve grown bored with them after a season, but at least the money would have gone to a good cause.
I frowned at the graffiti as Sas meandered over to my side. He towered over my small frame and blocked out the sun with his broad shoulders.
“Don’t like the art?” he asked.
Was he really trying to make small talk? “Not really my taste.”
“Why?”
I glanced at him from the corner of my eye, measuring how much he was fucking with me. Or had this long drive to LA given him time to think?
“You’re not gonna tell me?” he asked.
“Why do you want to know?” I spat.
He shrugged.
“It’s ugly,” I continued, pushing the words out even though I didn’t believe them. In truth, there was a depth to the flowers in the image that drew my eyes back to the wall every time I tried to look away. Sas was angry at me—had already mocked me—so the only thing my distaste for the paintings would do was make him hate me more.
As if I cared.
I couldn’t call off our marriage, but he could. Hell, he could marry me off to anyone here and it would still meet the terms of Papà’s deal. While I’d lived a rich life thus far, that was over with no skin off my father’s back.
“It’s not real art,” I ventured. “All this does is damage a building. Where is the feeling? The strokes? The scene? What is it trying to convey?” I channeled my art history teacher from the tenth grade, Mrs. Colton. She obsessed over the tiniest of details in the paintings she lectured about.
I stepped closer to the wall, waving my hand at the beautiful lines. “This is just some modern bullshit. I don’t know why anyone even put it up. It looks like a toddler did it.”
Sas stared at me for a long moment before he gritted out, “Graff did it.”
The tone made me think I’d struck a nerve, but grating on my fiancé’s patience actually gave me a sick, but quite deep, sense of satisfaction.
I knew the name of the third man who’d rode out from that body shop with us. I had admired his backside between Sas and Rafe. But right now, there was a herd of leather shoulders bouncing toward the door. I couldn’t pick him out in the sea of biker backs strolling inside the warehouse.
“Who?” I crossed my arms over my chest and stared at the gaggle.
They all dressed the same—jeans, leather vests or jackets. Many of them still wore sunglasses. All the burly men were clapping each other on the shoulders and laughing. Some lit cigarettes. Gross.
Most of the ones old enough to have facial hair seemed like they were trying to grow their beards to their knees... except one, who had his beard trimmed close. He wore ear buds, and tattoos climbed up his neck like vines consuming a brick wall.
Graff. The one with the considerate touch on the roadside. Yeah, I knew him, but how much of a rise could I get from Sas?
“Oh, yeah. Graff.” I gave an exaggerated nod, doing my best to mimic my fiancé’s nonchalance. “Which one is Graff again?”
He stared up the artwork, like he was admiring it. “Tell ya what, let’s go make intros all around.”
I still kept my eyes away from the wall. Even without looking, I recognized the design of the graffiti, the elegant petals in black with just a touch of purple at the centers. It was so pretty it might haunt my dreams tonight. The flowers reminded me of my Nonna Petra’s favorite dress with a matching shawl and earrings.
I remembered crawling onto her lap, and she would wrap me up in her arms and sing to me. But she was dead and buried and long gone. She had been kinder and more complacent in her place as a Mafia wife before Nonno Ivo fucked another woman, Rafe’s mother.
“You don’t like the flowers?” asked Sas like he read my mind.
I considered the passing question, but this conversation had nothing to do with whether I liked them or not. “Aren’t flowers pretty by nature? Aren’t they designed to pull in the unsuspecting victim? The Venus flytrap has just perfected how to be a predator.”
“That’s not a flytrap,” he grumbled.
“No, but might as well be.”
“But these...” He traced the line of a petal as we passed.
“Are you trying to get me to back pedal and admit Graff is a good artist?”
“No. I don’t need you to admit shit. He is a good artist. But the flowers.”
“What about them?” I demanded.
“Do you like them?” he asked.
“Yes,” I admitted finally, in hopes it would get him away from me.
“Do you know what they are?”
“No, but my nonna used to wear them on her dress.”
Whatever smile that was starting to bloom on his face dropped. “Your what?”
I jutted my hip and rolled my eyes. “Nonna. It’s Italian for grandmother.”
“Your grandmother wore these?”
“Yeah. What’s the problem with that?”
“Were you close?”
“Yeah, so?”
“I’ll need to keep my eyes peeled around you if that’s the kind of flowers your family likes.”
I blinked at him and then faced the flowers. The anger slipped from my face, and I was sure he saw it. Confusion meant weakness, and if I didn’t control my reactions, I would be a book he could easily read.
“Ask Graff what it is,” said Sas and then threw open the warehouse door and ducked inside.
He exposed his back to me. Too bad I didn’t have a weapon, but I probably wouldn’t use it, anyway. Doing something that drastic would put my younger sister in this situation. I had to suck it up and deal.
Without his attention on me, I could run. The thought wouldn’t let me be. But Rafe was behind me. A silent, but imposing presence. My bodyguard. And likely a spy for my father. I had almost forgotten he was there. He said nothing, just watched me with the same blank eyes as he had always used. He had always been around, just on the outskirts of everything. Even now, Papà had handed him off. If I died, he would die too. If he died, my father wouldn’t care.
“It’s Belladonna,” said Rafe. “The graffiti and what your grandmother used to wear on her dress. She wore it at basically all the family events.”
I arched an eyebrow at him. “I don’t know what Belladonna is.” They didn’t teach me that in school, and we had gardeners to tend to the flowers.
“You knew what a Venus flytrap was,” Rafe accused.
“Everyone knows that.”
“It’s nightshade,” said Rafe. “Poison.”
A lump formed in the base of my throat, but I pasted a smile on my face. “Well, Caterina is going to love it.” I grabbed my cell phone and took a picture of the graffiti flowers. “You know how much she loves the dark kind of stuff.”
“And you miss her,” murmured Rafe.
My eyes burned, but I blinked away the sensation. I hadn’t cried yet and had no desire to.
“Yeah,” I murmured, sucking in a deep breath. “But I’m worried about her too. She needs me around. She doesn’t like being alone, and she’s at such a weird age.”
Rafe scoffed. “She’s only a few years younger than you.”
“And now I’m older and wiser. Guess being bartered does that to a girl.” I stepped toward him, acting innocent. “Now I know how bad of an age sixteen is. Thinking you know everything only to be smacked in the face with reality after graduation.”
“And you know this now at twenty-two?”
“Um, yeah. Look at me.” I motioned to the jeans, tee, and leather jacket. “Don’t I look older and wiser?”
Rafe stared down at me, his eyes hooded under his dark eyebrows. He dragged his gaze down my body and then back up to my face. I thought he was on the verge of agreeing with me.
But he just said, “No.”
The smile slipped from my face. I was just a child to him, though I had been an adult for four years and gained both my bachelor’s and master’s degrees. I was just a kid in his eyes.
No longer looking at me, Rafe stuffed his hands in his pockets. “We need to go inside.”
I groaned. I wouldn’t be running away today. And like a good MC biker—patched member or whatever—Rafe took me into the warehouse. I had expected to encounter a loud ruckus of drinking bikers and their groupies, I met a vast space with high-end furniture and appliances and a kitchen with marble countertops. To my surprise, whoever kept up the living space had some taste.
But everything and everyone inside sat in complete, eerie silence. My eyes roamed over the silent line of skulls, leather, broad shoulders, and denim until my gaze rested at the two men sitting at a long oak table. One smirked up at Sas and lifted a beer to his lips. Neither of them, however, wore a leather jacket.