Which she did, because his Naiya had a spine of steel.
“Who says you’re my man?”
“I do.” He met her gaze, watched her eyes darken to brown.
“It sure didn’t feel like you were my man when you left.” She pulled away, and Holt gritted his teeth. Didn’t she understand that he had come back for her? That for now he had put aside his quest for revenge to keep her safe?
“When I put you in the position of having to pull that weapon, I realized I’d brought you back into a world you don’t want to be in. I didn’t want to waste any time getting you out.” He traced the bow of her mouth, pleased when her lips parted at his touch. She couldn’t be that angry. After all, she was still here, and she had come to the brothers to ask them to warn him.
“I can take myself out.” She drew his hand away. “I’ve got interviews set up in different states…” Her voice trailed off when Holt frowned. How could he protect her if she left? Viper would send men to chase her wherever he went. Sweat trickled down his back. This reunion wasn’t going exactly as expected.
“You don’t leave,” he blurted out. “You don’t go.”
She studied him for a long moment, and then she stroked a light finger over his jaw, her voice soft, as if they were alone and not in the bar with the Sinners watching them and Tank and Ally sitting at their table. Like she’d forgiven him for leaving her. “You’re lucky I understand your bossy, evil biker ways.”
Yes! Forgiven. Holt heaved a sigh of relief. “I’m gonna take you back to the clubhouse and show you just how evil I can be.” He covered her hand with his, and pressed his lips to her fingertips. Her sharp intake of breath made him instantly hard. And suddenly it all didn’t matter. Viper. Michael. His status in the club. All he wanted was this woman who took away the pain and the darkness; who made him feel whole again.
“I’m not going anywhere until I get a proper apology.”
Holt hooked his boot around Naiya’s chair leg and dragged her toward him, feeling a power and confidence he hadn’t felt before. He liked how the brothers had deferred to him when he walked into the stock room, and how they stood aside as he dealt with the fed. He liked that they’d looked after Naiya and that Tank had been standing guard. He liked that they didn’t treat him like a junior patch but as a man to be respected. And he liked that he would have this woman by his side—strong and determined, fiercely intelligent, highly capable, and yet willing to accept his need to take control.
“Holt!” Naiya’s eyes widened when he yanked her chair forward, but a smile played across her lips. “What’s got into you?”
“Want my woman close so I can protect her.” He slid an arm around her waist, stroked the curve of her hip.
“More like you want to feel her up in public.” She gave him a sideways glance that made him laugh out loud.
“That, too.” He leaned forward, pressed his lips to her ear. “What happened with that agent will never happen again.”
“Apology accepted.” She cupped his face between her hands and kissed him long and hard.
Ally fanned herself with her hand. “I thought I was coming here for a pity talk. Now I’m thinking I shoulda brought Doug along for a little hotel loving ’cause I don’t know how I’m gonna drive home with Maurice in the condition I’m in after watching you two. Hopefully he drinks too much at that bar down the street where you left him to drown his sorrows, and sleeps all the way home.”
Tank gave Holt a quizzical look. “So, you being here … Does that mean you’re back with the club and you’re gonna come with us to the rally?”
“I came back for Naiya,” Holt said. “Nothing has changed my plan to go after Viper.”
Tank stared at him aghast. “You’re gonna take her with you?”
Fuck no. He wasn’t letting Naiya anywhere near Viper. But to keep her safe he either had to rely on the Sinners or let her go, and the latter was no longer an option. “I gotta think things through. Then I’ll make a decision.”
“A decision that involves me.” Naiya nuzzled his neck, distracting him. “If you’re going after Viper, I’m coming, too. Actually, Ally and I were going to the rally anyway. Doug will be there giving support to the Sandy Lake sheriff’s office. We’re going to keep a lookout for a biker wearing a Skull Mark ring.”
“We are?” A frown creased Ally’s brow, smoothing away when Naiya gave her a nudge. “I mean, yes we are. We talked about it … over the phone. Earlier today. I love bike rallies. Lots of … dangerous bikers and bikes and rings.” She gave an apologetic shrug. “I think.”
“It might be dangerous,” Naiya continued. “You should probably teach me how to use a gun.”
Was she fucking crazy? Give her a gun and let her go with him? “No.”
“No?” She lifted an eyebrow. “How are you going to stop me?”
“I said no and I mean no.” Holt looked over at Tank for a little support. Maybe his brother would look after Naiya while he did what had to do. There was nobody he trusted more. “Tank?”
But Tank stared at his phone, his face pale and drawn.
Holt picked up on the tension in Tank’s shoulders and leaned across the table. “What’s wrong, brother?”
“It’s nothing. Just…” His gaze flicked to Naiya and then back to Holt. “Nothing.”
With a discrete nod of understanding, Naiya stood and gestured to Ally. “Next round is on me. I’ll need some help at the bar, and I can introduce you to Banks. You’ll like him. He’s got the whole taciturn mysterious bartender vibe thing going on. I dare you to make him laugh.”
After the girls left, Holt pulled his chair closer to Tank. “Talk to me.”
Tank’s head jerked up and hope flared in his eyes. “You’re still not putting on the cut?”
“Doesn’t feel right,” Holt said. “I don’t know if it ever will.”
“So you’re not a Sinner?”
Holt didn’t know where Tank was going with this, but perversely he seemed to take comfort in the fact Holt wasn’t presently a member of the club, so he ran with it. “I haven’t handed in my cut to Jagger, and he hasn’t taken it from me. But I’m not wearing it, so I’m not bound by the rules.”
Tank let out a ragged breath. “Then I got a problem, brother. And if Jagger finds out…”
“He won’t.” Holt clapped Tank’s shoulder. “Tell me what I can do. I’m here for you. Whatever you need, I’ve got your back. No matter what happens, that will never change.”
TANK
Tank wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans, but it didn’t do any good. Ever since he received Ella’s text, his body had been in stress overdrive. Heart-pounding, shirt-soaking, pulse-racing stress. If T-Rex hadn’t been there to keep him calm and take charge of the situation, he didn’t know what he would have done. Even now, in Hacker’s office—a small computer room at the back of the clubhouse, set up for the club’s IT whiz to deal with tech operations—he couldn’t stop his teeth from chattering.
“I’ve got bad news and I’ve got good news,” Hacker said, turning from the massive computer screen in front of him.
Tank glanced over at T-Rex and Naiya standing behind Hacker’s chair. They’d had no choice but to confide in the MC’s computer geek on his word as a Sinner not to share the results of his scan of Tank’s phone with Jagger or the rest of the club. Tank didn’t like putting Hacker in this position, but Hacker owed Tank a favor for the night he’d gotten drunk and knocked over Jagger’s bike. Tank had spent the whole night fixing the damage and now he was calling in his mark for keeping his mouth shut about the whole ordeal.
“Gimme the good news.” Although how much worse could it be? When he’d seen Ella’s email with the gas station video attachment, he’d almost handed in his cut right there. No way would Jagger let him stay in the club after he’d broken the rule about fraternizing with reporters. Add to that, taking the video in the first place without authorization, getting so pissed he forgot basic safety protocols and left his phone unattended and unsecured, and now putting T-Rex, Naiya, and the club at risk, he’d be lucky to be kicked out without some broken bones, maybe even his life.
Hacker, tall and lean with unnaturally bright green eyes, and the kind of face that sent the sweet butts into a swoon, ran a hand through his long hair. “She emailed the video to herself. I can hack into her email account and delete it. I can also find out if she’s sent it to anyone else.”
“And the bad news?”
“If she’s downloaded it, or if she sent it to someone else and they downloaded it, then it’s going to be more difficult, if not impossible, to get rid of it. And if she’s uploaded it to the Internet, then we’re shit out of luck.”
“I say we grab her. Bring her to the clubhouse and let Dax scare her a bit,” T-Rex said. “We’ll find out pretty damn fast who got it.”
“And you’ll find your way to a jail cell pretty damn fast once she goes to the authorities, as if you’re not headed there already.” Naiya snorted her derision. “She could have just put it on the news or sent it to the police, but she didn’t. So why not meet her at the rally like she’s asked. Find out why she took it and what she’s going to do with it. Then make a decision. It might be she’s planning to air it while she’s reporting on the bike rally unless you give her what she wants.”
“I don’t know what she wants.” Tank folded his arms. “And if I see her alone, feeling the way I feel right now, I might lose control. And she’s got this way of twisting words around…”
“You won’t be alone,” T-Rex assured him. “I’ll be with you.”
Emotion welled up in Tank’s chest. “Thought you had your own shit to do at the rally. You can’t be in two places at once.”
“The only place I need to be is at your back, brother. And it might be that the Sinners have a good plan I can go along with. While they’re setting it up, and taking care of my girl, I can be with you.”
It took a moment for T-Rex’s words to sink in, and when they did Tank’s heart seized in his chest. Was T-Rex really going to return to the club for him? Join with the Sinners instead of going after Viper alone?
“You and Naiya.” T-Rex answered his unspoken question. “I trust you more than anyone, but I trust the brothers, too. I want Viper so bad it burns inside me, and for the longest time it was all I lived for. But now I got Naiya and you, and if I lost either of you, it would fucking kill me. I’ll hear Jagger’s plan. And if it’s solid, then I’ll work with them to take Viper down.” A grin spread across his face, a flash of the old T-Rex. “But I’m still gonna be the one who pulls the trigger.”
Tank’s hands clenched and unclenched by his sides, and his throat tightened so hard he could barely breathe. He couldn’t hug T-Rex here. And he couldn’t fucking cry. Christ. Ever since T-Rex had returned, he’d been an emotional mess, and Tank didn’t do emotion. Bikers didn’t do emotion. Men didn’t do emotion. But he was so goddamned grateful to have his best friend back, and even more relieved that T-Rex was going to talk to Jagger. Not just because it meant he had a chance of getting out of this mess without losing everything that mattered—his life, his cut, his club, and his friend—but also because T-Rex stood a better chance of surviving a confrontation with Viper with the Sinners at his back. And he wouldn’t be able to take T-Rex dying all over again.
He forced his words past the lump in his throat. “Appreciated, brother.”
“I got your back, Tank, like you always had mine.”
Tank shot a look at Naiya to see what she thought of the new plan. Clearly, not much, given how tightly her lips were pressed together and how she was shooting daggers at T-Rex with her eyes. He figured that might have something to do with the fact T-Rex still wasn’t backing down about her going with him when he went after Viper. Tank gave an inward chuckle, wondering if T-Rex had planned it out this way. Once the Sinners were involved, it didn’t matter how much Naiya protested; she would be staying behind. Women were not allowed to participate in club business. Not even Arianne. And it wasn’t that way with just the Sinners, but with all outlaw MCs.
“Holt,” she said. “Could I speak to you outside?”
Tank shuddered on his friend’s behalf at Naiya’s icy tone. But he had T-Rex’s back, whether it was in a gunfight, a revenge quest, or an angry girlfriend. “Actually, the board meeting is in fifteen minutes, so we gotta split if you want to talk to Jagger before it starts. He won’t let you sit in without a cut, but I’m sure he’ll talk to you in his office.”
Hacker squinted at his screen. “I thought it started in—”
“Fifteen minutes.” Tank cut him off, biting back a smile when T-Rex gave him a grateful nod. “Hacker, can you take Naiya out back when we’re done? Shaggy’s meeting her at the shooting range to show her the basics.”
“You’re learning how to shoot?” Hacker asked Naiya.
“Gotta defend my man.” Naiya lifted an eyebrow. “Or maybe I’ll shoot him. I’m not sure which.”
If Tank hadn’t been so damned stressed out, he would have laughed. He never would have picked Naiya as a match for T-Rex, but the man who stood beside him now was not the same man he had known. The new T-Rex was confident, determined, and decisive. He didn’t joke around or try to smooth things over. He took control. Made things happen. Didn’t second guess himself or try to find a middle road. He led rather than followed, and Naiya, with her quiet confidence and inner strength was a good match for him. One day maybe he would meet a woman like her.
Or, at least, he would have liked her not to run away.
“C’mon, T-Rex.” He gestured to the door. “We’d better get going.”
“Call me Holt, brother. T-Rex is dead.” Holt brushed a kiss over Naiya’s cheek, and Tank followed him out into the hallway.
T-Rex is dead.
Tank’s lungs seized up and he struggled for breath, even as he acknowledged the truth of the words that hung between them, even as his heart broke all over again. That night. In the alley. When they had cried in each other’s arms. If he’d known that was the last time he would be with T-Rex, the man who had been closer to him than anyone on the earth, he would have said the words that he had always wanted to say.
But the man who walked away from the alley that night was not the man who had walked in. Tank had seen it in the way Holt stood a little straighter, talked a little louder, laughed a whole lot less. He had seen it in his buddy’s confidence and determination, his ability to take charge, and his fierce protectiveness over a woman who burned with the kind of inner strength and fire that once would have scared Holt away.