Damaged & Dangerous: The Sacred Hearts MC Book VI (11 page)

“You’re incredible,” he said and kissed me, long and sweet
and slow. I didn’t know how he figured but I didn’t want to argue the point.
Not with his lips moving against mine like they were. I put absolutely no
thought into how this all would end. I simply accepted the gift I was given and
appreciated that God may be taking a moment of pity on me. I would be back in
Hell soon enough as it was.

Red-XIII…

It had surprised the hell out of me, the order to bring Dani
to my crib, but I took it for the damned blessing it was and got her the hell
out of there. It had caught me off guard for sure, but I couldn’t and wouldn’t
be sorry. I was grateful now that the place had no electricity because it had
given me the perfect excuse to give the place a good once over to hide anything
Sacred Hearts related before I let her in. Everything was hidden safely in my
secret stash, which she would have to be pretty damned industrious to find the
trap door, not to mention off-the-charts intelligent, plus she’d have to be
actively looking for it, and she had no reason to.

Right now she was sleeping peacefully, her head on my
shoulder, arm across my chest. I loved how snug and tight she’d fitted her body
against mine, her leg over both of mine. I had an arm curved protectively
around her body, my free hand high up on her thigh beneath the covers. She felt
so amazing and just so right, up against me like this. Tomorrow I would have to
let her go and it was the thing keeping me awake, long into the night. Nothing
but the shadows flickering across the cabin’s ceiling to keep me company while
Dani slept, oblivious.

I’d deliberately taken things slow with her, and she’d been
so incredibly giving of herself, and brave. I admired her spirit more with every
choice encounter that we managed to have together. I know it was ridiculously
dangerous to let her get under my skin like this but I was a dangerous guy.
Still, cockiness had gotten more than one guy like me dead and the more I
looked at her big picture the more acutely aware I was that I really couldn’t
afford to be cocky. That if I were gone, she’d have
no one
to look after
her. I mean, yeah, she’d done a halfway decent job on her own up until now and
I was pretty sure, with as smart as she was, she had some kind of stash or exit
strategy in place if the opportunity presented itself, but I had no idea what
my brothers had done. My
real
brothers that is.

Whatever it was it involved Ace and Deuce, Gordy had said
Sacred Hearts had ‘em pinned down. I’d passed along that the twins were going
on a run and whatever other info I’d had on it to D I wasn’t sure if D had told
Grinder’s bros or not. I was square in the dark on what was going on, on that
side of things. I sighed softly. With Dani here it wasn’t like I could pick up
the phone and touch base, so for now I just had to play it by ear and adapt as
I went along.

“What are you thinking about so hard?” she asked and I tried
to look down at her which … no dice at this angle and I damn sure didn’t want
to move her. She was comfortable and so was I, so I just settled back, head on
my pillows and smiled to myself. Little shit hadn’t been asleep at all.  

“I don’t want to take you back to him,” I said and she
chuckled bitterly.

“I know, but it has to happen. Do you regret prospecting for
them yet?” she asked.

I kissed the top of her head, “Hell naw, not when it brought
me to you.” She sighed out and was quiet for a very long time.

“You make me feel safe,” she finally murmured, and the words
sounded almost like a confession from her lips.

“I’m glad,” I said, and smiled. I kissed the top of her head
again. Her hair was like silk against my lips and the feel of it was sort of
addicting. Hell,
she
was addicting. My perfect drug.

“It’s not safe, though, for either of us. I’ve put you in
terrible trouble with them if they ever find out. I swear I won’t tell. No
matter how drunk or high he gets, no matter how much he hurts me. I promise not
to tell any of them about this.” She sniffed and one of her tears dripped wet
down my ribs. I held her tighter.

“Shhhhh,” I soothed and she sobbed gently against my chest,
clinging to me.

“You don’t understand. They’ll kill you if they find out. I
know, they’ve done it before. Which is why this can never happen again.” She
drew in a breath to keep talking but I stopped her.

“Dani, stop. We haven’t gone back yet, you’re not with them,
you’re with me, and until I have to take you back that makes you mine. If I
only get you for one night then, damn it, I want it to just be about you and me
and fuck the rest of the guys. Okay?” she laughed brokenly through her tears
and nodded.

“Okay,” she agreed and I silently held her, stroking her
soft skin until she fell back asleep. Only this time, when she went, I went
with her.

The next morning, and by morning I really meant sometime
after the noontime hour, we were woken by the shrill ringing of one of my cells
from my jacket. I got up and dug through the pockets and pulled out the burner
I used for the Suicide Kings and answered it.

“Hello?”

“You plan on bringing my bitch back here any time today,
Prospect? Or you two been fuckin’ and I need to kill your ass?” Pig growled
into the line.

“I ain’t been fucking your woman, Man! I got mad respect for
you Bro and I wouldn’t do you like that. We were both up late is all, ain’t
been talking or nothing just couldn’t sleep. She’s not used to a place like
mine and was jumping at every damned animal sound out there.” Pig-Pen’s
laughter boomed through the line.

“She enough to drive you nuts?” he asked. I forced a laugh
as I stared into Dani’s sorrowful blue eyes.

“Yeah Man, yeah. I’ll get her ass up, we’ll be on the road
inside ten minutes. Be about an hour or so after that. That cool?”

“Yeah, just both of you get your asses back here,” he said.

“Copy that, Man.” He hung up on me, which was nothing
unusual. Dani was already getting dressed.

“All good things must come to an end,” I heard her murmur
and I couldn’t agree with her more. With a heavy sigh I pulled on my clothes
from last night, too. We didn’t speak, and she was stiff at my back the whole
ride back to the club. I kept stealing glances at her in the side view mirror
and the closer we got to the club, the more withdrawn and shut down she became.
That was good, as much as I hated to admit it. The guys wouldn’t suspect
anything if we didn’t give them anything to suspect.

It started to rain. We were ten minutes from the club and I
had some gortex rain gear but there was just no point. We were soaked inside a
minute and I would have honestly just given it to her. It was better just to
make the final push to the club and just neither of us wear it. We pulled into
the lot and around to the back and dashed through the downpour, through the
fire exit door, into the bar. Just about all the guys except for the council
were sitting around, grim.

“What’s the deal?” I asked, “What happened?” Skid turned and
looked over above the air hockey table where Grinder’s cut was supposed to be.
Instead, Ace’s and Deuce’s cuts were hanging and the hash marks had multiplied
to ten in all. A message was scrawled along the back wall.

Keeping score? We’re ahead. We’re going to finish this.

“Oh my God.” I heard Dani breathe.

“Prospect, yer goin’ with Pipes and Flyer tonight to finish
what Ace and Deuce started. Coon, bring us the Hennessy’s.” Griz ordered from
the doorway before disappearing back into the front of the club and the Suicide
King’s little round table council meeting. I stared at the cuts with cold fury.

I was absolutely sure D had nothing to do with them; he was
too smart for that. Now I was going on a run with the club’s enforcer and one
of Griz’s lackeys that I knew he was absolutely sure of. Dani slipped off to
serve the council their Hennessy.

“This is some fucking bullshit,” I muttered and Flyer looked
at me.

“Yeah,” he stated flatly. I was suddenly glad I’d donned my
body armor under my clothes when I’d dressed that afternoon. I’d asked Dani if
it would make her feel better if I had some when I’d seen her side eyeing me,
worried. She’d thought I would need it to protect me from The Sacred Hearts. I
knew different, but I’d humored her. Looks like the man upstairs was finally
paying her some positive attention and I’d won out by default.

I settled in and waited for Pipes to come out back and tell
us we were moving out. I had a feeling it’d be a couple of hours, that we
wouldn’t be doing anything until dark. In the mean time I waited to see if
anyone would divulge anything about where we were going or who we were seeing.
The men’s silence told me more than anything that I was in some serious shit. I
just had to go along with it, though. Nothing else I could really do for now,
not without leaving Dani behind, and I wasn’t going to do that to her.

Nope.

Fuck me.

Dani…

I was a shadow again. Thank God for that, because if I
hadn’t been forgotten, I never would have heard what they were planning. I put
the Hennessy on a round tray with enough shot glasses for the men at the
meeting and carefully went to serve them. I set the tray on the edge of the
table and slid it more fully onto its scarred metal surface. I retreated to the
deepest shadows of the hall, and listened. They were deep in to it and didn’t
check to see that I’d fully gone.

Gordy, a big, bald man with a steel gray goatee down his
chest, was talking, “I say the overlook. Yeah, it’s open, but no one travels
that pass this time of year, too early yet. We can have ‘em pull off into the
picnic area here, tap our rat, and git. I’ll be waiting for ‘em, Pipes and
Flyer can bring him, and we can call those Bleeding Heart bastards to come pick
up their trash.”

My breath caught in my throat. I’d heard all I needed to and
somehow I needed to warn Thirteen, but I didn’t know how. I drifted off and
away before anyone came looking for the bathroom and caught me eavesdropping. I
wanted to know more but I just couldn’t risk it. I spent the next half hour
trying to carefully catch Thirteen’s eye with no success.

Finally I managed to, and I gave him a pleading look, I
begged him with my eyes in that silent way we had, not to go. He looked
stricken for a moment then his handsome face settled into lines of grim
resignation. His eyes, which were back to that blue of the storm-swept
Atlantic, tried to reassure me that everything would be fine, and then he
looked away, breaking our link. I felt my heart drop, plummeting into the pit
of my stomach.

“Do you think Pig would mind if I went home and got some dry
clothes?” I asked Skid softly. He looked me over.

“I ain’t about to go ask him for you,” he said. Finally he let
out a heavy sigh and lit the end of his cigarette. I didn’t have to try too
hard to look soggy, uncomfortable, and downright pitiful. He nodded, finally,
“Go on, git gone but make it quick! Get your ass back here. With as much dope
as he’s done? I doubt he’ll even notice, ‘less he wants a drink or something.”
I nodded and grabbed up my purse and jacket along with my keys.

“Thanks, Skid,” I murmured. He looked me over in that way he
sometimes got, eyes glassy with drink, like he was seeing an overlay of someone
else where I was standing.

“My daughter was still alive, maybe I’d be a better man.
Maybe I’d be more like them Bleeding Hearts,” I think I heard him mumble, but I
couldn’t be sure. I skirted around the end of the bar and slipped out into the
back lot. I found my car against the back fence where they’d parked it, and got
in. It’d stopped raining, the afternoon showers having moved off to let the sun
shine through. It was still cold out, though.

I didn’t really have a plan, but I did. It was half cracked
at best, and at worst was downright suicidal, but Thirteen had hit the nail
right on the head. Some things were just worth the risks. If I had taken a risk
like this years ago I might well have been free of the MC, or I might be dead.
Either way, I was beginning to realize, had its ups and the same end result. Freedom.

I drove home, threw some clothes into a bag, and scraped
every bit of precious I could back into a Crown Royal bag. If we managed to
live, we’d need everything I could get. I didn’t bother changing my clothes for
real. I only had a certain amount of time to do this. Enough time that it would
take to change clothes, get down to my car and get back to the club.

I stopped. I wasn’t thinking about this clearly. If I was
going to do this, make a break for it, really run, I didn’t
need
to go
back to the club. I mean, I needed to go
back,
but not
inside
. I
only needed to be there long enough to watch where Thirteen went, to follow
them. I didn’t have a fucking clue what I was going to do after that but I was
a smart girl. I had to be, with as much as I had gotten over on Pig and the lot
of them over the last three years. I had survived this far without help from
anyone. It had taken last night for me to realize just how much more I could
have been getting away with.

I think what it really boiled down to was my conversation
with Thirteen, about when I’d been sick and what I’d said, that crystalized it
for me. He was right. I’d given up. I may not have been brave enough to commit
suicide outright but The Suicide Kings had pushed me to that point. When I’d
gotten sick, I really hadn’t done anything to take care of myself. I just let
myself get sicker and sicker and had prayed for my own inevitable death. Then
Thirteen had saved me. Now it was my turn to do everything I could to save
him.

I drove back to the club and parked in an alleyway up the
block, out of view. My phone had started ringing and I’d dropped it, stomping
on it in my black and white Chucks with all the might my small frame possessed,
until it was so much shattered plastic and broken glass.

No tracking me now, fuckers!
I thought triumphantly. But
that didn’t assuage the uncomfortable pounding my heart was doing in my chest.
I coughed some, the last vestiges still hanging on from my being sick even
though I’d obediently finished all of the antibiotics that the doctor had left
me. It was dark. Time kept marching on and the sick feeling in my stomach grew
with every passing hour.

Thoughts like,
what if I missed them?
or,
What if
they killed him inside and I’m already too late?
plagued me as I waited but
finally, close to midnight, I heard the roar of bikes split the night air. I
watched as three headlamps, one in front, two in back, pulled around the
clubhouse. Pipes was in front, and yes, Thirteen and Flyer were behind him. I
ducked back as they passed the mouth of the alley I’d hidden myself in. I got
in the car and I waited for three minutes before starting it and pulling out
after them. I knew where the overlook picnic area was. My granddad and I went
there in the summertime when I was a kid. He would pan for gold in the riverbed
while I played in the water and caught frogs.

I caught up to the three of them and tried to be smart. The
men of the Suicide Kings MC never thought I was listening. But when I had
little else to do but shamelessly eavesdrop for my own mental entertainment,
well, I’d learned a few things over the years. One of those things was what to
look for when you were on a run and how to detect if you were being tailed. I
knew all of the rules and I broke every single damned one of them as I followed
my quarry, so they wouldn’t know they were being followed.

So far, so good. It helped that I knew where they were
going. It really did. The hard part would be when they got there. I chewed my
bottom lip and did something rather impulsive. I held my breath and when we hit
the highway, when we were about halfway to the overlook from where we’d got on
it, I passed them, along with a couple of other cars. My heart was in my throat
as I glanced at their faces through a curtain of my hair but none of them
looked at me or seemed to recognize my car as being mine.

With my heart pounding in my chest and the three motorcycles
in my rearview, I drove on. I sped. I had to if I was going to do what I needed
to do, which was drive up past the overlook a short ways and pull off so I
could get back to the overlook on foot. I was taking way too many gambles here
for my liking, but I figured it this way from what I knew so far.

One, Gordy was already at the overlook waiting. Two, the
guys had no intention of actually going over the pass and completing this run.
If Ace and Deuce had fallen and it was so important to keep me safe and on
reserve, then the Suicide Kings were out of money and out of options. This
so-called run was just a ruse to separate Thirteen and take him out. Three,
Thirteen had to be what they thought he was… a rat for The Sacred Hearts. I
knew he was different from the men of the ‘Kings. I could feel it to my very
bones and last night had proven to me beyond any doubt that he was.

I passed the overlook and saw Gordy’s bike parked there. He
was sitting on a picnic table, smoking a cigarette, and startled when my
headlights swept past him. I didn’t slow, I didn’t accelerate… I kept it steady
and kept on driving. I didn’t know how much time I had until the boys got to
the overlook, but I planned on being set up and ready when they arrived. I still
hadn’t a single clue on what I was going to do when they got there.

I pulled over and threw it in park, bailing out and pulling
the keys with a silent prayer that once done with whatever they were going to
do, Gordy, Pipes, and Flyer wouldn’t come this way. I had pulled around the
bend in the road where it curved into the mountain and stopped there. I was
hidden from the overlook, but a ways from it by foot. I took off at a trot down
the hillside and when I was sure I could, streaked across the pavement and into
the deep ditch, almost deep enough to be considered a culvert on the side of
the road the overlook shared. I kept low and moved as quietly as I could, the
tall grass and low shrubs swishing entirely too loudly against my legs.

I was getting close to the overlook. My heart was beating an
erratic staccato in my breast and I honestly thought I was going to have a
stroke! I was close enough to see Gordy, and he turned in my direction. I froze
and it seemed that luck or God or whatever was on my side, because just as he
took a step in my direction to see what was going on over here, the distant
roar of approaching bikes had him turning away from me. I let out my breath
slowly and silently, and crouched even lower as the three of them turned into
the overlook’s lot.

The ditch was wide here and they’d buried one of those big
metal pipes in it and paved over the top. The bikes went over it and I stayed
low in the bushes growing tall to either side, using the rumble of the machines
as cover to move over to the pipe and take refuge inside. It was more than big
enough. I settled and listened as the three of them parked and shut off their
engines. The low mountain night was suddenly filled with the steady tick of
cooling engines and the low voices of men greeting each other.

I risked a look when their voices grew distant, standing on
tiptoe to peek over the edge of the culvert, across the blacktop surface.
They’d wandered away from the bikes, closer to the picnic tables. Gordy had his
hand on the back of Thirteen’s leather coat and I silently prayed he wouldn’t
feel the bulk of the body armor he was wearing under his black tee shirt.

Suddenly Gordy said something sharply and he kicked the back
of Thirteen’s leg. Thirteen cursed sharply and went to his knees, Flyer and
Pipes grabbed him by his arms and stretched them to his sides. He struggled,
but stilled when Gordy pointed his shiny gun at him. Gordy kept talking, asking
questions, but I couldn’t make out what he was saying from here. I pressed both
my hands over my mouth as Gordy paced further and further away from Thirteen.

I felt tears slick down my face, hot and wet, tightening my
skin with their salt as they dried there. Maybe he wouldn’t shoot him. Maybe
they would believe whatever he told them. Thirteen was brilliant, had been with
the club for months, maybe – my thoughts were interrupted by three bright
flashes, the foothills echoing with three catastrophically loud reports. I
jumped and watched in horror as Thirteen jerked back between Flyer and Pipes,
his head hung limp, and the two men let him go. He fell forward into the gravel
and lay there, limp, not moving.

I ducked back into the pipe and huddled there, shaking. I
had to wait for them to leave! I prayed hard and harder, and heard the crunch
of their boots as they came across the gravel of the lot.

“… get back down to the club, we’ll wait an hour and call
the Bleeding Hearts to come pick up their trash,” I heard Gordy say.

“Too bad about his bike, I would have liked to have that,”
Pipes remarked.

“Keys are in his pocket.” Flyer shot back.

I heard Pipes snort, “I ain’t giving up my baby! The fuck
you thin…” his voice trailed as they moved out of earshot. A short time later
the bikes started up. I jumped and held very, very still as they rumbled
overhead, praying, praying, praying,
please go left, please go left, please
go left!

They turned left, and my shoulders slumped in partial
relief. I waited several heartbeats after the silence returned, knowing that
with every pulse they put more distance between us and them. Finally, I
scrambled out from under the huge steel pipe and clawed my way up the
embankment.

“Thirteen!” I cried and flat-out ran in the direction of his
prone body. I skidded to a halt on my knees and struggled to turn him over, the
tears running down my face even faster when my hand encountered a patch of wet,
high on one shoulder.

“Thirteen! Chris, Chris! Please, oh my God
please!
” I
screamed and about threw up with relief when he groaned. Oh my God, he was
alive! He coughed weakly and I kissed him. I kissed him hard.

“Wait here, oh my God, wait here, I’m coming back. I promise
you, I’m coming back!” I eased him off my lap and onto the ground where he
groaned, and leapt to my feet in a flat-out
run
up the side of the
highway, to my car. I had to bring it closer! I couldn’t wait for The Sacred
Hearts to arrive, it would take them too long. I had to get him in my car! I
had to! …or he might die.