Fucking hell, I was desperate now. So desperate that I’d run through glass to reach her.
Wait a minute.
I shot a second glance at her window and Lucky’s words flashed in my mind. A slow grin spread across my face before I tossed my cigarette and moved into action.
Love had no boundaries and fuck if I’d let Indy put any between us.
Indy
Glass fell into the room like diamonds. I screamed as a hunched figure straightened. My fear soon transformed into anger as I recognized the broad shoulders as Hastie’s. As soon as he saw me, he started for me. “Indy . . .”
“What the hell is wrong with you?” I cried as I recoiled from his touch. “Are you out of your mind?” Had he really just broken through my window?
“I need to talk to you.” His eyes were set in a determined gaze, gleaming with seriousness and uncoiled power.
“Jesus Christ,” I muttered. Already my heart was rattling against my ribs, desperate to escape the predator who had hurt me before. In an act of self-preservation, I stormed out of my bedroom, heading down the stairs towards the front door. I needed to get away from the glass and, more importantly, from the man in there.
Hastie followed me, his long legs easily covering the distance. As he approached, I swung open the front door and held it open for him, uttering one word. “Leave.”
His eyes were pained. “Indy, please . . .”
I kept my gaze off his, not allowing myself to feel his pain. The first wound had barely healed and here he was again, looking for round two. “I don’t want you here.” I needed to fix myself up first before I could face him again.
“I hurt you. And I regret it. But just hear me out. I—”
“I meant what I said when I told you I wouldn’t come back to you, Hastie.
Leave.”
My voice broke as my heart splintered. “I can’t see you again.”
TWENTY
Your Last Name
Hastie
T
he next day, my phone chimed. I read the text from Lucky.
So how’d it go?
Fuck you.
Not well then.
I didn’t respond. A few minutes later, another text came in.
Where r u?
Neptune’s.
I’d been here since Indy slammed the door in my face.
Comin’.
I looked up from my beer, eyeing Indy as she worked in her short shorts and her tight tank. She was ignoring me at the moment, but she did serve me my drink when I first came into Neptune’s. For some reason, that annoyed me more. She acted like she barely knew me.
I downed the beer as quickly as I could, wanting her to come back to me so I could speak to her again. But she was busy at the other end of the bar, serving up a series of shots for some of the other patrons. I took another hit from my cigarette.
With each passing minute, I was growing more and more desperate to reach her. Seeing her here, in such close proximity to her but not within easy reach, made me grit my teeth down in frustration. Her words from last night hit me again:
I can’t see you again.
Too late for that. Now that she was back at Neptune’s, I just needed her to understand the mistake I made and to know how sorry I was for hurting her.
Sounds at the front of the bar caused Indy to look up from her work. Her eyes narrowed with recognition, and I slid my gaze from her to see who she was looking at. I froze at the sight of the man standing in the dive’s doorway. What the fuck was Brennan doing here?
The leader of Ward Three casually walked in as if he had a place here. I immediately stood up, sliding into full soldier mode. The other members of Glory MC who were in Neptune’s did the same, flocking him as he reached the center of the bar. Cool eyes slid over us. “Nice welcome,” Brennan said with a grin.
“You’ve got some balls coming here.”
His shoulders lifted in a shrug. “Just passing through. Thought I’d say hello.” His smile was entirely fake, masked with cruel intent.
I didn’t garner that with a response. I just stared him down, telling him with my eyes that a fight would be exactly what I wanted right now. If he made one wrong move, I wouldn’t hesitate to take him down. He was on Glory property and we allowed no shit to take place here.
Brennan smirked as if he understood. “So how’s Newt?”
I lunged forward to grab him. “Watch it,” Kitt warned in my ear as he pulled me back.
“He’s goading us,” I spat.
“You need to keep your cool.” That was a little hard to do when the man responsible for murdering one of your best friends was standing right in front of you.
Brennan eyed the establishment, watching the others who were examining him like they were taking measurements for a casket. He approached the bar, rapped his knuckles against the bar top and said, “Where’s the service around here? Can’t I get a drink?”
My eyes slid to Indy as she approached him, eyes narrowed with suspicion. My body immediately grew tense. “You need to leave,” Indy said calmly.
Brennan laughed at the rejection. “And you must be Indy.”
Her body turned rigid as he spoke her name. I moved in, watching the exchange and wondering what the hell the bastard was up to. How did he know her? Brennan felt my presence behind him and turned, grinning an annoying smile. “Ah, there’s lover boy,” he said when he saw me. “So you
are
Hastie’s ol’ lady.” He winked at Indy as a growl ripped from my throat.
If I thought that Indy looked at me with hatred in her eyes the last time I saw her, it paled in comparison now. She was looking at Brennan as if she wanted to break him apart with her bare hands.
“How’s he treating you, love?” Indy kept her mouth shut, refusing to give in to his goading. She was handling this better than I was at the moment. “Aw, trouble in paradise?” Brennan tsked. “Did he find out about your big secret?”
At that, Indy’s eyes grew wide before sliding into a red haze that looked downright murderous. If looks could kill, there would only be pieces of barbequed Brennan left.
I grabbed Brennan by the collar of his leather jacket and hauled him up to my face. “Get the fuck out. I won’t tell you again.”
Brennan laughed. “You don’t have a clue, do you? Your ol’ lady hasn’t told you?”
What the hell was he talking about? I slid my gaze to meet Indy’s. Her face was pale, her lips white. Fear froze her in place.
“Ask her her last name,” Brennan instructed.
I released him roughly, not enjoying the fact that he knew something I clearly didn’t. Brennan stumbled but righted himself, smoothing out his jacket. “Beaumont,” he said. “Ring a bell?”
Beaumont? The only Beaumonts I knew of were of a small family. A woman and a man who had a daughter. Hell if I knew what happened to them. The flares had caused many families to uproot themselves and find another home. Either that, or they had been one of the lucky ones to die during the first flares.
Brennan chuckled at my clear bafflement. “What, got nothing to say? Do I need to take this little lady here and add her to my growing collection?”
“Don’t touch her,” I snarled.
“You weren’t looking to save the other girl when I offered her to you last time though.”
No. But I hadn’t forgotten about Tansy. “Where is she now?”
Brennan shook his head. “You had your chance. You should’ve taken it then.”
I took a step forward.
“Where the fuck is she?”
“She’s gone,” he said simply, as if he was talking about an object instead of a living, breathing person. “I gave her away.”
“To who?”
“I prefer not to discuss my trade dealings with others. Now if you’ll excuse me . . .”
No way was he going to leave here in one piece. I lunged for him, grabbing the front of his shirt. His face was mere inches from mine. Inside of Neptune’s, the tension between us saturated the room. It signaled to the others—like the scent of blood alerting a wolf pack that dinner was being served—that a fight was about to break out. Glory MC gathered around me, ready and waiting for someone to throw the first punch. But Kitt’s voice once again cut through my homicidal mindset like an angel on my shoulder. “Let him go.”
My eyes cut to his, seeing pools devoid of cloudy emotions. It made me pull back, realizing that I was letting my emotions fog up my thinking. My eyes bore into Brennan with undisguised hostility, promising death the next time I saw him. It pissed me off that he could affect me this way. So with very great reluctance, I released Brennan with a shove, sending him falling back, arms splayed wide.
It wasn’t a defeat and he knew that because the expression on his face looked almost frustrated. He was jonesing for a fight himself.
“Get him out of here,” I growled before Kitt and the rest of the club manhandled Brennan none too gently out the door. I turned to look for Indy, but she was no longer behind the bar. Panic seized me before I went in search for her.
I found her standing in front of Neptune’s, her back towards me as she watched Brennan ride away. When Brennan’s figure in the distance was long gone, I called out her name. “Come inside. He won’t be coming back.”
Indy turned slowly, eyes a bit wild. The instinct to reach out for her was immense. I wanted to hold her, to pull her in close, but knew that she wouldn’t want my touch right now. Without looking or speaking to me, she walked inside and went straight back to work.
* * *
I was waiting in the parking lot when Indy’s shift ended. Upon seeing me, she walked right up to me. “We need to talk.”
I let out a breath of relief. Finally—I just needed a moment to explain everything to her. Having her here, talking to me again had me smiling. I couldn’t help it. Her mere presence brought me happiness.
Indy shook her head. “Not about that though. I saw something earlier that I think you should know.”
My smile vanished, replaced by a look of concern. “What is it?” She looked over her shoulder as if someone was spying on us. It brought up the hairs on the back of my neck. What had put that fear in her eyes? “Get on,” I said as I straddled my bike. “We’ll talk somewhere else.”
Indy nodded, hopping on without protest. I walked us out and gunned it towards my house, knowing that there wasn’t a more secure location than that.
Once there, Indy walked in warily, as if she were approaching a stranger’s house. I guess in a way, we were. I could hardly say I recognized the look in her eyes in that moment.
Flipping on all the lights brought some comfort to her, so I went ahead and locked the doors as well. I could tell her distress still lingered by the way her eyes kept darting to the windows and doors. She also kept her arms wrapped tightly around herself as if she was afraid. “Are you okay?” I asked. She nodded, but her eyes gave her away. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“I saw something earlier that you and the rest of Glory MC should know.”
My insides clenched with her words. “Go on.”
“I saw Brennan . . . before he came into Neptune’s.”
My anger flared to life. “
Did he touch you? Hurt you?”
I should’ve killed him when I had the chance!
“No no,” Indy said with a shake of her head. “He didn’t see me, but I saw him talking with someone earlier. I didn’t recognize him from around here but something told me that they were planning something. Do Ward leaders usually cross borders like that?”
“Not without permission but Brennan has trespassed before. Why? What did you see?”
“They were speaking . . . actually more like negotiating something. Something about a shipment of firearms?” By the confused look in her eyes, she couldn’t have known that that tidbit was relevant to us.
“What did he look like?”
“Tall and lean. He had shades covering his eyes so I don’t know what color they were. He wore a grey suit that screamed money.” Running guns was a lucrative business so that wasn’t out of the ordinary but this news made the hairs on my arms stand on end. Holy shit, had Indy seen the bastard who was selling firearms to Ward Three?
I ran a hand through my hair, trying to pin the identity of this mystery man. The description was pretty general and gave me little to rely on. “What else can you tell me?”
“I overhead them saying that they would meet again.” Her eyes flipped up to meet mine. “At the Ward Four run.”
With the loss of a brother, it was tradition for the club to ride for them one last time as a way to pay our respect to the dead. Loosing Newt hit us hard, but we planned to gather one last time to salute our vice-prez. Was the club’s safety now in jeopardy? “What’s going to happen then?” I asked.
“I don’t know. But it can’t be good.”
“Let me call this in,” I said, pulling out my phone. “You’ll be asked more questions, but they’ll be relatively the same. I need you to tell them everything you can remember. Are you okay with that?”
Indy nodded.
On the phone, I rattled off the information to Knuckle who then would call in a meeting soon and give us a chance to form a plan of action. Whether Indy knew it or not, she had just stepped into the world of Glory MC with both feet. And now, the fate and safety of our club rested on her ability to identify this accomplice so we could eliminate him quickly.
After setting everything up with the club, I found Indy sitting on the couch, her face devoid of any color. I handed her a glass filled with water from the kitchen. “Thank you for telling me.” She didn’t have to, but that she came forward with this knowledge while we weren’t on good terms put me in her debt.
Her lips lifted in the corners and for a second, it felt like old times. I took a deep breath, knowing that my next few words would wipe them away, but it had to be done. Just because she came to me with info, it didn’t clear up the mess we had before. “What did Brennan mean about the secret?” Her eyes shot to meet mine before darting away. I continued before I could lose my courage. “Is your last name really Beaumont?”
Indy didn’t immediately respond, and for a second there, I wondered if this was as far as conversation would go. But then she gave me a small nod in the affirmative.
“I’m India Marie Beaumont,” she said. “My father was Edward Beaumont and my mother was named Madeline.” She paused and looked at me meaningfully. “Have you heard of them?” Her eyes held captive a decade’s worth of pain. It startled me to see so much suffering in her eyes.