Torched: Afterburn (Iron Serpents Motorcycle Club Book 2) (20 page)

“Son of a bitch,” he huffed. “What the fuck, man? Buddha’s the one who didn’t want her doing dick for the club, but then he goes and asks her to do some shit like that?”

Zed cocked his head and shrugged. “That’s why you don’t let anybody inside your marriage except you and your old lady, brother. Buddha’s running on fumes, his head’s all off kilter—”

“Yeah, well,
hers
isn’t. She’s pissed at me for keeping shit from her and she’s doing the same goddamn thing—”

“Her shit wasn’t a sure thing,” Zed pointed out. “She was probably just waiting and hoping the situation didn’t manifest, which is also probably the same reason she agreed to it in the first place. A transplant is Buddha’s one shot. Maybe we’ll get lucky, maybe not, but she did what it took to make him keep going and you can’t hold that against her. And Pres didn’t think she’d actually go for it—”

“Of course he didn’t, he doesn’t know her like I do. She’d do whatever it takes.”

“Exactly my fucking point, why the hell did you even listen to him?” Zed asked with an air of exasperation. “And back to what we were talking about, it’s like this… You found a fucking lake in the desert. But instead of drinking from it, you’d rather just stand on the shore and admire it for its beauty like an idiot. Does that make any goddamn sense to you either?”

Well, no, not when he fucking put it that way. Torch frowned and asked, “So you’re saying I should just pull her into our shit, full stop?”

Zed groaned like he was dealing with some dipshit kid who couldn’t grasp what he was getting at. “I’m saying you’ve got it made and can’t even see it, you don’t
have
to live a double-life like your brothers do with their women. You do illegal shit, she does illegal shit, nobody’s turning. And that sassy mouth you say you hate but you actually love? She keeps all that behind closed doors. She keeps
everything
behind closed doors because that’s what she knows. Torch, your woman’s as smart as she is tough, if something happens to her it definitely won’t be caused by her own stupidity.”

“Plenty of enemies make for plenty of other causes,” Torch argued. “How the hell would I live with that?”

Zed smirked and squeezed his shoulder. “Assuming you’d be the one to survive? I don’t know, man, I get the feeling we haven’t seen shit from Liv yet. I
do
know there’s nothing in the bylaws about a situation like this, according to those it’s up to a member how much he wants to tell his old lady. As long as she’s not making decisions or stepping out of line, there’s nothing wrong with bringing her into the fold and letting her help when she can. You’re standing in your own way. Look, I know none of us wanna think about it, but Buddha’s probably on his way out. Even if he makes a recovery, he might still wanna step down. I know you won’t deny him a well-deserved retirement by voting against it and it’s no secret you’re next in line. Those are big shoes to fill, use every advantage you got. You and Liv are both forces to be reckoned with on your own, if you play off each other’s strengths instead of battling it out at every fucking turn, you’d be unstoppable.”

He let his best friend’s words sink in for a minute. Zed the fucking Love Guru, who would’ve thought? Maybe he really was making this shit a lot more complicated than it had to be.

What he actually needed to do was go find his woman. He stood up and shook the dirt off his jeans. “How’d you get to be such a wise motherfucker?”

Zed followed him to his feet and slapped him on the back. “Oprah.”

Torch chuckled. “Love you, brother.”

“Love you too, asshole. Now go get the one who loves you
and
has a pussy to park your dick in. She’s at the safe house, I had Biff track her phone. I’m gonna go check on Grimm and make sure he hasn’t killed our hostage by accident.”

: 17 :

| TORCH |

He heard a succession of gunshots all the way from the gate. If he hadn’t already figured out that she was letting off steam with a pile of ammo, he might have been worried. Then again, he really had no idea what was going through that head of her, she was probably practicing blowing his dick off. He grimaced at the thought but punched in the gate code and rode through anyway. Fuck it, they had some shit to set straight.

As he pulled up in front of the safe house, he saw her out in the clearing, setting up empty beer bottles on a wooden ledge next to a silhouette target. This was where they all came to keep from getting rusty

Their eyes met as she walked back to her spot, but she averted hers and got to work loading what looked like a 9mm. He knew the misery on her face was mostly his doing, she wasn’t the one who couldn’t keep up her end of their bargain. But his word didn’t mean fucking dick right now and that ate at him more than anything. His woman brought out all the good in him, maybe the
only
good to be found, and she deserved better.

He cautiously approached her from behind. “You picturing my face on those bottles?”

She took aim and fired off eight rounds in a row, hitting every bottle from left to right. “I probably should be,” she answered flatly, her back still to him.

Well, at least she wasn’t practicing her kill shot. Considering how precise that fucking aim was, he’d take it. He reached out and touched her back. “Babe, you gotta talk to me eventually.”

Blatantly ignoring him, she loaded another magazine and held out a bottle. “Throw it.”

He did what he was told, only because this he had to see. She aimed up and followed the arch of the bottle, firing as it reached its peak. And, wouldn’t you know… she hit the goddamn thing, blowing it right out of the air. The shot would’ve been impressive enough with a rifle, but a handgun?

She always carried and told him she’d been trained, but this was the first time he was seeing it for himself. He really didn’t want to fucking admit it, but she was a better shot than a lot of his brothers. Shit, she was probably better than him judging by her accuracy with that last round. It was starting to make sense why she got so frustrated with his attempts to shield her from his reality.

Why was he so determined to hold her back? A lot of organizations had females near the front lines—hell, he knew of at least three cartels with downright scary bitches at the top—and the MC had never used that as a reason to refuse working with any of them if it benefited the club. Frankly, he should’ve been thanking his lucky stars one of
those
groups hadn’t pulled her in during the eight years he’d been pining away for her. Liv wasn’t asking for power within the club, to make decisions, or to tell them how to handle their business, she just wanted to help the cause. A cause she loved—not just tolerated—because she loved her man.

Seriously, what more could he fucking ask for? Here was a one of a kind woman who was unquestionably loyal and beyond capable of taking care of herself, but his dumbass brain kept falling back on old habits and insisting she needed to be dealt with like the others. Why?

Never mind Zed’s points, everything Liv had said to him was right on the money. There was no denying it, if he’d told her about the ambush from the get-go, things wouldn’t have turned into such a shitfest. And the vote was a stupid idea too. If his old lady couldn’t have an opinion on club business, who the fuck was the club to have an opinion on their marital business? He didn’t have to explain their goddamn finances to the table. Christ, he really was a jackass.

And why was he worried about her getting physically hurt, when the chances of her just getting sick of being left in the dark and walking away were even bigger? What would he do then? He couldn’t protect her at all if she bailed. And when it came to women like Liv, it was a real possibility. She wanted him, but she didn’t actually
need
him, not to survive anyway. She had her own money, knew how to handle her own shit, and would be just fine if anything happened to him.

But if
she
left? He’d lose his goddamn mind. The deep-seated truth was he needed her more than she needed him, and that scared the shit out of him. Maybe the real reason he kept falling back on old habits was a subconscious thing, you know, to force her into depending on him. After all, that’s what men like him were conditioned to see as “normal”, right? But why the fuck would he actually
want
a woman who demanded constant attention and hand-holding? Why would he intentionally put himself through the stress of living two separate lives? Wasn’t that exactly why he’d sworn off another marriage until she’d come along?

He was a moron for trying to fuck with perfection. Because even though she was manipulative as hell, knew how to push all of his buttons, and that feminist shit got on his nerves like nothing else, fucking perfect was exactly what she was.

Liv held out another bottle for him to throw, but he’d had enough of her frostiness. He tossed it to the ground and spun her around, wrapping an arm around her waist to keep her in place.

“Torch, leave me alone,” she grumbled. She tried to push away and refused to look up. He buried his fingers in her hair and fisted it at the back—not in a gentle sort of way either—and the sudden, rough stinging forced her eyes upward.

To his surprise, they were bloodshot, more pained than pissed. The only other time he’d seen them like this was when he’d browbeaten her into revealing her fucked up past in front of an audience, something he still regretted. Liv didn’t do emotions, she shut them out to the point of sometimes coming off as apathetic, so when one managed to creep past her defenses, he knew shit was getting to be too much.

And when shit got to be too much, he knew her way of coping was by focusing on something else. Hopefully, she’d find a healthier way of dealing with her demons one of these days, but he wouldn’t be forcing it to happen this particular night. Tonight was about reining in what he’d let spin out.

“You wanna talk about it?” he asked, just in case.

“Not really.”

He kissed her lips gently and let her go. “Okay.”

She took a step back and frowned. “Okay?”

“Yeah. Did you get the money?”

Her face scrunched in confusion, she pointed to a backpack on the ground a few feet away.

He strapped it to his back, walked over to his bike, and hopped on. After hitting the power button and bringing it to life, he glanced back over at her. “You coming or what?”

“Where?” she asked suspiciously.

“Denver. We’re gonna go pay off Cora.”

She cocked her head like she still didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about. “I don’t understand what’s happening right now.”

He sighed and turned his bike back off so she’d hear him loud and clear. “Baby, if I wanted a weak bitch to rescue all the time, I would’ve found myself a princess. I picked a
queen
, and a proper queen stands next to her fucking king. So, are you gonna be one of those bitches who waits in a tower or are you getting that sexy ass on this horse and coming with me?”

Her lip curled. “Biker poetry at its finest.”

He grinned and tossed her his helmet. “Your crown, my lady. Grab your gun and jacket, it’s cooling off. I already called Malice to come get your bike.”

The biggest smile he’d seen in a while spread across her face. She picked up her stuff, jogged inside the house to leave the unused boxes of ammo, and came out with the brain bucket already strapped to her head.

As she settled in behind him, he squeezed her thigh. “If we do this shit, I’m letting you in too deep to go back,” he warned over his shoulder. “You know what outlaw life is, once you’re in there’s usually only two ways out.”

She wrapped her arms around his stomach and pulled in tight. “The only life worth living is the one I have with you. For better or worse, right? It doesn’t matter how, if we go out, we go out together. Lead the way, Your Majesty, I’m with you to the bitter end.”

: : : :

Hand in hand, Torch and his newly-appointed sidekick walked through the front door of Pink Diamond, a titty bar in southeast Denver. It wasn’t exactly the classy joint he’d envisioned Cora hanging out in, but that was probably the point. Immediately spotting their target and his small entourage in the VIP area, they made a beeline for the son of a bitch.

With his black hair slicked back and wearing a suit that probably cost more than a new car, Rob Cora looked every ounce the true Italian mobster, despite the fact that he wasn’t actually in the mob. Cora was a third-generation American whose “organization” was a simple two-level hierarchy, consisting of him at the top and a crew of loyal peons reporting from below. Five of his little fucking pissants surrounded him tonight, each with their own silicone and botox-enhanced trophies working for their tips by making them feel a hell of a lot more important than they really were.

Torch angrily dropped the bag of cash on the table in front of Cora, causing him to look up from the blonde bitch sucking on his neck.

“You ever fuck with my club like that again, I’ll burn you alive, you piece of shit,” Torch thundered. “Going after women? Really?”

Cora swatted his topless companion on the ass and snapped his fingers at the others. “Ladies, give us a minute.” As soon as they’d all shimmied away, he picked up the bag and looked inside before turning his attention back to Torch. “Appreciate the early payment, but I have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about. I’ve been nothing but generous by giving Buddha more time, I consider him a friend.”