TRIGGER: A Motorcycle Club Romance Novel (18 page)

“Yeah, you’ve also got a
kid. And Endo’s got a kid. And if anything goes wrong…”

“Nothing’s
gonna
go wrong, Trig. I don’t want you
comin
’
back here ‘til I say so. Don’t be stupid. If you come back here and they come
lookin
’, they’ll kill you straight away and…”

“And no one else will have
to take a bullet,” I said, teeth gritted now. I closed my eyes tight. I
realized what I was saying. Reign had offered me a future in the club. But what
kind of future could that possibly be if I was cowardly enough to let someone
else fight my battle? How could I ever look in the mirror again knowing I put
my brother’s lives in danger to save my own ass?

No, if they were
gonna
fight on my behalf, I was
gonna
be there.

“Trigger, I swear to God, if
I see you rolling up on that damn low-rider of yours, I’ll have your fucking
hide myself,” Reign said, his don’t-fuck-with-me tone coming out in full
strength. “You stay where the
fuck
you
are, and let us take care of this. Understand?”

I didn’t speak, my mind
still racing with the weight of my decision. But I’d made it, and I wasn’t
going back on it. Couldn’t.

“Do. You. Under. Stand,”
Reign said again, punctuating each word.

“I’ll see you soon, boss,” I
said, pulling the phone away from my ear. Even before I could click off, I
could hear the torrent of curses that Reign was unleashing on the other end.

Cass,
I thought, letting the phone fall beside me on the bed.
Immediately, my heart clenched tight in pain.
I just got you back…

As though she could hear my
thoughts, I heard the click of the door opening and shutting. When I looked up,
I was reminded, vividly, of that very first time I’d seen her body, when she’d
accidentally come out of the shower in the nude. Her face was scrubbed pink,
hair wet from the shower, the towel clinging to her curves. With a bashful
smile, she made her way to me.

“So,” she said. “I, uh…well,
I don’t know what to say.”

“Me either,” I said,
grabbing her hand when she got close enough. It was soft, the palm warm in
mine. Pulling her down, I felt her lips land on mine, gentle and plump.
I want to kiss you forever,
I thought,
my heart sinking as I realized – it was a desire that would never come to
fruition. As I released her, she sighed, and sank down beside me on the bed.

“What now?” she asked,
reaching out to take my hand once more. “Do you…do you want…want me? Still?
More? I mean, are we going to….”

“I have to leave,” I said,
interrupting her, turning my head to the side. Her body went stiff beside me.
She released my hand.

“What?” she asked, voice
clipped, a savage, angry tone to it. “What do you mean? Leave…leave where?
You’re safe here…”

“I have to go home, Cass. I
have to go back to the club. I…they’re going to be in a lot of trouble, if I
don’t, even if I do, those guys…they’re not going to let me go. They’re going
to go after my brothers, they’ll chase me for the rest of my life…”

“So we’ll go to Mexico. Or
Canada. Or France. Wherever. They can’t follow you everywhere, Trig. I don’t
have much money, but I have some. You don’t have to…”

“I do, Cass,” I said,
looking back at her. Tears made her eyes shiny, though I could tell she was
willing them back. “It’s the right thing to…”

“The right thing to do? It’s
the right thing to do? To…to fucking….to leave me
again
? My God, Trig, did you just fucking…did you just use me to
get away? Did you just want to fuck me again one more time before ditching me?
How can…how can you do this to me? How can you do this to me
again?
Are you…are you fucking…no! I
won’t let you! I’m not going to let you go and leave me just to get yourself
killed! I might not that much self-respect, but I have enough to know that if
you leave now, you’re just…fuck, Thomas!”

As she spoke, those tears
she was trying to blink back began to spill.

“Cass, I’ll come back for
you, I promise. I’ll…I’ll do anything I have to, and I’ll come back for you, I
swear it…”

I stood then, knowing that
there was no use in dragging it out any longer. She grabbed my hand again, as
though to pull me back down, but I wrenched it away, the violence of my sadness
matching the violence of my actions. Was I making promises I couldn’t keep? I
didn’t even know if I’d be alive in three day’s time…

“You…” she started to say,
but I was already rushing myself out the door, through the living room. I heard
her following; out of the corner of my eye, I saw the pink of her towel, her
wet hair. I heard her swallowed sobs.

“Trigger, come back! Please,
don’t do this! You’re going to get yourself killed, you’re going to get
yourself hurt, and we just got this back,
I
just got
you
back…”

Her voice followed me to the
front door. Jennie stood, wide-eyed, looking horror-struck. For some reason, in
the way she looked at me, I saw all that was wrong with me. I saw, once more,
why Cass would always be too good for me, why leaving would be the only way to
ever truly love her.

“I’m sorry,” I said, to
Jennie, ignoring the fact that Cass was just inches away from me. And then I
was out the door, hearing it slam shut behind me, and the black night
swallowing me up. I looked back once. Cass stood – still half-naked – just
inside the door, her hand on the knob, the other hand clutched the towel, tears
streaming down her face, her cheeks now pink with emotion rather than the
freshly washed glow of a shower.

And then I straddled my
bike, and forced all the thoughts from my mind except one:
this is your duty, this is what you owe the club, it’s time to reap
what you’ve sown.

And then the engine kicked
to life, and chased all my thoughts away, though it couldn’t do the same for
the water in my eyes, which persisted, no matter how I tried to blink it away.

Cass

I turned around, tears
blurring my vision. Outside the door, the bike kicked to life, and I heard the
telltale sound of him leaving. Again. Jennie stood before me, mouth open. Her
eyes dashed from mine to the door, then to the small table next to the door. As
though struck by lightning, she spurted forward towards it.

“Get dressed, Cass,” she
said, and I heard the clatter of keys as she grabbed them from the small
porcelain bowl next to the door.

“We can’t…
Jenn
…I can’t…”

“Stop being a doormat,
Cass,” Jennie said, dangling the keys in my face. “I should have done this
myself every time
you
left. I’m not
going to sit here and watch someone walk out on
you
when you know it’s wrong. Now get dressed, we have a man to
follow.”

Before I could overthink it,
I grabbed her into a hug again.

“Jennie, thank you,” I said.
“Jesus, when did you get so…strong? And smart?”

“We can talk about it in the
car,” she said, hugging me back briefly before pushing me off. “Now get moving.
I’ll start the car.”

Five minutes later, we were
speeding down the main road in town, both hunched forward looking for a cycle;
he had to take I-80, we figured, since that was the only main highway going to
Utah. For a brief moment, just before the exit that would take us to the
highway, I thought I saw his taillights before us, but they were lost into the
moving traffic.

“Jennie, what the hell are
we doing?” I moaned, slumping down in my seat. “We have no idea where he’s
going…”

“Yes, we do,” Jennie said.
“Well, I mean, I do…”

I scoffed.

“Okay, then. How do you
know…”

“I
may
have gone out to look at his bike, and I
may
have found his wallet in his saddle bag…”

Oh my God, I’m so stupid,
I thought. I’d assumed he’d left
his wallet and other belongings behind, but of course it made more sense he
would have kept that in his saddle bag.

“So you have his address?” I
probed, hopes rekindling.

“Well, I have
an
address…who knows if it’s real, but
if it is, we’re going to a town called Ditcher’s Valley, in Utah,” she said,
merging into the middle lane. I quickly pulled out my phone and plugged it in.
We were ten hours away, give or take. I showed her the map, biting my lip.

“That’s a long way, Jennie.
You don’t have to…you don’t have to take me the whole way, you know. You can
drop me off in Provo or something, I can…”

“Cass,” she said, her voice
breaking slightly. “you’re my sister. And I’ll admit, I’ve been…been mad at
you. But I saw how you looked at him. You love him. I won’t let you take a
chance of losing him. I don’t want you going back to that asshole…”

“Still, won’t Mike…”

“Mike will understand,”
Jennie interrupted. “Believe it or not, he listens to me and trusts me and
respects me.”

With that, she gave me a
short, meaningful look. I knew she was thinking about Brock, and how
hypocritical it was for me to disapprove of her relationship when my own had
been such an obvious wreck. The long pause between us was starting to grow
uncomfortable when she spoke again.

“Besides, we can consider
this some much-needed sister time.”

That’s when she flashed me a
smile, so unmistakably hers, so earnest. My heart swelled with love. She’d
turned into such a beautiful woman, and even though I wasn’t sure she
understood the full implications of jumping into the relationship she did, I
was starting to trust her more and more. Looking into her eyes, I saw happiness
there. And after growing up the way we did, could I really ask for anything
more?

“Jennie…” I started, but my
words caught in my throat. Coughing, I willed myself to say what needed to be
said. “Jennie, you know why…you know why I was with Brock, right? Or…I mean…you
know what made me stay?”

“I think I do, Cass, but…but
it doesn’t, it still doesn’t make sense to me,” she said.

“You didn’t…Pop went to jail
before he could really…really, you know, start messing with you but…but I lived
with him for so long, and it just…it felt natural, you know? It felt like, I
don’t know, like the way men treated women. The way men treated
me.
So I didn’t mind…I put up with him,
because he wasn’t as bad as Pop was,” I said, the words sounding thin and
useless as I spoke. I knew it was a paltry excuse, a coward’s explanation.
I should have left so long ago,
I
thought.
I should never have let him
treat me that way.

“I know,” Jennie said with a
sigh. Her eyes darted to me between glimpses in the
rearview
.
“I know, I mean, it makes…sense…kind of.”

“I’m just – I need you to
know. I’m not blind or stupid. I’ve known for a long time, it was wrong,
but…but it seemed like, too much effort to end it, when I already had the skin
to withstand it. And Jennie…I’m sorry. I’m sorry I left you. I only did it
because…”

Jennie’s hand moved, lightly
taking my own.

“I know why you did it,
Cass. And I do…I mean, thank you. You know, when I was little, I didn’t
understand. But then I got older and I realized, you did it for me, because it
was the best thing for me. I wouldn’t have survived in that house, with Pop,
without you. And I had a good childhood because of Jackie and Gloria. I mean,
later, when you went with Brock, I…I didn’t understand. I didn’t get it. And I
still don’t, not really, but…it’s okay, you know?”

“I know it is,” I said,
looking out the window, cars rushing by, tears prickling my eyes once more. “I
know it’s okay, Jennie. It’s just…it’s good to hear you say.”

“
Little
motherfucker surprised me! What was I
s’posed
to do!” Brock said, pleading with his hands out.
The three men in front of him shared the same sneers.

“Not even a scratch on the kid,” Jim said.

“And you’re bloodied up worse than Jesus on the cross,” Harry agreed.

“Fucking pathetic,” Frank said, spitting onto the ground at Brock’s feet.

Already, their best heavies were on the way to the shit town that the
biker club called home, ready to bash in as many skulls and spill as many teeth
as necessary to make the point that fucking with the
Cavatele
brothers was not in your best interest. They’d lay waste to the club and kill
the kid who’d caused all the trouble.

The brothers wouldn’t get their money back, but they’d be paid in blood.

“I swear, he got me by surprise, that’s all! I’ll do better next time, I
will, I swear it,” Brock whimpered.

“Next time?” Frank asked with
a
 
sick
smile on his face.

“What makes you think there will be a next time?” Harry wondered aloud.

“Your fighting days are over, my bulky moronic friend,” Jim said,
crossing his arms and glowering at the man.

“
What?But
…but that’s
not fair! You said…you have to…that’s not fair!” Brock bellowed, his anger
overcoming his fear, the injustice of the situation riling him up to a near
fit. “You all said…”

“Don’t make the mistake of raising your voice to us,” Harry said, his own
voice low, eyes narrowed to slits.

“You’re already too fucked up to beat any sense into,” Jim said.

“You ought to count your blessings,” Frank advised.

“Count my blessings? Count my fucking blessings? What fucking blessings?
Your
fucking ringer went out of his goddam mind
and beat the shit out of me, and I’m already not getting paid, so you better
fucking tell me what kind of blessings I…”

A scream cut his rant short. Frank, leaning forward, had grabbed his
broken, bleeding nose between his thumb and forefinger. Pulling forward and
twisting, he stared right into Brock’s watering eyes.

“There are lots of reasons to consider yourself lucky, friend,” Jim said
from behind Frank.

“Don’t make us start taking those reasons away,” Harry growled, examining
his nail.

Frank released Brock, the huge man bellowing in pain as new blood leaked
from his nose.

“Get the fuck out of here,” Jim said. Brock’s eyes moved wildly from man
to man, confused and hurt and angry.

“Now,” Frank shouted, and Brock jumped like a cat from his chair,
trotting from the room as fast as his broken body would take him.