VENDETTA: A Bad Boy, Motorcycle Club Romance (15 page)

Emily

The conversation didn’t go as well as I’d hoped.

Dale was high as fuck when I walked in, but I still didn’t see the danger until it was already hot in my face, burning across my cheek where I knew a bruise would bloom before morning. I could already feel it swelling.

“I told you to get the shit out today.” His jaw was clenched, his words coming out low and angry. Blood dripped from the corner of my mouth onto my dress, and I knew it wasn’t going to come out. Just another thing I liked that Dale ruined.

“I told you that I’d need your help if you wanted it done.” He’d been paranoid about something the last few days and hadn’t let all our usual help come out to the house, so we’d been working overtime to get the crap done.

“Don’t talk back to me.”

“I was just telling the truth.”

“Shut your whore mouth,” he said. “You don’t know half the shit I do to keep you safe. Half the shit I’ve done. Taking you in ruined my life.”

“Yeah, I’m sure it’s been hard going from being a two-bit corner dealer to actually having money and running your own operation.”

“You had nothing to do with that.”

I laughed then, looked him right in the eyes and let the giggles slip from my mouth.
I wish I’d let him die.
Red mottled his skin right before his fist flew out and hit me again. Black spots danced in front of my vision, and I thought I might pass out. Instead of rising, I huddled in the corner, scared that if I got up, he’d keep going.

Then the door opened.

Looking up expecting to see Tommy, instead I saw Flash.

We’re dead
.

Whether he would shoot me first and recognize me later, I didn’t know. It was doubtful Flash still gave a fuck about me after I’d absconded in the dead of night, but my heart still started beating faster when I saw his face again. All the feelings I’d pushed down ripped me open as hard as they had on the bus ride home that night.

While Dale begged for his life, I lowered my head to my arm and tried to control my breathing. Years of waiting for the wrong people to find Dale, to barge in and kill us both, had finally come to fruition—in the form of the man I loved no matter how hard I tried to stop. At least I got to see him again before the end. Through the waves of my hair, I could see the glint of his golden eyes.

I hoped Tommy stayed away from the house.

“Get up.” Flash’s voice cleared and was directed at me. It was so unlike any tone he’d ever used with me that I felt sick. I clenched my lips together to keep from vomiting. “Get the fuck up now.”

When I tried to move, my arms and legs were shaking too hard. Rolling into a crouch, I pushed myself up and rose slowly. With gentle hands, I pushed the hair out of my face and met his eyes for the first time in six months.

“Emily?”

“Hi,” I said, stupid with fear and desire. If it was possible, he looked even better than he had when I left him sleeping in the hotel room. His face was dark with a five o’clock shadow and his eyes were hot with rage and confusion. Despite the gun he still pointed at me, I wanted to slide up to him and wrap my arms around him like I had that night in Mexico.

“Why are you…here?” He blinked hard. Shook his head.

“I live here,” I said, unwilling to lie. My hand fisted in my skirt as I tried to stop shaking, but this was
Flash
and I’d missed him so damn much and if his face was the last thing I saw, maybe I’d be okay with dying.

“You left.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, my lips trembling. His face hardened and his eyes dropped closed for just a minute. When they opened again, the confusion was gone and only rage was left.

Before he could speak again, Dale dragged himself up. “You stupid bitch. You led them to us. I should have known you were working with them.” His face was filled with vitriol and I realized that he’d always hated me. Everything I did to win his affection in the beginning had been nothing but wasted effort.

Flash brought his arm down hard across Dale’s face, knocking him back again. I shouldn’t have taken satisfaction at the crack of the bones in his face, but I’d hit my limit with him. Years without love and too many bruises to count added up to no longer giving a fuck about Dale.

“Why would you come to him?” Flash asked, confusion spreading across his face. “I offered you better and you still came back to him.”

“I’m sorry,” I said again. “He’s my uncle. I had to come home.”

“You told me you went to Cal Tech.”

“I couldn’t afford the semester.”

“I would have—.” He cut himself off, really looking at my face for the first time. If I thought he’d been mad before, I had no idea. His expression darkened while he looked at the bruises, my bleeding mouth. “He hit you?”

“It’s okay. It doesn’t hurt.” Just speaking made my lip bleed faster.

“Of course it hurts,” he said. With a motion so quick that I couldn’t have stopped it if I wanted to, he grabbed Dale by his collar, pulled him up and pressed the barrel to his head. “Apologize.”

“I’m not apologizing to that Mexican bitch.”

“Fine,” said Flash.

Then he pulled the trigger.

Dale’s head exploded from the back and I gagged hard, then dropped to my knees and lost the food I’d eaten for lunch.

“Where’s his number two?”

“What?”

“The guy who runs the operation. Where is he?”

“Flash…”

“We’ve got him!” An excited voice tore through the house. A guy younger than Flash walked in, pushing Tommy head of him. Tommy and I exchanged a look, resignation in both our faces. “Did you get the other?” The guy who’d spoken took a look at Dale’s corpse and shook his head. “Good job, man.”

Flash was more serious, eyeing Tommy like the boy was some kind of threat. “This is his number two? He seems young for that.”

“No,” I said, reaching out to grab Flash’s jacket. “It’s not him. It’s…”

“It’s me,” Tommy interjected. “I’ve been working for Dale since I was a kid. Kill me if you have to, but her go. She’s innocent.”

“Tommy, stop.” I pulled on Flash’s jacket again. No way was I letting Tommy take the blame and the bullet that I’d earned with my illicit activities. Maybe I didn’t deserve it either, but he sure as sugar didn’t.

“I’ll tell you everything,” Tommy continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “But you have to either gag her or let her leave. I can’t stand to hear her fucking voice.”

Flash nodded. Pulling a bandana from his pocket, he wrapped it around my face and knotted it behind my hair. When he was done, he locked an arm around me and turned back to Tommy, who was breathing so quickly I feared he’d hyperventilate.

“Why does Manuel want you dead?”

This was news to me, and it looked like it was news to Tommy too. His eyebrows raised and he searched my face for answers I didn’t have.

“I don’t know,” he said, pulling against the guy who held him. “But do what you have to do. Just let her go.”

“Why do you care what happens to her?” Flash asked. “You didn’t stop her from getting a fist in the face tonight.”

“I wasn’t here,” Tommy said, real agony in his voice.

“Take him out back and waste him,” Flash said, shaking his head. I screamed behind my gag, but he ignored me.

“What about her?” Tommy grabbed the door frame, resisting the guy who’d been ordered to kill him.

“I’m keeping her,” Flash said. I started chewing on the bandana, using my tongue to push the fabric out of my lips. I was so close.

Right as Tommy was dragged around the corner, I spit out the cloth and swallowed hard, getting air. “He’s not the dealer,” I shouted, loud enough that Flash finally stopped and paid attention to me.

“What the fuck are you talking about? John, get back in here.”

John came back around the corner with Tommy, still alive, but paler than skim milk.

“Talk, Emily.”

“Tommy isn’t the dealer you want. He just stuffs bags and ships things sometimes. He didn’t have anything to do with dealing in LA.”

“Emily, shut up,” Tommy said, and Flash turned to glare at him.

“Then who did? Find me the man and I’ll let the boy go.”

“I can’t find you the man,” I said, suddenly defiant. It was like I’d gone numb to fear when Flash had snapped at me. I met his eyes, raising my chin. “There is no man.”

“Two people here have to die. You can save him if you tell the truth.”

“Here’s your truth, Flash: I’m the dealer. You’re going to have to kill me.”

Two more men came into the room as I spoke. Both wore jackets similar to Flash’s, but covered with some different patches.

“You’re not him,” one of them laughed, scanning me from head to toe. Flash jerked me closer to his big body.

“I am.”

“You can’t be,” Flash said, looking down at me. “He’s been active for almost a decade.”

“Still me.”

“You’re, what, 20 now?”

“Yes.”

“Shut up, Emily,” Tommy said in a low, angry voice. “Shut up now.” The man holding him cuffed him hard and he went quiet again, looking at his feet.

“I can prove it,” I said. “Take me out to the garage and I’ll show you. But let Tommy and anyone else in the house go. None of them can take over the operation. They won’t say anything to anyone.”

“Emily, I’m not going to let them kill you.” Tommy’s voice cracked at the end of the statement and for the first time in so long, I saw the boy I’d loved once. Remembered the gentle joy of him reaching for my hand the first time. That’s when I realized that for all the shit, he still loved me the way I still loved him—as those two kids who hadn’t known anything good from life before they found each other.

“I won’t let them kill you for something I did,” I said, hoping he could see the love glowing in my eyes. It wasn’t passion or want, but something quieter. Something I’d feel for a brother, maybe. Tommy had flaws, but they weren’t irredeemable.

“Please,” he begged. “Tell them the truth. Tell them it was me.”

“That’s not the truth.” It was like blinders were lifted and I didn’t just see a junkie. I saw someone as trapped in this life as I was, beaten down by his father and my uncle until there was so little of the good man left. “I love you, Tommy.”

“I love you, Emily.”

I don’t know if I was imagining it, but Flash’s eyes darkened.

“Don’t kill the boy,” he said. “Get him back to the clubhouse. I don’t want anyone else dead until we’re sure we’re doing the right shit for Manuel. The last thing we need is more trouble with the cartel.”

The man holding Tommy nodded and marched my first love out of the room.

“Rebel, take his hand,” Flash said, wrapping his fingers around my arm tight enough to bruise and nodding to my uncle, dead on the couch. “I’m taking the girl with me to the garage.”

“Got it, boss,” he said.

“Let’s go, Emily.” I mourned the warmth with which he’d once said my name while he pulled me out toward the door. But there was nothing I could do to get it back. By the end of the night, he’d probably be dropping me in a shallow grave somewhere.

Outside, I looked at the stars dotting the deep velvety blue sky while Flash dragged me to the main gates. Being hauled around like cattle wasn’t doing much for my mood, but for better or worse, I was finally free from Dale. I could never go back to that life again.