BROKEN WINGS: GODS OF CHAOS MC (BOOK THREE) (4 page)

When she contacted me a month ago, I didn’t believe her at first.  It was easy to doubt her story over the phone but after reluctantly agreeing to meet her for coffee, I knew once I laid eyes on her that I couldn’t deny it any longer.  The resemblance between us was uncanny.  If I had a sister, she would have looked exactly like Evie.

After spending a few weeks trying to wrap my head around the situation, I decided I had to at least try to have a relationship with her.  I invited her to the station to look around.  I introduced her to my co-workers, including Wyatt, because she was so enthusiastic about being there, and we went out to lunch downtown afterwards.  

Although young and naive, she was undeniably charming and sweet.  In spite of everything, I liked her.  A lot.  

I was having a hard time reconciling my feelings about my father now, but I was doing my best to keep the two things separated.  It wasn’t easy but I hoped in time I would understand exactly what happened, and come to some sort of grips with it.  

My dad was human, I knew that.  

Shit happens in life, I knew that too.  

And sometimes the shit that happens produces a human being.

I was fine with all of that, honestly.  It was the lying part I was having the hardest time with.  He could have told us.  We would have dealt with it, instead of finding out years after he was already dead, when any chance of being a family was long gone.

At first, I thought he kept it a secret because he didn’t want to hurt my Mom.  But she died two years before he did, after spending a week in a coma after a stroke.  He could have told me afterwards, but for some reason, he chose not to.

I’d never know why.  And that was the hardest part.  All the unanswered questions.  All the wondering.  All the wasted years and all the ‘what-if’s’ that continued to wind their way into my thoughts.

I had had a lot of questions for Evie, but she had been vague with her answers.  She was raised by her single mother, never knowing who her father was until her mom died, too.  At least her mother had the decency to name her dad in her will.  When Evie discovered he was dead, too - she contacted me.

I think she wanted a lot more than I gave her, though.

And now, she was gone.  Vanished.  Just as quickly as she had appeared in my life.

I was worried about her, don’t get me wrong, I was terrified for her.  But I was having a hard time getting choked up about it.  If anything, it piqued my curiosity.

From an outsider and a journalist’s standpoint, the case was fascinating.  Three young women had gone missing in the last month.  Evie was the latest.  And, what my secret source in the police department told me but I was unable to report, was the fact that the evidence police had recovered at each scene that had enabled them to be so confident all three cases were linked, was in fact a calling card of sorts - a snake. 

Each girl had been taken from her apartment in the middle of the night, and when the police searched their apartments, each time they found a rattlesnake.

I shuddered to think about it.  Snakes terrified me and I couldn’t imagine what kind of freak would do something like that.

The big question was why?  And why Evie?

I had little idea of what her life was like before I met her, and the police weren’t much help.  I was hoping to hear some good news, any news, when I finally talked to the detective on the case.

But as soon as I heard his voice, I knew he had nothing for me.  And since I didn’t have anything new to report to him, our conversation ended within seconds.

I sighed, sitting back in my chair as I looked around my office.  For the first time, I realized just how sterile it was.  Outside of a picture of me and my mom and dad at my graduation from the University of Oregon sitting on my bookshelf, there were no personal items in my office at all.  Everyone else had pictures of their kids, their spouses, all kinds of kitschy souvenirs from family vacations and outings with co-workers.  I had none of that.  

It was all my own fault, though.  I had sacrificed all that for my career.  Since graduating from college, I had been the nose-to-the-grindstone kind of career girl, the one that arrived first to the office and was the last to leave.  It had taken me years to realize that wasn’t what really helped you climb the ladder. It was dumb luck, a big break on a hot story, usually some back-biting and undermining of the co-worker you were just smiling at the day before, or good old-fashioned fucking the boss.  I wished it wasn’t like that, but I had seen enough after being in this business for the last ten years that proved it was true.

So, that’s where my head was when I decided to go to Evie’s job.  I didn’t know where she lived or the names of any of her friends, and the cops wouldn’t tell me a fucking thing.  All I knew was that she told me that she was a cocktail waitress at a strip club, the Kit Kat Klub.  I knew the detectives had been there but they wouldn’t share anything they had learned during their investigation, saying ‘it could hurt the case’.  Such bullshit.

I knew I had no choice but to go there myself.  Have a drink, take in the scene, maybe chat up the bartender or a dancer.

It wasn’t far from the station, and I decided to go there immediately.  As much as I wished I had someone to go with me, I didn’t.  

Sacrificing my social life was really paying off.  

In more ways than one, I thought to myself as I threw my purse over my shoulder.  Not only did I not have any friends, I didn’t have a boyfriend, either.  A boyfriend, hell, a date would be nice.  I hadn’t been laid in months. 

Although, that last time had sure been memorable.  The most memorable fuck of my life, by far.  I still shuddered when I thought about how much danger I had put myself in when I agreed to go back to the clubhouse of a renegade motorcycle club.  I had known better - I wasn’t naive - but damn if the Gods of Chaos MC hadn’t been the most intriguing group of men I had ever laid eyes on, and when the sexiest of them all had turned his charms on me, winding me around his fingers, his tantalizing invitation oozing from his mouth like some silky smooth concoction…fuck.  I found myself on the back of his bike before I could even get the word ‘yes’ across my lips.

Slade.

That’s it.  Just Slade.  I didn’t know his last name.  Hell, I didn’t know if he even had a last name.  

But I knew everything else that I needed to know.  Like the way his callused fingers scraped across my nipple, or the way his teeth caught the skin on my neck between them, gently biting down until I was crying out for him to bite harder.  Or the way his eyes flashed right before they closed, that moment before his lips landed on mine, and the way his impossibly long lashes fluttered when he kissed me deeper.  I knew, because I had watched. 

I couldn’t keep my eyes off of him.  When we were kissing, I kept my eyes open, engraving the vision on my brain so I’d never forget.  When he had me shuddering, my juices flowing over his long, skilled fingers, my thighs quivering violently as I thrashed around under his devilish smile, I kept my eyes on him.  I was afraid if I closed them, he would vanish.  That he would be some sort of dream that my starved body had conjured up to stop itself from turning to dust.

So I didn’t close them.  Not once.

I watched him all night.  His kisses trailed on to every inch of my skin, the shimmering remnants nourishing me, hydrating a deep, empty well that I had ignored for way too long.

That night had been incredible.  And I had given in, let him take me wherever he wanted to go, blindly following him in the darkness of his room to the edges of cliffs that I didn’t even know existed.  

Slade.

He had rocked me to my very core.

And then he was gone.

Or, rather, I was.  

The next morning, I went back to my life, finished up my report on the amazing story of Lacey Carrington, leaving out the part of the story about how the Gods of Chaos MC and Solid Ground, a group of underground rescuers of abused women, had saved Lacey, a former prostitute and victim of sex trafficking, from a horrific situation involving the slimy Mayor of Seattle.

And then…I convinced myself that even if Slade had some sort of magical skills in bed, he certainly wasn’t boyfriend material.  

So, I forgot about him.  

Well, I tried.  

What I really did was think about him all the time.  

What I really did was restrain myself from dialing his number at least three times a day.  

What I really did was conjure up his face in those delicate, silent moments at the end of the day when I was alone in my bed, and the only way my body would allow me to sleep would be to give in to the memory of that one night with Slade, and pretend my fingers were his, while I remembered the feel of his heart beating against me, the sound of his voice as he gently coaxed me to those edges, to the magic place, just one more time.

***

Once you crossed the threshold of the Kit Kat Klub, heavy velvet curtains blocked out all sounds of the chaotic Old Town outside the doors.  

And in spite of the loud, pulsating music, you were transported back in time.  

Swanky, padded velvet booths lined the mirrored walls, the lights dimmed low above them.  Inside a cut-out above the booths, three beautiful, completely naked, and heavily tattooed women danced in impossibly tall high heels.  They looked as if they were dancing on a shelf.  The effect was delightful, mesmerizing, and I had to remind myself to put one foot in front of the other, instead of staring up at them in awe.

A bar - a long, elaborately carved, wooden masterpiece - was slung along the far wall.  I scanned the room quickly, and sat down at the first small, empty table that I found.

A quick look around let me know I was the only single lady in the club.  I figured that would be the case.  It wasn’t being a woman at the strip club that bothered me.  It was the way the men looked at you right away.  Sizing you up, trying to see if you were a dancer, too, or at least up for a good time.  So, for that reason, I was uncomfortable.  Even though the feminist in me hated to admit it, I would have been safer to have a man with me.  There were certain times you were more likely to be harassed if you were a single woman, and I wasn’t so naive that I knew this wasn’t one of those times.

Right away, the hair on the back of my neck stood up.  I felt several pairs of eyes turn my way and I made sure not to meet any of them.  

I was grateful to see the youthful smile of the cocktail waitress appear at my side.

“Hi, darlin’, what’ll you have?”  she asked.  Her long black hair hung in waves down her tan back.  Her black halter top plummeted to a sharp v in the middle of her torso, exposing so much cleavage, it left nothing to my imagination.  I smiled in appreciation and lifted my gaze to hers.

“I’ll have a margarita, please,” I replied.  “And um…can I ask you a question?”

She cocked her head, and gave me a quick half-smile.

“Sure, what’s up?” she asked.

“I’m looking for some information.  On Evie?  She’s my sister…,” my voice trailed off.  I had decided to try the sister angle, instead of admit I was a reporter.  

“Oh! Evie! Yes, we all love her!  She’s your sister?”  she asked, her eyes looking at me full of sympathy.

“Yes, she is…I, well, I’m just trying to find out anything about her.  Any friends she has at work?  A boyfriend?  We weren’t too close,” I said.

“You should talk to Sapphire.”

“Sapphire?” I asked.

“She’s best friends with Evie.”

“Oh! Is she here?” I asked.  

“Yep.  She’ll be out in a few, darlin’.  I’ll be right back with that drink.  And I’m so sorry about Evie.”  She smiled, her green eyes shining in start contrast to the heavy black eyeliner smeared around her eyes.   I couldn’t help but let my gaze fall to her perfectly accentuated ass as she walked away.  The short, cut-off jean shorts she was wearing only highlighted her long, tan legs.

As she disappeared behind the bar, I scanned the room again.  Almost every table and booth was taken, the clientele a mixture of couples and groups of men, with a handful of single men amongst them.  

The lights lowered, and the music faded as the MC’s voice began bellowing through the speakers.

“She’s naughty.  She’s nice.  And she’s ready to get your blood pumping! Put your hands together and give a warm welcome to the one, the only…Sapphire Rose!”

A spotlight lit up the stage, and a tall blonde woman strutted up the few stairs on the side of the stage and clasped the pole in the middle, swinging the entire weight of her body around the pole, and then turning herself completely upside down, holding herself up by some incredibly strong biceps that were flexing impressively.  I watched in awe as she rotated around the pole, flinging her body in every direction with ease as she demonstrated the intense core control that was required for such maneuvers.

It was several moments before I realized just how naked she really was.  In Oregon, all the strip clubs are nude.  Not g-string nude, or pasties nude - no, I mean, naked-as-the-day-you-were-born nude. Sapphire Rose started out her set very close to nude, and she ended it totally nude.  In between, she showed the men sitting at the rack every inch of her skin.  Every inch.  Even that inch.