If I Should Die: A Kimber S. Dawn MC Novel (20 page)

And I don’t weaken. I don’t weaken for anyone. I never have. Nor ever will.

Why him?
I wonder for maybe the hundredth time, searching for the answer deeper in his eyes.

“Why who?” His brow furrows but his smirk remains. And if anything, it deepens. My eyes fly to the ground and my mouth falls open
. Shit, I said it aloud!

When his hands clench into fists on the sides of my face, I glance from the ground back up to him and my breath stills at the look on his face. “I’m not gonna fucking hurt you, Eve. Now stop already. Stop with whatever it is you’re thinking. We’re—” He points between the two of us, but his hands settle back on my face, cradling it. And he keeps bringing his mouth closer to mine. And to be completely honest, I’m kinda freaking the fuck out here.

As his lips brush mine, and reality and all of her sharpness stings and shit just keeps getting clearer…

“I won’t hurt you, Eve. I promise.” He promises. He
promises
. But then his lips brush mine and I don’t give a fuck what he does or does
not
promise. Hell, I forget to hold onto my name.

“Jesus.” I doubt my mutter is even heard; he swallows it up so fast. And Jesus was right. Or Satan. Okay, probably Satan. His mouth feels like a warm heaven, opening up and granting access to my suddenly eager, starving mouth. It’s like I can’t breathe. If it isn’t his breath, it’s like I can’t breathe. I suck the air from his lungs just to prove the point. And when he pulls back, gasping for another breath, I smirk before sliding my arms around his neck and pulling him back down to slant my mouth back over his.

And he kisses. He controls this. I don’t. Actually, I don’t know who the hell I think I’m kidding. And when the thought of what an idiot I must look like causes my movements to falter, I pull away.

“No... No. We’re talking, Eve. Just talking.” His big hands wrap around mine before squeezing. “Just—I can’t. Okay?” He pulls my hands from around his neck and intertwines our fingers, then holds our hands at my sides. “I can’t. Not here. Not with you.”

And I can’t really tell you what his words meant exactly. Because I don’t know. Right after he said them he turned and left the room. And after hearing his bike crank outside, I heard him drive away.

***

It’s dark when I blink my eyes open before glancing around the room. And I’d reach for my phone to check the time, but I don’t have it. Because I’ve been taken against my will, to places unknown, and of that I don’t know what to think.

‘Just—I can’t. Okay? I can’t. Not here. Not with you.’ 
The last thing Jacques said before leaving me
alone
in this—I don’t even know where the hell I’m at—creeps through my confused mind.

When I hear a keycard slide into the keycard hole, I sit up slightly in bed, picking my head up from the mattress. And when Jacques strolls in, the room lights up briefly before the door closes and shuts us back in the safety net of the shadows. “Pipsqueak, I saw you. I know you’re up. Now sit up.” The light on the bedside table flips on, and my eyes are instantly met with his.
Our faces are no more than a few inches apart. “Mornin’.” He sets a paper bag on the bed next to my face on the pillow. I barely read Burger King and I’m sitting up in the bed, tearing the bag open.

It’s cold. And it’s stale. And it’s gotta be pretty early in the morning to be late enough to still be dark. Meaning there’s no way he just got this. But ask me if I care. Hell no. It doesn’t even enter my mind until I’ve finished the burger and half the stale fries. “Where’d you go?” I mumble around the food in my mouth, and he points at the bag.

“Get you something to eat. Now, eat. Shut the fuck up. And listen.” He grabs the chair from its place beside the table by the window, and sets it dead center of the room and directly in front of me.

After sitting, he slowly unfolds himself and stretches out before leaning back in his seat, and when his eyes settle on mine, he speaks. “Your mom ever talk to you about your dad, Vagabond? Ever? Tell you where he lived, who he ran with...anything?” His eyes narrow on mine when my throat bobbles a few times around the food still lodged in it. And he winks, acknowledging the obvious soft spot he’s found. “Renee ‘King’ O’Malley? Any bells? Any at all? I’ll keep talking. For fuck’s sake, I’m sure you’ve figured that out. Only way to shut me up is to sit on my face. And even then—” I catch him slightly wince, and it piques my interest.

“What was that?” I ask, still talking around my food like a cow mooing around the cud in its mouth. “Oh, come on. Don’t be weird, old man.” I chuckle, noticing when his fidgeting stills. Good. The deflecting is working. Re-direct. Re-direct this shit, now.

“What’s that? Why do you keep saying that shit? No!” He shakes his head back and forth before standing and pacing the length of the room from the front to the bathroom door. “I’m not doing this shit. Look—Dreads’ll be here in half an hour, okay, Pipsqueak? Thirty minutes. Now, start talking straight.” His fists clench until they blanch completely. And when his eyes look up and land on mine, they look like navy blue storms. Brewing. Collecting—what? I don’t know. “Renee O’Malley. What do you know about him?” His jaws tighten, flexing, hands still clenched at his sides. “Speak!”

“Nothing.” I tell him the truth. I tell him what I know. “I’ve never heard of him, ever. I don’t know who my father is. As far as I knew, no one did.” I look into his eyes again, searching for the answer. “Who is he? I mean, is he? M-my father?” I do try and blink the tears away this time. And when that doesn’t work, I swipe my wrist across my face. “Answer me! Is he?”

He just blinks at me for the longest time. And after he inhales a calming breath, he speaks. “Well, it looks like I kidnapped you for nothing, Pipsqueak. You ready to go home?”

“No. No, I’m not. I’m ready for some fucking answers! Who’s 'King'?” I make air quotes. “Renee O’Malley? Who told you he was my father? My mother?” Every milliliter of blood leaves my face at the same time the breath is kicked from my lungs. “You talked to my
mother?
Is she with your fucking father?” I fly, bitch—please! I
fly
off my handle. “All your whole goddamn lot of self-righteous bastards! Fuck your whole family, asshole! Why can’t you just leave me and my family the hell alone?” More blinking. I can hardly drag in a breath after that long-winded rant, and this motherfucker right here is as calm as an afternoon delight on Tuesday.

“That’s what I’m trying to do, Eve Of’May O’Malley. Leave. You. The. Fuck. Alone. Now, sit the fuck down.” He does...something. I can’t quite rightly tell you what it is. But one minute I’m standing, and the next I feel my knees buckle before I’m slinking into a chair, which
wasn’t
just behind me. When I’ve gathered my composure, I realize he just kicked my knee forward a bit before spinning me and sitting me in the chair he was sitting in when this conversation started.

He leans all the way over me until our noses almost touch—and that’s when I see it.
My
crucifix. I look up into his eyes.
His crucifix
, my mind corrects me.

“Yeah, thanks for keeping up with it for me. Now we can do this one or two ways—you pick.” He holds up a syringe and I pale for the second time in mere minutes before finding my throat and trying to swallow.

“You drugged me?” I whisper, thinking back.
How? 
“You roofied my drink!” I glare between both beautiful blue eyes. “You son of a bitch!”

“Easy way it is.”

BAM. I didn’t even see the needle. But apparently he saw the vein. I didn’t even have time to register how hard his grip turned until it was crushing, and a split second later, the needle pierced a hole. Five. It took like five seconds more for my mind to shut completely off. Or who am I kidding, fuck if I knew, didn’t take many—

“What the fuck is wrong with you, Jackie boy?” Clutch and Slim chuckle as I slide up to the bar after trying to get my fucking life back together about three minutes after chatting it up with an old friend of Pops’. One I haven’t heard from in I don’t know long—and one I hadn’t thought of in even longer. I slump into the barstool and shrug.

“Nahhh, it’s nothing. Little less party favor and a little more party labor, brothers. We’re here for a reason, guys. This isn’t going to fuck it up,” Dreads reprimands the club, and I take the hit, he and I the only two now privy to information neither of us know what to do with after speaking briefly with a ghost from our pasts.

Grabbing the bottle of Everclear, I line up ten shot glasses, and after filling them all up to the rim, I shoot every last drop until every glass is empty. “Yep, and I’ll get right on that. After this.” I wave over the little red thing that’s sliding up next to me at the bar and wink at her. “And possibly her. Come here, sweetheart. What’s your name?” I ask, refilling the shot glasses one by one.

“Whatever you want it to be, baby. What’s yours?” And it
could
possibly be the pitch of her nasally voice, or the fake southern drawl, but one of them spurs a bitter taste in my mouth.

“Holy shit. Never mind. Clutch—you’re up. Voice, dude.” I wince and shoot the next three shots. Dreads’ hand settles on mine, resting on the fourth shot glass.

“Come on, man. I told you this was a bad idea. Don’t do this—not here. Not tonight.” He squeezes his eyes closed before looking back into mine, begging. “Please, brother.”

“Fuck!” I mutter, quickly standing and slinging my cut on over my holster then making my way towards the exit. “Come on. I’m not leaving this shanty ass bar alone. It’s bad enough we’re fucking here.”

After I storm from the honky tonk bar and shove my foot against the clutch of my bike, she roars to life and I settle on top of her. Dreads stalks over as I strap my helmet to my head. “Where ya headed? Back to her place?”

I shake my head before straddling the bike between my thighs, and when I feel comfortable with the big black beast and the way her balance is dispersed, I glance back up at Dreads. “No, man. I can’t fuck with that. I don’t even know what I was thinking. There’s not any answers there. There can’t be.” His eyes narrow on mine, and I silently beg him to question me.

He nods then pauses, like he wants to say something else, but thankfully for him, he stops. “Right. Just don’t—okay?”

Wait for it. After he straddles his own bike, over the roar of my own, I hear him call my name and I sigh before shaking my head and looking back up at him.

“What’d you call Ilsa to your pops’ face? Toxic?” His light brown eyes seem to almost shimmer. “She’s your toxic, Jackie boy. She’s your toxic. Now, do us all a favor and stay the hell away from Renee ‘King’ O’Malley’s daughter, yeah?”

The fuck does this motherfucker think he is? But he doesn’t wait for a response. He just turns, gets on his bike, and drives away.

***

I pass her house three times, and on the third drive-by I see Ty’s little red Kia Soul pull into her driveway, and I gun it, revving the engine before driving back to the hotel. The same one I rented away from everyone else. The same one I kept Ilsa and Renee O’Malley’s daughter locked and drugged in for a day and a half. “Shit,” I mutter, tossing my keys/wallet and it’s chain on the table by the front door.

The little voice Eve used when she was telling me all that shit about her being taken away. Time and time again. I don’t know what she did to it, but it made it seem to stick to the walls of my mind. I dunno, like they coated the cogs in there or something. And now it’s like when I least expect them, they come creeping back in—