Knight (115 page)

Lyn opened a door to my left. The lights dimmed, but the girl dancing inside entertained one of Anathema’s men. Rose picked the room on the right.

She gasped and stumbled into me.

The man in the doorway studied us with a sneer of such loathing the hatred circled back into lust. His gaze stopped on only the parts that mattered to him—lips, tits, the crest between our legs.

He was old, grey, and overweight, but the same brute strength and sadism that strengthened Goliath raged in his body. I didn’t need to ask his name or read the patch on his cut.

I knew who he was.

And Rose stared him down, her chest heaving between frantic breaths and enraged screams.

“Dad, where’s Brew?”

Blade Darnell didn’t have any right to look at Rose like he did, but he deliberately leered. Getting off on watching how badly he terrified his own flesh and blood. His silence punished Rose, and the imposing bulk of his body crept too close. Lyn edged between the monster and the girl, the skin-tight corset was her own cut and emblem.

“Rosie-Bud.” Blade’s tongue thickened over the name, like he tasted every time he ever used the nickname. I didn’t want to imagine it. Rose flinched as she remembered. “Brew’s dead. You know that.”

She didn’t blink. “
Where is he
?”

“I told you. He’s
dead
.”

The word shivered against me. Not the wink and nod of a man who understood a faked death. He spoke like Brew
was
dead.

And I believed him.

“Now run on home.” Blade nudged her chin with his hand. She pushed him away. “This is no place for my little girl.”

“Get the hell out of my club,” Lyn hissed. “Now.”

“You still owe me a dance, princess.”

“Wrong fairy tale, Blade.”

“Better make it right or you’ll need a gallant white knight to rescue you.”

He stalked away in a foreboding, awful silence. Rose fell against the wall. She fought against Lyn as she offered a hug. Her voice hardened.

“Let’s find my idiot brother. I don’t like this.”

That made two of us. I rushed to the end of the hall, opening the door only to nearly tumble down the access stairs to the basement. Lyn shouted into the dim light. The shuffling of boots and grunted breath echoed into the cement. One body crumpled onto the floor, blood leeching from a wound in his head.

Brew swore, colliding with his second attacker in a fury of punches and kicks. A gun fell to the ground, but the man had the upper edge, driving an elbow into Brew’s back and crushing him to his knees. He grabbed Brew by the neck, squeezing the air from his body. Brew launched backward, driving the man into the drywall.

But the attacker’s fist punched at his temple, and Brew weakened. He managed one last strike before the bastard threw another solid punch.

Brew collapsed on the ground.

My heart stopped.

Rose screamed, charging down the stairs and diving over Brew’s body to rip at the bleeding attacker. She scratched, clawed, and bit, striking his face with hysterical strength. The man swore as she swiped at his nose and broke it with the heel of her hand.

Brew wasn’t moving. I slid to his side, slapping at his cheek and crying out his name. The creeping pallor claimed his skin, and blood-stained sweat dripped over his brow.

The attacker punched once, his fist imbedding in Rose’s stomach. Her wild screams silenced, and she crumpled, immobilized with a punishing kick to her head. Her pain sliced the room, and the man bolted for the stairs.

He never made it.

The sickening crunch of metal cracking through skull rang over the basement.

His lifeless body fell forward, dead before he smacked his teeth off the stairs. Lyn pitched the metal pipe away, kicking it into a pile of forgotten construction materials. She clenched her fists as soon as they started to shake. Her voice never wavered.

“Really hoped I wouldn’t have to kill anyone else in my club.” She studied Brew’s body. “Do I call an ambulance or the coroner?”

Neither would help us, not if Brew wanted to stay hidden. I ran my hands through the thickness of his hair, the clammy fear of his skin, and the ugly, raw, bleeding bruises along his body. He didn’t respond to my touch. I called his name.

Nothing.

If Rose’s pained cries didn’t wake him, nothing would.

I raced three thousand miles only to watch as the man I loved died in my arms.

And I dragged his sister—the only good and pure love of his life—to bleed at his side.

I yelped as the quick strike of a hand against my neck held me in a raging grip. Rose and Lyn shouted, but Brew seized my throat and glared through red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes. The darkness surged, and he released the gun from behind his back. It cocked with a steady thumb.

The bullet fired over my ear, lodging between the eyes of the other bastard who attempted to kill Brew. The man clutched a dagger aimed for Lyn’s exposed neck. His body slumped to the floor.

Brew’s hand tightened. I met his gaze, gripping his remorseless fingers. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe, and the pounding fear choked me more than his grinding fingertips. Every inch of me bound tight to fight and run, but the last thing I wanted was to escape from Brew. Not now that I found him.

I relaxed and tickled my fingers along his arm. His rasping breath pained my throat, but he wasn’t badly hurt. He was confused, raging for a war he already won and enemies he already fought.

And so I did what came naturally.

I winked.

Brew’s vision cleared. The searing promise of his eyes apologized for a lifetime of sin.

He released me and passed out.

A blonde goddess with eyes the color of my silver lining knelt over me.

“Brew?” Martini’s voice wavered with tears she tried to hide. “Are you okay?”

I’d be a hell of a lot better if she let me up and the room cleared.

The last time someone hauled me into Sorceress’s basement, Thorne pointed a gun at my head, Rose confessed my father’s sin, and Keep collapsed against the stairs twitching for a fix. Lyn hadn’t bothered to stick around for the fireworks.

Not much changed now. Thorne lined up for a good shot. Rose cried. Keep shook, rubbing trembling fingers over his shaved head. Lyn claimed the stairs next to him, surveying the damage.

Martini didn’t belong here.

“Don’t get up,” Martini said. “You’re hurt.”

Lyn tossed her a bottle of water, though the line-drive aimed for my head. Martini grabbed for it and missed. The bottle rolled under Thorne’s boot.

I met his gaze. Neither of us was happy to see the other.

Thorne’s heel came down, a prelude for what he wanted to do to my skull. Rose’s soft murmur prevented him from smashing the plastic. He kicked the bottle to Martini, ignoring me as he wove a hand through Rose’s curls and examined the cut on her face. He kissed her forehead as she assured him she wasn’t hurt.

Martini offered help, but I grabbed the water and took a swig. The liquid surged up. I choked. My head ached. I didn’t see the first blow, but I still felt it. And so did the asshole who hit me. I thought I killed him with a punch to his temple. He survived that, but the bullet between his eyes would keep him down.

“I’m all right...” The words rasped into silence. That was fine. I didn’t have anything good to say.

Martini hovered too close. “Brew, let me help—”

I tried to take her hand. She gasped and winced. An ugly, decay-yellow bruise spread over her hand, snaking up her wrist into deeper hues of green and blue. She pulled away.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I asked.

Thorne didn’t take his eyes from Rose. “Yeah. I’d like a goddamned answer too. Where the hell is my bike?”

“Thorne,” Rose said. “This is Martini. Martini, Thorne.”

Martini perked an eyebrow as she edged between me and the bastard who probably still carried a bullet reserved for my head. “Charmed.”

Thorne was never cordial. “Don’t fucking care. What the hell are you doing back, Brew?”

“You don’t call, you don’t write.” Keep swore from the stairs. “Didn’t tell us you were in town.”

“Wasn’t a social visit,” I said.

Lyn stomped past Keep. My brother didn’t have the balance to stand.

“And as fantastic as a family reunion is...” Lyn kicked over one of the bodies. The red stiletto nudged his leather jacket. His shirt rode up. Keep ducked out of her way as her profanity bit across the room. “
Temple
. Why the
hell
are Temple men trying to kill you in my club!”

“Lost your friends?” Thorne snickered. Rose elbowed him. He took her arm only to pull her closer.

Martini braced me as I sat up. “What happened?”

What happened? Good fucking question.

She wanted an answer.

I had nothing. No explanations. No pride to scrape together a lie, even to shield myself in denial.

What happened?

Nothing.

Nothing
happened.

My gun hadn’t fired. My father hadn’t bled. Twenty-one years of mistakes, deceit, and betrayal festered deep, rotted my guts from the inside out, and scourged my every chance at redemption.

I had the shot. I had the opportunity. I had the memory of the curly haired six-year-old begging to play me a song on her toy piano while my father kicked the shit out of my mother upstairs.

But I didn’t have the courage.

I wasn’t in Heaven. I wasn’t in Hell. This was limbo. The absolute nothingness that existed between right, wrong, and vengeance. My father walked free, without the slightest fear prickling the ice in his heart.

Anathema made him untouchable. Even the DA didn’t have the balls to go for the death penalty when they built a strong enough case to drag his ass into a cell. He kept his secrets, and now that he was out, Anathema’s brothers trusted him, and Temple’s officers listened to him. His leadership secured both clubs the towns they chose, drugs they needed, and prices they demanded.

“I came to find my father,” I said.

Rose shifted away, edging closer to Thorne. The hot-headed president with more weapons than patience wrapped his arm tight around her. She relaxed, trapped within the embrace of a man more medieval warlord than MC president.

“Yeah, we met Blade upstairs,” Lyn said with a sneer. “Have a nice chat?”

“Sure. Real illuminating.”

Keep rubbed his face. Twice. He shook himself out of his stupor and helped me to my feet.

“You do it?” He asked.

Rose couldn’t look at me. Martini wasn’t as demure. Lyn didn’t even pretend.

Christ, what the hell was I worried about with my conscience? All I needed was their permission and they’d hand me the razor to slice my veins.

“No.” I ground my teeth. “Not the right time.”

Thorne didn’t like my answer, but blood was its own reward. He didn’t often stop to think of the consequences. “Does Rose gotta get hurt again before you take the shot?”

Rose protested, but her forgiveness was instant. I read her like a damned book. She knew Thorne only meant to protect her. She trusted him.

Like she should have trusted me.

But she never would—not if I failed to prove how much I loved her.

Either the assholes who attacked me punctured my lung, or the shame squeezed every last ounce of pride from my chest. I shuddered. The spike of my blood pressure didn’t help. It should have spurted my blood and sprayed it from the gaping hole in my chest where I ripped out my own heart to save my fucking life.

For the first time, I was glad Rose had Thorne. At least he’d take care of her. He’d protect her when I couldn’t and finish me off when I was no more use to them.

Martini’s fingers grazed my cheek. The gentle tickle was more like a sucker punch. Every time I looked at Rose, a cemented failure hardened in my chest. But Martini chiseled it away.

I had nothing to offer Rose.

I had everything to give Martini.

What the hell was she doing here after I left her broken and alone across the country?

“I didn’t kill him.” Standing hurt. I sunk to the ground. “My father is close to too many people, and they’d look for him if he was gone. It puts Anathema at risk. Targets Rose.”

Lyn pointed to the dead men on her floor. “Targets more than Anathema, don’t you think?”

“Yeah well, we don’t got many friends to worry about at the moment.”

She snorted. “Well, you have two less enemies.”

“Why the hell is Temple after you?” Keep ignored Lyn’s disgust and searched the men’s pockets. The cigarettes he kept for himself, the wallet he threw to Thorne.

“Long story.”

I figured Martini would smirk and draw the attention away from me. She didn’t move, only sucked in deep breaths to control her own pain.

“Then give us the abbreviated version,” Thorne said.

Hell if I even believed it. “I got in a fight with three MCs who planned on starting a drug war over a couple cartel style-assassinations.”

“Your drug war is bleeding on
my
floor.” Lyn tapped her shoe away from a creeping crimson stain.