Knight (75 page)

But I sounded
good
.

Comfortable and poised as every note draped over me in a protective shadow of confidence.

My heart cradled the song and welcomed the melodies like the prick of a needle with its aphrodisiac poison. Why did I even try to fight it?

The songs belonged to the MC.

Clandestine meetings on a busy sidewalk might have patched me into the club.

Anathema or The Coup wouldn’t trust a prospect to handle a trade like this. Now, the only thing separating me from the men I tried to avoid was the leather jacket and the police record. And, after a meeting with ATF, it wasn’t like my file was squeaky clean.

The guitar warmed the intersection with folksy rock. The rumble of motorcycles muffled the song. My heart stilled.

I sang to protect myself, to protect my brothers, and to protect my fracturing courage that wavered as the growling of fierce motorcycle engines added bass to a song that already beat my snapping mind.

A mother and child hurried past the intersection as the bikes pulled alongside my performance. Smart. I’d have run too, if I hadn’t bound myself in terror while strumming Vietnam era protest rock.

Only Dad ever dealt with Temple. He spoke Spanish, an impressive feat for a man who cursed every brown-skinned person who wandered too near his bike. But Temple wasn’t just a “Mexican” gang, they were business associates. They respected my father.

For the first time, Dad offered me protection.

His name became the Kevlar wrapping over my chest.

I didn’t stop singing, except my quivering voice didn’t project well enough for Kansas, Aerosmith, or Clapton. Not that the grinning man with the caterpillar mustache, scar across his forehead, and patch on his vest that read “Sergeant at Arms” cared. He laughed, gestured to both members of his crew tagging along after him, and glanced me up and down as if I were dancing in Sorceress.

His lecherous grin mirrored secrets I tried to forget.

“Do you take requests?” He licked his lips. “I’d love to have you play at one of my parties.”

I forced a polite smile and a shrug.

When I was seventeen, Keep threatened my skull with a hammer after a weekend of memorizing
Freebird
in his bar. My fingers wove over the guitar, quick and fast, relying on muscle memory to strum the notes that panic stole from my mind.

Without missing a chord, I edged the backpack of money toward Mustache, and powered into the song’s bridge.

“Daddy always said how pretty you were,” he rasped.

I stared only at the guitar case. The song neared a difficult solo, and I gritted my teeth, fought against the darkness threatening both my memory and my wavering stomach. Mustache laughed.

“When he said you are talented, he never mentioned music.”

Every college kid with a guitar and a red cup brimming with Natty Light fancied themselves a musician. They learned a song or two, played in front of a couple pretty girls, and maybe had a calloused finger or two.

They didn’t practice like I did.

They never needed to practice like I did.

It wasn’t for the music. And it wasn’t for any song.

It was because the music was the only reason I didn’t kill myself, and the only reason I could ignore what had happened, what would eventually happen again, and how only jail prevented the encore performance.

The music bandaged old wounds and comforted broken memories. I didn’t stop playing. I kicked the bag toward him, and concentrated on the solo complicated enough to distract me from the ugliness that forced me to run from home and seek shelter in a biker bar.

Mustache gestured to his brother. A second, identical bag dropped by the first. He took my offering and unzipped it only to verify that more than enough green stared at him.

“If it isn’t all there, I’ll flay you alive,” Mustache said. “But you’re Blade’s girl. I trust you.”

Mustache reached into his vest. I tensed as he dropped a hundred dollar bill in the guitar case.

“Daddy would be proud.” He gestured to his crew and climbed on his bike. He winked. “I bet your big brother is too.”

The strings snapped in my hand.

My guitar silenced.

No music echoed in my head.

Absolute revulsion swept over my body.

The guitar dropped into the case as Temple’s crew sped away with fifty thousand dollars, a completed deal, and my brother’s innocence.

I stared at the bag on the sidewalk, filled with vile, horrible truth.

I wished they packed a bomb instead. Something quick, something that could end me before the shattering remnants of my world slashed me apart from the inside.

I feared I was bleeding. I wasn’t.

I fought to be sick. Nothing came up.

I imagined I was alone.

I was right.

I slammed the guitar into the case, nearly breaking the frets as my trembling hands dropped the instrument. The backpack loaded next to it in the trunk of my car. But the cold sweat and selfish masochism of curiosity forced my fingers along the zipper of the bag.

All zippers sounded the same.

The drugs bundled inside.

Red
.

The meth dyed red.

Just like the drugs in Keep’s drawer. Just like the drugs sludging through my brother’s veins. Just like the drugs that my brother used and craved and needed to function.

He sold his soul, his family, and his club for drugs.

Keep’s addiction wouldn’t just kill him. He killed all of us, and Thorne and Exorcist would fight over who would pull the trigger.

I didn’t have any time. My phone trembled in my hand. I dialed Luke, and steeled my voice with all the strength of a singer who practiced until her throat bled for the chance to escape, to save herself, and to lead a life far from the brutal violence of the MC.

I didn’t wait for him to answer. I slammed the door to my car and gunned it from the parking lot.

“The deal’s off,” I said. “If Ex thinks about me the wrong way, he can fish his drugs out of the river.”

Luke swore. “What are you doing, Bud?  What the hell do you want?”

I sped out of the city and prayed the heartbreak hadn’t also shattered my sanity.

“I want my brother.”

The goddamned helmet choked me as I pulled it off. I slammed it against Pixie’s wall. It cracked.

Better than my skull. Maybe.

Two hours.

For
two hours
I prowled the fucking streets for her. Looked in her apartment. Checked Sorceress. I sped through every godforsaken puddle and nearly pissed myself when her brothers called. They couldn’t find her. Better than what I thought they’d say.

How the hell did she make me so angry?  She was just a kid. A pissed off, confused, kid.

Woman.

I remembered a time when it was easy to demean a woman. They crawled all over Pixie trolling for a drunken biker to give them a ride. They didn’t care who was wrapped in the cut, and I didn’t care who was sucking my cock.

So when in the fuck did it start to matter? And why the hell did it have to matter with
her
?

I used the little diva as my own instrument. I imprisoned her. Rescued her. Seduced her. And, when she delivered the little bag of meth from her brother’s room, she fulfilled her purpose.

I fucked her and she rooted out the traitor. Two weeks ago the only thing sweeter than ripping out the heart of the man who disgraced his club would have been taunting him about how enthusiastically his little sister ground against my cock.

But now that traitor wasn’t just a traitor.

And that little sister wasn’t just a little sister.

I would have ripped out my own heart, spilled my own blood, crippled my own body if it meant sparing Rose even the slightest bit of pain.

But the scarred demon patched onto my vest darkened everything with the grimace of evil. Wickedness begat wickedness. Sorrow fed sorrow. Violence submitted to violence. I wore misery like a crown and reveled in the few hallowed moments when I was blessed with the taste of something pure, beautiful, and good.

Even that angel had her halo shattered by the hatred festering within Anathema.

I didn’t hurt her first. I didn’t even hurt her the most.

But just because I wasn’t her greatest demon didn’t mean I wasn’t a monster.

I searched for two hours for her. Not to apologize. I didn’t know if I wanted to kiss her, fuck her, or kill her. Since The Coup split from Anathema, I had one purpose in my life. Destroy my opposition, murder Exorcist, eviscerate the traitor.

Now I killed myself to find Rose because my number one fucking priority was to prevent her from
crying
. I wanted her to understand why. I’d take her brother and destroy her family and break her heart all in the same shot.

I’d never take a deep breath again unless she understood.

I wouldn’t ask for her forgiveness. Part of me despised her for breaking my obsession and pissing on my resolve. I didn’t deserve absolution. I didn’t want it. Anathema acted outside the law and within its own moral code. Keep betrayed us. He’d die for it. I understood that.

But Rose didn’t.

I slammed the helmet against the brick until flecks of mortar and shards of the helmet fought back.

She could be anywhere. And anyone could find her.

I kicked open Pixie’s door. The bar cleared out after Brew threatened me.

He was lucky. He might have defended his sister’s honor, but Brew didn’t have a pretty smile, a sweet ass, and the voice of an angel.

I let Rose go because I didn’t know how to comfort her. Because I didn’t know how to handle her deliberately disobeying me. I wouldn’t hit her, so I aimed for her heart instead.

I couldn’t have driven her away any faster if I dumped her ass off my bike on the highway.

Keep twitched himself into a stupor in his room. If overdosing that bastard wouldn’t have been like injecting the junk straight into Rose’s veins, I might have ended it right there.

At least I knew where the traitor was, unlike his idiot little sister throwing a tantrum in the middle of the fucking city where Exorcist waited to kidnap her.

Hurt her.

The possibilities tore my guts in half and boiled them in my own fear. Gold waited behind the bar. He offered me a shot. The whiskey wasn’t the right caliber.

“Anything?” I asked.

Gold shook his head. “Brew said not to worry. Left a while ago. Said he was going to look for her.”

“Jesus Christ.” I regretted slamming the helmet instead of my head into the wall. “Scotch?”

“Hasn’t seen her.”

“Lyn?”

“Lyn said she’d call around.” Gold shrugged. “Thorne, dude, Bud’s just pissed off. She’ll check in.”

“It’ll be hard if she’s gutted in the street.” Standing around wouldn’t bring—drag—Rose home. “If she shows, tie her ass down in a chair until I get a chance to straighten her out.”

“Don’t think her brothers will like that.”

“Won’t be a problem for much longer.”

Because that was what I needed. More threats. More violence. More of an opportunity for her to hate me.

And that was fine. If she was safe, I could be the biggest bastard in the world. Anathema was bigger than both of us. Vengeance was bigger than both of us.

I started my bike as my phone vibrated in my pocket. I read the screen and swore.

“Where the fuck are you?”

I had a lot more to say to Rose than that, but I’d start small. No need to terrify her before I had her in Pixie, under my rule, and in my bed. No woman was ever good enough to worry me, and the only way I’d ever be calm again was when I pinned her against my mattress.

She didn’t answer. My hand balled into a fist. A lot of good that would do, not with her family. Getting smacked around didn’t scare her. Even a spanking wouldn’t do anything. She already submitted to me, and I destroyed that trust. Then again, she was still breathing. She needed to count her blessings and decide who to fear.

Exorcist or me.

I gave her ten seconds. Then I got angry.

“Where. The fuck. Are you.”

The sniffle broke me. The hesitance pitted my stomach like a bike losing traction on wet roads.

“
Rose
.”

“…I need help.”

Fuck.

“What’s wrong?  Where are you?”

The sniffle again. So quiet and so goddamned far away.

I regretted every decision in my life, every single choice that wrapped me in the cut, and every heinous crime I ever committed that voted me in as Anathema’s president. Had I actually watched the tears stain her cheeks, I’d have popped the gun in my own fucking mouth and pulled the trigger.

But I didn’t deserve that mercy. Ending my life was only the beginning. My hell would be the constant torment of her sadness—the gnashing of teeth and crushing of bones traded for Rose’s tears and inconsolable sorrow.

“Are you okay?  What’s wrong?” My questions were as useless as slashed tires on a bike. “Rose, are you hurt?”

“I’m not hurt.” Her voice wavered. I recognized the sound. She rocked herself, back and forth. “I…can you meet me?”