REIGN: A Motorcycle Club Romance Novel (19 page)

~
24
~

“Why now? What happened in the car? Jesus, Gabriella, you could at
least…” Reign said, his brow furrowed, eyes barely concealing a feverish need
for her to take back what she’d said. He’d never told anyone about his sister,
except for Honey, and the moment he did, his confidant was ditching him.

Well that’s what you get,
his mind told him.
That’s payback for letting Miranda down, for letting them all down, for
not protecting them the way you should have. You don’t deserve to have someone
like Gabriella.

But even as his mind told him that, in the least sympathetic of tones,
he couldn’t just roll over and give up and let her go – not just yet. Gabriella
stood before him, shaking, eyes wide and ready to brim over with tears.

“I…I don’t know, I can’t explain it, Reign, I don’t know, I just…I
have to go. Now, tonight. I can’t…not another…I have to…” Gabriella tripped
over her words, her anxiety making each syllable crash into the next. She was
shaking all over, her fingers looking like they were power-typing in mid-air.

After watching her park haphazardly outside her room and dash back and
forth with her few belongings, including that signature blue duffel bag, he’d
managed to convince her to come to the bar and pick up some food for her trip –
she hadn’t eaten since that mega-bacon cheeseburger the night she’d arrived.

Now, he almost regretted dragging her into the dirty, dingy bar – it
wasn’t exactly an ideal location for their goodbye. He didn’t want her to
remember him as the guy in the bar who kissed her goodbye while their shoes
stuck to the floor and boisterous, hairy men shouted in the background.

“Please, Gabriella, one more night and I swear, I’ll…”

“No! Reign, no! No more nights! You…you can….oh, god, I have to go.
Come with me,” Gabriella said. The look on her face as she blurted out the last
part told him that she was as surprised to be saying it as he was to have heard
it. She bit her lip, her eyes falling still for once on his face. He reached
out, stroked her arm, and shook his head.

You can’t, you know you can’t,
he thought, visions of his brothers flashing
through his head. For some people, the time came to make a choice between their
family and their love. For Reign, that time was now; it wasn’t his “real”
family, but it was the realest he’d ever known. He wanted to go with Gabriella.
Wanted it so hard his teeth felt like they would crack from how hard he was
clenching his jaw. He wanted it so hard that he could feel the wanting inside
him, the way a heroin addict wants their smack.

But he couldn’t, and that was the royal bitch of it.

She nodded, understanding in her eyes, and took a deep breath. Closing
her eyes, she seemed to steady herself. His hand lay on her forearm, fingers
gently stroking the skin, the warmth where there skin met as comforting and
homey as a fireplace roaring in the middle of winter while a storm blew
outside. She felt like home, when he touched her.

And now, with her leaving, he got the idea he’d feel homeless for a
long time.

When Gabriella opened her eyes again, Reign knew that she hadn’t
changed her mind – and wouldn’t. He could argue more, try to persuade her to
stay, but he’d be wasting his time and hers. Better he accept it, bade her
well, make sure she made it to town limits at least. He dropped his head.

“Okay. I get it. But wait, half an hour, please?”

“Reign, I’m not…I’m not in the mood…” Gabriella said, sounding half
ashamed and half frustrated. He had to be a bit amused; she thought he wanted
to get one last bone session in before she left? Far from it. If he touched her
any more than he was then, he’d have to hang himself after she left.

“No, I have some things for you. I got them early this morning while
you were sleeping. They’ll…they’ll help,” he said. “They’re at my place though.
Will you wait for me to come back? Please?”

Gabriella nodded, her eyes now filling with tears, seeming even deeper
and wiser than they usually did. Something about the way that salt water pooled
above her lower eyelid made her eyes sparkle. It broke Reign’s heart to see her
cry, but he had to admit she looked beautiful doing it.

If you stay with me, I’ll make sure you’ll never
cry again,
he thought, wanted
to say, kept inside his throat. He turned from her, exiting the bar quickly. As
he turned, he watched her collapse into a stool, her elbow hitting the surface
of the bar with an audible smack. She lay her head in her palm, her black hair
forming a curtain around her face. On the far side of the bar, he saw Honey
watching them with interest. She couldn’t hear anything, but Reign bet she knew
what was happening. Endo was looking over, too.

Great, glad you fuckers caught the damn matinee,
this is a one-time-only performance,
he
thought bitterly, pushing the doors open. Anger was growing inside him
alongside the sadness, and the feeling of loneliness that had already taken
root in his heart in anticipation of what it would feel like to watch Gabriella
drive away. He trotted to his apartment behind the bar, willing himself to keep
his emotions in check long enough to see her off with a forced smile on his
face. She probably felt bad enough, he didn’t need to make her feel any worse
by acting like a child.

In his apartment, the cool air that usually brought immediate relief
from the desert heat offered no salve for his pain. He gathered the few items
he’d managed to gather in the short time Gabriella had been in Ditcher’s
Valley. How long had that been? How long had she been there? Two days? Three
days? How had she made him feel this way in such little time? He, who used to
brag about his lone wolf nature, who thought he’d never need a woman around to
make him feel whole, had let himself fall hard over the short course of three
days.

It seemed impossible. It seemed like something that only happened in
cheesy romance novels. But there he was, living proof.

And damn, did he hate it.

Gabriella’s face was not the one looking back at him from the passport
and driver’s license he held, but it was close. The face on both documents was
much more Latina. But it would do. It would pass. It was the same fake
passport, the same fake driver’s license, that the club doled out to illegal
immigrants who could afford the luxury get-into-America package.

The names were different, but the pictures were the same. Gabriella
was so much more beautiful than all those other women, Reign felt irrationally
ashamed to be giving her the forged documents. But they’d have to do; he hadn’t
had enough time to get her to sit for a new picture.

The phone he’d bought was the same model, style, and carrier as his
own. Commonly known as a burner phone, and most often associated with shady
figures hanging out in alleys, handing out free samples of low-grade black tar
heroin to anyone who copped a
dimebag
. But it, too,
would do. It would have to.

He flipped open the screen and quickly added his number to the
contacts list. At least, his current number. Soon, probably, he’d find himself
with a new burner, a new phone, and then she wouldn’t be able to find him. He
found her burner’s number on the packaging and entered it into his own
contacts. Same story, though. Eventually, she’d get a new phone. She’d have a
new life. They’d never cross paths again…

The thought was too painful to dwell on, and he let it pass through
his mind quickly, without lingering. His heart felt like it was in a vise, and
every moment that passed brought him closer to losing her, tightened the screws
a bit more. It would be better to just get it over with. The waiting to lose
her – that, surely, was the worst of it.

It had to be. Didn’t it?

He left his apartment, trotted back to the bar. She hadn’t moved, was
sitting behind her veil of hair at the bar. Didn’t even look up as he drew
near. Honey and Endo were still acting like they had front-row seats to the
hottest concert of the summer, though when he shot them a knowing sneer they
got busy looking elsewhere.

He wondered what Endo was doing outside of the kitchen; as far as
Reign knew, he was supposed to be on lunch duty. But it didn’t matter; being
next in line to lead the club meant Reign knew about what happened at the bar
but wasn’t required to give a damn about the day-to-day operations. He knew his
interest lay mostly in his irritation over Endo and Honey acting like they had
the right to peek in on this private moment.

He lay his hand on Gabriella’s shoulder and she jumped. When she
looked at him, he saw only fear in her eyes. That was worse than the tears.

I’m
gonna
go kill her
husband,
he suddenly thought.
I’ll go to Colorado and I’ll kill him and
then she can come back to me.

You’re
gonna
do that
like you’re
gonna
set fire to the bar,
the rational part of him said. He knew he would
do nothing of the sort. It was one thing to harbor a slave; another thing
entirely to lynch the slaver. He didn’t need to make any waves outside of Utah,
not for himself and not for the Black Smokes. His duty and his life were one in
the same. She was his heart, but that had to take the backseat.

“Oh,” she said as he lay his gifts out on the bar.

“The phone can’t be traced to you. Neither can the ID’s. They’ll get
you where you need to go, baby. And I’ll make some calls, and get you a contact
down in Juarez. My number’s in there,” Reign said, pointing the phone, which
Gabriella held, staring at it like it was some sort of strange alien food. She
nodded, though. He reached out to her again, this time taking her chin between
his fingers and lifting her face to his.

“You can call me whenever,” he said, keeping his eyes on hers although
they wanted to look elsewhere. It hurt so much to look into those eyes, but it
would haunt him forever if he decided this was the right moment to take the
easy way out. “Say it. Tell me when you can call me.”

She croaked out something. He smiled, shook his head.

“Say it, baby.”

“I can call you whenever,” she finally said after taking a deep, shaky
breath. She closed her eyes, opened them quickly when he gave her chin the
slightest shake. She looked like maybe she was trying to smile back, like she
was trying to be brave. That was a good idea. She’d need to be brave.

“I don’t know how these things happen, baby. I
ain’t
ever felt anything like this before in hella years. And three days was all it
took. Damn, they say these words are hard to say but…shit, I never knew how
right they were,” Reign said, forcing a chuckle. He was telling the truth;
there were women, many women, too many women, who’d wanted to hear those words,
and to whom he’d said them. They’d rolled right off the tongue, easy as pie,
and he hadn’t mean them in the slightest.

Now, when it was true, when it was all he could feel, when it seemed
like every speck of dust and drop of water on the earth had been put there just
to bring him to Gabriella’s arms, he couldn’t say those words. They caught in
his throat, threatened to choke him if he didn’t swallow. Or cough them out.

“I love you,” he finally managed, and watched as her face flit from
joy to sorrow to joy to sorrow -- tossing and turning from one to the other at
breakneck speed. She opened her mouth as though to say something in return, but
he wouldn’t let her. Instead, he leaned in, met her parted lips with his own,
and took all of her in that one moment. It seemed to stretch out forever and
end too soon all at the same time, their tongues meeting briefly, one last
breathless embrace.

And then she was gone.

~
25
~

The truck slowed to a crawl passing the motel and bar. A gleaming red
Ford Mustang sat in front of room 7. So she got new wheels after all, Silas
thought, happy he’d thought to double-check. He’d assumed something of the sort
had happened when the car that had been parked outside her room had disappeared
the second day she’d been there.

Of course, it was possible that the Mustang belonged to a new guest –
but he knew enough about shitty motels in shitty towns to know that if it was
empty and the staff had the choice to clean a dirty room and put someone new in
it or not clean the dirty room and just put newcomers in a different room, the
latter was the most likely.

There was still a little risk that she’d already skipped town, but
Silas was confident enough she hadn’t not to risk going back into the bar to
wait for her to show up. He was done spying; he’d been there too long anyway,
and it would only draw more attention now that he’d skipped a day of pretending
to be a barfly.

“That’s where she’s staying?” Jeremy demanded.

“Could be. Could be in her new beau’s room now,” Silas answered
noncommittally. Of course, it was true. She was probably keeping her stuff in
the motel room and lounging in bed with her biker stud at that very moment.
Reign was probably tickling her in all the right places, making her squeal like
a pig. The image amused him, especially considering the fact that the fuming,
jilted husband beside him was probably thinking the same thing with
considerably less good humor.

“Shut up,” Jeremy grunted, and Silas bit back a smile. He hit the gas
and sped off past the bar. If he’d gone a little slower, if he’d rolled past a
few minutes later, he would have seen Gabriella dashing from the bar to the
Ford. He would have seen Reign follow her outside and stand watching from the
wooden porch as she peeled out of the parking space. He would have seen her
pull up beside him, their eyes locked, their mouths closed in solemn
understanding.

As it was, he missed all that, but it worked out for him. If he’d seen
all that, he would never have had the time to put his plan in action the right
way. He’d have to make something up on the fly, something Silas was quite
capable of but preferred to avoid whenever possible.

When he did see that car again, they were a mile or so ahead of her.
He narrowed his eyes, squinting into the
rearview
,
and muttered “shit” under his breath. Jeremy, who had nothing to do but listen
to Silas’ breathing, picked up on it, his head snapping towards Silas.

“What?” Jeremy demanded. Silas rolled his eyes, favored Jeremy with a
condescending smile.

“Nothing,” Silas said. “Just looks like you won’t have to do much
waiting, after all. Looks like the girl’s on the move.”

He nodded towards the
rearview
mirror even
as he sped up, breaking the speed limit without a whit of concern. Jeremy had
just a glimpse of bright red on the road behind them before it was blotted out
by the dust rising around the truck’s tires.

“Are we ready? Shit, are we ready?” Jeremy asked, lifting himself up
in his seat, his eyes widening.
Go ahead
and have your little shitfit, kid, but don’t fuck this up for us,
Silas
thought.

“We’re fine. I’m just
gonna
put a few more
miles between us. But you’re
gonna
have to be quick
with that spike strip. You look strong enough,” Silas said, hoping his voice
would be enough to calm the cop down. He only needed Jeremy to help him with
the spikes that would rip Gabriella’s tires to shreds; after that, Jeremy could
go full-on psycho.

“Yeah, yeah,” Jeremy said, now seeming eager to please. Silas could
get used to this side of Jeremy. A few minutes later, the road was nearly
enveloped by a fog of sand and dust, and the red Mustang was nowhere in sight.
Silas veered off quickly, coming to a sudden stop on the side of the road.

“Now,” he barked, and Jeremy hopped to it.
Musta
been a great student at the Academy,
Silas thought, noting how
suddenly attentive and obedient Jeremy had become. A great clanking clatter
from the bed of the truck as Silas got out told him that they’d have no trouble
getting the spike strip on the road before Mrs. Policeman could catch sight of
them. He watched Jeremy trot across the road, spreading the strip as he went.
Silas leaned against the truck, a wicked smile on his face. This job was even
easier than he thought it’d be.