Capture (Restless Motorcycle Club Romance) (4 page)

My heart pounded in my ears, the pulse drowning everything out except for the ragged gasps of breath that I sucked down as quickly as I could. I had no idea how close behind me the FBI agents were, but I had no faith that I was gaining any ground on them.

The end was near, and I knew that I was only seconds away from giving up. I hadn’t even picked a direction when I took off; the only thing that mattered was to get away from
them.
There wasn’t anything that I was running
to.
It seemed pointless to run any further anyway, that just meant that I would be that much more exhausted when they took me into custody.

Or just flat out kill me.
It was what the last agent I’d seen had tried to do, even though he’d been assigned to protect and watch over me.

I hadn’t run this hard or this far since grade school gym class. I was starting to hallucinate, the field of view at the edges of my vision wavering. Somehow I even imagined Shane’s voice.

I knew I’d lost it when I saw a motorcycle standing in the next aisle, Shane leaning towards me and calling my name. I shook my head, wondering at what point I’d gone psychotic. Maybe I wasn’t even running anymore, but locked in a loony bin somewhere.

Shane didn’t disappear, and the bike only grew bigger as I got closer.

Holy shit, it’s not an illusion.

I spurred myself on even harder, now that I had a goal to shoot for. For the first time, I was running towards something as much as running away from the danger behind me. With an extra burst of speed, I cleared the final row of cars and launched myself at the man and the seat on the back of bike.

The dull ache of the full exertion from running was replaced with a sharp pain as my leg slammed into the bike, not daring to slow down until I had my arms wrapped around Shane. Somehow he kept the bike upright, his body a solid tree trunk that didn’t fall under the impact of my body.

He didn’t wait for me to get comfortable, and tires squealed as he took off. A hand closed for a fraction of a second on my arm before we drove out of reach of the men following.

I struggled to regain my senses, scrambling to pull my feet up to the rests and secure my grip around Shane’s waist. Task finished, I collapsed against his back. Shane weaved around traffic and pedestrians to escape the trap of the parking lot.

It was my first time on the back of a bike, and it was the most unholy combination of terrified and exhilarated that I had ever experienced.

“Are you okay?” he yelled back to me.

I tried to answer, but I was breathing too heavily, my body desperate for all of the oxygen that I could give it. The best I could manage was a grunt that was half agreement, half unsure whether I was going to survive, and a squeeze where my arms encircled him.

Shane turned down some quiet side streets and slowed down. No point drawing attention by ripping through a neighborhood and potentially drawing a complaint.

I pulled on his arm and pointed to the side of the road. He stopped the bike and turned toward me.

“I’m sorry,” I said as soon as I was able. I knew he was pissed. He had every right to be.

Hell, I’m pissed at myself too. What the heck was I thinking?

“Why the hell did you leave the safe house?”

“I just wanted to get out for a bit. I was going absolutely crazy in there.”

“So you had to go to the mall where your roommate worked?”

I didn’t have a great excuse. “I said I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. It was stupid.”

“You’re fucking right it was stupid!” he shouted. I winced at the anger in his voice. I’d heard it used against other people in the office, but I’d never been on the receiving end of it before. It hurt, like a scathing rebuttal of everything I was and had done. “You could have gotten yourself caught — almost did. Who knows what would have happened once they got a hold of you, but I sure as hell know that it wouldn’t have turned out well for either of us!”

His anger, as justified as it was, still made my back rise. As much as I deserved it, I couldn’t help but start to feel put off by the reaming out I was getting.

“It won’t happen again,” I said, sullenly. “I’ll never leave the safe house again after today, even if it starts to burn down around me.”

I could see Shane look over at me from the corner of my eye, but I refused to meet his eyes, keeping my own gaze focused on the houses around us.

“Hey,” he said, his voice lower and more under control. “I’m sorry to yell at you. I’m used to dealing with the bikers at the warehouse, and shouting is part of the game in that world, otherwise they never take you seriously.”

He was extending an olive branch, but I couldn’t bring myself to accept it. My pulse still hadn’t recovered from my sprint, and I didn’t manage anything more than a weak “okay” in response.

I had gone overboard.

Jackie wasn’t a subordinate of mine, wasn’t a member of the motorcycle club. She had started out as an assistant when I’d first hired her, but I think both of us knew that we had moved beyond that stage. I wasn’t sure what we were, since the tangled web we were caught in didn’t give us much choice other than to be together, but she deserved more than I had given her.

Seeing where in the city we were, I changed course from my planned route, bringing the bike onto the highway for a few exits.

The feeling of her arms wrapped around me was stiff, and I could tell that she wouldn’t have even held them there if she wasn’t afraid of flying off the back of the bike if we hit a bump.

Finally, we got to where we were going.

Jackie looked puzzled when we pulled to a stop; we were still far from the safe house, in what was a mix between an industrial area and an older, rundown commercial district.

“Where are we?”

I said nothing, but swung off the bike and held my hand out for her.

“My lady,” I said, waiting patiently as she looked up at me. I could see the resentment warring with curiosity in her face, fighting for supremacy and control of her mood. I willed her to forgive me, but remained silent.

Finally, she let me take her hand and help her get off the motorcycle. She bent her knees slowly a few times, obviously sore from her first ever ride. “What are we doing here?”

“Well, we can’t drive back to the safe house right now, they are going to be swarming around the clubhouse and it’s not that far away. The neighborhood isn’t safe right now, especially with this bike. Marshall is going to meet us here and we’ll figure out our next steps.” I didn’t let go of her hand, instead pulling her along with me towards a short, squat structure.

A corner of the roof had fallen in, and it was clearly deserted and had been for some time. It sat next to a paved track behind a chain link fence, the pavement cracked and weeds growing indiscriminately across what used to be a tenderly cared for property.

A faded, garish sign read “Mad Tom’s Go Karts.”

The place was exactly as I remembered it; a little more ran-down, maybe, and certainly less busy, but there were enough happy memories in here to last a lifetime. I guided us right up to the fence, staring through the links and seeing things that were no longer there.

Jackie didn’t bother asking her questions, but I saw them written in her eyes.

“I used to come here all the time when I was younger,” I explained. “It was a great escape from the crushing poverty, whenever we had a couple dollars from a lucky lottery ticket or mom getting a couple of extra shifts at work, we came down here to get away from things for an afternoon.”

I was gratified to see Jackie take a look around with new appreciation. These days there wasn’t much to the place, but for a kid twenty years ago, this was the setting of endless adventure and dreams, the chance to run through the arcade, or take to the track and pretend to be a famous racecar driver.

“I take it this is where you learned to love driving fast?” she asked.

I nodded. “I was every champion race car driver whenever I came here. My kart was a finely tuned Ferrari racecar, and I stood on the podium after every race and sprayed champagne onto my admirers. Of course, the podium was a bucket and the champagne was a can of Coke.”

She laughed, the sound rich and velvety and so welcome after the silence and resentment of the drive. “And the adoring crowd?”

“Toy soldiers,” I said with a grin. “And the first time I brought them home without washing them and put them on the kitchen table was the last. My ass was sore for a week after mom had to wash the table down.”

We shared a heartfelt laugh, and Jackie let me slip an arm around her as she leaned into me and put her head on my shoulder.

The crunch of a car on the gravel behind us announced Marshall’s presence.

“There he is. We should get out of here quickly, you never know when the FBI might catch up to us.”

I turned as I spoke to see something I hadn’t been expecting. It wasn’t Marshall that had appeared, but a black SUV. Men in black suits poured out, four of them. Coming out of the passenger’s seat was McCrown. Our eyes met over Jackie’s head, his narrowing as they saw us wrapped in an embrace.

“Shit! Run!” I pulled Jackie along with me as I took off along the chain link fence, mind already racing, darting ahead of us, remembering the terrain I had once known so well.

Jackie had just been in a full-out sprint less than an hour beforehand, and I doubted that she would last very long against fresh agents.

Hell, I doubt I will be able to outrun them for long, even with this head start.
It had been a while since the marines, and although I had maintained my body, I knew I wasn’t in the same peak physical condition I had been then.

I scanned the path ahead, looking for an opportunity amongst the mostly abandoned buildings. There were a lot of dead ends, and dark corners, and there weren’t that many FBI agents.

There’s only one chance here.