Chaos Bound (26 page)

He pulled on his clothes, reached for his weapons. On the table beside his gun and holster, he found her note.

Gone for a walk? At midnight? With Viper and the ATF hunting her? What if she was hurt? Lost? What if they found her? What if she needed him?

Too agitated to wait for the elevator, he took the stairs two at a time down to the lobby. He checked with the night clerk and yes, she’d seen Naiya leaving about an hour ago, but no, she didn’t know where she’d gone.

Holt ran out the door and into the darkened street. A taxi driver waved to him, but he shook his head. Where would she go? Why the fuck would she walk around alone at night? Panic gripped him hard and he staggered against the wall. He couldn’t lose her. She was the only person who knew him when he didn’t even know himself, accepted him for the way he was now, not knowing how he was then. She was the only woman he had ever truly wanted—a woman he couldn’t imagine himself without.

She was Tank’s type of woman—small and beautiful, deeply passionate, quirky and funny—and yet she made Holt feel things he’d never felt before; she made him feel whole again, and he couldn’t go on if a piece of him was missing.

He looked left down the street, wondering if she would have headed toward the city. Or would she have gone right toward the residential area of town? He took a step to the left and he heard a sound. A voice. Laughter. Low and deep. So familiar. His heart skipped a beat, and then he saw them.

And in that moment his entire world imploded.

Tank. He would have known him anywhere. The same walk, the same set of his shoulders, the flash of the tattoo that matched Holt’s own. And Naiya. His once best friend with his girl. Laughing as if they’d known each other forever.

Maybe they had.

Maybe the joke was on him.

He slipped into the nearest alley, pressed his back up against the wall and took a deep breath. Tucked into his belt, he had a Glock 17 and a SIG P226. He’d holstered a Ruger P Series across his chest, along with a .22 on his left leg and an assortment of blades.

Vengeance would be his tonight.

He waited for the footsteps, the lilt of Naiya’s voice, Tank’s loud murmur. And yet vengeance was not his first thought as he stepped out of the alley, the Glock pointed at Tank’s chest. “Get away from her.”

Tank froze mid-step. The night air stilled around them. Time stopped. Holt looked into the eyes of the man he had called brother and saw himself. Walking dead.

“T-Rex.” Tank let out a ragged breath. “Fuck. I almost didn’t believe her. It’s so good to see you, brother. So fucking good.”

Holt’s mouth opened and closed again as emotion balled in his chest. Memories assailed him. He and Tank trawling the bars, polishing bikes, riding through the mountains, watching TV, playing vids, covering each other in shoot-outs, backing each other in fights, fishing, talking, laughing … so many memories. So much pain.

“Into the alley.”

Tank lifted his hands, palms forward. “Don’t shoot, brother. We were coming to see you. To explain.”

“Move.” He gestured them both into the dark alley with his gun, and checked the street for witnesses. When he was certain the coast was clear, he backed them up to the brick wall, fighting a wave of nausea from the heavy stench of decay coming from the garbage cans behind him.

“So was this all a set-up?” His gaze flicked to Naiya. “You knew him?”

“No.” Her face softened. “You said the Sinners hung out at Rider’s Bar, so I went there and asked for Tank. He’s come to explain what happened. They didn’t leave you behind, Holt. Just hear him out.”

Holt’s hand trembled, his finger on the trigger, his muscles tight, ready to fire. This was it. This was what he had lived for in the dungeon. Revenge. Justice. Payback. And yet Tank did nothing to defend himself. There was no fear in Tank’s eyes, just relief, joy, and goddamned tears.

“We came for you,” Tank said, his voice wavering. “From the moment Viper took you, all we did was to try to get you back. And you know who was out there every fucking day doing recon? Zane. He staked out the Black Jack clubhouse, shot hundreds of pictures and videos, brought it back so we knew everything … the timing of the guards, the layout of the compound, where you were and how to get to you. He pulled in every mark he had. Disobeyed Jagger and took a fucking beating for it.”

“Zane?” Holt couldn’t believe Zane gave a rat’s ass about him. The Sinner VP kept to himself, and never socialized with the brothers. Holt didn’t think Zane had ever said more than two words to him in the entire time he’d been at the club.

“Yeah, man.” Tank took a step forward. “He’s mellowed now that he’s got a kid. You saved Evie, brought their family together. Zane said he owed you a life debt. He even gave a speech at your funeral.”

His funeral. Because they thought he was dead after they’d left him in the dungeon. He raised the gun, gritted his teeth. “There wouldn’t have been a funeral if you’d come for me.”

Tank’s shoulders dropped. “Shoot me if that’s what it takes for you to go on, but you should know we were there. Thirty Sinners and Evie, too. Benson—he’s a prospect now if you can believe it—drove a truck filled with explosives into the Black Jack clubhouse. Sparky and Gunner blasted the door to the dungeon. They found a body. Same hair. Same build. But cut up so bad they couldn’t see the face. They found your medallion, too.”

“That wasn’t me.” It was stupid to say, he knew. Obviously, it wasn’t him. But still, how could they not know their own brother?

“I know,” Tank said gently. “If it had been me in that dungeon looking for you…” His corded throat tightened when he swallowed. “Anyway, it was an ambush. The Jacks had been tipped off about the raid. They had to leave the body behind. But I always knew…” He clenched his fist, smashed it into his palm. “I knew you weren’t dead. I never gave up. I chased every lead…” He heaved out a breath, dropped his hands to his knees. “Fuck. I never gave up. I never gave up. Never.”

Holt holstered his gun. Maybe it was all a lie, but it was a good one. And he knew who they’d found in the dungeon … a Devil Dog who’d tried to cheat the Jacks.

“Looks like no one is getting killed tonight, so I’ll … just go back to our room.” Naiya made a discrete exit, leaving them alone in the alley.

“Fuck it.” Tank closed the distance between them in three easy strides of his long legs. He wrapped his arms around Holt and hugged him. “Shoot me if that’s what you gotta do. Punch me. Stab me. I don’t fucking care.” His voice cracked, broke. “I thought you were dead, and here you are and I never felt so fucking happy in all my life.”

Tank broke. Sobbed. His body shuddering. Holt swallowed past the lump in his throat, his arms dangling uselessly by his sides as emotion threatened to consume him.

This.

Words could be twisted, actions misinterpreted. But true emotion—where a man as strong as Tank would cry in his arms—couldn’t be feigned.

His vision blurred. Holt never cried. Not when he’d spent two years in juvenile detention. Not when he found out what happened to his sister. Not when Viper had beat him or when he gave up hope the Sinners would come. But nothing had hurt as much as the thought Tank had betrayed him, and to see him again, know Tank had been looking for him all this time …

I never gave up. Never.

Holt wrapped his arms around Tank’s shoulders and let himself go.

EIGHTEEN

Naiya had only a few seconds warning—the faint rasp of the key card in the lock—before Holt slammed open the door to their hotel room.

She shot up in the bed, pulled the sheet around her, and braced herself for the oncoming storm. She’d spent the last two hours alone in their hotel room, emailing resumes and figuring out what to do next. Holt was back with the Sinners, and Conundrum was a safe haven from the Jacks. They didn’t need each other any more, and she had to get on with her life. So why did it hurt so much?

“You had no right to get involved.” Holt burst into the bedroom, flipped on the light.

He looked wrecked, his hair mussed, face haggard, eyes red, cheeks streaked. Almost as if he’d been tortured all over again.

“You were going to kill an innocent man.” Her heart pounded in her chest, the urge to run almost overwhelming. But this was Holt. She trusted him like she’d never trusted anyone before.

“You should have come to me after you found him. You should have given me the choice about what to do.” He scraped his hand through his hair, paced the room, distraught.

“He’s your best friend, Holt. Did you not want to see him? Didn’t you want to hear the truth?”

“I don’t know.” He pounded his fist on the window. Again and again. “I don’t fucking know.”

Naiya wanted to go to him, hold him, but she’d never seen him so agitated—not even in the weapons shed when he thought she intended to betray him. “What happened? When I left, I thought things were good between you.”

Holt pressed his forehead against the glass. “At first they were. We talked about the club. He filled me in on what I missed. The Sinners and all their support clubs are going to hit the Jacks at the Sandy Lake rally on the weekend, try to end the war. I should be happy, us going after Viper together. But I can’t erase what’s in my head. Three months of thinking they abandoned me. Three months of hating them. Three months of living solely for revenge. I told Tank not to tell the brothers he saw me until I got my shit together. I’m not the same man. I don’t feel the same about them. It’s like those ties broke, and they can’t be fixed.” He bashed his forehead against the glass and Naiya slid off the bed and ran over to him.

“Stop. Don’t hurt yourself.” She slid under his arm, and pushed him away from the window. He was cold, inside and out, and she shivered against him.

“I understand. Not many people would, but I do. I almost shot Viper after what he did to me. Even after I left Devil’s Hills, I couldn’t let it go, and it took me a long time to come to terms with the fact I wasn’t the same girl anymore.”

“Let what go? You never told me what happened. What did Viper do to you?”

She’d never told anyone except Ally. Not even Maurice. She didn’t want anyone to treat her differently, like she was made of glass, or, worse, in need of sympathy. She’d become adept at hiding her lack of arousal, so the issue never came up. And Maurice had never asked. Looking back, she realized that should have been a warning something wasn’t right with their relationship, but at the time she’d been happy not to feel pressured.

Holt was different. He was live to her issues even though he didn’t know why. Now he wanted to know. And she wanted to tell him.

“He raped me,” she said into his chest. “I was fifteen, alone on my birthday. Arianne’s brother Jeff invited me to the Black Jack clubhouse where they were having a party. I knew better, and if I hadn’t been feeling sorry for myself I wouldn’t have gone, but Jeff had always been kind and he said he’d look out for me. But he was high when I got there, totally out of it. I was about to leave when Viper started talking to me. I was awed and flattered he even noticed me. He spiked my drink and touched me. He was gentle. Seductive. He said sweet things. I let my guard down and went with him to his office. The minute the door closed, everything changed. I don’t remember that much about what he did to me. I’d never … It was my first time and he knew it.”

“Son of a bitch,” Holt muttered. “Son of a fucking bitch.”

She stumbled over her words, not wanting to tell him that she remembered a lot more than she was letting on: terror, horror, torn clothes, hard desk, frantic pleas, begging, screaming, crying, slaps and punches, pain—so much pain, the sting of the blade on her skin, the burn of the tattoo gun on her arm, disgust, humiliation and utter despair. But worse had been waking naked, cold, and alone on his office floor, marked, discarded, and filled with self-loathing for her innocence and stupidity.

“My mom was at the party.” Her voice wavered. “She saw him with me. She knew what he wanted. She never stopped him. Never came into the office when I screamed. And afterward, when I went to her apartment for help, she told me to go back to him or he’d take out his anger on her. I refused, so she threw me out. I had nowhere to go, no one to turn to. They owned the cops and social services. They owned everyone in Devil’s Hills.”

“I got no words, darlin’.” Holt hugged her tight.

Warm in his embrace, she found the strength to go on. “After a couple of weeks on the streets, I hit rock bottom. I used the last of my cash to buy a gun to kill Viper. My grandmother’s priest saw me at a crosswalk. He must have seen something in my face because he convinced me to go the rectory with him. I told him everything and he got me out of town, found me a place to live with a family in Missoula where I could babysit in exchange for rent and food. They were good people. They encouraged me to finish high school and when I got my first job, I paid the priest back … every cent. He saved me, not just from Viper, but from myself.”

Holt let loose a string of curses, his body going rigid. “Goddamn bastard is gonna fucking pay for everything he did to you. I’m not going to kill him easy. I’m gonna drag it out. Make him suffer the way I suffered, the way you suffered. I’m gonna make him wish for death, and it won’t happen until there’s nothing left to kill.”

“Do it for yourself,” she said. “I’m done with it. I’ll never forgive him for what he did, but I don’t want blood. I’ve worked too hard to make a new life for myself. I don’t want to dredge up all those old memories. What he did affected me, but it didn’t destroy me like killing him would have. If I’d gone down that road, I don’t think I would have come back.”

“You saying I shouldn’t go after him?”

Naiya shook her head. “I’m saying it’s not the right thing for me, but it’s taken me seven years to get to move on and accept I am not the same person anymore, even though I didn’t pull the trigger. I had to settle in my skin, see the world through different eyes. Now I just want to live my life in peace.”

“Do you?” Holt held her lightly, sighed. “You aren’t living, darlin’; you’re hiding, and until he’s dead you’ll always be hiding, looking over your shoulder, waiting for the next time he comes for you. And he will come unless you make him pay. Justice is for civilians. Revenge is for bikers, and you got biker blood in you. I saw it when we were in that dungeon and you were pounding on the door and cursing the living daylights out of Viper. I saw it when you kept your cool when we were escaping and when you fucking drugged my sorry ass. I saw it in the bar when you didn’t back down from the ATF agent on the hunt. And I’ll bet the brothers saw it when you walked alone into a one-percenter biker bar wearing your pretty pink sweater and looking like you just stepped out of a
Good Home
magazine.”