Cutter 3 (2 page)

I sighed and pushed myself outside.

Fuck.

Chapter Two

GRACE

I pressed my head down on the seat in
front of me and scrunched my knees up closer to my chest. I felt like if I took
too deep of a breath then Cutter or Blaze were going to hear and then discover
me, hidden in the back of their black town car.

I glanced out the window at the rain
dripping down hard on the glass. Thank God that it had been raining today or
Cutter and Blaze probably would have taken their bikes to where ever we were
headed.

And by we, I meant them.

I wasn’t technically invited, but I’d
snuck into the backseat anyway.

I couldn’t help it. I was so worried
about Cutter, I wasn’t going to let him walk off into an ambush and get shot
just because he was trying to protect me. And he wouldn’t talk to me about
anything that was going on; he wouldn’t even hear me out.

So, really, he left me no choice.

The only way to keep up on what the
hell was going on was to follow him and listen in on whatever the hell he was going
to do. Not that it was of much use so far. Cutter was so tense that Blaze and
him were barely saying anything at all. The silence in the car was filled with
tension and emotion.

I peeked up over the side of the seat
and took in Cutter’s hard face and intense demeanor. He was clutching the
steering wheel so damn tight that his knuckles were white. I hated seeing him
this way, so worked up. So determined to walk into a dangerous situation.

“If you keep that up, you’re going to
lose the feeling in your hands.”

Cutter jumped, like he had forgotten
Blaze was there.

“Relax.” Blaze glanced out the window.
“Nothing has even happened yet.”

"I just told Grace the same
shit." Cutter shook his head. “I don’t want to drag this out. The longer
we work on a plan like this, the more chance there is that Stone and the rest
of his brothers get a heads up on the fact that we’re coming. And if that
happens…”

“It won’t,” Blaze assured him. “I
already have one of my boys on the ground out there, taking in the surveillance
outside. Shutter is on his way to the warehouse now with the building
blueprints. We will study them; figure out where Stone is most likely to be,
then start to assemble a team.”

“Shutter,” Cutter mumbled, laughing.

“Hey, at least, he’s good for
something.” Blaze chuckled, trying to lighten the mood.

It worked for a second. “Yeah, you
know he’s going to show up all excited about our newest ‘mission.’” He looked
at Blaze out of the corner of his eye. “And how he can’t wait to come along and
help.”

“And then be all devastated when you
tell him he has to sit this one out.”

“One of these days I’m going to have
to actually let him come along.” Cutter finally let up on the wheel a little
bit. “I can’t keep telling him he’s not ready forever.”

“Yeah, right. If you let him come
anywhere with us, he’ll be killed in a second and you know it.” Cutter didn’t
say anything and Blaze let out a huff. “Don’t even think about it, Cutter.”

“He might surprise us,” Cutter pointed
out.

“You’ll end his life. He can’t handle
any mission right now, let alone one involving Green Grove. You might as well
put a fucking bullet in his head yourself and save him the travel time.”

“Fine, then you tell him this time.
I’m sick of seeing that damn look in his eyes, it’s the same one Heather just
gave me when I left her back at the fucking bar.”

Blaze dug into his pocket and a second
later I saw the glow of his screen coming to life. “Heather will be fine and so
will Shutter, he’s lucky that we humor him at all.”

“I want to move as soon as possible.”
Cutter tightened his grip again, forgetting about Shutter. “I think we should
be on route by tomorrow night at the absolute latest.”

I gulped. Tomorrow night? That was so
soon.

“We can’t just move without a plan or
without knowing what we’re getting ourselves into. We walk in there blindly and
we won’t make it far, if we need to take a little extra time to make sure we
get the job done right then so be it.”

“I’m just so anxious,” Cutter mumbled.
“I want to get in there.”

He sounded calmer than he did back in
the room, though, a lot calmer. And his intense stare was down a couple notices
now. It finally occurred to me just how much being around Blaze relaxed him. He
trusted him more than he trusted anything else in his life. That was clear.

“And we will,” Blaze said calmly.
“When we’re prepared and when we’re armed with the right team. If we walk in
there with a bunch of pussy’s we’ll be on our own anyway.”

“All I need is you,” Cutter told him.

Blaze patted him on the shoulder.
“Ride or die.”

“Oh, don’t get all emotional on me
now.” Cutter patted him on the shoulder roughly but after a second he laughed
and nodded, “ride or die.”

I couldn’t help the small smile that
was forming on my face. It was a pretty sweet scene, reminded me of the
relationship I had with my sister. Of course, neither one of us would be
considered as dangerous as Cutter nor Blaze was.

Cutter reached down and hit the light
on his phone. “I have like four missed calls from Heather, she probably wants to
pick up right where we left off.” He tossed his phone into Blaze’s lap. “I
really don’t want to deal with her, she brought up the M word.”

Blaze let out a low whistle. “She’s
still on the whole where’s Mom train, huh?” I could hear the clicking of electronic
buttons on the screen as Blaze unlocked Cutter’s phone.

“That bitch isn’t my mother,” Cutter
hissed.

A shiver raced up and down my arms.
I’d never thought to ask Cutter about his mother. I guess I had just assumed
that things didn’t work out with Cutter’s father and her and they still kept in
touch. I should have known better than to assume anything when it came to
Cutter’s life.

“Of course, she isn’t.” Blaze held the
phone to his ear. “The word mother implies that she actually did something for
you in your life.”

Cutter didn't answer him and Blaze
didn’t press it.

Another reason I was sure he was a
real best friend.

“Heather,” Blaze suddenly sounded
detached and professional. “You rang?” There was a pause on Blaze’s end of the
line. “I’m aware that you called your brother but I’m the one calling you back
so why don’t you tell me what it is that you want?”

I rolled my eyes the way I always
seemed to do when I had to watch Blaze and Heather interact with one another.
How long were they going to do this for? It was clear even to me that the two
of them belonged together.

“What does it matter where your
brother is?” He glanced at Cutter. “He’s in the middle of something very
important and can’t make it to the phone. The damn president of the United States
couldn’t even reach him right now, that’s how tied up he is.”

Cutter cracked up at this, enjoying
Blaze’s attitude toward his sister.

“No, Heather, no pun intended.”

The thought of
Heather
walking in on me while I was tied up on her brother’s bed raced through my mind
and I felt myself flush. What was I, a running joke between the brotherhood
now?

Cutter scowled, seconding my motion.

“Just tell me what you want,” Blaze
howled, the playfulness gone from his voice. “I’m not yelling at you, you’re
calling me names and we’re kind of busy over here, we don’t have the time for
your
back and forth.”

“Tell her to stop being a baby,”
Cutter laughed, speeding up on the busy street he was cruising down. A light
turned yellow in the distance and Cutter sped up, not wanting to wait for it to
change green again. A few people honked as he zoomed through but Cutter seemed
unconcerned.

“Okay, Heather, bye!” Blaze shouted,
threatening to hang up.

Blaze didn’t say anything for a second
and then he shot Cutter a confused look. “Where’s Grace? Heather can’t find
her.”

Crap. Crap. Crap.

“She’s down in the bar like I told
her.”

Blaze shook his head. “She’s not
there, the bartender said she never came back down after she chased you out of
there.”

“She didn’t chase me out,” Cutter
pointed out. “She was worried. Tell Heather she’s in our room then.”

“Your brother says she’s in their
room,” he paused. “You might want to knock first, I’m not sure if he tied her
up or not before he left.”

Ugh, so juvenile. Why was
Heather
even looking for me in the first place? Why couldn’t
she mind her own business? She had probably come back to insult me even more
since the last time she had seen me she had pretty much called me her brother’s
whore.

“She’s not in your room, either.”

“Of course, she’s in our room, that’s
where I told her to go.” He grabbed the phone from Blaze and shoved it up to
his ear. “She’s either in our room or down at the bar, check again then call me
back.” He hit the end button on his phone and tossed it onto the dash.

Cutter accelerated.

“I’m sure she’s there something.”
Blaze caught his phone as it slid down the dashboard and almost crashed onto
the floor. “No one is stupid enough to walk into Red Sin territory and take
her. And she’s not stupid enough to leave with everything going on.”

Go ahead and call me stupid.

Cutter didn’t say anything, turning
over the information in his mind. His phone started vibrating and before Blaze
had even had a chance to pick up Cutter sighed and switched lanes, getting ready
to turn around. “Where the fuck is she?”

Blaze picked up without even saying
hello. “We’re on our way back.”

Cutter slammed on his breaks to avoid
hitting a truck in front of him and my body landed with a long thump on the
other side of the car. Blaze reached under his seat, revealing a gun within
seconds and turning it on me with fury in his eyes.

“It’s me! It’s me!” I cried
desperately, holding my hands up in the air while trying to sit my body upright
again at the same time. “Don’t shoot at me!”

Blaze let out a sigh of relief. “Never
mind.” He hit the end button.

Cutter swerved the car over onto the
side of the road and slammed down on the breaks. “Grace!” He turned around,
anger written all over his face. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

I knew it sounded crazy but I honestly
didn’t think I was going to get caught. Now that I had I wasn’t sure what the
heck to do. I pretended to look around the car, trying my best to plaster a
puzzled expression on my face. “Is this not my car? I could have sworn that it
was.”

Blaze shot Cutter a look.

A look that said, hey, she’s your
property, you deal with her.

“I thought I left an earring in here…”

“Save it, Grace,” Cutter barked. “You
snuck in the car and followed me? What could you possibly have been thinking?”
He threw the car into park and turned his body toward me. His eyes were black,
drained with any type of positive emotion.

What was I thinking? What did he think
I was thinking? I cared about him! “I was thinking that you wouldn’t tell me
anything about what was going on! I was thinking that I care about you.
Cutter!”

He sighed. “I appreciate that you care
about me, Grace, but you can’t be here. You aren’t even supposed to be out of
the room, let alone coming along to a committee meeting.”

“You keep putting yourself in
dangerous situations, Grace.” Blaze added. “You want to be a part of this life?
You have to play by the rules we lay out for you.”

Who the fuck was Blaze to tell me what
kind of rules I did or didn’t have to follow? I looked at Cutter for help but
he was just nodding like Blaze had a point.

Maybe he did, but I didn’t care.

And I definitely didn’t want to hear
it.

“Fine, you’re right. I’m just a big
idiot who doesn’t know right from wrong.” I swung open the back door. “Since
I’m such a little girl who can’t handle the rules I guess I shouldn’t be here
at all!” I jumped out of the car and slammed the door shut behind me.

I took off down the road on foot.

“Good job on deciding to keep her,” I
heard Blaze remind him smugly.

The driver side door swung open and I
heard Cutter’s boots behind me, he caught up easily. “Grace.” He grabbed me by
the arm and swung my body around, stopping me from going any further. “You
can’t be doing stuff like this, especially not right now.”

We were halfway into the middle of the
road and cars started swerving off to the left in order to pass by without
hitting us but I didn’t even care, all I cared about was Cutter.

“What was I supposed to do? Sit back
in that room and worry about you all damn night, Cutter?
And
the night after that, too?
I don’t want you to do all of this for me!”