Dauntless (Sons of Templar MC) (36 page)

On that note, there was a weird popping sound followed by a splattering of warm liquid on my cheek.

I turned, frowning.

“Scott, if you just—” I sucked in my words when my eyes landed on the air where Scott used to be. It was empty.

Because at my feet was Scott’s body. Half of his head was gone.

I blinked down at it, frozen as I watched the blood spread from his skull to the edges of my boots.

These are new
, I thought distractedly.

After a blinding white pain in my temple, I didn’t think anything.

* * *

I
didn’t wake slowly
, or groggily. It was a snap, and then I was conscious. With a really bad headache.

My head lolled around a bit before I could make it stay in one place.

“Becky.”

The voice snapped me back into the land of reality. The urgency in it. The panic.

I blinked. I was on a chair in the clubhouse, my hands bound behind my back uncomfortably.

That didn’t matter.

What mattered was that Gabriel was in front of me, blood running down his head and gushing from a hole in shoulder. Yeah, a hole. A big one. The leather of his cut had been ripped through and the black was now maroon.

“Someone shot you,” I exclaimed, my voice shaking. I glanced down at my boots. “Someone shot Scott too,” I added, my voice small. My stomach roiled. “He’s dead, though.” I said the words, but I didn’t believe them. He wasn’t dead. Couldn’t be. I just got hit on the head too hard. He’d be fine.

Gabriel’s eyes hardened. “Becky,” he clipped urgently. “Are you okay?”

I gaped at him. “You’re shot, and you’re asking me if I’m okay? Are you fucking insane? Wait, I know you are, and you’re a tough man, but that”—I nodded to the wound—“is a bullet hole. You can’t just rub some dirt on it.”

He smiled weakly. “Yeah, you’re okay.”

“Why are we tied up?” I asked, slightly delayed.

His face went hard.

“I can answer that,” a smooth voice exclaimed as a very expensive-looking loafer stepped in front of me. I gazed up at its owner, wearing an equally expensive-looking suit. A white suit.

“Let me guess: John Travolta,
Saturday Night Fever
?” I asked.

An alligator grin, all teeth and no humor. And promises to rip me apart. “I see the little three-week stay you had with my boys didn’t do much good shutting that mouth.” He shook his head. “You can’t hire good goons these days. Can’t even break a white-trash junkie.”

“I’m going to fuckin’ kill you,” Gabriel roared, struggling against his bounds like a wild thing.

The man in front of me with the small beady eyes and a slick comb-over grinned but didn’t look his way. “Oh no, I think I’m going to be the one to do that, considering I’m the one holding this.” He waved a gun. “But first I’ll make you watch while I kill this one.” He lifted the gun to stroke my cheek. I flinched away from the cold steel but didn’t lower my gaze. No way was I going to give in to the terror creeping up my throat. That’s exactly what he wanted.

“I thought it would be poetic, to start with the couple I began this whole campaign with,” he drawled, glancing to Gabriel, whose eyes were wild as he continued to struggle against his binds despite the fact blood was flowing freely from his shoulder. “I had wanted to start with the biker scum and his slut who killed my father, but I thought that’d be much too obvious. I needed you to think it was because of this particular junkie.” He nodded at me.

“
Ex
-junkie,” I corrected on a hiss.

He smiled at me. “My mistake.” He tilted his head at me. “I didn’t expect you to manage to get clean. To not overdose in some tragic end. That had been the plan.” He reached into his pocket and before I even saw it, I knew what it was. It was like I could fucking smell it.

He regarded the syringe, twisting it between his fingers. “I guess I don’t have to abandon the plan completely, even though you and your
brothers
”—he spat the word at Gabriel—“have retired all of my business partners.” His gaze went back to me. “I’m a reasonable man. I like my plans. And it vexed me when you didn’t go to plan. See, of everything that I thought could go wrong, all the chaos, I thought the junkie with childhood issues would be the surest thing. You’d be the biggest distraction so the entire club would be focusing on their bleeding limb and wouldn’t notice when I came in and chopped the head off.” He stepped forward, and the allure of what he held in his hand did the same. “But you were the thread that unraveled it all.”

I sneered at him. “Well, I’m sorry I fucked up your little plan. I’ll send a card to your funeral.”

He smiled. “Still so sure, what, that your man will come and save you?” He glanced to Gabriel. The cords in his neck were almost exploding with the effort of his struggle, his helpless eyes on me. “Sorry, that’s not going to happen. You’re not getting saved.”

I felt the ties at my hands give and I grinned. “No, I’m not,” I agreed. “Because I’m saving myself.” In one swift move, I lifted my arms. I had two options, snatching the gun or the syringe.

I took the syringe. And without hesitation, I plunged it into his neck.

He was taken by surprise, obviously not expecting a helpless woman, a junkie at that, to make such a move. He stumbled back, lifting his gun sluggishly.

“Becky, get out of the fuckin’ way!” Gabriel roared.

Instead, I stepped forward and snatched the gun from his hand, unworried. It came easily as his eyes glazed over with the telltale effect of the high.

I lifted the gun and instead of holding it to his head, I moved downwards and pulled the trigger.

He crumpled to the ground, screaming soundlessly.

Happy that he wouldn’t be causing trouble, I rushed to Gabriel.

“Stop moving,” I snapped. “You’re shot and bleeding.”

I reached around to untie his binds, but they were zip-ties. He got the legit stuff; obviously the dickless dick hadn’t worried about me getting out of mine.

“Knife, in my belt,” he grunted.

I grabbed the dangerous-looking knife and moved to his back.

“Don’t cut yourself,” he warned.

I yanked it through the plastic, freeing his hands. “Yes, because I just overpowered a man who got the best of you but I’ll cut myself on a knife,” I snapped.

The second he was free he surged up, yanking me into his arms. “You okay, baby? You hurt anywhere?” His eyes went up and down my body.

I quirked a brow. “You’re bleeding from a bullet wound. Take that question, flip it, and reverse it.”

His jaw hardened. “I’m fine. It’s a flesh wound.”

“Yes, of course it is.”

“You stole my part,” he said, his eyes light.

“What part was that?”

He clutched my face. “The saving you part,” he murmured.

I smiled against his mouth. “Yeah, well, maybe I can save myself.”

“You can save us both, baby. But before I show you how fuckin’ hot that is, we’ve got business.”

His eyes went hard, granite, and he stepped back, taking the gun from my hands. He turned to the bleeding lump on the floor and started to circle him.

“You’re going to die. But not yet. Not even in the near future,” he told him. I doubted he could fathom his words as he was not only high but bleeding from a crotch bullet wound. “But it’ll happen. I’ve got a brother who’s so very anxious to meet you.”

“Step away from him and put down the gun, Lucky,” a voice said from the doorway.

Gabriel’s gaze snapped up and he held the gun at the owner of the voice, lowering it immediately when he saw Luke. Or maybe when he saw Rosie standing beside him.

She gave me a grim smile. There was blood staining her white dress.

Not hers.

I paled.

She’d found Scott.

“Can’t do that, Luke,” Gabriel replied easily. “This swine”—he kicked who I deduced was Devlin—“is the reason Skid is dead. The reason Becky almost fuckin’
died
.” His gaze flickered to Rosie, who was reaching into her purse. “Why Rosie was almost blown into a thousand pieces. So I suggest you leave, pretend you didn’t see a thing.”

Luke’s jaw was hard. “My father may do that shit but not me. I can’t turn a blind eye to this.” His gaze flickered, like he was faltering in his resolve, but he didn’t lower his gun. “Don’t make me shoot you.”

I glared at him. “Dude, in case you hadn’t noticed, he’s already been fucking shot,” I snapped.

Rosie tugged on his shoulder. “Luke, don’t do this. You know what he did. You know he deserves this. Just leave. Let us handle this,” she said in a small voice.

Luke’s gaze didn’t lower, nor did his gun. “I can’t do that, Rosie.” His voice was losing some of its earlier iron, though. “I don’t want to, but I’ll shoot him if I have to. Arrest him.”

Rosie nodded gravely. “Yeah I know,” her voice was sad, resigned.

The she stepped into the line of fire. “But you won’t shoot me.” Her heels clicked as she moved forward, calmly retrieved her gun from her bag, and put a bullet in the man’s head.

It was just like the anticlimactic moment at Aimless. ‘Blink and you miss it’ kind of action.

He stopped moving.

The silence that echoed through the room was deafening.

Rosie and Luke engaged in a stare-off, his horrified face locked on hers.

“Holy fuck,” Gabriel muttered, eyes darting from Rosie to the body.

“You got that right,” I muttered.

“You going to arrest me?” she asked, her voice even.

He shook his head, lowering his gun. Then he turned and walked out the door.

Rosie’s glistening eyes followed his exit.

I had to get the skinny on that, but not with my man shot and a dead body on the floor.

“Rosie, you need to call the doctor and your brother,” I ordered.

Rosie jerked out of her trance and nodded. “Yep. Got it.” She unearthed her phone, stepped over the man she’d just killed like he was a downed log, and went to the corner of the room.

I turned to Gabriel, my hand on his shoulder. “Please don’t die,” I requested, my voice starting to shake. “I’m really fond of you.”

He lifted his bloodied hand to cup my face. “Ain’t going fuckin’ nowhere, baby. Holding a very convincing reason to live right here.”

“Fucking Hollywood,” I muttered. “It tricked us. Before that it was books. But not real books. Shakespeare, Emily Brönte, they were all trying to tell us what a fucking tragedy love was, but somehow the Hallmark people made a miracle out of tragedy. Convinced us this love thing was something to strive for, to exist for. Told us it was beautiful thing that enriched your life, set your soul on fire. You know what? Your soul is the house your sanity lives in. So when love sets your soul on fire, it’s burning your fucking house down. Hollywood doesn’t tell you that. That the moment you love, your sanity goes up in flames.”

“Baby, if I got you, I’m happy with insanity.”

I rolled my eyes at him. “What are you talking about? You’ve always been insane. This isn’t a change for you. It’s
me
I’m worried about.”

He gave me a warm look, one that hit my toes. Like we weren’t standing in front of a body and he wasn’t bleeding from a bullet wound. “You’re trying to convince me of your sanity?” He chuckled, yanking me to his side so he could kiss my head. “Well, that’s the beauty of insanity, firefly. No worries. We can just be happy in our padded cells with each other for company.”

“
T
hat’s
the lesson of life, isn’t it? It gives us one person who both shows us that true love exists and fairy tales don’t.”

-Leo Christopher

“I’m coming.”

I folded my arms. “You’re not.”

His hazel eyes narrowed. “I thought we’d established the mutual need for hand-holding in these situations, and my required presence when a man has his hands all over my woman.”

I cocked a hip. “Seriously? You’re gonna play that card?”

He went for innocent. “What card?”

“The one that is guaranteed to piss me off because the notion of getting jealous over my
gay
tattoo artist is batty, even for you.”

“Even for me? What’s that supposed to mean?”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m going. You’re not. End of.”

“Try and go without me, see what happens,” he challenged, an erotic glint in his eyes.

Despite my irritation, my downstairs area responded to that glint. I ignored it and grinned wickedly at him. “Oh, I’ll see what happens when I go to the club party tonight and inform your brothers about your affinity for rainbow magic.”

He gasped, putting his muscled, tattooed hand on his chest. “You wouldn’t.”

I cocked a brow. “Try me.”

“You’re meant to love me,” he argued.

“All’s fair in love and war,” I responded, hitching my bag on my shoulder. I tried to go around him but he didn’t move.

“You’re evil.”

“You love it,” I shot back.

His eyes flickered. “Yeah, baby, I fuckin’ do. And you’ll get punished for using that against me,” he promised, his voice velvet.

My stomach dipped. “I look forward to it.”

Then I scuttled past him before I could forget the whole tattoo and let him cuff me to the bed and punish me right then and there.

Which was tempting.

Very tempting.

But I had plans.

A lot of them.

Finishing my sleeve was top of the list, and later in the week I had three assignments due. I was a procrastinator of the ninth degree so I was yet to start them.

Gabriel always scolded me for doing that and got all pissed and worried for my well-being when I didn’t sleep for forty-eight hours and drank six coffees a day.

He was weird like that.

I was studying to be a social worker, planning on putting my experience to use. Instead of forgetting my dark past, I was going to utilize it to help little girls and boys who had the same start as me.

I would make sure they didn’t have the same end.

Though, arguably, my end was not bad.

After that day in the club, it was. Bad, that is. Burying Scott was hard. Horrible. I’d never had many friends, so it hit me hard having to watch one be put in the ground. I had nightmares for months after that.

Gabriel was always there to chase them away, the ones that could be, at least. The ones that couldn’t, he showed me how to live with them.

Rosie disappeared.

The day of Scott’s death. Right after she’d called in the cavalry, she just slipped off. Gabriel and I had been kind of busy and hadn’t noticed.

Cade flew off the handle, until he got a call that she was okay, just ‘on vacation,’ whatever that meant.

I thought it might have a lot to do with the look she’d shared with Luke and the shit that went down.

He didn’t bother the club for the four months he stayed in town, not even a parking ticket.

Then he left.

L.A. was the rumor. I reckoned he was on the hunt. For Rosie. At least I hoped. I missed my friend. I wanted that insane chick to have her very own fucked-up happy ever after. And if it was with Luke, you could guarantee it’d be fucked-up.

I missed my friend but I had a lot more that were equally as crazy, in different ways. I found my place with them.

And two weeks ago, Gabriel slid a glittering black diamond on my finger. “You’re not arguing with me on this or I swear to God I’ll pay off a judge and let him marry us while I have you cuffed to the bed.”

So I was engaged. We weren’t married yet but Gabriel already had a black band tattooed on his left finger.

“You’re meant to wait until it’s legal for that,” I pointed out, my voice shaky after he’d had it done.

He yanked me to his chest. “I’m an outlaw, baby. We spit in the face of laws.”

So apparently, in outlaw world, we were already married.

Though Gwen, Lily, and Amy would have heart attacks if we didn’t have the wedding. They were already planning it.

I had no input in anything, apart from the dress.

“Black?” Gwen had cried. “A black wedding dress?”

I nodded.

“But it’s traditional to wear white.”

I quirked my brow at her. “Babe, anything about me look traditional?”

She gave me a once-over and grinned. “You’re right. Black is perfect.”

So there was that.

I wasn’t cured, or free. I still struggled every day. Had a standing date with Gage every single week to go to meetings.

I was seeing a shrink too. Lily had to half drag me to the office, but even someone as stubborn as me knew that having a panic attack at the sight of a stuffed fucking bunny meant I needed to subject myself to serious therapy.

I couldn’t be afraid of fucking
bunnies
. So I went. And hated the first session. Hated that I spent half of it sobbing like an idiot, while Jonathan got his hands dirty reaching into my head. But I was getting used to it. Jonathan wasn’t a bad dude either, as far as shrinks went.

I still had nightmares. Half of me was still cloaked in black. But I was learning to live with it. Embrace it.

Which was what I was doing at the tattoo parlor—embracing the last of it.

* * *

“
F
inally
,” Gabriel bellowed as soon as I closed the door.

He almost pounced on me before I’d even put my bag down.

“Down, tiger. Did you get into the sugar while I was away?”

He ignored me. “Show me,” he demanded.

Apparently I wasn’t quick enough because he snatched my hand. Though his touch didn’t match his impatience. It was gentle, unhurried, reverent.

He turned my arm over to reveal the last piece in my sleeve covering my forearm.

Gently, he pulled off the plastic wrap protecting the fresh tattoo.

Then he froze.

The last piece of my fairy tale was my prince charming. Of course, that’s how they all ended, didn’t they? The man coming in to save the day.

Though Rosie and I had kind of turned that one on its head.

Half of my tattoo was the chiseled jaw, floaty-haired, Abercrombie prince, riding his steed and brandishing a sword. The other half was a sharp-jawed, tattooed biker with no hair in sight. He wasn’t riding a steed but a Harley, and his hands gripped a semiautomatic weapon instead of a sword. And no finery like the other guy. His leather cut was clearly visible thanks to the fact that Lex was a fucking magician.

He stared at it for five full minutes without saying anything.

“Does it hurt?” he asked finally, his voice thick.

I met his eyes. “Always,” I whispered. “But it’s the best kind of pain.”

“That…. Am I the hero or the villain?”

“You’re both,” I replied. “And neither. You’re my damnation and salvation. Because you didn’t save me. I wasn’t looking to be saved. But you gave me life. A home in the darkness. And in my opinion, that’s better than any happy ever after anyone could ever get.”

He pulled me into a savage kiss, proving for hours, and years, to come that he was in no way a hero. And that he was. My hero and my villain. My damnation and salvation.

And I was totally down with that.