Haven: Renegade Saints MC (23 page)

Max

I walked into the lobby of the Hotel Azure and dropped the duffel bag on the floor with a loud bang. It was a swanky hotel—lots of marble and dark wood everywhere—and no one noticed as Silas and I made our way through the lobby.

“What room?” I barked at Silas under my breath.

“What?” He turned to me with a confused look on his pale, sweaty face. “What are you talking about?”

I grabbed his throat and slammed him against a wall. “The room that we need to get into, dipshit,” I hissed. “Tell me, you asshole! You better not have dragged me out all the way here for nothing!”

Silas stammered and flushed. “Um, room 1082,” he said under his breath. “This hotel has shorter ceilings than the Grand Best.”

“Thanks for that little lesson,” I growled, dropping him to the ground. “You better keep your fucking mouth shut now, you hear?”

Silas shivered and groaned. He rolled his eyes and started off in the direction of the elevator banks. Somehow, we managed to pass by the front desk unseen. I’d always had a gift for blending in, but this was the ultimate need for stealth. There was no way I was letting this asshole ruin my chances of catching Talia and finding Tori safe and sound. No fucking way.

“Do you have the key?”

“What?” Silas looked at me with a dopey expression. “What key?”

I could have fucking killed him right then and there. “The key to the room, moron,” I hissed. “Room 1082.”

Silas shook his head. “I thought you would pay for it,” he said, laughing nervously and twitching to one side. He looked like an evil version of a chicken hopping around on one leg, and I shook my head in disgust.

“You’re fucking useless,” I snarled. “Do you know that?”

Silas glanced down at the floor. “That’s what people tell me,” he replied.

I sighed. “We’re not getting anywhere by doing this,” I said. “Come on.”

Silas followed me into the elevator as I dropped the bag on the floor and punched the button labeled
10
. As the elevator jerked and ground to a start, I felt my heartbeat start to flutter in my chest. I was mere feet away from Talia, but it didn’t feel like I thought it would. Instead of being excited, I was actually dreading the moment I laid eyes on her. I couldn’t believe it; I thought after years of being parted with the only woman I’d ever loved, I’d be more ecstatic than this. But right now Talia was filing me with thoughts of dread. I couldn’t even get excited about what it would feel like to fuck her again—my mind was too clouded with what was going on.

Floor ten was almost empty. Some of the rooms were open and Hispanic maids were bustling around in crisp, starched uniforms looking both overworked and underpaid. I tried to stop one of them but she made a little ‘psst’ sound with her teeth and scooted around me like I’d merely been in her way the whole time.

“Maybe one of them can give us the key?” Silas whispered as he sidled up beside me. “I’m sure they have access to all of the rooms.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I snapped. “They’re not going to give us shit. I bet they don’t even speak English.”

Silas sniffed, like I’d offended him by turning him down. Now that he didn’t have anything more useful to offer me, I couldn’t wait until it was time for him to go. I could barely stand next to him without wanting to rip him limb from limb and get revenge for all of the horrible, hateful things he’d done to Tori.

Maybe that was why I was having such a hard time relaxing, maybe
that
was why I couldn’t get excited about seeing Talia again. I’d pined over her for so long, I’d spent most of my twenties crying over her. And now that she was so close, I couldn’t feel anything but dread.

Maybe you love Tori
, a voice inside my head said. I shook my head furiously. There was no way I loved Tori, no way I loved someone who disrespected me and the help I’d offered her so blatantly.

But if I didn’t love Tori, then I didn’t know where my ambivalence was coming from.

Silas and I milled around in the hallway, watching as the maids bustled back and forth. One of them was pulling a huge cart, loaded with clean towels, linens, and amenities for the bathroom. I saw a giant ring of keys looped on one end and mentally cheered.
Bingo!

I jabbed Silas in the gut and pointed towards the cart. “We need to get those keys,” I hissed. “Distract the maid.”

“What?” Silas looked at me, clueless as ever. I kicked him hard in the shin.

“Distract the fucking maids,” I hissed under my breath. “Now! Do it, you cunt!”

Silas coughed and fell on his side, gasping like a dying man. He moaned and howled, clutching his stomach and moaning loudly. One of the maids poked her head out of the room. I watched carefully, hidden behind a large potted plant in the corner.

“
Dios mio!
” the maid exclaimed. She leapt into the hallway with surprising speed for her short, squat frame. As she ran over to Silas’s prone figure, I slowly inched my way out from behind the plant and moved towards the cart. The keys were bolted down but I saw they were labeled.

“Shit!” I cursed under my breath. They were labeled alright, but the labels were in Spanish. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my knife, aware that time was slipping through my fingers with every passing second. Silas was still rolling around on the floor like an idiot but the maid seemed intent and focused. She kept putting her hand on his forehead and then on his stomach. Silas would groan loudly, then whimper at her touch. I rolled my eyes. As much of a bad guy as he was, he wasn’t a half bad actor.

With my knife, I pried the ring off the loop. There were too many keys for me to fit it in my pocket so I stuffed it under my shirt and clutched my gut like I was having a stomach ache. Finally, I sprinted down the hallway, past Silas and the maid. Silas jumped up to his feet and followed me. We rounded a corner and I skidded to a stop in front of room 1082.

“Try the keys, try the keys,” Silas said frantically. I shushed him with a single look as I fumbled with the giant cold ring. My fingers felt like overstuffed sausages and I felt myself shaking with nervousness as I fumbled for the right one. The first key didn’t even fit in the lock, the second wouldn’t turn, but the third made the room door burst open. Silas and I had just managed to bolt inside before the squat maid turned the corner of the hallway.

“Thank god,” I said, breathing hard and leaning flat against the door. I latched it with the bolt and then walked over to the window. Sure enough, I had a clear view right at The Grand Best hotel.

“Damn,” Silas said. He looked down at the ground. “I didn’t think we’d be up so high.”

I rolled my eyes and pulled the duffle bag towards me, setting up the sniper rifle and opening the window of the room. When I zoomed in, I could see into the room on the seventh floor. I spotted a flash of red—Tori!—and my heart leapt and fluttered in my chest. She was lying down on her back and her ankles were cinched tight. My lungs swelled and for a moment, I wanted nothing more than to stroke her red hair.

“Tori’s there,” I said quietly, not taking my eyes away from the sniper sight. “You were right. You didn’t lie.”

“Nope,” Silas said. He sat down on one of the bed with his hands in his lap, looking useless. “What’s going on over there?”

I struggled to see. There was a giant, hulking man who was walking around the room; he looked out of place indoors, like he’d be more at home in the circus. I wondered where Talia had found them.

Then, suddenly, I saw her. Talia. Talia McCullough, my long lost love. She stepped right into my range and I saw everything: her long dark hair, her exquisite body, her perfect face with the coal-black eyes.

Something inside of me snapped. I almost squeezed the trigger. Talia darted off to the side. I watched as she sat down next to Tori on the bed, laughing about something. Tori’s face was red and streaked with tears and I watched as Talia slapped her hard, three times in a row.

Rage and anger built up inside my belly. This was it, this was the moment I’d been waiting for. This was what my whole life had come to. Suddenly, I knew that there was no way I could be with Talia again. There was no way I could ever trust her, not after what she’d done. Not after she’d lied about Kristoff and her own death and everything. I started to wonder if Talia had ever told me the truth about anything. Had she ever really loved me? What was the whole point?

My hands were shaking; I took them off of the gun and put them safely in my lap.
Talia.
Her name kept flashing in my mind. For years, I’d thought that she would come back miraculously, and that we’d be just as in love and happy as ever. But now everything was starting to make sense, everything was starting to fall into place.

“Talia never loved me,” I said aloud. “She was using me to get close to Kristoff.”

Silas nodded. “That’s what I told you back at the clubhouse,” he said solemnly. For a moment he looked completely serious and respectable. “She never loved you,” he said and then he snorted. Anger bubbled up within me like a fountain. Silas sneered. “She never loved you, and you probably disgusted her. She only used you,” he added.

I reached into the waistband of my jeans and pulled out a handgun. Cocking it and pointing it at Silas’s forehead, I stared deeply into his eyes.

“You need to apologize,” I said slowly.

Silas stammered and shook. He lost whatever measure of composure that he’d just had and he began to look like a wreck once again. “I’m sorry,” Silas sputtered. “I’m sorry I said that about Talia, I really am.”

I shook my head. “I don’t care about Talia,” I said truthfully. Hearing the words leave my mouth was a little surreal, but in that moment I knew it was the truth. “I care about Tori,” I said. “And you hurt her. I want you to apologize.”

A look of panic and horror came over Silas’s face. “I’m sorry,” he said slowly. “I’m sorry I hurt Victoria. I won’t ever do it again; I know better now.”

I fired the gun before he had a chance to say anything else. It went off with a loud bang and I felt my hand sting with the shock of the recoil. Silas’s mouth gaped and his eyes were still open. Blood was trickling down his face from a small wound on his forehead.

I felt both disgusted and satisfied. Killing him hadn’t felt as good as I wanted it to—it almost felt like I’d done a civic duty rather than defending my wife’s honor. But now, Silas was dead and I had bigger fish to fry.

Shoving his body out of the way, I hunkered down in front of the sniper shot and took aim. Talia kept moving in and out of focus and I felt the sweat beading hot on my forehead as I tried to keep her in my line of sight. But she was too crafty—it was almost as if she knew that she was being watched.

“Come on, come on,” I muttered under my breath. “Come on, Talia.”

But she didn’t stay put for long. The giant man kept walking around the room and finally, he moved in front of my line of sight.
Bingo, again
.

I pulled the trigger and shot. The sniper rifle sounded much louder than my handgun had when I’d shot Silas, and I watched as the glass shattered in the room across the way. I could hear screams—they sounded oddly distant, as if they were coming up from under water—and I saw that the man had dropped dead. Instantly, I got to my feet and bolted out of the room. I knew that I only had a limited amount of time before I could get to Talia and Tori, and I’d have to rush as quickly as I could.

Victoria

There was a sound that sounded like a loud
pop!
and I glanced up to see the glass window of the room shatter. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion—Rocky collapsed to the ground and blood trickled out of his forehead. Talia screamed and reached into her handbag, pulling out a gun. She glared at me.

“You cunt,” she spat. “What the fuck did you do? What did you do?” When she was angry, she didn’t look beautiful. Instead, she looked intimidating, scary, the kind of person I’d run away from in a dark alley. Talia’s black eyes were blazing fire and I could tell she was really worked up. Her pretty face seemed drained of blood and her hair was frizzing wildly around her head, making her look like some kind of sexy demon.

Suddenly, Max was in the room. I blinked, almost unable to believe that it was actually him. “Oh my god,” I mumbled. “Max!”

“I’m here,” Max barked quickly to me. He tackled Talia and for a moment, it looked like the two of them were embracing. I could see him holding onto her and gripping her arms tightly. Talia swore and scowled in his grasp.

“There’s a bomb in the room,” Talia said with a devilish smirk on her face. “I took care of this before you could even think it through, asshole!”

“Max!” I screamed, suddenly afraid for his safety. But neither Talia nor Max turned towards me, and I was left alone on the bed. Sweat was pooling on my back and I was terrified that the bomb was going to explode. “Max, look out!”

Max yelped in surprise as Talia swung her arm through the air, aiming for his face. Her hands were balled up in fists and she looked angry enough to murder him. As they tussled and fought, Max raised his head back and slammed his forehead against hers. An audible
crack!
sounded in the room and Talia closed her eyes, gracefully sinking to the ground.

For a moment, I thought she was dead. Then Talia seemed to rise up off the ground. She stared at Max with a mixture of horror and contempt.

“You’ll never kill me,” Talia hissed. Max shook his head.

“No,” he said, almost sadly. Then he lunged for her. The two of them began to wrestle—it was dirtier this time, Talia kept trying to bite and kick Max as they struggled on the ground. Max clipped her sharply on the jaw and I saw her head fly backwards. When she was knocked out, Max hauled her over his shoulder and dragged her over to the bed. I watched in horror as he tied her to the bedpost.

“Max,” I said weakly. “There’s a bomb, Max.”

Max shook his head. “Talia wouldn’t bomb a hotel,” he said disdainfully. “She was doing that to make you sweat.”

When I realized that he was probably still angry with me, I had to look away. Max was at my side in an instant, clipping the bonds that held my hands and feet and massaging them roughly to get the blood flowing again. The pain in my hands was intense, but at least I could feel them again. In a matter of seconds, they went from blue to red to purple and I shivered, feeling my whole body shake.

“Come on,” Max said roughly. He picked me up and threw me over his shoulder, taking me out of the room. I closed my eyes and let Max’s rough gait lull me to some quiet place of rest and relaxation.

I heard the sirens in the distance before I saw them. When I opened my eyes, I saw police cars and fire trucks swarming the hotel. An alarm was ringing and patrons were pouring out, their eyes wide.

“Is there a fire?” People kept asking. “Is there a fire? What happened?”

“No,” Max said gruffly. He pulled me onto his lap and stroked my hair. “Talia won’t ever hurt you again,” he said softly.

“I was such an idiot,” I said. The tears started flowing and before I knew it, I was full-on sobbing. “I was such a moron!”

A group of paramedics jogged over, looking serious. One of them pulled me away from Max and set me up in the back of an ambulance with an IV in my arm and a bottle of water in my hand. He started asking me question after question but when I couldn’t answer, he flashed an annoyed look to one of his coworkers.

“I think she’s fine,” he muttered. “She seems totally okay.”

I didn’t feel okay. I felt despondent, like everything was my fault. If I hadn’t been so stupid, if I hadn’t listened to Talia! I wrung my still-sore hands in my lap and cursed my stupid impulsive personality.
If you wouldn’t have snuck out, this wouldn’t have happened
, I thought sadly.
It’s all your fault. You did this
.

I knew it was all my fault. Max wouldn’t look at me in the car on the way home. He was silent and brooding. Part of me wanted to reach out and touch him, but I knew that he probably didn’t want to be bothered. I couldn’t stop crying. The whole past couple of days felt like a nightmare that had come true. Every time I managed to forget about it for a moment, the memories came rushing back, even more painful in the next second.

“Tori,” Max said in a heavy voice when we pulled into the driveway. “It’s all over now, you know that?” He looked at me with dark eyes that were full of sorrow.

“I know,” I said softly. “I understand.”

That night, we sat around the living room with Danny. I got the feeling that he didn’t have to stay any longer, but he stayed out of solidarity with Max. We ordered a pizza and sat around watching the news without talking. When they brought up Talia, Max got a pained look on his face and left the room.

“Danny, I’m sorry about everything,” I said as soon as we were alone. “I know it wasn’t your fault that I snuck out. Please don’t blame yourself.”

Danny made an odd look and took a long pull of beer. “I know it’s not my fault,” he said. “But that don’t mean I don’t feel bad for you.”

I sighed. “Do you think things will ever go back to normal?”

Danny shrugged. “I don’t know what normal is,” he said with a sad smile. “Violence is the norm around here. Maybe things will calm down now that Max figured out who killed Kristoff.”

My stomach turned. “She did it because Kristoff ruined her life,” I said softly.

Danny glanced at me. “You ain’t responsible for what your father did,” he said sharply. “And don’t let it change your opinion of him either. Kristoff was a good man. The men in the club knew that. Bitch’s mother was probably as crazy as she was.”

I frowned. I didn’t necessarily think that was right, or even fair. I didn’t think Talia was necessarily crazy, just wronged, and I understood why. After all, if it had been me, maybe I would have done the same thing.

“I don’t know,” I said softly. “I can’t help but feel differently towards my father now, knowing he caused so much pain and suffering in someone else’s life.”

Danny shook his head. “Don’t think of that,” he advised. “Just try to move on.”

But I wasn’t satisfied. I went out and sat in the front yard, feeling the heat baking off the asphalt driveway. It was hot and muggy—almost a hundred degrees outside—but it felt like a welcome respite. I shivered again, remembering the chill air of the hotel room. I’d thought I was going to die in that room. Hell, I’d even come close to making peace with it. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to have nightmares.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Talia’s face lurking in my mind. She was a real villain, someone who was so possessed by evil and the desire for revenge that it had ruined her. Now, I wondered if it wasn’t partially my fault. Maybe if I’d made an effort to know my father as a man, and not just a dad, I would have seen what he was up to.

I still didn’t like thinking about what my father had done to Talia’s mother, even though I’d almost perished as a result. Right then and there, I got an idea. I went inside and got Max’s laptop, ready to do some digging. When I found out where Talia’s mother was buried, I had flowers delivered to the cemetery and picked out a large bouquet as a monument.

“Someone didn’t appreciate you while you were still alive,” I said softly to the online photo of the woman who looked almost exactly like Talia, but with sadder eyes. “And I want to make sure you know how appreciated you are now that you’re dead and gone.”

I felt a little better after I’d made the flower arrangements.

And then there was Silas. When I found out what Max had done, part of me was horrified. I couldn’t deny it, part of me was a little sad. But the other part of me was relieved. Deep down, I thought Silas was a pretty bad guy. Even though he helped Max rescue me by telling him where Talia had taken me, I wasn’t sure that he’d done it out of purely good motives. I wasn’t sure that Silas had
any
purely good motives.

When I thought about Silas and Talia working together, I shuddered. It was disgusting to think about, but they’d probably teamed up as soon as Max and I had gotten married. And I’d been so wrapped up in my own little world that I had no idea.

But now that he was dead, I felt better. I knew that I owed my life to Max, but I wasn’t sure how to thank him. After all, he was busy mourning the death of his first love. I didn’t exactly think that he’d have time to talk about where we stood.