Killer Curves (Dangerous Curves Book 3) (16 page)

King and Tex said nothing and Warren took their silence for agreement.

“Yeah. I thought so.” Warren gazed out the window again at headlights approaching in the distance. “I messed up, didn’t I? I shouldn’t have come to Denver. I should have left Irvington and moved to Lexington, found work there. I can tend bar, I can work with my hands… I didn’t have to do any of this.”

“Warren.” King’s voice was urgent. “We can get you out. After the trade, I mean. In a few weeks, maybe in a couple of months, after the dust settles. We can figure this out.”

“And then what?” Warren’s normally youthful face looked older suddenly, tired and beaten down. “By then I’ll be in even deeper, know even more club business. If they won’t let me leave now, it’d be even worse in two months. And even if I
do
manage to get out and away alive? Then I have to spend the rest of my life hiding from Trigger, right? From my own cousin? Put my family in danger?”

King and Tex exchanged glances. The kid was right, they knew. He was nothing but screwed and no sense pretending otherwise. He was in the shit now, in it up to his eyeballs, and his fate was almost totally sealed.

“No.” Warren stared at the dark van that was now sitting about fifty feet away from them, saw Ace and Joker in the front seats. “No. I’m done. I’m… trapped.”

“I’m sorry,” King said. “You’re a good man, Warren. You deserve better than this.”

Warren met his eyes. “You too, King. Thank you for treating me decent this whole time – you and your people were damn good to me.” He paused. “And let me apologize in advance for anything that I may do to you or any of your team in the future… I can promise you right now that I won’t enjoy any of it.”

“I don’t want to have to kill you one day, man,” King said softly. “Don’t make me. OK?”

“I’ll try.”

The silence between them was heavy. Finally, King opened his door, hating everything that was about to go down, even though all he wanted was for Gabi and Maria to be safe.

“Let’s go,” he said. “Time to hand you over.”

Chapter Twelve

“Maria?”

“Gabi.” Her sister’s voice was shaky with relief. “Dillon told me that the trade happened last night? That the guy went back to the club? Warren, right?”

“Yeah. Yeah, he did.”

“No problems?”

“Nope. King said it went like clockwork.”

Maria sighed. “And how are you?”

Gabi paused, really thinking. “I’m – stunned.”

“That it’s over at last?”

“Yeah. I still can’t believe it. Not really.”

“Yeah. Me neither.”

“I’ll be going back to work the day after tomorrow,” Gabi said. “Back to Curves. Jax has said I can keep waitressing and I agreed. It’s way better money than cleaning and I like talking to the staff and customers.” She paused. “Well. Most of them.”

“Oh, right.” Maria sat down next to Dillon on the sofa. “How do you feel about going back? After what happened to you there?”

“Pretty good, actually.” Gabi accepted a glass of wine from Aidan with a smile. “Aidan will be there and Jax and all the guys. Curtis and Alex and Wes.” She took a sip of wine. “But not Dillon, huh?”

Maria blushed. “Uh… no. Not Dillon.” She glanced at the man in question, saw his green eyes sparkling at her in amusement. “Dillon’s staying up here for a couple more weeks.”

“Yeah, I heard.” Gabi put on her most innocent voice. “
Why
is he staying up there, Maria? For some refreshing mountain air, maybe?”

“Uh…” Maria stood up. “Just a sec, OK?”

“Where you going, baby?” Dillon said.

“To the bedroom,” she said.

“You need some privacy, do you?”

“Yeah.” She grinned. “We’re going to talk about you now.”

“Yeah, I figured.” Dillon stretched and she watched as the t-shirt pulled tight against his gorgeous chest. “Make sure you get the scoop on Aidan too, yeah?”

Maria covered the mouthpiece. “
Is
there scoop?”

“Yep. Tons.”

“Oooooh.” She shut the bedroom door behind her and flopped on their bed. “Gabi?”

“Still here. Now spill… what’s up with you and Dillon?”

“We’re – we’re together. Like, for now, I guess.”

“Really? How’d that happen? One minute, he’s all growly and bossy and now – what? He’s boyfriend material?”

Maria bit her lip. She was
dying
to gush about Dillon, of course, but the truth was that she barely knew Gabi in most ways, even if they were sisters. She took it down a notch, decided to downplay the whole thing.

“Oh, he’s not my boyfriend,” Maria said. “He’s a nice guy… a great guy. But it’s all just beginning, you know? It’s
way
too soon to say that it will go anywhere. He does have to go back to Denver soon, no matter what, and I don’t know how that’s supposed to work.”

Gabi recognized dissembling and avoidance when she saw it, but no way she was about to push. From the beginning, Maria had played her cards close to her chest and Gabi knew that she still had major trust issues where she was concerned. Gabi didn’t blame her in the slightest and she backed down a bit.

“Yeah, that’s all true,” Gabi said. “But Denver and Open Skies are only a couple of hours apart, right? I can’t see Dillon being too upset about making that drive to you.”

“Yeah?”

“For sure. He’s a great man, Maria… I know how he can come across, but he doesn’t do anything in halves. If he’s in, he’s
in
and he has no idea how to play mind games or pull power plays. Whatever he says, you can trust it, I promise you.”

Maria was silent.

“You still there?”

“Yeah,” Maria said. “I’m here. Thanks for saying that.”

“Sure.”

“OK, now your turn to talk.”

“About?”

“Aidan.”

“Oh.” Now Gabi blushed and Aidan stared at her, a teasing look on his face. “Well, I’m staying here with him.”

“You’ve moved in? For good?”

Gabi set the wine on the coffee table and stood up. “Ummm… hang on a sec.”

“You going to the bedroom?”

“Yep.”

Aidan watched her go, grinning. “You talking to your sister about me?”

“I am,” Gabi said with great dignity. “Don’t you eavesdrop at the door.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, darlin’.”

“You totally would.” She shut the door and sat on the bed. “Still there?”

“Yep. Holding my breath for the scoop.”

“No scoop, really. I just – we’re seeing how it all goes.”

“How do you think it’s going to go?”

“Honestly? Amazingly. Aidan’s just so… wonderful. He’s been incredible through all of this and he’s made me feel so safe. I’ve been lucky to have him and he’s nothing short of
gorgeous
inside and out. I – we – we’re good together. Happy.”

“I’m so glad,” Maria said softly.

“Me too.” Gabi twirled her hair between her fingers. “So. When are you coming to Denver for a visit?”

“I have no idea. I guess Dillon and I need to sort a few things out and then maybe I can come back with him…
if
we can work it all out, of course.”

“You can.”

“I wish I had your confidence,” Maria said ruefully. “Right now, all I know is that I like having him here and I’m glad he’s staying longer, even though the job is done and he could run for the hills if he wanted to.”

“Well, that’s a good start, right? Being glad that he’s still there?”

“Yeah.” Maria felt a smile creep across her face. “Yeah, it is, isn’t it?”

**

Three days later and way too fucking early for his liking, Trigger was staring at the five men from Boston, feeling way out of his comfort zone. They were wearing expensive suits and smoking cigars and downing caviar like it was fucking Skittles. They’d booked the penthouse suite for three nights and had scored big down at the casino already. They breathed money and power and as Trigger sat there in his jeans and cut, he knew they thought of him as some two-bit thug with a bike.

Which is maybe all that I am, really. But so the fuck what?

“OK.” Rick Vallance blew out some cigar smoke and finally gave Trigger his attention. “So our people have discovered some very interesting information about Gabriela Torres. I’m now authorized to share it with you.”

Trigger bit back a retort. How fucking
nice
of them to share… seeing as killing the bitch involved him intimately. But he stayed polite. Or at least polite for him.

“Yeah?” he said.

“Yes. Our people in Boston checked her credit card activity over the past three years and we found that until a year ago, she only used the card right here in Denver. Then suddenly and out-of-the-blue, she used it several times at shops and cafés near a town called Clarity.”

Trigger paused. “That’s about two hours from here.”

“Yes.” Rick took a sip of whisky. “She’s stayed out there four times in the past year and our records show that at meals, she was paying for another person as well. At first, we thought a boyfriend, obviously, but then we hit pay dirt.”

“OK.”

“Turns out that she used her card at a place called Open Skies. It’s a ranch and hotel up that way and when we checked the employee records, we found a woman named Maria. Maria Torres.”

Trigger’s heart stopped. “Torres?”

“Yeah.” Rick grinned. “That led to some digging around birth records and guess what? Turns out that Daddy Torres couldn’t keep it in his pants and knocked up some illegal Mexican whore. She had the baby and dumped her in to the system.”

“Maria Torres,” Trigger breathed. “Gabi’s half-sister.”

“Damn right. They’re in contact, clearly, and I got a friend at the phone company do me a favor and pull both sets of phone records. These bitches talk almost every day… so I’d say they’re close, no?”

“Yeah.”

Rick leaned back, satisfied. “I think we found the
one
person that Gabi Torres would talk to about all of this, don’t you? Sister-to-sister chats and all that shit? I mean, too many people know about Santos already, but in my experience, people are most open with family.”

Trigger nodded, his mind racing. “You’re saying that Maria Torres is a threat too?”

“Well, one big-mouthed bitch with info is a problem, but two is a fucking nightmare. Plus, it’s always nice to be able to throw it in a bitch’s face that someone they really care about is dead, just before you kill them. Really adds to the whole experience, I’ve always felt.”

“True.” Trigger had to admit that the sadistic part of taunting and teasing his terrified captives was a big part of the fun. “It does make it more… enjoyable.”

“So.” Another blast of cigar smoke. “We’ll be taking care of both mouths. Day after tomorrow, while you boys are partying it up back at your clubhouse.”

Trigger ignored the sneer on Rick’s face and in his voice. It was clear from the way Rick said ‘club’ that the man saw the MC as a group of little boys running around pretending to be big men. Trigger stared at the spot between Rick’s eyes, thinking just how much better it’d look with a clean, crisp bullet hole right there.

“OK,” Trigger said. “How?”

“Don’t you worry about that. Kirk and Al have been very clear in their instructions and we’ll follow them to the letter. We’ll get rid of the one up at the ranch and bring Gabi to some dumping ground where the body will never be found. What happens after that, we don’t give a fuck. We’ll be in first class on a plane when all the shit from the cops and King’s Men comes raining down on you.”

“We can handle it.”

Rick totally doubted that, but he didn’t care either way. He was being paid handsomely to organize and carry out a hit and a kidnapping and dump, and despite the fact that they’d go down at the exact same time, this was all just a walk in the park for him. These Torres bitches were just the most recent of many such operations and they wouldn’t be the last.

“Yeah, whatever.” Rick shrugged. “You just stay put at your little party and let us deal with your fucking mess. All you have to do is two things – you think you can handle that?”

Trigger gritted his teeth as the other men jeered. “Yeah.”

“I need one of your little friends to go up to Open Skies with my guys. We’re one man short for two jobs being carried out at the same time.”

Trigger paused. “You mean that you’re going to take out Maria and grab Gabi at the
same
fucking time?”

“Yep. That way nobody gets a heads-up that we’re making a move.”

“Right,” Trigger said, realizing at last just how far beyond him all the logistics really were. “OK.”

“So you need to come up with an alibi for your man. Make sure it’s rock-solid.”

“I will.”

“Second, I need you to sort out the dump spot since you know the local terrain. Just get everything ready for us to leave her and then text me the coordinates.”

Trigger’s eyes flashed with what could almost be described as glee. “No problem. I already know what you can do with her.”

Chapter Thirteen

Gabi almost danced through the door of Curves.
God
, it felt good to be out of Aidan’s apartment, back in public, back at work. The roar of noise and smell of alcohol smashed her in the face and she didn’t even care – it was so familiar, it made her feel like she was home.

“Gabi!” Curtis was on the door tonight and he gave her a huge hug, lifting her right off the floor, set her down carefully. He nodded at Aidan. “Good to see you, hon.”

“Yeah, you too.” She grinned up at him. “You working until two?”

“Yep.”

“Great.” She glanced around the bar and smiled to see that it was all exactly as she’d left it just over two weeks earlier. “I’ll get ready.”

She and Aidan walked over to the staff room and when she went in, she saw Tessa and Kenleigh in there drinking coffee and chatting. The women turned and Aidan was almost knocked over backwards from the volume of the squeals and shrieks.

“Gabi!” Kenleigh said as she gave her a hug. “God… I’m so glad you’re back!”

“Glad to be back.” Gabi turned to Tessa now and accepted a hug from her too. “You guys have no idea how excited I am to serve up shots to drunk bikers, I swear to Christ.”

“Yeah, the highlight of our lives, huh?” Kenleigh said.

“You got that right.”

Aidan smiled to see her so happy. He ran a hand over her lower back, slow and sensual, and she glanced at him.

“OK, I’m going to the bar now. See you out there, baby.”

“Yeah… see you.”

Not the slightest bit concerned that Tessa and Kenleigh were right there, Aidan leaned down and kissed her. She closed her eyes and swayed towards him, wondering why she never seemed to be close enough to this man. His hands were in her long, dark hair, holding her in place as his mouth tasted hers, over and over. When they broke apart, Gabi clutched his forearms to regain her balance, dizzy from the force of her want.

“Ooooh,” Teesa said. “You two may need to hit one of the crash rooms on your breaks, huh?”

Gabi blushed but Aidan just raised an eyebrow.

“Maybe,” he said with a wink. “See you in a few minutes, ladies.”

They watched him leave the room and then they turned to Gabi. She was taking off her jacket, revealing her slim, smooth body clad in a skirt and short t-shirt. Aidan had told her how much he adored her lower back and she now teasingly displayed it for him every chance she got. The hunger in his eyes when he stared at her was such a huge turn-on, she still couldn’t get over it: he openly worshipped and ravished her with his golden gaze. Sometimes she thought she might actually come just from the heat and intensity in it.

“So!” Tessa said. “You and Aidan, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s for real?”

“As real as it gets.”

“God, that’s great.” Tessa pulled her blonde curls back with a hair clip. “He’s such a great guy… I’m so damn happy for you two.”

Gabi stared at Tessa in her jeans and loose blouse, really taking her in for the first time. Her face was less full than the last time Gabi had seen her the night she’d been hurt, and even though she was covering up her body, Tessa looked like she’d lost weight. Quite a bit of weight, actually, far too much for such a short time. She looked pale and tired, too, and alarm bells were going off in Gabi’s head.

Is that asshole boyfriend of hers still taunting her about her weight?

Gabi thought about that night months ago, when she’d overheard Tessa and Kevin talking in one of the crash rooms. Well,
he’d
been talking and
she’d
been crying. Christ, the words he’d used to describe the woman who was supposedly his girlfriend were just sickening. Gabi had waited until Kevin had stormed out and then she’d gone in to the room and shut the door.

After making sure that the dickhead hadn’t laid a finger on Tessa, Gabi asked her how often her boyfriend called her a disgusting pig and a fat heifer. Horrified and embarrassed, Tessa had tried to duck the conversation, but Gabi hadn’t let her. She knew all too well about emotional abuse – that it was as devastating as physical abuse in some ways – and no way she was letting Tessa wriggle away. Tessa had cried and begged Gabi to say nothing to anyone, and she’d made the promise reluctantly.

Since then, though, she’d watched Tessa carefully. The woman ate while she was at work, although it was mostly vegetables from a bag, and her weight had seemed pretty steady. Personally, Gabi thought that Tessa’s body was astounding: curvy and lush, it practically begged men to reach out and touch it. She looked like a fifties’ pin-up girl and her cascading curls and large eyes and plump lips all just added to the sex appeal… sadly, just about the only people who wanted Tessa to be a twig were Tessa and her boyfriend.

“OK, let’s get to work,” Kenleigh said now, snapping Gabi back to attention. “You ready?”

“Yeah.” Gabi slicked on a bit more lip gloss and resolved to ask Tessa for coffee, maybe over the weekend. She was going to push the woman until she came clean about her relationship with Kevin and then Gabi was going to help her, if she needed it. “The drunk bikers are waiting, ladies.”

**

Captain drove away from Curves, pulled in to a rest area about two miles away. He called Trigger, thrilled to be the one to give him the update about Gabi Torres. The Fallen Angels had been taking it in shifts to watch Carter’s apartment building for the past six days, and they were
positive
that Gabi was staying there. They knew all the bouncers at Curves and they knew most of King’s Men, and those fuckers had been going in and out of the building steadily. It was obvious they were guarding someone inside – and Trigger and the boys had no doubts whatsoever who that was.

“Yeah?” Trigger’s voice in his ear was raspy and he sounded drunk.

“It’s me. I actually got eyes on Torres. I followed her and Carter from his place and they’re both at Curves now.”

“She’s gone back to work?”

“Looks that way. She was dressed up like a slut waitress, though, not a cleaner.”

“Got it.” Trigger took a deep breath. “So we know where she is almost all the time now, yeah? And it looks like they think it’s all over and the trade was for real?”

“Uh-huh. I’d say so if she’s out and about. Getting back to her little life at last.”

“OK. You did good.”

Captain paused, leaning all his weight back on the bike. “Trigger? Can I ask you something?”

“Yeah.”

“You said last night that you need a man to go up to that Open Skies place to do that job with the out-of-town boys?”

“I do.”

“If you haven’t found anyone yet, I’d like to be the one.”

“Yeah? How come?”

Captain scratched his chin, hoping that this was the right time to make his request. “I want to move up in the club.”

“To what?”

“Enforcer.”

Trigger laughed. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Captain screwed up his courage. “If I do a good job up at that ranch and I get rid of that end of the problem for us, I’d like to be considered.”

There was a brief silence and Captain held his breath.

“OK,” Trigger said at last. “In two days, you go with the Boston guys and you shut that bitch up. No loose ends, quick and clean. If you defend the club’s interests, I’ll move you up.”

Captain punched the air. “And my alibi?”

“That’s what I was just thinking about. We need you on video at the party, right?”

“Right.”

“Well, I just happen to know a guy up in Fort Collins who could pass for your fucking twin brother, man, no lie. You give him your cut and I make sure he knows where the cameras are. He’ll have your six.”

Captain grinned. “Perfect. Thanks, man.”

“Don’t thank me yet. You do this right and we talk about promotion. You can thank me then.”

“OK.” Captain started the bike engine again. “I’m on my way to the clubhouse now. You there?”

“Yeah. See you soon. I’ll fill you in about the away job.”

“Fuck, man. I can’t wait.”

**

Aidan glanced over at Gabi and smiled. She’d loved every second of her shift at Curves and she was still glowing.

“It’s good being free from house arrest, huh?” he teased her.

She turned her dark eyes on him. “
So
good.”

“Well, you looked amazing tonight. Every guy in the place noticed it and made it clear they wanted to go home with you.”

“Bah,” she scoffed. “Like every woman in the place wasn’t flirting with
you
like mad.”

“I’m the guy with the booze, darlin’. Of course they flirt with me.”

“Yeah, well, you’re also drop-dead gorgeous, darlin’.” She admired him from across the front seat of the truck. “I spent years watching them drool all over you and thinking that I didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell with you.”

That surprised him and he looked over at her again. “Yeah?”

“Uh-huh. I mean, they were all so hot and sexy and half-naked and there I was, in my baggy clothes and smelling of bleach. Not exactly the stuff of fantasies.” She hesitated, wondering if she really wanted to ask the next question. “Aidan?”

“Yeah?”

“Did you ever…” She squirmed a bit. “Ever go in to the crash rooms with any of them? Any of the customers?”

Aidan shook his head. “Never.”

“How come?”

“I just couldn’t. I knew that you’d be in there the next morning cleaning up and the thought of you stripping off sheets where I’d been sucked off or had screwed some bar babe… I don’t know. It felt – disrespectful to you, somehow.” He paused. “I know that sounds stupid.”

“It doesn’t,” she said quietly. “But you took some of them home, right?”

He sighed, wishing they didn’t have to have this conversation but he understood her need to know. “Yeah. Yeah, I did.”

“One-nighters?”

“No. I don’t like those. I was stupid and tried to get to know the ladies a bit. Dated them, went for dinner, talked to them.” He shrugged. “I’m not really into quick fucks and it took me longer than it should have to figure out that most of the women who come to Curves are
just
after quick fucks. By the time I got that, I was already way in to you so I just stopped trying with them. With anyone, really.”

“So what’d you do?”

He flashed her a grin. “Pined for you. Watched you a lot. Thought about you in the shower. Put up with the guys busting my balls about you.”

She giggled. “Sorry about that.”

“Nah. They need to entertain themselves somehow.”

Without a word, Aidan turned left off the main highway. Gabi looked out the window at the path leading up to the mountains.

“Is this a short-cut back to your apartment?” she asked, perplexed.

“Nope.”

She wrinkled her brow at him. “So… where are we going?”

“To a place I like a lot.”

“A make-out place?”

“It can be.” He cocked his head at her. “It’s also a great place to look at the stars.”

“Oooooh,” she said. “You going to seduce me under the stars?”

“You are goddamn right I am,” he growled. “So be a good girl and get your panties off.”

She fluttered her eyelashes at him. “I’m not wearing any.”

Aidan almost drove straight in to a tree. “You were fucking
naked
under that tight little skirt all night? At fucking Dangerous Curves?”

She waited for a few seconds, almost laughing at the look of outrage on his gorgeous face. She didn’t let him suffer for too long before she took pity on him.

“No, I was wearing underwear all night. I took it off in the ladies’ room before we left to go home.”

“Jesus Christ, woman. You damn near gave me a heart attack.”

“Yeah. It was kind of fun.”

“So you’re really not wearing any?”

“You want to check?”

“Come here, baby. And I mean
now
.”

Slowly, Gabi moved closer to him, her skirt riding up her thighs. Aidan reached over without taking his eyes off the winding mountain path, his fingers sliding between her legs right away. She gasped and opened her legs wider, turned in the seat to give him easier access.

“You weren’t kidding,” he muttered, his fingers soaked with her arousal.

“I never kid about being naked around you.”

“I should hope not.” He twisted his wrist, pushed two fingers deep inside her. With a small cry, she leaned back on her elbows, arched her back. Her feet were pressed in to the seat now and he risked a quick look down at her. Fuck, she was wide open and glistening and his mouth watered at the sight.

“Aidan…”

He spotted a clearing just off the road, turned in, slammed on the brakes. He didn’t care about anything at all except getting his mouth on her.

She gazed up at him. “Here?”

“Right here,” he rasped, undoing his seatbelt. “I need to taste you.”

He pushed her thighs farther apart, slid his hands under her amazing ass. He lifted her to him and she fell back all the way, her hair spread over the leather in a wild tangle, her breaths coming short and fast already.

Aidan dipped his head and licked her clit, teasing it with long, firm strokes. Her hands were clenched in his hair and she pulled him to her aching sex, needing him to make her come. She was moaning and writhing, begging and almost sobbing. He loved seeing her like this, hearing her like this. There was just nothing better; there never had been and there never would be.

When Gabi came on his tongue, she did so on a shining cascade of falling stars. Her whole body disintegrated, turned to glittering dust, blew away and she was gone. Aidan made her escape the bounds of her body and the chains of the earth. He made her fly.

An eon later, she came back to herself in his arms. He’d tugged her up to a sitting position and she was curled against his chest as weak and spent as a woman recovering from a fever. He was kissing her eyelids, whispering that he had her, that he loved her, that she was safe and everything was OK. When she opened her eyes, he stared down at her, a hard look of worry on his face.

“Gabriela? Talk to me, angel.”

“I’m OK, Aidan.” She stroked those lines around his mouth that always appeared when he was anxious. “I’m
better
than OK, actually. I’m wonderful.”