Knight (89 page)

Perfect. A place to sit, and I didn’t even have to pout.

We parked, but he didn’t get off the bike. Noir grabbed my wrist and the midnight threat of his stare lashed harsher than any of his words.

“If you’re not back in three minutes, I’m dragging you out.”

He was a tough one to crack. I regretted zipping my coat and hiding my swayable curves.

“Aw, come on. Let me stretch my legs a bit.”

“No.”

“You’re more practiced at long rides than I am.” I allowed my gaze to drop from the close cut of his dark hair, the jacket strapped over his broad chest, the crunch of his boots against the gravel. Usually, the tease of the stem of my sunglasses over my lip would be enough to earn that breath of hope—the eagerness men got when they thought they had a chance. I wiggled the bait if only to hook myself a way out.

Noir froze my smirk. “Two minutes and thirty seconds, Darling. Time’s wasting.”

It wasn’t working.

Jesus, it wasn’t working.

I huffed. The one man who didn’t think with his cock was the one delivering me to the worst decision of my life. Riding usually gave me a headache. This freaking mess would cause an aneurysm.

“Look.” I gestured toward the diner. “I’m hungry. Can a girl get a last meal before being tossed to the wolves?”

His eyes flashed.

Pained.

The raw ache within his breath shuddered over the parking lot. His gaze narrowed in cold indifference, but I saw through it. His guard hadn’t just let down. It shattered. Completely. And the jagged edges of his resolve sliced through him and caused more damage than whatever happened to his shoulder.

The weakness crushed him for the briefest of moments. It passed quickly, hidden away within his soul as if no one noticed.

Except I watched.

I always watched. I had to. It was how I survived. I learned to pay attention, and it kept Goliath’s rage sealed up tight. My talent helped me survive on the tips of men who had no business dumping their last twenty on cheap beer in my bar, and it would get me the hell out of this mess.

I saw an opening. I saw that darkness.

Noir didn’t want to take me to Kingdom.

But it was worse than that. He loathed doing it. Something inside him howled and beat against the thought. He silenced it to do his job. Deliver the girl. Collect the money.

He wouldn’t spend that cash.

I brushed a finger along the bike’s handlebars. He watched every tickle of my nails on the worn handles, the grooves where his gloved hands had etched his life to the very essence of the bike.

“I’ll buy you a slice of pie?” I kept my eyes cast down. His fists clenched.

He liked my submission.

Goddamn it. So did I.

“Fine.” He rubbed his face. “Let’s...get you something to eat.”

The practiced flirt blended a schoolgirl charm and a vixen’s desire. I led him to the diner and tucked us into a booth far from the yellowed counter and old truckers leaning over their coffees. Noir followed. Slow. Eying the regulars—the ones who glanced up, saw the leather, and returned to their dinners with shallow profanities. A waitress snapped her gum and handed us faded menus. I pointed to the smeared picture of a chocolate milkshake.

“And a burger. Medium. With fries.” I handed her the menu but my rumbling stomach pestered me. “And an order of mozzarella sticks.”

Noir clenched his jaw as the waitressed poised a pen over the pad and awaited his words. His voice stayed low.

“Just a soda.”

The waitress rolled her eyes as she returned to the counter. “I’ll get you a
pop
.”

I snickered. “Giving yourself away. You aren’t from around here, stranger.”

He nodded. The hard line of his jaw tightened, rough with the shade of scruff. A thin scar etched into his black eyebrow, fading to white, just like the dust of grey at his temples. Not enough to age him, but enough to make me rethink my game plan. He wasn’t a young kid desperate to get lucky. He was wiser than that.

Sadder
than that.

I doubted he was homesick, but he sure as hell wasn’t used to being anyone’s stranger. The waitress set my milkshake before me, and I tucked away another fragment of Noir’s mystery.

“Christ, when was the last time you ate?”

I sucked a good quarter of the shake down. It tasted more cold than sweet. That was fine. I needed the chill in my voice.

“Can’t say I’ve had much of an appetite since being traded like car keys to a loan shark.”

“Right.”

I spun the straw through the ice cream. The silence nearly refroze the drink, but two years of bartending taught me never to let a conversation fall on the rocks. I licked a bit of whipped cream off my lip. Seducing him was too much. I just needed a sign. A crack. Somewhere I could wiggle in.

Noir frowned and pulled a tracphone from his pocket. His hand didn’t hide the name glowing on the screen.

Rose
.

He dismissed the call with a frown.

Interesting. If I was behind my bar, I might have tossed a towel over my shoulder, offered him a light to a cigarette, and given him my full attention for that story. Old lover? Waiting whore? Family?

Unfortunately, he wasn’t inclined to share. I bit the straw. His eyes lingered on my lips.

Bingo.

“Someone always calls when you sit down to eat.” I took a leisurely sip. “You can take it if you want. I won’t be offended.”

“I’m fine.”

“Don’t look fine.”

He snorted. I offered him a sip of the shake. He refused that too.

“Hey. We have another hundred miles together,” I said. “Might as well enjoy them, right?”

He didn’t answer. Neither of us were going to enjoy the ride or what happened once we reached our destination. The food arrived. I passed the basket of fries toward him.

“No, thanks.” He adjusted his phone in his pocket and tapped the rim of his drink. “Something tells me this ain’t strong enough.”

“Not a problem.” I searched through my jacket pockets, my fingers brushing over two flasks. I pulled both out. “Rum or whiskey?”

Finally, the tease of a smile nudged his lips. Not enough to crack the hardness, but the promise existed. I jiggled both flasks.

“You came prepared,” he said.

“Never leave the bar without it.”

He nodded toward the glass. “Rum.”

“A fine choice, sir.” I let the
sir
linger as I poured. If he reacted, he hid it well. I imagined it wasn’t the first time a man like him heard it, just as it wasn’t my first time saying it. Difference was, this man deserved the respect. “This might make the run a little easier.”

“You’d think.”

I pushed my burger aside and seized a breath. Flirting was getting us nowhere, and I was down to the bottom of my milkshake and last mozzarella stick. Within a few hours we’d hit our destination, right after the sun set and the shadows would hide everyone’s secrets. Enough was enough. I refused to be collateral, and I had played Sacrilege’s martyr for too long.

It was time to leave. And my ride sat before me.

“You aren’t taking me to the drop-off,” I said.

He expected my defiance. He leaned against the booth, stretching his arms over the back. The sleeve of his jacket tugged up over his wrist. Thick tattoos banded his flesh. Not surprising given his occupation and devotion to his bike, but he hadn’t removed the jacket, only unzipped it.

He hid the ink. That should have been my first warning.

“I’m not?” He said.

“I’m not fooling you, you’re not fooling me. Neither of us wants to do this gig.”

“Doesn’t matter what you want.”

“Funny how that works out.”

“You’re going.”

I leaned closer. “What if you were supposed to do something…something you knew was a bad idea, but you couldn’t refuse? And the longer you stayed in that mess, the more your life slips out of control?”

“Honestly?”

“Of course.”

Noir’s expression hardened. “Life is a series of fucked up secrets and lies that doesn’t end until you’re staring down the barrel of the gun. Everything is out of control, and the only thing we can hope for is a death quicker than any of the bastards we take down with us.”

“
Jesus
.”

“I got a couple years on you, Darling. Gives me a unique perspective.”

Unique perspective? I exchanged one psychopath for another, and all I had to show for it was my behind parked between two clubs.

I had two options. Surrender and go willingly to the Kingdom MC as a favor to my club, or leave Goliath and hope he’d never find me in the bloody rampage that followed.

“Okay,” I said. “I have a unique perspective too. I earned it groping through the world with two black eyes, swollen shut. You can’t see much, but what you can is crystal clear. You get me?”

Noir shifted. “You in trouble?”

“Always.” I took a chance. “What about you?”

“Name of the game.”

“Then what do we do about it?”

“Why do I think you’ve already figured it out?”

I grinned. “My cousin Red rode off in a hurry. He said he was getting money. I won’t ask where or how he’s getting it, but we just need a little time.”

“Time for what?”

“For him to deliver the cash to Kingdom. He’s gonna buy out whatever they’ve invested into Sacrilege. They won’t use me as collateral, and you won’t have to act as intermediary.”

“And then what?”

I shrugged. “Then we get the hell out of here.”

“We?”

“It’s my moment,” I said. “Until now, I’ve never had the guts to start new. Too many other people I always had to worry about.”

“That’s life.”

“Yeah, but you know what worrying about other people gets you?”

He waited.

“Black eyes. Broken ribs. A life where you count the shot glasses until it’s safe to make noise around the house.” I sighed. “But I worry about Red. He gets a little hot-headed. He’s my cousin, but he’s like a brother. Always getting into trouble and making life messy. Any idea what that’s like?”

I got a genuine nod out of Noir. He took a swig of his drink, but I doubted there was enough rum in it to temper his honesty.

“Yeah. I got one of those brothers.”

“Well, sometimes they’ve gotta sink or swim on their own, am I right?”

“Not sure.”

“You haven’t given him the push off that diving board yet?”

Noir stiffened. “No. I’m the one holding him under.”

The ache in his voice wasn’t masked. My pulse fluttered as an opportunity presented itself. I had Noir where I needed him, exposing just enough of his thoughts to capture him.

I met his gaze.

“It’s time I take care of myself,” I said. “Let’s forget this deal. I’ll go free, and you can get back on the road. We’ll act like this never happened.”

He rubbed his face. “Not that easy, Darling.”

“It can be.”

“There’s a lot of money riding on this.”

I ground my jaw. “I have money. Not much, but I can earn. I’m a good bartender. I’ll get every penny to you, with interest.”

“I didn’t mean
my
money.” His laugh cut deep. “And I don’t want yours.”

Christ. I was an idiot. My stomach regretted the shake. Noir hated the thought of the drop as much as I did, but he was reluctant to abandon the deal. Only one reason why.

“Sacrilege threatened you,” I said.

“Nothing I can’t handle.”

It didn’t make sense. None of it. Not how Kingdom found our little MC. Not the good luck on the runs and the lopsided deals. We tangled with one of the most powerful drug-running clubs east of the Mississippi, and not even Red knew what the end game was.

“What the hell was on that laptop?” I whispered.

“That’s not my business.”

“Really?” I gestured around. “Sure looks like you’re doing a lot of dirty work without knowing what or why. You always work like that?”

His brow threaded. “Careful.”

“Have you ever trafficked a woman before?”

“This conversation’s over.” He pulled a twenty from his pocket and flicked it on the table. “Get your jacket on. Time to go.”

“Why do this to yourself?” I didn’t stand.

“Get up.”

“You think I’ll be safe once you leave?”

“You’re no safer with me than you are with them.”

I didn’t believe that. “Goliath would do anything to score with Kingdom.”

Noir tensed. Somehow, he seemed even bigger than Goliath. “Get. Up.”

“Sam probably told you I’d be fine, but do you think Goliath hasn’t sold my ass to the highest bidder for the night?” I swallowed. “Do you think a club like Kingdom wouldn’t take what they wanted, even without my man’s permission?”

“Not my problem.”

“How much money did they pay you?” I held his stare. “Better be a good amount. You’ll need a couple grand to clear a rape from your conscience.”

In another life, in a different place, the rage tensing in his body might have ripped the table from the wall and chucked it through the window. His eyes, the blackness of charring smoke, flashed with the heat of the fire. He leaned over me, his arms pinning me in the booth.

His voice lowered. Deep. Pained. Vengeful.

“Don’t question what’s on my conscience. I don’t have one anymore.”

I braved looking into his eyes to see whatever monster he thought lurked within him.

I saw nothing evil. Just…sadness.

“You’re lying,” I whispered. “And you’re not even good at it. Whatever shit you’re running from, whatever it was that fucked you up, that’s over.” I read every sadness in his heart, and I made my move. “Don’t let another innocent person get hurt because of you.”

I waited, my breath held and muscles tensed. The first taste of a panic attack dried my mouth. I didn’t let it show, but Noir’s eyes were no longer on me.

The diner’s chime
dinged
a sound too pleasant for the crew who sauntered through the door. The waitresses scattered, and the men eating at the counter kept their heads down.

Three of them entered, branded in leather but patched with rockers I didn’t recognize. The inverted crucifix of crossed spears blended the right amount of horror and blasphemy.

Temple
MC
.