Salvation (2 page)

Chapter One

Now

Luna pushed her truck hard toward the outer city limits where Keller’s compound was housed. It had taken her just under nine hours door-to-door from Defiance, and she’d stopped several times, pulling off the road to refill her gas tank with her gun in one hand so no one pulled up on her and robbed her. Or worse.

The gas stops that existed now in place of gas stations were few and far between—expensive and hard to find, which is why she’d traveled with as much of her own gas cans as she could. She’d been prepared, but even so, the need for fear was very real.

The helpless feeling that remained stuck in the back of her throat had been there for a very long time. Since her friend Aimee had been attacked inside the Defiance MC’s gates months earlier, it had begun to choke Luna, cutting her air supply to the point where breathing seemed to become painful gasps for air. Even with Bishop there as her touchstone, she was sinking.

The need to leave Defiance had become a necessity, and early this morning, she’d started out and refused to look back. She’d been planning this last year, but she’d ended up staying in Defiance once Bishop arrived. Now that he’d handed himself over to Keller to pay Defiance’s debt, she decided it was time to revisit her plan.

The anger she’d felt toward him had fueled her to do so. He’d left Mathias, left Defiance but most of all, he’d left her. And he’d made her promises, damn it—even though he’d never come out and said so, you didn’t just show up every single day to check on someone and then one day just leave without a good-bye.

First, she’d gotten her truck to run well enough where she thought it would actually make the trip. Then she’d calculated and hoarded the gasoline, her money and weapons. She’d packed her clothes, her books and she’d taken some of Mathias’s music along with her, the tapes he said especially reminded him of Bishop. She’d played them over and over during the ride, until the songs embedded themselves inside her soul, much the way Bishop had upon his arrival in Defiance.

His departure was something that echoed emptily inside of her.

You’re here.
You made it.

She took her spot at the end of the long line of cars waiting to be let inside Keller’s, put the truck in park and took a deep breath. That calm only lasted about half a second, since her truck was immediately surrounded by Keller’s guards with their rifles drawn.

So that pretty much answered the whole
what’s going to happen when I pull up to Keller’s
questions she’d been mulling over for the past several hours. She sat behind the wheel and swore she could feel Bishop’s stare boring into her as his accompanying voice echoed in her head with a slowly drawled, “What the fuck were you hoping to accomplish?”

That was a much nicer sound than the “Get out of the car with your hands where we can see them” message actually being yelled to her over a megaphone. At any other time, she might’ve said this was overkill. Post-Chaos, nothing seemed to be.

She did as asked, her hands in the air making for an awkward dismount from the truck as she looked toward the man who’d called to her.

“State your business,” he barked.

“My name’s Luna Davies. I’m from the Defiance MC. I’m here to see Bishop,” she told him as another guard approached to pat her down. She held her breath while his hands touched her body briefly, then exhaled when he backed off. Another guard had her backpack on the ground and was rifling through it, calling out, “She’s got two guns and a knife in here. Extra ammo too.”

“I’m a woman driving alone. I’d be stupid to not have weapons,” she pointed out.

“There’s nothing else but clothes and books in here—looks like she was planning an extended stay,” he added as he picked the backpack up and handed it to megaphone man, who told her, “Your weapons are being confiscated and your truck impounded. You’ll get both back if you’re released.”

“If?” she asked, but he ignored her.

All of this also solved the problem of what, exactly, she’d planned on doing once she’d arrived. It appeared that being arrested was on the top of that list, because she was handcuffed, patted down a second time by a second man, a little more intimately this time (which made her freeze immediately), marched past the waiting cars before being escorted down to an underground prison that tunneled from the edge of the compound.

As she descended into the darkness, she almost panicked, turned to the man pushing her forward from behind to reiterate, “I’m just here to see Bishop. He’s staying here. Maybe he can come outside the gates to see me.”

“Do you have an invite?” the guard asked, continued to steer her forward.

She tripped a little but kept moving. “I didn’t know I needed one.”

“Right, because we just let everyone in who shows up from the MCs. Like I’m sure Defiance does,” he snarked.

“I don’t keep current on Keller’s rules,” she shot back, and that was the truth. Still, she’d known that getting in here would require something of a gamble. Winging this hadn’t been one of her best ideas, but Defiance was choking her.

Correction—Defiance without Bishop was choking her. The second she’d pulled onto the open road, she’d felt freer than she had in months. She could’ve gone anywhere at that point, no matter how limited the choices, but Keller’s was like a beacon to her, because of Bishop. Because she couldn’t stop thinking about him, dreaming about him. He’d ruined her. It was as if he’d been dipped in some kind of magic only she could see...and all that magic had been abruptly taken from her when he’d left.

He’d left without saying goodbye to her—not really. He’d stopped in the garage while she was working, and he’d turned the song on, the same one playing the first night they’d met. “Patience.” And she’d danced with him, and pulled back before she kissed him. Because she’d wanted to kiss him.

And if you’d known he was leaving...would it’ve been different?

At this point, whether he owed her anything at all wasn’t the issue. He
did
owe her, after all the times he’d come to the shop to just sit there and watch her work on cars...

The guard opened the door to a small cell and said, “You can wait here.”

Yes, he owed her.

She stepped inside and shivered when the door clanked shut with a seeming finality behind her. The claustrophobia that was getting worse with each passing day threatened, so she sat down and stared straight ahead, taking deep breaths and pretending she was still above ground.

She wasn’t sure how much time had passed while she sat on the wooden bench, her legs tucked under her, staring at the painting across the way. It was a crude one, of grass and trees and sunshine, almost a childlike perception of the way the world used to look. She wondered what kind of prisoner requested paints, or if this was Keller’s idea of prison-chic.

She shifted, hugged her knees to her chest, only snapping out of her reverie to find a tall, dark-haired woman gazing inside Luna’s cell. She stared at Luna while asking the guard over her shoulder, “Who’s this?”

“Says she’s here for Bishop. Another one to add to his harem,” the guard at the central desk scoffed, then called to Luna, “Honey, there are a lot of other guys around—you could’ve just called to say you wanted in.”

The fact that Luna’s temper rose wasn’t a good sign and she forced herself to speak calmly. “I don’t want in. I want to see Bishop. He’s one of Defiance’s guys.”

“Actually, he’s not.” Keller stepped around the corner. He was a tall, good-looking man, probably in his early fifties. He looked like he belonged in Hollywood—with his dark hair and distinguished silver running through it. His pants and shirt were expensive. Tailored. His fingernails were clean and square, his shirtsleeves rolled up to reveal an expensive watch...and a tattoo in black ink on his forearm.

He watched her watching him. She’d only caught glimpses of him when he arrived in Defiance to pull whatever new crap he planned on pulling, and she’d always been surprised that he didn’t look the way she expected him to.

The Chaos had treated him well, although rumor was that he’d been pretty well off before the storms rolled in. He had connections all over the world. Men flew in on private planes from Europe to bring him shipments. And he had his own plane, ready to go, to bring him to where ever would keep him out of the eye of the storm.

Defiance was on his radar though. He wanted the MC’s underground tubing system for his own. Taking Bishop instead was only a stopgap to his plan, a quick Band-Aid for Defiance, and Caspar had acknowledged that.

“How are things in Defiance?” he asked casually. “I’m assuming Caspar knows you’re here?”

“Actually, he doesn’t. I took off on my own.”

Keller studied her, then nodded. “You wanted to see Bishop, then?”

“Yes.”

Keller nodded to the guards and then again to her before walking away. The next thing she knew, the door to her cell was opening. She was led into the main area once more, made to stand still and go through another pat down, like she’d magically acquired weapons in the concrete cell. Maybe she should’ve checked for them, she thought as she was finally cleared and led through another series of hallways into another section of cells.

“Do you know Bishop?” she asked the guard escorting her.

“Everyone knows him. He’s becoming something of a legend,” he told her, eager to talk to her now that Keller appeared to approve her. “He’s killing it when he fights, and Keller will do anything to keep the guy happy.”

“What exactly does that entail?”

“Good food, good wine and good women,” the guard said, then sobered quickly. “Ah, come on, honey, you know how it is.”

She did. And she stopped asking questions.

There were several women hanging out there with the guards. She didn’t know if they were being arrested or questioned at first, but it became apparent pretty quickly that they were there to keep the guards company. They were around her age, for the most part, it seemed. And they stopped talking long enough to stare at her when the guard walked her up to the main desk.

“Hello, gorgeous. Take a wrong turn somewhere?” a new guard asked, his smile quickly fading when her escort announced, “She’s from Defiance.”

“She doesn’t look like a dried-up old lady,” one of the women said and the others laughed.

Luna rolled her eyes and told the guard, “Can I just speak to Bishop please? He’ll clear this up.”

“Right. Betting you’re one of his groupies back home. He’s got way more here, I’m betting,” the woman laughed. “I should know. I’ve been in his bed.”

Luna was angrier with herself than with Bishop for the simple fact that she could’ve been the one in Bishop’s bed—the only one too, but after that first night, and the second, she’d pushed him away. Hard. Didn’t kiss him. Barely spoke to him some days. Couldn’t see past her anger and hurt, and no, she wasn’t going to let him fix her.

She knew he slept around in Defiance, more so at Kat’s house than with women she’d grown up around. But how could it upset her when he showed up in the garage every night to see her?

She told herself it didn’t matter, that if Bishop was sleeping with other women, he wouldn’t bother her. She wouldn’t have to deal with any of it.

Beyond that, she wasn’t a stranger to the way sex worked. Pre—or post-Chaos didn’t matter—it was all about power with the MCs, the mafia, and no doubt the rest of the free world. It appeared that, against all odds, Bishop held a lot of sway here. But she was tired and hungry and second-guessing her decision, wondering if Bishop was going to treat her like an idiot, or worse, a complete stranger.

So when the woman motioned to her clothing, jeans and a tank top, with a cut-off sweatshirt thrown over it for warmth, saying, “Sweetheart, if you think this is going to get Bishop to fuck you,” Luna didn’t even wait for the rest of her sentence before she lunged, hands out, ready to claw at the woman who intimated she’d bedded Bishop. And it felt really good to hit someone, to take all the frustration out she’d been holding inside.

Chapter Two

Bishop was fucking his way through Keller’s. Fucking and fighting, two mindless activities that bled off anything and everything he had inside so he didn’t have to think.

It wasn’t that he particularly minded it at Keller’s. The decadence, the excess was actually really goddamned appealing after years of post-Chaos Spartan living conditions. There were women everywhere, ready and willing and able to do whatever he wanted. But fighting wasn’t the real reason he was here.

Paul Keller had taken over the family business years before the Chaos hit. His father had a reputation as a butcher, whereas Keller had a softer approach. At least it appeared that way from the outside. Keller’s game was far more psychological, which Bishop could appreciate. Even learn from. He certainly wasn’t stupid enough to attempt to go against it. And lately, Keller had actually started treating him like royalty. Believing Keller was a trap he didn’t want to fall into, Bishop was smart enough to recognize the inherent manipulation and planned on following it through to see what lay at the end of this rainbow. Just because it was a manipulation didn’t mean it couldn’t also be as fun as fuck all. No one ever said paying your dues had to suck.

But speaking of, being interrupted in the middle of things did suck, especially because he was being escorted to the underground block of cells he really fucking despised. He didn’t bother to ask why though. Around here, no one was told anything until Keller was good and ready.

He glanced over through the half-glass partition on the door and forced himself not to react when he saw Luna fighting another girl, or to leap through it and smash—repeatedly—the face of the guard who was now holding Luna’s arms tight into the concrete floor.

Thankfully, he was saved from that last part by Luna herself. The guard holding her loosened his grip. Luna spun and there was a lot of commotion—when it cleared, Bishop saw the guy’s nose was bloodied and Luna was being restrained with her arms held behind her back and dragged into a single cell. They locked her inside, which was good. Safer, for her and for Keller’s men. He wanted a set of iron bars between her and everything that happened here.

If they’d just send her the fuck away, that would be even better.

“She punched one of our women first—the guard was just doing his job,” Keller told him now as he stood in the open doorway. “She came in asking for you.”

“Lot of them do,” he said, trying to remain calm.

Keller studied him. “You know you need invites to have your friends come here. You also know I specifically said no one from Defiance.”

“I didn’t invite her, Keller. I’m not stupid.”

“No, you’re anything but,” he agreed. “Wait here.”

Like where the fuck would I go?

He sat, his back against the concrete wall. Probably wouldn’t be the last time he ended up in prison, but luckily his criminal skills were well suited to this post-Chaos world. If he really needed to, he could’ve picked the lock and escaped. But he needed to see what the hell Luna was thinking, dragging herself here alone.