Sexy Bastards Anthology: Bad Boy, Biker, Alpha, Motorcycle Club, Contemporary Romance Collection (74 page)

Chapter 3

Crystal

My dad's face flashed through my mind. Words he had told me once floated through my consciousness, even as my vision began to blacken.

Don't ever give up. Don't ever let someone take you. Always fight. Don't ever get in a car with someone just because they have a gun pointed at you. It's better to die on your feet in a few minutes than be tortured in someone's basement for a month.

The words weren't attached to any specific incident or memory, but it sounded like the kind of thing my dad would say to me. He'd had a hard life, my dad. A horrible life sometimes. He'd been captured in Vietnam, I knew that. He'd been to jail many times. He'd even lost his only love, my mother, less than two months ago to a
suspicious
car accident. When he said things like that, it had always seemed to hold some sort of empty threat, like I knew that stuff happened to other people, but not to me. Until now.

I pressed my forehead into the ground and lifted my back up with all the strength I had, using up the last of my oxygen, seeing my dad in my mind's eye. His image faded and Talon's face replaced it.

I would see Talon again. And when I did, I would tell him how I felt.

I shoved a hand in my pocket, thinking I could call 911. Maybe the police could trace my location and would send a car by. If I wasn't dragged off by then. My fingers traced the coin Talon had given me and the image of Talon in my mind leapt into Technicolor. That was my lucky coin.

Now I knew I would get out of this.
My fingers dug deeper and found something else.

A desperate weapon for a desperate time.

I pulled my keys out and dropped my stomach to the ground, tucking my right shoulder underneath me and twisting my body with every ounce of strength I possessed. As I rolled, I fit my room key between two fingers, so the end stuck out like a tiny knife. As soon as my shoulder was free enough I slammed the key as hard as I could at the shape above me, aiming for a dark hole I thought was an eye.

A tortured scream rewarded me and the hands that had been holding me disappeared. My keys ripped out of my grasp and hot wet liquid splashed on me. With my now-empty hand I ripped the duct tape off my mouth and pulled in a gasping breath.

My vision returned.

The man on top of me had his hands over his bloody face, my keys dangling over his thumb. I scooted backwards, almost hyperventilating, then pulled my feet out from underneath him and kicked out at him with all my strength, knocking him backwards. My keys fell to the dirt with a tiny, unimportant jingle as he groaned and grabbed at his eye.

I rolled, gasped, and scrambled to my feet, hooking my keys with one hand, and ran.

Eventually, I was able to scream.

Chapter 4

Talon

I woke up with a jerk, almost falling off the office chair I was perched on. My eyes locked on the clock on the wall. I'd slept for almost three hours.

So it had all been a dream ... ?

Hope surged through me like it had each time I'd fallen asleep for the last twenty-six days, only to be awakened by the exact same dream.

The three blackened nails on my right hand caught my attention. No, it had really happened.

Fuck.

And we still hadn't found Jaze or his body. Still didn't know what had really happened, or if it had been our bullets that had ripped through his chest and head.

In my mind, I knew he was dead. I knew I had killed him.

It was destroying me, one haze-filled day at a time.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out and looked at the screen.
Crystal.
I couldn't deal with her right now. She didn't even know Jaze was missing. Whip had forbidden me from telling her so she wouldn't fail her final exams. She'd never been close with her mother, but having to come home for her mother's funeral in the middle of the school year had still dealt her a blow, put her behind. She'd almost not gone back to school, and to me, that was unacceptable. She had to be the one to make it out of this small town, the one to live her dreams, the one to finally be happy.

I pressed ignore and shoved my phone back in my pocket.

I looked around the small room, searching my mind, trying to throw off the pall of dread the dream had left over me.
Why had I come here?

My eye fell on the full closet and I strode to it, pulling clothes out and stuffing them into the duffel I had brought. I had rented a house two months ago in order to provide a home for my brothers after my mom kicked them out, but I still hadn't managed to move all my shit from this tiny room at the clubhouse where I had lived since I returned from my time at Womack Army Medical Center. It had been low fucking priority, but now I was running out of clean clothes.

My shirts twisted on the hangers as my thoughts piled on top of each other. I yanked at the hangers, sweeping several of them onto the floor, then having to kneel and pick them up, ignoring the twinge in my right calf. Womack. God I had hated that place. Those fucking doctors had lied to me, experimented on me, and finally thrown me away because of one simple mistake, launching my hopes of being career army into the fucking trash can.

I stuffed the shirts in the duffel and stalked across the room, blowing air noisily out of my mouth, not wanting to go down this road, even in my own thoughts again.

What's done is done.

A knock sounded on the door and I turned to it, pissed and glad at the same time. "What?"

"Whitey told me to check on you," Rams called through the door, his voice making it sound like he hadn't wanted to. I twisted the shirt still in my hands and flung it on the bed. Yeah, I knew I'd been a grumpy fucker lately. Keeping a dozen fucking secrets would do that to a man.

"I'm fine. Took a nap," I fired back.

"Got it," Rams said and I heard his boots clomp down the hallway.

I went back to my packing, forcing myself to fold everything neatly. When I had filled my duffel I slung it over my shoulder and headed into the hall.

Music and laughter greeted me.
Fuckers
. Having fun while Jaze was missing. They should all be out looking for him. Whip and his fucking secrets, telling the boys Jaze was in Vegas. Only a few guys knew and Whip had threatened to disown them if they said a word before Whip was ready.

If I thought it would do any good I would spill it to everyone, but Whip had insisted I didn't. He and I had spent every day since we'd seen Jaze lifeless in the back of the truck asking questions to anybody we thought could possibly know something, but we hadn't turned up anything.

Whip said the cops knew Jaze was missing, and I figured the deputy chief did. Him and Whip went way back, all the way to school days, before Vietnam, before the Mad Marauders MC was even a dream. But was there an APB out on Jaze? Were cops on the street looking for him? Had there been any investigation into what had gone down in the warehouse? Whip wouldn't say. I knew better than to push.

But that didn't mean I could just fucking leave things either. I had my own investigation underway that Whip didn't know about. He'd be pissed as hell if he found out. Oh fucking well. I was never one to blindly follow orders.

"Talon, that reporter is outside again," Rams said from his seat at the smoky bar.

I grunted and kept walking, ignoring my phone as it buzzed in my pocket. As I reached the door I heard one of the prospects fake-whisper, "If he was fucking airborne, how come he don't wear the badge? I bet he was just a leg."

I stopped and dropped my duffel. The talk in the room cut off but my heartbeat stayed steady. Ordinarily I didn't care what anyone thought of me, especially some fucking prospect, but my nerves were worn thin already. I wouldn't try to prove I'd been where I'd been and done what I'd done. What was done was fucking done and I didn't like to talk about it anyway. That was why I didn't wear my badges, even though I had earned a metric fuck-ton of them. Because people asked too many questions about things I wanted to bury.

I turned and found the prospect at the pool table and walked towards him. He saw me coming, and too late, realized his mistake. He put his hands up and his eyes went wide. "Sorry man, Talon, I was just fu—"

I cut off his words with a head butt to his jaw. Down he fucking went. "Those badges didn't do shit for
you
, did they?" I snarled, nodding at the sharpshooter and airborne badges he had pinned over his left tag.

I returned to my duffel and hauled it out the door.

"Get him out of here," I heard Whitey snarl behind me. "And when he wakes up, tell him not to come back. He can talk to Whip but till Whip's back, he stays the fuck away."

Good. I didn't like that guy anyway. It would save me the trouble of having to vote
no fucking way
for him if Whitey didn't like him either. Now that the other guys had seen the vice-president throw him out of the clubhouse while he was knocked the fuck out, opinion would turn against him real quick.

My mind turned back to my real problems and I held on for the ride.

Chapter 5

Talon

I pushed out the door into the sunlight. The hot dry air pressed against my face, warming it immediately. I pulled my sunglasses out of an inner pocket of my leather cut and put them on, already noting the reporter in her car at the gate. She didn't quite dare to come in the parking lot. Someone must have had a talk with her.

Good. She needed to go away.

I strapped my bag to the back of my Dyna, then threw my leg over the seat and fired it up. The roar of the engine soothed me immediately. If I couldn't be one of Uncle Sam's mean and unseen, then I would ride a beast for the rest of my life and never think it was second-fucking-fiddle. I didn't have to ride it to somewhere. Just riding it was enough.

My phone buzzed in my pocket but I didn't care. If it was Whip, ignoring him would be payback. Anyone else didn't matter right now. Crystal's face popped into my thoughts but I ignored it. She was happy. Working hard. Chasing her dream. She didn't need me.

I twisted the throttle and rode to the street. The reporter was already out of her car and moving towards me. I headed straight for her, then jogged around her at the last minute, enjoying the look of alarm on her face. I wasn't trying to be a fucking outlaw, most days, but if she thought I would just as soon run over her than talk to her, she might leave me alone. I would never give her an interview.

Ever.

I drove the eight miles to the tiny house I shared with my brothers on surface streets, ignoring the looks I got as I cruised by. I pulled my bike into the garage and turned it off, then headed in the house.

Eric greeted me in the kitchen. "Where you been?"

"Sorry, I had business. Is he ok?"

Eric's lips twisted. "Yeah, he's fine. But I think he's not gonna be fine soon if we don't get him a refill on his medication. His tics are coming back."

Fuck.

Our younger brother Greg was sixteen and had high-functioning autism and major OCD. I thought he would relapse when Mom kicked him and Eric out of the house two months ago, but so far he'd been doing great. He seemed happy even, something he'd never been at Mom's house. But then I'd tried to take him to his doctor for his annual exam and refill on all his medications and the doctor wouldn't see him or refill his meds without talking to our mother. Problem was, our mother had washed her hands of all of us, kicking me out years ago because I wouldn't follow her bullshit rules anymore, then kicking the younger boys out just recently because they were getting in the way of her prescription pill habit. Eric had flushed her Adderall and Xanax down the toilet in a fit of rage when she had made Greg cry just because she was feeling bitchy.

I sat heavily in a chair at the table. "How much do we have left?"

"Only enough for three more days if we keep giving him half doses."

"Shit." I scrubbed my face with my hands. "Mom won't even talk to me. I don't know how to get her to write me a guardianship letter."

Eric only stared at me, his expression carefully blank. I slammed my fist on the table and stood up. "Fine. I'll figure it out. I'll get him something by the day after tomorrow."

Greg did pretty well when he was on all of his medications, but he was very unhappy when he was off of them, and if Greg was unhappy, we would all be unhappy.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket and strode into the living room. I swiped the screen to see three missed calls from Crystal. No messages. I would have to call her, make sure she wasn't in trouble. The thought sent a pulse of pleasure through me and I stuffed it down. She always had been and always would be off-limits to me, especially now that I had probably killed her brother. The sour taste of my own stomach acid filled my mouth, killing any joy I had felt.

I speed-dialed Rams.

"'Lo."

"Rams, I need something from you."

"Shoots, man, anything."

"I need you to get me Prozac and Ritalin. At least enough for a couple of months."

"Ah, Talon, come on, man. You know I don't do that shit anymore."

I curled my lips around my teeth and heard my voice go tight. "Bullshit, Rams. I ain't fucking stupid. It's for Greg, and it's an emergency. Will you fucking help us or not?"

Rams was trying to reconcile with his bitch of an ex-wife and part of that meant going clean. No dealing, no partaking. He was only twenty-two, and already had an ex-wife and a three year old girl he loved more than anything but hardly ever got to see.

I knew Rams was trying, but I also knew he was still dealing, mostly pills. As long as he didn't deal to my mother, I didn't give a shit.

He didn't respond for a moment. I wasn't going to swear I wouldn't say anything. He should already fucking know that about me.

I heard the background noise on the call change as Rams moved away from wherever he was. Probably still right where I had left him, the club.

"Yeah man, I'll help you. But I don't have any. The Prozac will be cheap but harder to get, and the Ritalin is expensive."

"How much?"

"Could be $15 a pill."

I did some calculations in my head. Greg took two pills a day. At that cost, just a month's worth would cost $900. Shit.

"How soon can you get it?" I asked.

"Ah, Talon, I'm kind of low on funds at the moment. I know a guy, but he won't give me credit."

I'd never met a broke drug dealer, but I knew Rams wouldn't shit me. He had his own habits to support. "If I get you some money, how long will it take to get it?"

"A day, maybe two."

"You staying at the club today?"

"Yeah man, I ain't going nowhere."

"See you in a few."

I hung up and stared hard at the phone, then went back in to where Eric was waiting at the kitchen table.

"How much?" he asked.

I gave him a hard look. He might only be seventeen, but he was smart. "$15 a pill."

He did the math quicker than I had. "$900 just for one month? You got that?"

I fell into a chair. "No. I've got rent, but I don't have enough for both."

Eric scratched his chin where his face was just starting to sprout some dark hair. I grunted and mirrored him, rubbing my fingers through my neatly trimmed, short beard. I could take the beard or leave it, but the ladies seemed to love it, so I wore it. Keeping it short meant the ones who didn't like beards were still into me too. I was still getting used to it though, after my three year stint in the Army with their shave-every-day rule.

"I could get a job," Eric said.

I blew out a breath in frustration. "You could. So could I. But neither of us are gonna get paid in the next three days."

"Can you borrow money from the president of your club? That Whip guy?"

"Maybe," I said slowly, doubting it. "Maybe not. Whip's in deep with some private shit right now." I leaned back and tried to adopt an attitude of encouragement. I liked to see Eric think on his feet, try to work through this problem like a man. Neither of us had ever had a father figure in our lives, well, not till Whip took me in when Mom kicked me out. Whip had done it for me, and now I would try to do it for Eric and Greg.

"Too bad you spent all your disability money on the surgery."

I smiled. "Yeah, too bad, but totally worth it," I reminded him. The army had pulled some bullshit after I'd had about half of my knee and lower leg blown away in the sandbox. They should have just amputated me above the knee. I might even have been able to stay on active duty if they had. Instead, they fucked around and decided to try some experimental bone replacement on me. It didn't work, so they cut me a check and said adi-fucking-os, don't call us, we won't call you. Oh, and I cold-cocked the surgeon who had fucked me up with a bedpan. That hadn't helped my case any.

I had some money put away for rent, but with almost no income coming in it wouldn't last long. I'd been bouncing at one of the club bars but had only been able to do it sporadically since my surgery. My entire one-time disability payment from Uncle Sam had been spent in the last year on more surgery in Mexico and the resulting physical therapy. Now all I had was my bike and my brothers.

Fuck. I needed a job that paid more than minimum wage. Whip sometimes offered underground jobs that paid big bonuses, like teaching guys lessons, or pulling security on the shadier shit he and Whitey were into, but Whip was thigh-deep in shit right now, trying to find Jaze or at least figure out what happened to him.

Plus I hadn't decided how ok I was with jobs like that. I was only twenty-three years old. I'd had my goals set on becoming the youngest general the United States Army had ever seen. Was I really going to trade that all in to be a common street criminal? 

Eric pressed his lips together. "If the Army would have done the job right in the first place you wouldn't have had to pay for it yourself." His voice began to raise. "You shouldn't have done it. You should have sued them!"

I held up a hand. We had been round and round this many times. I didn't want Eric to poison his mind with blame and disillusionment like I had. It had taken me over a year to even be able to look at the fucking flag again or be able to walk into an Army hospital without beating the shit out of every doctor I saw. Blame and anger hadn't killed me, but they sure as shit had stolen my soul. I was only now getting pieces of it back. I hadn't made my peace with the government yet, but at least I wasn't still in an active war with it either.

"We've gone over this before, Eric. If the Army had followed protocol, I wouldn't have my lower leg right now. And if I were still enlisted, where would you two be living? Even if everything doesn't happen for a reason, we still can't know that things would be better if they were different." I could play armchair fucking philosopher with the best of them.

Eric put his forearms on the table and dropped his head onto them. "You could still sue," he said, a grumpy tone in his voice.

"I could. If I ever decide to, you'll be the first to know."

We sat that way for a while, each of us lost in our own thoughts. I heard Greg cackle madly from a back bedroom, probably watching one of his shows.

Eric lifted his head. "What about that guy, that rich guy?"

"Knox Rosesson?"

"Yeah, he could give you money."

"He's your half-brother, Eric. Not just some rich guy. I wish you would go with me to meet him. You would like him."

Eric crossed his arms and looked away. "Bullshit," he said at the wall.

"You would," I said, standing up. I was almost at my limit. "He's a nice guy. It's not his fault his father never wanted anything to do with us."

Eric's cheeks reddened. I knew that shit burned him. It burned me too, but we had to face it. Felix Rosesson was a rich, old fuck who'd kept our mother as a side chick and never gave a shit about any of us. Never even spoke a word to us, even though he had to know, or at least suspect that we were his.

"If he's a nice guy," Eric said, "Ask him for money. Easy."

"No way," I said softly. Eric didn't understand yet, but he would. "I don't ask for handouts, Eric."

"A loan then!" Eric said, standing up also and locking eyes with me. "Look, I'm glad we aren't living with Mom anymore, but I wouldn't mind a few groceries every once in a while, and if Greg doesn't get his pills, he's gonna start breaking shit and then we're gonna get kicked out of here. Then what? You don't understand, Tom, you haven't been around enough lately to know how bad he can get."

Eric was right. I hadn't been around. But I was here now. I needed to get out of the house before my temper got the better of me. Eric didn't know when to quit sometimes, and if he was calling me by the name my mother gave me, that meant he was close to losing it too. "I'll get the pills, I'll pay the rent, and I'll get some fucking groceries. That make you happy?"

Eric just stared, like he'd believe it when he saw it. Time to make it real. I headed back to the garage. "I'll be back later," I said and pushed out the door.

My phone rang as I threw a leg over my bike. I almost ignored it, then thought better of it.

Whip.

I swiped it on and spoke eagerly. "You found anything?"

"Not now, Talon. You gotta go get Crystal."

"What?" I said, confused for a moment.

"She was attacked on campus. I'm still out of state and can't go get her."

Crystal was attacked? Black anger rose up inside me as I contemplated getting my hands around the throat of the bastard who did it.

Nobody touched Crystal.

Nobody.