Page 10

Diesel

Scaring Samantha isn’t my preferred way of doing things, but it’s for her own good; in times where people are about to put a few extra holes in your head, you don’t fuck around and hesitate when someone with combat experience is giving you orders. Hesitation kills. So consequences be damned, because if I hadn’t taken control, Samantha would be laying face down in a pool of her own blood in the parking lot of Club Sin.

“Drive west. Stay off the freeway and the main roads,” I say. “Hunter, keep your eyes on our six. They’ll be in pursuit, and we need to be ready.”

“Already on it,” he says. There’s something in his tone that draws my attention, and I give him a look. When I do, he inclines his head toward Samantha, who is driving just like I ordered her, though her face is ghost white and her hands are shaking.

I frown back at him. Doesn’t he understand it has to be this way? I can’t go getting attached to her, and I can’t allow her to be attached to me — any of that could put her life at risk once we let her go. And besides, we had to put on a show for Grub; that infected anal fissure needed to be slapped in the face with all the fucking evidence that Samantha was nothing more than a hostage so that when it’s all over and we part ways, she can go back to her old life with no one suspecting a thing.

Hunter rolls his eyes in response.

I flip him the bird.

He laughs and the sharp sound startles Samantha and she swerves for a moment before recovering control of the car.

“Hey, Samantha. Just relax. Keep your eyes on the road and ignore the asshole in the front seat,” Hunter says. “And once we’re clear of the city, we’ll look for a motel, somewhere to lie low and get some rest.”

“A motel?” Samantha says, shaking. She’s so out of her mind with fear that even basic words aren’t registering.

“Yes. A motel. It’s where you can pay to rent a room to sleep in, like when you’re on a vacation or when you need to have some privacy while you tend to gruesome wounds,” Hunter says. He’s talking to her in a soothing tone that I’ll bet is the same one he uses when Charlie is having a tantrum. How the hell did my best friend become so domesticated so quickly?

“Oh. A motel. Got it.”

We drive in tense silence for the next hour, winding through back roads and residential areas that get more rundown the further we go, until even the rundown neighborhoods fade into sick suburban sprawl. My eyes scan constantly for any signs of pursuit, but so far we seem to have given Grub and his goons the slip. Still, I know better than to let my guard down; I did that once before and it cost me everything but my life.

As we reach the outskirts of Boise, I spot a rundown motel with a flickering neon "Vacancy" sign, junker cars in the parking lot, and several broken windows in the main lobby building; everything that screams they’re only interested in money, not in answering questions or remembering faces.

I use my gun to point toward the hotel. "Pull in there."

She obeys silently, steering the car into the nearly empty parking lot. Her hands are still shaking as she puts the car in park.

“You have any cash?” I say to her.

She looks down at her outfit, then taps the pockets of her skimpy Daisy Dukes. “Do I look like I have the pocket space to have any cash? I can barely fit my keys in here.”

"I'll go find us some money," Hunter says, checking his gun before tucking it into his waistband. "Be back in a few."

As Hunter disappears into the night, I keep my eyes on Samantha; she's still trembling, her eyes darting around nervously as she tries to get some handle on the situation she’s in. So much of me wants to tell her the truth — about why this has to happen this way — but the rest of me knows I can’t do that. If I tell her, it’ll just put her in more danger; she has to hate us, so that when we let her go, she’s able to tell anyone who asks that Hunter and I are nothing more than brutal, violent bastards who took her captive and whoever’s listening will believe her. If there’s even a sliver of doubt in her voice, she’ll be dead.

And I can’t let that happen.

Not again.

"Why are you doing this?" she asks, her voice barely above a whisper. "Why are you treating me like a hostage when I helped you escape? I was just trying to do the right thing and save you two, because you needed help."

“Because you are my hostage. If you behave yourself, I'll let you go soon enough. But for now, you need to keep your mouth shut and do as you're told." Every word out of my mouth is a knife in my heart, but this is how it has to be; we can’t get close, I can’t put her in any more danger.

"But I thought…" she murmurs, but I cut her off before she can go any further.

"You thought wrong. This isn't a game, Samantha. This is life or death. And the only way you make it out of this alive is if you do as you’re told, like a good girl."

She flinches at my harsh tone, and tears well up in her eyes; I force myself to look away, to not let her vulnerability affect me. This is for her own good, I remind myself. I have to be cruel.

"You better not cry. Just keep your mouth shut while we wait for Hunter," I say, my voice gruff. "And don't try anything stupid."

Samantha nods and wraps her arms around herself, as if trying to physically hold herself together. The quiet in the car is heavy, oppressive. I keep my eyes trained on our surroundings, watching for any sign of trouble, but my mind keeps drifting back to the trembling woman beside me.

Minutes tick by slowly. Every so often, I steal glances at Samantha, noting how small and fragile she looks in the harsh glow of the motel's neon sign. She's staring straight ahead, her jaw clenched, clearly fighting to hold back tears and failing.

I open my mouth, then close it again. What could I possibly say? That I'm sorry? That this is all an act? No, it's better this way. Better that she hates me, fears me. It'll make it easier when we part.

Finally, after what feels like an eternity, I see Hunter's figure approaching. As he gets closer, I see the satisfied grin on his face.

"Got us some cash," he says as he slides into the backseat and flashes a thick wad of bills. “You think people would learn that, if you’re going to sell drugs, you shouldn’t leave any of your bankroll just sitting in your fucking car where anyone could take it after they kick the shit out of you.”

“Good work, brother.” I take some of the money from Hunter and then hand it to Samantha. “Go in there and get us a room.”

“Why me?” She says.

“Because, out of the three of us, you look the least suspicious.”

“Really? I’m basically naked,” she says, raising an eyebrow at me that. “How does that not look suspicious?”

Suspicious is not the word I would use, but I can’t let myself go down the road of describing how Samantha and her body look right now — because that’s an extensively curvy road that I’d love to lose myself on.

“And I look like I’ve been hit in the face a few dozen times with a meat tenderizer. And Hunter, well, he ain’t looking so pretty either. Sorry, brother, I don’t mean any offense.”

“No offense taken. It’s true — I don’t feel my most attractive right now.”

I push the cash toward Samantha again. “That means you need to get off your ass and go in there and get us a room.”

Samantha sighs heavily, then takes the money and gets out of the car. I watch her walk towards the motel office, her hips swaying slightly despite her obvious tension. Is she doing that to fuck with me, or is she just unaware of how gorgeous she is?

She hesitates at the door, then squares her shoulders and goes inside.

"You're being too hard on her," Hunter says quietly from the backseat.

I glare at him, even though he’s right. "I'm doing what needs to be done. You know the stakes here."

"I know," he replies, holding up his hands in a placating gesture. "But there might be a middle ground between treating her like shit and getting too attached. She's scared, Diesel. And confused. A little kindness might go a long way in keeping her cooperative."

I grunt noncommittally, not wanting to admit that he might have a point. Before I can formulate a response, I see Samantha emerging from the office, a key dangling from her hand. She walks back to the car, and with each step she gets closer, her movements become more stiff and cautious.

Fuck, I hate what I’m doing to her.

"Room 12," she says flatly as she gets back in. "It's around the back."

I nod and start the car, driving slowly around to the rear of the motel. The parking lot back here is even emptier, with only a rusty pickup truck occupying one space. We park in front of room 12, and I do a quick scan of the area before nodding to the others.

"Alright, let's move.”

“Good, because I need to hit the damn head and I’ve had to go for hours,” Hunter says, and he snatches the room key from my hand and speedwalks toward the door. “For your safety, wait outside until I give you the all clear.”

“Fuck, brother, no more details. We get it,” I say.

Hunter raises a thumbs up over his shoulder and disappears into the room.

I get out of the car, groaning as every muscle and bone in my body reminds me I’ve been beaten to hell and back and spent the last few hours sitting down and doing nothing but stiffening up. I try to stretch, and end up setting off a chain reaction of pain and cramps that runs from the back of my neck down to my big right toe and makes my right asscheek feel like someone’s jabbed a red hot poker into it, which would have been a more effective torture method than the shit that Dominic Rossi tried to pull. Samantha exits the car as well and crosses her arms over her chest, a gesture that I’m sure she intends to be modest, but ends up just stressing the shape of her tits and sending my eyes toward the sky to avoid staring.

I lean against the car, trying to appear casual despite the pain coursing through my body. Samantha shifts her weight from one foot to the other, drawing my attention. She takes a step closer, and I can't help but notice the way the dim parking lot lights play across her curves.

"So," she says, her voice low, "what's the plan now?"

I force myself to meet her sad and weary eyes, though looking into those tear-wet depths is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done; if things were different, I’d kill whoever put those tears in her eyes.

"We lie low, recover, then figure out our next move. We need to get back to Ironwood Falls. The MC is there, and we need them to keep Moretti off our backs. And we need to get back to our families. Well, Hunter does."

With those two paltry words — our families — a pang of something agonizing and unfamiliar stabs through my chest; after Brandy, it’s never bothered me I’ve lived alone. No one, nothing, could measure up to her. Or so I’ve thought. But now, seeing the way Hunter’s changed, how damn happy and fulfilled he’s seemed in finding someone and becoming a father, it’s reminded me of what I don’t have.

And being around Samantha makes it all worse.

The woman who risked her life out of kindness in order to save mine; the woman I have to be cruel to in order to save her life.

As if she knows I’m thinking about her, she takes another step closer. I catch a whiff of her perfume. It's intoxicating. Disarming.

I want to pull her close, bury my face in her hair, and inhale her while my hands roam her luscious body and strip the last remnants of that skimpy uniform from her incredible curves.

Her eyes flicker again.

She knows every thought going through my head.

"And then what?" she says, inclining her head slightly. Her lips open just a little, and something else — something heated — flares through her eyes. “What do we do? You and I are alone. How are we going to pass the time?”

I open my mouth to respond, but before I can speak, Samantha lunges at me while a feral growl erupts from her throat. One of her small fists connects with my jaw, and a bright light explodes in my vision. She screams like a banshee while I stumble back, surprise and pain blasting through my head.

And she keeps coming.

Still screaming, she hits with another punch that stuns me, and then a knee that crushes into my groin and sends me to my knees.