Page 15

Samantha

“That man is such a… such a freaking asshole. How the hell did you manage to not shoot him when you two were on deployment together?” I say the second I shut the motel door behind me. Hunter looks up from his place on the bed and smirks. I take a seat on the other bed and sigh. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean it. Not really. He’s just so damn frustrating and stubborn that he makes me want to smack him in the face. With an ax.”

“Did you hit him?”

“No. I wouldn’t. Not with my hand, and definitely not with an ax.”

“You should. It helps. Punching him, that is. Not cutting his head open with a weapon.”

“You mean you have hit him before?”

Hunter laughs. “Of course I have. He’s one of my best friends. Which means I’ve punched him many times. Never got around to shooting at him, but that was mostly because we’ve usually had someone else shooting at us at some point or another, so it just seemed redundant. Why do it myself when some rival club or enemy combatant might do it for me?”

“Are you serious?” I say, shifting in bed and eying the door. Despite his more open attitude and the fact that he hasn’t been a raging jerk to me, I’m suddenly a lot less comfortable with Hunter holding a gun. “You really thought about shooting him?”

“Seriously have. Never would, though. Because, as fucking frustrating as Diesel can be, there are few other people I’d trust with my life. Back at Club Sin wasn’t the first time he’s gone through the shit to save my life. Beneath that exterior — deep beneath that exterior, because he really is such a fucking asshole sometimes — there’s a good man.”

“Maybe you’re right. But why does he have to be such a freaking ass—”

Just then, the motel room door opens and Diesel enters.

The words die on my lips, but I know he’s heard enough.

He smirks at me. “It’s about time we call it a night. We have a long day tomorrow. I’ll take the first shift.”

“You sure?” Hunter says.

I blink, confused. “First shift? What kind of shift?”

“First watch,” Hunter says. “We’ll sleep in shifts, Diesel and I. Just in case Moretti’s men find us, because someone needs to be awake to keep an eye out.”

“And don’t think I’ve forgotten about you, either,” Diesel says. “Someone has to keep an eye on you, too.”

Hunter shakes his head. “You want to take the first shift? Really? You look like shit, brother. Shouldn’t you get your rest first?”

“I’ve always looked this way, but thanks for the boost to my self-confidence, Hunter,” Diesel says. “Besides, after everything I went through saving your ass, once I go to sleep, it ain’t going to be easy waking up and I will not be fucking alert when I am. Best for me to push through, so I can get all my sleep at once.”

Hunter shrugs and grunts. “Fine by me. I won’t say no to some shut-eye.”

In the shocking span of only an instant, Hunter stretches out, shuts his eyes, and soft snores immediately emanate from him. After everything we’ve been through, how can he sleep just like that? Jealous, I stretch out on the bed and try to do the same, but my mind races out of control, replaying the events of the last few days as my body desperately cries out for rest. A million worried questions race through my mind: Is Jake still OK? How can I contact him? How close are Moretti’s men, really? Do he or Grub suspect that I helped Hunter and Diesel escape, or do they believe I’m just an innocent victim? Why is Diesel watching me like that, with that quiet smile on his face? Has he gotten closer in the last ten seconds? How is it that, although his face is battered and bruised and bandaged, he still looks handsome? Why did it feel so good to touch him and take care of him earlier, to be so close to him and have this deeper part of me know that, despite his protests, he wanted me there?

Just as my mind somehow stops spinning, and I release my fears and anxieties and other unnamed feelings about that frustrating man and feel sublime sleep creep in around the edges of my consciousness, Diesel speaks up. “I didn’t want to say this in front of him, but thank you for what you did earlier.”

I sit up, now completely awake, and look at Diesel.

“What the heck? Why didn’t you want to say ‘thank you’ in front of Hunter?”

“I have a reputation to keep up. Besides, with how I treated you earlier, and the things he heard me say, if he caught me thanking you, I’d never live it down.”

I want to hit him again for his cocky attitude; hit him, and do something else — something far friendlier.

“I really don’t know what to say to that. You two have a strange relationship.”

“It happens when you’ve both nearly died more times than you can count while protecting each other. You ever have that with someone? Someone that you’ve risked everything for, yet still want to smack them in their face?”

My mind goes to Jake. I love him, will always love him, and will always hope that he’ll get his shit together and turn back into the brother who was so easy to love… and I have a feeling I’ll always be left hoping for something that’ll never come, and secretly wanting to hit him in the face and scream at him until I’ve lost my voice.

“Maybe.” My words hang in the silence, and Diesel looks at me in a way that makes me feel like he’s reading me to my very core. It makes my skin crawl in a way that’s not completely unpleasant. “I should get some sleep.”

I lie back down, trying to get comfortable on the lumpy motel mattress. My eyelids are heavy, but my mind won't stop galloping like a racehorse on speed. I keep stealing glances at Diesel, who's now sitting in the chair by the window. The soft glow from the bedside lamp casts shadows across his face, accentuating the bruises and cuts.

Suddenly, he reaches for something on the nightstand — a small notepad and pen. I watch as he sketches, his large hands moving with surprising grace across the paper. The scratching sound of the pen is oddly soothing, and I find myself relaxing despite myself. Every so often, his eyes dart from the paper to me, and then back to the paper.

After a while, I can’t contain my curiosity any longer. "What are you drawing?"

Diesel doesn't look up, his focus entirely on the paper.

"Just some ideas," he murmurs. "I'm a tattoo artist. Helps keep my mind busy."

"A tattoo artist? Really?"

He nods, eyes and pen still on the paper. "Yeah. Been doing it for years. It's therapeutic, I guess. Helps me keep my shit together when life gets rough. It’s always been there for me, even when others haven’t, or when others have… when they’ve left."

Something in his voice — a hint of vulnerability, perhaps — touches me at a point deep inside my chest and draws me closer. I prop myself up on my elbow and study him; the furrow of concentration set deep between his brows, the way he bites his lower lip, the sense of peace and relaxation in his movements — it's a side of Diesel I never expected to see; a side of pain, of vulnerability, of humanity.

A side I shouldn’t see , I remind myself. Everything here has a time limit, and the shorter it is, the better. The sooner I can get away from Diesel and Hunter, the sooner I can find my way back to something resembling a normal life.

Still, something stronger than common sense draws me to him. Something deep, primal, irresistible.

"Can I see it?”

Diesel hesitates for a moment, then shakes his head.

“Maybe when it’s done. You should get some sleep. In five, six hours, you might hear some noise as Hunter and I switch off. Don’t be alarmed, we won’t let anything happen to you.”

“Five or six hours? That’s most of the night.”

He nods absently, his eyes mostly on the page in front of him, though they flicker to me every so often. “It is. Hunter won’t admit it, but he needs the rest more than I do. Before we got picked up by Moretti’s men, he’d been raising Charlie mostly on his own. Now, he’s got Emily to help him out — and she’s fucking amazing with the kid, don’t get me wrong — but even so, Hunter and Charlie have been through a lot. Besides, I won’t be sleeping much tonight. I got something else on my mind.”

“What is it? Is it something you want to talk about?”

“You’ve had a hard day, Samantha. You should get some sleep. Please.”

There’s a note of both command and compassion in his voice, and the warmth of it silences me. The room falls into a comfortable quiet as Diesel continues to draw. Despite my better judgment, I see him in a new light — he's not just the asshole and killer I thought him to be, but a man with a big heart who deeply cares for his friends. The steady scratch of his pen against paper becomes a soothing lullaby, and soon my eyelids grow impossibly heavy.

A yawn splits my lips, and I lay my head back on the pillow. Before I drift off to sleep, I whisper, "Goodnight, Diesel."

Through barely open eyes, I swear I catch a hint of a smile on his lips, but then he shakes his head, his expression turning cold and impersonal.

"Go to sleep," he says curtly, turning back to his drawing.

I close my eyes and do my best to ignore the twinge of disappointment that tweaks my heart at his brusque response. I thought we’d been getting somewhere, that maybe we were coming to an understanding. I should’ve known better — it’s always one step forward, two steps back with Diesel; one minute, there’s humanity and kindness with him, and the next, he acts like those two words might as well be in a foreign language.

But just as I'm about to fall asleep, I hear his voice again. It’s softer this time, with an unexpected tenderness.

"Goodnight, Samantha."

A smile lifts the corners of my lips as sleep takes me.