Page 21

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

SAINT

A s one, we turn and leave the room. As soon as I’m outside, I text Heathen to come stand guard outside the door, to keep it locked, and not go inside. I can’t trust her. Which begs the question, why the fuck did Gris get close enough for her to get the drop on him? If he’d done what was expected, he’d have stayed outside the room. Doesn’t matter whether he was simply curious about the guest who’d arrived when he was gone, or really had wanted to get his dick wet, he’d gone against instructions.

The prospect appears fast and nods to show his compliance. Then Freak and I descend the stairs and into the club room. The bunnies are noticeably absent, and the brothers are quiet. Bullseye steps forward.

“You get any more out of her?”

Shaking my head, I reply, “Enough to make me worried about Gris. Need to check out her story.”

His eyes shutter. “You really think he could be a plant?”

Freak answers for me. “I don’t think the VP wants to believe she’s lying.” I stiffen, but can’t deny, much as I’d hate to have a traitor in the club, a big part of me would prefer her to be innocent. I keep my mouth shut and am surprised when Freak adds, “Even given that, she’s said enough that there are things I want to check out.”

“Like?” Bullseye prompts, his eyes still on me.

“Like when she said he was there in Tucson, he certainly wasn’t here in the club. Also, she told us it had turned rough when she’d called him, and he’d apparently responded to the name, Skunk.”

“And,” I add my two pennies' worth to Freak’s observation, “his manners are more of a full patch than of someone who’s trying to earn their way in.”

Prez stills, at last removes his intense stare from me, thinks, then nods. “Noticed that myself. Dismissed him as an arrogant asshole who was going to have to do a whole lot of work to get his patch.” He pushes back his hair, sighs, then states, “Okay, so we’ve got to question him. Doc’s got the bullet out. It wasn’t life-threatening, and he can stand up to some questioning. Knight’s keeping him company in the medical room for now, but when we’ve brought everyone up to speed, we’ll get him out to the barn and start getting answers.” But he’s not finished. He looks at me menacingly. “I don’t like this, Saint. Woody brought him in and sponsored him. We judged him as a hangaround then brought him on board. Would leave a fuckin’ sour taste in the mouth if it turns out we were wrong.” He pauses, then adds, “If he’s innocent, it’s going to be that woman who’s next in our sights, and after this, it won’t be some mercy killing. Sorry, VP, but that’s how it is. Kings won’t put up with anyone fucking with us.”

Through gritted teeth, knowing I’d already thought that myself, I raise my chin to show I agree. There’s no coming back for Pippa if Gris convinces us there’s nothing to her story. The stakes are high. Brushing back my hair, I pull it together and wrap a tie around it, thinking how we’ve got to cover all bases. Trying to recall all the salient points of the conversation I’ve just had, I make a suggestion, “Someone needs to check Gris, see if he’s got a burner phone on him.”

Narrowing his eyes, Prez nods. “And check his fuckin’ room for anything incriminating.” After taking a moment, he calls out, “Tempest, get over here.” Approval goes through me. As sergeant-at-arms, Tempest takes the club’s security personally. He won’t miss anything if there’s something there to be found. Bullseye explains in a low voice what he wants, and after a flaring of his eyes as he realises we’re seriously considering there could be a traitor among us, Tempest determinedly walks out of the clubhouse and over to the bunkhouse to the rooms the prospects use.

“Church!” Bullseye yells, circling his finger over his head to get everyone moving.

There’s been a palatable undercurrent throughout the room. Most might be unaware of the details of what’s gone down, but they know Gris was shot, and as it happened upstairs, that Pippa was involved.

Bullseye takes his seat. I sit beside him, the sergeant-at-arms chair opposite remaining empty as the rest of the brothers pile in. Freak’s particularly silent as he sits next to me. Woody plonks his ass down next to him, then there’s Stalker, our treasurer, Paint, Rattler, Winchester, Short and Words. Finally, Genie saunters in.

As eyes fall on the empty chair, Prez bangs the gavel. “Tempest is checking something out.”

Leaning back and lighting a cigarette, Paint looks at me and smirks. “So did Gris step on your toes with the bitch upstairs, VP?”

Freak growls, “That fuckin’ woman disarmed the prospect and shot him with his own gun.”

“She’s dead,” Rattler pronounces, sitting back in satisfaction as if he’d been right all along.

“Not so fuckin’ fast,” Bullseye says, fixing him with a glare. “Just like you, Rat, to want to shoot first and ask questions after. But corpses tell no tales. While she might well deserve to be six feet underground, I think we all need to hear and digest her story before bullets start flying her way.”

“She shot one of ours,” Stalker growls. “She shouldn’t still be breathing.”

Playing devil’s advocate, I propose, “She could have had good reason.”

“He try to molest her?” Short, a compassionate man at heart, proposes an explanation that could hold sway. I notice Woody frowns, and Stalker and Genie sit forward with their brows drawn down. None of us tolerate women being forced to do anything without their consent. Hell, even the bunnies can say no if they’re on the rag or having an off day, or leave the club if they’ve totally lost the inclination.

It’s time to tell them what she told me, but before I can open my mouth, Freak gets in first.

He clears his throat, then pierces them with his narrowed stare, his expression leading them to give his words weight and take him seriously. “You know where I stand with this bitch. She’s already got enough knowledge to fuckin’ destroy my son’s life. Even if she was an angel descended from heaven itself, I’d rather she was put down than left alive as a risk to Ace.” As I draw in air, he turns his head my way and raises his chin. I give him the space he’s nonverbally requested, but my hands curl into fists, anxious to hear what he has to say next. “So, you know I’ve a vested interest in not believing a word that she says.” He pauses to note the nods which come around the table. “What she told us sounds farfetched, but hell, if we dismissed everything that caused the slightest hairs to rise up on the back of our necks, most of us wouldn’t be breathing.” A couple of brothers raise and dip their chins, and Winchester sighs out, a hell yes. Outlaws live on the edge and quickly learn to read the roads that we ride on, and the world we have to navigate.

Knowing he’s got a captive audience, the enforcer starts speaking again. “Saint’s woman’s story is that she was in Tucson three nights back. She didn’t see Gris, but was in a bar frequented by bikers, and heard a ringtone go off. A specific ring tone, one of the original ones that isn’t widely used anymore. Apparently, it caught her attention, and she was within earshot to hear one side of the phone call.” Again, he stops, shakes his head as if he can’t believe the words he’s going to say next. “The person he was speaking to, he addressed as Prez, and he’d obviously gotten himself in somewhere to find out information about routes and such. She believes he was a patched member of a club and infiltrated another to gain their trust, starting at the bottom as a prospect.”

“She thinks that was Gris?” Woody snorts, then bellows a laugh. “Bitch has a screw loose.”

“Not finished yet, Brother,” Freak snaps at him. “She heard his friend call him Skunk.”

I eye the room. Right now I guess there is absolutely no one who thinks Gris is a plant, or that whatever Pippa heard or saw has anything to do with the club.

I slap my hand on the table and take over from Freak. “She didn’t see the man who’d been talking in the bar. But when Gris was guarding her, his phone went off. Same ringtone. Triggered a reaction in her. To test her theory, she called him Skunk.”

Freak takes back the floor. “She claims he then tried to kill her. She got his gun, and well, the rest you know.”

“No fuckin’ way,” Woody speaks again, his tone once more adamant for the prospect he brought on board.

“Hold on,” Genie says, rubbing at his temples before he looks my way. “She raise any objections when you told Gris to look after her? Show any recognition?”

I shake my head, not wanting to admit how I’d run out after having the most amazing sexual experience of my life with her. “I wasn’t there to introduce them.”

Winchester clears his throat. “She’s a Fed.” I glare at him, thinking he’s going to say she’s got something to gain by causing upset within the club, but he surprises me when he suggests, “She’s got a head on her shoulders. Knows how to sniff inconsistencies out.”

“You’re not fuckin’ suggesting…”

“Woody, calm down,” Winchester growls. “She’s probably wrong, but hell, with her background and training, I wouldn’t want to dismiss her thoughts out of hand.”

“And that’s my thinking,” Prez steps in. “Bitch is probably confused, concussed at best, wanting to divide the club at worst. But what’s she got to gain by shooting one of ours? She has to know we’ll retaliate.”

“She already knows she’s dead.” Rattler sounds exasperated.

“Not necessarily,” Short butts in. “She’s dead to the government. Saint could give her a chance to live a new life. She’d be better off playing that card than fuckin’ it all up and shooting a prospect.”

Comments start flying all over the place, a couple willing to give her the benefit of the doubt, but most are on the side of the prospect. Prez bangs the gavel. After all, he gets the deciding vote.

“My decision is we talk to Gris?—”

Whatever he’s going to say is interrupted as Tempest enters the room. All eyes look to him as he marches in and places a phone on the table. “Gris was shot in the upper arm. For some reason, he insisted on going back to his room before Doc got here to examine him, and as he was ambulatory, no one thought anything of it. When Doc got here, I asked him to take his phone, and this is the one he found in his cut.”

Genie sits forward. “That’s one of ours. I issued it to him.”

Tempest ignores him. “Then I found the reason he wanted some time to himself before getting treated. It took some finding. He’s got a hidey-hole in his room. Behind his bunk there’s a loose brick, and this was behind it.” He places an old-fashioned type of phone on the table, one that looks exactly like a burner. “I presume he went back to hide it.”

Woody stands up and kicks his chair over. “Fuck,” he shouts as he runs his hands through his hair. “Prez…”

“Not on you,” Bullseye states firmly. “Not one of us suspected. And,” he fixes his gaze on each one of us, “there could still be a simple explanation. But I, for one, want to hear Gris out. In the barn, where we entertain our visitors.”

I should never have fucked Pippa, I think to myself. Everything would be easier if I’d never discovered the sweetness of her pussy and how it felt gripping me when I came. Why else would I be hoping that we actually had a traitor in our ranks? Other times I wouldn’t even want to give space to that thought in my head. But why otherwise would Pippa have come up with such an elaborate lie? Setting us against each other wouldn’t do shit to help her escape.

I’m the fucking VP. My first loyalty is to my club and my brothers, and even the men who wear the prospect patch. Forcing thoughts of Pippa’s welcoming body out of my mind, I lean back in my chair. Knowing me well, Bullseye senses I’ve something to say, and waves his hand for me to speak.

“We don’t let on we suspect Gris of anything. He might have suspicions, but he can’t actually know that Pippa has told us anything, or if she did, that we believed it. Let’s take her to the barn, bring him along, make him think it’s for him to get retribution for the bullet in his arm.”

A grin starts slowly, then widens as it spreads across Bullseye’s face. “Give him a false sense of security.”

Tempest chuckles softly. “Like your thinking, VP.”

Freak slaps his hand on the table. “It will put him off balance as well. He can’t know whether we suspect anything or not, and she’ll be a loose cannon that he can’t control.”

“And if he’s innocent, then we end the woman then and there.” Woody wants the blood of the person who maligned his sponsee. Again, my hands clench, but I keep them under the table.

Even if Pippa’s been totally honest, and Gris is a viper in the grass, I still can’t see any way that there’s going to be a happily ever after for her, and definitely no us. That the seed I might have planted would have a chance to take root, or that I could end up playing happy families. Something I never wanted up until now, I could never see myself as a one-man woman, or with rug rats getting underfoot. Maybe it’s because it’s impossible it could ever work out with Pippa that I’m thinking these thoughts. That I could actually have a relationship with her and make her my property.

Chances are, Gris will find some explanation that’s acceptable to the club, and she’ll be dead before darkness falls tonight.

“Let’s get this done.” Bullseye bangs the gavel. “Tempest, you go get the woman. Woody, it makes sense if you go get Gris. He knows you’re on his side and is less likely to be worried about being invited to the barn.”

“I tell him we’re bringing her there?”

Prez nods. “Yeah. Tell him no one gets away with fucking with a King, even a prospect. Everyone else, let’s get to the barn and get ready for the entertainment.”

Standing along with everyone else, I can’t help but be glad it’s not me who’s been sent to get her and bring her down. How could I, when my dick’s still sticky with our joint releases, and how, as each minute passes, she seems to be worming herself deeper and deeper inside my head. Into my heart? Fuck no. I’m Saint. I’m not even sure I possess one.

The barn in question is at the back of the property, far away from prying eyes. The walls have been reinforced and soundproofed. Tools of our trade lie around, and there’s many a time we’ve left here without the same number of bodies still breathing as those who went in.

The floor is covered in a sheet of plastic, an obvious giveaway as to why we’d bring anyone here. Chains hang from the sturdy overhead beams, and a strong metal chair is anchored to the floor. The air has a taint of something metallic. We can, and do, any manner of things here that would turn the stomach of the average citizen, but all to protect the club, and those who are stupid enough to fuck with us.

No one fucks with the Kings is not just our motto. It’s our way of life.

A sound comes through the open door, one that’s not hard to interpret. It’s not the even footsteps of an able-bodied person, but that clatter of a crutch on the gravel. I tense, seeing Tempest’s arm is supporting her as Pippa walks in, but tamp down my anger, knowing it’s from expediency. If he hadn’t helped her, the uneven ground would probably have seen her fall on her face.

Her eyes immediately find mine, and her brows rise in question. Now I regret not being the one to bring her here. I could have given her an explanation, something to soften the fear that starts to transform her features as she takes in her surroundings. When Tempest leads her to the chair, and Freak steps up, fastening her wrists to it with metal cuffs, then uses iron chains to secure her ankles, I see a tremor go through her, but only momentarily. When her gaze lands on me again, her expression changes to stoicism, and her back straightens. Perhaps it’s only me who can see that the emotion in her eyes is sadness, and regret. For what might have been between us? Or am I just superimposing my own emotions onto hers? She could hate me already and probably will after tonight. Whatever is going to happen here, I can do nothing to stop it.