Blood Secrets: Fallen Motorcycle Club Page 11

  Moments passed without a response while I studied the pattern carved around the mirror above the dresser. It was a clean mirror. Flat too. Probably good for cutting meth, I mused.

  When I couldn’t take the silence any more, I looked back at Flash over my shoulder.

  Fury, not pity, burned in his eyes.

  “It’s okay,” I said, softer now. “It’s less now that I’m older.”

  “That piece of shit hit you when you were a child?” The words pushed between the flat line of his lips like he couldn’t wait to have them out of his mouth. Made sense. Flash was the kind of man who’d never hit a child.

  “There’s no reason to be angry.”

  “I have every reason to be angry. You should be angry.” He closed his eyes and forced himself to relax, each muscle loosening while he waited for me to respond.

  “It’s just how it is.”

  “Not how it should be. I’m going to kill that fucker.” Yeah, sooner than you think.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t want anyone else to die for me.” At odd moments, killing Santiago would pop into my mind, like an embarrassing childhood moment you can’t forget. I meant what I said—no more life should be extinguished on my behalf or by my hand.

  “You’re not saying he deserves to live.”

  I shrugged. “That’s not our choice to make.”

  “I’m going to go take a shower.” Flash turned on his heel and headed for the bathroom I’d recently left. I heard the water turn on and sat on the edge of the bed. Quickly, listening to the shower, I wrote a note explaining that I had to get home and on with my life. Thanking him for saving me and promising that I’d pay it forward, I signed it Love, Emily. Then I crossed out love and replaced it with thank you.

  I didn’t deserve to love him.

  Once that was done, I yelled to him that I was going to the lobby to get us some drinks. He grunted and I dashed out the door, grabbing some money from his wallet to hide my true purpose.

  The lobby was not as clean as the room we’d been given. It looked like an old ballroom that had one been the site of fancy gatherings, but now was basically an ashtray with a lot of floor space. I approached the desk clerk and waited for him to look up from the video he was watching.

  “Can I help you?”

  “I need to make a phone call. Can you direct me to a payphone?”

  “They all got pulled out a long time ago,” he said. “But you can use the phone in your room if you dial 9 for an outside line.”

  “I would, but it needs to be private.”

  “I understand,” he said, pity in his eyes. “Here, use mine.” He handed me a smartphone. “It has unlimited minutes, so talk as long as you want. I’ll just be watching this.”

  I thanked him and walked across the room. Blocking the number, I called Dale.

  “What?”

  “Uncle Dale? It’s Emily.”

  “Where the fuck are you, girl? Heard you left the resort and didn’t come back.” Thought you cut and ran for good.

  A sense of wrongness swept through me. He shouldn’t have had any way of knowing I left the resort. When I left for the summer, it was agreed that we wouldn’t be in contact.

  “I had things to do at home,” I said. “Tommy cheated.”

  “Big surprise there. Tried to tell you that kid was a loser.”

  “Right,” I said, then steeled myself for the explosion. None was forthcoming. I wondered whether he’d taken something to mellow himself out. “Anyway, this is really important. Are you okay to listen and understand or do I need to talk to Ken?” Ken was the third in command, under myself and Dale.

  “I’m with it,” he snapped. “Now start talking or I’m going back to listening to the TV, which I actually give a shit about.”

  Usually his anger would have made me wince in fear, but this time I felt calm. Controlled. “Someone is coming to kill you,” I said.

  “What?”

  “The Fallen Motorcycle Club is coming to take you out. They know you’re in Malibu. Someone flipped on us.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know. Find that out yourself,” you useless old bastard, I finished. “Either way, you need to pack up and get out of there tonight. Get to Dana Point. Wire me some fucking money in the next two hours.”

  “Where?”

  I ran across the room to the desk clerk and asked for the location of the nearest gas station that did money transfers.

  “It’s about an hour on ahead,” he said, “but I can take you when my shift is over.”

  “When is that?”

  “Three in the morning. I’m just filling in for someone else.”

  “Thank you,” I said. I walked away again and gave Dale the name of the gas station. “Give my Dad’s name and the address of the family house. Make sure I’ll know the answers to any security questions. I need enough to get home from the border.”

  “Got it,” he said. “The money will be there.”

  “Can you get everyone out tonight?”

  “I’m doing it,” he said, subdued. “We’ll see you in Dana Point.”

  “Okay. Goodbye.”

  “Hey, Emily?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks.”

  I hung up the phone and returned it to the clerk, then confirmed our time to leave. Explaining that I had to go back to my room and wait for my boyfriend to fall asleep, I left the man there, his eyes glued to the screen again. On the way out, I grabbed a few sodas and a bottle of water from vending.

  “Took you awhile,” Flash said when I got back into the room. His slim waist was wrapped in a towel that left very little to the imagination. Shameless, I ogled him, mindful that soon I wouldn’t be able to see the tan expanse of his chest or the rippled muscles of his arms at all. The urge to trace my fingers over his tattoo was so strong that my fingers twitched.

  “I couldn’t decide,” I said, “and then I got caught up in a movie the desk clerk was watching.”

  “Want to put it on up here?” he asked, handing me the remote.

  “No,” I said. “I want something else.” Reaching out, I pushed him down into the bed, then dropped to my knees. “You had your turn, now I want mine.”

  Maybe it was wrong to be with a man hours before you’re going to leave him without a word, but I had to know what Flash tasted like. Had to give him and myself that before I left and never saw him again.

  He laid there, his eyes surprised and excited while I peeled off the towel and bent down to kiss his cock, which leapt to attention under my mouth. Excitement lifted some of the depression that had been stalking me when I saw his hips move as I licked the taut head. His precum beaded the tip, so I licked it again and watched his pupils expand.

  “Emily,” he groaned when I sucked him between my lips, “you’re killing me.” His hand lightly stroked my hair while I bobbed up and down on his shaft, loving the clean taste of him against my tongue.

  “Not yet,” I said against his skin, “but give me time.” I swirled my tongue over his pulsating head before going deep on his cock. Looking up through my eyelashes, I saw the fierce, hungry look in his eyes. He loved what I was doing. Emboldened, I wrapped my hand around the base and started to suck harder.

  “God, you’re hard,” I said, marveling at his erection when I popped my mouth off to tongue the head, then draw a line down the shaft with the point of my tongue. His body flexed, so I did it again, following my mouth back up with my hand to stroke him.

  “For you,” he said, his words sliding out between deep breaths.

  I liked that a little too much.

  His hands were light on my head, but I could feel them tense, as if he wanted to push down but was restraining himself. With a deep breath, I pulled him back into my mouth and sucked hard. Creating a rhythm, I moved up and down while playing my tongue over his heated skin.

  “Emily,” he roared, his entire body shaking. “You have to stop, I’m going to
.” He tried to pull back, but my lips were a tight seal around him. I wanted everything he had to give me.

  “Fuck,” he gritted out, then his cock jerked in my mouth and he was coming. I swallowed the warm fluid, lapping at him while he thrust against my lips, still lust-maddened. One of his big hands came down to stroke my breast, cupping it through the shirt until he was calm again.

  I stood and smiled at him, wondering how I’d get through my life without doing that with him again.

  “You’re amazing,” he said, pulling me down against his chest. I nuzzled his neck and smiled at the deep laugh that rumbled out through his chest. “I really like you.”

  “I really like you too,” I said. I kissed him and looked deep into his eyes. They were relaxed, happy. Tomorrow I had a feeling things would be very different. “In another life,” I told him, wanting to leave him with something, “I’d have spent my whole life with you.”

  “You’re still young,” he said, misunderstanding. “There’s plenty of life left.”

  He tucked me against him, pulling me close enough that there was no space between our bodies, then rolled to the side. I used my foot to snag the sheets that had bunched up at the bottom of the bed and pulled them up and over us. Steeling myself against trembling, which I knew he’d notice, I took a deep breath and curled against him, knowing it would be the last time I’d feel his body under my hands.

  Once his breathing was deep and even, I kissed his forehead. “I more than like you,” I said, soft. Tears threatened to fall, but I held them back. There’d be plenty of time for tears when I was away from Flash.

  His face was relaxed, smooth and young-looking in a way it never appeared when we were out on the road. My muscles tensed to run a hand over his forehead, to brush back the lock of hair that had fallen near his eyes—but then he’d wake, and if I saw his perfect smile even once more, I didn’t know that I’d have the strength to leave.

  Standing up, I put on the cheapest of the clothes he’d bought for me, and then threw on the leather jacket with the note I’d written in the pocket as an afterthought. I tidied up my things and his, puttering around the room with quiet movements, careful not to wake him. Opening the bottle of water I’d carried up, I took a long swallow, then threw it in the trash.

  Taking off the expensive jacket, I set it down quietly next to the note. By all rights I should have left the rest of the clothing, too, but getting to Dana Point naked would cause the kind of problems I wasn’t equipped to deal with. The bracelet, too, should be left behind, but I couldn’t bear to cut if off. So I set the key to the room on the table, turned the knob and stepped silently into the damp, cold night.

  Police sirens echoed in the distance. I took a deep breath, then headed for the lobby.

  Flash

  “Word is, he barely runs the operation anymore. Some jackass who tells people where to put it and how to sell it is in charge. Couldn’t get the fucker’s name, though.”

  “Why do you care? The street traffic has dried up. Fuck Dale and his jackass. Let’s just let it go.” Piston had a way of digging his teeth into things that pissed me off lately. I didn’t give a fuck about some escaped meth dealers. Let them do their shit as long as it wasn’t close to me.

  “No. Fucker defied me and he’s still dealing meth in LA. I don’t care if it’s cut down 90 percent—I’m still seeing that shit on the streets.”

  “Fine,” I told him, shrugging. “We’ll kill him then.” Whatever.

  “The asshole too.”

  “I’ll take care of it personally,” I said, hoping that would be enough to soothe him so he would go the fuck away. Killing an idiot isn’t really my style, and you’d have to be an idiot to keep dealing when Piston calls a halt, but it wasn’t like it would take up my whole weekend.

  “Make sure you do. We’re still cleaning up the mess you made in Mexico.” Thanks for the reminder. Mexico was something I’d been trying to forget for the last six months. Give your heart to a woman and she’ll cut it out and leave without so much as a kiss goodbye. I’d tried to track her and ended up at a dead end every time. Either she had someone waiting to take her away or she vanished into the fucking night.

  At least she left a note. If there’d been a chance Emily was dead, I’d still be hunting her down.

  “Flash. Brother. You in there?” Piston picked up an Xbox controller and threw it at me. It bounced off my leg and hit the floor with a smash.

  “What the fuck?”

  “You sure you’re good to do this? I know I said it’s your mess, but what’s yours is ours. I’ll run up and do it for you, if you’re not able.”

  “Why wouldn’t I be able?”

  “No offense intended, but you haven’t exactly been stable since you got home.”

  Couldn’t take offense to the truth. Fact is, losing Emily put me out of my mind for a few months. Finding out that she wasn’t really a student at Cal Tech—or that she’d given me the wrong name—knocked me right over the edge into insane. If Dad and Piston hadn’t pulled me back and given me a few bruises, I might still be out there threatening people and trying to track down one beautiful woman who didn’t want me.

  I’d been so fucking blind. Everything I’d read from her: her smile, her laugh, the way she clutched me tighter in bed, it all said that she wanted to be with me. When I thought we were falling together, I was really being knocked off the Grand Canyon without a rope.

  All because I was too fucking stupid to see that the trauma from having to kill a man was clouding her mind and actions.

  I’d realized it after months of pining for her by trying to drown myself in whiskey. While my brothers took it on the chin to deal with Manuel’s insane requests, I got drunk and blacked out. Repeatedly. Once I’d gotten rid of the bottle, I saw two things. She never really wanted me and I wasn’t being the kind of brother that mine deserved.

  So I’d cleaned my shit up and gotten back to what really mattered: The Fallen.

  When I’d shown up at church that Friday without smelling like a distillery, there was relief in the air, like my brothers knew I was back. The books were a tangled mess from being left alone for too many months, so I’d spent another few weeks up to my elbows in numbers, making everything right. That’s when I saw the damage I’d done to the club.

  We’d lost 75 percent of our income from the cartel thanks to me. Now my brothers were reduced to doing runs for 25 percent of our original take.

  Still didn’t regret it, though.

  Her running out on me didn’t make me wish she’d died in the desert. No, my feelings hadn’t changed a bit, even when I’d wised up enough to realize what a sucker I’d been, thinking she could really feel something when she was so traumatized. Now, though, those protective feelings were tinged with acid. She was lucky I hadn’t found her, because I wouldn’t have let her walk out the door again.

  “I’m going to do it,” I assured Piston, pushing off the couch. “Tonight. I just want shit to get back to normal.”

  “What about the girl?”

  “She’s the past.” Because I couldn’t find her.

  “You sure about that?” I was closer to Piston than anyone else in the club, except for my father. He might be able to see right through me, but that didn’t mean we were about to have a heart to heart about my girl troubles.

  “I got it.”

  “Alright. You’re in charge, then. Decide who’s going with you and make sure that you bring back the hands of the two ringleaders.”

  “What the fuck?”

  “I know, man. I hate this cartel bullshit, too. But we can’t exactly switch sides now and it would take all of us down to cross him. Once he gets the hands and confirms the fingerprints, we’re back in the green.”

  “Fine.” Distaste washed over me and I headed out to find my father. He’d been close with Rafael, Manuel’s brother, and would be able to give me a better angle on exactly what was going on. Not for the first time, I regretted all the lost months where I onl
y lived to find Emily and make sure she was okay. I’m so fucking out of the loop.

  “Hey, buddy.” Dad was sitting on my bed, leafing through one of the books I kept in my desk. “I thought I might be hearing from you today.”

  “Why’d you think that?”

  “The hands. Knew you wouldn’t like it.” Good call.

  “Why are we doing that shit?”

  “Because we need to clear the air. Then maybe we’ll get out.” Dad had voted to shut down relations with the cartel when Rafael had curled up his toes, so this wasn’t news to me. I rocked back on my heels and stared at him. “What?”

  “Why now? Why not a year ago?”

  “I voted against this then.”

  “You barely said a word at the vote. You could have swayed it.”

  “Yeah, but that’s not how we do shit.” Dad shook his head and set down the book, leaving it open to the page he’d been reading. “Each brother makes up his own mind. I think Manuel is bad news, but I didn’t have evidence I could share until now.”

  “Did you have evidence you couldn’t share?” Dad fixed me with the blank stare he gets when he’s not going to tell me something I want to know. Rage was hot on the heels of disbelief, but I didn’t say anything. No point in wasting my breath. The man was more bull headed than an actual bull.

  “Are you going to kill these people tonight?”

  “Do you think I shouldn’t? Why did you come up here anyway if you’re just going to stonewall me?”

  “To see my son. And these people are meth dealers. Dale is literally the scum of the Earth.”

  “You know him?”

  “Yeah, I recognized his name. His brother is a good guy, though. I knew him in the Army and you played with his adopted daughter when she was a kid.”

  “But you still want me to kill him?”

  “Like I said, Dale isn’t the same as his brother. I can live with his death. I can’t live with yours.”

  “Is that a possibility?”

  “Manuel threw it out there, but Piston knocked it right back down. Pretty much said that we’d be gunning for Manuel if it came to that—and you know all his men aren’t down-to-the-bones loyal to him. He wasn’t sure if he could stand up to the full strength of The Fallen, I think.”