Blood Secrets: Fallen Motorcycle Club Page 13

  Then the door opened.

  Looking up expecting to see Tommy¸ instead I saw Flash.

  We’re dead.

  Whether he would shoot me first and recognize me later, I didn’t know. It was doubtful Flash still gave a fuck about me after I’d absconded in the dead of night, but my heart still started beating faster when I saw his face again. All the feelings I’d pushed down ripped me open as hard as they had on the bus ride home that night.

  While Dale begged for his life, I lowered my head to my arm and tried to control my breathing. Years of waiting for the wrong people to find Dale, to barge in and kill us both, had finally come to fruition—in the form of the man I loved no matter how hard I tried to stop. At least I got to see him again before the end. Through the waves of my hair, I could see the glint of his golden eyes.

  I hoped Tommy stayed away from the house.

  “Get up.” Flash’s voice cleared and was directed at me. It was so unlike any tone he’d ever used with me that I felt sick. I clenched my lips together to keep from vomiting. “Get the fuck up now.”

  When I tried to move, my arms and legs were shaking too hard. Rolling into a crouch, I pushed myself up and rose slowly. With gentle hands, I pushed the hair out of my face and met his eyes for the first time in six months.

  “Emily?”

  “Hi,” I said, stupid with fear and desire. If it was possible, he looked even better than he had when I left him sleeping in the hotel room. His face was dark with a five o’clock shadow and his eyes were hot with rage and confusion. Despite the gun he still pointed at me, I wanted to slide up to him and wrap my arms around him like I had that night in Mexico.

  “Why are you…here?” He blinked hard. Shook his head.

  “I live here,” I said, unwilling to lie. My hand fisted in my skirt as I tried to stop shaking, but this was Flash and I’d missed him so damn much and if his face was the last thing I saw, maybe I’d be okay with dying.

  “You left.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, my lips trembling. His face hardened and his eyes dropped closed for just a minute. When they opened again, the confusion was gone and only rage was left.

  Before he could speak again, Dale dragged himself up. “You stupid bitch. You led them to us. I should have known you were working with them.” His face was filled with vitriol and I realized that he’d always hated me. Everything I did to win his affection in the beginning had been nothing but wasted effort.

  Flash brought his arm down hard across Dale’s face, knocking him back again. I shouldn’t have taken satisfaction at the crack of the bones in his face, but I’d hit my limit with him. Years without love and too many bruises to count added up to no longer giving a fuck about Dale.

  “Why would you come to him?” Flash asked, confusion spreading across his face. “I offered you better and you still came back to him.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said again. “He’s my uncle. I had to come home.”

  “You told me you went to Cal Tech.”

  “I couldn’t afford the semester.”

  “I would have—.” He cut himself off, really looking at my face for the first time. If I thought he’d been mad before, I had no idea. His expression darkened while he looked at the bruises, my bleeding mouth. “He hit you?”

  “It’s okay. It doesn’t hurt.” Just speaking made my lip bleed faster.

  “Of course it hurts,” he said. With a motion so quick that I couldn’t have stopped it if I wanted to, he grabbed Dale by his collar, pulled him up and pressed the barrel to his head. “Apologize.”

  “I’m not apologizing to that Mexican bitch.”

  “Fine,” said Flash.

  Then he pulled the trigger.

  Dale’s head exploded from the back and I gagged hard, then dropped to my knees and lost the food I’d eaten for lunch.

  “Where’s his number two?”

  “What?”

  “The guy who runs the operation. Where is he?”

  “Flash…”

  “We’ve got him!” An excited voice tore through the house. A guy younger than Flash walked in, pushing Tommy head of him. Tommy and I exchanged a look, resignation in both our faces. “Did you get the other?” The guy who’d spoken took a look at Dale’s corpse and shook his head. “Good job, man.”

  Flash was more serious, eyeing Tommy like the boy was some kind of threat. “This is his number two? He seems young for that.”

  “No,” I said, reaching out to grab Flash’s jacket. “It’s not him. It’s…”

  “It’s me,” Tommy interjected. “I’ve been working for Dale since I was a kid. Kill me if you have to, but her go. She’s innocent.”

  “Tommy, stop.” I pulled on Flash’s jacket again. No way was I letting Tommy take the blame and the bullet that I’d earned with my illicit activities. Maybe I didn’t deserve it either, but he sure as sugar didn’t.

  “I’ll tell you everything,” Tommy continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “But you have to either gag her or let her leave. I can’t stand to hear her fucking voice.”

  Flash nodded. Pulling a bandana from his pocket, he wrapped it around my face and knotted it behind my hair. When he was done, he locked an arm around me and turned back to Tommy, who was breathing so quickly I feared he’d hyperventilate.

  “Why does Manuel want you dead?”

  This was news to me, and it looked like it was news to Tommy too. His eyebrows raised and he searched my face for answers I didn’t have.

  “I don’t know,” he said, pulling against the guy who held him. “But do what you have to do. Just let her go.”

  “Why do you care what happens to her?” Flash asked. “You didn’t stop her from getting a fist in the face tonight.”

  “I wasn’t here,” Tommy said, real agony in his voice.

  “Take him out back and waste him,” Flash said, shaking his head. I screamed behind my gag, but he ignored me.

  “What about her?” Tommy grabbed the door frame, resisting the guy who’d been ordered to kill him.

  “I’m keeping her,” Flash said. I started chewing on the bandana, using my tongue to push the fabric out of my lips. I was so close.

  Right as Tommy was dragged around the corner, I spit out the cloth and swallowed hard, getting air. “He’s not the dealer,” I shouted, loud enough that Flash finally stopped and paid attention to me.

  “What the fuck are you talking about? John, get back in here.”

  John came back around the corner with Tommy, still alive, but paler than skim milk.

  “Talk, Emily.”

  “Tommy isn’t the dealer you want. He just stuffs bags and ships things sometimes. He didn’t have anything to do with dealing in LA.”

  “Emily, shut up,” Tommy said, and Flash turned to glare at him.

  “Then who did? Find me the man and I’ll let the boy go.”

  “I can’t find you the man,” I said, suddenly defiant. It was like I’d gone numb to fear when Flash had snapped at me. I met his eyes, raising my chin. “There is no man.”

  “Two people here have to die. You can save him if you tell the truth.”

  “Here’s your truth, Flash: I’m the dealer. You’re going to have to kill me.”

  Two more men came into the room as I spoke. Both wore jackets similar to Flash’s, but covered with some different patches.

  “You’re not him,” one of them laughed, scanning me from head to toe. Flash jerked me closer to his big body.

  “I am.”

  “You can’t be,” Flash said, looking down at me. “He’s been active for almost a decade.”

  “Still me.”

  “You’re, what, 20 now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Shut up, Emily,” Tommy said in a low, angry voice. “Shut up now.” The man holding him cuffed him hard and he went quiet again, looking at his feet.

  “I can prove it,” I said. “Take me out to the garage and I’ll show you. But let Tommy and anyone else in the house go. None of them
can take over the operation. They won’t say anything to anyone.”

  “Emily, I’m not going to let them kill you.” Tommy’s voice cracked at the end of the statement and for the first time in so long, I saw the boy I’d loved once. Remembered the gentle joy of him reaching for my hand the first time. That’s when I realized that for all the shit, he still loved me the way I still loved him—as those two kids who hadn’t known anything good from life before they found each other.

  “I won’t let them kill you for something I did,” I said, hoping he could see the love glowing in my eyes. It wasn’t passion or want, but something quieter. Something I’d feel for a brother, maybe. Tommy had flaws, but they weren’t irredeemable.

  “Please,” he begged. “Tell them the truth. Tell them it was me.”

  “That’s not the truth.” It was like blinders were lifted and I didn’t just see a junkie. I saw someone as trapped in this life as I was, beaten down by his father and my uncle until there was so little of the good man left. “I love you, Tommy.”

  “I love you, Emily.”

  I don’t know if I was imagining it, but Flash’s eyes darkened.

  “Don’t kill the boy,” he said. “Get him back to the clubhouse. I don’t want anyone else dead until we’re sure we’re doing the right shit for Manuel. The last thing we need is more trouble with the cartel.”

  The man holding Tommy nodded and marched my first love out of the room.

  “Rebel, take his hand,” Flash said, wrapping his fingers around my arm tight enough to bruise and nodding to my uncle, dead on the couch. “I’m taking the girl with me to the garage.”

  “Got it, boss,” he said.

  “Let’s go, Emily.” I mourned the warmth with which he’d once said my name while he pulled me out toward the door. But there was nothing I could do to get it back. By the end of the night, he’d probably be dropping me in a shallow grave somewhere.

  Outside, I looked at the stars dotting the deep velvety blue sky while Flash dragged me to the main gates. Being hauled around like cattle wasn’t doing much for my mood, but for better or worse, I was finally free from Dale. I could never go back to that life again.

  Flash breathed hard through his nose, shooting me a heated look when I tried to jerk away. He was beyond pissed.

  But I couldn’t deny that part of me was still lit up by seeing him again.

  Flash

  In the garage, Emily showed me beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was the person I was dispatched to kill. Hiding my reaction while she chopped meth, demonstrated her shipping techniques and broke down the entire operation was difficult. If it had been anyone else, I’d have killed them and been done with the whole thing.

  But I wasn’t about to do that to her.

  Tying her hands behind her back, I led her out to the motorcycles in front of the compound. Some of the guys stayed back to clean up the mess I’d left in the room where I’d found her and Dale. Shouldn’t have shot him in there, but seeing the blood on her face had been the end of him, even if he didn’t know it when he hit her.

  “Get on in front of me,” I said, settling on the seat and helping her on my lap. Jesus, it felt good to have her tight little body against me again. “I’m not leaving your hands free to jerk me off the road and I’m not leaving you here, either.”

  “I didn’t do anything wrong,” she said pertly.

  “Except dealing meth.”

  “I’m sorry. I forgot that selling cocaine was a noble endeavor.” She looked at me with disgust in her eyes and blood on her mouth. She was still the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. “Don’t be the pot that calls the kettle black, Flash.”

  “I don’t sell to children.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Neither do I.” Turning away from me, she clammed up and held herself stiffly away from my body. Perversely, I smiled when the momentum of my Harley moving forward pushed her back into my lap. Her soft ass ground against my legs and I used every ounce of restraint I had to not get an erection.

  The longer we drove, the more she relaxed against me. Her hair smelled like lemons when it brushed my face in the wind. God, I’d missed her so much—even if she wasn’t the person I thought she was. All those thoughts of her being the brave, innocent girl I rescued warred with the truth of who she was: the meth dealer Manuel wanted to take down.

  If she was, though, why didn’t he tell me that night at the villa? Why let Santiago kill her instead of taking care of it himself? Why didn’t Emily tell me?

  Nothing was adding up, and all the questions burned a line through my chest. The club was going to have to convene and talk some shit over. If Manuel required that we kill the kind of maggots that dealt to children and killed harmless people, that was one thing. If he was setting us up to be his personal hit men, that was something different. We weren’t here to serve his vendettas.

  No one used The Fallen.

  Cutting a path over the dark highway, I could almost pretend that things were different between us. All the desire for her that I thought I’d mastered had burst into me in a flood as soon as she’d looked up and I’d seen her face. Those green eyes were still my undoing, even when they were narrowed with hatred.

  Already I knew that if her death was the price of doing business with the cartel, I still wouldn’t let anyone hurt her.

  How was it possible that she’d been dealing meth since she was a child? Even though she’d walked me through everything they’d done—the coffee bags and candles were a touch of genius that I appreciated—it was hard to believe that she thought of it. But the boy who’d claimed to be the dealer had lied for a reason. His untruth was plain on his face. Why would he lie, except to protect a woman he claimed to love?

  Emily said she loved him, too.

  Even two years ago, things for the club had been so clear. Sell coke. Make money. Drink good liquor. Fuck beautiful women.

  Now we were hunting down people who pissed off the Deleons.

  It made no sense.

  In the last six months, Manuel’s sanity had slipped even further. Two weeks before, there were rumors that he’d killed half the production line in Mexico to lower the cost of producing at home and take more cocaine from the Columbians. It hadn’t been confirmed—Mudd had driven down to Mexico to get a firsthand look at everything—but the idea of it made me sick.

  Those men had been working for the cartel since I was a little boy. I’d played with some of them as children. The worst part was, the rumors were followed up by whispers that now he needed more help because so many other workers had defected.

  How long would those people live?

  Other insidious rumors were being traded behind closed doors too. Maybe Santiago’s death had broken Manuel and that was why he was splintering, but human trafficking wasn’t something The Fallen would ever condone. If it was true, we wouldn’t just cut ties with the cartel. We’d kill the man running it.

  Mudd would be back soon with all the information. Then we’d convene church and take a vote on how to handle it.

  Cutting ties with the cartel would mean walking into the war we’d narrowly avoided after I returned from Mexico. Fallen would die.

  Not for the first time, I tried to figure out how Manuel was even aware of Dale and Emily’s business. Meth dealers were a dime a dozen, even if Piston did manage to keep the worst of them out of LA. Manuel had been bogged down with bitch work for Rafael for years; he’d never even crossed the border into California, as far as I knew. Emily had turned a barely profitable business into a small empire, but it still didn’t touch the money the Deleon Cartel made.

  There was more to this, and I had an inkling that my Dad knew something.

  When we pulled into the club, Piston stormed through the door and met me on the pavement.

  “What the fuck is going on? I told you to bring back two hands and instead you bring me a piece of shit pussy and this woman.”

  “Can you get someone to take her inside, and then we’ll talk?” I didn�
�t want Emily to hear everything I had to say to the president.

  His lips tensed, but he nodded and headed back through the wooden door. Moments later, he emerged with my mother.

  “Mom?”

  “I came by to get your father,” she said, furrowing her brow. “I needed help with the sink.”

  “Can you take this girl up to one of the guest rooms?” Mom looked at Piston, who smiled at her thinly, then nodded. I yanked Emily forward, catching her when she stumbled. Damn it, I didn’t mean to pull her so hard. Mom narrowed her eyes at me and put an arm around Emily’s shoulders.

  “What’s your name?” she asked, keeping her voice soft. When she surveyed Emily and saw the bruises forming on her face, her eyes widened. “Flash, what happened?”

  “Her uncle hit her,” I said. Mom nodded and gently guided Emily forward.

  “I’m Emily,” I heard her say as she and my Mom walked into the clubhouse. Mom turned back to me, a question in her eyes, and I nodded. Her face went softer and then they were gone. I was never going to hear the end of it now that my mother had a chance to meet the Emily.

  “Emily?” Piston said, crossing his arms over his chest. “Not the Emily from Mexico?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “The very one.”

  “What the fuck is going on?”

  “So you don’t think it’s a coincidence either.”

  “No,” Piston said. He shook his head slowly. “Maybe that’s why Manuel asked me not to send you on the disposal.”

  “He did?”

  “Yeah, but I figured he just didn’t have faith in you. If it was me, I’d have wanted to be the one to go.”

  “If I hadn’t gone, she might be dead.” I wasn’t sure that my brothers would have killed an unarmed woman, but there was a chance. A chance that Emily would be nothing more than sightless eyes and an empty shell.

  Thank god I’d agreed to go.

  “So why does he want her dead so bad?” Piston asked, giving voice to the very thing I couldn’t stop wondering about. “What’s so special about her?”