Angels Don't Cry: A Biker Erotic Romance (4 page)

At close to ten o'clock she saw a single truck approaching the area. She watched it for a moment, and then ignored it. It was perhaps five minutes out, so if there was going to be an ambush, it was going to happen very soon.

Two minutes later, she admitted to herself that she wasn't nervous—she was scared. Clear to the bone terrified. She glanced at Phil, but in the dark, she couldn't tell what he might be thinking. She knew that Phil had a little girl, five-years-old, and a wife. He loved to laugh and was fun to hang around. But whether he was as terrified as she was right now, she couldn't guess.

Five minutes later the truck pulled up to the drop and then the cause of her fear materialized. "There!" she shouted and got on her radio.

The ambush consisted of seven men, well-armed, coming in on foot. The firefight that ensued was fast and brutal, but her warning gave her men the edge they needed to not only get the drugs and fight off the ambush, but to come out of it with only one of her men wounded—Phil, who took a bullet in the shoulder, which spun him back and knocked her down with him.

She got him to the Hummer and inside. Then they were moving out, fast.

Using her cellphone she called in their emergency doctor. They couldn't take Phil to the hospital. Bullet wounds were reported to the police. "He's meeting us at the Roost, Phil. We'll take care of you," she told him.

"Not too fast I hope. Being worried over by the Pres is kind of cool," he smiled.

She laughed the explosive kind of laugh that comes when your nerves are shot and your fears have been riding you for more than a day. On the way to the Roost, though, her fears left her, and seething anger took its place.
Someone was going to pay for this
, she silently promised herself and her club.

Seven men would have been enough to overpower the five members that were normally at a drop. With the five extra, and the positions they were in, the ambushers were caught in the open inside a kill box. She saw at least three of them go down. What happened to them, she didn't know. She would have loved to get one of them, though.

Devils? Seemed likely, but how would they get the level of information they obviously had? They knew when, where, and how many to expect, except she was able to change that last factor.

At the Roost, they came in the back door with Phil and straight into the office. The doc was waiting for them and got Phil onto a folding bed, prepping him for emergency treatment.

With the rest of her members, she left the room and let the doc do his thing.

Liam was standing in the hall between her office and the main room of the tavern. He was looking her over with a blank face. "Don't know what tipped you off?" he asked as she came up to him.

She shook her head. "Something about the knee-jerk action at Rick's maybe. I don't know. It was just a feeling, a worry."

He nodded, and then said, "Good work." Then he walked out into the tavern.

Why those two words from him had her shaking more than she was out in the middle of a firefight, she couldn't say. She also had no clue what she was shaking with. Joy? Well-being? Fury? She had no clue. She just shook.

Lizzie leaned against the wall and waited for the shakes to stop. "Probably just relief," she said to no one. The idea of being in Liam's arms right now, however, was more appealing than ever. In fact, the urge to walk out there and take him home was stronger than any sexual urge she ever had in her life.
Time to go yuppie hunting.

Surprisingly, she found the prospect of picking up some GQ lover revolting. "Fuck."

***

She was in her office at seven in the morning, looking out the window, trying to get her mind to divulge her own secrets. She got about five hours of sleep. The tavern didn't open until ten o'clock and only Buster would be at the door waiting. After an hour of looking out the window, she turned away. "I got nothing."

Liam was leaning against the door jam.

"How long have you been there?" Lizzie asked him suspiciously.

"About ten minutes," he confessed.

"Just enjoying the view?" she asked with a smirk.

Instead of his normal growl he said, "Yes."

She looked at him in shock. "Wow."

He shrugged. "We got to stop this shit." His voice was easy, even casual.

"Who are you, and what have you done with Liam?"

He smiled. "Been doing a lot of thinking."

"That's my job," she told him.

He nodded, "And you do it well, but I've been thinking about you and me."

"You aren't about to make a pass at me, are you? Cause if you are, I need to sit down first."

"Go ahead and sit down," he offered.

She stared at him in open disbelief. "What?"

"Are you going to sit down? Or should I just continue?"

"Please, continue. I've changed my mind. I feel better with my back to the wall."

He nodded, "You were right, in the meeting. I knew some shit was going down, but I couldn't figure out what. But it wasn't going away. We needed a Pres, and we needed it now. So when you stepped up, I figured we would have you for a week, and whatever it was that was coming down would reveal itself. Then, we would have an emergency session, get someone
real
into this office, and take it from there."

She suspected all of this from day one, but having him lay it all out for her like that got her ire up fast. "My panties are melting," she sneered. "Do you always use pickup lines like that? No wonder you're still single."

He shrugged in resignation. "I deserve that, probably deserve even more." He seemed to be collecting his thoughts before continuing, "After that, you held your little war council and started fucking with all of my plans to lay low for a while; to wait to see what we were up against."

"That would have worked out well," she snarled.

He nodded his agreement thoughtfully. "Probably would have ended us."

"Are you going to get to the part where you try to get my pants off soon? Because I can't wait to shut your ass down," she snapped, her voice stiff and restrained.

"It's coming," he nodded.

"Good, keep going then."

"After that, you kept at it, changing our tactics, meeting threats we couldn't even see, and over all, doing one hell of a good job at keeping our asses out of hell," he told her.

"Yay me," she hissed.

"Last night, when the ambush hit, you had it pegged. Solid. Saved at least five lives. I know you aren't sure how you knew that was coming, but I woke up this morning with a lot of faith that you are going to figure it out."

"Well, I haven't," she told him with a disgusted grimace.

"You will," he told her.

"And?"

"That's it."

"My pants? When are they coming off?"

"I lied."

"Asshole," she said, but couldn't help a smile coming to her lips. "A coward on top of that."

She walked to her desk, and sat down in her chair. "Wouldn't work with us anyway."

"Yeah? Why's that?"

"Because you're a controlling bastard. You wouldn't just have me and enjoy the ride. You would have to own me, and I'm not going to be owned. By anyone," she told him, not believing she was having this conversation with him, after all these years of pent up lust and fantasy. "So, I can't take that chance, especially now. You're the best man I got. I can't lose you. Not over something I can easily avoid."

"You mean like sex," he gathered.

"Yeah. Exactly like sex.

"That's too bad, because I really got a thing for you."

"You— you what?"

He nodded, "For a long time too. But, well, you were Jim's niece. I wasn't bold enough to go there. Not with your history of ‘fuck'em and forget'em.’"

"So, because I'm a slut," she surmised.

He shrugged, "Never thought of you that way, but definitely because you mean something to me, and I knew I wouldn't mean much to you."

"I can't believe this conversation is getting weirder," she murmured and reached for her cup of coffee. "So, just having sex is out, because..."

"I don't know. Maybe you're right. Maybe I'm a controlling bastard. Definitely because I wouldn't want to just have sex and then carry on like it never happened."

"You would want me at home, doing little house things and waiting for you to take me for a ride," she grimaced.

"Oh hell no," he said, actually looking appalled.

"I've seen the women you ride with, Liam, and that is exactly your type," she told him.

"Yeah, but they ain't you," he said unashamed.

Her heart did something weird, and then flopped to the side.

He stood straight, coming off the door jam. "Anyway, I wanted to stop playing games with you. I feel like I've been doing it for years, and now, especially now, it has to stop."

"Games?" she said, and an insight hit her straight in the head. "Fuck me," she hissed.

"What?" Liam asked, looking at her a little concerned.

She lifted her hand. "Hold that thought. It might get you a blow job later." Then she started digging in Uncle Jim's desk until she came up with a battered looking phone book. Paging through the book, she came to the number she was looking for, and picked up the desk phone, dialing.

Liam was looking at her with wonder and questions, but she shook her head, begging him off.

The voice that answered was male, deep, and a bit tired. "Manny?" she asked. "This is Lizzie, Jim's niece. The reason I'm calling is to ask you how long you are going to let Ramirez fuck your club into fucking with mine, because this shit is getting old."

***

Ramirez Pagan walked out of the Tijuana bar at close to three in the morning, well sexed and just a bit drunk. 

His mind wandered back to that
puta
running the Road Knights who thinks she's like Isabella Casas. She was nothing like the Señora, and her trying to say so was deeply insulting. He still couldn't figure out how the Knights stopped the ambush, though. The Devils were given all of the information they required to make a clean hit. But not only did they fail, as they had failed him so many times before, they got the fuck shot out of them. Two dead, Manny told him.

He made it to his car and then leaned against it, fishing out his pack of cigarettes and getting one lit. He had been playing games with her uncle for years, and enjoying every minute of it. The old man was good, but Ramirez won many little games. Very good times.

Of course none of his bosses or friends knew about his game playing with the clubs. They would not approve. No, that would not be smiled upon at all. It was too much fun to give up. He had to keep playing.

Now, however, the games were at an end for a while. The old man was dead. Ramirez felt that it was only appropriate to bring his club down with him.

And why should they keep running? These men who brought in a woman as their leader? No, these were not real men. The Señora, well, she was different. They did not bring her in either. She took what was hers and held it. Such amazing strength the Señora had; very brave, and deadly smart.