Barely Undercover (30 page)

A trembling formed deep within her, working its way from her core through her limbs. “What did he say?”

James awoke to a loud crack and a sharp pain burning across his cheek.

“Wake up, sunshine.” Ryder peered down at him and frowned. “You need me to slap the other cheek?”

Still groggy, James pushed himself to a sitting position against the wall. “You fucking touch me again and I’ll rip off your hand.”

“Finally. Back to normal.” Ryder squatted against the wall across from him, his hands dangling between his legs. “I was beginning to wonder if Dawg had caused some permanent damage when he hit you over the head with that metal pipe. You’ve been lying there moaning for a couple hours.”

James frowned. “Where’s here?”

“Storage room at the clubhouse. You’ll notice the lack of windows, the steel fire door and the interesting fact that Rex’s secret drug stash is missing. I guess he and the boys didn’t want us to overdose since they’re planning to torture and kill us. Not as much fun when the victim doesn’t know what’s going on and can’t feel any pain.”

“Sorry I dragged you into this.” James rubbed the lump on his head and stared up at the naked bulb overhead. Maybe they could use the wires to pick the lock.

Ryder snorted a laugh. “I’m not. Best time I’ve had since joining the fucking club.”

“I gotta get out of here. Find Lana.” James pushed himself to his feet and staggered as a wave of dizziness hit him.

“Easy there.” Ryder jumped up and eased James back down to the floor. “You got hit by the pipe
after
Rex smashed your head against the wall. You’ve probably got a concussion. You need to chill for a while.”

“Chill?” James shook his head in disbelief. “Rex is coming to off us. Lana is out there being hunted by Hades
and
the Wolverines. And you want me to chill?”

“We’ve got some time,” Ryder said. “They were planning to finish us off in the parking lot but Angel drove up. You should have heard her. Seems she’d hired a PI to follow Rex around, and she’d just received an email with pictures of him and Portia. She came here on a fucking tear, shouting the place down. Even the Wolverines were afraid of her. She grabbed the metal pipe out of Dawg’s hand and chased Rex into his office. Bones and Dawg didn’t want to do anything without Rex, so they locked us in here.”

Amused, James said, “She owes me a favor.”

“Well, call it in. She’s the only person besides Rex who has a key.”

Kickstand pushed up his sleeve and showed Lana the message on his arm. “It’s in another language. I think it might be German.”

Hands trembling, Lana traced the letters of the three words penned on Kickstand’s arm.

Ich liebe dich.

I love you.

A ball of warmth formed deep inside her chest, flowing through her veins like liquid heat. He forgave her. He loved her. For real.

“What does it mean?” Kickstand lowered his arm.

Lana smiled through her tears. “It means I have to find a guy named Hans and thank him for the German lessons. And it means you have to find Ice and tell him where we’re going to be since he doesn’t have a damned phone.” She grabbed an old receipt from her purse and scrawled down an address. “This is a motel between Kamloops and Kelowna. Tell him I’ll be waiting. But…be safe. The Wolverines and Rex will be after you too.”

Kickstand’s bottom lip trembled. “What if he didn’t…?”

“There is no
if
,” Jackie barked. “That Ice is a survivor. He’ll probably have wiped the floor with the Wolverines and is now working his way through Hades.”

A smile ghosted Kickstand’s worried face. “You’re right about that. I’ll find him. Don’t you worry.”

Jackie blew Kickstand a kiss as she slid into the driver’s seat. “You know where we are. You’re welcome to join us too. Nothing more fun than being on the run from a sadistic, ruthless motorcycle club times two.”

Kickstand grinned. “Nothing except leading them in the wrong direction.”

“Get the fuck outta my way. I’m getting my boy outta there.”

James and Ryder shared a glance as Angel’s harsh voice pierced the thick steel door and echoed around them as if she were standing in the room.

“Imagine listening to that every day,” Ryder muttered. “I’d hide in my clubhouse too.”

Low murmurs outside and then a thud. And then Angel’s shrill voice.

“Rex is having a rest, courtesy of this here pipe. So the answer is no, we’re not going to wait for him. And unless you’re feeling tired too, I suggest you get the fuck outta my way.”

Ryder and James plastered their ears to the door, unable to tear themselves away from the train wreck on the other side.

Voices. Low. Urgent.
Crack!
A grunt.

“Don’t tell me I don’t got any say,” Angel shouted. “Last I heard, I was still married to the cheating bastard, which makes me the number one old lady in the club, which makes you dirt under my fucking shoes. See these shoes? He bought ’em for me as an apology for fucking the babysitter. They look pretty but they got steel toes. You know why he bought ’em with steel toes? So I could kick losers like you in the balls and cause some permanent fucking damage.”

Thud!
A long, low pained groan.

James winced. Beside him, Ryder grimaced and the color drained from his face.

“You sure it was a good idea calling out for her? What if she’s pissed at us too?”

“I told you,” James said, with a confidence he didn’t feel in the least. “She owes me a favor.”

“She doesn’t owe me.” Ryder paced his way to the back of the room. Away from the door.

James gave a harsh laugh. “She’s half your size. Maybe even less.”

Ryder shook his head. “Size means nothing. She scares me. Just like black widow spiders and scorpions scare me. They’re so small you can’t see them coming, and by the time you do, it’s too late.” He drew a line across his throat. “You’re dead.”

A key rattled in the lock and the door swung open. Angel stomped into the room, a metal pipe in one hand and a key in the other. Her fluorescent-pink spandex dress reflected off her scowling face, brightening the room.

She poked a finger into James’s chest. “Been hearing things about you, Ice.”

James backed up to the wall. Ryder sidled toward the open door.

Cowardly bastard
.

“Been hearing you’re a rat. If you are, you’re a bad one. Woulda made my life a whole lot easier if you’d put that fucking bastard in jail. Just went to the doctor this morning and guess what that dickwad brought home from Seymour Street?”

James could guess what Rex had brought home from Vancouver’s red light district and it wasn’t something he wanted to discuss with Angel. Especially now.

Ryder snorted a laugh and Angel whipped her head around and glared. “Shut your fucking mouth, Ryder. Show some respect. I know about you too. I’ve been keeping quiet about you, but if you push me I’ll open my mouth and it won’t be for the sweet treatment you’ve been begging for since the day we met.”

James sucked in a sharp breath. What could Angel possibly have on Ryder? He rode cleaner than anyone in the club. Maybe…too clean.

The sound drew Angel’s attention. She didn’t look like herself today but he couldn’t put a finger on what was different.

She poked him again. Hard. “I know you’re fucking my PI. She did a damn fine job. Got me some good pictures and musta taken a big risk to get them. You mess her around and you answer to me.”

“It’s not me you should worry about. It’s Levi.” Even as the statement left his lips, rage coiled around his chest so tight he could barely breathe.

Her face tightened. “Yeah. Claw told me what happened at the meeting. I went after Levi, but he’d already gone. I told the boys, he shows up here again, they call me.” She paused. “You going after her?”

“The second you let me out of here.”

Angel’s face softened and James realized what had changed. She wasn’t wearing any makeup and without it she looked…young. Probably late twenties. And attractive. How did she wind up in a biker gang? And with Rex?

Maybe the same way as Lana. Young and innocent and desperately searching for someone to love her.

He must have been staring because Angel fisted his shirt and pulled him down toward her.

“Why you lookin’ at me like that?”

He swallowed hard and gave her an honest answer. “You’re very pretty without all the makeup.”

Myriad emotions crossed her face—surprise, regret, pleasure and…displeasure.

Then she slapped him.

At least she’d picked the other cheek. Now they both burned.

“You coming on to me when your girl is out there being chased by a pack of fucking Wolverines? She’s a sweet girl. She’s got a good heart. I told you not to mess her around. I’d leave you locked up in here to think about your behavior, but someone needs to save her. That’s you.”

She turned and scowled at Ryder. “And, you, since you got nothin’ better to do with your time than stare at me with your mouth hanging open like a panting puppy.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Ryder gave her a salute and a wink.

She pinched his ass as she headed out the door. “Cheeky. You bring her back and maybe I’ll give you that sweet treatment after all.”

James and Ryder followed her out, stepping over a groaning Dawg, an injured Punch and an unconscious Bones. Angel looked back over her shoulder and flipped back her long blonde hair.

“We’re even, Ice.”

He nodded. “We are.”

She pressed her lips together and then her face softened. “Don’t let them take her. I hooked up with Rex when I was only seventeen. Biggest mistake of my life. This world, it beats the hell out of a girl. Sucks up her sweetness and spits her out the other end with nothing left but bitterness in her heart. The minute my baby girl was born I knew I had to get her out of here, and I knew I would do anything to make that happen. And that was just Hades. Those Wolverines…”

James’s throat tightened. “I know.”

She drew in a ragged breath, her face tightening once more. “If you know, then why are you standing around gawking at me? Go!”

“They aren’t going anywhere.” Rex stepped into the hallway, arms folded, a trickle of blood on his temple and a scowl on his face. “They betrayed Hades. They pay the price.”

“For the love of…” Angel cut herself off when Rex walked toward them. “You got one hell of a hard head, Rexy. Most men would have been out a coupla hours after getting hit with this here pipe. Maybe it’s been all that coke you’ve been snorting or all the girls you’ve been fucking. You’re too stupid to know when it’s best to stay passed out.”

“Only one girl I wanted,” Rex snarled. “Wasn’t you.”

Unperturbed, Angel gave a bitter laugh. “I heard you were sniffing around my PI and she wouldn’t have you. So you decided to give her up to the Wolverines. Isn’t that right? If you couldn’t have her, no one else in the club could have her? You’re pathetic. And you know what I’m thinking? I’m thinking the reason you didn’t stay down is because the wrong person hit you with the pipe.”

She tossed the pipe to James and gave him a wicked grin. “Let’s see what you got, Ice. If you can’t knock him out longer than I did, I’ll take that damn pipe to your head next.”

James hefted the pipe and stalked toward Rex. “Go home, Angel. By the time I’m done here, there won’t be any pipe left to play with.”

Chapter Twenty-One

The heart-shaking roar of a motorcycle engine wrenched Lana from sleep. She shook Jackie awake and raced to the window of the tiny motel hidden away in the Rocky Mountains.

“Is it Levi?” Jackie ran around the room, still half-asleep, stuffing clothes in her backpack, her long dark hair a tangle around her face.

“I can’t tell. It’s too dark,” Lana whispered.

“How did he know where we are?”

“Maybe it’s not him.” She dared to hope, but practicality reared its ugly head. “We have to be prepared to escape on foot. Our car will be blocked off once they enter the parking lot.”

Jackie tugged a hoodie over her pajamas. “Excellent. I’ve always wanted to run aimlessly through a cold, dark forest in the middle of the night, being pursued by crazed Wolverines. Can’t have too many experiences in this life, I always say.”

Lana peered out the window again and her heart skipped a beat. “There’s only one guy and he’s parked beside your car.”

“If he puts a scratch on that paint, I’ll kill him,” Jackie grumbled. “I just had it redone. Cost me every penny I made on the Pomeranian case.”

“He’s heading to the front desk. We can sneak out now.” Lana grabbed her backpack and pushed open the door.

The phone rang, the sound jarring in the quiet of the night.

“He’s calling.” Jackie’s eyes widened. “Very thoughtful. I thought he’d just bust down the door and drag you out by the hair. But I guess he wants to be sure you’re properly dressed for your kidnapping. Are you going to answer it?”

Heart pounding, Lana lifted the receiver.