Breaking It All: A Hellfire Riders MC Romance (The Motorcycle Clubs) (16 page)

Anna

Stronger
is coffee that smells as if it’s half whiskey. Blowback plonks the steaming mug in front of me when I sit at the breakfast table. His hard gaze searches my face before lifting over my head to look at Lily. Probably thinking the same thing she and Gunner did. They saw my dress and panties on the floor and assumed the worst.

It could have been the worst. But it wasn’t. And now I’m dressed again in my favorite Stanford hoodie and fluffy gray pajama pants, my hands wrapped around a mug of hot coffee, my phone tucked away in the pouch of my sweatshirt. I know Stone won’t call right away. But it feels like a lifeline connecting me to him—that as long as I keep my phone nearby, he’s going to come home all right. I just pray that Gunner can get word to him about what happened before he sees the video of that bastard slapping me.

I take a sip and almost choke. I was right—half whiskey. The alcohol stings my busted lip but the warmth spreads right through me.

I’m warm all over. I have been since Gunner kissed me.

Why did he? Gingerly, I touch my bottom lip. Holding me, warming me, supporting me—those weren’t a surprise. But his kiss was. Not because his lips pressed to mine. Even that might have simply been an attempt to soothe me.

But he kissed me as if I was everything. Only hours after he told me I’m nothing.

And I don’t know what to think anymore.

I glance over as he pushes through the mudroom door, Daisy at his heels. His gaze immediately zeroes in on my eyes before dropping to my fingertips, still pressed to my lips.

He doesn’t look at me the same way he did only a few hours ago, either. The intensity in his crystalline eyes has always been there, but now it’s sharper, hotter—and burns with an intent I can’t read. But just one look and my heart pounds at a dizzying speed.

Then Daisy’s on me, wriggling and wagging, shoving her boxy head against my arm, licking my fingers with her quick tongue. Suddenly tears threaten again. Oh god. I set down my coffee and grab her big dumb head, scratching her ears and letting her slobber kisses all over my face. I’m almost crying over such a stupid little thing—a dog demanding kisses. A stupid little thing…but so important and incredible to be the recipient of such unreserved love and joy. I should never take these things for granted. But I have. So often.

“She was okay?” I ask, looking to Gunner.

Unsmiling, he nods and leans back against the center island. His dark hair is still wet but he found a pair of loose sweatpants and a thin white T-shirt that clings to his broad chest. “She left a mess,” he tells me in a voice I barely recognize. Rough like gravel, his sculpted features like stone—and his glacial eyes devouring me whole. “But it doesn’t look like they ever got over to that part of the house.”

“Good.” I give her another scratch and rub my face against her doggy forehead. But although I’d love to do nothing but this, I can’t put the rest off. I take a deep breath. “So you want a step by step?”

“Yes.” Blowback’s the one who answers me, taking the seat adjacent to mine, the sheer size of him seeming to emit a gravitational force that draws my gaze to the emptiness of his dark eyes. Empty like outer space, and Lily is the bright star burning through that cold vacuum as she props her ass against the edge of the table beside him.

“Everything you can remember,” she says.

“Okay.” I clear my suddenly dry throat, darting a glance at Gunner. His expression is still hard, but his body has gone rigid as if he’s bracing himself—or preparing to look into the depths of Hell. “Daisy was barking when I got here. But I assumed she just had to be let out—because I didn’t see any cars or bikes around. So if he parked, maybe it was around behind the house or the garage? Or maybe he parked down the road and he walked in. But farther west, because I didn’t pass any vehicles parked alongside the road after I drove through town.”

“‘He,’” Gunner echoes, his brows drawing down with his frown. “Just one man?”

“Just one. He was on me as soon as I got through the door. I just saw a shadow coming and bam!”—I aim a fist at my jaw and mime a punch—“I went down.”

A grating sound comes from Gunner. I glance over and he’s got his hands locked on the edge of the island counter, the tendons in his forearms standing in sharp relief, his face a bleak, tortured mask.

“And then?” Blowback shoots a dark look at the other man.

Taking another sip of the loaded coffee gives me time to picture the bastard and to beat back the surge of fear the memory conjures. “He was big. And he wore leather gloves and a ski mask. But he had dark brown eyes and—”

“Brown?” Gunner stares at me. “Not blue?”

“Brown,” I confirm.

“You’re sure? They weren’t the same color as mine?”

“Trust me that I would notice if his eyes were like yours,” I say dryly, then frown as he drags in a sharp breath, his big body shuddering. “Why?”

“Just keep going,” Blowback says but the look he gives Gunner is a warning. No more interruptions. I’m not even sure if Gunner notices. He’s staring at me as if still not believing what I just told him.

“Then he told me not to move.”

“Did he have an accent?”

“No. Then he made me take off my coat.” My voice shakes and I wrap my fingers tighter around the mug, until Daisy whines and nudges my leg with her head. I scratch her ears and it’s easier to continue, “And I thought, he’s here to rape me. But then he said my brother’s too stubborn—that Stone needed persuading.”

Gunner and Lily exchange a startled look. But there’s no surprise on Blowback’s face. “Persuade him to what?”

“Fight.” I take a deep breath. “So I realized this was about the cage fight thing he and Gunner have been chasing down. Ever since those guys got to Lily.”

Blowback turns and levels a hard stare at her.

She holds up her hands. “I didn’t say anything. I told you. The brothers don’t keep their mouths shut.”

“What else did he say about Stone?” Gunner’s utterly focused on me, ignoring the exchange between the other Riders.

“Just that he needed to be persuaded. So I assumed the club business with that girl, Cherry, and whatever’s going on in Arizona—I assumed that really he got inside that fighting ring somehow, but he doesn’t want to kill someone in a death match. So I told the guy that hurting me won’t persuade Stone because he’ll assume I’m dead. He’ll assume that this fucker made his video and then killed me.”

Gunner’s face whitens. “Yes. He would.”

“So I said he needs to make a deal with Stone—that after he fights, Stone can call me and verify that I’m alive.”

Blowback goes utterly still. “He’s going to call you after his fight?”

“That’s what he said.” I’m shaking again. I bury my fingers in Daisy’s short fur. “But then he said that if Stone ever loses, he’s coming back for me. That I’m only alive as long as my brother is.”

“Fuck that,” Gunner grits out, striding forward and crouching in front of me, fierce eyes locked on mine. “I swear it’s not going to fucking happen.”

Nodding, I say, “That’d be great. So if you could let Stone know that it’s time to blow that whole undercover thing apart now, I’d be grateful.”

No agreement from the Riders—just silence for a long, empty second that rolls my stomach into a tight knot.

Then Blowback says, “You said he had brown eyes. How tall, how big?”

“Um, as tall as Saxon, but, uh, bigger. Rounder. Not soft fat, but hard fat over muscle. Like Widowmaker is.”

The Riders’ warlord nods. “Anything more?”

Too much more. “I think he had a beard because the mask seemed…pillowy around the jaw.” I close my eyes, picturing him. “He had crooked bottom teeth but I never saw his upper teeth. And he took off his right glove when he was stroking himself. He had a word inked on the back of his fingers.
RIDE.
And he was uncircumcised.”

“He’ll be circumcised by the time we’re done,” Lily promises grimly. “Circumcised all the way down to his fucking balls.”

“The tattoo said
RIDE
? You sure?” There’s a dangerous note in Gunner’s voice that I’ve never heard before. Low and cold and utterly terrifying.

“There’s lots of bikers with that tattoo, pretty boy,” Lily says evenly—as if she’s talking him back from the edge.

“But not the whole package.” His pale gaze is feral as he looks to Blowback. “That’s the enforcer with the Iron Blood. I’m going to tear his goddamn—”

“You’re going to do nothing yet,” the warlord cuts in, his voice like steel. “We go after Chef and every path to the Cage will vanish.”

Gunner abruptly shoots to his feet and paces to the island and back, his jaw locked, every muscle tense. “Who’s your contact in the Hangmen? Are they telling us everything they know about the Cage?”

“Unlikely.”

Gunner snarls in response to that easy admission. “Then maybe you don’t have the balls to do what needs to be done to get the information.”

Blowback just looks at him. Lily’s staring at him, too, her face a picture of disbelief. Probably because Gunner must have really gone over the edge if the thinks Blowback doesn’t have the guts to fuck someone up. I don’t know the warlord well but most of the Riders act like they’re walking barefoot through a minefield covered in broken glass when they’re around him.

Yet they know who this guy is and Blowback is telling Gunner to hold off? Why? And why the hell do they need a trail leading to the Cage if my brother is there, pretending to be one of their fighters?

Unless…my brother
can’t
lay a trail. Unless my brother isn’t pretending.

Unless Gunner lied to me and Stone isn’t doing some undercover thing at all—and instead my brother simply disappeared like all the other fighters did.

A ragged breath rips from my chest as the truth hits me. At the sound, Gunner’s head whips around and his body stills when he sees my face. I stare up at him with accusing eyes.

“What really happened to Stone? And don’t say that undercover bullshit again. Where is he? Do you even
know
?”

“Anna—” He starts toward me and abruptly stops when I jerk back in my chair. I don’t want him coming close. I don’t want his nearness fucking with my head—or my heart. A flash of pain seems to tighten his features and he roughly continues, “I told you, it’s club business.”

“Of course it is. Except fuck you and fuck the Riders. You aren’t the only ones who call him a brother. Stupid me, thinking that meant something to you. That maybe me, my mom, and my dad were more than random assholes who just happen to be in Stone’s family.”

Tension whitens the edge of his mouth. “You are.”

A hard laugh bursts from me. “Really?” Because only a few hours ago, I wasn’t more. Fingers scrabbling, I dig my phone out of my sweatshirt. “So that’s why you did
this
, yeah? Why you lied for a week and then lied to my face when I asked if he was okay!”

“Just to keep you—”

“From worrying about
my brother
!” I shout. Daisy cringes at my feet but I can’t hold back the fury. “My brother! Who I have every right to worry about if there’s reason to worry! And there is reason, isn’t there? I mean, Jesus. I’m not asking for details about the Riders’ business. I’m just asking for the truth!
Is he in trouble?
”

His face an emotional wasteland, Gunner stares back at me. And that bleak silence is answer enough.

My throat burning, I look to Lily, whose full lips are pressed into a thin line, her jaw tight. “And you, too.” My voice cracks. “Hugging me after the funeral, pretending everything was fine when my brother is…”

Going to have to fight to the death so that some rich fuckers can bet on him. Oh god.

Gunner pushes in front of me, leaning in and bracing his hand on the table, his broad shoulders blocking my view of Lily and the pain in her eyes. “We’re going to get him back, Anna,” he says gruffly. “And we won’t let anyone touch you again.”

“Yeah, well. That’s what you tell me. But is that true or is it more of this shit?” I lift my phone, scroll back through the messages and read, “‘Everything’s all right, pipsqueak. Just taking longer than it should.’ I can’t believe a single word you say.”

“Then don’t believe what I said here, either.” Gently his big hand covers mine, his thumb sliding down the screen. “‘Gunner’s a useless fucking asshole.’”

A huffing laugh escapes me. Shit. I want to hold onto my anger, because the anger’s the only thing keeping my fear for Stone from taking over. But seeing that message, I know exactly what Gunner must have been thinking—all last week, searching for my brother and not finding him, so angry and frustrated…and blaming himself.

Just like he’s been blaming himself for everything tonight. But this isn’t his fault. And even though I’ve got every right to be pissed off by his lies, it’s not right to lay more blame on him.

I know he’ll look for Stone. I know the Riders will protect me. He’s not lying about any of that. Maybe everything else, but not that.

Gently he cups my cheek, tips my face up to meet his eyes. “And I’m so damn sorry, Anna. Sorry I lost him. Sorry we didn’t see this bastard coming for you. Sorry I didn’t get Stone back before you realized he was gone.”

I believe all of that. Raggedly I say, “Just tell me the Riders are going to find him.”

“We will.” His callused thumb sweeps across my trembling bottom lip. “And we’ll keep you safe, too. All right?”

I nod into his hand. His pale gaze holds mine for a long moment, steady, as if imparting his promise not just with words but with that look.

Finally he turns his head and says to Blowback, “I’ll take Anna to my place tonight, watch over her. You want to update the prez? And maybe you and Zoomie stay here in case that fucker comes back.”

“We’ll do that,” Blowback says.

Lily nods and her gaze is on me, even as she asks Gunner, “You still heading out tomorrow?”

“As soon as Anna’s settled.” Gunner meets my eyes again, his voice low. “You’re all right, coming with me tonight?”

Even though he’s leaving tomorrow. That knowledge twists painfully in my chest. But I won’t cling to him—even though I want to. Even though I feel so safe with my face cradled in his palm and his eyes searching mine.