Heart of a Tattooist: Dark Romance MC Club Alpha Bad Boy Obsession (Tattooist Series Book 3) (12 page)

Mitch hissed, “Damn! Follow him! You’ve no idea what room he might be in!”

“It might also be a ploy.” Dani said, “It could be that we totally underestimated him and he somehow caught sight of Shane.”

Mitch doubted that. He knew just how good Shane was.

Shane said, “Chill, Mitch, we got this.”

“It’s not your woman in that van, man.” The words came out on a burst of air that seemed to have come from somewhere deep in his lungs.

“That’s why I can think straight,” Shane replied coolly.

Mitch gripped the armrest of the SUV and stared at the seedy litter of motels and drug houses. Nashville had its seamier sides, indeed it did, but he had never thought of the place as particularly dangerous. It wasn’t, in truth. But right then he was imagining all sorts of things that he knew he shouldn’t. He popped open the glove box and pulled his gun out of its holster.

Roger cruised into the motel parking lot. Shane pulled away from the front and then into a space next to the one Roger took.

They all got out. “She’s not in the van; I’ve checked.” Mitch pushed past Roger to head inside the shithole. Shane grabbed him. “Whoa, cowboy! You can’t go in there guns blazing, but I get why you want to. If she’s in there and we go in like that, we’re risking her life.”

Dani squeezed between the two of them. “I’m on it.” She ran toward the back of the motel. The cicadas sang loudly and the breeze blew for the moment, cooling the overheated asphalt and his face, but Mitch barely noticed. The cars in the lot were all older and slightly decrepit. There was a definite aroma of weed and discarded beer cans, and bottles lay about in the rough patches of grass.

It was the kind of place where nobody noticed anything.

Dani’s voice crackled through Shane’s phone. “Got it. Check up into room three-fifty-one and do it fast.”

Roger headed for the desk. Mitch made to move and Shane grabbed his arm again.

“Look around you, Mitch. We go up there like this, all the folks in here are going to think police. We might have to shoot our way out of here before we even get to her. Do us all a favor and put the gun away for now.

Roger came running back with a greasy key card.

Dani spoke again through the walkie-talkie part of Shane’s phone. “I just heard Cara talk.”

Roger said, “I’ll keep it chill out here.”

Shane nodded and grabbed Mitch’s arm. They started walking. Mitch felt like he was stuck in some particularly sticky substance. No matter how fast he walked he couldn’t seem to make that corner.

He did, though. Dani waited at the door. She looked worried but calm, which was more than he could say for himself. She opened the door and they went in.

Dani went right along the wall, flipping on a light to reveal a dingy and rundown room. There was a connecting door. Dani looked at Shane. Shane went to the door, took out a slim lock picking set, and promptly went to work. Mitch could hear a man talking in the other room. The words were chilling.

They weren’t threats, exactly; they were the worlds of a bully gearing up to do some real harm.

Shane got the door open, holding it so that it didn’t gap open and reveal them. He nodded and stepped back just a little, and Mitch knew exactly what he was doing. He was letting him go through the door first, respecting his right to be the man Cara needed in her life at that moment.

He burst through the door.

* *

Cara had gotten the gag off, but it was back. She was struggling wildly when the wall opened. That was exactly what it looked like. The wall opened, and Mitch stepped through it.

She had to be hallucinating or knocked out again and dreaming, because right behind him came first Shane and then Dani.

The man who’d taken her stared at them. He lifted the gun and Cara screamed behind the gag as she saw the barrel swing toward Mitch.

Her heart stopped as she understood she wasn’t dreaming at all. He was really there, and he was about to get shot.

Shane crossed the room so fast she barely saw him. The sleaze-bag of a kidnapper went down like a sack of potatoes.

Mitch rushed toward her and he said, “Shit, Cara! Are you all right?”

He undid the tape around her mouth and she kissed him. Then she gasped out, “My hands. My hands, Mitch!”

He heard the desperation in her voice and he got behind her, cursing at the thick and clumsy knots.

Dani dropped down beside Mitch, “Here let me,” and produced a knife.

Shane had knocked Junior’s brother out cold. She stared down at the man who’d taken her and she sighed softly.

She couldn’t feel anything but happiness.

Not because she had been saved, but because Mitch was there. She tumbled into his arms and he held her tight against his broad chest. She heard the sound of his heartbeat below her ears and she whispered, “I knew it. I knew you would come.”

Dani called the cops as Shane headed for the doorway. Cara called out to him, “Shane—how? You know what? I don’t care. Thank you. Thank you very much.”

He nodded then looked at Dani, and Cara understood it all.

He’d told her once that some people didn’t know how to get past the pain, or how to live with it either. He’d been talking about himself. It was written all over his face. He was madly in love with Dani, and Cara hoped, hoped he would say something, but instead he just walked out.

Dani said, “Of course you’d go ghost, you bastard.” Then she sighed and her shoulders slumped.

Cara wanted to tell her to go after him, to quit being an idiot and do something, but she couldn’t. Her head ached and her body shook. The world went gray around the edges.

Mitch held her up as cops began to flood into the rooms and then the paramedics arrived. She forced herself to say alert. She refused to let herself pass out again.

The police officer in charge came forward and glanced at the crew of misfits standing together. He shook his head, wondering out loud how they’d managed to find Cara. Dani grinned and shrugged, saying her phone had a tracking device.

Cara knew it wasn’t true. She had lost her phone long before. She knew it had something to do with what Dani and Shane used to do, some sort of super-secret military stuff. She didn’t want to ask either.

She was exhausted, and as they loaded her onto a stretcher and into an ambulance she managed to clear her throat and whisper, “Dani—do yourself a favor.”

Dani said, “What’s that?”

“Go to Key West and get a tattoo,” she said then fell back against the stretcher, and the doors closed.

She woke again to see sunlight streaming through windows. She lay confused and disoriented. Her throat was dry and her body sore.

What had happened came rushing back, and she gasped in relief that she was ok. She held up her hands, terrified she’d never ink again.

They were fine. A little swollen, but fine. She flexed her fingers to be sure. Behind her fingers was a tall, dark, and handsome figure.

Mitch slept, his head down on the bed beside her. There were sheets of paper scattered everywhere and she reached down and picked one up. The words filled the page, neat little lines with notes added into the margins, and a smile crossed her mouth.

He’d been writing!

A lot.

The lyrics in her hand were dark and twisted. Not his best stuff, but good. He was writing again, and that was all that mattered. She laid the paper aside and let her hand go to his dark head. She stroked the sleek curls on the crown of his head and he opened one eye slowly.

Mitch sat up, blinking. His face was swollen from sleep. “How are you?”

“I’m alive.”

“Doc says you took a good hit. Concussion that’s going to take some watching over. But there won’t be any permanent damage.”

She smiled and winced at the pain pushing from the back of her head towards the front. “Thanks to you and your buddies.”

He shook his head, “It’s my fault. I was so sure that whole mess was done. I should’ve put a bodyguard with you.”

“Stop.” The word held real authority. She couldn’t stand the guilt and anguish in his face. “It was never your fault. I did that shit. I had every right to be angry. I had every right to protect myself from that idiot but I should have remembered that…I should’ve remembered my parents had guys like that around too.” She sucked in a shaky breath. “I should’ve remembered that and called his bluff before I did the rest of it. If I had it would’ve been way different.”

“I called your folks. Well, I called the prison to inform them you were okay just in case they saw it on the news. It went national, you know.”

She made a face. “Oh, great.”

He shrugged. “Your folks needed to know you were okay.” His hand took hers.

She sighed and looked down at their fingers. “I know I should talk to them at some point. Someone once told me that I wouldn’t be a whole person until I put my past life behind me. What my parents were and what they did. But I have to tell you I might never be able to.”

He cleared his throat and pressed her hand more firmly. “Do you want to talk about it?”

She sighed; her head hurt but she wasn’t sure if it was from the bump or the pain of the past. “No. Yes. I don’t know. They really loved each other. Not like…not in the way you usually see people love each other, though. With them it bordered on obsession. It was unhealthy, but I didn’t know that as a kid.”

Mitch said nothing; he just let her speak and she was grateful for it.

“They didn’t have anything left over to give me. They were obsessed with being Bonnie and Clyde, on bikes instead of in cars. They didn’t have any love for me. Maybe that wasn’t their fault. Maybe if they weren’t so caught in loving and wanting each other as much as they did, they could have loved me more.”

Mitch murmured, “I see.”

“Do you?” She shook her head then regretted it. “My whole life I felt like I wasn’t wanted, you know? I always felt like I was coming in a far second to things I would never understand. I never felt like I was important enough to be loved. I was terrified that one day I would fall in love with someone and it would be just that consuming. That it would eat me alive from the inside and I would end up like my mom, clinging to a man who wasn’t good for me. Then terrified to let go because I was so crazy in love that I was blind and stupid.

He held her hand, his fingers tucked warm and safe between hers.

“What really scared me, still scares me, is that one day I might have kids and then do that same stupid thing. That’s the real reason I walked out on Cliff. Everything I ever believed about why I did that is a self-serving lie. I’m afraid, pure and simple. I don’t know how to love somebody and I don’t know how to be loved either. Wait, no. That isn’t true. Not anymore.” She shifted and looked him directly in his beautiful eyes. “I love you, Mitch. I love you more than anyone I’ve loved in the world; that reckless, crazy love and it scares the shit out of me.”

He moved closer on the bed with her. Their bodies touched and he said, “You’re not your parents. We are not your parents. I don’t even know how to ride a motorcycle.”

She blinked, trying to parse that last bit out, and chuckled. “I see. Maybe I should teach you. While I’m at it, I could teach you how to cook up some crystal meth.”

“You can do that?”

She nodded grimly.

“Well if we ever go broke, we’ll have something to fall back on.”

She stared at him, speechless.

He shrugged, his face still serious. “I’m just saying if we hit sixty and we’re broke, we have options.”

She started laughing. It hurt like hell but she couldn’t stop.

Mitch laughed too as he kissed her cheek. His face turned serious. “Cara, I can’t promise you that life’s going to be better. It won’t be easy; it’s going to take some work, but I’d like to try to make it better with you.” He cleared his throat. “To be honest, being with a musician isn’t easy. Lots of people can’t do it. I can’t promise you it’ll always be smooth sailing or that we won’t ever fight. What I can promise you is that I’ll always love you and I’ll give you space when you need it. If we argue, we’ll work things out together. We won’t run away from each other. Either of us. I’ll even start wearing running shoes instead of boots. It’s damn hard to run in boots.”

She swallowed, trying to push down the lump in her throat, “It’s not easy being with a tattooist either. But you don’t need shoes. I’m not running anymore. I can’t promise I won’t panic or do something dumb, but I can promise you I’m not going anywhere. Ever. Not as long as you want me here.”

He wrapped an arm around her and pulled her closer to his body. His eyes looked right into hers. “Then we won’t have any worries. Because I want you here now and always.”

She took a deep breath and said, “I want to rent that space you have downtown. I insist on renting it.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “Why?”

“I want my own shop.”

His eyes lit up. “About damn time, woman!” Then he pulled her in for a long, gentle kiss.