Knight (90 page)

Kingdom paraded throughout the northwest of the state and into the Great Lakes region. Sacrilege and other tiny clubs rode around Pittsburgh and the surrounding counties, usually getting lost in the depressed river towns forgotten after the mills closed. We held a small territory, hardly worth Kingdom’s attention.

Hardly worth the notice of any other club, especially one with men as rough as Temple MC.

Buzz cut and tattooed, down to the teardrops around their eyes and the automatic weapon branded on their necks. They were armed with guns, knives, and blunt tools strapped to their belts.

They didn’t belong here.

Noir grabbed my arm just above the elbow. Squeezed.

Message received.

I checked behind us, but our booth hid within a sealed-off corner. Noir pulled me with him as he stalked to the front doors.

The men didn’t move.

Neither did Noir.

I didn’t like the look of the patches on their jackets—too many officers and not enough brainless members. Secretary, Treasurer, Sergeant-At-Freaking-Arms. It was the SA who stepped in front of Noir.

Trapped before these men, Sacrilege MC would have been annihilated in an instant. Sam crumbled too easily, Goliath got in everyone’s faces, and Red wouldn’t have the sense to cut and run. He’d end up at med school again, only this time he’d be the one on the morgue table for the students to dice up and judge for their better life choices.

But Noir didn’t surrender. He didn’t throw a punch when the men blocked his exit or cower when they stared him in the eye.

Three against one.

I was glad I stood behind him.

I held my breath as every part of me trembled, head to toes and back again. Noir didn’t hesitate. He hauled me through the crew without apologizing for crashing shoulders with the SA. The doors closed. The vice squeezing my chest hadn’t eased. Neither had Noir’s grip on my arm.

He pulled a gun from his belt. His command terrified me more than the men.

“Run.”

Running was the worst part of exile.

It tortured me more than casting off my name, hiding my ink, losing myself. I ached in destroyed pride and suffocating guilt and every other bullshit weakness that forced me to run when I should have grabbed my gun and redeemed myself in the glory of an empty shell and a taken life.

But I wasn’t risking death. Not yet. Not before I had that chance to finally protect Rose and fix the mess I left behind. My life was only worth the blood it spilled. I’d find the man who destroyed her—who destroyed our family—and I’d join him in the baptism of hellfire that awaited us both.

So I ran.

We
ran.

Martini split before I barked the order. She was tougher than the front of her schoolgirl pout. She sprinted through the parking lot and slid smooth behind me, careful not to squeeze the injury she already exposed. The bike turned over with a roar.

She didn’t ask questions. She knew how to hold on and when to keep her mouth shut. Excellent qualities in a girl who spent her life getting used by the crew who was supposed to watch out for her. The thought poisoned me.

She asked for help.

I trapped her in the middle of a potential bloodbath.

“Who are those guys?” She twisted to search the road. No good ever came from looking behind. “Do you recognize them?”

The bike roared as I pushed it toward the first onramp I found. North, south. Didn’t matter as long as I had a couple miles of clear road to redline and get the hell out of the specter of my past. Rolling clouds blocked out the moon. Rain.

Thunder slashed through the night, immediately followed with another flash of hungry lightning.

Damn it.

“Noir!” Her fingers dug into my jacket as I cut in front of a surprised Jetta and into a non-existent space between two pick-ups. “Who are they?”

“
Temple
.”

I doubted she heard the world. I spat it into the darkness as a curse. I traveled three thousand miles over three months of endless travel, constant jobs, and wretched isolation, and somehow the worst mistakes of my past rode to my side—like a grim reaper of regret. Always chasing, just waiting for that first, only, and final mistake that would slice out my fucking heart.

The highway emptied at night. Rows of streetlights blasted light on me as I attempted to hide within the solitude of the road. I wore on the throttle, kicking the bike beyond eighty and counting the miles like I counted the hours since I last sped into the distance to put as much space between me and Temple MC as possible.

They weren’t supposed to be here.

Not on a run. Not on a drop. Not on a deal.

Temple had no business dealing this far east. They stuck to the deserts, to the lanes between Cherrywood Valley and Mexico. The drug trade necessitated it. Every hard vice and unforgiving sin passed either through their territory, their hands, or their workshops. Temple controlled the drugs. They also controlled the money, politicians, and land. Everyone wanted a cut.

And I was the son of a bitch who worked out a deal with them.

I was the son of a bitch who ruined it all.

They thought I was dead. If they recognized me, figured out I lived, breathed, and slithered the earth like the damned snake I was, every last hope I had at hunting my father would be flayed out of me by the chains wrapping over their fists.

I had ripped the Anathema patches off my jacket, but stripping the leather only destroyed my identity. It didn’t hide me.

I didn’t recognize Temple’s treasurer or secretary. But the sergeant-at-arms? That sleazy motherfucker lurked in the shadow of our meetings, hand always on his gun. Like he thought I’d pull something. Like he thought I was stupid enough to fuck with the most powerful MC in the state.

But I
was
stupid enough. I pissed off Temple and Anathema, even when I thought I could create the alliance that would save us both. Christ was I wrong. Not only did Anathema suffer from my idiocy, my brother poisoned himself with any drug he found and Rose...

Thorne would protect her, but it was my fault she ran into the arms of a ruthless president of a goddamned motorcycle club instead of confiding in her own family.

Martini’s nails dug into my jacket.

Just what I needed. Not only did they see me, they saw Martini—the feisty little blonde who ruled the world with the mischief of her smile. She talked big about bruises and fists, but getting beat on by a drunken boyfriend was nothing compared to getting buried up to her neck in the desert for the scorpions to sting and the elements to scorch.

If she even made it to the desert.

Temple trafficked more than drugs, and the men transporting kidnapped women wouldn’t stop to buy them a milkshake because they got bored on the trip across the state lines.

For five miles my mirrors reflected only the flicker of lightning bearing down over our escape. Our luck didn’t last long. I swore as three pinpricks of light crested a hill behind us.

They chased, but I’d be damned if my end came with a hammer imbedded in my skull. Not before I had my revenge. Not before I got Martini to safety.

The fuckers could do whatever got them off as long as they did it to me. Capture me. Threaten me. Beat my miserable hide until they wore the ink off my skin. But I’d break their necks with my bare hands if they even looked at Martini again.

Rose was enough. I wasn’t about to damn another woman in my own cowardice and abandonment.

I didn’t take my eyes from the road. “Hang on!”

Martini shrieked as the bike tore through the asphalt and burst onto the highway. The late-night truckers disguised my presence. I wove between the trailers, ducking into and out of streaks of red brake lights as I turned my headlight off. Martini ducked against my back.

“
What are you doing
?” She cried.

The few streetlights dimmed a yellowish haze over the road, and the approaching storm lit the rest. It was enough to see, and I’d traveled through worse. Speeding border to border in the middle of the night—no lights, no stops. I raced the darkness, the police, the DEA, and whatever half-cocked meth-head MCs might have followed. Except then, I had night vision glasses. Kevlar. No sweet-tart passenger grinding against my back whenever my bike bounced on the pavement.

I didn’t trust the roads here. I usually studied the maps and researched the best routes. I had to learn the dangerous areas where the police and feds lurked, baiting the runners. Riding blind at my speed tempted fate, and I wore out my welcome at death’s door when I escaped Anathema’s retribution.

Martini behaved herself, but Christ only knew if she’d freak and topple us both. I wasn’t about to dump the bike or let the cocksuckers get anywhere close to me, and she wasn’t about to let go. The squeeze of her arms was the first honest reaction I got out of her, but she didn’t show her fear. What the hell was she worried about with Kingdom? Unless they were looking to become the first eunuch MC, they’d leave her the fuck alone.

I saw an exit. It was safer off the highway. More places to hide, more streets to cross, more places to stash the girl before something terrible happened. She predicted it, and she was right. I’d never handle another rape on my conscience.

I slowed as much as I dared, ran the red-light at the base of the onramp, and pushed the bike through a half mile of darkened wilderness so close to the road I ducked to avoid the overhanging branches.

My profanity roared louder than the engines, harsher than the thunder. Headlights appeared behind me, matching the cast of white I was forced to flick on. The splash of brightness before my bike would prevent us from ramming into a tree, but it led Temple right to us.

I wanted them to come. The only skill needed to escape a highway was the instinct to not fall off and splatter my brains on the pavement. I ruled the streets beyond the interstate, speeding through enough small towns to earn my position as Anathema’s Road Captain before my promotion to Sergeant-At-Arms.

I had two options. A green sign flashed by. We were seven miles from a town. I debated tracking through the backwoods and wasting a prayer that the assholes didn’t ride the roads better and the rain would hold off.

I swore. It was time to take control of the fucking situation and protect the girl before she switched from collateral into casualty.

I should have turned left from the exit instead of right.

I’d fix that.

“Hold on!” I shouted as the bike screeched to a halt and spun to face Temple’s pursuit.

Martini hadn’t fallen off the back, but she screamed as I pulled my gun from the holster.

“Might want to close your eyes, Darling.”

My tires spun in loose gravel cast over the road, but the bike responded as beautifully as it always had, even when I did something so fucking stupid I mistook myself for my junkie brother.

The night opened for me, leading me to the three lone headlights speeding to intercept us. It was modern day joust for men who lacked all chivalry. I pulled my gun and aimed, but I regretted taking the shot. Three men in the darkness, and only one had to die. Only one saw me. Only one might have recognized me.

Martini flinched, ducking her head behind my protective shoulder. Three months ago, I took a gunshot to save another innocent girl. I’d do it again. No one was going to harm Martini, not when she needed my help.

I pushed the bike forward. Thirty miles an hour.

Forty.

Fifty.

My gun fired.

The shattering roar of the shots muffled even the baying of our engines. My second bullet struck on target, and the bike dumped onto the road, spinning in flashing orange sparks against the berm. A lane opened, and I gambled with both our lives.

I sped into the split formation, emptying the clip as I wove through the chaos. The return fire came too late, striking only the uneven road and swirling shadows that bound behind us.

I raced until the bike wobbled over corners and through the untamed woods. Martini shifted, but her hold never loosened.

“They aren’t following!” She shouted

Good. Life wasn’t about saving my own ass anymore. The only thing safer than a loaded gun was miles separating us from the danger.

Her nails dug into my coat. It wasn’t where I preferred women to sink their nails if I let them claw at me. Most times, they sunk into the mattress and kept their arms over their head. Tied back. Gripping the headboard. They liked it. I liked it.

The thought sickened me now.

Especially as Martini clung to me on the verge of poorly-concealed tears. Fading adrenaline hardened a cock, but something far more sinister clouded my lust.

Bad blood created bad blood. I’d be damned if I acted out any more of my father’s perversions.

I didn’t slow. The reflected light in my mirrors might have been the moon, the two remaining bikes, or Anathema’s scarred demon breaking through my memories and aiming for my jugular. I wasn’t taking chances.

A twenty-four hour mini-mart was the first sign of civilized society. I didn’t pause at the stop. We blew past the intersection without an echo of Temple’s bikes. For the moment, we were alone.