Whisky on My Mind (20 page)

“I don’t blame him for leaving…I’d probably leave too if I found out the woman I thought I loved had been filmed in a gang bang. He must be really regretting ever setting eyes on me.”

“There’s no way he would be thinking that.”

“Well, he obviously couldn’t face me this morning. Why else would he just leave without a goodbye?”

“Maybe he thought you needed to catch up on sleep? That must have been hugely emotional…he probably just didn’t want to wake you up.”

“I don’t know what to think…I saw his face when I told him, Sky…he was so…disgusted.” Bella broke into fresh tears and
Whisky pushed aside her own fears about what Caleb could be doing with this new information.

“I’m sure you read it wrong, Bell. Come on, you know Caleb. He’s not a guy who would easily give up on someone like that.” She ignored the little voice reminding her that when she’d finally worked up the courage to tell Caleb who her father was—he’d walked out on her. This was different…surely? “You said he was angry? If Sawyer found out something like that about me—he’d be frantic. His first thoughts would be to go and kill the guy responsible. That’s exactly
what Caleb would be thinking.”

“He’s a bit late for that isn’t he,” Bella sniffled, but was looking at Whisky with a glimmer of relief.

“I’m sure he’ll be back soon to check on you. He probably just needed some time alone to process it all. He’ll be back.”

Bella managed a watery smile, and dried her eyes. “I’m so
sick
of crying. Look at me,” she threw her arms out wide. “It’s like once I start, I can’t stop.”

“They say it’s good to cry and let it all out…think of it as flushing out all the pain.”

“Oh, that’s good. Where did you hear that from?” Bella smiled.

“I don’t know. I just made it up then—but it sounds good
, doesn’t it,” Whisky grinned. “Maybe I should give this psychobabble crap a go. I might have found a new career path.”

She and Bella hung out for the rest of the morning. So far there had been no word from Caleb. Bella had been checking her phone every few minutes
, and the longer it dragged on the angrier Whisky became. What the hell was he thinking? Surely he couldn’t be so insensitive to just let her sit here and worry about what he was thinking? Part of her was afraid she knew what he was doing—pulling a case together to present to his superiors that would seal Sawyer and the club’s fate once and for all.

By lunch time, Whisky had to leave. “Why don’t you come with me back to the club? We could hang out there and you can keep me company?” she suggested. She really hated leaving her friend here to dwell on the reasons her supposed boyfriend hadn’t called her all day.

“I think I better stay here…in case he comes over. He’ll probably be here any minute.”

She wasn’t sure what she should say to that—after all, she’d just spent most of the day reassuring her that he’d be back. With each passing minute he wasn’t, Whisky was getting angrier.

“You go. I’ll be fine. Really,” she added when Whisky eyed her reluctantly.

“If you need me.
Call.”

“I will,” Bella promised. “Sky,” she called as Whisky stood up to leave. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For not giving up on me when you could have.”

“I’d never do that,” Whisky said quietly. “It’s going to take more than a couple of guys to get between you and me, kiddo,” she smiled. Somehow, if Caleb was who Bella wanted in her life, she’d make this work. Even if they had to give up on the Sunday afternoon barbecues and summer vacations by the lake. But first, they had to survive whatever the hell Caleb
God damn
Santiago had up his sleeve.

****

“What do you mean he knows about the photos?” Sawyer said, a frown marring between his eyebrows.

“Bella told him about them.”

“She did what?”

“Just calm down.
You can’t blame her—she’s in love with the guy—he’s an important part of her life now…I get why she had to tell him.”

“You were the one who didn’t trust his motives in the first place, remember?” Sawyer pointed out harshly.

“Yeah, I know…but I also know Bella and I’ve never seen her like this before.”

“Jesus, Whisk. You two women are
gonna’ be the death of me, I swear.”

She looked up at him and for a moment everything stopped. The noise in her head was silent for a change.
She loved him.
He was her protector and her lover. She knew that he would always stand beside her and be there to keep her safe no matter what. She
loved
him. “Yes,” she said quietly into the silence.

“What?” he stared at her blankly, looking at her as though she may have lost her mind…and for all she knew, she may
have.

“Yes. That’s my answer.”

“Your answer…” his sentence trailed off as he continued to stare at her, uncertainty written across his handsome face, almost as though he wasn’t game to hope it was what he thought it might be.

“Yes, I will marry you.” When he continued to stare at her, Whisky felt the first twinge of unease. “If you still want to…”

“I still want to,” he said quietly and took a small step toward her.

Whisky slid into his open arms and held him tight. There was no logic in any of this—none, but then when had there ever been anything remotely sane about this whole relationship? The odds had always been stacked against them and would no doubt continue to do so…but in that one brief moment of clarity she knew what her answer was and she knew that it had just been waiting for a chance to be heard over the constant babble of everyday life.

And in the middle of everything else in their life being upside down, this was the one thing that made complete sense.

****

Sawyer shut the doors on the back of the truck and locked the handle in place, giving it a final thump.

“You think it’ll work?” Shaggy asked as he stood beside Sawyer and watched the semi pull away as it headed off down the highway.

“Guess we’ll soon find out.” Sawyer said, slapping the old biker on the shoulder as he turned away. “We better let the boys know the cargo’s on its way.”

If everything went according to plan, the Switchblades would be taking possession of this shipment of goods, just like they did last time. Sawyer had put word out that this was a massive order and worth a small fortune. He knew the Switchblades would be expecting it to be heavily guarded and, as such, would likely send the whole club in to pull off the hijack…he
was counting on it. The more of the bastards involved in it the better.

From their position high on a rocky hilltop on a back road off the interstate two hours later, Sawyer and a handful of his men overlooked a fenced compound that the Switchblades called home. The truck had been parked; they’d ripped the driver out of the front seat and left him on the side of the road, taking the truck and its expensive payload back to their club house.

Sawyer waited, watching as the gates were quickly shut, hiding the truck inside from any passersby.

They waited patiently, watching through binoculars as the jubilant bikers cheered and slapped each other on the back over a job well done. No doubt they’d be reliving the ease with which they pulled off the heist and already spending the proceeds of their ill-gotten gains. Sawyer held his breath as the bikers moved to the back of the truck and opened the doors. Ten seconds later a fireball and explosion rocked the compound below, ripping the truck apart and sending a cloud of black smoke high into the air.

Chapter 19

Sawyer turned off his engine and removed his helmet as he watched the figure detach from where it stood beside a nondescript sedan and walk toward him.

He wasn’t going to come here after receiving the call, but in the end curiosity forced him.

“There was a nasty accident at the Switchblades’ club house today.”

“Yeah?”

“They think they were in the process of moving a drug lab to a safer place and it exploded.”

“Well, that was pretty stupid of them, wasn’t it,” Sawyer drawled, as he slowly swung his leg from his bike and stood up.

“Very. Almost too stupid…even for a Switchblade.”

“I don’t know…you’re
talkin’ a lot of fries short of a happy meal in that club.”

“I don’t care who blew the bastards up. They’re scum and as much as I’d like to believe the law would deal with them over the shooting at the airport—you and I both know they’d probably end up getting a slap over the wrists and let back out on the streets within a few months…if we even found enough witnesses still willing to testify against them by then. Either way, I don’t give a fuck who took ‘
em out.”

“Detective, you’re sounding almost…jaded,” Sawyer said slowly, eyeing the man in front of him cautiously. Something was definitely off here. This was not the same uptight, Officer Do Right, he knew.

“I know what Sorenson did to Bella,” his tone was almost vicious.

Sawyer could relate to that. He knew that emotion. He’d been there himself many times, and he knew what it felt like to want to kill someone for hurting the people you loved.

“Here. I got something for you.”

Sawyer slowly reached out to take the slim file from his hand and walked back to find the
flashlight from his tool kit. Carefully he read through the file, before lifting his gaze to stare at the man silently watching him. “Where did you get this?” Sawyer asked, disbelief echoing through him.

“It doesn’t matter where I got it,” the harsh tone suggested this was not something done lightly and it sure as hell went against the Detective’s grain to do so.

“You want me to leak this, I presume?”

“I want you to expose this bastard.”

“Why? The kid’s dead. The video was destroyed. Why would you risk this comin’ back on you?”

“I hate the way the Senator is making his asshole of a kid out to be some kind of victim on TV every chance he gets, while Bella’s struggling to deal with what he did to her. Maybe I can’t stand watching her die a little inside every time she sees that jerk on the news or in the paper. He knows exactly what his kid is capable of and he still stands there and lies through his teeth about the kind of person his son was. It needs to end.
Now.”

“Then why don’t you leak it to the press?”

“‘Cause officially I shouldn’t have that information. No one will question how an outlaw biker came across it. It’s what you guys do,
right?
”

Sawyer looked down at the file once more and shook his head. “Man, this must have stung like a bitch to hand over
, to me, of all people.”

Caleb narrowed his eyes at Sawyer.
“You’re just the lesser of two evils,” he growled. 

Sawyer watched him walk away and climb back into his car before he drove away
, leaving Sawyer alone in the quiet night with only the sound of crickets for company.

****

The bar was quiet mid-afternoon when news headlines broke across the screen.

“Breaking news just in,” the news reader announced
, as a photo of Paul Sorenson flashed up on the screen in the background, surprising Whisky as she looked up from the drinks order she’d just delivered to the bar.

“The father of Paul Sorenson, victim
of the recent airport shooting, has just been implicated in a scandal which alleges he’s paid hush money to a number of women in an extensive investigation which spans over three years. Senator Sorenson has been taken in for questioning over new allegations from a series of women, one of whom was a college professor at the deceased man’s college, who say his son, Paul Sorenson, had on occasions used his father’s money and other more aggressive methods to gain such things as better grades and favoritism over other students. The allegations are being taken extremely seriously in light of Paul Sorenson’s recent murder and the lack of any further leads. We will bring you more on this story as it unfolds.”