BULLET: Lords of Carnage MC Read online

Bullet nods. “I’ll be in touch.”

  Tank and Hollis leave with the bag. Bullet looks at me. “You ain’t staying here tonight.” It’s not a question. “I don’t care that we got Flash. We don’t know if anyone’s coming for him yet.”

  “I’m not arguing,” I say with a shiver. “This whole thing just got a lot bigger than I thought it was. I don’t know Paco and Grimm. They were in prison already when I met Flash. But what I’ve heard from him about them isn’t good.”

  I’m subdued as we ride back to Bullet’s place. He doesn’t push me to talk, for which I’m grateful. I’m having trouble digesting everything that’s just happened. I want to talk about it, eventually, but I need some time to collect my thoughts.

  Once we’re back at his house, I go out into his back yard and grab an old plastic lawn chair that’s sitting next to the back door. Plopping down on it, I stare out at the trees at the edge of his yard, fingering the key that’s now nestled in my jacket pocket, lost in my thoughts.

  A few minutes later, Bullet comes out to join me, a couple of bottles of beer in his hand.

  “Well,” I joke grimly as he hands me one. “At least Flash isn’t an unhinged stalker like I thought he was.”

  “Yeah.” He grabs another chair and sits down next to me. “He’s just a dumbshit petty thug with a couple of jewel thieves after him.”

  “I can’t believe it,” I breathe. “I spent all this time on the run from him, thinking he was crazed with possessive anger because I broke up with him.” I take the key out of my pocket and hold it up at eye level. “When if I’d just known he was looking for this,” I marvel. “So much trouble for one little key.”

  “Whatever’s in that safe deposit box must be pretty valuable,” Bullet observes.

  “I gave up my whole life for this key. My whole identity. I’ve lived a lie for almost three years for this thing.”

  Suddenly, I have the irrational urge to go find a bridge and fling the damn thing off of it.

  “You miss it?” Bullet asks. “Your old life?”

  “I’m tired of running,” I reply. Then I pause, thinking about his question. “I’m tired of worrying. Of being afraid to get close to anyone. But no, I don’t exactly miss my old life, as such. It wasn’t all that great, to be honest.”

  “How come?”

  “Well… I told you my dad died when I was a teenager. And I love my mom, but she’s had a drinking problem for as long as I can remember. So, uh, I didn’t exactly have a lot of great role models growing up. Or a lot of family.” I pause. “Flash isn’t the first shitty boyfriend I’ve had. My first one, Jesse, stole cars. I was fifteen. I thought it was true love. I don’t know, I pictured us as this sort of Bonnie and Clyde thing. Until he got arrested for grand theft auto. I was in the car with him. I ended up in juvie. I guess I was just lucky it was my first offense, and I was young, and a girl.” I look over at Bullet and shake my head ruefully. “I really know how to pick ‘em, don’t I?”

  But Bullet doesn’t question it or make fun of me. “Sounds like kind of a lonely life,” he remarks instead. “Maybe you just ended up being a target for men who wanted a girl they could take advantage of.”

  I scoff. “That just makes me an idiot.”

  “No.” His voice comes out unexpectedly harsh. “That just makes you someone with a big heart. Maybe you’ve made some mistakes, Six. Everyone has. Shit, you think I’m in an outlaw MC because I’m a fuckin’ choir boy? I told you about what brought me here. We both had a rough childhood. What matters now is what you make of it in the rest of your life.”

  I consider his words. The truth is, I haven’t been making anything out of my life. There hasn’t been time. When you have to be ready to move at a moment’s notice, you learn to exist in a kind of holding pattern.

  My job at Rebel Ink — and actually learning how to be a tattoo artist — is the closest I’ve come to making a life that includes plans, or any sense of having a future. And hell, even there I just kind of fell into it by chance. I just happened to meet Hannah one night at a bar when her date stood her up. If she hadn’t been by herself and pissed off enough to complain to a stranger — and if I hadn’t been a couple drinks in and more willing than usual to exchange female confidences — we never would have started talking. She never would have volunteered that her boss was looking for a receptionist, and encouraged me to apply.

  Even that — arguably the only good decision I’ve made since I skipped out on Flash — wasn’t even really my doing.

  “That’s just it,” I say somberly to Bullet. “I haven’t been making anything of it. I’m not sure I know how to. I don’t really have anything to offer. Other than being reasonably competent at tattoos, I guess.”

  Bullet fixes me with a hard stare. “Stop that. You know a shitload about computers, don’t you? Enough to change your identity over and over without any trouble. How the hell did you learn that?”

  I shrug. “Necessity.”

  “Well, if you can do that, you can do anything you put your mind to.”

  “Maybe.” I yawn. I’m suddenly exhausted by all the events of the day. And I’m sick of talking about how dumb and pathetic my life choices have been. “Right now, I think I’m gonna put my mind to going to sleep.” I glance at him. “Right after I take care of something. Do you have a needle and thread?”

  Bullet wrinkles his brow. “Uh… I have a needle. Not sure about thread. Why?”

  I pull the key out of my pocket again and dangle it in front of him. “I want to sew this back into the lining of the jacket for now.”

  Bullet manages to find a needle and some dental floss in a junk drawer. It only takes me a few minutes to sew the key back into the lining. Anyone who looked closely would notice the stitching right away, so it’s not exactly invisible. Still, right now I care less about that, and more about not losing this key before we figure out what to do with it.

  The next morning, Bullet decides to take me to the place where they’re keeping Flash.

  “We need to talk to him,” he rumbles. “Ask him more about this safe deposit box. Where it is, and exactly what’s in it. He ain’t gonna tell me, probably, but you might be able to get it out of him.”

  “I doubt it, but I’ll try,” I frown.

  “Thing is, this place where we’re going… it’s secret. No one outside of the club knows about it.”

  “So, what, you’re gonna blindfold me?” I joke. Then I see the expression on his face. “Wait, you are gonna blindfold me? What the hell, Bullet?”

  “It’s not a big deal. Just until we get there. It’s for your protection.”

  I roll my eyes. “Whatever.”

  Bullet doesn’t want me hanging on to the back of his bike with no eyesight, so we take my car. I bitch a bit about him driving instead of me, but I know he’s not about to back down. So eventually I just accept it and let it go.

  We drive for about half an hour, maybe more, on windy, hilly roads that make my stomach dip and flip since I’m blind. Eventually, the car slows and stops.

  “Okay, we’re here. You can take that thing off.”

  I pull off the bandana he’s given me and look around. The landscape is nondescript, the building even more so. It’s an old ranch style house, with weeds growing all around it. I climb out of the car and follow Bullet toward the front door.

  “Hold up for a sec.” He taps on the front screen in a series of knocks that must be a code.

  We wait. Nothing happens.

  Bullet taps again. When no one answers, he frowns at me and reaches into his waistband, drawing out a gun. I freeze, not realizing he was armed.

  “Go back out to the car,” he murmurs. “Get in and slide down so no one can see you. Lock the doors.”

  I open my mouth to ask why, but the question dies in my throat. Wordlessly, I nod and slip down off the concrete porch. I get into the car and close the passenger door as quietly as I can.

  In the silence of the car, I can hear my labored breathing. My heart is hammering in my chest. All my muscles tense up as I wait for a gunshot or a scream or something, and my mind races as I try to think what I should do next.

  But when the sound does come, it’s none of those things. It’s Bullet’s voice.

  “Six,” he calls.

  I heave a giant sigh of relief and slide back up into the seat. I open the car door again and walk toward the house, grinning at him. But the grin freezes on my lips when I see the look on his face.

  “Flash is dead,” he mutters as I climb the steps.

  “What?” I gape up at him, thinking this is some sort of joke, but his eyes are dead serious. “How —?”

  “Hollis is dead, too.” His jaw sets.

  “Oh my God!” I start to go inside, but Bullet bars the entrance.

  “No. Don’t go in.” I try to go around him, but he grabs my arm. “Six. They’ve both been tortured. There’s a lot of blood.” He shakes his head once, emphatically. “You don’t want to see it. Trust me. Stuff like that, it stays with you a long time.”

  “Bullet,” I whisper, my legs weakening under me. He catches me by the shoulders and leads me back away from the house to the car.

  “I know.” He pulls open the passenger door, nodding at me to get in. “We have to get you out of here, Six. We’re leaving town. I’m taking you to someplace safe.”

  I can only listen to his words through the muddiness of my brain and try to arrange them in a way that makes sense. “Will you be with me?”

  “I’m not leaving you,” he says fiercely. “I promise. Now give me a minute. I gotta call the Lords. Tell them we got trouble.”

  18

  Bullet

  Six is white as a sheet as I peel away from the house where Flash and Hollis’s bodies lie in their own r
espective pools of blood. I’m glad as shit she didn’t see any of that. I know she’s had a rough life, but I can tell just by how basically sweet and innocent she is that she’s never seen a dead body. Especially one that’s been tortured like those two were.

  That shit comes back to torture you in your sleep. I don’t want her to have to live with those visions in her head.

  She’s afraid but quiet as I race down the highway, yelling into my phone to Angel. “Two bodies. Hollis is one of them. The other is Six’s ex. The state of the bodies suggests they were tortured for information. Has to be the guys he was running from. They’re looking for a key to a safe deposit box with a cache of stolen jewelry and maybe some other shit.”

  Angel swears. “Fuck. Hollis’s girlfriend is gonna lose it. I’ll have Brooke and a couple of the other old ladies go break the news. How the fuck did they find the house?”

  “No clue. No telling where they are now, either. I’m taking Six to Connegut.”

  “I’ll send you some backup.”

  “Thanks. I’ll be in touch.”

  I hang up and turn to Six. “We’ll be good as soon as we get to where we’re going. My prez is sending men to meet us.” I reach over and take one of her hands in mine. It’s cold. “Don’t worry.”

  “What’s Connegut?” she asks, her voice so soft I can barely hear her.

  “It’s what we call one of our safe houses. It’s on the Connegut River.”

  “‘Safe’,” she repeats, a little sharply. “Like the place you were holding Flash?”

  Point taken. “No.” I shake my head. “It’s isolated. Protected.” I glance at Six and give her hand a squeeze. “No one is going to hurt you,” I say fiercely. “I’ll end anyone who tries to lay a hand on you. You trust me?”

  Six hesitates, then dips her head. “Yes.”

  We drive mostly in silence, but the tension in the car is thick enough to cut with a knife. I’m trying to figure out how these fucking goons found where we were holding Flash. They must have followed us. Which has me glancing in my rear view mirror every couple of miles or so, even though there’s almost no one on the road.

  “We’ll have backup to the safe house,” I repeat, breaking the silence. “It won’t be just me there. They won’t get anywhere near you.”

  “Okay.”

  Six’s voice is flat. I don’t know if she believes me.

  “You scared, babe?”

  She’s quiet. Then: “A little. But in a way, this is almost a relief.” She blows out a breath. “I’ve been running for so long from something I didn’t even understand. This is a lot scarier in some respects, but at least one way or another, it’ll be over soon.”

  “Not one way or another,” I growl. “This ends with them dead.”

  Six swallows. “Bullet…”

  “Yeah.”

  “You shouldn’t be putting your club in danger for me. Breaking the law for me.”

  I snort. “The law? Fuck the law. We go by our own codes, babe. And we protect our own.”

  “But that’s just it,” she insists stubbornly. “I’m not one of your own. None of you has any obligation to protect me.”

  “Like hell you’re not.” My voice comes out louder, angrier than I intended. Six flinches, and I force myself to calm down. “You’re with me. That’s good enough for the Lords. So, shut up and let me protect you.”

  For the first time, a little humor slips through in her voice. “Really? That’s a little caveman, don’t you think?”

  I roll my eyes and pretend to be irritated. “So sorry, milady. I didn’t mean to offend your delicate fuckin’ sensibilities. Would you be so kind as to allow me to defend your honor?”

  Six snickers. “You suck as Sir Lancelot.”

  “Good. Wasn’t that chick he was defending married, anyway? I don’t do married chicks. Too much goddamn work to get laid.”

  “You’re a pig,” Six laughs.

  “I’m a pig because I don’t chase married chicks?”

  “No, because all you think about is sex. Would you be protecting me if we hadn’t —” Six stops talking abruptly.

  “What?”

  “Uh-oh,” she hisses. “Look behind us.”

  I’m about to ask her what she means, but a check of my mirror tells me instantly. Two cars have appeared over the hill behind us. They’re driving two abreast, and gaining on us quickly.

  “Shit.” I punch the accelerator with my foot, and Six’s engine groans in protest before starting the process of speeding up. This compact ain’t the car I would have chosen for a high-speed chase, but I don’t have much of a choice right now. I fly over the next hill, and suddenly my foot leaves the accelerator and slams on the brakes, lurching us forward in our seats.

  There’s a van at two-hundred feet ahead of us, blocking both lanes. Ditches on either side mean I can’t chance driving off the road.

  We’re fucked.

  I slow the car, scanning the scene quickly to assess our situation. There’s at least two people in each of the vehicles. We’re outnumbered three to one. I could pull out my piece and start shooting, but neither Six or I would make it out of that alive. Instead, I keep it hidden in my waistband and hope no one takes it off me before I have a chance to use it.

  “Get the fuck outta the car!” one of the men yells, waving a gun at us and miming taking aim. Six flinches, but looks at me for direction. I nod once.

  “Stay alert,” I murmur. “We know what they want. They’re not gonna kill us before they get it.”

  They’re not gonna kill her, anyway.

  And I have to stay alive to make sure she gets out of this.

  Just before opening my door, I reach down and drop something under the seat. We both climb out of her car and stand to face the dark-complected man with the gun. He’s a wiry guy with prison tattoos and bad teeth. He points into the trees and snarls, “Walk. Dizz, move their car off the road.”

  Six looks at me and I give her a quick nod. She starts off down the slope. I start to follow her, but the wiry guy barks at me to stop. “Hands out to your sides.”

  Behind me, another guy moves up and starts to frisk me. It’s only a matter of seconds before he finds my gun. Wiry guy flashes me a crooked grin. “Thought you were gonna get away with that, didn’t ya?”

  “Let’s get on with this,” I retort. “You want me to follow her, or not?”

  “Go.”

  As we go, I note they’re not bothering to hide their faces, or what they call each other. Either it hasn’t occurred to them, or they aren’t planning on letting us go afterwards.

  I’m betting it’s the latter.

  We go about five-hundred yards until the wiry guy calls for us to stop. As we turn around, I notice a couple other people have joined us. One is a pale, angular ginger whose face is a war zone of freckles. The other is a woman, with bleach-fried blond hair and too much makeup on.

  “What do you want with us?” Six demands in a loud, clear voice. “Why don’t you just tell us?”

  “You know what we want, honey,” the woman sneers. “And don’t think we won’t do whatever it takes to get it.”

  “Lexxi,” the ginger guy grunts. “Shut up.”

  “We don’t even know who you are,” Six insists. “How would we know what you want?”

  “Flash wasn’t enough of a message for you, Stacia?” wiry guy snaps, pointing the gun at my head. “You need another reminder?”

  Six makes a low, fearful sound in her throat.

  “Flash,” she mutters dully. “So you’re the ones who killed him.”

  “Flash betrayed us,” the ginger says. “He knew what he was getting into. He knew as soon as we got out of the pen, he was finished. That’s why he ran.” He grimaces, showing a row of small, gray teeth. “And led us straight to you.”

  “What do you want with me?” Six cries. “I don’t understand.”

  “The key,” Lexxi drawls. “Flash didn’t have it on him. And we know you’re his girlfriend.”

  “Ex-girlfriend,” Six corrects. “And I haven’t seen him in years! He just showed up. He’s been stalking me. I didn’t know why!”

  “You better hope you’re lying,” Ginger drawls. “Cause us getting that key back is the only thing keeping you alive.”

  “What’s so special about this key, anyway?” I ask, cocking my head. “Whatever it is that’s locked up, why don’t you just force the lock? Blow it open?”